Midnight Sun
This work went on for nearly a week . It was Thursday , June 19th , when Uncle Dick announced to Rob and John and Jesse that now they would be off for the exciting enterprise of taking their boat down the rapids of the Slave . Johnny Belcore , as the freight contractor was named , had finally secured a Cree pilot who knew the ancient channel , used time out of mind by the Hudson 's Bay boats which risked this dangerous passage . He agreed to take the _ Midnight Sun _ across the portage for fifty dollars , and to charge seventy-five cents for each hundred pounds of freight . During the short season of the brigade 's passage north , at which time most of the amateurs and independents were crowding northward , Belcore made a very considerable amount of money . Our party , however , thought his charges entirely reasonable , and , indeed , would not , for any money , have foregone the pleasure of running these redoubtable rapids . They learned now that three other scows were going through also .