231 We find terra incognita* 



pearance. We also saw the tracks of moose, wood buffalo, and 

 red fox. 



In that confusing patchwork of lakes and ponds, amid soft bogs 

 and dense thickets, we soon had the feeling of being hopelessly 

 earthbound. Fighting off the clouds of mosquitoes and the newly 

 arrived bulldog flies, and beginning to suffer from a constant ache 

 in our legs from the rough going, we would have given much for 

 the advantages of a helicopter or for wings of any kind. It was 

 maddening to know that at least one pair of whooping cranes, with 

 young in tow, were within a half mile of us most of the time, yet 

 we were unable to watch them. Our visions were filled with them, 

 a hundred yards away perhaps, calmly picking up snails, the young 

 one quite possibly darting after a white admiral butterfly! Earth- 

 bound and weary, we could not tell. But we were on the spot. We 

 had gazed at its features, and felt of it with our bare hands. It is 

 real and it is reasonably understandable. But most important of 

 all, it is no longer unknown. 



On July 2 we were advised by radio that pilot Holmgren would 

 be able to pick us up that afternoon for the trip back to the Slave 

 River. Ray and I had then been in the crane country the better 

 part of ten days. In the morning we made a last trip to the ponds 

 and then returned and broke camp. At two o'clock we started 

 smoke signals, but it wasn't until five-fifteen that we finally saw 

 a strange, rapidly moving dot in the sky, off to the northeast. It 

 was the helicopter, too far east of us and moving on a course 

 that would carry him on to the south of our location. I caught the 

 reflection of the sun in my shaving mirror and moved it back and 

 forth like a searchlight beam. Almost at once Holmgren saw it, 

 and in a few more minutes he was with us on the ground. 



By 7 P.M. two round trips between our camp and the Grand 

 Detour had been accomplished. The helicopter was then refueled 

 from gas drums that Bill Fuller, now back from the Yukon, had 

 cached on the riverbank the day before, and Holmgren had taken 

 off for his base at Hay River, two hours away. Bill had also left us 

 a Chipewyan boat and outboard, which we found pulled up 



