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MUSK-OX AT HAY NO- ?i ^■ !-l E' "1^ ^■■MU^X-aXEM ^(.,A»P N ^ ^ ^ yp i^fkiL I ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS TWENTY-EIGHT HUNDRED MILES AFTER MUSK-OXEN AND WOOD- BISON liY CASPAR WHITNEY AUTHOR OF "A SPORTING PILGRIMAGE' ILLUSTRATED LONDON OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO. 45, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1896 BiBLiOTHECA 0-, Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All rithts rtstrvtd. frinltd in New Yurk, U. 3, A. CONTENTS CHAPTKR PAGE I. At the Frontier i II. Off for Lac la Biche 17 III. New-Year's at La Biche 28 IV. Under Way for McMurray 40 V. Heming Turns Back 49 VI. Fitting for Arctic Weather 57 VII. Blind Leading the Blind 67 VIII. The Northland Indian as He Is 85 IX. Dogs and Sledges 100 X. From Chipewyan to Fort Smith 108 XI. Our Wood-Bison Hunt '"S XII. From Fort Smith to Great Slave Lake . .136 XIII. Making Ready for the Barren Grounds. . 149 XIV. Beniah's Arrival 164 XV. To the Timber's Edge 169 XVI. In the "Land of Little Sticks" 184 XVIL The "Last Wood" 201 XVIII. In the Barren Grounds 208 XIX. The First Musk-Ox 216 XX. The Musk-Ox at Home 224 XXI. Barren Ground Caribou 234 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER pAOa XXII. Beyond the Arctic Circle 245 XXIII. Superstitions and Traditions 262 XXIV. Returning to the " Last Wood " .... 268 XXV. Through Arctic Storms to Great Slave Lake . 278 XXVI. Up-Stream by Canor to Chipewyan .... 293 XXVII. From Chipewyan to the Railroad .... 308 Itinerary 323 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE MUSK-OX AT BAY Froutisfure HEAD-PIECE J NORTHWESTERN .BRITISH AMERICA, SHOWING BARREN GROUNDS AND MR. WHITNEY'S ROUTE ^ CREE HUNTING-SHOE , 4 EDMONTON 3 SARCEE BELLE - WINNIPEG DRAGOON g SARCEE AND SQUAW "AT HOME" , g ONE "MADE beaver" TOKEN I I A medicine-man's LODGE 12 AN encampment NEAR CALGARY j^ GOING FOR AN AFTERNOON DRIVE AT EDMONTON ... 15 OFF FOR LAC LA HICHE .... 17 COPPER KETTLE ^i BLANKET CLOTHING OF THE LOWER NORTHLAND .... 24 GOING TO LA BICHE FOR NEW- YEAR'S. CREE INDIANS IN "jumper" 21: LAC LA BICHE ON NEW-YEAr's DAY 31 IN A 24°-BEL0W-ZER0 ATMOSPHERE ^, HALF-BREED DOG DRIVER -5 EDMONTON FREIGHTER -- CREE AS IT IS WRITTEN ,q lumberman's SHOE ... 40 tracker's SHOE .... • • • • 41 THE INDIAN'S STOREHOUSE AND LARDER 43 Vlii ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE NATIVE'MADR MKN's LEGGING GARTERS 46 WAPITJ IIUNTKR 48 JOHN .,..,. 50 ALGONOl'S HH«IK 52 LUXURIOUS CAM I'INO-OROUND— WOOD PLENTIFUL .... S3 POLE LOPOB IN WHICH MOOSE AND CARIBOU SKINS ARE SMOKBD , 58 NORTHWEST HOCK OV OUfFEL 59 INDIAN SLfPI'ERH 60 A woman's PURCUPINB-QUILL BELT 62 NOONDAV TEA 63 DRVINO FISH— 'fHE STAPLE FOOD OF MAN AND DOG . . . 71 MEETIVa OP TWO COO BRIGADES 75 MV OUTFIT FROM McMURRAY TO CHIPEWYAN 79 FORT CHIPEWVAN 83 TVPE8 OF NORTHLAND INDIANS 86 man's shoe 87 CHIPEWVAN, ON ATHABASCA LAKE, THE LARGEST POST IN THE NORTH COUNTRY 89 THE NORTHLAND SHOEMAKER 92 SQUAW LEOOfNO , 94 PAPPOOSE IN ITS MOSS BAG 95 THE BELLE OF THE NORTH COUNTRY 97 ANCIENT KNIFE WITH BEAVER-TOOTH BLADE 99 Tb."? CABIOLE. £>R. MACKAY's HOUSE AND OFFICE IN BACKGROUND 103 HAND-WARMERS OF THE NORTH XOS THE "RABBIT CAMP" 109 CHIPEWVAN TRIPPING-SHOE 113 WOOD-BISON HEAD BROUGHT OUT BY THE AUTHOR . . 115 LOUCHEUX SHOE I16 CUTTING A WAV THROUGH THE SMALL FIRS 1x9 WAR-BONNET 123 RABBIT SNARE I25 "JEREMI WAS TOO gUiCK WITH HIS GUN " 127 ONE OF THE OLD FLINT-LOCKS 133 i I ILLUSTRATIONS « rAGB woman's shoe 138 greetings en route i4i "spelling" the dogs 145 seauteaux shoe 147 fort resolution, great slave lake 151 "SOUR grapes" 155 BENIAH 165 BENIAH's lodge IN THE WOODS 1 73 DOG-WHIP 177 THE Indian's tool-kit — axe, crooked knife (home- made), AND FILE 179 CUTTING LODGE-POLES ON THE EDGE OF THE TIMBER . . 182 MAP SHOWING THE AUTHOR's ROUTE THROUGH THE BAR- ren grounds 185 a pipe in the land of little sticks 188 indian legging i91 our last feast i93 racing shoe i95 feeding the dogs i97 medicine-man's necklace 202 THE "LAST wood" — LAYING IN A SUPPLY OF FOOD FOR THE BARRENS 203 CARIBOU IN SIGHT 2Ii ONE OF THE FIRST STEEL KNIVES TRADED TO INDIANS . . 220 MUSK-OX 225 MUSK-OX HOOF — FRONT VIEW 228 MUSK-OX HOOF — BOTTOM VIEW 229 TWO-YEAR-OLD MUSK-OX BULL 230 BARREN GROUND CARIBOU 235 HEAD OF WOODLAND CARIBOU 237 CARIBOU HOOF, SHOWING POSITION OF ACCESSORY HOOF . . 238 CARIBOU HOOF, SHOWING CONCAVE AND SHARP EDGES . . 239 UNGAVA woman's SHOE 24O UNGAVA SHOE 243 CO-YUKON SHOE 246 MOCCASINS 247 X ILLUSTRATIONS PAOB WILLOW HASKET USED BY INDIANS BEFORE HUDSON's BAY COMPANY TOOK IN COPPER KETTLES 249 ESKIMO SHOE 252 MUSK-OX HUNTING-KNIKE AND BARREN GROUND AXE . . 254 OUR LODGE IN THE LAND OF LITTLE STICKS 255 ESKIMO KNIFE 26 1 CREE-INDIAN ORNAMENTS 262 OLD COPPER KNIVES 264 DOGS BAYING MUSK-CALF 27 1 MUSK-OX-HORN SPOON 275 THE USUAL INDIAN MARKSMANSHIP 279 MAKING TEA IN THE LAND OF LITTLE STICKS 283 NATIVE " SNOW-GLASSES " 286 CROSSING GREAT SLAVE, MAY 4TH, 1895 295 SNOW-SHOES WORN BY THE AUTHOR IN THE BARREN GROUNDS 299 DEADFALL FOR BEAR 302 DIAGRAM OF BEAR-TRAP 303 MY .UGGAGE EN ROUTE FROM FORT SMITH TO THE LANDING 304 under sail 306 a hudson's bay company fur " pack " 308 Hudson's hay company steamer and flaiboats in winter-quarters at chipewyan 309 grizzly-claw necklace 314 trading in the hudson's bay company "old store " at edmonton 315 when the days are long 319 tail-piece 324 AT THE FRONTIER Far to the northwest, beginning ten days' journey be- yond Great Slave Lake and running down to the Arctic Ocean, with Hudson's Bay as its eastern and Great Bear Lake and the Coppermine River as its western boundaries, lies the most complete and extended desolation on earth. That is the Barren Grounds, the land whose approximate 350,000 square miles (for its exact area is unknown) is the dwelling-place of no man, and whose storms and sterility in its most northerly part are withstood the year round by no living creature save the musk-ox. There is the timber- less waste where ice-laden blasts blow with hurricane and ceaseless fury that bid your blood stand still and your breath come and go in painful stinging gasps ; where rock and lichen and moss replace soil and trees and herbage ; and where death by starvation or freezing dogs the foot- steps of the explorer. There arc two seasons and only two methods of pene- trating this great lone land of the North — by canoe, when the watercourses are free of ice, and on snow-shoes during the frozen period, which occupies nearly nine of the year's twelve months. The deadly cold of winter, and greater ON SNOW-SMOES TO THE BARKEN GROUNDS risk of starvation, make the canoe trip the more usual one with the few Indians that hunt the musk-ox. But, be- cause of the many portages, you cannot travel so rapidly by canoe as on snow-shoes, nor go so far north for the best of the musk-ox hunting, nor see the Barren Grounds at their best, or worst, as you care to consider it. That is why I chose to make the attempt on snow-shoes. And why I turned my face towards a country which seemed to hold naught for the traveller but hardship? Well — certainly to hunt musk-ox, the most inaccessible game in the world, and to look upon his habitat at the period of its uttermost desolation ; certainly also to study the several tribes of Indians through which I must pass on my way to the Barren Grounds; and en route to hunt wood- bison, undoubtedly now become the rarest game in the world. Possibly, too, I went that I might for a time escape the hum and routine sordidness of the city, and breathe air which was not surcharged with convention and civilization. To him who has scented the trackless wilds, and whose blood has gone the pace of its perils and freedom, there comes, every now and again, an irresistible impulse to fly from electric lights, railroads, and directories ; to travel on his feet instead of being jerked along in a cable-car; to find his way with the aid of a compass and the North Star, in- stead of by belettered lamp-posts. At such a time and in such a mood the untamed spirit chafes under the pettiness of worldly strife, and turns to the home of the red man. 'Tis a strange fascination, but strong as strange, this playing at monarch of all you survey ; this demand upon your skill and endurance and perseverance in a continuous game of hazard with life as the stake ; this calling home where you throw down your blankets. The mind reaches out to the freedom and the openness of a life that rises superior to the great machine called civilization, which AT THE FRONTIER 3 moulds us all into one proper and narrow and colorless whole. How little the fenced divisions of ordinary every- day life seem when you have returned ! How petty one feels on rejoining the hysterical mob which hurries forth each morning from dwelling to office, and gathers again each night from office to dwelling. At all events, whatever the incentive, Arthur Heming, the artist, and I found ourselves, December 27, 1894, at NORTHWESTERN liRITISH AMERICA, SHOWING BARREN GROUNDS AND MR. WHITNEY'S ROUTE Edmonton, the end of the railroad. We had travelled on the Canadian Pacific vid Winnipeg and Calgary, and through the land of the Crees, Blackfeet, and Sarcee Ind- ians, without seeing anything so picturesque in the way of costuming as the Winnipeg dragoon and a Sarcee I 4 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BAKKEX GROUNDS young woman resplendent in beads and glittering tin- sel. I really ought to include the mounted policeman, for he too has a uniform which, with scarlet jacket and yellow-striped breeches, is deserv- ing of greater attention. But the mounted policeman has that which is far worthier of comment than uni- form. He has the reputation of being the most effective arm of the Cana- dian Interior Department. And he lives up to it. These " Riders of the Plains," as they are called, patrol a country so large that the entire force may lose itself within its domains and still be miles upon miles apart. Yet this comparative handful main- tains order among the lawless white men and stays discontentment among the restless red men in a manner so satisfactory and so unostenta- tious as to make some of our United States experiences read like those of a tyro. The success of the Northwest Mount- ed Police may be accredited to its system of distribution throughout the guarded territory. Unlike our army, it does not mass its force in forts adjacent to Indian res- ervations. Posts it has, where recruiting and drilling are constantly going forward, but the main body of men is scattered in twos and threes over the country, riding hither and thither — a ^vatch that goes on relief after re- lief. This is the secret of their success, and a system it would well repay our own government to adopt. The police are ever on the spot to advise or to arrest. They CREE HUNTING-SHOE, 6 feet long g tin. H :eman, ^m jacket ^m Jeserv- ^H jt the H lich is ^m n ^M f being wM Cana- 9 Lnd he j of the m atrol a ■m e force fl omains S apart. 9 main- 9 s white fl among 9 manner 9 h ~ o c Z It )stenta- 9 United ■ hose of JH Mount- 9 •ibution 9 :irmy, it 9 lian res- 9 Hng are 9 men is 9 -, riding 9 after re- 9 ystem it 9 )t. The ■ 1 . They ■ AT TIIK FRONT I KR do not wait for action until an outbreak has occurred ; tliey are always in action. They constitute a most val- uable peace-assuring corps, and I wish we had one like it. Although Edmonton has but a few hundred population, it is doubly honored — by an electric-light plant which illuminates the town when not otherwise engaged, and by a patience-trying railway company that sends two trains a week to Calgary and gives them twelve hours in which to make two hundred miles. But no one, except luckless travellers, at Edmonton cares a rap about inter- mittent electric lights, or railroads that run passengers on a freight schedule, so long as they do not affect the fur trade. Fur was originally the reason of Edmonton's existence, and continues the prin- cipal excuse for its being. In the last three years the settlement of a strip of land south and of one to the north has created a farm- ing or ranching contingent, but to date of my visit canned goods ap- peared to remain the chief article of sustenance, as furs were cer- tainly the main topic of conversa- tion. Edmonton may in my time develop the oasis upon which it is built, between the arid plains im- mediately to the south and the great lone land to the north, into something notably agricultural ; but for many years the town will be, as it is to-day, the gateway of the wellnigh boundless fur-produc- ing country to the north, and the outlet for the number- less" packs "gathered bythegreat Hudson's Bay Company. SARCEE liKI-LE 8 ON SXO\V..SlIOES TO TIIK BARKEN GROUNDS ',\\ And what a company is this! — with the power of a king^ and the consideration of a partner. A monopoly that does not monopolize, it stands alone a unique figure in the commercial history of the world. Given its charter by the impecunious Charles II. in 1670, the pioneers of this "Governor and Company of Adventurers of Eng- land Trading into Hudson's Bay " sailed for the southern shores of St. James Bay, where they set up their first post and took possession of the new country in the name of Prince Rupert. Here they found a rival French company, with a previous, charter granted by Louis XIII., and an equally keen sense of Indian bar- ter, so that for many years there was more fighting than trading. Through all the long weariness of the French and other continental wars, the Hud- son's Bay Company lived a varied ex- istence of prosperity and reverses, but when Wolfe, on the Heights of Abraham, crushed the power of France in Canada, the French company entered upon a decline that finally ended in dissolution. In their stead came numbers of Englishmen, pushing their way westward, eager to trade for the furs of which they had heard so much and seen so little. Thus many trading-posts came into being, and eventually (about 1780) combined to form the North- west Fur Company, the longest - lived and most deter- mined rival that ever disputed trade with the Hudson's Bay Company. It is not my purpose to go deeply into historical research, but a brief sketch of this company. J|L.»nH.ll .„ WINNIPEG DRAGOON AT TMK FRONTItiK «> and liow it came in the land, is necessary to a proper un- derstanding of the country into which I hope to cany the reader. The Hudson's l^ay Company had not reached out to a very great extent, content with the fur fjathcred by their lialf-dozen " factories," of which York and Churchill were SARCKE AND SQUAW "Al HOME the earliest arid most important, and the only means of communication with which was by the ships that col- lected the furs and distributed the supplies annually de- spatched from England. But the Northwest Company brought a new spirit into the country; they pressed for trade with such avidity and determination as to carry lO ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE HARREN GROUNDS Ml !1 i; them into parts hitherto unknown, and cause bloodshed whenever they met the agents of their rivals. It was the greed for trade, indeed, that quickened the steps of the first adventurers into the silent, frozen land of the North. Samuel Hearne, the first white man to pass beyond Great Slave Lake, made his trip in 1769 by order of the Hud- son Bay Company, and in search of copper- mines. It was in quest of trade for the Northwest Company that Alexander Mackenzie (1789) penetrated to the Arctic Ocean down the river which bears his name. I have never been able to appreciate the justice in the command that knighted Mackenzie and ignored Hearne. The lat- ter's trip was really a most remarkable one — overland a great part, and always the more difificult. Mackenzie's trip, as compared with it, reads like a summer day's pleas- uring. For. forty years these two, companies traded with the Indians, and fought one another at every opportunity, meanwhile pushing their posts farther and farther into the interior; but in 1821 a compromise was effected, an amalgamation resulted, and the Hudson's Hay Compaii)- reigned supreme. And so it has continued to reign ever since; for though it retired from the government of Ru- pert's Land in 1870, and handed it over to the Dominion of Canada for ;^300,ooo sterling, yet, so far as the countrj- is concerned of which Edmonton is the distributing-point, the Hudson's Bay Company is as much the ruler in fact as ever it was in law. Hut this particular section, even though so extensive, is only one of the many in which, from end to end of British North America, this company counts alto- gether something like two hundred trading -posts. Nor are furs its sole commodity : from Montreal to Victoria along the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and at the centres of the Indian countries in which they trade, may be seen the 4 lh!l AT THK FRONTIER I r "stores" of the Hudson's Bay Company. Its ;6 2,000,000 sterling capital stock is owned in London, but the busi- ness of the vast corporation is operated from Winnipeg, with "Commissioner" C. C. Chipman as its executive head. Except that goods are now much cheaper and furs much dearer, the fur-trading business of this company is conducted at its inland posts on much the same lines that prevailed when it was first established. The custom of barter still exists, and those who have experienced the difficulties of exchanging with a ])eddler one article for another will be interested in knowing how this was met b)' the Hudson's Bay Company. The original principal article of trade for which the Governor and Company of Adventurers first sent out their ships to Hudson's Bay was the beaver-skin. Other furs were soon traded in, and it be- came necessary to have a standard of ONE ".MADK nKAVI'R " lOKKN I'ormerly issued by the Hudson's Bay Company trade. The " made beaver" — i.e., a full- grown dressed bea- ver-skin — was taken as the standard, and every article in goods or furs priced upon it. Thus, an Indian having brought in a parcel of furs was told that they amounted to so many "made beaver." With this amount, as it were, to his credit, he went into the trading-store and was told the prices of the articles he wished to possess, also in " made beaver." Soon it was found more convenient to have a token which should represent the " made beaver." At first these were made of pieces of wood with notches to 12 ON SNOVV.SIIOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS represent the Viilut?, but were soon replaced with a metal coin. QuIIIh and bullets were also sometimes used for this purpoHC, In the far North, and in fact at many points not very far from the line of railway, the Indian still gets \m advances to enable him to go hunting, and ! I A medicine-man's lodge pays back hl«4 debts in the spring-time in " made beaver," or "skhis," as the medium of exchange is technically known. Though the march of civilization and consequent competition have made it more difficult to deal with the Indians, the trade in many respects is conducted as it was over two hundred years ago. One surprise at least awaited me at Edmonton. I had expected— I will be more honest, and say I had hoped — Edmonton would prove to be a bit untamed and pict- uresque. The realization of being on this Canadian frontier raised memories of other frontier days across the AT THE I'RONTIKR 13 line, when Colorado and New Mexico were wild and wool- ly, and the atmosphere was continuously shattered by cowboy whoops and leaden pellets. Edmonton, however, never passed through such a period of exhilaration. It had its days of waywardness, but its diversions were exceedingly commonplace. A few years ago it was almost surrounded by the battling-ground of the Crees and Blackfeet, and, as a matter of course, har- bored red and white renegades. There was little law, and that little was not respected ; Indians out in the country killed ofi their foes from ambush, and in town renegades revealed their coward's blood and lack of originalfty by stabbing their enemies in the back. There were none of those blood-stirring nights in town such as we used to have on our own frontier ; no duels on the main thorough- fare between two " prominent citizens," with the remain- ing population standing by to see fair play; no cowboys to ride into saloons and shoot out the lights ; no marks- AN F.NCAMrMENT NEAR CAI.r.AKY men so expert as to knock the neck off the whiskey-bottle in the bartender's hands, and no bartenders who under such conditions did not turn a hair. There was murdering in plenty in and around Edmon- ton in the old days, but no man maintained a private burying-ground. This is not a distinction without a dif- 14 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS ference, as those with frontier experience will bear me out. I found Edmonton settled into a steady-going business community, with many hotels and few saloons, and the most exciting sight I beheld during my two-nights-and-a- da> stop was a freighter wrestling with himself after a bout with "40 proof." Indeed, when I set out, the morning after my arrival, to get all in readiness in the one day that we might make the start for Lac La Biche on the second, I doubted if the citizens had ever heard of the word " hustle." I had been delayed in leaving New York, delayed in having to stop over at Winnipeg to get letters of credit from tlie Hudson's Bay Company, and, now that I had finally reached the fron- tier, I was determined to be delayed no longer if effort of mine would provide against it. First of all, the shops did not open until nine o'clock, and I, forgetful of being in a latitude where the syn in winter does not show himself before that hour, found myself chasing about the streets in the dawn that, before coming out of doors, I fancied due to a clouded sky. At last the shops and the sun openetl for the day, and I succeeded in getting every one on the move. Still, we should not have been able to get away next day, I am sure, but for the consideration of the Hud- son's Bay Company factor, Mr. Livock, and his chief aid, Mr. Kinnaird, who were kind enough to neglect their bus- iness to attend to mine. The one happy stroke we had made was in choosing the Queen's for our hotel ; it was quite haphazard, but very lucky. Here I found the best board to which I had ever sat down in a frontier town, and host and hostess who did more for me during my sojourn than the bill showed or 1 could repay. f li II! i| !■• :! •I e V II OFF FOK I.AC I.A HICHE If such signs were trustworthy, I should have been much elated over the auspicious weather that ruled on the day of our departure for La Biche. Truly it was a beauti- ful morning, with the temperature some twenty degrees OFF FOR LAC LA UICIIK below zero, and a glorious sun, which touched the ice-cov- ered bushes and trees with sparkling brilliancy. When we started on our 175-mile drive, all Queen's Hotel, and, I judged, half the town, turned out to bid us godspeed. ill i8 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE IJAKKEN (JROUNDS m I . . We had two good horses and a strong box-sleigh, and our load was not heavy, so that I expected to make good time. I had taken only enough provisions from Edmon- ton to last us to La Biche. There was much I could have taken, of course, in the way of canned vegetables, meats, etc., that might have saved me from many a meal of the oftentimes unpalatable stuff which I secured from post to post. But I was going into the country for a purpose, and not for a picnic. I knew perfectly well I could not carry in a sufficient supply to last until I had covered the 900 miles that lay between me and Great Slave Lake, because of the impossibility of securing enough dogs and sledges to freight it, and I knew even if I could eat as a civilized man until I reached that point, I should be obliged, when I began my journey into the Barren Grounds, to abandon all hope of eating well, or even plentifully, and to live or starve as do the Indians on their annual hunt in that region. Besides, the greatest essential to the success of my trip was speed. I had set out to make my bison-hunt, to get into the Barren Grounds for musk-oxen, and get back again to Great Slave Lake on snow-shoes — an undertaking that had been never before attempted, and which every one as- sured me I could not carry out. It meant snow-shoeing nearly 1900 miles, and left no time for leisurely travel- ling ; but I was determined to accomplish what I had planned if it lay within human possibilities ; and thus it was that we took no unnecessary freight from Edmonton, for civilized food is so considered in that great North land. Tobacco was the only article of which I took a greater supply; but tobacco is not considered freight; it is always a solace, and becomes on occasion a stimulant when there is no meat, and an irresistible lure to facilitate intercourse with the Indians. ;i;! OFF FOK LAC LA HICIIK 19 It was uell \\c had a stout sleigh, for, much to my as- tonishment, the snow seemed little more than a foot deep anywhere, while in the road it had been worn down by much travel, and the rocks were numerous and aggressive. We made twenty-two miles by noon of the first day, and took our dinner at Fort Saskatchewan, the most northerly post of the Northwest Mounted Police. Up to this point of the day's journey the road had been plain, and the country not unpleasant to the eye. In fact, in some parts it is rather pretty, of a general rolling character, fringed with small timber, mostly of the poplar variety, though pine is fairly abundant. It looks like, and is, in truth, a grazing country more especially, though the horses and cattle I saw en route were rather poor — a con- dition to be probably expected in a land where every- thing is new and the settlers lead a hand-to-mouth exist- ence, as all settlers do. An Edmonton enthusiast — I think he must have had property for sale — assured me with great gusto that the land around that town would yield from 35 to 75 bushels of wheat to the acre, and from 100 to 200 bushels of oats, the latter weighing 42 pounds to the bushel ; the lumber, however, he acknowledged " wasn't much to brag on." The one well-defined road we had been following all day broadened out towards sunset into a valley, showing in turn several depressions in the snow — here much deeper — which we assumed to be roads. No one at Saskatchewan was able to direct us intelligently, and not a soul had been seen since leaving there from whom we could ask our way. Gricrson, who was driving us, and who is one of the Queen's Hotel proprietors, had never before been over the road, but his bump of direction was well placed and abnormally developed. People in this country do not seem to consider knowledge of the roads lilili;:' 20 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS ''I'i necessary to reach their destination. They start off on the one main and almost only trail, which they follow to its end, and then they continue on in the direction of their objective point. Roads are few and far between in this section, and disappear altogether when you get one hun- dred miles north of Edmonton. The alleged road to La Biche, which bears to the east of north, is the longest, and the end ; beyond, all travel is by dogs in winter and canoe in summer. Grierson knew that Beaver Lake Creek was the point we were booked to reach that night in order to make La Biche in three days' travel from Edmonton, and he was sure it lay to the northeast. So we pegged on, until finally, after chasing several lights that turned out to be the wrong ones, and once nothing less lofty than a planet, which in this far North hung near the horizon, we found the log cabin of Beaver Lake Creek's most distinguished settler. I say distinguished, because his was the only cabin in those parts which boasted of two rooms and a second story — an extravagance, he informed us, he had in('i'lged in with the idea of one day, when the section in which he had located became more populous, putting a stock of merchandise into the ** other room," and utilizing the top story as a dormitory for travellers. Having refreshed myself in about one and a half inches of ice-water, I was confronted by this black - lettered legend on the cabin door : ** Bad luck attend the man that wipes his nose on the towel " — which convinced me our host was a gentleman of discernment, with a delicate humor for inciting reform in his guests without offending their previously conceived sense of propriety. We left the pioneer of Beaver Lake Creek's "400" next morning before the sun was up, and by one o'clock had gone thirty-eight miles to Victoria, on the Saskatchewan OFF FOR LAC LA HICIIF 31 River. It is the site of a Hudson's Bay Company trading- post, and the end of the telegraph line. Once past here, the most rapid means of communication is the " express." as the Indian runner is called. To me, as sportsman, the most interesting feature of Vic- toria was the fact of its being about the northern limit of wa- piti in this particular part of the continent. Formerly, in the days of the bison, wapiti were numer- ous, particularly near the Battle River, but, although they have not entirely disappeared, they are not now plentiful, and are to be had only by the most skilful hunters. Because of this the Ind- ians living near Victoria resort to every device for a shot, but with indifferent success. This was our longest day's Hrlve, for we had made very close to eighty miles by eleven o'clock at night, when we camped, and the road, or rather the multiplicity of roads, of the afternoon proved even more perplexing than on the day previous. Our direction lay along the border of a Cree Indian reservation, and was cross - sectioned at times with trails, or at least what in the snow had the appearance of trails, running to the four points of the compass. We knew we had but one point of the compass to follow — of that much, at least, we were sure, and pro- portionately thankful — but that point seemed to be such a broad one we were constantly at a loss for our precise bear- ings. I should be very much relieved to know positively if there was indeed any trail taking a northeasterly course that escaped us, and shall always regret I did not return COl'I'KR KKTIl-K in which the author brewed his tea during the entire trip ON snow-shoes to the barren grounds ill '!J III III by that route in the spring on my way back to the rail- road, and when the snow had disappeared, just to satisfy my curiosity. We were making for the VVhitc-Fish Lake Indian reser- vation, where we had been told we could find feed and a covering for the horses, and a school-master who would give us a place to throw down our blankets, and the best of his larder. VVe were not concerned for ourselves, for we carried enough to provide a substantial meal, and, I think, all three of us would have preferred sleeping in the open to the average cabin. But the mercury had fallen a great many degrees since leaving Edmonton, a cutting wind was blowing, and our horses were pretty well worn, with still forty-five miles to go the next day before reach- ing La Biche. This was why we pushed on, hoping every turn would show the light in the distance that meant rest for us and an extra feed for our team. We finally reached some straggling cabins of the reservation, but should have been searching for that light yet if we had not roused an Indian from his slumbers, whom Grierson, by some start- ling Cree vocalization, the like of which I never heard be- fore nor since, at length made understand what we were after. Then that drowsy child of nature led the way to a school-master, but not to the school-master we had been seeking, whose house was a few miles farther on, we sub- sequently learned. The school-master we found was a study in filth. He lived like a dog in a wretched kennel, and talked like a cockney Englishman ; indeed, he confided to me he had come from London, and was living there chiefly to learn the Cree language, that he might later preach " Jesus to the wayward heathen." Meanwhile he was educating him. This cockney's one idea of education seemed summed up in the single word coercion. If the Indians gathered for hi iliiPl I t>FI' lOK I. AC I.A lUCllE 23 the dances of their tribe, he scattered them ; if they played the games of their chiUlhood, he stopped them ; if they asked for reasons, he told them it was the devil in them that they exploited and which he wished to cast out. A logical way, forsooth, of educating the ignorant! And this is why we find the biuken-spirited Indian, who realizes he is the creature of an all-powerful master whose ways he cannot understand, so often " converted," but only in indi- vidual cases educated and civilized. He is "converted " because it requires only outward acquiescence, and he finds his material life made pleasanter thereby. He is willing to change his " Great Spirit " for the white man's " Great Spirit " when a few beads or an extra ration make the trade inviting. But he cannot be educated without being first civilized, and he cannot be civilized because in most cases the white man does not know how, or docs not find it to his interest, to make the attempt in a rational way. At present he distrusts, and sees only that he is being " civilized " off the face of the earth, and remembers the white man in his successive roles of welcomed guest, greedy hunter, settler, and exterminator. I am not deal- ing in heroics, and every one knows that the savage must disappear before the civilized man ; but if we are to at- tempt the civilization of those that remain let us first en- deavor to gain their confidence, and then follow it up b\' methods which they can grasp. It is not to be done in one season, nor in two; the civil- ized red man cannot be brought forth full-fledged, as from a patenc incubator; he can be evolved only after long pe- riods of gradual and natural development ; yet we expect by mere word of mouth to make him forsake the senti- ments of a lifetime, of generations of lifetimes. At the same time he should realize there is a law in the land which punishes and protects him as thoroughly as it does frVll I .111 24 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARKEN GROUNDS BiH: 1; the white man. He should not be allowed to escape with no severer penalty for furtive war-path festivals than that of being merely herded bacK to his reservation, when white men equally guilty would be hanged or shot. The surest way of civilizing the Indian is through his children, and possibly their children in turn will cease to remember that once their ancestors roamed over the country hunt- ing and learning the lessons of their common mother Nature, instead of living fenced in on a reservation, ploughing, and studying the precepts of the white man. We left the Indian reformer early the next morning, after a broken night's rest on a dirtier floor than, I think, I ever saw in an Indian lodge. We must have proved a bless- >4l V l9^ '"S ^° ^^^^^ fellow, for we put money in his purse, and such a meal in his stomach as I fancy he had not had for many a day. The weather had grown colder, and one of our horses gone lame, but our big fur coats to keep out the one, and mustang liniment to relieve the other, put us in travelling shape. We had broken our sleigh, and patched it up again before we camped for our noonday meal in a squall of snow, but we had covered by that time a good half of the distance which the previous night separatr-i us from our destination. As we neared La Biche we renewed our troubles over diverging roads, but this time our direction was so accurate that the delay BLANKET CI.OTIUNG OF THK LOWER NORTHLAND •3 > OFF FOR LAC LA BICHE 27 was inconsiderable. Moreover, there were others abroad ; for the morrow was New-Year's, and Indians and half- breeds were making their way to the company post to partake of the feast which is provided for them annually. They came from either side, and fell into the now well- beaten track we were all travelling ; men and women, old and young, some walking, but the majority riding in a sort of box set upon runners, locally known as a "jump- er," and drawn by a nondescript kind of beast which we discovered upon close scrutiny to be an undersized, un- derfed horse, but that more nearly resembled an over- grown jack-rabbit. And thus with the dying sun of the last day of 1894 we made our entree into La Biche with the gathering of the clans. in NEW-YEAR S AT LA BICHE III ! I DO not believe I was ever in a more advanced state of exhilaration than on first viewing the unsightly cabins of the La Biche post. Farther along on my trip I felt a deeper thankfulness, when hope had almost fled, and mind and body were too jaded to rejoice, but now I was as a boy given an unexpected holiday, who wanted to shout and throw his cap into the air ; for here at last I beheld the actual frontier, and the real starting-point of m}' journey. Not that the trip from Edmonton had been so long or so hard, for, as a matter of fact, it was pleasant and easy, but it was the realization of being on the scene of action, so to say. When one has planned an adventure, and discussed ways and means, there is a satisfaction in reaching the base of operations ; and when one's friends have tried to dis aade and natives to intimidate you, there is added to satisfaction that other feeling, which puts you on edge, fires your blood, and makes you keen to toe the mark and be off. It was a blessing I arrived in such hu- mor, for it was sorely tried at La Biche during the three vexing days we were compelled to stop there. I had a premonition we were going to run against a snag when I saw Gairdner, the Hudson's Bay Company officer in charge, saunter out of his cabin to greet us ; and when he asked if we were not ahead of time, in a tone that implied he would have been better pleased had we been overdue, I NEW-YEAR'S AT LA BICHE felt convinced we were " in for it." We were a day in advance of our schedule, having taken but three instead of four days from Edmonton, but as an "express" had been sent Gairdner two weeks before to warn him of our arrival, and as the preparations were only the making of two pairs of snow-shoes and the engaging of two trains of dogs and drivers, I could not see that our coming was ill- timed. I think, nevertheless, he was glad to see us (especially Grierson, who had brought along a flask), and he certain- ly shared the best of his house with us. He told us we had come at the best time of the year to see the Indians ; that they were always given a feast and a dance on New- Year's, and that some of them, hearing of our arrival, would probably drop in that night to dance a little for us. Well, they did " drop in," and they did dance, though not a " little." How those creatures danced, and what an at- mosphere and a racket they created in that house ! They began to arrive shortly after we had finished supper, shak- ing hands with us solemnly on entrance, and eying us stealthily after seating themselves in rows against the walls. Then one of them produced a fiddle, and from the time the first measure was sounded there was no cessation until about two o'clock the following morning. For a while the exhibition was rather interesting, though never very novel. The common dancing of Indians ap- pears to be about the same the country over ; there is but one type, thoupfh it may assume different expressions, ac- cording to prejudice or locaHty. Either they shuffle around in a circle, or they hop from one foot to the other in lines or separately, or they do all three, with more or less vigor and with or without costuming. At La Biche the dancing is not of the Indian type, but rather of the kind one sees in the half-breed camps of Canada, and con- 30 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS I': I !x;ijj sists of a species of jigs and reels gone through at a pace that makes you dizzy only to watch. They have their dances where several couples perform, but the most pop- ular seemed that in which separate couples engaged — as many as the floor would accommodate. These face one another, and the man enters upon a vigorous exploita- tion of the double-shuffle, which he varies with "pigeon- wings " and other terpsichorean flourishes, always making the greatest noise of which he is capable. Noise and en- durance, I was given to understand, are the two requisites to good dancing; but men and women of course wear moccasins, and only on occasions have board floors to dance on. It was my luck to happen along at one of those " occasions," and to be further tortured by a half- breed company servant, whose great pride was a pair of white man's heavy boots, which he never wore except when threading the giddy maze. Half-breeds — French and Cree — constitute the larger share of population at La Biche, if I may class as its pop- ulation those scattered over the immediately surrounding country, and where the settlement consists of just three cabins besides those belonging to the Hudson's Bay Com- pany. But, after all, the French blood reveals itself chiefly in a few Christian names and in the more fanciful coloring and use of some articles of wear, for there is little French spoken, the children of mixed parentage almost invariably adopting the mother-tongue, Cree, which the ingenuity of Catholic priests has raised to the dignity of a written lan- guage. There are not more than one hundred Crees who come into La Biche, which is the most northerly post where treaty money is given, and they are not increasing nor even thriving to any very great extent. The annuity of about five dollars a head is not sufficient to support and just enough to interrupt keen hunting; they plant a W I NEW-YEAR'S AT LA BICHE 33 (■;■ few potatoes, which grow here fairly well, but are making no progress towards self-support, as are those of the same nation more to the south. After what I had seen the night before of the prelimi- naries to the annual feast-day, I did not expect on New- Year's to be able to make any preparations for our further progress. Long before we had turned out of our blankets the house was literally packed with Indians, and by noon- time the fiddle was going and the dancers had entire pos- session of the floor. I doubt if I ever saw, outside of some of the Chinese dens in San Francisco, so many crowded into the same space. I lacked the heart to talk business with Gairdner, who, I divined from some of his remarks, had not accomplished, in the way of making ready our dog brigade, all I had expected of him. I simply pitied him for the unpleasant and malodorous fulness of his home, and I pitied his half-breed wife and her daughters, who were kept cooking for and feeding half-starved Indians from early morn until late into the night. Heming took his pencil and scratch pad and I my camera, and we went out to see the New-Year's-day arrivals and the dogs and the Indians. In front of the fort's stockade were gossiping groups that grew with each fresh arrival, while scattered all about the enclosure, just where their drivers had left them, were the dog trains of the Indians who had come to fill Gairdner's house and eat the Hudson's Bay Company meat. There was no housing nor feasting for these dogs; in a 24° -below -zero atmosphere they stretched out in the snow and waited, without covering and with- out food. The Indians with their blanket coats or ca- potes, and the dogs and sledges and "jumpers," made a picturesque whole against the unbroken background of snow, but, like all Indian pictures, its attractiveness faded 3 1% ;|l<'' 34 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE HAUKEN GROUNDS II ' ! Ill away on close inspection that discovered the dirt of the man, and the scraggy, half-starved condition of the beast. These people liad never before seen a camera, and many of my plates show them scurrying away or <^' ~ ■*--*•*♦««?!«**««" '*'*rw- ■ " •'^ • «— , ^- ^^ . \\\ miiMi' i«^ »i^.-^-»^^^^^^^^^B ^^^^^H ^^^^H .- • n^ »*r-: ' Bwefsf.... ■ -^— - »* . ' ■" **^'^a« '^ -«"• "■•r- *-*-.^' ■*v»^'' '•sBfife. ^g'^^^fei'gffy^^ ^ ^ ■[.Ml t* IN A 24°-BELO\V-ZERO ATMOSPHERE turning their backs. It was only after the most elaborate descriptions to Gairdner, who instructed the interpreter, who explained to the Indians, that we induced one or two " types " to sit in our presence while Heming sketched them. They thought we were making " medicine " against them, but were won over by Heming drawing the moose and caribou, while they watched the animals they knew so well develop under his pencil. When we returned to the house the dance was still on ; it was always "on ' during the first thirty-six hours of our stay at La Biche. Formerly the Hudson's Bay Company officers merely " received " on New- Year's day; but as the' NEW-YEAR'S AT LA lilCIIE 35 Indians have a custom between sexes of kissing on meet- ing, and as it did not become an impartial officer to dis- tinguish in this respect between old women and young, unattractive and attractive, the feast was substituted ; so now the women are fed and danced instead of being kissed. I hope that New -Year's night will not be recorded against me. Those Indians danced until four o'clock in the morning, and they danced to my utter demoralization. We sat around and watched the " gymnastics " and pre- tended we enjoyed them until about one o'clock; then we retired. We all three slept in Gairdner's office, a tiny apartment separated from the main room by a thin board partition, of which a good quarter section in the centre was removed to admit of the two rooms sharing a single stove. There was a piece of loosened sheet-iron tacked to the partition to protect it from the heat, and my head was against that partition, and our blankets on the same floor upon which tlose Indians sprinted and jumped and shuffled ! New- Year's past and the fiddle hung up, I entered upon the business of our getting under way for Fort McMurray, the next Hudson's Bay post to the north, and then indeed did the trouble begin. First of all, Gairdner earnestly assured me I could not make the trip I contemplated, that I could not get into the Barren Grounds at this season, and would risk my life if I did, and could not get Indians to accompany me if I would. Then, after finding me un- dismayed by the lugubrious prospect, he informed me that he had not been able to get matters ready, nor could he say how soon we might start. He had first engaged two men, but both backed out, one because he could not get four dogs together, and the other because he had no house to put his wife in during his absence. Finally he had se- cured the services of a half-breed called " Shot," who, he 36 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS said, was the best man in the country, trustworthy and a good traveller, and had spoken to another half-breed, who was just then struggling to make up his mind. Added to HALF-BREED DOG DRIVER this pleasing intelligence, the snow-shoes were being made by an Indian who lived fifteen miles away, and from whom nothing had been heard. I thought we were at least sure of " Shot " ; but the next day he came to us with a large story of his worth, of the sacrifices he would make by going with us, and finally ended by refusing to budge un- less we doubled the wages upon which he and Gairdner had agreed. For the remainder of this and the next day life was a burden to me. Gairdner was absolutely of no use, as he could have been bj- standing between us and the Indians in our negotiations. I was obliged to take matters into my I I ; NEW-YEAR'S AT LA IJICIIE 37 own hands, and deal with the wrangling Indians through an interpreter. I finally secured "Shot" on a cohipro- inise, intending to take no other man, but drive the sec- ond train of dogs ourselves. Then I had a time getting another four dogs and sledge. First the owners would not hire a train without their own engagement (this after I had spent two days trying to induce them to go with me !), then no one man who had a complete train could be found. At last I got two dogs from one Indian, and one dog each from two different Indians. Meanwhile I was waiting for " Shot," who was to come prepared for the start so soon as the snow-shoes were finished, and being worried thin by the dog-owners' repeat- ed visits and their clam- ors for a new deal ; hav- ing hired the dogs and sledge, they wanted me to pay an additional fee for harness and wrapper, or, if not, to give them a little tea or tobacco, or moccasins. I was in constant dread lest their fickleness should eventu- ally deprive me of a train, and I cursed " Shot " roundly for his delay. Meanwhile, too, Heming and I were conditioning ourselves by some run- ning every afternoon, and had settled to the con 'iction that the hardest part of our trip appeared to be getting started. EDMONTON FREIGHTER m A\ i I 38 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS At last, on Friday, January 4th, the Impatiently awaited " Shot " arrived, with his dogs and sledge in good condi- tion, but the sledge of the second train broken so badly as to necessitate its repair. " Shot " had also brought with him a young Cree Indian called John, whom he rec- ommended as a good runner ; and afterwards, when Hem- ing fell ill, and John and I pushed on into the country alone, I forgave " Shot " much of what I had harbored against him because of his bringing me that Cree. It was noon before the sledge had been mended and we were ready to begin packing up for the start. Our personal jluggage consisted of a change of shirts and heavy under- wear; three silk pocket-handkerchiefs, an extra pair of Irish frieze trousers, a heavy woollen sweater, stout gloves to wear inside the native-made mittens, two pairs of Hud- son's Bay Company four-point blankets, a rabbit-skin robe (of native manufacture, and very warm), " stroud " leggings, a caribou-skin capote lined with blanket, a knitted hood, a worsted tuque, " duffel " socks, snow-glasses, several pairs of moccasins, hunting- knife, strong clasp-knife, a 45.90 Winchester, half-magazine, and 1 50 cartridges, pills, and mustang liniment ; I had, besides, a compass, my camera (in a strong zinc box), note-books, and some iodoform, an- tiseptic lozenges, and sterilized gauze bandages, in case amputation because of freezing became necessary. Our provisions included bacon, tea, flour, and a few pounds of potatoes Mrs. Gairdner was kind enough to boil and mash and freeze into a pan for us ; our one luxury — or rather mine, for Heming does not smoke — was tobacco. In all we had just 357 pounds, w -lich I was careful to determine, for I was sure " Shot " would be grumbling about the load, and swear we had 600 pounds on each sledge, and I wished to be prepared with figures, as I had said we should go light purposely to make good time. We took only one night's NEW-YEAR'S AT LA BICHE 39 fish for che dogs (dogs being fed fish in this country in place of meat), because Gairdner told us we should find plenty at Hart Lake, which we would reach the next night. Finally by three o'clock the sledges were packed, *' Shot " and John had bade tender farewells to every man, woman, and child about the post, Gairdner and Grierson had wished us the best of luck, and we began our journey. cr i" 1-7 cr ^ cr ^ Q_/-P9't a- bCf'CQ%cn TRANSLATION "Lac la Biche./^;/. 2, 1895. " My name is Julien.and I have had plenty of misery up to to-day. " I do not see well. " I have always sore eyes. " I am very much troubled when I get no fur. " I gain my living by hunting in the woods. " I have gained nothing this winter. " I am well to-day. " CREE AS IT IS WRITTEN [A letter in tlie characters invented by a Roman Catholic priest thirtj- years ajjo] ,f Hi IV UNDER WAY FOR McMURRAY With huvchU Indians running before to escort us be- yond the poMt ill approved style, we left La Biche at a pretty brink gait, and maintained for a good hour a pace which must have carried us six miles. But Heming and I were m delighted at being finally and really under way that no speed those Indians could have set would have been too stiff for us. As we ran we now and again de- livered ourselves of congratulations that were expressive,^ if brief and somewhat disconnected in de- h'very. We had been delayed three days and a half at La Biche, fussing with Ind- ians that had more time than etjergy, more promise than execution, and who broke contracts as rapidly as they made them. Gairdner had annoyed me a great deal, and no doubt we had worried him not a little, breaking in upon the even and lethargic tenor of his monotonous hfe with our " outside " (as the great world is called by the denizens of this lone land) hustling ways. But now that it is all past, and the trip successfully made, I am willing to forgive and be forgiven. We did not expect to go far that night ; our chief de- sire was to get started ; and, besides, we knew we should pass several Indian houses, where we must stop, that HJMItl?,BMAN'«4 Otuwft Kiver, UNDER WAY FOR McMURRAV 41 A iiiiiiii^mwi vlllllltlllllltllllf/^ *' Shot " and John might live up to the usual demands of the country courtesy, and shake hands with the occu- pants, and gossip about the white men they were guid- ing over the first stage of their long journey. Shaking hands always includes the further cere- mony of filling up the pipes and a drink of tea, should the host happen to have any of that luxury, and so when we had left the last Indian lodge, and crossed the north- east end of the lake and got well into the woods, it was sunset, and time to camp. The going down of the sun is the invari- able signal for camping, for the twilight is of short dui'ation, and the Indians will not run the risk u" accident by chopping wood after dark. ."' r ley are quite right. A cut foot or le ; civilization is ordinarily little more than inconvenient, but in this trackless wilderness any wound that handi- caps a man's walking may lead to his death. And so as the sun begins to disappear be- low the horizon you grow watchful for a tracker's shoe, place that is most sheltered and best wood ^"•-'"»di»;^S"^^°«'.shoe ed and nearest the direction in which you 5;.^ feet long are going. By the time we had gathered firewood it began to snow, and we ate our first meal in the open, with backs arched to windward, and capote hoods pulled up over our heads to keep the flakes from going down our necks. That first night out was an interesting one to me ; with recollections of bivouacs in the Rockies, I thought the fire insignificant and the timber small, but the dogs sitting on their haunches watching the thawing of the frozen fish that were to furnish them with supper, and It 42 ON SNOW- SHOES TO THE BARR'^.N GROUNDS ' '■m IM , J I :ii| the sledges drawn on the banked-up snow at the head of our blankets, made a scene that was novel to me, and also somewhat picturesque. Every one was sleeping the sleep of the weary, if not of the just, and the dogs had eaten and curled themselves up in the snow for the night, when I finally threw off my meditative mood and rolled up in my blankets. It snowed all night, and when we broke camp the next morning at six it was still snowing, and there was a cold head-wind that made us move lively to keep comfortable. The trail wound through brush and small timber, and now and again across a small lake, but its greatest length lay over what is called " muskeg," which is Cree for swamp, and the most tiring, patience-testing travelling I had ever encountered. Imagine a landlocked lake swept by furious cross- winds, and its entire surface churned into choppy waves; suppose it suddenly congealed at its angriest moment ; further, suppose a deep layer of miry earth covered by thick, heavy moss moulded upon it, and stuck full of close-growing stout brush. That is the muskeg. Now fancy walking over a succession of uneven hummocks with brush constantly catching your snow-shoe and slap- ping your face, and you will have a vague idea of the difficulties of muskeg travel. Level footing is exceeding- ly scarce, the wind blows the snow " whither it listeth," and you cannot know whether you are about to step on top of one of those innumerable mounds or into one of the many gutters that cross-section the swamp. You know after you have taken the step. Nine times out of ten you land on the slanting side of the mound, and slip and trip and turn your ankle and use yourself up gener- ally. It is exceedingly difficult going, and Heming and ,.!l!'|i I f. a a a g tl c d o a n \\ \\ s; d V h ir le b o w n ai t( ai ir <( SI m a UNDER WAV FOR McMURRAY 45 I, who relieved one another breaking trail for the dogs, found it very fatiguing. It was storming hard and getting colder, and I was ahead setting the pace, when, about three o'clock that afternoon, I came upon a log hut, and two trails that bore away in different directions. I wish 1 could have photo- graphed the scene which slowly r x ized from out of the darkness as I stood on the earthcii iloor within ^^f^ cabin while my eyes grew accustomed to the changed C(- -■ ditions. On entering I could distinguish only the fire in one end, before which squatted a couple of Indians and a squaw, but gradually the shadows lifted, and I found myself for a few moments busily engaged shaking hands with Indians as fast as the new light revealed them. It was a very small cabin, barely ten feet square, I should say, with a parchment-covered hole in the wall for a win- dow, and a door which demanded a bowed head of every visitor. I do not know how many Indians were in that hut, but I recall wondering how they arranged for sleep- ing, as there seemed hardly space for them to sit, much less lie down. They were about to eat, and several rab- bits, suspended full length from a deer thong, and minus only their skins, were twirling and roasting before the fire, while others were being prepared for the cooking. I was not partial to rabbit, nor especially happy in the cabin's atmosphere, so when I had warmed a bit I went outside to await the remainder of my party. Heming and John hove in sight shortly, but quite half an hour had passed when " Shot " and his dogs loomed up in the storm, that seemed increasing every minute. Then " Shot " and I had our first battle royal. He fancied the smell of the roasting rabbit and the warm cabin ; he did not like the sleet driving in our faces, and he wanted to camp. I was annoyed at the interruptions to our prog- 46 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS l! ?l i 'I i ii 1 i li il ! i 1 i 1 \ ! i 1 1 ress, disgusted with "Shot" for his vain^;.orious mouth- ing at La Biche and his halting gait since leaving there, and determined that night to reach Hart Lake, which was only seven or eight miles farther on,, and where we ex- pected to get fish (of whic'' w*- then had none) for our dogs. In language that was pointed I reminded " Shot " of my being the commander-in-chief of our little expedition, and made him under- stand we were out neither for pleasure nor for our health, that we had an ob- jective point, and intended to get there without loss of time, and without camp- ing in every cabin we discovered or being headed off by every severe storm we en- countered. " Shot " spluttered a great deal at first, and then looked as if it would give him pleasure to bury his hunting- knife in my flesh ; but he sulked instead, and we moved away from the crowd- ed little house and the roasting rabbits. . There had been a broken trail from this point to Hart Lake, but the same storm that was making our walking so arduous had almost obliterated it, and night had long since fallen and the ther- mometer registered 30° below zero when we reached the cabin of the Indian who Gairdner had said would sell us fish enough to last to the McMurray fish- ery. But, like all the things Gairdner told us, we found realization quite different from promise. The Indian was willing enough to sell, but his cache was fifteen ' miles away ; he had just heard it had been broken into NATIVE-MADE MEN's LEGGING GARTERS, From an old and lost design UNDER WAY FOR McMURRAV 47 and all his fish stolen, so that he could not say wheth- er or no he really had any ; and, at all events, he could not make the journey in one day, and would not start the next (Sunday), because it was the occasion of the priest's yearly visit to this district. I was sorry to jeopard his soul by depriving it of the annual shriving, but I believed my dogs in more urgent need of fish than he of salvation, and I was sure three days' delay at Hart Lake would blight definitely whatever hopes of a future reward I might previously have enjoyed. Tiierefore I set about to wreck that Indian's peace of mind. Four skins — i.e., two dollars — quieted spiritual alarms, a silk handkerchief to the wife secured a promise to make the trip to the cache and back in one day, and the coup d'etat was executed by enlisting "Shot's" sympathies through my assuring him that, fish or no fish, I should start Monday morning, and, if necessary, feed our bacon to the dogs, and complete the journey on tea and potatoes, of which latter we had a few meals left. Thus it was that I got the Indian started off early Sunday morning for his cache, and saved two souls and eight dogs. The beneficence of the La Biche priest extended further that Sunday than he knew. Heming and I blessed his coming without stint, for it emptied of its usual occupants the filthy cabin in which we were obliged to spend the day and another night, and gave us an opportunity to sweep the floor and renew intimate relations with water. When we took up our journey again Monday morning, with the insufificient supply of fish got from the Indian's despoiled cache, the mercury had dropped to 54° below zero, and there was no longer a broken trail. Our first ten miles lay across a lake, and both Heming and I, who were breaking road, and sinking up to our knees in the snow, were frequently startled by a rumbling as of distant 48 UN SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARKEN GROUNDS m 1 It J an thunder as the ice cracked under us. It was a curious sensation, too, to have these explosions at our feet, v. bra- ting towards the shores in successive and receding detona- tions, like the rings which widen and follow upon one another when you have thrown a stone into a pond. On one occasion water fol- lowed the cracking, and we were obliged to run hard, until we stopped for din- ner, to keep our feet from freezing. The going was exceed- ingly difficult all day long, in deep snow, across lakes, through bunches of stunt- ed spruce, and over the re- doubtable muskeg, where the sledges required con- stant handling, and never by any chance remained right side up for more than a few moments at a time. Still, the weather remained clear, and when we camped, at six o'clock, the stars were shining brightly, and we had left Hart Lake thi ty-eight miles behind us, Heming and I running the last nine miles in one hour and forty minutes. WAPITI HUNTER HEMING TURNS BACK I HAD been very much worried over Heming's condi- tion the last two days. On the night we arrived at Hart Lake he seemed considerably worn, and the only consola- tion I had in the day's delay there was the hope it fur- nished that the rest would brace him up. But on this night he was completely used up, and I was very seriously alarmed by discovering symptoms of deranged kidneys. I did not then know the cause, and attributed it to strain brought on by hard running. In fact, Heming did not tell me, until I stopped off at Hamilton to see him on my way back to New York, that on the day's run to Hart Lake he had fallen over a log and struck on the small of his back. I only knew at that time that any weakness of the kidneys was not to be trifled with, and I felt it would be extremely hazardous to take him on ; so I lay down that night to think rather than to sleep. It was fearfully cold the following morning, with the going growing harder every hour, and I fell behind Hem- ing to watch how he stood up under the effort. I could plainly see he was laboring with great difificulty, and con- cluded it would be suicidal for him to continue, getting farther from civilization and physicians every mile, so at ten o'clock I called a halt, and expressed my determina- tion to send him home. Heming was loath to turn back, but appreciated his unfitness for the onward journey, and 4 5° ON SNOW-SUOliS TO TilK BAKKEX GROUNDS V T ' I' ■■'■' acquiesced in a decision which must have brought him keenest disappointment. We had stepped aside for our conference, and I have little doubt " Shot " fancied us planning something for his discomfort, and was much relieved on learning he was to return to La Biche. I decided on " Shot " instead of John, because he understood English enough to admin- ister to Heming's wants in case of his collapse. Then, through "Shot's" interpretation, I had to win John's con- sent to go on with me, and I experienced a very disquiet- ing half-hour indeed while John underwent the elaborate process of making up his mind. First he refused ; then he demurred because he had never been in that part of the country before, and was as dependent on " Shot " for guidance as we were ourselves. And again he objected because he could not speak nor understand a word of English, and I was as deficient in Cree. However, finally he consent- ed if I would give him a few pres- ents, the nature of which I have now forgotten ; and after we had eaten, the two Indians set to work divid- ing the supplies and repacking the sledges. It was not a very elabo- rate task, and did not take long. We had eaten the last of the potatoes, and so when the bacon and the tea and the flour had been divided, the blankets separated, and Heming and I had indicated which was which of the two seamless sacks that contained our personal lug- gage, the sledges were packed and the dogs headed in op- posite directions. Then we went our separate ways, and I took up my JOHN IIHMINd TURNS UACK 5» journey to the great lone land, over a strange country, and without even the poor satisfaction of talking my mother-tongue. My regret over Heming's falling ill may be better imag- ined than described. Foremost, of course, I deplored the loss of a companion on a trip which was to extend over 2800 miles ; and of less but still considerable concern was the sudden deprivation of a helpmate, upon whose hardi- hood and experience I had confidently counted. Heming had had abundant snow -shoeing and some dog -sledging, and I set much value on a knowledge that would, to sorr< extent at least, facilitate our venturesome undertaking. And now here I was, just four days out from La Biche, never having had a web snow-shoe on my foot, nor even seen a dog -sledge, with six days of travel over an un- known country between me and Fort McMurray, the next nearest trading -post. However, unpleasant as the prospect was, I had thought it all over the night before as I lay in my blankets after our hard day's run, and real- ized the situation as completely as I had settled upon my course. But it was not a happy afternoon, that 8th of January, 1895, which saw me, after the separation, trudg- ing onward in cold and in silence. If I lamented Heming, most assuredly I did not mourn '' Shot," notwithstanding his being the only man in the outfit who knew the country across which we wcc to journe}'. He had been a sore trial to me from the iay of our departure — nay, even from the very hour of our in- troduction at La Biche — and I confess to honest relief in ridding myself of him, though 1 was at t'lc time like a ship cast adrift without rudder. Before starting he had deliberately broken his contract, and followed it up by re- peated attempts to squeeze more money out of i.ie when he recognized my helplessness and saw my anxiety to get a i Ri ■;! ■!:i I li I : I!! 52 ON Snow-shoes to the barren grounds ALGONGIS SHOES, Lake Temiscamuga, 3 feet long under way. He exasperated me to such a degree that, knowing an indulgence to my feelings would result in his refusing to go at all, I remember confiding to Heming the great hope that my legs would prove as stout as they had at other times, and enable me to set such a pace as should make " Shot's " tongue hang out before we reached McMurray. Whether the pace was too hot or he too lazy I cannot say, but certainly when we were once started he kept me busy urging him to faster gait ; his train was invariably so far behind as to delay us ten to fifteen minutes at every " spell " (rest), which meant a loss of from six to eight miles in a day's travel. It must have been laziness, because he is a half- breed of massive bone and great strength and over six feet in height. He evidently thought me a " moonyass," as a " tenderfoot " is called in this coun- try, with whom he could play any game he chose ; and when he discovered his mistake he grew sulky, devel- oped a lame knee, subsequently a sore back, and delayed the morning start by his reluctance to turn out when called and the length of time he consumed in packing the sledges. The only day of the four he was with me on which I got him to set off promptly and travel smart- ly was the last one, when the prospect of reaching a de- serted cabin for the night's camp carried him on. I could have forgiven him the lagging behind, for the going was hard, and he had none of the incentive that added ner- vous to my physical energy, but his avariciousness at La Biche and his sullenncss on the road hardened my heart, and I cut out his work on a scale that, I fancy, made the , parting between us one for mutual congratulation. I ii tl > .1 kl c A' IC al oi tl b. h a ir tl r( n n o c o HEMIXG TURNS BACK 55 And so John and I set ou< on our journey, neither of us knowing where the morrow might find us, and I with a Cree vocabulary limited to iVamozaja/i (No), E.h-ha (Yes), Kccpcc (Hurry), WaJi-hco-che ? (How far is it ?), Mc-ivali-sin (Good). I do not know how many miles we covered the afternoon Heming turned homeward, for I was too thor- oughly absorbed in thoughts of what was coming to note the passing, but the camp of that night was, luckily, the best we made on the trip. It was sheltered from the howling wind, wood was plentiful, and with blankets, moc- casins, and leggings hung on poles to dry before the blaz- ing logs, might even have been called picturesque, unless that quality may be said to disappear when the mercury registers 40° below zero ten feet from the fire. We were not likely to find so favo'-ed a spot another night, and I made John know he should take advantage of the good fire and prepare " bannocks " to last us a few days. The bannock is simply flour and water and grease thor- oughly kneaded and well baked ; the usual method of cooking is to shape the dough an inch deep to the inside of a frying-pan, and stand the latter before the camp-fire. The bannock is not beautiful to the eye nor tempting to the fastidious palate ; moreover, it never rises superior to that " sadness" which is characteristic of underdone bread the world over. But the bannock is much better suited to the needs of the tripper or voyagciir, as the snow-shoe traveller is called, than the light yeast bread of \\\c grand pays (great world). The bread of civilization is filling, but lacks substance ; the bannock has both filling and sub- stance ; and when one has nothing to eat but bread and tea and bacon, and is running five miles an hour from sun- rise to sunset day after day, substance is a desirable qual- ity. While John made the bannocks, I attended to thaw- ing fish for the dogs ; and when we had both finished and 56 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS I m I ' lighted our pipes I undertook to hold my first conversa- tion with him in the language of signs. The warning most impressed upon me, by all those claiming any knowledge of the country into which I .vas going, had been against the unreliability of the Indians. I had been told of their tendency to desert under trying conditions, and the little there was to read on the subject emphasized the need of vigilance. That John would grow discouraged, and quietly steal away from the camp some night, was a thought which possessed and worried me considerably. I was prepared to see his dismay as we plodded on in the hard going, and to hear his grumbling, even though I could not understand, but I did not propose,, if I could prevent it, awakening one morning to find him and the dogs gone. So I engaged John's attention on; this our first night together, and in my best pantomime I tried to make him understand that if he stayed with me to McMurray and was a me-tvah-sin Indian, I should be a mc-icah-sin ** moonyass " ; but if he deserted me he had better cut my throat before he left camp, as otherwise I should follow his trail and kill him. John looked very wise and serious during my dramatic recital, and I guess he understood me. Whether he did or not, certainly his discouragement in the trying dayb we had subsequently never reached a mutinous point, and I fully believe he needed no intimidation to be a " me-wah-sin Indian." I wondered that night, and as the scene has come up be- fore me many times since I have wondered again, what that Cree must have thought of this white man who was pushing into his country at a time when he himself usu- ally remained in-doors, had pressed him into a service for which he had no liking, and threatened to take his life if he forsook it. VI FITTING FOR ARCTIC WEATHER Despite our sheltered position and the big fire, I put in an uncomfortable night in this picturesque camp. It was, in fact, the first of many uncomfortable nights before I adjusted my blankets and robes properly. I had ample bedding, and of course could have got warm quickly enough had I used it at all, but that was precisely what I did not want to do. I wished to use the smallest amount of covering possible, and yet be not too uncomfortable to preclude sleep. I did not lose sight of the fact that the cold I was then experiencing was as summer compared with that which I should be obliged to endure in the Barren Grounds. And as I had trained before leaving New York for extreme physical exertion, so now I began fitting myself for excessive cold. Indeed, I am entirely con- vinced it was my very careful and thorough previous con- ditioning that enabled me to sustain the starving and freezing to which I was subjected on this (about) six months' trip, and yet come out of it in sound physical condition and without having had a day's sickness. My camping experience had been rather extensive, and was now valuable in suggesting ways of making most out of little. An old campaigner will, simply by his method of wrapping it about him, get as much if not more warmth out of a single blanket than the novice will out of two. Nevertheless, with all my experience, for the first week I r 6 58 ON SNOW- SHOES TO THE 15ARKEN GROUNDS Vi|,;' if'. 'M i I ! I \m ! MW]'. |lh: shivered and shook in the bedding I permitted myself, and the temptation to add one more bhmket was ahnost irresistible. Not that the atmosphere was colder than I had before experienced, for 40° below is by no means uncommon in the Rocky Mountains, where I have camped, but the wind made me so miserable. It blew more than half the POLK I.Onr.E IN WHICH MOOSE ANP CARIBOU SKINS ARE SMOKED time, and nothing could resist its searchings. It went straight through capotes, leggings, and blankets, and made sleep impossible for me several nights on the way to McMurray. The dogs, however, seemed unmindful of either wind or cold. At night, after they had eaten their fish, they went a few yards from the fire, scratched away a little of the top snow, and then curled up, back to wind- ward. In the morning when they were dragged to har- ness they left the outline of their body in the snow, and FITTING FOR ARCTIC WEATHER 59 a well-defined depression, which sometimes even showed the ground. Nothing but fur can insure warmth or even comfort in this chilling North. Farther along, and before making my bison or musk-ox hunt, I secured a caribou- skin capote with the fur on, but until I got one I was a shivering victim of the wind, for the capote I had fetched from Hamilton, Canada, was useless. Having been made of unsmoked leather, the first snow-storm soaked and the fire shrank it ; then it was too heavy to run in, and the blanket lining for warmth was greatly inferior to fur. No garment can excel the caribou capotes made by the Ind- irns for exposure in the excessive cold and piercing winds of this North country. They are very light, and do not therefore add to the burden of the voyagcnr, while being literally impervious to all winds, save those deadly blasts of the Barren Grounds. The Indian tripper in winter first secures stout moc- casins and new " duffel," and next looks to his caribou- skin capote. Anything may an- swer for trousers or head cover- ing, the former, indeed, being moose or caribou skin, blanket, or " store pants " got at the Hud- son's Bay Company post in trade, while the conventional hat is sup- plied by a colored handkerchief wound about the head, just above the forehead and ears, to keep the long hair in place. Formerly it was, and still is in the more re- mote sections, a moose or car- ibou thong bound by sinew and decorated with por- cupine quill. But the foot - covering must be of the best. Moccasins are made of smoked moose-skin, because NORTHWEST SOCK OK DUKFEI, 6o ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS Bi '^^i jjii ji ili I ! ' of its thickness (though the thinner caribou-skin is equal- ly durable), and are really the pride of the Indian ward- robe. They are the most, and very frequently the only, decorated piece of his apparel ; in presentation they are the vehicle of regard from one Indian to another; they carry the first tidings of a more tender sentiment from the maiden to the young hunter, and are the surest indication not only of the degree of the woman's handiwork, but, if she be married, of the degree of her regard for the hus- band. An Indian's moccasins are a walking advertisement of his standing at home. Blessed is the civilized world in- somuch as its wives are not its bootmakers ! I was not long in reading aright the signs of the moc- casins, and ever after, when I required any made at the posts, first sought ac- quaintance with the husband before or- dering. No doubt many a pair of shoes I scrutinized did not represent the best work of the poor devil's wife, but I found them at least accurate in deter- mining his importance within his own tepee. Moccasin decoration, in fact, practically all Northland Indian orna- mentation, is done in beads, in porcu- pine quill, or in silk embroidery. Silk-work is of some- what recent introduction, confined entirely to half-breeds, and although rather well executed, is the least effective. The French half-breeds are largely responsible for the flower-pattern bead embroidery, which is the vogue all over the northern part of this country. One sees moc- casins, mittens, leggings, garters (which, by the way, only the men wear), all in patterns copied from nature, and therefore somewhat noteworthy, but not nearly so strik- INDIAN SLIPPERS FITTING FOR ARCTIC WEATHER 6x ing as the pure Indian designs of the more southerly tribes. The porcupine-quill work is truly Indian, and, at its best, exceedingly striking, both in design and coloring, though only the most skilful can do it acceptably, for each tiny quill, after dyeing, is woven in separately, and the weaver's ingenuity or lack of it is revealed in the design. The best specimens of this work are seen in the women's belts, though it is put on moccasins, shirts, skirts, gun- coats, as well as on the birch-bark baskets called rogans, and used for every purpose. " Duffel " is a thick blanket stuff, which, together with "strouds," a similar though more closely spun material, the Hudson's Bay Company introduced and christened. Duffel is used for socks and strouds for leggings, and both are manufactured expressly for the trade in this country. Leggings are used as much to keep the t ousers from becoming ice coated during the day's snow-shoeing as for warmth. At night they are removed, and thus your blankets are kept compara- tively free of snow. The Indian gets his duffel by the yard, and when he has cut it into strips about six inches wide ,jy eighteen inches long his socks are completed. Their adjustment is equally simple, for he has only to be- gin at the toes and wind the piece throughout its length about the foot. The half-breed takes his duffel home, where it is shaped and sewed into crude socks, and if his wife thinks well of him, and is clever, she will vary them in size (as two or three pairs are worn at a time inside the moccasin), and fancy-stitch them in colored yarn. I tried both styles of sock, and prefer the Indian's simpler kind ; it is more quickly thawed out and dried at night ; if one end wears or burns, it may be rearranged so a good part covers the toes and heel — the most important to keep from freezing. Besides, you can fit it more snugly, which 5 62 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BAKKKX GROUNDS l-li"* is, I think, its greatest advantage, because, if you do not happen to have a wife to direct, or, having one, do not stand high in her estimation, your socks will be of the same size, and all too large. Consequently your feet will slip about, which is most tiresome in long and hard walking, and the socks will freeze into wrinkles, and when your snow-shoe strings have also be- come frozen they will cut your toes and instep, and very likely cripple you eventually. While your moccasins and socks should fit snug, they must not be tight, and your mittens large enough to be drawn easily over hands already encased in loose, stout gloves. Noth- ing should fit tight in the Northland, otherwise your chances of freezing are much greater. The denial I practised in the matter of blankets proved doubly advantage- ous. It conditioned me so that very soon I slept soundly and comfortably, and it proved a blessing to John, to whom I gave of ni)' surplus. lie was very glad to get the additional blanket, and I nc\er encountered an Indian throughout my trip who was not thank- ful for any extra covering, even a coat, that I let him have. This is apro- pos of the declaration made to the venturer into this country that the Indians scorn more than one blanket. I heard it on all sides. "What! two pairs of blankets? Why, the Indians," etc., etc. When these Indians sleep under one blanket it is because they have no second. A WOMAN S I'OUCr I'INE-Qtn.I, lUCI.T I ■SI I I 5 nc CO vii \\\ fer thi an< an( no pel car the mo wai less car anc anc anc tici -ser pli( sol or anc ter gle wo ma wa sar ing die FITTING FOR ARCTIC WEATHER nor do they keep warm " in the coldest nights." The contrary is all miserable boasting. My experience con- vinced me they could stand no greater cold than I ; when it was merely discomforting they were more indif- ferent to it than a white man, for the very good reason that while the white man has always been well clothed and fed and protected, the red man has been half clothed and fed and never protected. Naturally the latter does not mind exposures that are somewhat trying on first ex- perience to the former. For instance, in sitting about camp, the Indians, as a rule, wore the same coat in which they had been running, whereas I found a heavier one more comfortable. It was not that the Indians were warm, but they were used to discomfort. I wrapped up less than they when snow-shoeing, but more than they in camp. When it came to withstanding the fearful cold and withering storms of the Barren Grounds, my endur- ance was as great, and my suffering, judging from appear- ances, not so much as theirs. This is because this par- ticular Indian has no heart, no nervous energy, no re- serve force. Confronted by the unexpected or inex- plicable, he gives no urgency to his efforts ; he seeks no solution ; he simply gives up. He has none of that do- or-die sentiment ; he prefers to die. Dump an Indian and a bound white man into a snow-bank, and the lat- ter would probably freeze to death first, but in a strug- gle for existence unc' r any conditions the white man would go farther and keep going longer than the red man. As to the bedding question, when I was on my home- ward journey in May I noted Indians sleeping under the same number of blankets they had used while I was mak- ing my way towards Great Slave Lake in January. What did surprise me at first, however, was the toughness of 5 66 ON SNOW- SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS their feet. I marvelled how they could sleep with them sticking out from under the blankets, with no other pro- tection from the cold than that furnished by the duffel and moccasin. I ceased to wonder once I had viewed the quarter-inch layer of epidermis on the heels and soles. 1 - 1 IM' VII BLIND LEADING THE BLIND There is some comfort in the reflection that John and I had a good camp that first night we were alone, for there was bitterness enough in store for us in the next four days. To begin with, it was impossible for me to wear snow-shoes in breaking trail for the dogs, although the snow was nearly knee-deep and the going heavy, be- cause I had never used a web snow-shoe before, and con- sequently was not sufficiently expert to feel the McMur- ray trail under the foot and a half of snow — and to follow this trail by feeling it was our only means of guidance. Then our bacon was about out, and we had but one meal of fish for the dogs. Therefore I was not hilarious when we started off at four in the morning in a blinding snow- storm. " Shot " had told me something of the nature of the country over which the trail led, but the country was all alike to us in that storm. I know we went through woods, for several times I fell heavily against a tree, but nothing was visible except on closest inspection. My senses were all concentrated on feeling that trail, and my energies directed to weathering the storm, whose fury was beginning to be the more perceptible as the day dawned, when suddenly I dropped through space — I thought at the time about twenty feet, but I guess it was not more than ten — and the dogs and the sledge and John fell on top of me. ^Vhen we had disentangled ourselves I had a c 68 ON HNOW- SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUiNDS II; III! 1 mor«? pu/,/Hn^ situation to unravel in determining where we wen*, I fult Hurc 1 liad not lost the trail, but corroboration was out of the question, because the road made by our dogs and nluUge rendered feeling the underlying old one that had guided mc impossible. Going ahead a little distance, I found wc were on a lake, but could discover no trail, and the ntorm made travelling by landmarks impossible eveti had I known any, which, of course, I did not. John's search for n trail proved no happier than mine, and then he wanted to camp; but I exhausted upon him two-thirds of my Cree vocabulary in " namoivyah " (no) and '' kirpcc" (hurry;, and wc made a wider circuit with no better suc- ce»K, TIiIh time he was determined to camp ; and the sleet wan cutting our faces, and the dogs were howling, and it was miserable. But we didn't camp. Again I made a cast, and this time for a find. I was sure of a piece of trail, but whence it came and whither it went I could not determine. The snow was either blown away or packed ho hard it was simply impossible to follow a trail for any distance. We travelled a little way only to lose it and begin our searching anew ; another find, fol- lowed closely by a check and yet another heart-breaking ca«t- And thus, how many miles I know not, we worked our way across that Jack Fish Lake in the teeth of a storm that whirled around us unceasingly, and it was one o'clock when we crawled uj) the bank and discovered a cabin U'hicli I knew must be the one where "Shot" had said 1 could get fish. We got our dogs on the leeward side, and then stag- gered into the cabin, covered from head to foot by ice and ntmib with cold. The house was full of Indians, but there was no exclamation of surprise upon our appear- ance. Ilalf-fro/en men are of too common occurrence in BLIND LEADING THE BLIND C9 the Northland to create comment. They made way for us at the fire, of which we did not immediately avail our- selves — for we both had frozen ears and noses — and they pushed the teakettle nearer the glowing coals ; but no one uttered a sound, though they eyed me with ill-con- cealed curiosity. By-and-by, when we had thawed out, John and I drank tea and ate a slice of bacon from our scanty stock, and then I signed him to get fish for the dogs ; but much talking was followed only by sullen si- lence, and no fish were forthcoming. Fish we must have. As I sat pondering over the situation I discovered a fiddle hanging against the wall, and thought an excellent opi)or- tunity offered of trying the power of music to soothe the savage breast, so I handed the instrument to John, whom I had heard play at La Biche, and what with his fiddling and my distribution of tobacco, it was not very long be- fore we had the Indians jabbering again, and two days' fish for the dogs. The wind was still howling and the snow falling when we started on an hour later, against the protestations of the Indians, who wanted us and our tea and tohu :o to remain overnight; but our supplies were too low . '."-ar- rant their consumption in idleness, and we liid pi. ,tp other eight or nine miles behind us before we v\\dc ;i wretched camp in the muskeg, with scarcely noorl enough to make a fire, and not a level spot to throvs ncwn our blankets. It cleared up during the night, and when we broke camp the next morning at four the moon shone as serenely as though it had not yielded to a greater and fiercer power the night before. Before daybreak the trail ran into some rather open woods, through which the moon's soft light played with wondrously fantastic effect, and when the first streaks of yellow in the northeast her- alded the rising of the sun, we had left the shadow of the c 7° ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS trees and were travelling in the muskeg. I shall always remember that morning as giving me the most beautiful picture I ever beheld in Nature's album : the sun coming up on my right, the moon going down on my left — one bursting forth in all his golden splendor, while the other slowly withdrew her silvery light. And between and far below the two heavenly rivals plodded John and the dogs and I, footsore and hungry, but appreciative. I was destined to be brought to earth very suddenly and somewhat ingloriously, for the sun had but just dispelled the gray gloom of early morning, and I was clipping along at a merry gait across the deadly muskeg, with a large lake in sight, and John and the dogs not far behind, when down I tumbled in a heap with a sprained ankle. Sitting in the snow chafing my ankle was not going to bring us food nor get me to the Barren Grounds, so I wound moose-skin tightly about the injured part, and took my place again before the dogs. At first 1 could not stand without the aid of a stout stick, and wc made headway so slowly that after a few miles I threw away my crutch, and in a deter- mination to try the power of mind over matter limped on. I should not advise Christian scientists to put their fa'th to such a test ; no convert was ever more open to conviction than I — spirit willing, mind receptive, but the flesh so mortally weak that every time 1 put down my left foot it gave way to the knee. And so, faith failing, I vowed to get on in the only way remaining. After a while the pain grew duller, and, ni)' leg giving under me, I dis- covered the tight binding and the cold had frozen the flesh. As I could not navigate without the support of the moose-skiP binding, and a frozen ankle, though less pain- ful, held iTje up not so well as a twisted one, 1 was there- after occupied quite as much in keeping that ankle alive m all its painn.il sensitiveness as I was in keeping it going at E'-^!i ULIND LEADING THE HLIN'I) 71 all. We held our way, however, and the lake I had sighted proved to be Big White Fish, where I traded some tobacco for fish for the dogs, but could get none to eke out the lit- tle bacon now left us. Here I had my first view of the manner in which these fish are hung upon stagings — first to dry, subsequently to .'uMBWi^tfUMl^^ ''*^^?"'^ (1 nRVINr. FISH — THK s. vl'I.F. KOOI) OK MAN AND DOG freeze, and ever to be beyond the reach of the always half- starved dogs. There are other stagings, combining larder and storehouse for the Indian, and more necessarj' than his lodge, where he puts his meal, fresh pelts, snow-shoes, and sledges. Snow-shoes and sledges do not sound pala- table, but the caribou-skin lacings of the former nnd moose wrapper and lines of the latter make quite a succulent dish, as meals go in this land of feast or famine. Every Indian cabin or lodge has its staging, and all things eata- ble are hung upon it for safety. And it is heie the dogs do congregate to \oice their hunger in mournful howling, 72 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS i and vent their frenzied disappointment in furious fighting. Indian dogs spend most of their time fighting ; when it is not one another, it is against death by starvation. If I failed of increasing our supplies at this settlement, I did get a map, which at least aimed to show me the way to plenty. It was a puzzling creation, that map, which one of the Indians drew in my note-book to give us some idea of the direction of the trail across the six lakes that I.iy between us and the next Indian camp on White Fish Jake. Once at White Fish Lake, and we had but fifteen in;:os to John MacDonald's, on Big Jack Fish Lake, the ?'i , 'lurray fishery, and home of one of the best-known 1 »j 'gcitrs in the country. But Big Jack Fish Lake was tv o days' travel away, and meanwhile my ankle made life iitoierable, and the map proved move maddening than the fifteen puzzle. We made only seven miles the afternoon of the day I sprained my ankle ; we had covered twenty up to noon ; but after my rest I could barely move along, and besides we were continually falling foul of trails, which appeared coming from everywhere and went no- where. All this and the following day we travelled over muskeg, particularly severe on me now, with an ankle so tender, and really only one foot with which to feel the road. But, after all, the muskeg was kinder to us than the lakes, for when we reached these we invariably lost the trail, to find and as speedily lose it again, while it was ab- solutely impossible to j".dge from its direction where it eventually left the lake. Indians never by any chance travel straight. Thougiiout the (about) 900 miles of trail I followed from Edmonton to Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, there is but the single exception of the Slave Lake portage ; for the rest, it looks as though the original traveller had sat up all night at Edinonton with a "side friend " and a barrel, and then started to walk home. At « lU.IND LEADING THE BLIND 73 best its windings are hard to follow, but when one ma}- advance only by feeling, its difficulties become tenfold, and yet it is remarkable how skilled one becomes in this method of procedure. I grew sufficiently expert after a time, and when there was good bottom to the trail, to fol- low it running, about a five -mile -per -hour gait, though there was literally no indication on the snow's surface of a trail beneath. Added to the misery of bodily ailment, the map dis- tracted me by its deceptions. The lengths of lines drawn by the Indian to represent the portages between the lakes gave no indication of the comparative distances. The first " line " was short, and we covered it in a couple of hours; the next one was about the same length, but we were half a day crossing the country between the two lakes it joined ; the third line was fully four times as long as the longer of the other two, yet we were only half an hour going from end to end of it. And every little while, when a lost or blind trail dis- mayed us, and we cast about to find our true course, we looked at each other, John and I, and pitied one another for living. We could not exchange ideas; we could not have the poor comfort of debating the situation ; wc could only make a few imperfect signs, which expressed little to the point, and seemed frivolous in the face of a situation so desperate. Once our leading dog, who is al- ways called a foregoer, found the trail on the lake, and showed remarkable sagacity, which, by-the-way, we trusted to our sorrow later. This time, however, he came to our rescue when we were utterly lost ; he ceased following the imaginary trail I was hobbling along, and, after a few casts, settled to a steady gait in another direction. J'>hn also thought he had a trail, which he endeavored to per- suade the dogs into following, but the foregoer held his c 3 ft 74 ON SNOW- SHOES TO THK BARKEN GROUNDS \ l| way, and when we investigated we found he had really the only trail of the three. The snow was deeper on this part of our route, which made the walking yet harder ; but by one way or another we finally crossed the six lakes shown on the Indian's map, and came to White Fish Lake. Here we managed to get just a meal of fish for the dogs, but none for ourselves, to which, however, we had become accustomed. We rested two hours, while I bathed my feet, much to the wonderment of the natives, to whom it seemed an unaccountable waste of energy, and rubbed my ankle with some of the mustang liniment I had fetched along from La Bichc. There were but fourteen miles between us and John MacDonald's cabin, on Big Jack Fish Lake, when we set out again at two o'clock; and the prospect of talking again, and having a roof over my head, nerved me to faster pace. I was des- tined to see neither MacDonald nor his house that night. Some Indians had recently travelled between the two lakes, so there was a faint trail, which we followed at so good a gait it was not dark when we came to where the road led out on to Big Jack Fish Lake. But by this time a fierce storm had set in, with snow which completely shut off our view twenty feet distant, and wind that swept away the last semblance of a trail. I tried to feel out the road, then John tried, and then we gave the foregoer his head ; and, sure enough, he went oh at a rate which con- vinced us he must have found something. And so he had ; but we were not seeking the road he found. We travelled about ten miles to get that knowledge. There is a point which makes out from the north shore of the lake and divider it into two large bays. MacDon- ald's cabin is on the A/ostern bay. I supposed John knew it was. We had hcid an animated though not entirely successful conversation at White Fish, which I intended ll:l»^' 11 m ii'ii ''■I 'ii! ■.^ll>:: slio Th< "It Bui " fl aft( I SI que ace anc anc at 1 J Fis I we can bio by cab Jol we< anc ent wit see I bet hac but my wei ap bac BLIND LEADING THE lU.IiND should ';xpress my wish that he learn the distance, etc. The Cree for "How far is it?" is " IVah-hc-d-c/w" \ for " It is far," you drop only the '' c/u\" and say " \Vah-/u-o." Hut I was not then so learned. So I had asked John, " \Vali-lic-6-chc — MacDonald's?" and John had replied — after some discussion with the other Indians — " Wah-hc-oy I supposed him correcting me, and as this particular Crec query was my piece de n'sistaiue, ''\\'nh-/ie-o-e/u'" — with an accent on the"r//i'" — again resounded in the ciiilly air. and again he retorted, " Wah-he-d." Then we iva/i-Z/r-o-che'd and ivah-he-d' d xxniW each subsided in silence ai 'isgust at the other's stupidity. And so we travelled down the eastern bay of liig Jack Fish Lake. It got dark by the time we were well out on the lake ; we could not have seen our way in broad daylight, be- cause the snow was thickly falling and the wind savagely blowing as we trustingly followed our foregoer. By-and- by I decided we must be going wrong, for I thought the cabin could not be so far off as we had come, and I got John and the dogs turned about to go back and into the western bay. The storm was now squarely in our teeth, and the dogs would not face it. They kept turning and entangling themselves in the harness, while we were faint with hunger and benumbed with cold, and my ankle seemed bursting with pain. I made the nearest approach I could in the storm to a bee-line for the point, and then followed it around. I had not the remotest idea where MacDonald's house was. but I knew I should have to find it in the morning to get my bearings; so after we had gone about as far down the western bay as we had into the eastern, we camped under a pine-tree, where wood was plentiful, and ate a piece of bacon each and drank a cup of tea, after a hard day's c ^, A^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 IM 12.5 i 1^ 2.2 1.1 i 2.0 J& ||I.25||U||,.6 ^ 6" ► s. ^ ■<^# Photographic Sciences Corporation 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MSBO (716) 873-4S03 #>• f/. i9 1 1 "if! I i 78 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS i r tramp — which my pedometer registered as forty - four miles. Our dogs ate the last of their fish, John and I were on half-allowance of the poor rations we had, we were lost, and it did not seem as if my ankle would per- mit me to walk another step. The world was not very bright when we camped. As we sat silently drinking our tea we heard something approaching, and instantly alert, with that protective and hunter's instinct which comes to the traveller of the wilds, listened intently, until we discovered the swishing, grating of a snow-shoe heel. It was Kipling, a famous Soto Ind- ian runner, who had come to invite me to MacDonald's cabin, where, but a mile beyond, they had seen our camp- fire. James Spencer, the Hudson's Bay Company oflficer in charge of McMurray, had brought thus far on its jour- ney the one winter packet that reaches the railroad from this isolated wilderness, and was returning the next morn- ing early. Here was good news indeed, and good luck — the first of my trip. But John had stuck by me, and I would not leave him on the conclusion of so hard a day ; therefore I sent my grateful thanks to Spencer, saying I should be on hand the following morning. And so the clouds rolled away, and the worry within and the storm without ceased as I lay down to sleep that night. It was a very lively scene at MacDonald's next morning, and a most interesting one to me ; for the packet was starting on its last stage, and as to carry it is one of the few honors in the country, the dogs were handsomer and more gayly harnessed than any I had seen. It was only seventy miles to McMurray, but the two days we consumed in getting there were most trying, and I shall never forget the ten-mile crossing of Swan Lake the first morning. We camped for dinner midway, on an island, but it seemed as though I should never I! " ' ' 4 I n 'I', r, n X i i c /■ BLIND LEADING THE BLIND 8l reach it ; and a mirage added confusion by placing it now near by and then far away, and all the time the hard ice made running particularly torturing to my ankle. The tea was made by the time I finally put my foot on that island. It was exceedingly hard going for men and dogs all the way to McMurray, for the trail led down Clear Water River, on which the supplies in early days were brought into the country, and the snow was deep. We were all worn, and I was thankful indeed when the light of Spencer's cabin pierced the darkness and I knew I had put 240 miles of my long journey behind me. How I relished a good wash and a satisfying meal I shall not attempt to say ; few of my readers have gone with- out either or both, and could not appreciate my feelings. Nor could I adequately express my gratitude to Spencer and his wife for their unceasing kindness. I spent one day at McMurray, which is located at the junction of the Clear Water and Athabasca rivers, doctoring my ankle and awaiting fresh dogs and guides ; for here John and his dogs, after a rest, turned back. If Spencer had been of Gairdner's sort I should have been delayed again, for none of the Indians took kindly to the trip on to Chipe- wyan, the next post. Those that had promised backed out, and finally Spencer turned over to me the train which had brought the packet from Chipewyan to Mc- Murray. There were four good strong dogs; Frangois, a French half-breed, one of the best dog-drivers and runners in the land ; and " Old " Jacob, a Soto Indian, to break trail, who as young Jacob was famous for strength and speed, and even now could beat all but the very best on snow-shoes. Both could talk and understand enough Eng- lish to make some sort of conversation possible, and both knew the road, so that the clouds revealed only their silver lining as we started out from McMurray. 6 HI HI III <'l ■h ': II w 'm^ 82 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS i,l . 1 I I was not seeking trouble, but it came just the same. I had never worn moccasins until I left La Biche. I had never used the web snow-shoe until I left McMurray, and therefore the second day out my feet were so blistered and lacerated by the lacings that blood dyed my duffel, and walking was agony. Hitherto I had been counting my progress by days ; now I reckoned by the fires, of which we made three daily, when we drank tea and my misery enjoyed a brief respite. It was cold, bitterly cold, and the wind swept up the Athabasca River, down which we travelled, apparently coming directly from the north pole. But neither wind nor painful travelling nor hunger, which we experienced the last two days, delayed us, and when we finally reached the shores of Lake Athabasca, and viewed the Hudson's Bay Company fortlike post four miles away, it was like a sight of the promised land. I had been twenty days on the road, and come about 580 miles from the railroad, so that, what with lacerated feet, twisted ankle, and fatigue, I was pretty well u?ed up when I passed through the gateway of Fort Chipewyan. :!i I ft VIII THE NORTHLAND INDIAN AS HE IS Chipewyan has many claims to distinction. Built sub- stantially upon one of the numerous rocky points which break the one hundred and fifty miles of Athabasca Lake's north-shore line, it is the most picturesquely situ- ated and most populous oasis in this silent white country. It is headquarters of one of the four districts into which this vast fur-bearing land of one million square miles is di- vided by the Hudson's Bay Company ; the chief forward- ing-point for the merchandise which the company sends in for trade, and the fur the Indians send out as pay; a general distributing post-office of the four yearly mails which reach this land.-where man is but a mere track upon the snow, and not above one hundred of the roughly ap- proximated ten thousand read English writing. It is the most important Northland mission of the Roman Catho- lic Oblates Fathers, and it is practically the northern boundary of the Cree and the southern boundary of the Montagnaise Indian family, which in its various b»-anches spreads towards the Arctic Ocean. Nothing commanded my earnest attention more com- pletely than this mission of the Oblates Fathers, with its bishop, three brothers, six nuns, forty school-children, and a saw-mill. Here, hundreds of miles from skilled labor, they have whipped out the planks for their church, in- vented a written language, somewhat after the Egyptian 1 15 86 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS in character, taught it with slight modifications to both Chipewyan and Cree, printed and bound the Testaments and the Bible for distribution, and gone out into the woods to hunt their meat, and to sufifer from cold, perhaps Caiibou-Eatei Yellow-Knife Caribou-Eater TYPES OF NORTHLAND INDIANS From a Photograph by Mr. Whitney to starve, along with the Indians to whom they would preach the Word of God. I care not whether one's form of belief be for or against the doctrine preached by these men, one must be petty indeed who cannot rise above religious prejudices and respect these workers, that, east and west, north and south, have gone far in advance of the pioneer, far beyond the plaudits of civilization, to carry their faith into the very heart of the wilderness. I am sure Dr. W. M. Mackay, the Hudson Bay Com- pany officer in charge, and his right and left bowers, " Ned " Camsell and " Sam " Emerson, would consider that I had ¥' THE NORTHLAND INDIAN AS HE IS 87 slighted Chipewyan if I failed to record the further emi- nence it enjoys in having two streets. I was never able, unaided, to discover more than the one which separates the post's dozen log cabins from the lake, but that may have been due to the deflection of my compass needle. At all events, after McMurray, with its four cabins, it seemed metropolitan, though of its "census" of four hun- dred men, women, and children only a small percentage is in actual residence. This is equally true of all the posts. The real dwellers within the settlements are a compara- tive handful, comprising chiefly the mission people, the company servants, and a few " freemen," as those who have served their five years' enlistment and set up a little independency of labor are called. Those that live within the company's gates are chiefly half-breeds. In summer they catch and dry the fish which forms the chief article of food for men and dogs, or work on the company flatboats ; and in winter they spend the short days in "tripping," and the long nights in smoking and talking about their dogs, or in dancing and sleeping. They have no other di- versions ; no in-door games, no out-door sports. Dancing and sleeping are the beginning and ending of their recreation, and I would not venture an opinion as to the more popular; certainly they have an abnormal capacity for either. This applies to the men. Life is a more serious affair for the women. They too sleep and dance and smoke, but their sleeping comes as a well-earned respite after the day's toil ; their dancing has the outward appearance of a sacrifice, to which they are silently resigned, and smoking is an accompaniment to work rather than a diversion in man's shoe, Canadian Snow-Shoe Club, 3>i feet long HI "I I m 88 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS li' II fII ill ■ ''Si V ■ '1! I '•"iil itself. The woman is the country drudge. Her work is never finished. She chops the firewood, dries the fish and meat, snares rabbits, and carries her catch into the post on her back ; scrapes and tans the moose and caribou hides, from the latter of which she afterwards makes da- bichc (Northland string) by cutting it into strips an eighth of an inch wide ; laces the snow-shoes, makes and embroiders with beads the mittens, moccasins, and leg- gings ; yields the lion's share of the scanty larder to her husband when he is at home luxuriating in smoke and sleep, and, when he is away, gives her children her tiny prct (allowance) of fish and goes hungry without a murmur. This is the wpman of the post. She of the woods, the full-blooded squaw, and there are few Indians that ever take up a permanent abode in the settlement, does all this and more. In addition to chopping the firewood, she seeks and hauls it ; not only dries, but catches the fish ; goes after and quarters and brings in the game her master has killed ; breaks camp, and pitches it again where the husband, who has gone on ahead with no load but his gun and no thought except for the hunt, and whose trail she has followed, indicates by sticking up brush in the snow. When there is plenty she makes her meal on that which her lord leaves, and when there is little she starves, along with her children and the dogs. When in her periodical state she dare not cross the snow-shoe tracks of the men, nor even follow in their steps. She must make her own path. And when she gives birth to her child it is in a lodge by herself, unattended and apart from the others. If at the time she is with a travel- ling band she steps aside to pitch her lodge, and next morning mayhap, with the new-born babe added to her other burdens, she goes on after the Indians that have not tarried. or si( ar lei di w he ca nt fa nc hi gr ot m er ar Pt w] ot gr In Bi ha fai m th cu nc THE NORTHLAND INDIAN AS HE IS 91 The Indian is the sybarite of the Northland, and the only genuine socialist on earth. He holds all the posses- sions of his country equally with his tribe, feasts and fasts and sorrows and rejoices in common, and roams where his legs carry and his gun provides. When there is abun- dance he smokes his pipe in happy indolence, and his wife does the work; when there is no meat for the kettle he shoulders his gun and goes out into the woods, leaving care and hunger at home with the squaw. But he does not invariably escape hunger. It is ever a feast or a famine with him, and it might always be a feast were he not so improvident and lazy. Clothing and food are at his very door. In the rivers and lakes there is fish in great quantity and variety ; along their banks, fisher, otter, mink, beaver, and muskrat ; and in the forests, moose, caribou, bear, lynx, fox, wolf, wolverene, marten, ermine, and rabbits — to say nothing of the early spring and autumn migrations of ducks and geese, the packs of ptarmigan, which in their changing plumage of brown and white are to be seen summer and winter, and the several other species of the grouse family that may be found the greater part of the year. There is no occasion for an Indian to starve in this country, if he keeps out of the Barren Grounds ; but hunting demands skill, of which he has less than any other red man I ever knew, and a never- failing cache presupposes foresight, of which he has none — so that, in truth, he fasts more often than he feasts. Snow-shoe running, packing, and canoeing are the three most resourceful fields of the Indian story-teller ; and of the three, running affords him greatest scope for his pe- culiar imagination. The Indian of the Northland is neither an ingenious nor a picturesque Munchausen. He is just a plain liar, who seems not even to count on the credulity of his !1 92 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS hearer for acceptance of his tales. He lies by choice rather than from necessity, and should the necessity occur he makes a virtue of his lying. Nor is he abashed if dis- covered. Really I believe he views every plain statement as a lost opportunity. Every camp-fire, every meeting at the post, invariably becomes an excuse for the discussion THE NORTHLAND SHOEMAKiiR Ir' of dogs and the recital of astonishing feats of snow-shoe running. The fact that no one of the assemblage ever did or ever could perform the extraordinary feats re- counted does not detract a particle from the quality of the story or its enjoyment by the listeners. It's a case of the man with the last story having the best of it. Still, with all his vainglorious talk, the Indian is an unhesitat- ing admirer of real prowess, and good runners are indeed K»' :«lil THE NORTHLAND INDIAN AS HE IS 93 plentiful in this country, where shanks' mare is the only mount. To be a good dog-driver and to run forty miles a day is to be a great man in this land of vast distances. There are instances where men have gone farther, but in most cases the going has been exceptional, or the "day" stretched far into the night. In my effort to obtain au- thenticated information on big runs I found the " day " most elastic, extending, in fact, the full twenty-four hours, from midnight to midnight, and the "running" of the man to include riding on the sledge now and then when the going was extra good. The best day of actual run- ning I was able to corroborate was sixty miles, done be- tween 6 A.M. and 5.30 P.M. by Alexander Linkletter, an English -Cree half-breed now at Chipewyan, who made two fires en route. Another half-breed covered eighty miles between midnight and nine o'clock of the next night, and an Indian went seventy miles between 3 a.m. and 8 p.m., but these are notable chiefly because of the dogs' endurance, for both men rode most of the distance, and neither approaches the performance of Linkletter, who ran ev^ery foot of the way. The condition of the going makes so great a difference in travelling that thirty miles on one occasion might eas- ily be a more notable performance than fifty miles on another. Taking the average conditions of tripping, from twenty-five to thirty miles is considered a fair day, thirty- five miles a good day, and forty a big day's work. The voyagenr considers he is travelling well if he makes two Ires during the day, at which he drinks tea, and sleeps Jiirty or thirty-five miles nearer his destination every night. Spring is popularly spoken of as the time when " the days are long and the dogs go well," and you travel longer and farther each day. But as a matter of fact the m c 94 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS season has little to do with the length of time spent on the road if you are making a long journey and time is an object. Indeed, to me the days always seemed long enough, and the dogs to go well enough. In winter you start at three, make your first fire at seven, start again at eight, which is just about daybreak, having a second fire at eleven, and camp at three, which gives about an hour before dark to cut a supply of firewood. In spring it is daylight long before you start at six, and long after you camp at eight ; in fact, in May I wrote in my note-book frequently at ten, and it was not really dark at midnight. In midsummer there is no night, and in midwinter the short days are of slight significance to the tripper, be- cause the moon equalizes matters by shining full throughout the period in which the sun shines least. I have said that Chipewyan is the practical dividing- point between two great Indian families, but the traveller who did not hear their speech, which is altogether dissimi- lar in intonation and word, would not appreciate it. There is no very noticeable outward distinction between the Cree and the Chipewyan Indian, except possibly the face of the latter is broader. Otherwise they have about the same physical characteristics — high cheek-bones, large mouth, African nose, dirty yellowish -ochre complexion, coarse, straight black hair, and sparse mustache seen occa- sionally. They are never corpulent, and never clean. Ethically there is no choice between them : their capacity and prejudice for lying are equal, and one is as untrust- SQUAW LEGGING THE NORTHLAND INDIAN AS HE IS 95 worthy as the other. Generally speaking, neither the men nor the women are good to look upon ; but of course there are exceptions to every rule, and I think the exceptions in this case are more often Cree. The half-breeds are gener- ally more agreeable to the eye ; some of the women are even good-looking; and one of them, a daughter of Mi- chael Manderville, the interpreter at Great Slave Lake, has excellent features, a sweet expression, and is quite the belle of the north country, though the wives of Spencer and of Chipewyan Frangois press her viery closely for the honor. As to philological differences, they are too intricate to understand without long study, and too many for exploita- tion here. It will answer our purpose to know that the Cree nation is one of the largest of the Lenni-Lennappe family, itself the most widely distributed of the three great divisions — Floridean, Iroquois, and Lenni-Lennappe. ^•1 c PAPPOOSE IN ITS MOSS BAG The Cree is really a plains Indian, and as such superior to the few of the family in the Northland who are called Wood Cree. The Ten^, or Montagnaise, is the great nation which spreads between the Rocky Mountains and Hudson's Il i 96 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS I;:, 'm'% Bay, and extends in its various tribes and dialects down to the arctic. Of these tribes the chief are Chipewyan, Yellow- Knives, Dog-Ribs, Slaveys, Hare, Caribou - Eaters, whose language has mere dialectic differences. Then there are the Loucheux, on the Mackenzie River, which have a more distinct tongue, sharper features, almond-shaped eyes, and are the most intelligent and thrifty Indians in the country ; and the Eskimo, that never hunt more than a hundred miles south of the arctic coast, have their own variation of the Eskimo speech, and, notably enough, av- erage of greater stature than is commonly believed of this people. Missionaries have now reached all these tribes from the different Hudson's Bay Company posts, and their labors have been rewarded by the outward acceptance of their doctrines by a large number of the Indians that come into the forts to trade. The French half-breeds, and certainly seventy-five percent, of the converted Indians, have adopt- ed the Roman Catholic faith ; the remainder have been won over to the Protestants. The most tangible evidences of church influence thus far seen are in the very general disappearance of the medicine-man and the suppression of polygamy and incest. So far as I could learn, the Indians never had any defined worship. Their religion was and is one of fear. They are ever propitiating the bad spirits, the demons of their dreams, and the imaginary " enemy" of the woods. I have seen burned leggings, worn-out moccasins, and broken snow-shoes hung up as peace sacri- fices to change bad luck in hunting or a head-wind in trip- ping, and I never failed to note the predominant avarice stronger than the superstition, as revealed by the wo.thless character of the offerings. They lean to an inferior species of '* totemism," although no religious ceremony was ever attached to its acceptance. Any animal or bird dreamed l! i I THE NORTHLAND INDIAN AS HE IS 97 of used to be, and is yet in a minor degree, taken as the dreamer's totem. The medicine -man has gone, but has left the old superstitions and the pronounced fatalism, which the missionaries have not succeeded in destroying. They conform to the ceremonies of religion, but little of true Christianity has been developed. It has been a c THE BELLE OF THE NORTH COUNTRY change of method rather than of heart. Formerly female babies were killed on birth ; now they live to become beasts of burden. Parents used to be strangled when they grew too old to seek a living ; now they are left to slowly starve to death. In days gone by men openly ex- changed wives for a shorter or longer period ; now the 7 H'' iV 98 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS »f^'- number of virtuous girls is very small, and wise indeed is the son who knows his father in this vale of unconvention- ality. The dead used to be swung in trees or hung from four posts, where the wind rocked them in their eternal sleep; now they are buried in shallow graves, and the wolverene guards them by day and feeds on them by night. Priests have not yet taught the Indians the Golden Rule, nor implanted respect for virginity. Chastity is re- garded as a virtue to be honored in the breach rather than in the observance, and fidelity seems by no means essen- tial to the happiness of wedded life. The birth of "such a little one" to the unmarried girl is no barrier to her marital prospects, and wifely faithless- ness never leads to any passage at arms more serious than a little hair pulling. Nor are the dispositions of these people amatory. The men are impelled by that instinct of conquest which rules in the male the world over, and makes of him an iconoclastic and a selfish brute. The women, in their low plane of semi - civilization, know nothing of nature's or cupid's mating, and yields from love of gain rather than from warmth of constitu- tion. These people have not ventured far into civilization. Take from the Indian his copper kettle, steel knife, and .30-bore muzzle-loading gun, in which he uses ball in winter and shot in summer, and give him his bow, his birch-bark "rogan," moose-bone, beaver-tooth, and flint- stone knives, and he is just about where he was when the Hudson's Bay Company brought the trinkets of the great world to him. Agricultural knowledge is of no use to him, because his country is not susceptible of cultivation, except in a few rare and isolated spots. And there are THE NORTHLAND INDIAN AS HE IS 99 no native industries of any description, no weaving of blankets, no making of jewelry or pottery, absolutely noth- ing beyond some indifferent beading and porcupine-quill work, which is done by several other tribes, and most notably by the Navajos in New Mexico. As for sentiment, they have none beyond that torpo- rific bliss caused by a full stomach. Yes, they have one other — fear. They are abject cowards. In an earlier chap- ter I spoke of a gift of moccasins conveying indication of a tender sentiment ; but that sentiment is relative. The men marry to have some one to make moc- casins for them, and the women marry be- cause, poor things, they have little choice in the matter, and that little probably sug- gests it is better to be the servant of one man than the drudge of a family. There are no playful displays of maternal affec- tion. I think I saw just one instance of the kind on my trip ; and, on the other hand, I saw one young mother take her crying and moss-bag-enveloped baby out of the lodge and stand it up in the snow to weep itself into exhaustion ! There are no gentle words to convey the tender solicitudes of courtship, no terms of or- dinary politeness : only in the Loucheux tongue can thanks be expressed. The exposure to which they are subjected in their wanderings, and the withering of the famines and gluttony of the feasts, combine to breakdown health and shorten life. And the greatest blessing they enjoy probably is that they die comparatively young, and go, wherever it may be, to a place which they make sure cannot be more barren of comfort or pleasure. ANCIENT KNIFE WITH BEAVER- TOOTH BLADE c 1/ l! 1^ m mi Mm IX DOGS AND SLEDGES The dogs share equally the good-luck or misfortune of their masters. The Indian is more regardful of his dogs than of his women, for dogs are less numerous than squaws, and more necessary to his support. The driver lashes them mercilessly with his whip and beats them brutally with clubs, but he never fails to include their rations in his sledge-load, nor to divide his last fish for their benefit. It is not goodness of heart that stirs his consideration, but fear for his own safety and the loss of an indispensa- ble draught animal. Without his dogs he would be com- pelled to pack on his back what he now packs in the sledge, to drag his game out of the woods, and carry his furs to the post, while the loss of dogs en route might mean for him delay, starvation — possibly death. In the great civilized world the dog has been called man's best friend ; in this limitless stretch of snow and desolation and need he may be declared man's only friend ; in the grand pays he has earned the trust without the test ; here in this lone land he is being continuously tried, and never found wanting. He has no pedigree, and he may be of any color, but his usual appearance is that of a fairly long-headed, sharp-nosed mongrel, well tucked up behind, with big feet, and a coat of hair equal to that of a cub. To call these dogs " huskies " is an error common to nearly every one who has had anything to say on the subject. DOGS AND SLEDGES lOl The word " husky " is Northland slang for Eskimo, and is generally applied to that arctic denizen himself, as well as to everything belonging to him. Their dogs (hitched abreast instead of in single file) are properly called huskies, and thus it has come about that all dogs used to drag a sledge are igncrantly so called. The genuine husky is a distinct species, larger, more powerful, and faster, and is not easily to be had, since the Eskimos, like the Indians, are somewhat indifferent to their breeding, and good dogs are highly prized. Moreover, there is no communication between the Eskimos and the more southern Indians, so that a genuine husky is a rara avis below the arctic coast. The Indians say their dogs are descended from the wolf, and certainly appearances do not belie them. Names are more plentiful than dogs, and the most commonly heard are Castor, Cabry, Soldat, Caesar, Cabrel, Coffee, Milord, the popular ones being those of two syllables, with an R that may be rolled out to the whip's accompaniment. Nearly every post has a Bull and a Whiskey — only the name of that civilized stimulant can be found in all this land, though occasional hilarity is developed by some poor stuff made from sugar, and called beer. Whiskey was invariably the most forlorn-looking dog in the pack, while the laziest brutes I encountered were Bulls. One would suppose that in a country literally depend- ent on dogs for winter transportation, quantity and at least some degree of quality would be kept up. And yet such is not the case. Not only is quality wanting, but the quantity is limited. The Hudson Bay Company, strangely enough, seems to have made no effort to im- prove or even establish a breed, and at their more impor- tant posts rarely maintain more than one train, and never more than two. Throughout the length of my trip I saw just seven trains of dogs that could be called first class — f^ V ■ ■■ ' c 102 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS M li|i!;^ m ■■' fs Spencer'satMcMurray; two belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company at Chipewyan ; McKinley's, the Hudson's Bay Company officer at Fort Smith ; Gaudet's, the company's ofificer at Resolution ; the Roman Catholic mission's train at the same post ; and that of Beniah, the Indian leader with whom I went into the Barren Grounds. Spencer and McKinley probably have the best two trains in the country, which they have bred from separate bitches that had some Newfoundland blood in them, and were the only dogs I saw that would come to harness on call. Beyond the " foregoer," upon whom the meanings of ma-a-r-r-che (start), e-2in (right), ja (left), and ivhoa are impressed by a club, and the steer-dog — as the one at, say, the wheel, to make it comprehensible, is called — there is no training. The foregoer follows the trail and sets the pace. The steer-dog keeps the sledge upon a slanting track, and guides it through trees and rocks. He must be strong, and is the most important of the four in rough country. As for competent drivers, they are even scarcer than good dogs, but the few are exceedingly skilful ; and of these, Spencer, McKinley, Gaudet, Fran- cois and his brother William at Chipewyan, Michael, the interpreter at Resolution, and the Catholic " brother," whose name I never knew, at Resolution, are easily the best. The difference between a good and a bad driver is that the former knows how and when to handle his sledge to ease the dogs, keeps them all up to their work, and does not " force " (urge) them at improper times. The bad driver spends his energy in throwing clubs at the foregoer and lashing the steer-dog, chiefly because the latter is within easy reach. He permits the sledge to slide hither and thither, to the exceeding wear and tear of the steer-dog. Now and then he stops the train and lashes the dogs all round, and at all times he is forcing 2 r. cr r S c tl IT is w 1> T si v; SI bi tr w at tc m ai si. Ir of er HI P€ »g th he it, Al no ck vi) of be I'l DOGS AND SLEDGES I OS them. Only trains made up of exceptional dogs last more than a couple of seasons, and once their usefulness is passed the poor brutes are turned loose to seek a living where those for whom food is provided are more frequent- ly hungry than satisfied. Their vagrancy is usually short-lived — death by star- vation or freezing comes speedily to their relief. The farther north, the better the dogs and morr-. gaudy their harness and trappings. They are al- ways savage and suspicious and noisy, but to the south, towards La Biche, they are miserable in body as well, and are hitched to the sledge with harness purely Indian, and utterly devoid of adornment. Curiously enough, the Indian, who likes to decorate his own person, as a rule utterly ignores that of his dog, though he may paint the moose-skin which covers the head of his sledge, or hang tufts of hair or yarn upon it, as he does sometimes on the toes of his snow-shoes. All harness is made of moose-skin, but at Chipewyan and north it is better fashioned, and there are, besides, loin- cloths, called tapis, covered with bell and embroidery, and vivid pompons stuck into the collars, and floating ribbons of many contrasting colors. Add to this a driver in beaded moccasins, leggings, and mittens, with a L Assiimp- HANU-WARMERS OF THE NORTH ft H '. ■I x'i hn I06 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS tion sash about his waist, a caribou-skin capote on his back, and a fancifully ornamented and betasselled " Tom- my Atkins " cap on his head, and the Northland express is complete and at its best. Indeed, there is no combina- tion more sprightly than a dog brigade, with its brilliant and many-hued tapis, its nodding pompons and streaming ribbons, and its picturesquely costumed driver. There is no sensation more exhilarating than running with the dogs on snow-shoes and a good track, to the jingling of the bells; when storm obscures the pompons, and wind drowns the jingle, and there is nothing in the sledge to eat, the sensation is not so enlivening. These dogs are certainly notable travellers, from the best fed down to the puniest of the Indian species, which are contemptuously called giddds by the half-breeds, and are not a great deal larger than a big fox. They draw a heavier load, at a faster pace, on less food, and for a greater length of time than one would believe without seeing. The usual number to a train is four, and tandem is the mode of hitching them to the sledge, which is about seven feet long by fourteen inches wide, and made of either two or three birch slats held together by cross-bars, and turned over at the head like a toboggan. These four dogs will haul four hundred pounds on a fair track from twenty-five to thirty-five miles a day. In the woods where the snow is deep and the trail must be broken the day's trip will be fifteen to twenty miles. On a good lake or river track, drawing a cariole (a passenger sledge), they will go forty to fifty miles a day, and keep it up several days, and this on two white-fish weighing about three pounds apiece, and given to each dog at night. I saw Gaudet's train bring into Resolution five hundred pounds of cari- bou meat, which remained after supplying two men and four dogs during a four- day trip on Great Slave Lake. DOGS AND SLEDGES 107 Some great stories are told of the loads drawn by the Mackenzie River dogs, whose tails are docked short, to give a more workman-like appearance, and keep the meek and lowly from advertising their shrinking nature and spoil- ing the appearance of the train by sticking the offending ap- pendage between their legs. It is said that eight or nine hundred and even a thousand pounds are commonly hauled in the Mackenzie district by four dogs. But I am inclined to class these stories with those I heard concerning the wonderful strength of the old-time packers. When I was going in on snow-shoes marvellous tales were related for my benefit of men who had carried five and six hundred pounds, and of one particular giant who had loaded him- self with seven hundred pounds, and had written his name on the wall with three hundred pounds' weight tied to his wrist! When I was coming out on the Hudson's Bay Company flatboat I discovered no Indian or half-breed who packed more than two hundred pounds on his back, while the name-writing Hercules had left no successor. m FROM CHIPEWYAN TO FORT SMITH It must not be supposed that my researches at Chipe- wyan taught me all this, or that all I have said applies to the country immediately about that post. But while I am figuratively resting my ankle under Dr. Macl^ay's roof I have told something of the people and the country into which I am pushing. I rested only one day at Chipewyan, and with the exception of a most interesting visit to the Roman Catholic mission, in charge of Bishop Grouard (who is pursuing the only practical course of Indian civili- zation by beginning with the children), I spent my time getting my feet and ankle in condition for the onward journey, and in talking with the Doctor, who is one of the real and prominent " old-timers." Two others are J. S. Camsell,the Hudson's Bay Company officer at Fort Simp- son, on the Mackenzie, one of the most popular factors and hardiest voyagcnrs in the country, and C. P. Gaudet, in charge of Fort Good Hope, on the same river. Of Chipewyan itself there is little to say, other than that it was from this point, then a post of the Northwest Company, that Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 1789 took his departure for his voyage of discovery; and here, too, Sir John Franklin spent some time previous to embarking on the trip which resulted in the starvation of several of his party, and eventually in his own death. I was given the same assurances here that I had re- u a i! -ii n ce WJ th to at th ba ha Ja sei lie an iv( rie It bu wl yo dl( ba VV£ wl Sli be ou dii ba so th tr be sti FROM CHIPEWYAN TO FORT SMITH III i i ii »(l ceived all along my trip, of not being able to get into the Barren Grounds and out again in winter, but Dr. Mackay was good enough to yield to my determination to make the attempt, and to aid me by advice, and, what was more to the point, to place two of the post's best trains of dogs at my disposal. One of these was for the luggage, and the other to carry me a day on my journey, and then turn back, in order that my ankle, still very sensitive, should have another twelve hours' rest. We left Chipewyan on January 24th, in greater style than I affected at any sub- sequent time, with Maurice, one of the celebrated Beau- lieu family, running before the dogs, and Roderick Fleet and William Pini, English and French half-breeds respect- ively, doing the driving. I cannot declare my first expe- rience in a cariole to have been one of unalloyed pleasure. It saved my ankle, and for that I was of course grateful ; but despite all the furs it is miserably cold travelling ; and, what is equally as trying, the cariole keeps upsetting, unless you are on a well-worn lake or river track, and you, bun- dled up in furs, are dragged along face downwards, like a bag of meal, until the driver sets you up again. William was very attentive, but not all his care made me regret when the first day was over and my riding at an end. We camped that night at the junction of the Peace and Slave rivers, and when we started the next morning, long before daylight, the temperature was 35° below zero, and our route lay down the Slave River. I noted very little difference between the scenery of this and that of Atha- basca River — unless possibly the banks of the latter are somewhat higher and more heavily wooded. In fact, there is slight change in the scene anywhere in the coun- try, except that caused by the gradual diminution of tim- ber as you go north, until it dwarfs into the" land of little sticks," above Great Slave Lake, and disappears altogether x (S i 112 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS at the Barren Grounds. It is a country where the water- courses are the highways — for canoes in summer and snow-shoes in winter. The land is without roads, and stray where you will you may stand on unexplored soil. The river-banks are well timbered, but back of them stretches away, far beyond the Indians' ken, the trackless, uninhabitable muskeg. My joy at being out of the cariole was brief, for the pain of my ankle was intensified by the hard track on which we were running, and the ice was full of cracks and holes, which in darkness are always dangerous to the t'oy- agcur, and were especially so to me in my crippled condi- tion. We had the coldest weather I experienced before reaching the Barrens, the mercury touching 50° below the second night, and beginning at 42° and going to 48° on the third day. The only relief I had to the monotony of travel was afforded me by Roderick and Maurice in setting fox-traps, and my own experiment with a pair of Norwe- gian snow-shoes (skis), which I had made at Chipewyan, and that I found inferior to the web shoe for travel in this kind of country. Although we were, indeed, going along at a pretty lively gait, and quite fast enough for my physical condition, my mental half chafed at the pace, and was impatient to reach Fort Smith. My eyes had been on this post ever since 1 left the railroad. It seemed the Mecca of my trip, for there lived James McKinley, the only man who could give me any information of the Barren Grounds, as he not only had been stationed at Great Slave Lake, but made a summer trip to that land of desolation with Warburton Pike. But the way was hard and the long stretches of river disheartening. It is an interesting fact that I always found I travelled easier where the river was tortuous,-for, though knowing the distance to be none the less, the i: ^i^iiii I M'^ FROM CIIIPEWYAN TO FORT SMITH »»3 many bends gave heart to reach the point beyond, while when I came upon a long stretch the bare work of run- ning stared me in the face, and the distance seemed doubled. We really made very good time, and arrived at Fort Smith on the morning of the 27th, having been three days and two hours doing the 1 18 miles. Though prepared for a cordial reception at the post, since McKinley's big heart and helping hand are known from end to end of the Northland, the heartiness of my welcome and the solicitude for my condition quite over- powered me. To one coming from the pulsing city, where it is "every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost," it is a somewhat curious sensation to have strangers that know you but in the passing take such in- terest in your movements and exhibit concern for your comfort. I was soon sitting in McKinley's unpretentious cabin, with the water he had brought soothing my swollen feet, and the tea his wife had brewed warming me. When I was refreshed, McKinley made me lie down, and then we talked of my proposed hunt for musk-oxen. He reiterated the assurances I had received ever since starting that I could not get into the Barrens in midwinter and get out again. He doubted whether I could induce Indians to make the attempt for love or money, but as I was bent on the effort, advised me to try to se- cure Beniah, a Dog-Rib leader, and one of the best hunters and most courageous Ind- ians in the country. He said none of the Indians v.'ould be at Slave Lake at this time, and that the only sure way of getting into communication with them was by sending a runner to Resolution with a 8 CHIPKWYAN TRIPPING-SHOE, 3 feet long 1 il I n ! 114 ON SNOW SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS letter to Gaudet, the Hudson's Bay Company officer in charge, asking him to send after Beniah, who would very likely be hunting in the woods six or eight days' journey from Slave Lake. Meanwhile he was organizing a wood- bison hunt with Henry Toke Munn, an Englishman, who had been in the country a year, and made a summer and an autumn trip into the Barrens, with the hard luck of bringing out only a musk-cow head, after a most trying experience, and they would be glad to have me join them. This accorded with my plans nicely, for I had intended making a bison-hunt, and it could now be accomplished without loss of time — an important consideration — while Beniah was being found and brought to Resolution. Consequently an " express " was despatched to Resolu- tion, and pending the return of Munn, who was in the woods trapping, and would be back the following day, I rested while " Mc " told me of the country and its people and its life, which he has learned so well in his twenty years' residence. M 11 11 XI OUR WOOD-BISON HUNT 4 WOOD-mSON HEAD IIROUGHT OUT BY THE AUTHOR The wood-bison is the once familiar species of our own Western plains, grown heavier in his retirement from the old life, when the trail of his hunter never grew cold, and he rested neither by day nor night. He is the same animal with a more rounded stern, ac- quired by his life of compara- tive restfulness, and a heavi- er, darker robe to protect him from the colder climate of his adopted home. How long he has been in this country there are no means of knowing. The present generation of Indians, and their fathers before them, have always hunt- ed him in a desultory way, but there are no traditions of an earlier bison, and the country in which he roams tells no tales. There are no well-beaten trails, such as those which on the plains last even to the present day, to re- mind us of the vast herds that have been sacrificed to man's greed. The muskeg where he ranges in the Northland shows no trail, and if it did it would remain undiscovered, for it is impassable to the hunter in summer, and in winter is covered by snow to the depth of two feet. Really little c ■M' ll6 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS is known of the wood-bison, except that he is gradually going the way of the plains species, from the difficulties of maintaining an existence where climate, pasturage, and man are all against him. Recently a law has been passed by the Canadian government prohibiting their killing, but it will be impossible to enforce it, since no mundane power could stop a starving Indian from shooting if he got the opportunity. A check can be put to sending out the hide, but that would not prevent killing for the meat. More- over, my inquiry did not discover any wholesale slaughter of these animals. Some thirty years ago a sudden and exceptional thaw in midwinter, followed by a severe storm and bitter cold, that cov- ered the snow with ice which the bison could not break, caused the death of a very great many from starvation and freezing. Again, three years ago (1892), another thaw and storm gave the Indians an opportuni- ty for that diabolical diversion of crusting, by which method some men reared in the civilized world hunt deer and moose to this day, and about fifty bison were then run down and killed. But these were un- usual occasions. Bison are not being killed in large numbers nor shot frequently as in- dividuals. They range over a country too large and too difficult to reach, and require more skilful hunting than the average Indian is capable of. When I was in the country in the winter of 1894-5 not even a bi- son track had been seen up to the time of our hunt, and the head I obtained through the kindness of Dr. Mackay, was the last one shot, and that two years before. So the extermination of wood -bison through their hunting by LOUCHEUX SHOE, 6 feet long ill f OUR WOOD-niSON HUNT »«7 Indians is not to be apprehonded, while the remoteness of their country, the difficulties of access — to say nothing of the dangers of starvation and freezing once you get there — protect them from the white hunter. How many wood-bison there are is not easily estimated. I made diligent inquiry from all sources of information, and their numbers as told off to me ranged from 150 to 300. Joseph Beaulieu, at Smith Landing, popularly called " Susie " by the natives that cannot master the English pronunciation, and another of the famous Beaulieu family, said he believed there must be a thousand ; but then " Susie " has the common failing of the country, and, more- over, he delivered himself of this statement when he was persuading us to take a hunter of his recommendation, and whom we afterwards cursed with all the depth and breadth and warmth of English expletive. The bison range in the country bounded by Peace, Slave, and Buffalo rivers, which has an area of a good many hundred miles. As they roam this territory from end to end, and are usually found in small herds, the one of fifty that was killed a few years ago being an excep- tional congregation, and as the Indians never hunt more than a very small piece of this section in one winter, the difficulty of arriving at a close estimate of their total num- ber may be understood. Personally I am convinced that 150 comes very near representing their total. Munn and I in our hunt very thoroughly covered *he larger portion of their more south- erly range, and discovered the tracks of thirteen; Munn in a subsequent hunt in a more northerly part of their range saw the tracks of forty ; neither of us heard of any signs between these two sections, or Peace River way; and I, while at Slave Lake preparing for my musk-ox hunt, set inquiry afoot for signs of them in the most northerly % n ii8 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THli UAKREN GROUNDS piece of their range, without getting enough encouiage- ment to warrant delaying my st^ut for the Barren Grounds for another attempt to bring out a bison head of my own kilhng. So that we two were the first to practically cover, one way and another, their entire range in one winter, and yet we heard of only fifty-three ! To plan a hunt was one thing, but to get started quite another. Half a dozen Indians told us by the hour how much they knew of the bison country and how undoubted their prowess, b^'t whose knowledge, on close questioning, we found little more than our own. So we spent two days separating fact from fiction before finally deciding Calome and Bushy to be the only two of the lot worth considering. But Calome wanted a rifle for himself and a sack of flour for his wife before he would even discuss wages, and Bushy was uncertain of the section which we had decided to hun^. Meanwhile "Susie " sent word that he had secured a good hunter, Jeremi, who knew the country well, and was cer- tain to find bison. So we decided on Jeremi for our guide, and Smith Landing, eighteen miles south of the post, as our starting-point. It was half after three on the afternoon of February 1st when IMcKinley, Munn, and I got under way for the Land- ing, with two trains of dogs carrying our sleeping-robes, twenty pounds of bacon, fifty pounds of flour, three pounds of tea, and six pounds of tobacco, to last five of us for the eight days we expected would complete the hunt, and it was half after six when we had gone the eighteen miles that brought us to "Susie's" cabin. We limited our own supplies to the last degree, because we knew the going would be heavy and the fish for the dogs more than a load, and we countea on the snares we had taken to replenish our stock from the rabbits that swarm the woods. Hunting in this country is a very different affair from :■•' o OUR WOOD -BISON HUNT 121 hunting in any other. It is impossible to take a supply of good provisions, or even a good supply of the poor pro- vision the land affords. We were particularly luxurious in having bacon and flour, for usually dried fish and dried caribou meat are all that may be had. It is out of the question to be well fed or comfortable ; fish for the dogs must be carried, distances are great, travelling fatiguing, and hunting hard. Then there is the extreme difficulty of getting good hunters — the Indians are great braggarts but poor hunters — and the annoyance of making terms with them. They invariably want everything in sight while negotiating, and subsequently discover either a starving wife, whom you feed, or moccasinless feet, which you cover. But " Susie " assured us in Cree, Chipewyan, French, and in the limited English at his command, of which he is very proud, if uncertain, that we should have no trouble of any sort with Jeremi, or Joseph, his aide-de-camp. And therefore we accepted Jeremi in confidence, because " Su- sie" is an important personage among his people, who trade with and always refer to him as a bourgeois, which, curiously enough, in this country is a complimentary title indicating superiority. Jeremi was one of the most unique tatterdemalions I beheld on my trip. Munn and I instantly dubbed him the Ancient Warrior; not that his appearance was forbid- ding, or that he ever revealed any predilection for the war- path, except perhaps when Joseph helped himself too generously to the grease in the frying-pan, but he looked as though he might have just come off a '* march through Georgia," and there was a weariness about every motion that suggested long and arduous campaigning. He was tall and gaunt, with an appetite for tea and grease I never saw equalled, and a costume which baffled description. Two thick locks of hair hung forward of his ears and down c 122 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS to his chin, a turban whose original color had long since been lost to view encircled his head, and crowning all was a very small cap he had got from some trader many years before, and which sat rakishly on one side or ihe other of his he?.d, and consistently fell off every time he departed from the perpendicular. His preparations for sleeping always afforded me a great deal of quiet amusement. He would squat Indian fashion (and Indian fashion differs from tailor fashion only in that the feet are crossed behind and are sat on) before the fire, warming his back and stomach alternately ; then he would heap up a pile of frozen rabbits for a pillow, roll up in his robe, and lie down to snore. Very high pillows, by-the-way, are common to all these Indians; they gather everything loose about camp and stow it under their heads, until they are raised a couple of feet. It was always a wonder to me how they slept at all, though I found in the Barren Grounds, where there is no brush to soften your bed, and you lie on rock chiefly, and always on your side, that a moderately high pillow is desirable, as it relieves the shoulder from bearing the en- tire weight of your body. It was rather late in the afternoon of February 2d when we left the Landin, on a southwest course, which took us to and up Salt River, and finally to a treeless twelve-mile stretch, on the edge of which we made a wretched camp in the increasing cold and with insufficient firewood. There " Susie," who had also decided to make a try for bison, joined us that night. This made us, all told, a com- pany of seven, which was not to Munn's liking, and cer- tainly not to mine, for, of all things, I have ever shunned none so studiously as a large hunting-party. However, there was no way of mending matters. The wind grew stronger, and the mercury fell to 40° degrees below, which not only froze the noses, ears, and chins of all of us the OUR WOOD- BISON HUNT 123 next morning crossing the open country, but, what was more serious, put such a crust on the snow that hunting an animal so wary as the bison was next to impossible. For two days we journeyed towards the section Jere- mi " knew so well," going through a fine game coun- try of swamps covered with coarse grass, and surround- ed by willows, small patch- es of pine, spruce, and pop- lar, and plenty of moose signs everywhere. In fact, this is one of the best game districts in the North. On the morning of the third day, being at the edge of the bison country, Munn, " Susie," Jeremi, and I went on ahead looking for signs, " Mc " preferring to remain with the outfit to bring up trains, and pitch camp where we might indicate, as we did seven miles far- ther on. In a very cold wind we tramped for about twenty - five miles — stop- ping once to build a fire, that the Ancient Warrior might warm his feet, and again to eat a frozen biscuit we had each fetched — across small lakes, over marshes cut up by creeks, and along thickly wooded ridges, but the sight of not a solitary bison track rewarded our search. WAR-nONNET 'iKt 124 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 11^ " Susie " and Jeremi were both much disappointed, for they had confidently expected to find signs in this particular section ; so the next morning, our provisions having run low, McKinley, "Susie," and his Indian turned back for the Landing, while Munn and I set Jeremi and Joseph to mak- ing snares, determined to lay in supplies here before going deeper into the bison country. Then, too, we knew two sons of Jeremi's would be passing on their way to a cache of dried moose meat. So we bettered our camp to pro- tect us from the wind, and while our two Indians caught rabbits, Munn and I chopped firewood, and smoked, and drank tea. What truly astounding quantities of tea and tobacco one consumes, and what a craving for grease one acquires in this uncongenial clime ! I found the strong black plug traded to the Indians a decided stimulant in the Barren Grounds, where a pipe and a cup of tea constituted one's bill of fare for several days at a time, and tea to be much more bracing than coffee. Coffee is the alleged luxury of the Northland, and only to be had at an occasional Hudson's Bay Company officer's table; but grease, in point of fact, is the real luxury. Only eternal vigilance will save your cache, and nothing less persuasive than a shot-gun rescue it from the hands of its Indian discoverer. We stayed in thiscamptwo days, and in that time snared rabbits enough to last us and the dogs a week, and to fill me with revulsion at the very sight of one. There is something peculiarly offensive in rabbit after continuous diet. I have lived at one time or another during my hunting experiences on one kind of game for periods of varying length, but nothing ever filled me with such loathing as rabbit. Indeed, it is commonly said by the Indians that they " starve on rabbit," and after my experience I can easily understand it ; you may eat until OUR WOOD- BISON HUNT 125 you are surfeited, but after a couple of hours' hard travel- Hng you feel as empty as though in the midst of a pro- longed fast. There is neither nourishment nor strength in the meat, and yet the rabbit seems almost to be manna for the otherwise God-forsaken land. In countless num- bers they skurry over the entire country, and are just the ordinary rabbit known everywhere, except that here they change to white in the winter, and on the lower Barren Grounds double in size, and become arctic hares. Every seventh year their numbers are decreased a good half by I'l RABBIT SNARE a mysterious and deadly disease, and then the Indians suffer, for no one can say how many depend on them for subsistence. If there is caribou or moose meat or fish at the lodge, it goes to the hunters, who must face the storms and withstand the hardships of travel ; but the " squaw men," the old men, and certainly the women and children, rriore than ovice during the year owe their very lives to the rabbit. So, although despised by me, he is revered in this home of snow and hunger. Caribou, I may say in passing, I consider of all wild meats the one that one tires of least. We moved only fifteen miles the first day we broke our 1' i 126 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS rabbit camp, keeping a sharp lookout all the way, and passing over a country filled with curious bowl-shaped depressions that ranged from ten to fifty feet in depth and proportionately wide, and at night the Ancient War- rior's sons turned up to gladden our hearts and relieve our stomachs with dried moose meat. Dried meat, by- the-wjiy, caribou or moose, when at its best, is about as thick as sole-leather, and of like consistency ; when it is poor it somewhat resembles parchment in thickness and succulence. It is made by cutting the fresh meat into strips, which are hung over the fire to smoke, subsequently in the sun to dry, and is the ordinary food on these expe- ditions, because dried it is so much easier carried. It is not toothsome, but it is filling, and that is the main de- sideratum in this country. Fresh meat is the hunter's luxury. The coming of these two boys furnished my first in- sight into the relations between Indian parents and chil- dren. They arrived, one with a badly frozen cheek, the other with frozen fingers, and both shivering with cold, yet Jcrcmi scarcely turned his head in greeting, made no sign to give them room by his own warm place at the fireside, nor showed paternal solicitude for their sufferings. They scraped away a little snow at the edge of our camp, and there rolled up in their blankets, while their dogs and our.s, by the light of a glorious moon, mingled in an ani- mated fight that lasted a good part of the night, and was waged vigorously around and over us. The dog is the one member of the Indian family that is no respecter of age or sex, I3ut the boys pay the penalty of youth, as their sisters and mothers do of womanhood. We were now where the sight of bison was an hourly expectation ; we had come over one hundred miles into their range without a glimpse of a track, new or old, and 'JEREMI WAS TOO QUICK WITH HIS GUN " Ml rar do sle sn( esj kn yo sh( mi in SU( be we an da pi( pa br ba an go in th as Ri da in: ti( ro th OUR WOODBISON HUNT 129 Munn and I decided our quarry to be, as indeed he is, the rarest of the rare. We travelled all day along and up and down ridges, where men and dogs could scarcely drag the sledge for fallen timber and sharp ascents, and where the snow was deep, and breaking trail excessively hard, especially with tripping-shoes on which you sank to the knee, and with the toe of which you barked your shins as you raised your foot after every step to shake off the shovelful of accumulated snow. In this fashion we worked our way for about twenty miles, and yet saw no signs. But we did have a fine camp in the woods that night, with a roaring, warming fire, and such a glorious auroral exhibition as I had never before beheld, nor ever afterwards saw surpassed. Now there were dancing waves of changing red and violet expanding and narrowing and whirling across the sky in phantom dances ; then great ra liant streaks of golden-greenish pierced the heavens like iridescent search-lights of incom- parable power and brilliancy. It was all so startlingly brilliant and wonderfully beautiful. And I lay on my back, with the Indians on one side and the dogs all around, and stared at the magnificent spectacle, and — for- got the rabbits. The Indians have no definite idea touching the aurora ; in their always apt nomenclature they call it the " lights that move quickly," and in general accept the exhibition as merely the sign of wind or fine weather. The Dog- Ribs say it is the spirits of their ancestors holding a dance ; another tribe varies this only by substituting fight- ing for dancing ; but there is really no attempt at solu- tion. They are too thoroughly occupied in solving the problem of living. They do claim, however, that the au- rora is at times audible, and some scientists agree with them. Personally I can add little certainty to the uncer- n 13° ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE lURREN GROUNDS J SI !! tain information on the question. Twice on my trip, when there were auroral displays, T heard noises some- what like the rustling or crackling of a silken banner standing out in the wind, but whether it was made by settling or cracking snow and ice or by the aurora I can- not affirm. There is little opportunity to test the matter in winter, for, what with storms and winds, an absolutely still night is as rare as a day in June. The next, our ninth out from the Landing, was the memorable day of the hunt. It opened in hope — for we were in the heart of the bison country — and closed in despair, because in one short hour we had seen and chased and lost our game. We brokt camp at daylight, to reach on this day the lake near which we expected to find bison, and the country we penetrated had not before been hunted by the Ind- ians. It was broken into numberless little gullies and ridges, none of which Jeremi missed in his wandering, and the snow was so deep, and dead timber and thickly grown small fir so formidable, we made haste very slowly. What with clearing a way for the sledge, disentangling the dogs, and keeping on our feet, we advanced but twelve miles all day. We were in an unexplored country, and the Ancient Warrior was lost ; he invariably carried us to the top of the highest ridge that lay anywhere within striking distance of our course, and, once there, sent Joseph up a tree for a view of some familiar landmark, while he sank on his knees in what had the appearance of a supplication for light on the darkness of our way, but was in reality his habitual attitude when filling his pipe. From one of these ridges we saw Caribou Mountain near by, really not more pretentious than a foot-hill, but wJiich in this fiat country bears the distinction of notable altitude. So we travelled on, wearied by the very hard walking, !i OUR WOOD- BISON HUNT and wondering if indeed there were any bison in the land. At one o'clock we crossed a lake, but not the one we were seeking, where we saw fresh moose and caribou tracks, which we could not of course afford to follow, at the risk of scaring the big game we were after, much as we should have liked fresh meat. Just after crossing the lake the Ancient Warrior bore to the right of a sharp little ridge, and Munn and I gave the dogs a spell of a few moments, while we lighted our pipes, and joked about the old man having overlooked the ridge, and concluded he must have gone snow-blind. But even as we talked he turned to the left and began slowly plodding up the ridge ; whereupon we agreed he was about to send Joseph aloft again, and was seeking high ground. Perhaps he, in fact, was — I never asked him — but Munn and I had hardly reached the foot of the ridge when Jeremi came hurryinc^ Sack as excited as a phlegmatic Indian ever gets, and we sug- gested he had seen the *' enemy," which these supersti- tious creatures are ever encountering, to their utter de- moralization. But the Ancient Warrior had the joke on us this time, for he fairly whispered, *' Buffalo." Instantly Munn and I were tingling. At last the game we had tramped so far to get was at hand ; heart-breaking trails, leaden snow-shoes, and rabbits were forgotten as the hunter's blood swept through our veins at the mention of bison. We four gathered closely in a little circle, and then in subdued tones Jeremi told Joseph, in Chipewyan, and Joseph, a few words at a time, translated to us in Northland French, that the ridge was literally covered with tracks, that they were fairly fresh, that we would leave the dogs where they were under cover, and take up the bison trail at once. I do not become stirred easily, but when we got on top of the ridge and the tracks were before me, my heart quick- w :!i ill 132 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARKEN GROUNDS ened, and there seemed no obstacles I could not surmount to reach my quarry. There were the tracks, sure enough, in broad paths like those made by cattle, quite fresh — probably yesterday's. We moved slowly along the ridge, Joseph, Jeremi, Munn, and I, in Indian 61e, scanning the willow -surrounded swamps on either side, each stepping in the other's shoe -prints, but making quite a bit of noise, nevertheless, for the snow was hard, and the shoe crunched and cracked it with alarming effect on the nerves of the stalking hunter. Fortunately a strong wind blew in our faces. In half a mile the tracks multiplied, and were very fresh — made that day — so we took off our snow-shoes and in one another's footsteps continued on as noiselessly as possible. And now the ridge, hitherto thickly covered with pop- lar and pine, became a bare backbone which stretched away about 125 yards between swamps, and ended in a sharp rise thickly grown with small spruce. We had not advanced ten yards farther when we dis- covered, simultaneously, I fancy, for we all crouched and drew our rifles out of their coats together, a shaggy head about 1 1 5 yards in front of us. A second and careful look told me it was a bison cow about two years old, with fore- head sprinkled with either gray or white hair on a back- ground of light brown. She was standing under the spruce and just over the rise of the ridge, so I could see only her forehead, eyes, and horns, which were about six inches long, and straight out from her head with slight curve at tips ; I could not see her muzzle. The wind was in our favor, and she had not scented us, though from her vantage on the knoll she had heard and evidently seen us before we sighted her. Munn and I had not before hunted bison, but our hunt- ing experience was sufficient to make action under Such OUR WOOD -BISON HUNT »33 conditions intuitive. We knew there must be a herd over the ridge. We wanted a bull, and had no idea of firing on a heifer. We expected Jeremi would work around to the side and under the ridge, and up to where we could view and get a shot at the herd ; or retreat and camp several miles away, to make another ap- proach next morning. The heifer might scamper back to the cow, but that would not put the herd to flight, and meanwhile we should make our way along the ridge, perfectly certain the herd would not run until they scented or saw us, or we made undue disturbance. It was a splendid chance for a skilful stalk, just the situa- tion a hunter loves most dearly. I did not consider the possibility of the Indians shooting, for they had agreed at the Land- ing not to fire until Munn and I had done so, and " Susie " said they would keep their word, and I trusted them. I know more of these Indians now than I did then. All this of course ran through my head in the few seconds I was taking my look at the heifer, and Jeremi's stealing off to the right and a little ahead rather cor- roborated my mental sizing of the situa- tion. Suddenly, however, up went the guns of Jeremi and Joseph. There was no time for remonstrance, and Munn and I, in sheer desperation that luck might direct the bullets, threw up our guns also ; those of the Indians exploded before we had ours fairly at shoulder, but we pulled trig- ger, chiefly because of that instinct which makes one's muscles at times work in sympathy with one's wishes. ONE OF THE OLD FI.INi-LOCKS 134 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS I was SO stunned by the sudden turn of aiifairs, and so exasperated at the Indians, that I was sorely tempted to empty the magazine of my rifle into them. I knew I could not possibly have scored ; I felt sure Munn had not, but hoped against hope that he might have got his gun up for a sight. I did not think the Indians had, for they can hardly hit a barn door a hundred yards off. If I thought at all of their scoring, it was that we might have meat, which we needed, but even that, I am sure, did not enter into consideration. The one miserable thought that we had lost what had been a good chance of getting a bison head was upper- most, for this herd would run for days, and entirely be- yond our reach. Simultaneously with the shooting, the heifer disappeared, and we ran to the top of the knoll in hopes of a shot at the flying herd, but not a hoof was in sight, so rapid had been their flight, although the ridge opened to view three hundred yards away. We discovered a few small drops of blood where the heifer had stood, counted the beds of eleven cows, and noted the snow beaten down into paths leading towards the end of ridge and muskeg to the right ; and then began a mad race along the faint trail of blood, in hopes that the heifer might have been more badly wounded than the blood showed, and turned aside (as is their custom when hard hit) from the fleeing herd. But we had only a hard run in the deep snow as recompense. And then we returned to our sledge and sat down in silence, and with the bitter realization that the bison-hunt was at an end. We did not say much, Munn and I ; words could not do our feelings justice. There is hunters* luck, and only the sportsman who has sought big game, and experienced its operations for and against him, can sound the depths of our disappointment. To have got OUR WOOD -BISON HUNT 135 li i\ near bison at all was remarkable, but to have succeeded after a long, hard hunt in actually seeing them, only to have our chance for a kill spoiled by the stupidity or viciousness of our Indians was too keen a grief to be soothed by mutual condolence or cursing Jeremi. We went on another day, and saw old tracks of the same herd, but none others, and then we turned our faces Fort-Smithwards, making a circle to get back to our trail where we had camped about the second night. For three days we travelled by the compass, for we were lost, cutting our way through forests of small fir, grown so closely as to render progress almost impossible to a man, much less a train of worn-out dogs. The going was very hard, and hunger, our provisions being gone, less easy to bear now following upon our disappointment. On the fourth day v. ; c. >ie out on our trail, and that night Munn and I reached / c -i ley's cabin, after covering forty-eight miles between ^ a.m. and 8 P.M. Before we slept, we poured our tale of woe into " Mc.'s " sympathetic ears, and then we all decided the only chances of success in a bison-hunt to be — time enough to cover their entire range from north to south, and, once on their tracks, binding the Indians hand and foot. n «( ' m XII FROM FORT SMITH TO GREAT SLAVE LAKE r^ m Before we left the Landing for our bison-hunt, Munn and I had decided to make another attempt under Bushy's guidance in case we failed under Jeremi's. But by the time we were back at Fort Smith fifteen days had been consumed instead of the promised six, and my " ex- press " had returned from Fort Resolution. The letter he brought me was not exactly cheering after our de- pressing hunt. Gaudet wrote that the Indians fear en- tering the Barrens at this (winter) season of the year — that they take their lives in hand at all seasons, but especially now, with the danger of freezing added to that of starving ; that he doubted gaining their consent to ac- company me ; . . . however, he had sent Beniah word to come to the post at once. As I was already overdue at Resolution, a second bison- hunt, which I should have liked, was out of the question, and so Munn went alone with Bushy, after much difificulty in completing arrangements — for a keg of sugar-beer was on tap at Fort Smith. As the beer disappeared, the number of bison multiplied, until, by the time the keg was drained. Bushy had proclaimed acquaintance with the age and disposition of every bison in the country, and assured Munn of heads for himself and friends, and Mc- Kinley of meat enough to last through the winter. I am sorry to add that neither promise was fulfilled. FROM FORT SMITH TO GREAT SLAVE LAKE 137 What kind of a time Munn had, and, incidentally, what hunting means in this country, may be learned from his letter, which I received at Slave Lake, on my return from the Barren Grounds: "Fort Smith, Ma rcA 4th, 1895. "Dear Whitney, — I am in a position to state positively that not only are the days now long, but the nights are longer. " Briefly, the fourth day out on the buflfalo-hunt we got a couple of moose, and, of course, had to camp there the fifth day, owing to overeating of fresh meat. The next day we travelled, the next looked for tracks of our quarry, and found a sign twelve hours old of a band of about forty, and I congratulated myself on ab- staining from shooting at a moose that I got within 150 yards of, as we thought the buffalo were close. We started at 6.30 the following day, made a camp for the dogs, and travelled down the track with hardly a spell till 6 p.m. We then camped on the tracks with nothing to eat and no axe or blanket, and next morn- ing I and one of the men went on, the other weakening and re- turning to camp ; five hours' hard travelling put us no nearer, and the man being sure they were heading for a country two days off, I very reluctantly gave up the chase and returned. Of course we couldn't make camp that night, though we made a bold push for it, and had to lay out for the second time with no blanket, nothing to eat, and wet to the skin. When it began to blow cold towards midnight and snow hard, I assure you it was by no means amusing; my meal in forty-eight hours consisted of a half-raw partridge, and for drink we melted snow into our gun covers — I have dined more luxuriously. What started the buffalo travelling thus, God in his wisdom only knows, but they were, no doubt, heading for some objective point, as they journeyed through the densest " cypre " with absolute directness, and the foregoer of the herd must have been a veritable Moses leading his followers to a promised land of — I suppose — muskeg grass. " You will thus see that my statement in the commencement of this letter is a fact, and both the days and nights (on an empty stomach) are long, and we travelled far. " I am glad to hear of deer on the islands, as you may avoid some of the misery of starvation on your musk-ox hunt. I leave here \\ % ^ n r,i! i ' 138 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE IJARREN GROUNDS on the 6th for civilization. Ye gods! think of the luxury of a big hot bath, a good cigar, and — but why should I fill your mind with envy and all uncharitableness ? Truly, when I think of all you have left behind for the barrenness of the Barren Grounds, I agree with Puck : ' What fools these mortals be.' Hoping you may get back speedily and with a whole hide. " Yours sincerely, Henry Tore Munn." Munn as undoubtedly deserved the heads, as Fort Smith stood in need of meat. Fort Smith is ahvays wanting meat or fish or anything edible. It is the most inade- quately provided post in the country, and has the smallest natural supply, for there are few fish in the river, and, as a rule, the Indians prefer "starving" on rabbits the women snare to going back into the country a hundred miles or so, where moose and woodland caribou are fairly plentiful. Only " Mc's " success in getting a moose kept us all from half rations after the bison -hunt, and when I passed through on my way back to civilization I found his children crying of hunger. Munn's hard luck, too, will convey some idea of the uncertainty of result and extent of endeavor incidental to hunting. One year he spent in the Northland, making two trips to the Bar- rens for musk-ox, two after bison, and his skill and experience and untold hardships were re- warded by but a single musk-cow. Pike gave two years of his life to the country, made three trips to the Barrens before he secured the musk-oxen he desired, and had one un- successful bison-hunt. Two days after our return to Fort Smith, Munn went out with Bushy, and r ' the next day I start- ed for Great Slave Lake. The distance from Fort Smith to ' ..c '•lution is 194 miles WOMAN S SHOE, Canadian Snow Shoe Club, 3 feet long FROM FORT SMITH TO GREAT SLAVE LAKE 139 down the Great Slave River, but portages reduce the pos- sible route to 165 to 170 miles, which, as my ankle had nearly mended, and my half-breed guides and dogs were good travellers, I expected to do in four days. But the contingencies of snow-shoe travel are many. We had hardly got under way before sucl: cr- ^nps seized the calves of my legs that I could sc Jt. move. I sup- posed it merely muscular stiffness caused by my t\ : days' inaction at Smith after the hard day's run whicii terminated the bison-hunt, and that it would wear ofif, so I set grimly to work to catch the dog-train, which was going along at a lively rate and disappearing down the river. No efifort of mine, however, could quicken my gait be- yond a shuffling, painful hobble, and I did not overtake the outfit until a stop was made for dinner fifteen miles farther on. I thought a rest and a little rubbing would relieve me, but when we started on again the cramps spread to both thighs, and I simply could not move. But for the pain I might have thought my legs paralyzed. I signalled Mercrede, my guide, and when I had dragged myself up to the dogs, climbed on to the sledge, and told him to go ahead, thinking the spasm would pass off, and meanwhile we should not lose time by stopping. There was short respite in this direction, however, for the dogs could not haul me in the heavy going without " forcing," and as they must be saved at all hazards, I determined on another effort at walking, and failing, to camp and doctor my muscles. This I made Mercrede understand after much difficulty, and then he went on and I tried to fol- low. I was in no better condition for travelling than be- fore ; a few steps and then a tumble, followed by a spell of crawling; another attempt at walking, and another tum- ble, until finally I directed my entire energy to crawling \i\ 140 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS til ' I on hands and knees, and thus I reached aL ist the camp Mcrcrcde had made several miles below. Vigorous and continuous application of mustang lini- ment put mc in shape for travel the next morning. Ex- cecdingly painful travel, but travel none th~ less, which wa.s, after all, the main consideration. Walking was bear- able, but running set every leg nerve and muscle vibrat- ing, and I tried all possible ways of making those half- brcedn know I wished them to walk. But they did not or would not understand, and there was nothing left for me but — to " stay " with them, which I did. It was afterwards explained to me at Resolution why they had maintained such a pace despite my evident suf- fering. It seems I had made in the country some renown as a runner — a case of honor being thrust upon me, for I cannot see that I merited it, unless the Indians deemed per.severance worthy of such distinction. However, I gained the reputation nevertheless, and it travelled ahead of mc from post to post. Now as the Indians and half- brccds are exceedingly jealous of their own reputation as runners, and probably did not fancy a white man even un- willingly sharing it, the result was that every pair of guides I secured set out to thoroughly test my qualifica- tions for the name which had been given me. As I got fresh guides and dogs at each Hudson Bay post on my journey, it may be implied I was kept busy. Mercrede and his companion were the first two that had found me /lors (ic combat, so to say, and they proceeded to have a good time with me. Well, they had it. At first I brought to my aid all the signs and Indian words, Cree and Chipe- wyan, I knew, in a serious and laborious effort to make them understand how painful it was for me to run. And they looked wise and solemn, and nodded assent — and then started out and went as hard as ever. )S e camp ng lini- g. Ex- !, which as bear- : vibrat- ise half- i not or : for me on why ent suf- renovvn le, for I deemed /ever, I d ahead nd half- ation as ;ven un- pair of ualifica- U I got on my 'ercrede und me have a Drought 1 Chipe- ce them id they nd then 1 FROM FORT SMITH TO GREAT SLAVE LAKE »43 i After one or two of these attempts at fruitless persua- sion I developed a large and righteous anger, which was somewhat relieved by a cursing that exhausted a vocabu- lary of wide and highly colored range, and which the Ind- ians did not understand — more's the pity, for I am sure the brilliant and contrasting effects would have appealed to their picturesque nature — and thereafter they had not the satisfaction of hearing a whimper nor of running away from me. Later one of them came near ending my misery once and for ail time by felling a tree, which crashed into the snow not six inches from where I was stooping tying my moccasin. On the morning of the fourth day we came to the cabin of Carr and Duncan, the only two white trappers in the country. It was a joy to hear English again, and a com- fort to get in-doors before a fire ; and when I left they had braced me up mentally and physically by their hearty welcome and the heaping plates of lynx meat they set in front of me, and which is very tender and savory, and tastes a little like veal. It was just as well I did eat plen- teously here, for one of my stupid Indians, when repack- ing the sledge, left out our small sack of provisions, and that night when the discovery was made and for the re- mainder of the trip we shared some wretched dried fish with the dogs. The last half of the journey was exceedingly trying, because the storms violently disputed our progress, and the dogs were fagged by the depth of snow-fall. It was on one of these last hard days that, as I opened my note- book in the morning to write of the day before, I was re- minded of a little dinner given me just on the eve of my departure from New York, at which five of my warmest friends had sat, and pledged my health and success, and • l-l n I 144 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS Ilii m promised to drink to it again on Washington's birthday. And as I wrote February 22d in my journal that morning, that delightful evening seemed so long ago ; but with the storm howling about me I drank their healths in strongest tea, and felt sure they too had drunk mine. It was one o'clock of the fifth day when we came to the end of the (about) twenty-mile portage which connects Great Slave River with Great Slave Lake, and carries the voyagi'iir over the last stage of his journey from Fort Smith to Resolution. The wind had subsided and the atmosphere cleared of flying snow as we toiled through the heavy going to the timber's edge, flanked on either side by closely growing and winter-bemantled pine ; and when we finally reached the open, and the great frozen lake lay before us, the dogs were stopped for a spell, while the Indians got out their best mittens, relaced their moc- casins, and lighted pipes. These preparations were always an infallible and, for most of the time, the only sign on the journey from La Biche to Resolution by which I knew we were approach- ing our destination. On the two occasions when speech with my guides was possible the only information I could ever elicit in reply to my inquiries concerning distance was that it was either a little or a big *' piece " off. As a " little piece " meant anywhere from five miles to a day or a day and a half's travel, and a " big piece " from a day and a half to three or four or even more days, I was never able, until I learned to interpret the signs of changing costume, to form any idea of our relative lo- cation. When arriving at or departing from a post the Indians invariably clothe themselves in their most highly orna- mented moccasins, mittens, and leggings, and whip the dogs into their fastest pace. En route, however, these gay DS )irthday. ■norning, with the trongest le to the connects irrics the )m Fort and the through Dn either ine; and It frozen ell, while leir moc- and, for from La pproach- n speech 1 I could distance ff. Asa to a day from a ,' days, I signs of lative lo- •5'* Indians ily orna- kvhip the hese gay FROM FORT SMITH TO GREAT SLAVE LAKE •47 trappings are exchanged for more sombre ones. On the morning of the trip's last day the decorated leggings are again put on, but the best moccasins are not brought forth unless the post is to be reached before noon, and the mittens not before the journey is within a few hours of its end — sometimes not until the last pipe, which is filled and lighted during a day's running about once every hour and a half — as was the case when we halted for our first look at Great Slave Lake, whose glistening surface stretched away to the west far beyond the range of sight. It is always customary, too, to stop for a pipe when they come within sight of the journey's end — no matter if it is only a couple of miles awjiy and everybody and the dogs are faint with hunger and worn with fatigue. They are true to the philosophy that deems antici- pation better than realization. And so we stood and looked at Resolution and its little lirie of cabins straggling along the lake's northern shore six miles away, while Mercrede arrayed himself in elab- orately beaded moccasins, and I warmed with thankfulness too deep for words that the final stage of my 900 miles was com- pleted, and the outfitting post for the Bar- ren Grounds in view at last. When we arrived at the fort, an hour and a quarter later, Gaudet welcomed me with characteristic Northland heartiness, and there was a commotion among the natives; for the coming of the "white hunter" had been heralded, and they were curious to see what manner of man was this who had penetrated the stupendous North at its most forbidding season. SEAUTEAUX SHOE, Saskatchewan, 4 feet lung jlDil tismt '2 ;llt- •;m 150 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS T^ {lllllll i t! !l 1! '11 ^ii' every bit of meat put into the kettle and handed around, until the last scrap was eaten, and the host and myself go hungry for two days afterwards. When we were making our way towards the Barren Grounds I saw an Indian of our party, who I knew had not eaten meat for two days, bring forth a bone saved from the dog feed, handle it almost fondly before the fire, and then divide it among one or two of his fellows. It is so the world over. Those that have least to give, .give of their little the more spontaneously. We need not go to this barren land for example ; we may see it on the streets of our great cities. I have often noted the penny dropped into the outstretched importuning hand of the miserably clad begger by a passing figure scarcely better clothed than the supplicant for alms. And its explana- tion is not difficult: that mite comes from Oi.e who has known — perhaps knows — the distress of hunger and the misery of cold. With the Indians this applies more particularly to re- lations among themselves; towards the white man their generosity is not so disinterested ; they will give of their best, but expect threefold in return, and so long as you have tea and tobacco you are entire master of the situation ; for there is nothing you cannot obtain with one or the other of these North Country luxuries, and, moreover, there is no peace for you so long as either re- mains. If one is inexperienced in roughing life, or lacks decision, and, let us say, heartlessness to say " no," this country is no pl?ce for him, for more persistent and skilled beggars are probably not to be found anywhere. I was annoyed a great deal at first for the reason that Pike had been improvident of his provisions, and I suppose it spread abroad in the land that white men were easy to "work." So when I 1: I II ni N DS around, lyself go making ndian of vo days, andle it : among to give, leed not t on the e penny d of the y better sxplana- vvho has and the y to re- an their of their long as r of the iin with es, and, ither re- iecision, luntry is fgars are J a great rovident d in the when I M m wgf :^ .1' ^t^ IS' .Wi 4 m Mi ^ w MAKING READY FOR THE BARREN GROUNDS 153 came along they had new lessons to learn* before we " un- derstood one another." Personally I acknowledge I pre- fer the Indians to the half-breeds. Of course I met splendid exceptions, notably Gaudet and Spencer, Hud- son's Bay Company officers, and three of the company's servants — Michael Manderville, the interpreter at Reso- lution, and Frangois and William Pini, at Chipewyan, of whom I have already spoken: but, as a rule, the half-breeds are less tolerable than the Indians. And that is saying a great deal. It is a question of two evils. One would repent of either choice. Both in general are un- trustworthy, avaricious, and uncleanly, but the half-breed is nearer the white man in the viciousness of his hypoc- risy. The white blood in his veins comes from the lowest strains, and has given him the cunning of a higher intelli- gence without imparting the better attributes of the more civilized prototype. It is much easier for civilized man to become savage than for a savage to become civilized. How I slept that first night of my arrival at Resolution ! The comfort of a full stomach, the satisfaction of being at the scene of action, so to speak, were soothing beyond ex- pression. At any tim'e, no matter how long hence, I am sure if ever I sit back in my chair and reflect upon the period of utmost complacency in my past life, those two weeks at Resolution will be immediately recalled. My bed was the board floor; the substance of my daily fare, caribou meat, tea, and bread ; my daily occupation, running from ten to fifteen miles to keep in condition ; the atmosphere, arctic ; not a bird note to break the si- lence of the woods, nor a bit of pretty scenery to relieve the monotony of the great desert of snow — but I was no longer jaded in body and mind, there was no hunger, I was in magnificent physical condition, and just at the door % III I! J PI' I il I' I! lilii ! ■■■ i ! hI I I' ' ! i I ■^'lii pill lii; llj : , l! II 1 1 ill 154 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS of the desolate waste which was to open for a successful venture or close upon me forever. It was well I had not delayed my departure from Fort Smith, nor gone with Munn for the second try at bison, for Gaudct told me that my non-appearance so long after the ai)pointed day had convinced him I had yielded to per- suasion, and given up my intention of making an attempt to get into the Barren Grounds until the later and usual time. lie said that the runner he had sent after Beniah could not find him ; that Beniah was somewhere in the woods hunting, and the heavy snow-falls had made following his tracks impossible ; but the runner had seen some Indians who were likely to meet Beniah and tell him he was wanted at the fort. This was all satisfactory enough so far as it went, but it left me in doubt as to when I might expect to get off for musk-ox. The second day after my arrival, however, an Indian came in with a note from Be- niah, written in the hieroglyphics which the priests of the Oblates Fathers invented when first they began their mis- sionary work in this country. Hcniah said, first of all, he heard I was a "great chief" (these Indians are cute diplomats) ; that no one had ever ventured into the Barren Grounds at that season ; but he would come into the post to talk the matter over seriously so soon as he shot enough meat to make the trip of six days possible, which meant that we should see him in from eight to ten days. Next day Mercrede and his dogs started back for Fort Smith, carrying the only letter I was able to send out dur- ing my six months' absence, and which Munn, who in- tended making his way to Edmonton on his return from the bison-hunt with Bushy, had promised me to carry. And so I settled to active preparation to be in readiness on the arrival of Beniah, who I was determined to induce I' I DS iccessful 3m Fort it bison, »ng after d to per- tempt to Lial time, ah could e woods wing his Indians he was lough so I might after my from Be- its of the heir mis- it chief" had ever ; but he seriously ip of six 1 in from for Fort out dur- who in- urn from :arry. readiness o induce I: MAKING READV FOR THE BARREN GROUNDS 157 to make the trip. There were dogs and an interpreter and a driver to engage, moccasins and duffel and mittens and strouds to make, and a heavy caribou-fur capote and win- ter-caribou robe for sleeping to secure. Nobody appeared to enter upon the task with much zest, and every one shook his head and warned me against the trip. All agreed that it was an impossible undertaking, and Gaudet used his utmost persuasion to induce me to delay my dc parture until the usual time of the musk-ox hunt. The Indians time their hunting trips to the Barren Grounds (they never go there except after musk-ox) with the movement of the caribou — i. c, the early summer, about the last of April or first part of May, when the cows begin their migration from the woods to the Arctic Ocean, and in the early autumn, September and October. Caribou are absolutely necessary to the penetration of the Barren Grounds, because of the impossibility of either obtaining a sufificient supply of provisions to last out the trip, or carrying them if such were to be had. This I find to be the most difficult thing for my hunting friends to comprehend. They have asked me if an adequate supply could not be carried in from the railroad to Resolution. Possibly so, but it would have to be done a year in ad- vance, and then by the Hudson's Bay Company steamer and flatboats. Assuming that such a supply had been laid in at Reso- lution, I cannot see, because of the scarcity of dog trains, that the hunter would be much better off than before, un- less of course time was no object, and he was prepared to make one preliminary journey into the Barrens to cache the provisions at different points en route, and willing to remain in the country a year or two. Pike made one hunt in the best and easiest way by making a previous trip into the Barrens solely for the purpose of killing and caching !f ■-•■'■■^'li !:!! Ill ' :!i III liilil! jllllii''*'' ■^^^!li;!ii;: jiiiii li'i 1 1 !!'i! (ill iiii' m m m Hip! ill : 158 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE HARREN GROUNDS caribou, which lessened the chances of starvation on his next attempt, when, in addition to the cached meat, the opportunity of adding to the supply was offered by the moving bands of caribou. Yet he had a very hard time of it. Munn on his summer trip had the caribou and fish in the numberless lakes; on his autumn trip he attempted to better conditions by taking along a supply of pounded dried meat, which was speedily exhausted, and, caribou be- ing scarce, he and his party and their dogs had a starving time of it indeed. Midsummer is of course the season in which one may visit the Barrens with least danger, for at that time you travel by canoe, caribou are plentiful — if you are lucky enough to find them, for they are very uncertain in their movements — the thermometer rarely gets below freezing- point (though you are persecuted beyond endurance by mosquitoes), and the winds have lost much of their fury. But in summer-time thp musk-ox fur is not prime, and of course musk-ox is the only excuse for visiting the God- forsaken place. Ai i so trips are confined to the spring and autumn, when the trials are more severe, but the re- ward greater. The Indians go in parties of from four to six ; never less than four, because they could not carry sufficient wood to enable them to get far enough into the Barrens for reasonable hope of getting musk-oxen ; and rarely more than six, because by the time they have gone as far as six sledges of wood will permit, they have had all the freezing and starving they can stand, even though no musk-oxen have been forthcoming. Many parties go into the Barrens and never see even a musk-ox track, and many more skirmish along the edge, fearful of a plunge into the interior, yet hoping for the sight of a stray ox. Wood must be carried, not for warmth nor necessarily to cook meat, but to boil tea ; for I MAKING READY FOR THE UARREN GROUNDS 159 man could not endure the fatigue and cold and starvation without the stimulus of hot tea once or twice a day. When the sledges are loaded with the requisite supply of wood and the sleeping-robes there is no room left for provisions. To take more sledges would mean more men, more dogs, more mouths to feed, with no added prospect of feeding them. Thus it is that no attempt is made to carry in provisions, and that a visit to the home of the musk-ox is always attended by great danger, and never without much suffering, be the season what it may. None but the younger and hardiest and most experienced Ind- ians go into the Barrens, and to be a musk-ox hunter is their highest conception of courage and skill and en- durance. Bearing in mind these conditions, it may be imagined with what disfavor my proposed visit in early March was viewed. No one would hire me dogs, asserting I should never get them back alive ; and if Gaudet had not come to my rescue, and let me have his own train, I fear I should have been obliged to delay my hunt until the usual time. I shall never forget the kindness of Gaudet and his sister — he helped me in my search for an inter- preter and dog-driver, and in my studies of the country and people ; she saw that my moccasins and duffel were properly worked, and herself made me a pair of slippers of unborn musk-ox hide, to be worn next the skin, fur side in ; and both of them he ped curios upon me in such generous profusion that I grew afraid of expressing admi- ration for anything, lest they give it to me forthwith. These seem little things, no doubt, to the inhabitant of the grand pays, but in that country the little things are everything, and Gaudet and his sister gave freely of their all, and seemed sorry they could not do more. Meanwhile I was awaiting Beniah, taking photographs. m |-.Vi I .1 ■ i6o ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS writing up my journal, keeping in condition, and rejoicing that I had found a country where whistling is an un- known vice, and " Comrades " has not yet desecrated melody. I did not propose to have any more cramps in my legs if training would provide against them. I knew such a condition in the Barrens would put an end to all hope of musk-ox, or of my getting out to tell how I didn't shoot one. So nearly every afternoon I took a twelve to fifteen mile run on Great Slave Lake, and, what with the good meat I was eating three times daily and this exercise, I was so " fit " when I started for the Barrens that no Ind- ians ran me off my legs, as I was told they would on the trip across the lake. On one of the afternoons I experi- enced how suddenly a lake storm gathers, and with what force it bursts upon the luckless traveller. Had I not fortunately put my compass in my pocket that very morning I should probably have been on that lake yet, for the snow whirled around me at such a pace and in such quantities as to darken the atmosphere, and the wind beat upon me with so great a force that, bent almost double, I could barely keep moving. I had great diffi- culty in reading the needle or following the direction it indicated ; but when the prospect of a night on the lake seemed surest, the wind that was blowing offshore carried the evening tolling of the mission bell to me, and sweeter sound I never heard I Fort Resolution is one of the most important posts in the country. Though it has not so many claims to dis- tinction as Chipewyan, its natural resources for food are much greater; for near by is the most productive fishery in the country ; the Dog-Rib and Yellow-Knife Indians generally keep it supplied with caribou meat in winter, and geese and ducks are fairly plentiful in spring. Fur- * MAKING READY FOR THE BARREN GROUNDS l6i thermore, it is the only post that secures any quantity of the country luxury — grease ; though the Indians never bring in marrow, which is a very palatable tidbit. The grease they do bring in is the fat from along the back and around the joints of the caribou, which is called hard grease, in contradistinction to the marrow ; that is soft. Both of these are used in making pemmican, that is made of dried meat pounded into shreds and mixed with grease, and rolled into balls or made into square or round slabs. Pemmican, however, is a rare article nowadays, and not to be found anywhere south of Resolution, and only there on occasion. This is chiefly because caribou are not so plentiful as they were formerly and the Indians keep most of the grease for their own consumption. Nor do they make pemmican to any great extent, their substitute for it being the pounded meat, which is carried in little caribou-skin bags when travelling, and eaten with the grease — a pinch of pounded meat and a bite of grease. I must confess that a plate of pounded dried meat and several good-sized lumps of clear grease were about the most tempting morsels I had set before me at any time on my trip. Perhaps I should not care for either now, but on the especial occasions I was favored I believed an epicure who did not smack his lips in relish would be im- possible to please. One never gets enough of grease in the Northland ; it is eaten as some in the civilized world consume sugar ; in fact, I developed a craving for sweets that even grease did not satisfy, chiefly, I expect, because the supply was so limited, and somewhat notable in my case for the reason that ordinarily I seldom if ever touch sweets. The absence of bread and vegetables, and the excessive cold, undoubtedly combine to excite the desire for both grease and sweets. Resolution, next to Fort Simpson, is credited, I believe, !• > '. 1 11 I I ,' I 162 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS with sending out the greatest number of fur packs ; but hovveve.- that may be, it certainly is the scene in summer of the largest congregation of Indians when they come out of the woods, pitch their lodges on the lake shore, and settle down to trade their fur and worry Gaudct into giving them credit. Trading with an Indian is no trivial matter. There is first to get him to put a value on his fur, and then to con- vince him that there is enough stock on hand to pay him. There is of course no money in this country, a " made beaver" skin being the standard of value by v/hich all trade is conducted — as, for example, a marten is worth from two to three beaver-skins, a bear-pelt about twenty beaver-skins, and a beaver-skin itself from six to twelve " made beaver." On rough calculation the " made bea- ver" is equal to about fifty cents, though it fluctuates throughout the country. When the Indian has finally agreed upon a price for his fur, he proceeds at once to the company "store," and then the intricate business of trading against his credit of "made beaver" skins begins. It is impossible to deal with more than one Indian at a time, and so they arc taken into the " store " singly, and the door is bolted, and life immediately becomes a burden to the Hudson's Ray Company officer. If there is anything in the stock that has not been overhauled and priced before the Indian ex- hausts his credit, it is only because it is out of sight. liut in a way he is a satisfactory sort of a customer. He is not exacting as to what he gets, so long as he gets some- thing; he may really want beads or duffel, but if there is none of either he as readily takes a copper teakettle or a knife. It is quite unimportant that he may actually need neither. He is particular on one point only, and that is, he never ::ili:!i. n MAKING READY FOR THE BARREN GROUNDS 163 '•i\ leaves the store so long as he has a " made beaver " to spend, and when he has used up his due he always makes an eloquent and vigorous appeal for gratuity or debt. As a matter of fact, these Indians are most considerately and generously treated by the company ; they are paid a good price for their fur, and the worthy, and many times the unworthy, are often given both debt and gratuity. There are no Indians I know of that are better treated, and few as well. Nor have I ever visited a country where trade competition operated less to the advantage of the natives. The few independent traders that have worked their way into this North country have done little, so far as I could see, beyond raising the value of certain kinds of fur above its fair marketable value, which in some lines has necessi- tated the introduction of an inferior quality of stuff for trade. So that the Indian has really been the loser. Although several hundred Indians bring their fur to Resolution, and the "census" of the post is returned as about 300, as at Chipewyan the actual residence is far below that number — in fact, seven families, that comprise sixty souls. Great Slave Lake itself is one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, being 300 miles Icn^-, with an estimated area of from 11,200 to 15,000 squar-^ miles. Great Bear Lake is but a couple thousan^l squar .; miles smaller, and the size of both may be judged by corn- paring them with Lake Michigan, which has 20,000 squure miles. Fancy Lake Michigan a solid sheet of '.'.i-i-'ling white, its shores broken by deep bays and sparsely cov- ered with smallish pine, and everywhere silence and deso- lation and snow, and you have some idea of Great Slave Lake in winter. ) rill i 111' • i!' Mi > I XIV BENIAH S ARRIVAL With the first Sunday in March came the anxiously awaited Beniah, in a cariole, as befitting a hunter of his reputation, and with an attendant, also riding, as became the servant of so powerful a leader. I may say in pass- ing that Beniah has a very accurate conception of his importance, and never fails to impress it upon those with whom he comes in contact. He is really the best hunter in the country, and in Northland possessions — fur and dogs — reckons a deal more than any other individual. He is a "leader" in his tribe — Dog-Rib — in so far as be- ing the head of a hunting-party, and of bringing in the largest number of skins to the company. There is no other kind of " leaders " in any of the tribes — no councils and no election to such prominenf'e by vote or heredity. Leadership is a survival of the fittest, and he who gains the distinction earns it. Beniah is much respected by his people, and is alto- gether a very superior Indian ; short in stature, probably five feet five inches, but sturdy. He can talk longer with- out exhausting a subject than any man I ever knew. In our subsequent powwow there was no contingency he did not foresee, especially if it was to operate adversely to him, and no point of an agreement that was not thor- oughly threshed out; in fact, he showed a logical mind that sometimes became lost in metaphors, but pretty BENIAH'S ARRIVAL 165 often had the right end of the solution. He is good-nat- ured, except at such time as he considers his dignity affronted by those dependent on his bounty, and some- what of a wag too, whose most mirth-provoking sally was a repeated and crescendo exclamation of " cdo'' (Dog-Rib for hot) when it was bitterest cold. The greatest tribute I can pay Beniah is to say that he kept his word with me, and that is so rare a virtue among these Indians as to be praise enough. The only thing I treasure against him was his dis- tressing rendition of a song which had few words and a tune that wailed for longer and shorter periods of time over three treble notes. 1 could never decide whether it was a song of joy or lam- entation, as he set it going on all occasions before we reached the Barrens ; and then he subsided, for there no opportunity of ■•ojoic- ing offered, and no chant, be it never so dolorous, could have expressed the depth of our misery. There was much mental measuring of one another, of drinking tea, and smoking on the day after Beniah's ar- rival at Resolution, but we did not come to the business of my venture until the evening. Then we all gathered in Gaudet's room and smoked some more, and talked for a long time about everything else, as is usual at these BENIAH Krom aPhotograpii "uy (he author ) i66 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS ♦f- t'l' powwows, except of the one thing in which we were both most interested. Finally the interpreter told Beniah I wanted him to go with me to the Barren Grounds, and did not wish to wait until the usual time of hunting; and Beniah forthwith delivered himself of quite a speech, in which he said he was glad to welcome the first white man to his hunting country, especially one whom he heard was a " great chief"; recited the danger of the Barren Grounds; the impossibility of getting Indians to make the attempt at such a season, even if he were willing ; explained the ab- srr ce of firewood, the chances of freezing or starving to deat I, and, in fact, told off the difificulties to a length for which I have no space. Now, I had sized up the situation long before Beniah s.n"i\ ' d at the post, and I had purposely delayed this m ;cting until I had looked him over a bit in the day, during the smoking and tea-drinking. My knowledge of the Indian character in general, and of this one in partic- ular, had decided me upon a course of diplomacy to induce him to go with me, and I knew if I secured him that he would insist upon his hunters going, if only that misery likes company. I was determined to get into the Barren Grounds, no matter what its terrors. Therefore when I replied to Beniah — I treated all the dangers as a matter of course — I told him T had come to him because nis skill and courage were household words in the great world ; that my one ambition had been, if I reached the North, to hunt musk-oxen with Beniah; that I had been travelling frv)rii my lodge, which was far, far away, by the "big water,' ior many suns, and that now, being here, I was sure so insignificant a matter as hunger or cold would not deter hhn from accompanying me. I made Beniah feel that my belief in his courage w.as un- i;;M BENIAH'S ARRIVAL 167 bounded. I told him I knew the other " leaders " would of course shrink from exposure, but they were as " chil- dren " to him. I made him understand that I had no doubt of his willingness to go with me; that it was merely a question of beaver-skins between us, and I was prepared to pay him liberally. I placed him in such a position that by refusing to go with me he tacitly ac- knowledged that he was afraid, that he was no greater than the other leaders to whom I had referred as children when compared with him. The result was that before the meeting closed it was midnight, but Beniah had promised me to go, provided he could make up his party, and we were to start next day for his lodge, which was in the woods about three days east of Fort Rae, and six days' travel north from Resolution. The little post of Resolution was shaken to its founda- tion next day when it learned that we really intended start- ing, and there was a great shaking of heads, and many direful prophecies told for our benefit. But I felt sure Beniah would not turn tail, since he had given me his word ; and as for myself, I had been having nothing but discouragement since first I set out. At noon my sledge was dragged into the post, and packed with my outfit, which consisted of a winter cari- bou-skin robe, lined with a pair of 4-point H.B.C. blankets, and made into a bag (which I subsequently ripped open ; the popular supposition that a bag is best is faulty ; you can sleep much warmer in the unsewn robes, becau^.e you can roll them about you more snugly), one heavy caribou- skin capote, one cloth capote, one sweater, two pairs of mittens, one pair moose-skin gloves, one pair loggings, three silk handkerchiefs, eight pair moccasins, eight pair dufifcl socks, one copper kettle, one cup, my rifle and hunt- •f: I I l68 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS ^11 P m ill I'ng-knifc, compass, camera, thermometer, ten pounds of tea, twelve pounds of tobacco, ten pounds of flour, and ten balls of pemmican (provisions I intended to cache at the last wood, where, if we succeeded in getting back, I knew wc should arrive in starving condition), two bottles of my old friend mustang liniment, a pint of brandy I had carried from Hamilton, and the antiseptic lozenges and blindages, and iodoform, in case it became necessary to play surgeon for one of the party or myself. II; iillil: ?!: :il XV TO THE TIMBER S EDGE We were ready to start at three, and I was waiting for my dog-driver and interpreter when word came that he had backed out, and Gaudet renewed his efforts to dis- suade me from the trip. But I had not come thus far to be daunted by so inconsiderable a thing as deprivation of speech or driving my own dogs, and I motioned Beniah to move on. And now there was a hand-shaking that seemed to have no ending, for every one pressed upon me closely, and grasped my hand solemnly and in silence. It was rather a funereal leave-taking. There is a little portage of about a mile that leads out from Resolution to the west on to Great Slave Lake, and Gaudet ran along with me over this ; and as he ran, told me the names of the dogs : Foro (the foregoer), Finnette, Flossie, and Blucher (the steer dog). And then we came to the lake, and halted for a last good-oye. Kind- hearted Gaudet seemed much depressed ; and as for mc — well, at any rate, I was started, and if fate ruled that I never come back, my place would be filled, and the world roll on as usual ; so with a heart for any fate, I called out '' M-a-arche .'" to Foro, and the journey to the Barrens was begun in earnest. I had no time for meditation, for my work was cut out from the start. Beniah and his Indian were riding in cari- oles, and swinging along at a clipping gait ; and though ill ]li iii! :i: I : i'i: h I. hi 170 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS my load was light, and my dogs better than theirs, I did not ride, because I wished to save them as much as pos- sible. So Beniah sped on ahead, and I followed on be- hind, going easily, for my training had made me very fit. And I had learned enough, too, to keep on my snow- shoes, though the lake would have permitted going with- out. Running on ice without snow-shoes has the same effect on leg muscles as an unyielding armory floor after a cinder-track. After four hours we came that night to Stony Island, twenty-two miles from Resolution, where we camped, and whose only interest for me lay in the fact that here, sev- enty-five years before, Sir John Franklin had breakfasted on the trip which closed so disastrously for his party. We slept in a tiny cabin with thirteen others, men, wom- en, and children, and I appreciated for the first time in what filth human beings will wallow. Next morning several Indians joined us, and we put in a long, hard day on the lake, out of sight of the shore most of the time, I running, and all the Indians in carioles. About 4.30 we canf.e lo a point where the Indians hauling meat to Resolution had made a cache, and here we halted, and a fire was lighted. I shall never forget my attempts to learn how much farther on we were going that night. I can now see myself sitting on the rocks, setting up min- iature lodges in the snow with little twigs, and using my few Dog-Rib words, co?i (fire), et/inr (far), supplemented with numerous gestures, to ascertain if the lodge fire was to be far away. My efforts created much amusement, but drew no information, and I realized how very much alone I was indeed. Nor shall I forget my amazement and my relief at seeing another fire lighted not twenty yards from the first, where we had eaten, and camp made for the night. liil TO THE TIMHER'S EDGE 171 I If ther( is one thing these Indians know how to do it is to build a roaring fire where wood is plentiful; first of all, pine brush is cut down and laid about three feet high in a semicircle, on top of which the sledges are lifted to keep them from the voracious dogs. The opening of the semicircle is piled high with wood, and when lighted throws out warmth enough to keep you comfortable so long as it lasts, even with the mercury at its lowest. About noon the next day we left the lake, striking north, and for three days, starting at six and going until eight and nine at night, we travelled across a rough )un- try, broken up by ridges and filled with lakes — i of the ridges bare of all timber, and what trees there w ere, very insignificant. All this time I had been running and the Indians riding, and I was well pleased when on the night of the third day we reached Beniah's camp, which proved to be quite the biggest settlement I had seen, for these Indians roam about in small parties of one or two lodges. Only a few consequential leaders like Beniah have a fixed habitation, and then it is only used in sum- mer, when the fishing is going forward. Here, while Beniah was explaining my mission and making up his party, I put in three very uncomfortable days. To say that I was an object of curiosity would be putting it mildly ; I was indeed a stranger in a strange land. The men examined over and again every article I possessed ; the women stared me out of countenance ; the mothers used me as a bugaboo to hush their crying babies ; and the dogs crowded about me so threateningly that I never ventured outside the lodge without my whip. I was the first white man they had seen, and one and all made the most of their opportunity. I was on exhibition with a vengeance, only, unlike other freaks, I had no hours ; the show opened when I arose in the morning, ■■"* «gf" 1 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // 1.0 I.I 11.25 1^ |2B |2.5 lAo 12.0 1.8 U IIIIII.6 y] '^# 7 7 -^ Photographic Sdences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 873-4503 m- U;;n I 4 172 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS and was still on when I rolled up in my blankets at night. And I, on my part, made most careful scrutiny of the curious surroundings in which I found myself. We were camped on top of a ridge covered with small pines, where Beniah had pitched his tepee to catch the caribou that were just beginning to work out to the edge of the woods. There were three lodges, all full, and, so long as I remained, the occupants of the other two spent the greater part of their time in Beniah's. There were actually fifteen sleeping in our little lodge ; who they all were, and what their relations, I never could thoroughly satisfy myself. I picked out Beniah's wife (far and away the best-looking squaw I saw in the country) from the way she served him ; and another, wife of We- cindar. But the third woman in the lodge I could never place ; she seemed every one's servant and nobody's wife in particular. I never could make out who provided for her ; in fact, that same query puzzled me many times and of many Indians. There were always one or two who seemed never to have any teakettle or meat of their own, and lived entirely on the bounty of others. And how that bounty was given ! — thrown at them as though they were dogs ; for though the Indian is generous with his meat, he appears to hold in contempt those who do not at least occasionally have some of their very own. Here in our lodge, for instance, three kettles of tea were boiled — mine, which Beniah shared; a second, that of Wecindar's ; and a third shared by four or five men to- gether. What was left of mine went to Beniah's wife and boy (for the women, as a rule, eat after the men), but what the others got I declare I never could see. Now and then I discovered them with a bone, but never regu- larly served at the usual time of eating. Indeed, there is no usual time of eating with the Irid- DS it night. ' of the Ve were :s, where 30U that : of the > long as )ent the e lodge ; er could wife (far country) ; of We- ild never dy's wife /ided for mes and two who leir own, ind how jgh they with his o do not tea were that of men to- wife and len), but Now ver regu- M ^ > b = H tn n 3 n o a the Irid- li: TO THE TIMBER'S EDGE 175 f ■J - 1 ians ; so long as there is any meat they eat half a dozen times a day, and on the slightest provocation, such as the entrance of a visitor or the return of some one from a hunt. And I never beheld the equal of their capacity. I saw one lodge eat an entire caribou at a sitting — head, hoofs (with outside horn covering removed), entrails, stom- ach, heart, liver, lungs, parts of generation, marrow, every- thing ^"^ th^ h^^^ ^^^ bones. The head is quite a deli- cacy, and is always reserved for the successful hunter. Caribou tongue is really rich, and many is the meal I made on the eyes and ears, which are very good — at least, they seemed so then. I suppose really I am not fitted to pass an opinion on these Northland dainties, because at the time I ate them anything filling would have seemed delicious. Some of the intestines when boiled, the large one particularly, are fat and satisfying, but, even though starving, I detected a marked difference when they were eaten raw out of the caribou or musk-ox stomach. I could never tolerate, probably because I never had a chance at it when really hungry, one of their greatest delicacies — blood-pudding, I call it, for a better name. This was made by taking the stomach of the caribou, with its half-digested contents, cut up the liver into it, adding some fat, and then hanging the whole mess over the fire. By the way they fell upon it, it must be very toothsome. There was never a period of my starvation when I could attempt the womb of the caribou, which the Indians devoured raw, and without washing, and not until I had gone three days without put- ting anything into my stomach but tea could I eat the unborn calf. I have no doubt some of my readers will be disgusted by this recital ; and as I sit here at my desk writing, with but to reach out and push a button for din- ner, luncheon — what I will — I can hardly realize that only ■■ i fi i 11: i! 1 1 ■v. V m i j m \\ m •iW' 1-' 176 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS a few months ago I choked an Indian until he gave up a piece of musk-ox intestine he had stolen from me. One must starve to know what one will eat. In times of prosperity these Indian tepees are by no means unsightly. They are of caribou -skin stretched around and to within about three feet of the top of poles, which number according to the size of the lodge. The sides of the circle are banked up with snow and pine brush, and, inside, the smallest brush makes a clean-looking and pleas- antly smelling floor. The open fire occupies the centre; and above it, stretched from side to side of the lodge, are poles upon which the meat is placed to thaw, and from which the kettles are suspended. Around this fire the men and women sit, cross-legged, all day, jabbering incessantly in their guttural speech that is impossible to describe in writing, and at night they roll up in their blankets and stretch out with their feet at the very fire's edge. I used to wonder what on earth they found to talk about, for the clatter never came to a full stop, and when I lay down at times, trying in slumber to escape the din, it seemed as though it must all be a hide- ous dream. But any such illusion was speedily dispelled by the yelping of a dog that had worked its way into the lodge, and was being clubbed until it worked its way out again. Domestic economics are a dead letter in the Indian household. There is no place for any particular thing, and nothing is ever in any particular place. The back part of the lodge, where it is too cold to sit even when the fire blazes highest, appears to be the general store- room. Everything not in immediate use is thrown there in indiscriminate confusion. If the squaw has finished stripping a caribou leg of its meat, she tosses the bone over her shoulder into the unknown behind her; it she TO THE TIMBER'S EDGE 177 has completed the lacing of a snow-shoe, it is served simi- larly; the Indian hurls his knife there when he is through with it, and the children do the same with the bones or intestines or bits of meat they may have filched from the feasting, in which they never share. And when there is a demand for any article such an overhauling ensues as would put to shame a May-day house-cleaning. Children are not much in evidence in the Indian house- hold. They rarely cry, for experience has taught them that such outward expression of grief or alarm or hurt meets with much personal dis- comfort. If they are in the moss- bag age, which usually ends at two, they are put into a sort of hammock within the lodge and rocked at a terrifying pace to the accompaniment of a crooning that would strike terror to the heart of any crying babe. If they are old enough to toddle, they are turned out-of-doors to teil their sorrows to the winds. The Indian has no patience for the little solicitudes of life, nor for its frivolities. His amuse- ments are few and simple. Out- side of a something that resem- bles that ancient pastime of " but- ton, button — who has the but- ton ?" and where the penalty is a piece of tobacco, there are no games to speak of. The dancing is exceedingly awkward and crude — a shuffling about in a circle, varied by hopping up and down, and the music con- 12 DOG-WHIP lit ¥.: 178 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS ^1V.*fi fined to the monotony of the single-headed drum, or may- hap an occasional fiddle picked up at the post, which in that case squeaks through a medley of reels. Their dear- est recreation is sleeping, since most of their time is spent in procuring food, and the balance in resting from the toil required to obtain it. The day after my arrival Beniah took up seriously the question of getting volunteers for the musk-ox hunt. At least I judged so from the gathering of the men in our lodge, the long and earnest conference, and the displeased looks that were every now and again cast my way. It must be remembered that I knew practically nothing of the language, and was dependent on signs. My Dog-Rib vocabulary consisted of curre (stop), ecla oidec ? (what is it called ?), ethar (far), coti (fire), ega (hurry), bet (meat), oole (none), ilia (no), ch (yes), too (water), ethen (caribou), ejcri (musk-ox), edzar (cold), and sla (plenty) — words that Gau- det told me at the last minute, when my interpreter backed out, and which I wrote down phonetically just as I was starting. I picked up a few others afterwards, but had really always to rely on signs, and I found the Ind- ians not only dull of comprehension, although they ordi- narily learn much quicker by the eye than by the ear, but disinclined to understand me. They seemed, with one or two exceptions, to wish to make it as difficult for me as possible. • Judging by appearances, Beniah was having a heated time of it persuading them to go into the Barrens, as I supposed he would have, and the storm that had blown up, and the cold, which my thermometer registered as 46° below, did not tend to increase their liking for the vent- ure. But I was convinced that Beniah would bring it about, because these Indians could not afford to deny him, and he would not, could not, go without them.' /^ TO THE TIMBER'S EDGE 179 It was a lugubrious day that, for no meat was in the lodge, a hunter had been found frozen dead at his traps, some one had died in the adjoining lodge, and there was mourning in the air. My first intimation of the death was most dreadful fem- inine wailing, seconded by mournful howling of the dogs, f.' t I ^■r !<' !;.;■■ i i : THE INDIAN'S TOOL-KIT — AXE, CROOKED KNIFE (HOME-MADE), AND FIT.E which all together made such distressing bedlam as I hope never to hear again. The coffin was a rude slab box axe- hewn from the pine, bound together by babiche, and sus- pended from a single pole, by which it was borne as a litter on the shoulders of two Indians, one in front and one behind. Following were some half-dozen wome;», all chanting a most direful dirge ; and as the little proces Jon disappeared over the ridge the dogs sat on their haunches on top of the hill and whined a last requiem for the poor wretch, who would nevermore struggle for life in the white desert. Next day I knew Beniah had succeeded in organizing a party, for the women began relacing snow-shoes and mak- ing mittens, and the men set to work shaving down pine poles into extra runners for the sledges. The Indian's tool-kit consists of an axe, a large file, and a " crooked i< ^' y .-f I ill fl:'' I'i I piitil ^;\ { 3 4 Ifc' '•'' ' 'I i h-H^i l8o ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS knife," which has a blade made from a file, a bone handle, and in general appearance looks somewhat like a farrier's knife. It is an implement of general utility, carried by all, and exceedingly deft in the hands of some. The original of the dog-whip handle illustrated, and really a very creditable piece of carving, was made with just such tools by William Flett, a Loucheux, and the interpreter at Fort Smith. When they go after musk-ox they add a huge weapon with a blade nine inches long and one-eighth of an inch thick (and the best-shaped point for skinning I ever used), which becomes at once hunting-knife and Barren Ground axe — for nothing larger for chopping is taken or required. As the men toiled away at the pine slabs, shaving off about two inches for a length of seven feet with their crooked knives, and the women laced snow-shoes, I won- dered if I had ever seen people do more work and accom- plish less. If there is a roundabout way, these Indians seek it out ; a straight line does not appeal to them in any form. They always begin at the wrong end, and choose the longest way. And as for pitching camp, a white man of any experience who could not do better would be well laughed at by his hunting companions. Between making up their mind as to the precise piece of ground on which to pitch it, and getting into one another's way while do- ing so, the length of time they take would make any man of roughing experience disgusted. How fervently I used to wish for a command of their language to give a few instructions, and, incidentally, my opinion of them indi- vidually and collectively ! And all the time they keep up an incessant jabber, or stop work entirely in the heat of discussion. Between chattering and, in the lodge, catching vermin, with which the women and children especially are literally alive, the V -Ti- to THE TiMBER'S EDGE i8i i' wonder is they ever accomplish anything. One hand is almost invariably kept busy seeking those Northland " birds of prey " ; and as one is caught it is conveyed to the teeth and cracked and subsequently eaten. It may be imagined when the lodge is full that, what with the cracking (which is distinctly audible) and the hunting, the scene is enlivening. Keeping track of the alternately dis- appearing hands and determining the cause of the crack- ing were at first quite exciting occupation for me during my weary days in the lodge. And ** they never touched me " during the entire trip, for which I thank an ointment I carried, and that I shall be glad to tell any sportsman likely to visit localities where vermin rule in undisputed sway. How gratified I was when on the third day we finally left the women, some of the vermin, and the lodges, and started on ou- way to the Barren Grounds, I shall not at- tempt to say. It seemed to me that the starving and freezing that lay before were little less to be dreaded than the filth and monotony I was leaving behind. Not that I left all the filth or vermin behind, for my seven Indians took along a generous share, but, at any rate, I was out in the open, instead of being sandwiched between women and children that made me crawl only to look at them. There was a very solemn leave-taking on the day we left Beniah's lodge, and I was as much in the dark as to the relationship between the men and women as on the first day of my arrival. Every man embraced and kissed everj'^ woman, the men shook hands, and the children sat down in the snow and stared, and as we moved off the dogs left behind sent up their wolfish chorus. Ye gods ! it was a relief to be started ! Beniah and I had held a sign-talk that morning, and I iii ii i I! *■ On ^4'H '\:' i:', •^■-^^^..:-.- =.-.A. 182 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS made out that there was no meat in the lodge, which was no news, as we had eaten but tea and grease for two days ; that in one ** sleep " — i.e., by to-morrow morning — we should be where there were caribou ; stop there one sleep, and then go on for cjeri ; meanwhile his con (fire) — />., house — would be moved to the /t;t?f//<7 (big water) — i.e.. Great Slave Lake — because here where we were it was bet-oolc{t\o meat). I understood from this that his wife would go to the lakes, around which the Indians always settle when the caribou fail, and where she would await our return, subsisting on what fish could be caught under the ice or what rabbits might be snared in the woods. The one " sleep " did not bring us up to the caribou, but it took us north to the lodge of another Indian who had been more fortunate than we. Here for one day we feasted and the Indians slept, and when we started on r-~i CUTTING LODGK-POLES ON THE EDGE OF THE TIMBER From a Photograph by the author TO THE TIMBER'S EDGE '83 ^■Ir] again the next morning Beniah signed me that we were now off for musk-ox. Another day of travel in a fearful wind and the mercury at 47° below, over rocky ridges and through pine that was growing smaller and more scat- tering as we advanced, and at night we camped on the shore of King Lake. The next morning we lingered for a couple of hours while the Indians cut and trimmed lodge-poles we must carry with us. And as I climbed to the top of a rocky ridge, and viewed the desert of treeless snow extending far into the horizon before me, I knew we had come to the edge of timber, and that the Barren Grounds, in all their desolation, lay before me. And I thought, as I stood and gazed into the cheerless waste, that if death marked my venture it would not be a hard country to leave. If 'I ' i>' I hi 11 !', i i f 'fill I i ^^■^ :, lifli XVI IN THE "LAND OF LITTLE STICKS" We left all hopes of a warming fire on the south side of King Lake when we lashed the newly cut lodge-poles to our sledges and took up our northward way through the outlying relics of timber-land, which the Indians aptly call the " Land of Little Sticks." There is no abrupt ending of the timber-line. For a day or two be- fore reaching King Lake the trees are growing smaller and more scarce ; as you draw nearer they stretch away like irregular lines of skirmishers deployed along the fron- tier to intercept further encroachment on the Barren Grounds. And now you pass beyond these sentries and travel along a ridge which makes out into the white desert — a long, wooded peninsula — or mayhap you cross a lake to find a wooded island on the other side. Gradually — im- perceptibly almost — the peninsulas grow shorter and the islands smaller, until finally you stand on the shore of King Lake and look north into desolation. Probably the roughest country in all the Northland is that going down to the Barrens. Nature appears to have made an effort to stay the footsteps of the wanderer while yet there is opportunity to turn from the trials that await him beyond. Isolated hills, sharp little ridges, and narrow, shallow valleys, running hither and thither, all rock-cov- ered, and every now and again a lake, go to make up a r !2-' S "V MAP SHOWING THE AUTHOR'S ROUTE THROUGH THE UARREN GROUNDS (See Note on page 187) i86 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS gi rugged and confused whole. One can well imagine some Titan ploughman had cross-sectioned the land into huge ridge and furrow, stopping here and there to raise a mound, and sowing all with rocks of every shape and size which your fancy pictures into all kinds of animals. It looks for- bidding, and it is a great deal more so than it appears. 'Twas over such going I had my first real experience in dog-driving, for up till now there had been only the usual handling of the sledge, and therein lie all the difficulties of the art. If you can imagine a canoe pitching in short, choppy waves, you will gain some idea of the action of a lightly loaded sledge being dragged over this ridge and furrow and rock. Without guidance the sledge would soon pound itself to pieces, so you humor and coax it through the furrows, ease it around or lift it over the rocks, pull with the dogs in climbing the ridge, and pull against them in going down. And all the time, because of your enforced running alongside the head of the sledge, in order to handle it by the " tail-line," you are tripping over rocks you cannot see, being jammed in between others you cannot escape, or blocking the progress of the sledge with an arm or a leg, or, often as not, with your head. The Indians left me to work out my own salvation, and my dogs added difficulties to those nature had already liberally provided. The most exciting, and, withal dis- comforting, moments I had were in going downhill. Whether in contempt for my inexperience, or misunder- standing my commands, whenever we began a descent and I called "W-h-o-a!" Foro, the foregoer, invariably broke into a run, starting up the other dogs, and draggin me after them, hanging to the tail-line, which I did not t op, because I thought it just as well the dogs should learn early in the game that they could not " shake " me. And so sometimes I went downhill head-first, at other times IN THE LAND OF LITTLE STICKS 187 /■ feet-first ; but the speed of the dogs never lessened until the bottom had been reached, except when I brought up against a rock, stopping them short, and nearly dislocating my arms thereby. By-and-by I grew skilful enough to stay on my feet once in a while, and on such occasions a rush after the dogs at top speed would take me up to the foregoer about half- way down the hill, where I fell on him as though he were a football rolling back of the line from a blocked kick and 1 was after a touch-down. And then we were rather a mixed-up lot, I and the dogs and the sledge — until I had given Foro a few samples of my English pronunciation. Poor old Foro ! how miserable he made my life for a while ! After I had dropped on him half a dozen times in the middle of a wild gallop downhill he began to un- derstand my " W-h-o-a !" and then we got on better. And what a lesson, too, in snow-shoeing was this dog- driving ! It was reasonable, I suppose, for me to believe myself somewhat skilled on snow-shoes by the time I had reached Great Slave Lake. But when I started from Beniah's lodge I discovered there was much to learn. No man may consider himself an expert until he has driven dogs and handled a sledge over such country as that ap- proaching the Land of Little Sticks — even the heart-break- ing and shoe-tripping muskeg is not a circumstance to it. It' ., I;< is- • m i*> By referring to the map of the Harren Grounds on page 185, the reader will find the routes of those explorers who have penetrated into the Barren Grounds. Both Pike and Munn reached Great Slave Lake by Hudson's Bay Company steamer and by canoe from Athabasca Landing. Frank Russel. the other white man who has succeeded in getting into the Barrens, started from Fort Rae, which he reached by Hudson's Bay Company steamer. Mr. Russel's route would be given were it known to me. As near as I could learn at Great Slave Lake, Mr. Russell took a course north of east from Fort Rae, which he held for from six to eight days before turning back. li -IM Within the borders of the Land of Little Sticks the >«!!,. .. ! i88 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS general character of the country becomes more rolling. The rocks are always in evidence, but the furrows have broadened to valleys, and the ridges lost their sharpness and gained in height. Still, the little sharp ridges and furrows never disappear entirely. One day you may see them only here and there ; on another probably every ele- vation will reveal them. To a larger or smaller extent they are scattered through all that part of the Barrens I travelled over, and are the most likely musk-ox grounds, because of the moss and lichens that cling to the rocks, and are the easier gathered. The " little sticks " are pine or juniper, from three to eight feet high, that in small patches are scattered — I do not know how many miles apart, but I can give an idea by saying that during the day of thirty-five to forty miles' travel on the course we pursued we came upon probably a couple of these clumps each day of the two and a half we spent crossing the Land of Little Sticks. Each night we camped where the bushes grew into smallish trees, and covered probably half an acre. But between these patches nothing inflammable showed above the snow — not even a twig. As we worked our way due north, travelling by the sun ,-y .ttivi"i/t-.Ri5t'y V 'ifS/i... « J> ( A PIPR IN THF, LAND OK I.ITTI.E STICKS From a Photograph by the author I IN THE LAND OK LITTLE STICKS 189 fe when it shone, as Indian;) always do, and by my compass when it stormed, as it mostly did, we climbed to the top of the highest elevations that lay in our course or near it, and while we smoked a pipe, viewed the forlorn panorama which, when the storm permitted, unrolled before us so repeatedly and monotonously. There it was, always the same, unchangeable and unchanged — glittering snow, ridge-encircled lakes, rocky mounds and basins, and far away in the distance a small black speck, perhaps a wood oasis in the desert of snow. From the hour of leaving our lucky friend in the woods, two days before, we had eaten no meat. We had kept a sharp though unsuccessful lookout for caribou. Beniah had produced some grease from a little bag he carried, and another Indian had found a piece of frozen caribou intestine in the depths of his sledge, and these, with a few hitherto undiscovered bones, remains of dog-feed, stayed our eight stomachs for the first day's travel in the Land of Little Sticks. We had taken along no supply of dried meat or grease, because caribou signs at the edge of timber convinced the Indians that the cows had begun their mi- gration to the North, and we .should be able to kill enough for the dogs and ourselves. But all signs fail in the Bar- ren Grounds. The caribou may have been moving, but they were not moving our way. Throughout that second day scouts were sent to the east and west searching for caribou, and on top of every hill in our path we halted and hungrily scanned the un- compromising wilderness for a sight of meat. The usual chatter of the Indians had ceased. In si- lence, and against a .strong head-wind, we plodded all day long, and when in the gloaming we set up our lodge in one of the little patches of pine, there was nothing left us for the evening meal but tea and a pipe. 3 ' i 6 j- i ■ ) 19° ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS As we squatted around the fire awaiting the melting of the snow in the teakettle, the Indians appeared to be holding a consultation, and shortly one of them left the circle and went to my sledge. So soon as he began un- lacing the wrapper I had a fairly clear idea of what he was after, and as quickly realized that I was in for a " scrap." I watched the Indian, however, without dissent, and all the other Indians watched me, until he had uncovered and begun opening the bag in which were the dozen balls of pemmican I had brought from Fort Resolution. And then I said, "///«" (no). The Indian hesitated in his for- aging, and looked first at me, probably to discover if I was serious, and then to the others — for encouragement, I suppose. Evidently he got it ; at least, there was a chorus of gutturals, and he set to work at the bag again. And now I rose on my knees and called him by name — Seeyah — and when he paused and looked at me, I added, rather louder and more earnestly, " Ilia, ilia." That would have been the end of the piratical episode, I think, had Seeyah been the captain of the crew ; but while he stood unde- cided, with his hand in the bag, the others maintained an animated council of war, in whose utterances I seemed to recognize appeals of urgency to him and of defiance to me, and so Seeyah renewed the attack. I perfectly realized the unpleasantness of my position, but I felt the situation bore most importantly on the re- lations between the Indians and me for the balance of the trip. It was a crisis I would have cheerfully averted, but being thrust upon me, I believed the success of my vent- ure, to say nothing of my peace of mind, depended on how I survived it. It was not only that the Indians should at this period of their hunger consume those few balls of pemmican, but it was that their disregard of my commands might in the future lead to greater recklessness m IN THE LAND OF LITTLE STICKS 191 in provisions ; and recklessness of provisions was just as apt as not to end in our starvation, or, what concerned me more, failure of my trip. I had fetched the pemmi- can to have at a time and cache at a place when, as near as I could estimate, we should be in direst need. To eat it now, with the journey barely begun, was to rob us of our last resource. I felt if I could go without meat for two days and resist the temptation of eating, they, whose very existence is divided into alternate periods of feasting and fasting, could also, and must, if my determination was to carry weight. I was not a little exasperated, too, that the Indians should treat my wishes with contempt, and so when Seeyah renewed his explora- tions for pemmican I confess I was in fit humor to leave no doubt in their minds as to whom the disposition of that pem- mican actually belonged. Jumping to my feet, I grabbed the Indian by the shoulder and jerked him away from my sledge. Instantly all the Indians were on their feet, jabbering and ges- ticulating at a great rate ; and while the storm of their displeasure raged, I backed up against my sledge and await- ed its abatement, shouting "///«.'" every now and again, and keeping a sharp lookout for any sudden movement on their part. As in my mind's eye I now see those Indians grouped about the teakettle, all talking at once, and cast- ing lowering looks at me, back against my sledge, shout- ing "■Ilia !'' whenever I thought they could hear me above their own din, the situation seems mirth provoking. But the humor of it did not appeal to me so much at that time. !1 INDIAN LEGGING i I f Q %i i ^ i:i! jiii(;!i| !"i liti I :! ■1 III j!i 192 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS Finally, when there came a lull in the vocal bombard- ment, I stepped forward and entered upon the most elab- orate and important speech I had yet attempted in the sign language. I held their attention for probably fifteen minutes, and there was no interruption save when the dogs broke into the lodge and scrambled and fought all over us, until whipped out again. I expressed to them that I had brought the pemmican not for myself, but for us all ; that we had only begun our journey ; that there might come a time when it would save us from death ; that I intended leaving it at the last wood ; that they could not get it now without fighting for it, and if we fought I should surely be killed, as we were in quarters too con- fined to use any weapon but a knife, and they were seven against me, and then the *' Big Master " (the Hudson's Bay Company commissioner, Mr. Chipman, who I hope will forgive my liking him to an implacable Nemesis in my hour of need) would take all their skins away, and kill them and their women and children. I do not believe at any time they really had an idea of serious personal con- flict, but, at all events, I made them understand they could not get the pemmican that night without putting me out of the way, and they left off muttering, drank their tea in sullen silence, glaring at me over the top of their cups. Before pipes had been lighted two of the scouts came in, each with a caribou head on his back and bearing the good news that three had been killed. So peace reigned again in the lodge, and the late unpleasantness was for- gotten, while we feasted on the ears and eyes and tongues of those two heads. But these two heads among eight men furnished, of course, only a mouthful apiece, and the real feast, and, I may add, our last, began the next morning, when wexame fDS Dombard- lost elab- ed in the \\y fifteen kvhen the Fought all to them If, but for ;hat there m death ; that they we fought i too con- ^ere seven dson's Bay hope will :sis in my y, and kill believe at sonal con- tand they ut putting ing, drank the top of outs came earing the ,ce reigned ss was for- nd tongues rnished, of east, and, I in we'came " =■ ^ ft;*-. TN THE LAND OF LITTLE STICKS '95 to where the three carcasses of the caribou lay. It hap- pened that there were a few scattering little sticks near by, and half of us gathered firewood, while the others guarded the caribou from the rapacious dogs. To hold the dogs in check is to turn the sledges upside-down and sit on them. But all the while the dogs jump and tug and howl, and now and again one slips his simple harness, and then nothing short of a blow that knocks him nearly senseless drives him from the caribou. It is cruel treat- ment, but the necessity is extreme. Some- times, even with the sledge turned over, the starving, straining dogs get started towards the coveted prize, and then every man sets upon them with whipstock and lash, for once those four dogs got to the carcass, there would be no hope of rescuing any of the meat. Sometimes, frenzied by their unsuccessful ef- forts to get the meat, they turn on one anoth- er, and then ensues a dog-fight of such fury as can never be witnessed anywhere beyond the Barren Grounds, with its maddening con- ditions. Even though by some transcendent means I should be given plenty to eat, not anything could induce me to again visit the Barrens and witness the sufferings of those poor dumb brutes. Only for one period (I think, though not absolutely certain, because I was too cold and miser- able to write in my note-book every day, and must depend largely on memory) of three days on the trip did they go entirely without meat. At all others they had a little, just a mouthful, except twice, when we camped by a good killing of musk-ox, and then they fared sumptuously. But they were half famished practically all the time, and my conscience smote me sorely as I noted their glaring eyes RACING SHOE, Canadian Snow- Shoe Club, 3 feet long m .f:--ti c "'III, I i ! I I '! i Nil' 196 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARKEN (JKOUNDS and tucked-up stomacljs, and realized that my thirst for adventure was the cause of it all. We were fortunate enough to kill caribou and musk-oxen at intervals which enabled us to give the dogs just a bite sometimes every day, and at least every other day, with the exception of that three-day period. When we killed caribou the dogs were fed on the spot, and the little meat remaining was divided among the sledges, to be carried for them against the days we were not so lucky. We never were lucky enough to kill before this little supply was exhausted. Had we been, we, the seven Indians and I, would have eaten meat. As it was, we ate the intestines and fat, and the dogs ate the meat, be- cause there was not nourishment enough in the intestines for the dogs. Before we left Resolution, Beniah and I had a thorough understanding on this point. Many of the Indian expeditions to the Barrens are crippled by loss of dogs from starvation, and I knew the loss of our dogs meant failure ; so we decided if there was any starving the greater part of it should fall on us, realizing of course that if the worst came we could eat the dogs. Beniah held to his agreement, and enforced compliance from the others, and to his wisdom in this direction, in fact, is due much of our success in getting out of the Barrens in such good condition. When it is remembered that the ordinary meal for a dog -train — t.c., four dogs, that are travelling thirty or more miles a day — consists of a caribou hind and fore quarter, that we had twenty-eight dogs, and that we never got more than a caribou or two at intervals of several days, the reader may understand why the dogs were like wild animals, and why we ate the intestines and grease and saved them the meat. When we killed musk-ox we first cut off meat for a day > ! !: ill '. SDS thirst for fortunate /als which mes every ception of I the spot, imong the ^'s we were kill before en, we, the As it was, le meat, be- e intestines 1 and I had any of the d by loss of )f our dogs ny starving iSf of course CIS. Beniah ce from the 1 fact, is due rens in such meal for a \g thirty or nd and fore lat we never Is of several DtTs were like s and grease T*tJ,Vf,i Hil»n\«rbj FEEDING THE DOGS eat for a day i ! IN THE LAND OF LITTLE STICKS 199 or two's dog-feeding, and then turned the dogs loose on the carcasses, over which they worried and snarled and fought the livelong night. When there were no carcasses, they were fed out of hand from the slender supply on the sledge, and then they fought us, and worried the weaker among themselves into dividing the frozen chunks that were tossed to them. This dog- feeding was a trying experience. All the trains were fed at the same time — when we camped at night — and such a scene cannot be duplicated anywhere on earth. As we emerged from the lodge with the tiny feed rolled up in the skirt of our capote, there was a rush by the dogs that pretty nearly carried us off our feet, and frequently knocked down the lodge. We always tried, but never with success, to steal a march on the dogs and get away from the lodge before the rush, but the moment one of us showeii his head they gathered for the assault, and there was nothing to do but to scramble out as best we could, otherwise they would have poured into the lodge and torn it and our clothes to pieces in their crazy hunger. So we would bolt out in a body, heads down, and hugging the meat to our breasts with one hand, use the whip vigorously with the other, while the dogs jumped into us and on top of us in their frantic endeavors to tear away the little scrap of meat we held. Gradually we would separate, and each man attempt to gather his train by lashing those that did not belong to him, and calling by name those that did. When, after much fighting, each had gathered his own, the actual process of feeding began, and this again de- manded much activity and some strategy to insure every dog of your train getting its portion. I never had time to notice how the Indians did it, but my method was to run each dog in turn a few yards from the other three. 1 '\- i I'M >^*n m ! ; I 200 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS quickly toss his meat to him before the others caught up, and then stand guard over him while he ate it. The eating did not occupy much time — there was only a growl, a grab, and a gulp, and the meat was gone. It was necessary to be expeditious, for the dogs that had swallowed their meat ran from group to group seeking those that had not, and woe betide the poor beast that attempted to masticate his morsel ! Two of my train, Flossie and Finnette, were very timid, and gave me no end of bother. It was only necessary for another dog to start towards them, and they would drop their meat and run off. I found it necessary to hold them by the scuff of the neck while they ate, and I laid my whip- stock over the heads of the dogs that fought around me. Feeding animals in the Zoo isn't a circumstance to feeding dogs in the Barrens. As I have said, our three-caribou feast of that morning — our third in the Land of Little Sticks — was the last. I like to dwell on it even now. First the legs of the cari- bou were cut off, stripped of their sinews and flesh, and the bones cracked open for the marrow ; then the heart and kidneys and two unborn calves; then the tongues and the eyes and the ears ; and all the while ribs were roasting, stuck upon sticks about the fire, and a kettle full of what was left from the dog-feed hung suspended from a tripod over all. I confined myself to the marrow and ribs, and simply marvelled at the quantity those Indians ate. When we started on again there was not left a great deal of the three caribou to load on to the sledges, but the Indians were in good-humor. |!t XVII THE " LAST WOOD it J About noon of that day, from the top of a ridge, we saw, far in the distance, a black patch, so much larger than those we had passed it seemed almost as though we had got turned about and were travelling towards the timber's edge. But my compass told me the direction was north, and Beniah made me understand by signs that this was the " last wood." It loomed up almost like a forest ; but when we reached it, late in the afternoon, it proved to be not more extensive than about five acres. But all things go by comparison, and those five acres of scattering small pine were as gratifying to us as though they had made a Maine forest. Most of the trees averaged from one to two inches in diameter, though there were some twice as large, and I noticed a very few that might have been five or six inches. At any rate, it all blazed warmly, and it was pleasant after our experience in the Land of Little Sticks to feel the heat of a fire once more. How deeply I was to appreciate that fire a few weeks later ! Beniah signed me next morning that we should camp here one " sleep," to chop wood to take along with us, and to kill caribou to cache here for our return. But in fact we remained at the " last wood " two " sleeps," because the caribou were not to be had easily, and the stormy weather developed into a blizzard that delayed i ii. ■0:,. Ill III i:hi .1 : i i'ii, 202 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS travel. The first day served to give me an object-lesson as to the deception of distances on the Barrens. All the Indians had hunted unsuccessfully in the morn- ing and returned to wood-chopping in the afternoon, and I determined to venture after caribou, as I knew, with this patch of timber visible from any ridge within five miles or so, I could not lose myself. I had gone, I suppose, about six miles when, by the aid of my field-glass- es, I counted five caribou a couple of miles away, at the edge of a lake, and noted that a very strong wind was blowing, and, to my good- fortune, from them to me. It is dif^cult to approach game in this country, notwithstanding its vales and mounds, because the caribou are almost invariably viewed first on a lake or at its edge, to which the undulations descend in contin- uous long sweeps. But I made a careful stalk, crawling from rock to rock and from snow-drift to snow-drift, and finally reached a point be- yond which there was no hope of undiscovered approach. I judged I was about three hundred yards from my quarry, and as they were quietly grazing broadside to me, confidently counted on taking at least a couple of tongues into camp. I raised my sight to 300 yards; a quick, steady aim, and I pulled trigger for the first time on Barren Ground caribou. But no caribou fell, nor was there any little puff of snow to tell me I had shot over or under. Three times in rapid succession, but with careful sighting, I fired at the MEDICINE-MAN S NECKLACE } ] NDS ect-lesson the morn- noon, and new, with jible from iles or so, If. I had six miles field-glass- u a couple edge of a 'ery strong my good- me. It is ime in this ig its vales he caribou iewed first i, to which i in contin- it I made and from I point be- approach. from my ide to me, of tongues keady aim, [en Ground little puff 'hree times Ifired at the > O o 3 o on 3 •3 3" o 11 o o 3 s PI > P! •X Hi I I THE "LAST WOOD" 205 same animal with the same results, and before I could reload my half-magazine the caribou were off around a point. That I was disgusted is hardly necessary to say ; that I was bitterly disappointed those sportsmen who have lost their supper by poor marksmanship will know. But my wonder at not having scored on such a big target — for all five were bunched — was greater than my disgust or disappointment. I walked over to see if I had drawn blood, and, reaching the place where the caribou had been standing in what seemed an incredibly short 3CK) yards, I paced back, and, to my amazement, found the distance measured just 105 yards! I had, of course, shot far over them. But I was thankful to have made this discovery before reaching musk-ox, even though it had cost us much needed meat, and I vowed on the spot to at once begin schooling my eye to the illusions of the white desert. I followed the caribou for a while, in hopes of getting another chance, but they had gone too far ; and then, as I headed for camp, I began my first lessons in Barren Ground distance-gauging by guessing the yards to a stone and then pacing them off. I was not only astonished at the discrepancy between my guess and the actual dis- tance, but oftentimes by the size of the rock when I reached it. A stone which looked as large as a cabin at four or five hundred yards would turn out to be about as big as a bushel basket. Later, on the one or two very clear cold days we had, the illusion was reversed. Of course the difficulties of determining distances on the Barrens are exactlj^ similar to those that obtain on the ocean, where there is nothing by which to gauge the range of one's vision, nor any object on either side for a com- parative focus. I found much difficulty in overcoming the tendency to exaggerate distance, though the Indians apparently were not so troubled. 1 ■! '■ - J. i ao6 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS III ijH, '! ill ll When I returned to camp that night the Indians had finished chopping the supply of wood we were to take, and likewise during the day finished the remnants of the feast left from the day before, so that again we were with- out meat. We were to have left the " last wood " the next morning, but the thermometer registered 58° below, and a blizzard of such severity raged that the Indians would not face it ; so we lay in our robes until about three o'clock, when the fury of the storm lessened, and every- body turned out to hunt. When we assembled again, four hours later, there was a yearling for the dogs, an un- born calf for us, and a cow that had not been brought in. The temptation to linger here, where at least there was a fire to warm our empty stomachs, was considerable ; but the morning of the third day broke clear, though with such a biting wind as almost took our breath away, and we realized that the caribou were leaving us, and there was no time to lose. So now we began our last prepara- tions for the plunge into the Barren Grounds proper. We calculated on getting back to this point in about twenty days, and were taking that many nights' supply of wood, intending to push due north for from ten to twelve days. The wood we took from the largest trees to be found in that patch, and was cut into blocks just the width of a sledge — i.e., about fourteen inches — and then split into quarters, because we were to take no axe. Every sledge was shod with extra runners to protect it from the rocks, and when loaded with the wood there was hardly room for our sleeping-robes and moccasins and duffel. Then we cached the caribou cow that had been killed the day before, along with my rebellion-inciting balls of pemmican, the ten pounds of flour, half of my remaining supply of tobacco, tea, and cartridges, and every article that was not absolutely necessary to our continued progress. I wrote z' THE "LAST WOOD" 207 ;/ also and left in the cache a brief account of our jour, up to that time, and of the course we intended to pursue. Not far to the westward the Franklin party, seventy- five years before, had raised a monument to their memory in the name of Fort Enterprise, and though I had neither time nor tools, not even the wish, to raise a fool's sign- board in warning to others, I thought it as well to leave some remarks at the threshold of that great wilderness, where those that enter may leave hope behind, but will stand a better chance of getting out if they take it along with them. Il*«l* l 1^ '^ \ illi XVIII IN THE BARREN GROUNDS When we left the " last wood," toiling over the succes- sion of rocky ridges that lay to the north, a curiously de- pressing sensation possessed me as I viewed the ** last wood " grow smaller and smaller. Piece by piece its size diminished as the intervening elevations shut off ine out- lying patches. It seemed like bidding farewell lo the last tie that connected us with the living world — and then at the next ridge it was gone, and not a green thing relieved the awful ghastliness of the whiteness that encircled us for miles and miles. Wherever I looked — north, south, east, west — nothing showed but tha;- terrible stretch of silent, grinning white. And the sun shone down on this desolate scene and on me as placidly as it shone upon the most blessed of God's world, if with less warmth ! There was no halting once we had climbed the long reach of ridges that led north from our camp and passed out of sight of the " last wood." It was absolutely neces- sary for us to make good time if our wood was to carry us as far north as I wished to penetrate, and I was much pleased with Beniah for the pace he set. In fact, I never ceased to be thankful that I had secured him, for not only did we maintain a good gait in the face of the hardest going, but we continuously faced such storms as would have stopped any other leader. Beniah was a plucky Ind- IN TIIK HARREN GROUNDS J 09 :he succes- riously de- the " last jce its size )ff cne out- lo the last nd then at ng relieved ncircled us )rth, south, stretch of down on ,s it shone with less ed the long and passed utely neces- to carry us was much act, I never or not only the hardest ns as would plucky Ind- ian, the pluckiest in the country. That was why I made such an effort to get him. We must have gone close to forty miles the first day, and at noon of the second came to a big lake the Indians called, as near as I can write it, Ecka-tna (which means fat water — lake), and I was able for the first time since leav- ing Beniah's lodge to about locate myself on the map. Ecka-tna on the map, as I knew, is Point Lake, the source of Coppermine River ; and as I also knew it was 334 miles from Fort Enterprise to the mouth of the Coppermine by canoe, vid Ecka-tna, I was sure we could get very close to the Arctic Ocean, travelling due north, at the rate we had been going. I had no sextant, and relied for deter- mination of location upon the deflection of my compass needle (which at this point was 35° east of north), and upon the number of miles we made each day. The num- ber of degrees of deflection I read at night, when it did not storm, by the north star, and the number of miles per day is easily reckoned by every man who has had any walking experience. Besides, I had a pedometer. Ecka-tna was full four miles wide at our point of cross- ing. We had no meat to eat and no wood to spare for mid-day tea, so we pushed on, running, which was rather trying on fare limited to an occasional pipe and a mouth- ful of very dry snow. We were keeping, of course, a sharp lookout for caribou all this time, and, besides having scouts out on either side, we halted on the top of every ridge that was high enough to furnish a view, where I scanned the country on all sides through my glasses, and we all smoked another pipe and tried to suck some moist- ure from the snow. There is a difference in eating snow and sucking the moisture from it ; neither is satisfactory, but the former is harmful to the traveller, and pretty certain to be followed by increased thirst and cramps. linn 14 ;. 2IO ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE HARKEN GROUNDS Late in the afternoon, from the top of a ridge, we viewed a small herd of eight caribou on a lake below us, and I witnessed the first practical demonstration of the reason why the Indians are such unsuccessful hunters. On the discovery of the caribou the dogs had been driven back just under the brow of the hill, where they were left in charge of half our number, and the rest of us prepared for the attempt to get some meat. The wind was blowing from east to west, and I was surprised to see two of the Indians going off to the east side of the caribou. I circled well to the west, though not too far away to keep Beniah, who was on my right, in sight. I had worked my way down to the lake, and was making a good stalk, with every chance of getting within nice range, when the shouting of the Indians and yelping of the dogs attracted my attention, and, lo and behold ! coming down the hill straight for the caribou, and in plain view, were the dogs and the Indians, some riding on the sledges, some running, but all yelling and bearing down on the caribou. Was ever a greater shock visited upon the nerves of a still-hunter ! It simply petrified me. I stopped and stared and rubbed my eyes to make sure that those running, shouting Indians were actually the ones I had left a few moments before trembling in antici- pation of meat to eat. Of course the caribou started to run. They circled around the lake for a time (showing when they trotted such knee and hock action as would put the hackney to shame), all the Indians and the dogs chasing them mean- while, and finally turned off over the ridge, where an Ind- ian who had lingered behind was lucky enough to kill one. I was so disgusted at the display that I sat down and pondered why God in His wisdom had made these men, / NDS ridge, we below us, ion of the 1 hunters, ecn driven y were left s prepared as blowing two of the 1. 3 far away ht. I had dng a good nice range, of the dogs >ming down 1 view, were the sledges, own on the 1 upon the ied me. I ) make sure actually the ng in antici- rhey circled they trotted ; hackney to them mean- here an Ind- ough to kill at down and c these men. ■c c Ir t I ■ 'rt'iV^'i irrl*i^:v3 IN THE 15ARREN GROUNDS 213 whose very existence depends on their hunting, so wanting in skill and judgment. Had it been less serious I should have been amused by the spectacle of a snow-shoed Ind- ian chasing the fleetest quadruped on earth. As it was, I could not suppress a smile — in irony, perhaps. And this is the Northland Indian's method of hunting caribou. Sometimes when hunting singly or in pairs they make the nearest approach they know to a stalk ; but the usual method, invariable when they are in a body, is to rush on to the caribou, and trust for success to their own numbers and the confusion of the animals. If it were not that the Barren Ground caribou or reindeer is a stupid sort of creature, the Indians would score no oftener than they do on moose or the woodland caribou. But the reindeer appears to profit no more by experience than the Indians themselves. After this experience of caribou-hunting I joined no more " chasing " parties ; I was having every day all the running I could well attend to, and so thereafter when we sighted reindeer I devoted myself to stalking those that had been cut off from the main body. But never in all my life have I seen such wretched marksmanship as those Indians displayed. They not only miserably bungled their approach to the caribou, but their indiscriminate firing and the commotion they and the dogs created made it about impossible for me to get within range. Not the least trying of Barren Ground hunting is the bewildering glare that assails your eyes when you have put up your glasses, as you must so soon as you start in pursuit of game. Even the darkest of smoked goggles, and, what are still better, those of native manufacture, that are made of bone, with only a T-shaped aperture be- fore the eye, cannot insure you against snow-blindness. There were very few bright days during our wanderings liini 214 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS in the Barrens ; nevertheless every man in the party but myself was more or less severely snow-blind, one or two so badly as to necessitate their holding on to a sledge- line for guidance. As I had in times past been very badly snow-blinded, I took extraordinary precautions in the Barrens ; for the thought of getting up with musk-oxen and being unable to sight my rifle was unendurable. So I drew the hand- kerchief that was wound about my head in lieu of a hat down to the tops of my goggles. This kept the sun from shining down in my eyes, while little pieces of black silk fitted to the wire screening at the sides shut out all light from that direction. I always walked behind my sledge, and kept my eyes on the tail of its moose-skin wrapper. While my eyes pained me incessantly, as much from the smoke of the tiny fire in the lodge as from the glare of the sun, I was never snow-blind. Referring again, before I go on with my trip, to the handkerchief I wound about my head after the Indian fashion, I may say it served me better than all the other head-gear I possessed. I had set much store by a worsted hood knitted for me in Canada, with a neck-piece that fitted about the chin, and a draw-string by which I could close it up to my eyes. But I found it more harmful than beneficial, for the reason that the freezing of my breath transformed its entire front into a sheet of ice, which it was impossible to thaw by our wretched fire, and served only to freeze my face more quickly than expos- ure. For the same reason I carried a small pair of scissors to keep my beard and mustache clipped short. So the worsted hood was discarded, and the handkerchief held my hair, which reached nearly to my shoulders, in place over my ears, and permitted me to draw the hood of my fur capote forward and bind it snugly in place. Of course IN THE UARREN GROUNDS 2»S my cheeks and nose and chin froze, but they would have done so anyway, and I could thaw them out by rubbing with snow — a limbering process to which the worsted hood was not susceptible. To be sure, the method was rather hard on my face, which by the time I returned to Beniah's lodge was as blackened and cut up as an alligator- skin ; and it was hard on my fingers too, which froze with about every treatment of this sort, but that was no more than I expected. So long as my feet did not freeze to stop my progress, I suffered all else without a murmur. I was as careful of my feet as of my eyes. There was not much danger of their freezing during the almost contin- uous running of the daytime, and at night when we camped my first act was to put on my unborn musk-ox- skin slippers and a pair of fresh duffel, which I carried in- side my shirt, next my skin ; then I would put on two more pair of duffel and a pair of moccasins, taken from my sledge. Those I took off I put inside my sweater and slept on them. In the morning I again put my musk-ox-skin slippers and one pair of duffel inside my shirt, where I carried them all day. But then these are details — and probably uninteresting ones — and I must get on to my first musk-ox hunt. h 'ii- i. . ■M^ XIX THE FIRST MUSK-OX Two days more of hard running, in a wind that seemed to come direct from the north pole, brought us — we did not know where, but certainly once again to the verge of starvation. Meat there was none, and the little pieces of intestines and grease were not calculated to keep one up to such vigorous work. There had been no change in the country ; indeed, the entire stretch of Barren Ground, so far as I saw, repeats over and over again its few character- istics. Probably as you go north it becomes a little more rolling, if I may use such a word, where its face is broken by ridges of rock, round-backed and conical hills, small lakes, long, slow-rising, and moderate elevations, all entire- ly unconnected and separated from one another, and yet the view from an especially prominent elevation always reveals the general prairie (rolling) contour of the whole benighted country. And everywhere silence; no sign of life, no vegetation, save the black moss that is used for fuel in summer by the Indians, and the gray moss and lichens upon which the musk-ox and caribou feed. A glutinous soup is made by starving Indians on their summer trips from one kind of lichen, and there is a weed from which a substitute for tea is brewed in times of ex- tremity. It was about three o'clock when we dragged ourselves H THE I'lKST MUSK-OX 217 it seemed i — we did 2 verge of : pieces of ep one up nge in the ii'ound, so character- little more is broken lills, small all entire- r, and yet [on always the whole vegetation, lummer by pon which IS on their is a weed limes of ex- ourselves wearily to the top of one of the many rocky ridges we had been going up and down all day, almost dreading to make the usual survey for the game wc had looked for so often and in vain during the last two days. One quick, eager glance, that turned to despair as neither musk-ox nor caribou was to be seen in any direction, and we sat down to draw consolation and nourishment from our pipes. Suddenly keen-eyed Hcniah jumped to his feet, and then on top of a rock.wherc he stood excitedly pointing to the northwest, and tremulously repeating "■lithcn! cthcn!'' as though to convince himself that his eyes were not play- ing him false. We were all standing in a second, staring into the horizon where IJeniah pointed ; but I could not discover anything, except what seemed to be a vapor com- ing up out of the rocks four miles away, and that I did not at once recognize as the mist which arises from a herd of animals when the mercury is ranging between 60° and 70° below zero, and may be seen five miles away on a clear day. A long look through my field-glasses told me the " rocks" were animals of some sort, but not caribou ; and as I handed the glasses to Deniah I said, "■ Ethcn, illa^ and motioned him to look. I think he was nearly as much exercised by the power of the glasses as by the prospect of game ; at all events, so soon as he got them ranged on the vapor he set up a yell that I interpreted to mean cjcriy and made a rush for his sledge. Instantly there was excitement enough on top of that ridge to put life into eight hungry men. I never beheld such agitation. The Indians for a minute huddled to- gether, chattering and grinning and gesticulating, and then each man rushed to his sledge and began slipping his dogs from the harness. I knew then we had sighted musk-ox. Of course I had suited my action to the Ind- ians', and began unhitching my dogs also, but my harness -!■; f Ill 1:1 ii: 2i8 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS came from the fort and had buckles, which in the bitter cold were unyielding, and by the time I had got all my dogs loose, put on my lighter capote — for I saw we were in for a long run — and strapped on my cartridge-belt, all the Indians and all the dogs had several hundred yards' start, and were going along at a rattling pace. I saw at once that it was every man for himself on this expedition, and if I got a musk-ox I should have to work for him. And then I settled grimly to the business of running. Within about two miles I had caught up with the Indians, who had stretched out into a long column, with Seco and Echeena leading by half a mile. In another mile I had worked my way through the stragglers, and was hard on the heels of Echeena, but Seco was still about two hun- dred yards ahead, and going as though he could keep it up indefinitely. On my attempt to pass him Echeena let out a link, and I had all I could do to keep at his heels, but in our race for second place we cut down Seco's lead by a hundred yards. All this time we had been running over a succession of sharp ridges, completely covered with all shapes and sizes of rocks, and set in snow that was soft and about a foot and a half deep. With tripping shoes we of course sank in the snow at every step to within six inches of our knees, while our shoes jammed in the rocks that lay close together, or caught on those we attempted to clear in our stride. It was a species of hurdle-racing, with the softest of take-off and landing sides, and obstacles that were not to be knocked over. It was going that would test the bottom of the well-fed, best-conditioned athlete ; how it wore on a half-starved man may be imagined. It seemed as though we should never view the musk- oxen. Ridge after ridge we toiled over, and still that little cloud of vapor appeared as far off as when first THE FIRST MUSK-OX 119 sighted. Our positions remained unchanged — Seco lead- ing with three dogs, Echeena and I a hundred yards be- hind, and half a mile back of us the remainder of the Indians and dogs. At such times as the deadly fatigue of running permitted coherent thought I wondered why Seco maintained such a pace, for I supposed when the musk-oxen were located he would of course delay his at- tack until all the Indians and dogs had come up ; but I had seen enough of the Indians not to take any chances ; and so I kept on, each step seeming the last I could pos- sibly make. As we were working our way up a rather higher and broader ridge I heard the dogs bark, and, rushing past Echeena, reached the top in time to see a herd of about twenty-five to thirty musk-oxen, just startled into moving along another ridge about a quarter-mile beyond by Seco, who with his three dogs was racing after them not fifty yards ahead of me. Disgust, disappointment, and physi- cal distress momentarily stupefied me. Then the sight of .ne musk-oxen, and the thought of what I had endured to reach them, fired me to renewed action. I anathematized Seco and all the Northland Indians for their fool methods of hunting, and increased my pace. The musk-oxen were now in full run to the north along the top of the ridge, galloping like cattle, with heads carried well out, though not lowered, and going at a pace and with an ease over the rocks that surprised me. Their big bodies, with the long hair hanging down to emphasize the shortness of legs, gave a curious appearance to the flying herd. The wind was blowing a gale from the south, and we had hardly reached the top of the ridge on which the musk-oxen had been running when they disappeared over the northern end of it. By the time I reached the end of the ridge the main herd was a mile away to the north, I i 11'^^ A Iv 220 ON snow-shoes to THE BARKEN GROUNDS and still going, but four had separated from the band, and were running through some hollows that bore almost due east. I instantly determined to follow these four — be- cause I saw I could get to the leeward of them, and I felt they would eventually head north to rejoin the herd. A caribou always circles up wind, but musk-oxen travel in any direction that necessity demands. Seco, with his dogs, was just ahead of me, keeping after the main band, and Echeena I had lost sight of. I knew that separation from the Indians might cost me my life, but musk-ox was the first and life the secondary consideration at that moment. And I started off at my fastest gait to the north- east, keeping a ridge between the musk-oxen and me, and knowing if they crossed ahead to the north I should come on their tracks. I do not know how far I ran, or how lonjx I ran ; I only remember that after a time the rocks and the snow whirled around me at such a pace I could not distinguish where one began and the other ended ; the great, dull, dead white surface before me appeared to rise and fall, and when I tripped over a rock I seemed to tumble a hundred feet and to take a hundred years to regain my feei. Sometimes I had to pull myself up on to my feet by the aid of the very rock which perhaps had laid me low. Once I lost my snow-shoe, and though it was really not a yard away, I started on a run after it — it seemed so far off. Everything looked as though I were peering through the wrong end of my field-glasses. As I ran, my eyes pained me exquisitely, and I remember the horrible possibility occurred to me of my right eye (which is, in fact, much ONE OF THE FIRST STEEL KNIVES TRADED TO INDIANS ll ii i; ■ DS land, and nost due "our — be- md I felt to rejoin up wind, tion that dogs, was lain band, cnew that >st me my i life the lent. And the north- nusk-oxen i ahead to acks. low long I 1 time the md me at where one great, dull, Dpeared to c I seemed ed years to my feet by aid me low. really not a ;d so far off. through the eyes pained I possibility 1 fact, much TIIK FIRST MUSK-OX 221 weaker than my left) going snow-blind by the time I got within shot of the musk-oxen. And as I reached the bottom of each ridge it seemed to me I could not struggleto the top, even though a thousand musk-oxen awaited my coming. I was in a dripping perspiration, and had dropped my capote and cartridge- belt, after thrusting half a dozen cartridges into my trou- sers pockets, and my nine- pound 45.90 weighed thirty. I hardly knew whether I were going up ridges or down ridges. Everything waltzed about me. I ran on and on in a sort of stupor, until, as I got to the top of a little ridge, I saw two musk-oxen about a hundred yards ahead of and running easily though directly from me. And then the blood surged through my veins, the mist cleared from my eyes, and the rocks stopped whirling about me, for there, within range, was my quarry. I swung my rifle into position and dropped on my knee for surer aim. Heav- ens ! my hand shook so that the front sight travelled all over the horizon, and my heart thumped against my side as though it would burst. I had sense enough left to real- ize my shot might mean success or failure — for I felt my force was nearly spent. For a moment I rested to get my breath — and the musk-oxen were still going from me — and then — another attempt — the fore sight for an instant held true — another second's breathing — a quick aim — and I pressed the trig- ger. What a feeling of exultation as I saw my quarry stagger and then drop ! I was dizzy with delight. I gave vent to a yell, which, together with the report of my rifle, sent the other musk-ox into a wild gallop. It turned sharply to the left and went over a ridge, with me fol- lowing on a run, all the while endeavoring to throw an- other cartridge into my rifle barrel. Rut the excessive cold, aided probably by my excited action, handicapped the mechanism, and the shell jammed. I 222 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS By the time I had sent the cartridge home, running meanwhile, I ect over the ridge, and was just drawing a bead on the galloping musk-ox, when two shots in quick succession turned it staggering, and as it dropped I sent a bullet where it would do the most good — just as Echeena and one dog came running down from a ridge opposite. So that I and Echeena had the honor of scoring the first and second musk-ox. Then I went back over the ridge to look at the one I had brought down. It was a cow. The sex was a disappointment, to be sure, and I should not take this head that had cost me so much to secure ; but nothing could dull the joy of having, after a tramp of (about) twelve hundred miles, killed the most inaccessible beast in the whole wide world. After I had made sure the musk-cow was really dead, I started again and to the north, hoping I might get on the track of the other two or some other stragglers from the main herd. Probably I went several miles farther, buoyed up by the excitement of my success, but saw the tracks of no living thing. The sun was setting as I turned around to go back to my musk-cow, where I supposed the Indians would bring up sledges and camp, and I had walked some time when I realized that, other than going south, I had not the re- motest idea in what precise direction I was travelling, or just where that musk-cow lay. I could not afford to waste any time or lose myself, for I had no capote, and the wind I was now facing had frozen my perspiration- soaked shirts as stiff ard hard as boards. So I turned about and puzzled out my always half and sometimes wholly obliterated snow-shoe tracks back to where I had gone in my continued search for musk-oxen, and from thence back to my fallen quarry, where I arrived* about nine o'clock, find, sure enough, the lodge pitched, mr m TlIK FIRST MUSK-OX 223 and the Indians feasting on raw and half-froztMi musk- ox fat. Gnawing a piece of this fat, and hardly able to crawl with the cold and fatigue, I followed back my tracks from here until I found my capote and belt. It was nearly midnight before Seco, badly frozen, turned up to report the killing of two musk-oxen, and we had tea (for the little fire is never kindled until all are in, because the tea would freeze in a very few minutes after making). Sev- eral of the men were snow-blind, and what with their groans, the fighting of the dogs over the frozen musk-cow, my ice-coated shirts, to thaw which there was not warmth enough in my body, and a 67°- below-zero temperature, the night of our first musk-ox killing was memorable. !l ;lii XX THE MUSK-OX AT HOME \l,] c '».,. "il' ''•, ik The musk-ox {0:'i7>os inosc/iatus) seems to be the miss- ing link between the ox and the sheep. Their teeth are like those of a sheep and their feet like those of the ox. They are said also to have sheep's kidneys, but, although I saw them many times, my ignorance on the general subject of kidneys prevented my recognizing a similarity. In- deed, in appearance, especially when running and with their curlinij horns, it is not difificult to fancy them a huge well-fleeced old ram scampering off. When full grown the musk-ox is about two-thirds the size of a bison and about as large as the average of the English black cattle. The Indians estimate the flesh of a mature musk-cow equal to about three Barren Land caribou, and the bull would weigh, I should say, at least two hundred pounds heavier. They are gregarious, and travel in herds that number, as near as I could determine from observation and investiga- tion, from ten to twenty. Larger herds of course arc seen occasionally, but fifty would be an unusually large number. At the time of my visit to the Barren Grounds, /. i\, March and April, we found the bulls and cows together, though the number of cows very largely predominated. One herd we encountered was all bulls ; another all- cows, saving a few yearling and two-year-old bull calves. ]. ; the miss- ;th are like ox. They Dugh I saw ral subject larity. In- ; and with lem a huge >thirds the rage of the musk-cow bull would ids heavier, number, as investiga- course arc ually large •ounds, i. C; ■s together, ^dominated, ler all. cows, vcs. 3- -3 3- 3 6 2 X a* li ii- » THE MUSK-OX AT HOME 227 As a rule each herd of ten to fifteen cows has one or two bulls. When they are attacked — and their archenemy is the arctic wolf — they form a circle, with the calves inside, rumps together, and heads facing the enemy. Their range is from about the 65th degree of latitude north to the Arctic Ocean, and from Hudson's Bay on the east to the Coppermine River on the west. Formerly they were found as far west as the Mackenzie River, but few, if any, have been seen in that vicinity for a dozen years. Outside of this extreme northern portion of North America, Grinnell Land, and North Greenland, the animal is found nowhere else in the world. Fossils have been unearthed in Siberia, Greenland, Alaska, and northern Europe showing its range formerly to have been very much extended, but now it is not known to exist beyond the Barren Grounds and the arctic islands. The robe is a very dark brown, which against the snow looks almost black. Beginning at the top of the shoul- ders is a lighter streak of hair, which at about the middle of the back broadens out to a spot of dirty grayish white about a foot in width, but that narrows again into a small strip as it disappears towards the rump. The tail is short, like that of a bear, and not visible be- cause of the great quantity of long hair on the stern. All over the body the hair is very long, extending be- low the belly, and to a greater length (from fifteen to twenty inches about) on the hind-quarters and under the throat and chest, where it hangs almost like the mane of a horse. At the root of this hair grows a coat of mouse- gray wool of the finest texture, which protects the animal in winter and is shed in summer. There seems a decided tendency to a hump, which is accentuated by the longish, stiffish hair that stands H 'I. -' ' "?l 'I' I'll i- 228 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARKEN GROUNDS erect at all times over the shoulders and the base of the neck. The bones of the musk-ox are massive. The legs have no wool covering beneath the hair, and are very large and not long, though not so short as they appear because of the hair reaching nearly to the knees and to the hocks. The hoofs are large, with curved toes, and somewhat con- caved beneath, like the caribou, which enables them to climb the rocky ridges with great fa- cility and to scrape away the snow in their search for lichen and moss. For this purpose they use also their horns, which are admirably hooked for the work. The growth of horns in both bulls and cows is rather in- teresting. They begin by a straight shoot out from the side of the head, exactly like domestic cattle, and for the first year it is impossible to tell the sex by their heads aione. In the second year the bull horn is a little whiter than the cow, and the latter begins to show a downward bend. The cow's horns are about fully developed at the third year, while the bull's are just beginning to spread at the base. This enlargement at the base extends towards the centre of the forehead, meeting in the median line, and showing between the horns a little of the short, curly, grayish hair which sprinkles the entire forehead of the two-year-old musk-ox, but is seen only at this crevice MUSK-OX HOOF— FRONT VIKW fi TMK MUSK-OX AT HOME a)S ise of the hair, and short as »f the hair he knees irge, with :what con- le caribou, to climb \\ great fa- away the for Hchen is purpose )rns, which pd for the ns in both rather in- ;gin by a from the nd for the heir heads ittle whiter downward |ped at the spread at Ids towards edian line, the short, brehead of his crevice 229 in the aged. In its sixth year and thereafter this crevice opens, so that in an old bull it is from an inch to an inch and a half. In the cow this crevice opens by age also, and to even a greater extent than in the bull. The head of the two- year-old musk-ox bull looks very much like that of the two-year-old wood-bison cow I saw. The foreheads of both are sprinkled with short, curly, grayish hair, only that of the musk-ox is whiter. The hair on the forehead of aged musk cattle is straight, rather long, and very dark — nearly black. Both the musk bull and cow horns darken as they reach their full development, until from the tip for six or eight inches towards the base the Ik n approaches black. But a - heir full development, a..u as the animals age, this ex- treme darkness disappears, un- til finally in a very old animal of either sex there will be but a tip of black on the very point of the horn. It is by the ex- tent of this black on the point of the horn that the Indians reckon the musk-ox's age. In both bull and cow as the crevice widens the base of the boss on either side thickens, until in the bull it reaches a depth of horn at least three inches, though in the cow will not exceed two. The horn of the boss is corrugated, but as it bends at the side of the head over the eye the roughness begins to disappear, until about the middle of the horn it attains MUSK-OX HOOK — BOTTOM VIEW m Ci H i 230 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS absolute smoothness, which extends to the very points. The horns of an aged bull of course vary in size, very much as do the horns of all other animals, but the differ- ence is chiefly noticeable in the spread of the boss, thick- ness of horn at the median line, and width of crevice. TWO-YEAR-OI.n MUSK-OX BUU, The largest head I killed and brought out measures from top to bottom of the boss at the median line 10^ inches, while the length of horn from median line to point measures 27^; width of crevice, i^ inches; thickness of horn at crevice, 3^ inches. This, the Indians said, was an unus- ually large one, and certainly the crevice at the base was wider than in any other bull I saw of the forty musk- oxen we killed on the trip. In the cow the width of the boss does not vgry verj- much, and would average less than half of the width of i ! TIIK MUSK-OX AT HOME 231 that of the average bull. The boss does not grow out of the skull, nor is it a part of it, like the horn, but is separated from it by a layer of something like gristle that is a good half-inch thick. Thus it may be seen that the only vulnerable spot in the musk-ox head is at the crevice. I do not from actual experience know a bullet would penetrate the skull at that point, but my observations in cutting up a head to study its formation rather convinced me it would. The flesh of the musk-ox is coarse and exceedingly tough and unpleasant to eat, both from the difficulty of chewing it as well as from its rank flavor. In taste it does not resemble that of any other wild animal, though it may be said to approach nearest probably that of the moose in spring. The marrow is very much coarser than that of the caribou, and has no such delicate flavor to commend it. The cow flesh has much less of the musk taint, and in the yearling it is scarcely perceptible, but the older the bull the stronger the odor. On the first insertion of your knife into the ox for the purpose of skinning him the first faint odor of musk that greets you is not displeasing, but as you continue it be- comes exceedingly obnoxious. Nor does it seem to be secreted in a special gland, but rather to permeate the entire flesh. I found the musk-ox robe the hardest in my experience to remove. Its hide is very thick, and in the excessive cold in which one is obliged to work the task becomes herculean. The cows calf (never more than one at a time) in June, and in the spring hunts of the Indians the unborn musk- ox is a twofold luxury to them. Its flesh is eaten like the unborn caribou, and its hide taken to the fort for trade. The unborn musk-ox hide is of the deepest brown im- aginable, with a very fine, soft fur that would average f , !! \J. ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS probably about from one-half to three-fourths of an inch in length. A few of these skins (through the Hudson's Bay Company) find their way to the civilized marts. Most of them, however, are used for trimming caribou-skin capotes and for making moccasins which are invaluable (fur side in and next the skin'^ in Barren Ground travel. Considering its build, the musk-ox is a very fast runner, and goes over the rocky ridges at a pace and ease that are remarkable. They run bunched, rarely single file, and for the first several miles they are scared they will go at a pace that rivals that of the dogs. After a few miles of running, however, they settle down to a steady gallop, which, although heart-breaking to the following snow-shoe runner, gives the dogs an even chance at gaining on them. So soon as the dogs are at their heels the musk-oxen come to bay, and, forming a circle around the calves, with the rumps in, they present their formidable heads to the front. If there are only two or three of them they make the same formation. I have seen two when stopped stand rump to rump, and a solitary one back up against a rock. They always face the enemy. Here they will stand with heads lowered, making an occasional lunge forward, as though to hook the dog, but never breaking the circle. So long as the dogs bark at their heads they will stand until the very last one is shot down, but the instant the dogs relax their vigilance, especially if they are few in number, the musk-oxen will start on. Strange as it may seem, the generality of Indian dogs are not very valuable aids in musk-ox hunting. Theirs is a craven nature, and but for the urgency imparted by the pangs of hunger they would be of little use in bringing the musk cattle to bay. In attack, dogs evm i disposition decidedly gregarious. Overtaking a herd of ^ 'ing musk cattle, they are pretty I' THE MUSK-OX AT HOME 235 apt, for instance, to devote all their attention to one or two of the stragglers, and surround them when they come to bay, while the rest of the musk-oxen go on unmolested. Should the dogs come from different points of attack and stop a herd in two or three small bands, unless the Indians come up very shortly the chances are that they will lea/e their respective hero ather around the one held by the greatest number of do^ A pack of well -trained dogs could, an,' ot course fre- quently these Indian dogs do, easily hold the herds of musk-oxen intact, and under such circumstances the kill- ing becomes as the slaughter of domestic cattle in a pen. Were dogs so trustful, the only excitement of musk-ox hunting would be the running to where they were viewed. Occasionally a painfully wounded ox may break the circle and stampede the herd, and a herd when stampeded is hard to hold again, because the dogs are difHicult to manage in concerted attack ; but such an occurrence is very rare. The musk-ox usuall' stops when wounded, and shows little inclination to go on ; and, as a rule, they will stand until the last one has been killed, narrowing their circle as their numbers diminish. Despite the general belief of the Indians, I saw no in- stance where a musk-ox showed inclination to charge, and in one of the herds we stopped I could very easily have captured a yearling calf; in fact, I took a photograph of one while it was backed up against its dead mother, and subsequently had hold of it while it stood at bay before the dogs-. li i ' ■ u '■ i|: x: BARREN GROUND CAKIBOU The Barren Ground caribou is the mainstay of the Northland Indian. It is his food, clothing, und means of trade. Without it his miserable existence would be im- possible. From its hide are made the capotes worn by every man, woman, and child, and tanned of its hair it furnishes him with mittens, moccasins, and the babichc with which he laces his snow-shoes and binds his ^ Ige- loads. Whatever he has of flesh, hide, or babichc ovc» and above his own needs he trades to the company. No part of the caribou is wasted, except perhaps the hoofs and antlers, and even the latter at times are used for knife- handles. The stomach and its undigested contents, mixed with blood and the liver torn into shreds, make one of the Ind- ian's most savory puddings. The intestines in the Bar- ren Grounds keep him from starvation when it is necessary to give the meat to the dogs, and in his lodge, boiled, are one of his most toothsome portions. The marrow is his rarest tidbit, and the eyes, ears, and tongue are all delica- cies. In fact, from the tongue to the organs of genera- tion there is not a part of the caribou that does not fur- nish food to the Indian. In general appearance the Barren Ground caribou is very like the woodland caribou ; the difference between them being in the lesser bulk and height and lighter color. ly of the means of lid be im- s worn by its hair it he babichc his -' Ige- \c ovei and , No part hoofs and for knife- nixed with of the Ind- n the Bar- necessary boiled, are irrovv is his e all delica- of genera- tes not fur- caribou is ce between sfhter color. s > r. T- O c r > o: C C I ! ■■■1 BARREN GROUND CARIBOU 537 and in the more sweeping curve of antlers in the Barren Ground species. The average weight of the full-grown Barren Ground caribou bull I should say would be somewhere between 1 50 and 200 pounds, possibly a little less — of course I had no scales — whereas the woodland bull would probably av- erage about 100 pounds heavier. The same rel- ative difference would be evident in the cows of both species. The difference in col- or is especially notice- able in the young and in the female, which are very light, almost a yel- lowish white, in the Barren Grounds. James McKinley,of Fort Smith, once killed an albino Barren Ground cow. The woodland is much darker in color, espe- cially in the markings on the neck and belly. The antlers of the Barren Ground caribou are longer, slenderer, and curve back over the shoulders in a longer sweep than the woodland caribou. They are not so heavy in beam, nor are the palmations so large. The hoofs of both animals seem to be about the same, as far as I could judge, and very much concaved, and with their sharp knife-like edges are peculiarly adapted for run- ning in the snow or on the lakes. They are the only animal in existence, I believe, whose back or accessory 0>r,U\ HEAD OF WOODLAND CARIBOU 538 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THK HAKKEN GROUNDS ;i .' I chisel- shaped hoofs touch the ground in walking and running. There seems to be a wide difference of opinion concern- ing these two animals held by those who have written on the subject, and many of them, so far as my obser- vations go, are at fault. Some naturalists claim the antlers of the Barren Ground caribou are heav- ier than those of the wood- land, but my assertion is to the contrary, and I am borne out by Mr. Warbur- ton Pike and Mr. Henry Toke Munn, both of whom are experienced hunters, and spent some time in the Northland. About the beginning of March the female Barren Ground caribou in small herds begin to work their way out into the Barren Grounds, reaching the arctic coast about the last of June, where they drop their young. The bulls re- main in the woods until the latter part of April, when they too work out into the Barrens, and meet the returning cows about half-way, some time along the first of August. They remain together during September and October, the rutting season, when they again separate and move tow- ards the timber. It is stated by some authorities that the females remain in the Barren Grounds the entire year. This is not true. They do stay out longer than the males, but as winter sets in they seek the shelter of the woods. The antlers are clear of their velvet by the first of Octo- ber, and the bulls shed them in December, while the cows CARIBOU HOOF, SHOWING POSITION OK ACCESSORY HOOF ' IJAKRKX GROUND CARIIIOU 239 hold them until about the first part of January. Two- year-old bulls and cows do not cast their antlers. The skin of the caribou is at its prime for the purpose of capote-makitifj in the month of August, when they have shed their heavy winter coat and grown their lighter sum- mer one. In the early spring the hair is too thick and heavy, and apt to break and fall out, besides which the majority of the skins are perforated by the grub which have been laid by a species of gadfly on the caribou the previous summer. There is another kind of fly that lays its eggs in the nostrils of the caribou, which results in a rest of grubs that makes its life miserable during early summer. Surely the caribou seems to be a much persecuted animal. It has many enemies besides the Indian, and none more im- placable than the arctic wolves, which in summer are constant- ly on its track. It has been said that the wolverine attacks the caribou, but I failed to obtain corroborative evidence. The wolverine is an animal of extraordinary power for one of its size, but it is not swift enough to catch the caribou, nor has it the endurance to fol- low in a long chase like the wolf. It is the Northland scavenger, and steals after the wounded caribou or breaks into and robs the caches. Probably the condition of being fat or lean makes a CARIi.OU HOOK, SHOWING CON- '■AVE AND SHARP EDGES ■:m 240 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS greater difference in the taste of the flesh of the Barren Ground caribou than in that of any other animal, and there is no wild meat that one wearies of so slowly. In the early spring bulls and cows are exceedingly poor, and the flesh is not very nourishing. But in August and Sep- tember they have become fat, and the flavor of the meat is really delicious. After the rutting season the bulls are poor again, and the cows are then usually sought by the Indians. The range of the Barren Ground caribou is from the 60th degree of latitude to the Arctic Ocean and from Hudson's Bay to the Mackenzie Rrver. This is speaking very gen- erally. As a matter of fact, very few caribou get west of the Coppermine River or Great Bear Lake, and though they extend eastward to Hud- son's Bay in great herds, yet only straggling numbers are found so far south as the 60th degree of latitude. Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, which is the best- supplied meat post in the North country, is from four to six days' distance from the most southerly general range of the Barren Ground caribou, though to the eastward a few do get down to the northeast end of Athabasca Lake. Woodland caribou range, generally speak- ing, between the 50th and 60th degrees of latitude, al- though they are found to some extent in the extreme western part of British North America and in Alaska. By all accounts there has been in recent years a very great decrease in the number of Barren Ground caribou in UNGAVA WOMAN S SHOE, Gulf of St. Lawrence, 30 inches long I BARREN GROUND CARIBOU 241 British North America, though I am inclined to believe it not so great as generally supposed by the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company officers. The Barren Ground caribou is very changeful in its migrations. The route it may pursue to the Arctic Ocean one spring may be a hundred miles east or west of that followed the previous year and that will be taken the suc- ceeding year, and as the Barren Grounds contain three hundred and fifty thousand square miles (approximately), it may be seen there is ample room for the caribou to keep the Indians guessing on their whereabouts. It is a fact that several of the Hudson's Bay Company forts originally established as meat posts and once the centre of caribou migration are now many days' journey to the side of it, but I incline to the belief that this is due largely to the caribou being driven away from those par- ticular sections. That their numbers have been largely decreased is un- doubtedly true, for the annual slaughter visited upon them by the Indians in the summer-time is as deadly as it is incredible. In midsummer, when the cows return from the Arctic Ocean and meet the bulls in the Barren Grounds, they are joined by other herds from the westward, and at that time the herds are simply enormous. Tyrell, when he made his trip through the southern part of the Barren Grounds eastward to Hudson's Bay, saw herds that numbered thousands. And Mr. VVarbur- ton Pike, ir his summer trip into the Barrens, was re- warded by a sight of this great caravan of moving caribou. It is at this time thst the Barren Ground caribou falls a victim to the rapacity of the Indians. They are then moving in vast herds of countless num- bers, are stupid and easily approached, or turned in de- 16 ill >. r- :vs^g?iM!.^g.Tir