On the morning of August 13, 1891, Austin Cary '87 and Dennis Cole '88 of the Bowdoin College Scientific Expedition to Labrador started one last hike upriver. They had come 300 miles up the Grand River, but had to turn back the next day, whether or not they found Grand Falls. At 11:45 a.m., Cole noticed a faint rumbling that sounded different from the familiar rumble of rapids. As the two continued walking, the rumble increased to heavy pounding. "That," Cary wrote, "pushed us into a run, and in a minute we caught the flash of white water through the spruces, and, bursting through the fringes of bushes, found ourselves on the shore of a heavy rapid, at our own level, and the falls were smoking and pounding below."
The river was 200 yards wide, bound on either shore with boulders. At the falls, "the river gathers itself into a narrow, straight shoot of tremendous velocity and power, which, at first nearly horizontal, curves gradually downward over a similar curve in the jointing of the rock, until, after a long steep slide, it drops vertically into a basin filled with flying mists." Cole took out the Kodak camera that he carried, Cary explained, because "no other [camera] would probably have reached the fall, and if it had, it certainly never would have returned." They estimated the height of the falls at 316 feet. The explorers had left their sextant with the boat so they constructed a makeshift device. "The theory was good," Cary explained, "and the result would doubtless have been tolerably satisfactory had not a couple of the little black flies, which had otherwise done us so much injury, crawled in by the cross-levels in the bottom of my compass and vitiated the sights."
Exhausted, Cary laid down to nap by the foot of the falls while Cole walked another four miles and climbed the tallest tree to view the river. Four hundred and fifty miles east lay the mouth of the Grand River into the North Atlantic Ocean, 450 miles west lay Hudson's Bay, and 600 miles due south, "the granite chapel of Bowdoin College points heavenward both its uplifted hands." Still atop the tree, Cole carved his name and the expedition's name into the trunk and cut the tree's highest branches to make the "Bowdoin Spruce" itself a landmark in the Labrador wilderness and a testament to Bowdoin's successful expedition.
"When a man starts in to explore a barren and uninhabited country," Cary said, "he must know that he takes a good many chances and if through accident or miscalculation any little extras come along, a man with any blood in him takes it all in as part of the trade."
As they turned back on the morning of August 15, Cary and Cole learned that more than a "little extra" problem had come along. As they returned from Grand Falls to their cache of supplies and their boat, they smelled smoke. Cary wrote in his journal that the two had not sufficiently put out their campfire, and everything for a half mile around their camp site was charred, "the fire still smoking and spreading."
Cole had gotten there first, and "as I [Cary] come thrashing through the bushes he sits on a rock munching some burnt flour" shakily saying, "'Well, she's gone.'" They salvaged all they could, which did not amount to much: a little food, much of which was burnt, three dozen matches, blankets, and 25 pistol cartridges.
Thus Cary and Cole began the 300-mile return journey they would have to make on foot. The two spent much time attempting to repair their tattered footwear. Cole had to construct makeshift shoes from the leather lining of his backpack. Meanwhile, the two were barely staving off starvation-all attempts at fishing failed, and "many a supper was made off a red squirrel and a pint of stewed cranberries."
"The crow, Ladies and Gentlemen," Cary remembered, "is not generally considered a game bird, but you may rest assured that if we could have got hold of any at that time they would have been a most welcome addition to such a scanty diet." The Bowdoin boys, weak with hunger and fatigue, plugged on hoping to get back to their vessel, the Julia A. Decker before the expedition left Labrador for the winter.