It wasn’t too long, however, before the roar of a motorbike shattered the silent air

The Liard highway leading to Lindberg’s Landing branches off some way before Fort Nelson. However, we felt we must go back to Fort Nelson, to the liquor store and get Ed some whisky. I could hardly believe we were on the Liard highway. Here we were on the road that Grant had helped to build. Long and lonely, we’d been warned, watch out for wandering bison.

By the time we reached Fort Liard the tank was running low. We turned into this township, whose few houses straggled haphazardly for a mile or so, and found the gas station and the restaurant.

It was a help yourself. Henry put the gas pipe into the tank – a hollow woosh – nothing. We had to get gas. The young first nation girl attendant shrugged her shoulders: “Gas tank come, maybe half an hour.”

We couldn’t think where it could possibly come from in that time but we would have to wait until it came. Two hours later it appeared.

Unconcerned

In the meantime we went to the restaurant. No one came to serve us. We went to the counter and asked for coffee. A young girl appeared and pointed to an almost hidden coffee maker. We were supposed to take our own.

We bought a couple of packets of crisps, the only food we could see around. In the end the girl smiled and gave us the coffee free.

Out on the road again with a full tank, we felt better. It seemed to wind on endlessly, with little traffic, just forest and, now and again, wild animals; a black bear, a martin whisking across a stretch of tarmac, and then an enormous bison grazing by the roadside in the evening air, quite unconcerned by our passing.

Not long after we had seen the bison we came to a rest area. There weren’t many on this road. So as we were hungry, we pulled in to make our evening meal.

Henry took a look out to see how thick the mosquitoes were. “Good heavens, what do we do now, Margaret? Come and have a look.”

I looked out of the back screen door. There, yards away was a bison grazing. “I’m certainly not moving until it’s gone,” I said somewhat overcome by the monstrous size of its shoulders. “It could easily knock over the van if it wanted to,” Henry said.

We sat in trepidation for a while but the enormous beast moved on, unconcerned, grazing as it went.

It wasn’t too much longer until we got to the Blackstone recreation park that Grant had helped to create.

It was all that Grant said and more – a natural, green place down by the Liard river. Each of its 40 tree-lined bays a delight. It was 8pm and there was no one, just no one, about.

We had all of its 40 bays to choose from and opted for a secluded hollow on the banks of the river, a mistake we realised as the mosquitoes homed in on us. But I didn’t care.

I was here, the place I thought I would never be, the place in the wilderness Grant had helped to make. Right now it seemed as if we were the only people in the world.

It wasn’t too long, however before the roar of a motorbike shattered the silent air and a young first nation lad appeared on our doorstep – 16 dollars for the night.

Surprise

He was a polite young fellow. We invited him in away from the cloud of mosquitoes. We talked a while, said we knew the Lindbergs. Were they far off?

“Quite close. I’m going there now,” he said and gave us directions for the morning. “I suppose he’ll tell them we’re here,” I said to Henry. “Pity. I had wanted to make it a surprise and arrive on their doorstep.”

And that’s what we did next morning. And that’s what it was, a complete surprise. The young fellow hadn’t mentioned it. They didn’t even guess who we were, but there were hugs all round when we told them. What a warm welcome.

I couldn’t quite believe it, the place I thought I would never see, the people I thought I might never meet, and here we were. Ed Lindberg was very much as I imagined he would be; a big rangy man with strong broad shoulders, outgoing, enthusiastic, enterprising, a friend to the whole world.

Sue Lindberg was rather a surprise. I hadn’t expected a tall, slim, elegant lady of Swiss descent. Warm-hearted and kind, I knew she would be. We stayed for a weekend in their little bit of wilderness.

We ate moose meat and caribou, pike from the river and vegetables from the root cellar, all grown in their few short months of summer and stored.

Ed and Sue couldn’t do enough for us. We were shown over their settlement, which was now large. They had recently bought over their only neighbour’s property. They had quite a few cabins, complete with root cellars. From local timber they had built themselves a large ranch-style house beside the river. Just as at Inchmichael, the kitchen was the heart of the home.

The world, once travelling by river but now as often by road, was entertained there. The Lindbergs had difficulties getting to the outside world but it didn’t seem to matter. The world came to them.

Quite a few visitors came while we were there but you felt, with Sue, there would never be too many to feed. Now I understood why Grant had stayed here so long. It was a home from home and Sue cared about little things.

Some chickens had hatched just before we arrived. One was sickly. Sue had it in a warm oven to see if it would survive. She was doubtful but I thought it would, it was trying so very hard. That chicken was brought out on the table and encouraged to pick at tiny crumbs and drink from a saucer. I heard later, by letter, that it had survived.

Being shown round the property was fantastically interesting to us, seeing all the things that Grant had told us about; the cabins in the forest, the wooden caches on stilts to store food away from the bears, the deep-down root cellars, the saws with which Grant had worked and best of all, perhaps, for Henry, the idle gold dredger that really would be able to take gold out of the Liard, had Ed the time to get round to it.

Barely dark

We slept in the camper at night outside the veranda of their house. Midnight, and it was barely dark, almost the land of the midnight sun, now it was almost June. I lay listening to the silence broken only by that bird that had haunted me all the way north, with its perfect primeval notes. Here it sang louder and clearer than ever. Pi peep, pi peep, pi rang through the midnight air, all joy and hope sustained in these simple notes. Only a short time elapsed until it sang again as the pale dawn glowed into day.

I asked Sue about the bird next morning. “I’m not quite sure,” she said. “I’m so accustomed to the bird, I’ve never really questioned. I think it must sing all night. Perhaps it’s the white-throated sparrow. It seemed too prosaic a name for a bird that poured its heart out in such clear, pure tones.

Rather than retrace our tyre marks, when we left Lindberg’s Landing we followed the Liard highway until it met with the Mckenzie highway further north. Near the junction there was a lonely gas station, no more for around 200 miles. We filled the tank to the very brim and headed south.

Thirty five miles in the opposite direction was the ferry that took people to Fort Simpson. I would love to have gone there, the township on the other side of the Liard after which came unpopulated hinterland all the way to the Arctic Circle. I didn’t mention this to Henry. We had a long enough journey ahead of us for a day and Henry, I knew, would have gone to please me.

More tomorrow.