225 We find terra incognita! 



come in, and in another moment we were the slightly dazed re- 

 cipients of the unexpected information that another helicopter 

 had arrived at Hay River and would be available the following 

 Wednesday or Thursday. This was Tuesday, June 21, so we ar- 

 ranged at once for a rendezvous early on Thursday morning back 

 at Grand Detour, and set to work at once replenishing food sup- 

 plies and going over our now battered and mud-splattered gear. 

 Bob Stewart, having used up the month he had been assigned, 

 left us to return to Patuxent the next day. Ray and I, still worn 

 out from the long, hard journey down the Sass and across to the 

 Slave, gritted our teeth and made ready for another grind. 



At midnight on Wednesday we carted our equipment aboard 

 the Buffalo, and with Ward, Billy McNeil, and a crewman, set 

 off down the river through the rosy dusk of the subarctic night. 

 A wooden barge was lashed securely to the bow, and this would 

 be the helicopter's landing strip. Next morning the rendezvous 

 time came and went but no sign of a helicopter. Then, at a 

 little past noon he came into view, flying downriver. He had 

 been lost, and had put into Smith for refueling. The pilot was a 

 young man named Holmgren who had flown helicopters off the 

 battleship Missouri during the Korean War. He was from New 

 Orleans, and a soft-spoken, easygoing lad. We cooked up some 

 bacon and eggs for him and his engineer, and went over our plans. 

 At one-fifteen we were in the air, with both Ray and myself 

 aboard, and thirty minutes later we had located our area and 

 were on the ground. This time there was no doubt whatever as 

 to it being the right place! Holmgren then took off again for the 

 Slave and was back in little more than an hour with the rest of 

 our gear, his payload being 500 pounds at the altitude we were 

 working. We made tentative arrangements for a pick-up date 

 some ten days to two weeks hence, and with grins and hand 

 wavings all around he lifted away from us with the unreal, magic- 

 carpet action of all whirlybirds, and we were alone. 



We were now within a mile of the nearest whooping-crane 

 nesting pond and, looking around us, we had our first closehand 

 impression of terra incognita. At this point it was a trifle for- 

 bidding. We had landed close to the Sass River on the edge of 



