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32X

THE IV INN IP EG COUNTRY.

fl
III

^^\

THE

WINNIPEG COUNTRY

Toughing it with an Eclipse Tarty

A. ROCHESTER FELLOW

With Thirty-tivo Illustrations and a Map

■ A

BOSTON

CUPPLES, UPHAM, & COMPANY

STfjc ©lb Corner ^Sooftstore

283 WASHINGTON STREET
1886

All rights resemed.

ELECTKOTYPED AND PRINTED

BY RANU, AVERY, ANI> COMl'ANY,

liOSTON, MASS.

THE OTHER EELLOWS,

CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. — How WE REACIIKD THE STARTINO-PoINT.

— Pioneer Staging 9

II. — The Outfit 19

III. — Half-Breeds, Indians, and Mosqui-

toes 26

IV. — Paddling, Pemmican, and Patience . 41
V. — Portaging, Poling, and Promises . . 56

VI. — Eclipse Observations under Difficul-
ties. — An Oasis 69

VII. — Down the River. — Rapids and Mos-
quitoes AGAIN n

VlIL — Lake Navigation. — Delay and Star-
vation AHEAD 86

IX. — The Bishop's Loaf. — A Run of Luck . 95
X. — A Unique Settlement and its Neigh-
bors 108

XL — Three Weeks in an Ox-Cart ... 128

Appendix 142

THE WINNIPEG COUNTRY.

How we reached the Starting-point, —
Pioneer Staging.

O-O-O-O, boys ! Hu-u-iih ! Huh !
hull ! huh ! hu-u-u-u-uh ! " called
George, and in an instant our little
camp is astir. We hear the men tugging
to overturn and raise the canoe ; and their
interjections over, we know it is being
carried to the water. " We might as well
get up," says Ides, " or we shall have the
tent on our heads." So out into the gray
dawn we rush, — three unkempt mortals,
— to do our jawning in the open air.' The
murky waters of Lake Winnipeg plash
gently at our feet, as we stretch our eyes

Pioneer Staging.

over the sky to see what the prospects of
the day may be. In a marvellously short
time the North Canoe is loaded ; and,
as the last instalment, we are ourselves
seized by stalwart men, and carried there
like babies. Here, settling ourselves as
comfortably as we may, half reclining on
our blankets, while the men paddle to the
rhythm of Narcisse's quaint song, we try
to recover before early sunrise the remain-
der of the sleep so rudely broken in upon.
We had started, three of us, — Simon
Tarr, Thomas Ides, and Francis Lutterby,
— nearly a month before, from Eastern civ-
ilization, and were bound for a point in the
heart of the Western wilds, about midway
between Hudson Strait and Vancouver
Island. From east to west across the
continent, from Northern Labrador to
Northern Oregon, stretched a narrow belt
ir whicl for a brief five minutes on a mid-
July d?} che sun, shortly after its rising,
v'ouliJ 1>^ totally eclipsed. To observe
this, was our errand. The Government

Across the Prairies.

had despatched two of its astronomers on
this six-thousand-mile journey for the in-
formation they were to gain on this single
day, while a university museum had added
an assistant for the work, that opportunity
might be given through him to increase
its stores from the little-explored regions
through which the expedition would pass.
We had only entered the Upper Lake
the day before, and had still before us the
long west coast with the detour of Kitch-
inashi, and on the river, the portage,
the rapids, and the long swift-flowing
stream. Detention had come at least
expected times. Three days had carried
us to the confines of civilization at St.
Paul, where half as much time was lost in
arranging for transit across the prairies,
over which a weekly stage-line had just
been put in operation by Burbank & Co.
We were to traverse it in five days, but
six were finally required. An old-fash-
ioned stage took us the first day to St.
Cloud. We then chantred to a Concord

Pioneer Staging,

wagon, in which by eight o'clock of the
second clay we reached the town of Kan-
dota, and found ourselves fairly on the
frontier, the town consisting of two con-
nected log-houses and a barn, and the
inhabitants numb'^ring five.

The days passed from bad to worse ;
for not only were the roads mere trails,
and where they ran through timbered
country excessively rough and heavy, but
there had been for some days heavy
rains, and every little while it was, "Out,
gentlemen ! slewed again ! " Through
rods of mire and wet grass did we often
have to lug by hand our personal effects,
telescopes, and heavy chests of alcohol,
to repack upon the farther side of some
slough. Happy for us if a fence were
near when the stage-wheels cut through
the yielding sod, for we soon acquired
the art of "railing." Once our plight
seemed really hopeless ; for in mid-prairie,
miles from tree or bush, not to mention
fence, we were suddenly and badly

O ^!^

H rrr^

"Slewed Again."

"slewed." Our hind-wheels went in to
the hub, the front-wheels nearly as far ;
our four horses were so benriired, that, still
in erect posture, they settled down to rest
upon their bellies. All the baggage had
to go into the mire ; and at last, by the
help of a stray rail, the frantic efforts of
the horses, and the voluminous blasphemy
of the driver, the empty wagon was
dragged out to reach solid ground again
some twenty rods distant, to which point
we must ourselves carry our baggage.
This was the way we journeyed in the
specially chartered stage for which we
had prepaid a heavy price.

It was ten o'clock at night the third
day before we made Evansville, another
town of one house, the population of which
our party doubled that night. The next
day the noon relay of horses was missing,
and we had to take the same team through
to Breckenridge. We were further obliged
by the miry road to divide our living freight
from our baggage, and to take two spring-

f4 Pioneer Staging,

less lumber-wagons with broader tires,
which did not add to our enjoyment. Nor
were we wholly free from concern about
the Indians, especially after dark, as the
Chippewas had stolen an ox from Evans-
ville the very night before we were there,
and were known to be on the war-path,
searching in the neighborhood for a party
of sixty Sioux, said to have crossed over
from Dacotah, toward which country we
were then moving. What if we were
taken for Sioux? We looked very like
them in the dark ! As it happened in-
deed, a few weeks later, Indians attacked
one of Burbank's stages at Breckenridge.
But our worst enemy at the moment were
the mosquitoes ; and a most woe-begone
set were we that night, sitting with legs
wet to the knee from frequent sloughs,
wrapped head and foot with blankets to
keep off the mosquitoes, tired to death
with our jolting, half-starved, and with
small prospect of getting anywhere.
Breckenridge was a more flourishing

C/3

The Original Breckenridge. 15

place, though it had no such appearance
to us as we entered at midnight the
shanty, half log-house, half dug-out, which
already sheltered ten men packed in rows,
and lay ourselves down on the floor in
buffalo robes to peaceful slumbers. We
had reached the Red River ; and evidently
at least a city was expected, for here was
a steam saw-mill. The country for a mile
around was staked off into streets and
house-lots ; and house No. i — a four-story
frame dwelling — had boldly chosen the
centre of the prospective town, quite by
itself in the middle of the prairie. By
this time we had discovered that a stake
pushed into the ground constituted a set-
tlement ; a claim-shanty, a town ; and a
log-house with a bit of fenced ground ad-
joining it, a city. From the account of
a traveller two years later, Breckenridge
enjoyed then the same unique character.*
I am bound to add, that we were not out
of gun-shot of that frame-house, as we

^ See Appendix.

Pioneer Singing,

drove off at six the next morning, before
we drew trigger on a j^rairie wolf that
crossed our path.

Our course now lay down the Red
River ; here the road by the timber belt
was so bad, and the horses so fatigued,
that we were obliged to walk them the
entire distance travelled that day, bringing
up at a claim-shanty just erected (Camp-
bell's), its flooring the bare ground, and
so damp that we pitched our tent by pref-
erence. The sixth day, obtaining a relay
of horses twenty-four miles on, we man-
aged to reach the end of our stage route
by six o'clock. This was at Georgetown,
a post of the Hudson Bay Company at
the head of steamboat navigation on the
Red River, and a very recent settlement,
the officer in charge having reached here
but a few days before ourselves. An un-
finished dwelling-house, a warehouse, and
some rude stables were the only perma-
nent buildings yet erected ; but a dozen
tents, and as many white-topped emigrant

I- i]

{/)

Primitive Steamboating. %f

wagons, gave the place an appearance of
activity which five days' worth of one-
house towns made us appreciate.

Here we spent a day and a couple of
nights (the latter made memorable to us
by the howling of wolves) before the An-
son Northrup was ready to start. Even
steamboating of the type Red River then
furnished was a novelty to us. Like Le
Stanley on the Kongo, the Anson North-
rup had the year before been carried in
pieces across the country, to launch in
this virgin stream. She was any thing
but a picturesque craft; — a stern-wheeler,
with a bow oar, or sweep, worked by deck
hands, necessary in steaming around the
exceedingly tortuous course of the upper
reaches of the river, where we would often
see beside us, separated only by a narrow
ridge, a stream flowing in the opposite
direction to our own, between banks we
had passed an hour before.

When wood gave out, we hauled up by
the bank, where some Indian had corded

II"

-I

Pioneer Staging.

a little for the boat's use ; or, if this
was not forthcoming, the whole ship's
crew was set to felling trees across the
open bow, which were then cut into proper
lengths on deck, as we pushed our way
northward. Our party occupied half the
passenger list ; but the boat's complement
consisted of twenty men, with whom we
naturally mixed a good deal in the two
and a half days in which we were shut up
with them on this tug. The watchman
pro/ed a most interesting fellow, — a typi-
cal frontiersman of the story-teller, who
carried his pocket Virgil, Homer, and Mil-
ton with him on buffalo hunts and scout-
ing expeditions, yet could live only in
contact with wild nature.

AXE FURNISHED TO INDIANS BY THE HUDSON
BAY COMPANY.

-«.

s=-^__^^-^iPM' ■ ^ :sb

II.

7^^ Ow/^/.

E lost no time when we finally
arrived at the Red River settle-
ments — this bit of ruder Euro-
pean life, thrown haphazard into the
wilderness — in making known to the
authorities our mission, and receiving
from them quick and effective aid. We
were immediately despatched down the
river on a pointed mud-scow, which they
termed a "barge," and confided to the
tender mercies of a couple of Saulteaux
Indians, cadaverous looking fellows, who,
in the course of the afternoon following,
brought us to the "Lower" or "Stone"
Fort, half way to the mouth of the river,
and here we made the outfit for our canoe-
voyage.

«9

The Outfit.

Such things are quickly arranged at a
post, the chief end of which is to receive
and despatch traders. Still, ours was a
somewhat unusual mission. The old North
Canoe of Sir George Simpson was brought
out, one of the largest birches ever con-
structed for use ; it measured thirty-three
feet in length, and in the middle was five
feet three inches wide. It would carry
seventeen men and their ordinary light
luggage ; but we had heavy baggage, and
must provision for thirty-five days, so the
voyageurs must be few in number, active,
stalwart fellows. We had six in all.

The guide must be the first choice ; and
George Kippling, a half-breed Chippeway,
was recommended for that service by the
governor of the province, as "the best
guide in the country." We looked him
over, a fine, straight, honest-looking, wiry,
sharp - featured fellow of about fifty-five
years, with a short grizzly beard, and long
black locks tinged with gray falling on
his shoulders, and took him off-hand. He

Our Chef.

proved to be all that was said of him, —
a tireless, wonderful fellow, of intense
energy and devotion, on the watch for
every opportunity to push on (yet inspir-
ing confidence by his caution), obliging,
full of thought for our comfort, and of
abounding good -nature and merriment.
With his broad, flat, pan-cake like Scotch
c^p set jauntily on one side of his head,
a red flannel shirt, and a pair of trousers
shaped like a long bag, with very short
legs, I can see him now, as he half -sits,
half-stands, at the stern, his large sweep
paddle incessantly in motion on one side
or the other even while the men rest,
keeping them in good-humor when their
spirits flag by his sly remarks or banter-
ing. We engaged him for £6 los. for
the trip.

He next selected other men, bringing
them to us early the next day for our ap-
proval. First the ''booseman," who must
be a quick-eyed fellow, ready in emer-
gencies, especially upon the river; and to

i i

I - ,

22 The Outfit,

him we give £$ los. George Whiteford,
a Swampy Cree, the only full-blooded In-
dian of the party, was chosen, — a power-
ful, thick-set fellow, whom we christened
Boozie. The others are engaged for
£4 los. One, Narcisse Chastelland, the
only Catholic of the party, served as gen-
eral interpreter, as he spoke English,
French, Chippeway, and Cree ; sprightly,
careless, and vivacious, he betrayed his
French extraction, and was at once the
life of the party and the leader in its
songs. Another, John Omand, was an
Orkneyman born at Red River, and the
least interesting of all, though quite as
brown as any of them. He was the only
green hand, and his toughness was sorely
tested by the trip. Billy Tate, a half breed
Swampy Cree, with tremendous develop-
ment of muscle, fat, and good-nature, was
engaged also as cook and general servant.
Tarr thought Billy the ugliest man he
ever saw, who led a sober life. " An Epi-
curean," said he, ** would at first sight have

: 1

The yoyageurs, 23

claimed him as a fortuitous concourse of
atoms," — a claim which an inspection of
his lower lip would have confirmed, this
member having evidently been intended
for a man of double his size, and could
not be made to fit even his enormous
mouth ; it was adorned also with about a
dozen straggling, tapering hairs. Francis
Sinclair, a half-breed with more Swampy
Cree than British blood in him, filled up
the quota.

The height of the men varied from
five feet four inches to five feet nine and
a half inches, averaging five and a half
feet ; the average measurement of chest
was a little more than forty-one inches,
of the humerus nearly thirteen inches,
and of the forearm a little more than
eleven inches. Excepting the guide, they
all dressed much alike. A shirt and
trousers fastened by a belt, with place in
it for tobacco pouch and knife, with a pair
of moccasons, appeared to be their only
garments. All wore long hair and rarely

[

■ !

The Outfit.

put on a hat or cap. Narcisse parted his
hair at the side and left it free ; the others
in the middle and fastened by a handker-
chief bound around the forehead. Their
trousers were fastened, just below the
knee, by a sort of garter made of twisted
grasses, and to which the lower leg was
usually rolled. As for language, they
used Chippeway or Cree "as came handy."
The provisioning of the party was the
next step. For the men this was ex-
tremely simple, — 336 pounds of flour and
the same of pemmican told all ; but they
laid in for themselves, from the portion
of pay advanced them, a liberal allow-
ance of tea and sugar. Our own stores
were abundant but rude, consisting of
pemmican, 60 pounds ; ham, 36 pounds ;
salt beef, 50 pounds; salt pork, 45 pounds;
dried buffalo meat, 37 poi ids; flour, 75
pounds ; biscuit, 75 pounds ; potatoes, i
bushel; tea, 4 pounds; sugar, 12 pounds;
butter, 10 pounds; with salt, pepper, and
mustard. Our utensils (the men fur-

Our Provisions,

nished those for their own mess) were
equally primitive : knife, fork, and spoon,
an iron plate, and a tin dipper, each ; with
a frying pan, iron tea-pot, tin boiling ket-
tle, and wash-dish for all cooking and
culinary purposes. Gunny bags served
as receptacles for all these articles, and
some large pieces of oiled cloth were sup-
plied to keep rain from provisions and
baggage whether ashore or afloat. The
bags serve admirably for packing where
compactness is requisite, as in a canoe
carrying, besides the half-ton of provisions,
nine men with personal baggage, and ^he
heavy, cumbrous boxes for instruments
and collections.

THE LUWEK KEU KIVIiK (AFTER HINU).

^v.^

III.

ill

Half 'Breeds, Indians, and Mosquitoes.

OUR o'clock in the afternoon,
eighteen clays after our departure
from the East, first saw us afloat
in the slight craft which was to carry us
finally to our destination. It was another
seven days before we gained the Cat
Head on the western shore from which
we are now at last about to start. We
had spent nearly two of these at the
very entrance to the lake, encamped upon
a sand-bar, waiting for a sea calm enough
to venture on. We had pushed on by
night or day, as chance, wind, or wave
favored, and by this time were well in-
troduced to the meagre mysteries of the
voyageur's life, — pemmican, mosquitoes,

and patience.
«6

A Sick lihiian.

At Sandy Bar, wc encountered the first
Indians we saw away from civilization.
They were camped only a little distance
from the place we reached at midnight,
and came at once to pay us a visit, glum
and grim, smoking their long stone pipes.
The next morning, learning that they had
a sick boy with them, Lutterby, our nat-
uralist and ex-officio medicine - man, paid
them a visit, taking Billy as interpreter.
There were but two lodges, low, conical
structures, made of a small forest of poles,
interwoven, as it were, with birch-bark,
with a small, low opening, closed by a
blanket, which could be thrown back and
tucked beneath some of the poles. A
crowd of gaunt, wolfish-looking dogs gave
an unwelcome salute as our friends ap-
proached, and then slunk away, with tails
reversed ; a dozen dirty little heads peered
out at the entrance-holes. Billy pushed
his way unceremoniously into the lodge
where the sick boy lay ; but our would-
be doctor halted at first just within the

hhiians and Mosqui/oes,

entrance, to accustom his various senses
to the abrupt change. Within this hut
of about ten feet diameter were, besides
our friends and the sick boy, the father,
his three wives, and about a dozen boys
and girls of various ages and stages of
dress and undress. A fire in the centre,
where one of the women was tending a
Uttle cake of flour and water, — a present
from our boys, — filled the place with
smoke ; a little girl was picking to pieces
a half-fledged gull ; half-dried and wholly
stinking bits of fish and meat were hang-
ing from the poles, or lying about in the
dirt ; old skins and blankets closed every
crevice next the ground ; and the poor boy,
in a raging fever, half unconscious, and
with but a few hours to live, wrapped in a
filthy, ragged blanket, lay in this vile at-
mosphere, , at the farthest side froi. the
door. It was a sad sight, and no encoar-
agement of hope could be held out. An
interjectory, piteous *' Ah"^"a," was the
only response of the old man to the words

The Free-Trader's Barge,

of sympathy which Billy interpreted. We
sent them a little tea and sugar from our
meagre stock ; and when, a few weeks
later, we passed that way again, we found
the inevitable grave.

Several times brigades of barges passed
us, when our flag of stars and stripes,
which we had manufactured along the
route, was saluted, — once by a small can-
non from one of the barges ; once, also,
by the rusty flint-locks of an Indian trader
close at hand, in a barge crowded with
Indians of all sizes, multitudinous dogs,
and a miscellaneous cargo of merchandise,
and accompanied by a dozen canoes filled
with women and children. We returned
the honor with our fowling-piece, as our
men kept up a running chatter and banter
with the swiftly passing squadron.

These barges, by the way, were strange
looking craft, the only boats, besides bi-ch
canoes,, then found on the waters of the
lake. They looked like the vessels of an-
tiquity familiar in illustrated school histo-

i i

4 \

Indians and Mosquitoes,

ries, low amidships, high and peaked at
bow and stern, with a central mast held in
place by ropes passing from the peak to
both ends and both gunwales ; they were
about thirty-five feet long and eight or ten
feet wide, carried a single square sail, or
were propelled by six or eight oars, —
clumsy, headlong craft, which a long
sweep oar at stern managed with diffi-
culty.

The Fourth of July had been celebrated
in a becoming manner. We were en-
camped in a little cove at the Dog's Head,
and had spent the night battling with the
hungry mosquitoes. George had hardly
finished his prolonged morning call, when
a cannon cracker, which one of the philos-
ophers had poked beneath the tent wall
into the open, burst with a fine report.
This brought George in an instant to the
spot to know what was the matter, when
the fusillade of an entire bunch thrown
out of the tent-door brought out peals of
laughter from the boys. During the day

Fireworks and Pickles.

one of them having gone to sleep, a
lighted cracker was placed by his compan-
ions close beside his head, and the result
received with the most boisterous merri-
ment. Not less amused were they in the
evening when we had pin-wheels, serpents,
and Roman candles, perhaps the first fire-
works which ever illumined the waters of
Lake Winnipeg.

Our jolly vogageurs were intensely en-
tertained, also, at the performances of our
naturalist. This worthy employed his
time largely in classifying the different
kinds of mosquitoes, which seemed to be
the staple animal product of the region,
and in the canoe beguiled the weary hours
with impaling the unlucky ephemeras and
other flying beasts that lit upon the broad
back of Francis Sinclair, who paddled
directly in front of him. He had his lines
out on all possible occasions, but only once
caught any thing. Then he astonished the
natives by preventing George from brain-
ing a fine sunfish which would have made

Indians and Mosquitoes.

an excellent meal, and gravely depositing
it in his can of alcohol. When a similar
disposition was made of a fine cross fox
afterward shot, their hilarity knew no
bounds. " He's gone to have a booze with
the fish ! " exclaimed George ; and more
than once on the voyage did they enjoy a
hearty laugh over the mere remembrance
of it.

The scenery of the lake was nowhere
striking, and indeed a dull monotony of
level throughout the entire journey was
one of its characteristic features. Not a
hill two hundred feet high was seen after
leaving the Mississippi until we returned
to it. The highest point on the lake was
the cliff at Grindstone Point, about thirty-
five feet in elevation, unless perchance
it were exceeded by the Cat Head, from
which, let me assure the reader, we shall
soon start. The west shore of the lake
was the more level and uninteresting, the
rock being a nearly level, thinly stratified
limestone, while the eastern shore was

The Winnipeg Mosquito. 33

formed of low rounded hills of granite or
other heavily bedded rock ; but on both
sides the shore was backed by, or formed
of, a marsh, or " muskeg " as it is called,
densely filled with tall bulrushes and sedge,
beyond which — when one could see be-
yond — was a ragged forest of tamarack,
juniper, and spruce, intermixed near the
muskeg with willow, "popple," and alder.
The only relief was in the many islands
which filled the shallow lake, and the
indented shore line, which made some
pretty bays.

As to animal liie, aquatic birds, and
especially gulls and terns, were not rare,
and in some places exceedingly abundant.
Other birds, especially songsters, were not
common. Fish were exceedingly scarce,
and insects, except a few marsh lovers, not
abundant.

Yet I must nut pass by the mosquito.
No, my friend, he will not pass by you !
Let me relate the history of a single night.
We entered a charming little cove on the

Indians and Mosquitoes.

1 I

eastern coast to pass the night, before the
long traverse to the western shore. Day-
light was turning to dusk. Supper over,
eaten with haste and imprecations, the
philosophers retired to their tent, lighted a
candle, fastened every visible opening large
enough to admit a mosquito, and then
proceeded to slaughter the enemy by the
hundreds, by the vigorous use cf stray
garments, burning afterwards with the
candle such as sought the refuge of the
ridgepole. After an hour's work, the num-
ber was perceptibly diminished, and the
tired vanquishers composed themselves for
sleep. At first all was peaceful within ;
but how shall we adequately describe the
sound without ? Lutterby suggested that
it sounded most like a swarm of bees.
Ides compared it to the distant hum of all
the spindles of Manchester, blended into
a musical note. It seemed to pervade all
space, and it struck terror to the heart
as it seemed to grow in intensity. Soon,
however, our philosophers had occupation

Can he Sing?

enough to forget the sound, and as one
beast after another, in rapid succession,
fell on the forehead, the neck, the nose,
they were obliged to draw their heavy
blankets over their heads to escape them :
but even then the mosquitoes seemed to
find some crevice, and it was too stifling
to sleep so.

In despair our philosophers turned to
another resort, and getting up, attempted
— while the mosquitoes were now stinging
them from head to foot, through double
shirt and woollen trousers — to light some
green wood at the foot of the tent, and
make a smudge. This subdued the mos-
quitoes, and nearly choked the philoso-
phers ; but under cover of it, they lay
down, and began to lose themselves, when
again, the smudge lifting somewhat, the
advance guard were at them. Lutterby
pulled his insect net over his head, and
covered it about the throat with his blan-
ket ; but this could not protect the nose,
the chin, and the ears, to which, to his

Indians and Mosquitoes.

«■ I

- ; (

rage, the mosquitoes flocked. Another
smudge was made at dead of night ; and
during the cabii which ensued — within,
not without — a council of war was held.
The naturalist produced various bits of
netting, which were thus put to use :
Simon Tarr, who lay in the middle, con-
structed a small wigwam of bent twigs
pulled from the bedding, and over it threw
a canopy of netting, into which he in-
serted his head, and covered the flap with
his blanket. Ides and Lutterby, each
where he lay, propped up the wall of the
tent a few inches by crotched sticks,
closed the open space with netting, lay
down with mouth to opening, and covered
himself, head and all, with blankets.

It was difficult to sleep, however. The
mosquitoes returned with rage to the
attack. Tarr had expected a few to be
enclosed in his cranial wigwam, and had
planned that they should drink themselves
drunk, and then allow him to sleep ; but
as one and another dropped off his face

He can Bite.

with the heavy drone of satiety, and their
places were taken by another and another,
and Tarr would open his eyes in despair
at the sound of the comini; ruffians, he
could see by the dim light that the net-
ting but a few inches from him was black
with a raging hordo, the sound of whose
fury was most sleep-dispelling ; and more
than once, in the vain hope of closing some
crevice which they must be entering, he
opened new locp-holes for their approach.
As for the others, the warmth of the air
made a thick blanket over the head very
uncomfortable, while night was rendered
horrid by close proximity to the trumpeting
of the outside mob, infuriated by their
inability to reach the entrenched, and cov-
ering the netting so thickly as fairly to
render it diffixult to get oxygen through
it ; nor could these philosophers wholly
escape the light artillery of the flying
squadrons within. When the welcome
morning came, the inside walls of the
tent were fairly black with the villains.

Indians and Mosquitoes.

It. I

But the nights were not long ; it was
twilight still until near midnight, and in
less than an hour thereafter, signs of
dawn were visible in the cast. The even-
ings were not infrequently enlivened by
an aurora, which usually began near ten
o'clock, and lasted just about an hour. It
resembled a very long and irregular flag,
with vertical stripes, formed by the stream-
ers continually waving about in a most
graceful manner. When we camped with-
out cover on the open shore, it was a
charming thing to go to sleep by.

When we were aroused in the morning
by the stentorian sound of George's call,
we never had time to do more than pack
our personal effects before they were
wanted for the canoe ; none whatever for
ablutions, which had to be performed
af*-erwards from the canoe, by leaning over
the boat's side at the men's resting-spell,
and letting the water dry on hands and
face, — leaving a more thorough wash
until landing again.

BILLY TATE.

OGORGC WHITEFORD.

PADDLING.

FKANCIS SINCLAIR.

Paddling.

It was curious with what regularity
these voyageurs worked ; they clipped
their paddles exactly once a second, keep-
ing time much of the way to the quaint
voyageur's song which Narcisse started,
with a "reply "from Boozie, and an occa-
sional jerky accompaniment of Billy ; on
special occasions all would join. At the
end of an hour, as regularly as if they
kept a timepiece, they rested for a few
minutes. Just before they stopped, they
would spurt. Narcisse would cry, ** r-r-r-r-
r-r-r-r-r-r-ra ! ha ! " and then they would
double their speed for thirty or forty
strokes, and at the signal from the boose-
man, ship their paddles. Then would come
the inevitable smoke. The pipe would be
filled with a mixture of tobacco and some
weed, or the inner bark of the willow,
flint and steel struck against the fungus
of the birch ; and what with talking and
failures to ignite, they never got, nor in-
deed appeared to care for, more than three
or four whiffs, before they started again.

Si* (

i 1

Indians and Mosquitoes.

George meanwhile was never idle : he
sponged the vater from the canoe, spat-
tered in by the paddles, and then taking
his sweep-paddle kept the canoe still in
motion.

'I\

THE CAT HEAD.

IV.

Paddling, Penimicau, and Patience.

S we paddled nearly fifty miles
the day before we reached the
Cat Head, it is provokin<^ to be
again stopped by the waves an hour after
breakfast, and landed on a little sand-spit,
backed by a marsh full of mosquitoes,
where we must spend the remainder of
the day ; nor comforting that night to
hear the rain pattering on our tent, be-
tokening a storm, and further delay.
What is our pleasure to find after break-
fast that our men think we may proceed ;
that the traverse from Point Wigwam,
where we are, to the nearest island in
the bay, six miles distant, is decided on.
As we leave the little harbor, a tremen-
dous splash beneath our very paddles

I I' 1

If;

Pemmican and Patience,

;! ';

startles us. " Nahma ! " cry the men,
"ah ha, Nahnia," and we are introduced
to the king of the northern waters.

We now try the sail, a rude affair
enough, — a square-sail hauled up over
a crotched pole in the front part of the
canoe, — but by means of which we make
much more rapid progress than is our
wont ; yet not rapid enough for George,
who sets the men at work paddling also
with all their might, for the wind is in-
creasing rapidly, preventing our return
before we go a mile, and necessitating a
run of several miles before the wind ere
we can gain a haven. Billy, always a
dismal prophet, begins to exclaim at the
large and increasing size of the waves
between us and the Sturgeon Islands, to
which we are heading, asserting in short
and decided phrase that we can never
reach them. The waves grow larger and
noisier, and we reckon with anxiety the
space that still remains. We speed along
as never before, the wave-crests occasion-

A Dangerous Run.

ally dashing over our gunwales, the canoe
bending and twisting as each wave rushes
angrily from stern to bow, and the wind
threatening to tear the mast from its
frail lashings.

We are glad enough when the lee of
one of the Sturgeon Islands is reached
at the end of an hour, — the most peril-
ous experienced. Did we know that this
island was to be our prison for three mis-
erable days, we should have taken our
arrival with less equanimity ! Hoping
later in the day to be able to push for-
ward, our canoe is not at first unloaded,
but merely kept next the shore by small
trees falling from the beach across the
bow and stern. Landing is made in the
pelting rain ; and the tent-poles being at
the bottom of the canoe, we three philoso-
phers solace ourselves with one umbrella
and one rubber blanket between us, until
the men have made a sort of wigwam of
poles, bent, twisted, and bound together,
and nn the windward-side have thrown

Pemmican and Patience.

1 1

111':

over it the tent-cover ; to this, and the
comfort of a roaring fire in front, we then
retreat, and bemoan our fate. The days
are gliding swiftly by. Ten have passed
since leaving Fort Garry. Less than ten
remain to the day of the eclipse, after we
are at last freed from our prison ; and half
the journey is not made. It is true that
winds will not detain us on the river, but
there we will have to contend with the
unfailing current.

The island which affords the philoso-
phers at once a shelter and a prison is
about a foot above the level of- the lake,
and about a hundred and fifty yards long
by half as wide : so at least we estimate it,
but with all our explorations, we are un-
able to penetrate to either extremity. It
is made up of a bulrush muskeg, willow
and alder chapparal, sand, and bowlders.
We explore nearly half an acre of it with
limited success, and have for an outlook
fragments of similar islands of equal
interest in the near distance.

\k \

Loading the Canoe.

Wfj are glad to be called at three o'clock
on the morning of the fourth day by the
ever watchful George, and though the
waves are still high, and the traverse
ahead a long one, glad enough to venture
it. The men hastily arouse themselves,
light their pipes, take two or three whiffs,
and then, laying hold of the canoe with
many interjections and "ughs," they turn it
over, and, three men on each side, carry
it, stern foremost, into the water, bringing
it around as the stern floats, so that it lies
broadside in water up to the men's knees.
Steersman and bov/sman then hold each
his end, steadying the canoe, and directing
the loading. Narcisse jumps in, and stows
away, with the two Georges' help, the
boxes and bags which the others bring,
working always on the run. An open
framework is placed on the floor in the
middle, and on it oil-cloth, tent-bag, and
blankets are thrown for the philosophers'
seats ; the men sit on narrow slats slung
by thongs about six inches below the

m ;

Pemmican and Patience.

i ii

l.\\

thwarts. The baggage all in, the philoso-
phers are carried out in the same way, the
men get in, and the canoe is off.

After rounding Limestone Point, and
crossing Portage Bay, we land on a little
island for breakfast, which the men by
this time have surely earned. Breakfast,
dinner, and supper are all one and the
same thing. Pemmican, bannocks (simple
flour, water, and salt), and hard biscuit are
the staples, washed down with tea. Pota-
toes long since gave out, and the ham
and salt beef are so strong that the salt-
less pemmican is soon preferred. This,
too, is the genuine article, just as put up
on the plains, — now no longer to be had,
— aud a vastly different thing from the
material of that name put up in England
for Arctic travellers.

The meat, cut in long flakes from the
warm carcass of the buffalo, and dried in
the sun, is afterwards beaten into shreds
by flails upon a floor of buffalo-hide on
the open prairie ; the hide is then sewn

i »

The Gciminc Pcnimican,

into a bag, the meat jammed in, the top
sewed up, all but one corner, into which
more meat is crowded ; and then the fat,
which has meanwhile been tried, is poured
in scalding hot, filling every crevice. A
species of cranberry is often added with
the meat. The whole forms a bolster-
shaped bag, as solid and as heavy as stone ;
and in this condition it remains, perhaps
for years, until eaten. Each bag weighs
from a hundred to a hundred and twenty
pounds. One who has tried it will not
wonder that it was once used, in the tur-
moils of the contests between the North-
west and Hudson Bay Companies, to form
a redoubt, armed with two swivel guns.

We have two ways of preparing this, —
one called "rub-a-boo," when it is boiled
in a great deal of water, and makes a soup ;
the other more favorite dish is "rousseau,"
when it is thrown into the frying-pan, fried
in its own fat, with the addition, perhaps,
of a little salt pork, and mixed with a
small amount of flour or broken biscuit.

h (I

III

ft , !

Pemmiciiii iind Patience,

But sometimes, when our philosophers
are hard put to it. and forced to take their
meal i^: the canoe, the pemmican is eaten
raw, chopped out of the bag with a hatchet,
and accompunied simply by the biscuit,
which has received tho soubriquet of " Red-
river granite." These wonderful objects,
as large as sea-biscuit, are at least three-
quarters of an inch in thickness, and
against them the naturalist's geological
hammer is always brought into requisition.
But the '* infidel dish," as we termed
rousseau, is by comparison with the others
palatable, though it is even then impossi-
ble to so disguise it as to avoid the sug-
gestion of tallow candles; and this and
the leathery, or India-rubbery, structure
of the meat are its chief dI.;qualifications.
But even rousseau may loose its charms
when taken as a steady diet three times a
day for weeks ; especially when it is served
in the frying-pan, ar.d, breakfast or diiner
over, one sees the remnants with the beef
or pork all hustled together into the boil-

fc"'httiaj««iiirirtiil»HW!

The Way it is Served.

ing-kettle ; the biscuit, broken bannocks,
and unwashed cups placed in the bread-
bag ; the plates, knives, and forks tossed
into the meat-dish ; and all, combined in
the ample folds of an old bit of gunny-
cloth which has served daily at once as
dishcloth and tablecloth, thrown into the
canoe to rest until the next meal, when at
last Billy finds time to wash the dishes, —
the tablecloth, never.

We are able, indeed, to vary our diet a
little now and then, — but they are rare
occasions, — by barter with the Indians
for fish, which they catch in the streams
(not in the lake), by shooting a stray duck,
goose, or gull (nothing coming amiss), or

— shall we tell it to civilized ears? — by
the eggs of sea-fowl, picked up on the
sandy islands, where they can be found in
every stage of incubation. Our first ex-
perience of this was only a few days out,

— the day we made the traverse from the
west to the east coast. We passed an
island where the men dashed ashore to

♦ .

Ri \

Pemmkau and Patience.

get a gull they had shot, and brought it
back with several dozen eggs besides.
The gull measured fifty-six inches in
spread of wings, and the eggs were as big
as turkeys'. We ordered ham and eggs
that night, but, when the meal was served,
discovered that Billy had fried the ham
indeed, but boiled the eggs. They were
"fresh," however, Billy declared; for had
he not tested them by a plunge in water.''
Not one, however, but had been under the
mother for a week, and some were on
the point of hatching. We were a little
hesitant at first, but four or five days of
pemmican gave us less scruple ; and, the
Rubicon once crossed, incipient feathers
no longer alarm us, and half-hatched gulls*
and terns' eggs are an eagerly sought diet.
We are indeed fast lapsing into savagery.

We have now a long stretch of tame
coast before us, — low-lying forest land of
tamarack and spruce, with occasional pop-
lars and willows, edged by a muskeg, and
that by a sand beach little indented.

i^-_

Ifiiiian Barter.

Here and there horizontal layers of lime-
stone crop out a few feet only above the
water ; and now and then the marshes
appear to overflow, as some small stream
seeks a dozen outlets for its murky flood.
Along this uninteresting shore we fortu-
nately make steady progress. We are glad
enough, however, as toward nightfall we
espy some Indian lodges, to stop and ex-
change, with equal relish on both sides,
pemmican and tobacco for fresh fish and
ducks. As usual, the women come out to
the canoe for the barter, wading nearly to
their waists, regardless of their clothing,
and among them a very pretty maiden of
about seventeen with whom our boys pass
many a merry word ; while the men squat
on the beach, speechless, smoking, their
faces half hidden behind their knees.
This little diversion gives our boys new
spirit ; and after paddling briskly twelve
miles farther, making in all about sixty
miles this day, we come to a cosey little
harbor and a most welcome fish supper.

> •-:••-

l> >

Pemmican and Patience,

The following night proves the cold-
est we have experienced, the thermometer
falling to forty-four degrees (July lo-ii).
The men awake stiff with their long day's
pull and the chilly air, and it is sunrise
or nearly four o'clock before we are off, —
an unwonted late hour for an auspicious
day. But after a time, when at the end
of our long uniform coast line we have
begun to turn toward the east, to round
Cape Kitchinashi, alias "Missineo," the
"Big Point," or "Detour," which stretches
ten miles or more abruptly into the lake,
the wind freshens, and we are forced to
the lee of one of the Gull Islands, which
we reach by dinner-time and cannot leave
until the next morning, finding a bit of
grass-land for our bed, but scarcely a stick
of wood for a fire.

The next day we paddle from three
o'clock in the morning until supper-time,
rounding the cape and camping perhaps
ten miles north of where we started ; the
wind being southerly and freshening with

,'f

,,5S,-j*i»-

^
^

Tracking.

the day, we are fortunate in getting
around the point to its northern lee shore
in season : an hour later might have de-
tained us another day.

Along this smooth coast we try for the
first time a new style of progression, —
tracking. A long light line is attached
to the canoe near the bow, while to the
other end three men upon the beach
fasten their tracking or portage straps,
— long pieces of rawhide, broad in the
middle and ending in thongs; the broad
part is passed over the shculder, the ends
fastened to the rope, and thus harnessed,
the men drag our canoe at a dog-trot,
while George with his sweep-paddle keeps
the bow from shore, and Boozie has an eye
out for rocks. The water in this portion
of Lake Winnipeg is much clearer ; and
we judge its name, "dirty water," was
given it by frequenters of the southern
portion. The same difference was noted
on the return voyage.

Billy announces "no more sugar;" even

:;l

'1 i

! •

Pemmican ami Patience.

the flour is getting low. The only article
of food of which there appears to be an
abundance is pemmican, and of this we
have already cached a bag on the road,
and now make a second cache.

We comfort ourselves, however, by a
sight of the shores about and beyond
the entrance to the Saskatchewan, which
only a northerly or easterly storm can
now prevent our reaching on the morrow.
Still, we confess to much uneasiness.
But five days remain to the eclipse, and
George says, and all his men corroborate
him, that five days is the least time in
which the journey up the river can be
made. Are vve to miss it by the pal-
try distance that the eye can traverse.^
Cumberland House, a Hudson Bay Com-
pany's post, is our destination, and is most
favorably situated in the y centre of
the belt of total eclipse 'Ut the river
below it runs in a very oblique course
through the belt, so that if we can only
reach the Pas, a mission-station some dis-

Our Destination,

tance farther down the river, we shall still
gain the desired belt, though only its edge,
where the period of totality will be very
brief. But we say nothing of this to our
men.

THE ECLIPSE BELT.

it '

Portaging, Poling, and Promises.

OWARDS noon the next day we
cross the mouth of the Saskatche-
wan, and land on the northern
shore for dinner and to prepare poles of
spruce for river use. Each having peeled
and fashioned his to his taste, we start up
the river ; not, however, until we have had
our first taste of Saskatchewan mosqui-
toes, or, rather, they of us. Hitherto I
have merely mentioned mosquitoes ; but
they are the nightly torment of our lives,
necessitating the sleep we afterward daily
catch in the canoe before breakfast. But
those had been semi-civilized mosquitoes.
Now we have to deal with veritable bar-
barians, knowing rest nor night nor day,
— the yellow jackets of Culex land, illim-
56

The Real Mosquito. 57

itable in numbers, ubiquitous, insatiable,
indomitable, hot-tongued, with all the spirit
of the furies !

The current is swift, and we hug the
shore closely to avoid the worst, but on
rounding points, the paddles can make no
headway against the current, and the men
seize their poles, stand erect, and plunge
them to the bottom; then with simul-
taneous shouts and yells, they work as
one i.:an, poling the canoe forward till the
water spurts over the bows. By and by
we reach quieter water, where the paddles
are resumed ; and so on until we gain a
suitable spot, when we all land, and the
men track the boat up to the foot of the
Grand Falls, wLile we philosophers foot
it through the forest on the edge of the
bank. An Indian village stands at the
landing-place, and our approach is her-
alded by a mighty outcry from our dis-
tant canine friends. Of all dogs, this
Indian breed is the most noisy and the
most cowardly.

I''

|. I

Up the River.

We do not stay here long. The place
is not attractive ; for though canoes are
in manufacture, and we should like to
examine them in various stages, the odor
of putrid sturgeon fills the whole atmos-
phere. Now and then the path through
the woods oprns and gives us n* in' ;er»t
views of the rushing, surging tor/ ent . It
seems almost impossible that our men caii
haul the canoe up such a place, and
indeed they have a hard time of it.

We come across another village, where
the chief, with no covering but a shirt,
comes forward to salute us, while the
small boy (evidently bred in this region
for that purpose) drives off the snarling
dogs with cuffs and stones. Naked,
greasy-looking children, pretty maidens,
and fat old squaws sit around, and gaze
at us as we file by, filled most with won-
derment at our naturalist's fly-net. We
overtake a squaw with papoose on back,
and walk leisurely to inspect from behind
the bundle with the lollins: head

WILL PORTAGE FOR PEMMICAN.

(

)

1 ft

!!E!RBha.

Por takers at Work.

At the end of a walk of two or three
miles, we find ourselves at the foot of the
portage, our men already in advance of
us, unloading the canoe. They had been
obliged to take out j)art of the load below,
and were now going back fur it, securing
the aid of an Indian for the hard work,
and paying him in pemmican, — the great
medium of exchange and sale in this re-
gion, where a gold piece would be as much
out of place as in the heart of Africa.

On their return every thing is carried
up the steep bank, and the canoe, perched
upside down on the shoulders of the six
men, makes its way through the wilder-
ness to a point above the fiercest rapids.
Here they leave it, and on their return
we camp for the night. Early the next
morning the portage of the goods begins,
requiring three trips in all. The same
raw-hide is used as in tracking, the thongs
being fastened around the two ends of
some box or bag, and so adjusted that
the load falls against the shoulder-blades.

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up the River.

when the broad, central flat passes over the
forehead. Upon this are piled such other
articles as can be loosely adjusted without
danger of falling, generally weighted by a
sack half resting on the head, the whole
load amounting to from a hundred to a
hundred and fifty pounds. With this they
start over the road at a dog-trot, and do
not stop an instant on the way, — a full
mile, — coming back as soon as unloaded
for another carry. It takes two hours to
accomplish every thing, and all is done
before breakfast.

Tarr and Ides go over with the first
load, including all the astronomical instru-
ments, while Lutterby stands guard at the
starting-point, where a fresh breeze from
the river drives the mosquitoes into the
woods. The opposite is the case at the
other end of the line, and the poor astron-
omers are obliged to spend their time
racing up and down the portage-beach to
keep the enemy at bay.

After a hurried breakfast on our part

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Poling in the Rapids,

(and that of the mosquitoes), we launch
again in the still angry waters. Poling
and paddlinJ3 by turns, we creep steadily
up the river, keeping so close to the shore
that the branches of the trees often lash
our faces. Now and then a pole slips
upon a rock beneath, and brings the poler
to his back, from which he springs with
an angry cry, and recovers his hold. It
is a wild scene. The men yell like frantic
demons, — all but quiet Francis, who
works none the less mightily, and George
the guide, on whom depends chiefly the
course the boat shall take, plunging his
pole now on this side, and now on that,
shouting meanwhile his orders to his men.
Francis splits and nearly breaks his pole
at a most critical point, where the force
of the current sends the water spurting
up the flanks of the frail bark.

Thus we make our way for three or
four miles, in as many hours, until we
come to a point where the water surging
around a projecting point allows no pas-

|i' I

Up the River.

sage, and we are obliged to paddle across
the broad river in a furious manner, only
to bring up on the opposite shore at a
point far down the stream. Then the
alternate poling and paddling is renewed
on that side, till we reach a similar diffi-
culty around a jutting rock, and here
another portage becomes necessary.

To add to our delights, a heavy rain
comes on. We disembark in a damp, boggy
wood swarming with mosquitoes. We are
all wet to the skin, so that it is hard to
make a fire. Some dried grass is at last
found in the protection of a hollow tree,
rolled into a ball, a bit of punk from the
same tree lighted by flint and steel, and
placed in the centre of the ball ; this is
then swung in half-open hands until a
flame bursts out, which is coaxed with
birch -bark and small wood, till a fire
makes things more cheerful ; and dinner
of sturgeon in the open air renders the
rain less obnoxious.

Portaging the baggage forty rods, and

A Little Moist,

warping the empty canoe around the
rock, consume much time ; and we are
glad enough to start again. To help
matters, while the men work the canoe
forward in the swift current, we philoso-
phers take to our feet, making our \/ay
(without a path) over fallen trees and
through tangle and marsh filled with tall
grass saturated with rain. We are finally
carried to the canoe from a willowy mus-
keg, where, in a generally damp condition,
we are standing in a foot of water. An
hour's more poling brings the canoe to
where the river flows through many chan-
nels. One and another of these are
crossed, and camp made ac last on an
island near the upper shore.

The next morning we paddle over Cross
Lake, —an expansion of the river, — and
breakfast on an island in the narrows be-
tween that and Cedar Lake. In this we
are joined by a half-breed in charge of
Cedar-lake House, — a small trading-post
of the Hudson Bay Company which we

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up the River.

can see on the opposite shore. He con-
sents to take one of our naturalist's cans,
and fill it with various articles against our
return, for which the men, too, are grate-
ful, as it lightens their load again. Mr.
John De Leon did not know what day it
was. Well, what need, hundreds of miles
from his nearest civilized neighbors, and
only those in his own cabin to speak to ?
Our men, however, had kept tally by dis-
pensing with bannocks on Sundays, con-
sidering their preparation as unnecessary
cooking; and so we are able to lell him
that this is no bannock day. Alas! the
time draws near when all the days arc
Sundays ; — but I anticipate.

After breakfast we enter on Cedar Lake,
— an immense expansion of the river where
no current is perceptible, — and camp at
nightfall on an island n'^ar its upper end.
Here we have a sericus talk with George,
explaining how far we have come, and for
what purpose, and the weakening chances
of our reaching even the Pas, — to such

George's Promise.

good effect that he promises to lose no
moment of time. What is our chagrin,
on awakening in the morning, to find the
wind and waves so high on this pickaninny
lake, that the single remaining traverse
cannot be undertaken. However, by sun-
rise the wind begins to die down ; and by
half-past eight we launch again, and dine
at the point where the current again
meets us.

Here George begins indeed to redeem
his promise, for not only do the men pad-
dle steadily all this day, stopping only for
meals, but also all the night long and the
following day, stopping indeed only when,
just at dusk on the night before the
eclipse, our astronomers declare that we
have reached the belt of totality, and at a
fortunate bend in the river, opposing the
sunrise, find ourselves confronted by the
first spot of ground a foot above the water
which we have seen for twenty-four hours.
Indeed, in all this day, we are not able to
land to cook a meal, but avail ourselves

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Up the River.

of such snags at the river's brink as enable
us to build a fire among the half-submerged
branches out of a spare paddle or two, or
satisfy our hunger with raw pemmican ard
Red-river granite.

It was curious to watch the effect of this
hard pull upon the men the last ten hours.
Poor Boozie fell a> ' eep about every half
hour, but he managed to keep his seat and
his grasp of the paddle until aroused by
the shouts and. gibes of those who quickly
saw the faltering stroke that should guide
their mo <.ments. Francis and Billy evi-
dently felt that " tired Nature's sweet re-
storer " wished to get the upper hand, but
they fought her with stoical indifference.
Poor John was in sad plight for the entire
journey had told upon him, reducing his
plump flesh to gauntness ; and now he was
a picture of woe, as he bravely strove to
do his part. At every stroke of the paddle
his head rolled to one side or the other
as if some sympathetic connection existed
between his head and his arms. Narcisse

How the Men stood it.

put a bold face on it by rallying John,
shouting at Boozie as he slaclcened pace,
and laughing at things in general. And
George, Captain George, how did he
stand it ? Did his broad paddle cease to
ply the water continuously, his that did
not gauge its movement by the others?
Did he stop at unnecessarily frequent
intervals to sop an imaginary puddle in
the canoe, to relieve the monotony of the
stroke ? Not he. Careful and prolonged
search at George's countenance failed to
disclose the slightest difference in action
or in expression from what was custom-
ary. The eye was clear, bright, and
open ; the same pleasant smile, the same
quiet manner, greeted one ; the paddle
moved like the pendulum of a clock.
Not the slightest trace of weariness
could be detected. At a word from us,
George would have kept on a second
night to enable us to reach the Pas ;
but the discovery of this littje bank
opposite a stream from Moose Lake de-

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up the River.

termined us to test their powers no
longer, for the men's strength would
be needed for our further preparations,
and the eclipse was to commence soon
after sunrise.

I ;

A SAl'LTEAUX INUiAN.

VI.

Eclipse Observations tinder Difficulties, —
/4n Oasis,

T is a most unpromising spot where
we land in the rain. Only a little
ridge of boggy ground, into which
one sinkr nearly to the level of the river
at every step, separates the river from the
marsh: The canoe is brought alongside,
and the instruments and such provisions
as are needed taken out. The men ar-
range a wigwam in the marsh, and throw
over it the tent-cover, strewing boughs
upon the floor, and treading them down
until something like solidity is gained, and
then heap upon them some two or three
feet of fir. A thick growth of poplar lines
the stream. Supper over, by the light of

the fire the men clear away the smaller

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Eclipse and Rest.

trees, using them to make a corduroy to
keep above the water. The trunks of four
of the larger are made into huge stakes,
which are driven very close together well
into the ground, and a large box contain-
ing one of the naturalist's heavy cans
of alcohol is placed upon it as a stand
for the larger three-inch telescope. A
crotched tree, properly trimmed, serves
as the support for the smaller one, while
boxes for seats are placed at convenient
spots.

Our philosophers are up early the next
morning despite the heavy shower which
precedes the dawn, and which makes it
seem as though all their labor had been
thrown away. The crucial time approach-
ing, they explain more fully to the men
what is about to transpire, and enjoin
complete silence. Alas ! to little purpose.
Though the clouds are unsteady, they will
not part ; the eclipse increases ; the total-
ity approaches. No sound is heard but
the tap of the screw-driver on the alcohol

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IVhat a Success !

box, as the seated natuBalist beats the
seconds from the chronometer in his hand,
and at the beginning of each new minute
enforces it by an audible " one ! two !
three! four! five!" The gloom deepens
and deepens, and then becomes so in-
tense that the chronometer is read with
difficulty, when suddenly, at eight seconds
and fifteen minutes after eight, a change
occurs, and we know the totality is past.
Soon thereafter the clouds lift, and permit
the remaining phenomena to be observed
and timed ; and when, an hour later, all is
over, we turn to breakfast.

This, then, is our success. Three thou-
sand miles of constant travel occupying
five weeks, to reach by heroic endeavor
the outer edge of the belt of totality ; to
sit in a marsh, and view the eclipse
through the clouds !

Altitude and meridian observations
being taken, the instruments are packed,
and as the river is still rising (it turns out
that it is higher than for years), and is

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Eclipse and Rest.

now overflowing the very ground on which
we stand, we start as speedily as possible,
with the intention of reaching the Pas,
and a day's rest for the men. After pad-
dling less by six miles than we had counted
on, we come at sunset, on rounding a
point, into sudden view of a neat little
church and a cluster of houses on the first
solid ground we have seen for three days.

We are instantly seen, and receive an
immediate and cordial welcome, with pro-
fuse offers of hospitality on the part of the
lonely Christian man who here carries on
his work. But bemired as we are, we pre-
fer our own lodgings ; our camp is soon
made in the open field, where a fire from
the good parson's ample wood-pile soon
dries us off.

This little settlement consists, first, of
a church and schoolhouse in a palisaded
enclosure, which also includes a graveyard
with palisaded graves (to keep off wolves) ;
then of the parsonage, and Fort Defiance,
a log hut roofed with bark held in place

The Pas.

by stones, and which serves as a Hudson
Bay trading - store, with a few Indian
lodges, and, on the two sides of the river,
twenty or thirty rude cabins. Here we
spend a couple of days very pleasantly with
the parson and his family, attending service
wholly in the Cree language, and enjoying
this little oasis of civilization to the full.

At the service was a motley gathering
in every style of dress and age, even down
to papooses strapped on their mother's
backs, or leaning in cradle-boards against
the walls. Some of the Indians sat on
the benches which ranged along the walls,
while others preferred squatting on the
open floor.

How we enjoyed civilized meals again
(what slaves we are to the stomach !) and
how we rejoiced at the sight of growing
barley and potato - patches, need not be
told. We were doubtless equally welcome
to these saintly souls, not once in years
seeing an educated man, and dependent
upon a yearly boat they send to York on

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Eclipse and Rest.

Hudson Bay for tidings of the world, and
supplies.

And now we were at our journey's end,
and must speedily retrace our steps. Yet
notwithstanding the zest with which one
always turns homeward, we had no little
longings for the beyond. We had not
even reached Cumberland House, that
ancient post of the Hudson Bay Company,
established before our Revolution (1774),
and we longed to pass even that distant
station, and work our way up the Church-
ill River to where they scretch out their
' mds over the long Methye Portage to
.ne Athabasca and McKenzie River peo-
ple, who may float in their barges to the
Arctic Ocean. Imagine the life of the
factor of the company forced to occupy
Fort Simpson on the McKenzie River,
Fort Resolution on the Great Slave Lake,
or a post on the distant Great Bear Lake,
— vast inland seas scarcely more than
known by name to us ! During the short
summer of those regions, they send or

The Region beyond.

l-i\

take their accumulating stocks of furs on
barges slowly up the river, and after a
brief resting-spell at Fort Resolution, the
brigades uniting here from various points
work their way up to the twelve-mile
Methye Portage, where on the height of
land of the northern continent, midway
between the Athabasca and the Church-
ill, they exchange them for what the
southern fleets from Red River have
brought in stores and yearly news, turn
quickly back again to the frigid North and
silence. At the time of our expedition it
was a two years' journey to these points
from Europe.

While here we gained a little insight
into the character and characteristics of
the Indian. One single matter may be
mentioned. A sick woman near by would
have none of the medicines offered by the
clergyman, — for a clergyman is here per-
force a doctor too, — because a conjurer
was then at work with her, trying to drive
out a devil which had taken possession of

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Eclipse ami Rest.

her and which was behaving in a very in-
convenient manner ; said devil being as
hard as a stone, rather round, and about
as big as the tips of two fingers, very
uneasy, perambulating the whole body.
Just then it was somewhere in the region
of the heart, where it had come on a jour-
ney from the top of the head. There was
no doubt about it ; the people all agreed
that, as the conjurer said so, and the
woman said so, that was the end of it.

CHRIST CHURCH AT THE PAS.

VII.

Down the River, — Rapids and Mosquitoes

again.

E do not stay long enough to learn
the fate of that poor devil, but start
on our return journey just at sun-
set of July 20, laden with lettuce, . idishes,
and preserved currants from the garden
of our new-made friends. Down the swift
current we press so rapidly that it is still
ample daylight when we pass our eclipse
station. We paddle until ten o'clock,
when all hands except the watchful George
settle themselves for a night's sleep in
somewhat narrow quarters. It is not the
first night that we philosophers have tried
it, but sleeping three abreast in a width
of five feet, and a length not greater,
admits of no motion for change of posi-

Dcni'it the River

I I

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tion on the i)art of any one ; perhaps for-
tunately, as more or less water is always
spattered in, and by morning we lie in at
least an ii.ch of it. This night, however,
we are spared that, and are not a little
surprised when, on arousing at the men's
preparations to land for breakfast, we find
ourselves close to Cedar Lake at Drum
Island, or, as they say for short in Cr^e,
Kashkebujespuquaneshing (i.e., "tying the
mouth of a drum "). In twelve hours, half
of the time with only one paddler, we have
accomplished what it took thirty hours
to do on the way up.

Here we find a young Indian with his
wife and two children, just arrived over
night; after the fashion of the natives,
Lutterby unceremoniously pushes aside the
blanket covering the opening to the lodge,
and looks in, to see if perhaps madame
were " tying the mouth of a drum."
Nothing of the sort : a pretty squaw, as
squaws go, sits demurely by a smoulder-
ing fire, alone, disconsolate, unoccupied ;

f«!

Kasbkebujesptiqimneshhtg.

there is nothing within save a few uten-
sils and old rags. For shame, Mr. Liit-
terby, to spy out the nakedness of the
land !

By dinner-time we have reached the
island in Cedar Lake where we before
encamped and chafed at our delay, and
here we are forced again to stop and even
to pass two whole days and nights, getting
away finally late one afternoon in rather a
heavy sea, from which we escape as soon
as we round Rabbit Point. We were
tolerably free from mosquitoes during the
two windy days we passed on our little
island, their place being taken by innum-
erable spiders, but recx^ive a warm enough
welcome to the lee shore where we stop
for supper. The fire is built against a log
by some shrubbery in a boggy spot — the
only available place. We cannot sit down
to the meal, but are obliged to eat stand-
ing in the smoke of the fire, brandishing
a branch from the bushes before our
faces with one hand, while the other

\i I

Down the River.

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carries the food to the mouth. We actu-
ally cannot stop brandishing long enough
to cut our meat, and sup on biscuit only ;
below the smoke, the mosquitoes, while
we stand scorchingly near the fire, cover
our trousers so thickly as to change their
color to a gray, and after we get upon the
open breezy lake again, it is half an hour
before we are rid of thoir importunities.

I mention this merely as a passing
sample of the Saskatchewan mosquito.
Our naturalist asserts with truth that
every insect he impales is at the cost of
several drops of blood ; and once they
were seen on the river a quarter of a mile
distant, as a cloud swooping down upon
the philosophers from the East, giving
them fortunately just time to cover
themselves closely with their blankets,
vvhere they preferred smothering to fiend-
ish torture. Yet they did not even then
wholly escape, as this is a sort that can
bite through moccasins, or through at
least one layer of blanket in addition to

Saskatchewan Mosquitoes.

ordinary clothing, and have the peculiar
faculty, so the philosophers discover, of
alighting on their probosces, and steady-
• ing themselves afterwards on their legs ;
— by no means the deliberate, more san-
guine, but less sanguineous mosquito of
Christendom, which, after alighting, hoists
one hind leg as a signal to his companions
not to disturb him now, — as he thinks
he will begin to suck.

The men paddle all night ; and at two
o'clock in the morning, we reach Cedar-
lake House, where Mr. De Leon, whom
the sound of our paddles has doubtless
aroused, stands by the alcohol can which
he has filled with pelicans and other small-
fry for our naturalist. The establishment
here consists of two windowless store-
houses and a bark-roofed log-cabin with
two rooms, each with one door and one
window. One window was of glass, with
four small lights ; the other of parchment.
Four families lived here, and we count
fourteen dogs.

V i^

Down the River.

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We make a brief stop only, and by
sunrise commence to run the rapids, the
booseman standing with a pole ready for
any emergency, the men meanwhile pad-
dling to keep the canoe under the control
of eagle-eyed George. How the banks fly
by ! How the canoe bends and creaks
and squirms! The waters boil, seethe,
foam, and roar beside us, the rapids grow
whiter and whiter ; but we whiz on with
awful velocity, our thwarts only an inch
or two from the mighty, rushing flood.
Indeed, the water constantly splashes over
them. We see a little cove ahead, and are
so soon there, that only the most lusty
paddling of our men can bring us in.
This gives us a chance for breakfast, with
a little rest for the men before the worst
is undertaken.

By a little after seven we are again in
the whirlpools, rushing along with the visi-
bly descending flood. We pass a dozen
canoes of Indians on one shore, who have
just made a traverse of the river, and are

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/// the Rapids.

waiting far their dogs, scattered over the
waters half a mile below, between whom
we soon scurry by, and, when we are
past, hear them baying as they reach
the shore. We dash by the rock which
had caused us so much trouble and delay
on the up-journey, and then away we go
across the river, and soon bring up at the
portage.

On the road across we turn aside into
the woods, where the roar of the torrent
was the loudest, and gain the cliff above
them. Here the swollen river is pent up
between high rocky walls on each side,
while the descent is exceedingly rapid,
and the waters are white with foam from
shore to shore. We dine at the lower end
of the portage ; and then, as the lower
rapids were worse than those above, we
walk two or three miles down the bank,
while John and Francis portage the usual
load this same distance ':o lighten the
canoe, in which the other men run the rap-
ids, reaching the Indian village before us.

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Down the River,

When we arrive, we find our boys talk-
ing with an old chief, while the banks
are crowded with women and children
of all ages. The chief is smoking, and
wears a " stove-pipe " hat, having broad
alternate bands of blue, red, and yellow,
extending from rim to crown. On another
occasion we met an old chief who wore a
silver medal with the effigy of King
George on it, which he had received for
services rendered in the war of 1812.
We are soon dashing down stream again,
though the excitement of the fiercer
rapids is over, and bring up shortly in
the little cove at the mouth of the river,
where a fresh north-east wind precludes
further movements.

We find enough to entertain us, how-
ever; for here are three young Indian
women picking gooseberries, while the
small and exceedingly dirty baby of one
of them crawls naked in the hot sun over
the sticks and stones of the beach. Billy
is speedily carrying on a flirtation with the

An Indian Papoose.

prettiest of them, who has eight rings on
one hand and seven on the other, and
makes her cook a sturgeon for the men,
who eat a second dinner, after which the
women prepare to leave in their canoes.
The baby is picked up (an act which it
resents lo dly), tossed naked on its back
on the cradle-board over the knees of its
mother, who pays no sort of attention to
its squalling ; a lot of moss is crowded
between its legs and in the hollows of the
body, and then fold after fold of blanket
and skins and rags are pulled over it,
and all covered finally by the ornamented
cloth which is attached to the cradle-
board, and laced up tight. The bundle
is then tossed into the canoe, the mother
follows, picks it up, and, righting it head
upwards, off they go, the child still yelling.

SASKATCHEWAN COMRADES.

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VIII.

Lake Navigation. — Delay and Starvation

ahead.

HE next morning, an early start is
made, and we are glad to find our
" cache on the island by Cape Kitch-
inashi intact, as we have run out of flour,
and left some here, besides considerable
pemmican. We make good progress until
four o'clock in the afternoon, when a north-
erly breeze sets in. Billy, who seems to
anticipate every misfortune that ever hap-
pens to us, and a great many that do not,
says, "It's going to blow up." Never was
he nearer the truth. Before we can reach
a harbor a little way ahead, to gain which
our men now make every effort, the breeze
freshens to a gale, and forces us to make
a hasty disembarkment in a considerable

IVind-'Boumi.

surf at much risk to boat and baggage,
not to mention our feelings, the men
standing waist deep in water as they
unload, and flinging the things ashore in
the most promiscuous fashion.

Here we camp, and on the next day
manage to make the few miles that re-
main to the end of Kitchinashi ; but we
cannot round the point, and are con-
demned to remain here for four long days,
during which we see no living being or
sign of one besides ourselves. Fortu-
nately our camp is directly on the sea-
beach, where we look out upon the
broadest expanse of Lake Winnipeg ; and
there is no fixed time at which we need
to return. But pemmican for breakfast,
pemmican for dinner, pemmican for sup-
per, is beginning to pall ; and we can
only move up and down the sea-beach, for
behind us is the inevitable muskeg.

Yet, clothed for the purpose, we make
one attempt to explore the nature of
muskegs. We pass first through a small

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88 Delay and Starvation Ahead.

reedy marsh, next through a growth of
willow, by walking on the roots of which
one can keep at the wi/ er's level ; next
to a sparse growth of tall tamarack trees
with deep boggy sphagnum moss, beyond
which comes a tangled, scarcely penetra-
ble forest of thickly growing tamarack,
the ground carpeted with dry moss, invit-
ing a little repose, which the mosquitoes
will by no means grant. Finally we reach
higher ground, with a rather scant birch
and poplar woods, with many rose-bushes
and other plants ; a vast and reedy swamp
succeeding, we conclude that our curiosity
has been satisfied. The practical result
of the expedition is the discovery of a
pool of cool and clean water, — a great
comfort, since, wade as far as we may, we
cannot, while the wind blows from the
south-east, get any thing but the foulest
water from the lake, which no amount of
standing will leave clear.

The men while away the time in making
some new white-birch paddles by means

■f ^

I- 1

Ji?

Provisions Failing.

of the " crooked knife " which every voy-
ageur carries with him, and which is cer-
tainly a most convenient thing to handle,
and inconvenient to stow away, with its
laterally curving blade, and bent, thong-
bound handle; these they then paint with
some red ochre they obtained from the
Indians on the river, and hang them out
on the trees to dry.

Before we finally escape from this wind-
girt peninsula we discover that all our
provisions are getting decidedly low. This
discovery is due to personal inspection of
the stock. Had we left the condition of
our commissary department to be reported
on by Billy, it would have come from him
two days later in the unequivocal form,
" No more biscuit, sir." Fifty pounds of
flour and a few biscuit are all, besides
meat, that now remain for the entire
party, and the cache at Grindstone Point
is of pemmican only. We therefore find
a new source of anxiety when we remem-
ber that it took us fully twelve days to

« \n

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1 1

90 Delay ami Starvation Ahead,

reach this point. Hereafter, cracker dust
and dirt take the place of flour as one of
the ingredients of rousseau.

Improvidence, ingrained in the Indian
nature, was illustrated on many occasions.
Once, early in our voyage, Billy coolly
unshipped the mast and hove it overboard,
alleging as a reason that they wished no
unnecessary weight in the boat ; yet be-
fore we reached the end of the traverse
we were then making, we should have
used the sail if we had had a mast, and
have gained much more time than the
additional weight could have cost.

Late on the fifth morning we deter-
mine to start at all hazards, as the wind,
though high, is a little less boisterous,
and we have only half a mile before round-
ing the point and gaining a lee shore.
The men have to load the canoe, as before
to unload it, while standing waist deep in
water ; and to lighten it the philosophers
walk around the point, where they find
the bowlders so abundant as to force them

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■ ■ J ■' 1

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A Lucky Egg.

to continue on for two or three miles, be-
fore the canoe can safely approach the
shore in the swell. After dinner we are
able to track again, but when the coast
turns southward, the waves again increase,
and we run behind the Gull Islands for
more quiet water.

Gull Islands well called ; the numbers
of these fowl make the white sand still
whiter, while screaming clouds overhead
almost darken the sky. Our men land on
one of the islands, and each brings back
his hat filled to the brim with eggs ; be-
sides this we shoot a goose and six gos-
lings as big as ducks. As usual, all these
are despatched at the next meal, while the
usual quantity of pemmican is also served.
Never, indeed, was a single bit of fresh
food left over by them for a second meal.
The eggs, as might oe imagined, were in
various stages of incubation, but nothing
comes amiss at this stage of our journey,
— we shut our eyes and enjoy the feast
as much as the half-breeds.

' i

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:'? ! f

^)7

92 DWjj' anii Starvation Ahead,

We stop for supper at the lower of the
Gull Islands, where the May-flies settle
upon us from head to foot, and cover all
the victuals, often stupidly alighting on the
food on its way to the mouth. One of our
party on his return from a short walk
comes back so enveloped with them as to
wholly change the color of his clothing.
We expect to camp here, but soon after
supper, the wind subsiding, we find the
traverse to the main land possible, when
the water also is seen to be everywhere
so covered with the exuviae of ephemerae
that it is impossible to ^et a clean dipper-
full anywhere. The next day, camp being
made as soon as we reach the main land,
we find the western coast of the lake lined
with a windrow of dead May-flies nearly a
foot deep, which we afterwards trace from
the canoe for twenty miles.

We speed southward this day by pad-
dling, tracking, and sailing, and camp in
an old dining spot by Warpath River.
The next day we make the long traverse

A May 'Fly or Tivo.

below this, and pass by Sturgeon Islands,

up so lon^r on our

where we were shut
journey

north ; we onlv i^ain the mai

land at Point Wigwam l^y dinner-time,
coming in on the white-caps to a spot
where we have hardly room to turn in,
but which we are forced to make the best
of until the next morning. Then, though
we start by three o'clock and strive our
best to get ahead, shipping no little water,
we arc obliged in an hour (like many
another doubtless), to put about into a
harbor, just short of Point Turnagain.
After breakfast, however, we are able to
make another start, and effect the traverse
of Lynx Bay, where we are forced to camp
on a beach of paving-stones, which do not
make the best bed at night.

Here the afternoon is spent in trying to
get some fresh food, as we discover that
the flour is nearly gone, and the Red-river
granite altogether reduced to cracker-dust
mixed with sand. The result is not al-
together satisfactory. A few pigeon and

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Df/jv' ^7//t/ starvation Ahead.

a squirrel only add to the meat-diet, but
raspberries are found in scanty numbers,
and even a few ootaemina, strawberries
or heart-berries as the name means. A few
wild pease are voted a success ; they are
the only vegetables we have tasted since
leaving the Pas. It is true they are small,
wormy, and bitter ; and Ides declares their
use a highly irregular and injudicious pro-
ceeding. With much persuasion, he is
finally induced to try one mouthful, but is
obliged at once to turn to pemmican to
take out the taste.

*• 0'

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THE VOVAGEUR's " tKOOKED KNIFE."

^ 1 a.

IX.

The Bishop's Loaf. — A Run of Luck.

UR stone-heap detains an anxious
I party until the next afternoon,
when we launch in a pretty heavy
sea, which beats finely against the over-
hanging cliffs of the Cat Head, the only
bit of striking scenery on the lake. The
waves lessen to swells, and so we make
a comfortable traverse of Kinwow Bay,
reaching the other side a little after
sunset ; rounding Wicked Point to gain
the sheltered cove on its southern side,
we espy therein a barge and fires, at
which our men at once give a loud
shout, eliciting an immediate response.
We land just beyond their two tents
(the tents show that they are not mere
traders), and our men whisper to us,
"French priests."

il'

If. '■

A Run of Luck.

Sure enough, after our fire is kindled,
and our tent up, we receive a call from a
long-robed man of fine appearance, ac-
companied by the captain of the boat,
who introduces him to us as "His Rever-
ence the Bishop Grandin." This was the
sixth year which this devoted priest, then
recently consecrated Bishop of Satala, had
spent in the heart of the Indian coun-
try to the North. He was now on his
way to r.nglish River with a priest and
several nuns. Our men, of course, know
the men of his party, and soon return from
a visit to them with a welcome addition to
their stores in the shape of tea and flour.

Billy too comes with a load, having
made known to the good bishop our neces-
sities, and been at once furnished with a
loaf of bread, some hard biscuit, tea, and
eggs. The loaf is nearly three feet long
and more than two feet wic^e, and is chris-
tened the "bishop's loaf;" it is indeed a
little musty, and the biscuit on examina-
tion reveal various dubious colors, — yel-

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The ""Bishop's Loaf."

low, green, orange, and black contending
for supremacy with the normal brown of
the Red-river article. It is nothing to
us who have now but just one quart of
cracker-dust left, besides pemmican and
salt meat, and have still to pass over
ground it took seven days to cover on the
northward journey. " Hard-looking bread,
though," says Ides.

Scarcely less welcome is a copy of " The
Nor' wester," the weekly newspaper of Red
River, which we eagerly scan by the fire-
light to gain a knowledge of the outside
world from which we have been so long
shut out. Meagre indeed is the news.
The entrance of Garibaldi into Sicily, and
the arrival of " The Great Eastern " in
American waters ; but not one word of
the result of the presidential conven*:ions
which have been holding in "the States."

After a delightful supper, for which we
are glad to express our profuse thanks to
his Reverence, and in scant return to carry
back a letter to Archbishop Tach6, we

\ I

' w

A Run of Liuk.

start again, we hope for the night, as the
water is quiet ; but George is unwilling to
proceed after dark, covered rocks near the
shore being abundant in this part of the
lake : so finding a sheltered spot a little
farther on, the canoe is left afloat and
loaded, ready for an early start.

The night is warm, and the mosquitoes
thirsty ; so two of our philosophers wisely
sleep in the canoe, and scarcely know the
early hour of start, while the third fights
it out on shore. We haul up at Jackfish
River for breakfast, and soon receive a
visit from a fleet of seven canoes, with
about twenty men, women, and children,
and a dozen dogs, — Indians that had
espied us from their camp up the river.
They bring fresh fish to trade (welcome
sight ! ), which we obtain for a little pem-
mican. Four or five miles below this we
are stopped by the wind, and have to
camp. Luckily we find here an abun-
dance of wild pease, so that we sup on
fried gold-eyes, pease, and the bishop's

Pitching the Canoe.

loaf, — a royal feast, with not a taste of
pemmican.

This evening the men give our craft
a thorough overhauling. After the cargo
has been landed, the canoe is brought
around, bow to the shore, lifted carefully
from the water and carried up the beach.
Here, with many interjections, the men
tip it upside down, turn it broadside to the
wind; and prop the lower rail upon a stake.
In this position it makes a capital shelter
from the rain, which the men on occasion
are not slow to use, both for luggage and
themselves. While the other men look
after the philosophers' tent, the stock of
wood, and supper, George and Narcisse
inspect the canoe. They first look sharply
at the seams, feeling them tenderly, and
at every doubtful spot apply their mouths
to the pitch and bark to see whether they
can suck the air through. Any point
needing attention is marked with a bit
of charred wood. Then brands are taken
from the fire, held next the marked spots,

i t

ii.n.:

5' I

100

/^ ^/m ^/ Ltick.

and the holes closed by pressing the soft-
ened pitch with the moistened thumb.
This process is, indeed, to a greater or less
extent, a nightly one ; and the dim figures
of the men stooping over the canoe with
glowing torches, and apparently making
their supper from the pitch, makes a weird
picture from our tent.

We are aroused at three by the ever-
watchful George, only to round another
point, and gain about two miles, where we
find a little pond apparently connected
with some inland stream discharging it-
self into the lake ; but as the wind rises,
and the lake with it, the current turns the
opposite way. It rains torrents, and then
the sun comes out burning hot, but all the
while it blows. To add to our comfort,
we find at dinner-time that the fish have
not been pioperly cared for, and are past
the demand of even our now not over
fastidious stomachs ; while some one has
been using the bread-bag as a bench, and
the bishop's loaf has gone to smash. We

/// the Narrows,

lOI

are torn between a fear that if we do not
quickly dispose of it, it will turn to mould
altogether, and that if we partake of it
freely it will not last our journey through.
We try to toast our mouldy biscuit before
the hot fire, but the heat can only pene-
trate the outer layer.

We are partially comforted at being able
to start again shortly after dinner, and
by hoisting sail to make rapid progress
homewards, and even to attempt the long
traverse among the islands, where the
scenery begins to improve somewhat. We
land for supper on an island, and then
pass rapidly on, still under sail, by White-
way's Point, now night, and adown the
strait between the two sections of the lake.
The wind, however, begins to freshen, and
we to fear we shall not long be able to
continue, when up comes a thunder gust,
and forces us to a speedy harbor on the
east side of the lake.

Remembering the fight we had with the
mosquitoes a little farther up at Dog's

I02

A Run of Luck.

I H

Head, and the storm passing to one side,
we betake ourselves with blankets to the
rocky point which forms one end of the
cove, and choose soft places on the rocks
to sleep, where the wind sweeps over us,
and, taking boots for pillows, are soon
asleep. As each chooses a nice little
hollow to sleep in, and as rain comes up
in the night, our worthy philosophers find
themselves in the morning lying each in a
pool of water.

The wind continues ; and we solace
ourselves with the joyful discovery of
blueberries, raspberries, and suskatoomina,
— a most toot'iisome fruit, — until the un-
expected cry of George brings us quickly
to the canoe. Raising sail before we are
out of the tiny harbor, we scud along
among the white caps at no little peril,
until another thunder gust brings us per-
force to shore, scarcely making a harbor,
though on this east coast they abound.
We are able to start again in the middle
of the afternoon, and run down Loon

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Ir- ■, . *

The Eiiif of the Pemmicau. 103

Strait until we reach the point where we
must make the traverse to the west coast,
— too risky so near night in this sea. So
we camp upon the open sand, with no cov-
ering, hoping for an early start.

We get it, for it is barely daybreak
when we are summoned from a sleep,
restless from mosquitoes and rain, to find
the showers over indeed, but the sky nasty,
our blankets drenched, and much of our
clothing wet through to the skin. Glad
enough are we when, shivering and stiff,
we reach the other side at Grindstone
Point by six o'clock. George, however,
does not propose to stop, but sends two of
the men to find the cached pemmican,
with some anxiety now, for of even that
but a few pounds are left. Fortunately
only a mink or other small animal has
found it out ; it is woefully mouldy, but
every pound is precious. The wind rising
while the men are gone, we are forced to
land, and fire and breakfast soon restore
warmth and comfort.

I
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104

y4 Run of Ltich.

By ten o'clock we are able to make a
fresh start ; and, having now the wind with
us, we hoist sail, and pass rapidly down
the west coast. At dinner we dispose of
the last of the eggs, start, again under
sail, through the Grassy Narrows to Sandy
Bar, where we sup and rejoice in large,
fine raspberries, and, alas ! the last crumb
of the bishop's loaf. When this meal is
finished, we find only three biscuit remain-
ing, — one apiece. We scour the place
for wild pease, and pick a few in yellow
pods, while the men are taking their
smoke.

At sunset we start again. The wind
has died down, and the men take their
paddles with the intention of keeping it up
all night. Narcisse starts one of his many
weird French-Canadian boat-songs, in the
refrain of which Billy, Francis, and Boozie
join. The chorus, thrice repeated, has an
amusing effect upon our philosophers, be-
cause the words sound so precisely like,
" I know you left my daugh-augh-ter."

►

The Last Crumb Gone,

105

By midnight we stop for a little hot tea
and pemmican, and before the men are
back, their cargo is fast asleep.

All night long they sing and paddle,
and when we philosophers arouse our-
selves, we discover a calm sea and the
Willow Islands just passed. By breakfast-
time we are quite sure of reaching the
Red River before the next meal, and pass
the scanty remnants of our salt beef and
pork over to the men. Billy mixes the
very last of our old cracker-dust with our
pemmican to make rousseau, and the flour-
bag is shaken for the last bannock. Off
we go again in fine spirits.

Soon the men land to c:it a couple of
poles by which to rig a leg-of-mutton sail
to use with the quartering wind. John
and Boozie are getting sleepy enough;
and, the sail rigged, even sturdy Francis
lays his head down on the boxes in front
of him for a cat-nap. At last, we sight
the entrance to Red River, hidden among
the rushes, soon land, recover a cached

io6

A Run of Luck.

.1 <

l\m

.V.'

■.:i

\'>:h

case of alcohol, eat a second meal from the
remains of our mouldy biscuit and twice-
cooked rousseau, and before noon, with not
a morsel of food left, quit the boisterous
lake, and move by sail and paddle past the
interminable reeds oi the lower river.

Suddenly we emerge upon an Indian
town ; and the whole village, not the least
the dogs, salute us from the bank. Little
urchins, shirted but bare-legged, invite us
to a race, and take the lead along the
bluff, with head erect, expanded chest,
and streaming hair, followed by a train of
yelping curs. We hoist our flag at the
stern as we rapidly gain civilization, and
look for the well-remembered landmarks.
Green slopes with grazing cattle are a
gladsome sight. Soon we are by Francis's
house, who lands his bundle, and is back
in a trice ; next at Mapleton, where most
of the men live, and a longer stay is made,
the men bringing back a lunch to eat on
the way ; last of all at George's house,
only "long enough to kiss the wife," and

, H

Safely Bach.

107

to learn he has a new grandson. By half-
past seven the v;alls of the fort are seen,
when a few minutes of rapid paddling,
timed to Narcisse's cheery song, brings us
to the landing-place ; and our long canoe-
voyage of forty-two days is over. We had
been provisioned for thirty-five.

ENCROACHMENT OF THE LAKE ON A CLAY BANK.

I f

1 '. i

n
'in

y4 Unique Settlement and its Neighbors.

ET us now tak a look at this
unique colony i the wilderness,
for here we are forced to spend a
fortnight ; the first news we receive on
landing being that the Red-river steamer
is aground on the Goose -river Rapids,
more than a hundred miles away ! This
is all we can learn. There are no other
news, no letters, no papers.

What an extraordinary settlement ! Here
is a colony of about ten thousand souls scat-
tered among plantations for thirty miles
along the Red and half as many along the
Assiniboine River, almost wholly depen-
dent for intelligence from the outer world
on one stern -wheeled steamer. That breaks

down ; and before word can be sent of their

1 08

The Selkirk Settlement.

109

complete isolation, weeks must pass be-
fore the old and painful canoe-route by
way of the Lake of the Woods can be
opened, or the wagon make its tedious
journey to the head-waters of the Red
River and back, improvising on the way
its own ferries over the swift and deep
streams which feed it.

Finding haste of no avail, and despatch-
ing our luggage on carts to the Upper
Fort and centre of settlement, twenty
miles away, we start there on foot the
next day to view the land and its inhabit-
ants. The road, the " King's Road," is
a mere cart-track in the deep loam, taking
its independent course on either side of
the houses, all of which front the river in
a single wavering line ; for the country is
given up absolutely to farming, for which
the rich mould, said to be three or four
feet deep, eminently fits it ; and the lots,
each with a nar ow frontage at the bank
of the river, extend back two miles into
the prairie. All is at a dead level. John

M ''§

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ii >■ ' V, J

vm'. if.

■} ■

1 10

A Unique Settlement.

Omand had asked us cO dine at his house;
but accidentally passing it without recog-
nizing it from his description, we select a
fair representative of t! common class
of houses, and ask for a dinner.

It is a log-cabin, like all of this class
(some few better ones have walls of stone),
with a thatched roof, and a rough stone
and mortar chimney planted against one
wall. Inside is but a single room, well
whitewashed, as is indeed the outside, and
exceptionally tidy ; a bed occupies one
corner, a sort of couch anotlicr, a rung-
ladder leads up to loose boards overhead
which form an attic, a trap-door in the
middle of the room opens to a small hole
in the ground where milk and butter are
kept cool ; from the beams is suspended a
hammock, used as a cradle for the baby ;
shelves similarly hung hold a scanty stock
of plates, knives, and forks ; two windows,
one on either side, covered with mosquito-
netting, admit the light and a modicum of
air; chests and boxes supply the place

Homes ami Hospitality.

Ill

of seats, with here and there a keg by way
of easy-chair. An open fireplace of white-
washed clay gives signs of cheer and
warmth in the long winter, and a half-
dozen books for library complete the
scene.

Our hosts feel so ''highly honored to
have such gentlemen enter their house,"
— these are their very words, — that it is
with the greatest difficulty they are forced
to take any compensation for the excellent
meal of bread, butter, and rich cream,
which they set before us, and to which we
do ample justice.

This was not the only interior we saw.
We had before called on the single scien-
tific man of the settlement, Donald Gunn,
and later in the day are forced by a thun-
der-storm to seek shelter in the nearest
house, where we are also warmly wel-
comed, and, the rain continuing, are glad
to accept the cordial invitations of its
inhabitants to pass the night. This is a
larger house, but only the father of the

ill

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112

y4 Unique Settlement,

family and his buxom daughter Susie, a
lively girl of eighteen or nineteen, are at
home, the others being off at the other end
of their long and narrow farm, where they
have temporary shelter during the harvest.
We have each a chamber to ourselves
in the garret, — reached in the same primi-
tive method as before mentioned, — and
are shown with a dip of buffalo-tallow to
our rooms. The furniture of these con-
sists of a sort of couch, with buffalo-skins
for mattress and wolf-skins for sheets and
coverlet, a chest for a seat, a punch-bowl of
water in a broken chair for washstand, and
a torn bit of rag for towel ; while a barrel
covered with a white cloth serves as a
centre-table, and is besprinkled with an-
tique books. Among those in his cham-
ber our naturalist discovers one which
appears to be a catechism of human
knowledge, containing among other enter-
taining and instructive information, as
an answer to the question, "What is a
shark.-*" the highly satisfactory reply that

^ The Origin of the Colony. 1 1 3

it is "An animal having eighty -eight
teeth."

Our host absolutely refuses to take any
thing but a promise to come again if we
have a chance, and leaves upon us a very
pleasing impression of these simple-hearted
and simple-mannered colonists. Probably
but few of those we see are original colon-
ists themselves, but the descendants of
those who came under the patronage
of the Earl of Selkirk from the north of
Scotland and the Orkney Islands, — Celts
given to farming. The) first came to this
region in 181 2, more than a year on their
journey by way of Hudson Bay and Nel-
son River, approaching the country from
the icy North. They found it inhabited
by Indians (Chippevvays and Crees) of a
peaceful disposition, but subject to war-
like incursions from the hostile and bloody
Sioux. More than this, the country was
the scene of constant dispute and often of
serious conflict between the Hudson Bay
and North-west Companies, each trying to

■iM-(

f'i

114

// Unique Settlement.

outwit the other or force it from the field
of Indian trade, until the union of the
companies in 182 1. Even after compara-
tive quiet was insured, it was hard to be
compelled to battle with the flood which
now and again destn yed their all, or with
the failure, partial or complete, of the
buffalo-hunters who supplied their winter
needs, especially when their only commu-
nication with the outer world was through
the tedious and dangerous passage of
Hudson Strait ; and they were almost ab-
solutely dependent on the not always ready
sympathy of the officials f the Hudson
Bay Company.

Yet the wants of the colony were few,
the peasantry simple and industrious, and
their lot in life did not seem to them hard.
The earth yielded bountifully, and in time
of temporary disaster fishing and hunting
stood them in good stead. In process of
time two classes of half-breeds sprang up,
and at our visit formed the larger part
of the population, — one class of British

S^-^r-

The Half 'Breeds.

115

parentage, partaking largely of their fa-
ther's character; the other of French, from
the intermingling of the French voyageur
and the Indian, — a lively, wandering, un-
easy race, ToUovving the religion of their
fathers, and from whom have come a
large share of the troubles which have be-
set the colony in more recent time. It
was largely from this latter class that the
hunters were recruited who, twice a year,
ranged the plains to the westward in
search of buffalo, accompanied always by
many Indians, who live on the outskirts of
the colony. Farther and farther have
they been compelled to go, until at our
visit no buffalo could be found within a
hundred miles at nearest. Now they are
all in the "happy hunting-grounds."

The hunt is just over as we reach the
settlement, and every day carts come in
laden with buffalo-meat, hides, and pemmi-
can. The prairie, back from the river by
Fort Garry, is dotted with carts, lodges,
and tents. Many are living in rude shel-

ii6

A Ui.ique Settlement.

Vi'

ters formed of the carts themselves,
placed back to back, and the sides secured
by hides.

These carts illustrate well the primitive
nature and the isolation of the colony.
They are the vehicles in universal use,
and are built on the general pattern of our
one-horse tip-carts, though they do not
tip, and not a scrap of iron enters into
them. They are without springs of course,
and rawhide and wooden pins serve to
keep together the pieces out of which they
are constructed. As they have no tires,
and the sections of the wheel part or
crowd together according to the moisture,
a train of these carts bringing in the pro-
ducts of the hunt is a strange sight. Each
cart has its own peculiar creak, hoarse and
grating, and waggles its own individual
waggle, graceless and shaky, on the un-
even ground. To add to its oddity, the
shafts are heavy, straight beams, between
which is harnessed an ox, the harness of
rawhide without buckles.

W
50
t-t
O
7i

O
>

W^i

Dlfe

Carts and Tea.

117

Everybody makes for himself what he
wishes in this undifferentiated settlement.
We return in tatters. Not a tailor, nor any
thing approaching the description of one,
exists here, and a week's search is needed
to discover such a being as a shoemaker.
A single store in the Hudson Bay Com-
pany's post at each of the two forts,
twenty miles apart, supplies the goods of
the outside world, and the purchaser
must furnish the receptacle for carriage.
For small goods this invariably consists,
as far as we can see, of a red bandanna
handkerchief, so that purchases have to
be small and frequent ; not all of one sort,
however, for the native can readily tie
up his tea in one corner, his sugar and
buttons in two others, and still have one
left for normal uses. How many handker-
chiefs a day are put to use may be judged
from the fret that the average sale of tea
at Upper Fort Garry is four large boxes
daily, — all, be it remembered, up to this
time, brought by ship to Hudson Bay, and

Ii8

A Unique Settlement.

thence by bateaux and portage to the Red
River. Regular freightage through the
States has hardly commenced at our visit.
Though entrance to any house would
be given to a respectable stranger without
thought of compensation, there is but one
place in the entire settlement where one
may claim a lodging, and pay for it, — the
Royal Hotel, close by Fort Garry, and
the real centre of the settlement. Even
this has only been in existence a single
year, and it is one of the few houses out-
side the forts which are of more than a
single story. It bears a pair of elk ant-
lers over the door, and will accommodate
a dozen or twenty persons. In this vicin-
ity are a few other houses which, like this,
do not stand upon the river-bank ; among
others, the office of " The Nor'wester," a
weekly newspaper started the preceding
Christmas, — a low, one-storied structure,
with a thatched roof, and rough, plastered
concrete walls, built in a wooden frame. *
Two young men are at once editors and

•A#.'.:!;';<M|BJ

?■ '•'-■'.,;..:,'.-i,t.;«i!;A'

*~ ■i!V<.,''.''i5BH

:}i

1 :i 1

Fort Garry.

119

compositors. It even boasts a sign-board
over the door.

Fort Garry itself, which fronts on the
Assiniboine, close to its mouth, stands a
little apart, the ground about it being held
open by the company ; and it contains
some buildings of more significance, built
of stone or axe-hewn logs, and two and
a half stories high, — storehouses for the
produce and provisions of the colony, and
offices for the company. Their roofs and
even their upper stories can be seen ris-
ing above the high stone walls, seamed
with cracks of age, which enclose the
whole, loopholed for musketry, and guarded
at the four corners by rounded, bastion-
like towers, which are pierced for small
artillery. A portion of the wall, however,
of older date, is made entirely of logs, now
well decayed, and perhaps part of the ori-
ginal structure, about twenty-five years
old.

The buildings at the lower fort are
somewhat older ; the one we occupied dur-

I20

A Unique Settlement.

■:*■ '

» ,V*

.: f

ir<l

ing our stay there, the residence of the
officials, being a stately old mansion with
wide verandas, lofty ceilings, heavy, old-
fashioned furniture, with plenty of brass,
even to swinging knobs on the doors,
plastered walls painted green, floors bare
of every thing but skins, and open fire-
places in every room. The stone wall of
the fort itself is about twenty years old,
three or four feet thick, pierced for small-
arms, and enclosing four or more acres.
During our stay at Fort Garry, we enter
many of the Indian lodges, and always find
more than the regular occupants within,
whether by day or evening, lounging on
the ground on a bit of blanket, smoking ;
each person as he enters drags a blanket
from among those tucked under the edges
of the tent, seats himself upon it without
a word, and lights his pipe from the two
or three sticks always burning in the
centre. The edge of the tent is the
closet ; every thing goes there, — blankets,
food, utensils, guns, and all, keeping out

FORT c;ARRY in i860.

THE TOWN OF WINNIPEG IN 1871.

Hi i]

Imiian Customs.

121

what little air might otherwise enter ; for
the blanket, fastened at the two upper
corners over the entrance to the lod^e.
and forming the door, is almost always
kept down. When twelve or fifteen of
them get together in a lodge too small to
stand erect in, close the door, all take
their pipes, and the women smoke some
bits of meat for them — this is their
elysium.

Yet when the Indian dude " gets him-
self up," he chooses* rather to display him-
self out of doors, and the amount and
variety of toggery one can put on, and the
fantastic patterns he can paint on his face,
are extremely amusing. One fellow seen
had his hair done up in a CuC, vvith a
row of brass buttons attached, decreasing
in size with great regularity to conform
to the width of the cue, which hung to
his calves.

At the time of our visit, the Indian
women were everywhere dressing the
hides of the buffalo just brought in.

122

A UniqiiC Setllt'nH'iit.

\ ■

I (

, I

These, by one contrivance or another, they
hang up by one edge; and after cutting
off all the thicker parts, and any flesh
vvhich has been left adhering in the field,
they dig at it with a sort of iron spud,
secured by a thong around the wrist, while
the skin is held taut with the other hand.
It is afterwaiJs swung like a hammock
over a fire of green sticks to cure it.

We see plenty of dancing, as far as the
squaw-dance is concerned, for it is going
on somewhere every night, and the dull
thrum-thrum of the drums can be heard
the night through. The dancers consist
of both sexes, from four to thirty in num-
ber, who move very slowly in a crowded
circle, treading on one another's heels as
they diddle along, elbows bent and hands
drooping, and all partaking in a weird
monotonous chant of hay ah and hijahy sung
through their noses to the accompaniment
of a drum or two, beaten with great regu-
larity and some rapidity by one sitting on
the ground, while the children hold up

f I s

Iihiian Dances tviii Graves,

123

torches of birch-bark. Impatient of such
stupid monotony, one of our philosophers
one day seizes one of their drums and
plays a rattle-te-bang on it with his finger-
tips, as the Yankee boy does upon a tin
pan, ending up with resounding applica-
tions to head, elbows, and knees ; to the
great glee of the Indian boys, who vainly
attempt to copy the feat. Had our phi-
losopher only remained, he would no doubt
have been made a sachem of the Swampy
Crees, and this new powwow introduced
in his honor.

Their graves, which we have seen at
various points from Pembina to the Sas-
katchewan, are made on the same model ;
the mounds are covered with minature wig-
wams, sometimes of split stakes driven
obliquely into the earth, sometimes of
sticks covered with birch-bark. What is
curious is that their form is tent-shaped
and not copied after their conical lodges.
Can it be that the ancestry from whom
this custom must have been derived, dwelt

124

A Unique Settlenient,

\i M

W- I

"iW

in what arc called long houses ? ' A little
hole is always left at one end ** for the
spirit to crawl out of," and within is al-
ways to be seen the remains of a green
twig that has been laid there, or a white
stone ; and if it be a male, a stick at the
head, painted red with some carving on
it, to designate the totem of the departed.
Before the grave a miniature pile of wood
is laid for a fire, and on the end of a long
stick thrust in the ground a little offering
to the Manitou, — a bit of fur or rag or
scarf, or even a mere green twig.

I have said that the houses about Upper
Fort Garry were not all placed on the
very banks of the river. In this way they
were then beginning to cluster together
a little. This indeed was the nucleus of
the present city of Winnipeg, with its
hotels and shops, banks, horse-cars, and
educational institutions, its lines of steam-
ers and railways, connecting it with all

* Though we saw none of these, yet Hind figures one
seen at the settlements, made by Chippeways.

■ K.' -i'

'Hi '^' :

'' ' m

t wr.'-

■it (

./ i»^i

■

1 *

;i»

The New City. 125

points of the compass. In 1847 Sir
George Simpson could write, "The near-
est names of civilization are the village of
Sault St. Marie, which itself has a reason-
able share of elbow room ; St. Peter's at
the Falls of the Mississippi, which is
merely the single islartd in a vast ocean of
wilderness; and lastly York Factory on
Hudson Bay, where an annual ship anchors
after a voyage of nearly two months, even
from the Ultima Thule of Stromness."
Thirteen years later, at our visit, a flour-
ishing city stood by the Falls of St.
Anthony, borrowing its name from an-
other apostle (for "there arose a reasoning
among them, which of them should be
greatest") ; no longer in a "vast ocean of
wilderness," but surrounded by growing
villages, though nothing worthy of even
that name could be found nearer the Red
River Settlements than Crow Wing on the
upper Mississippi, nearly as far away as
Lake Superior, unless the few shanties
around the stockade at Pembina on the

■j

nj ■• I

126

A Unique Settlement.

;;»

border be so regarded.' Beyond our bor-
der the aspect had not changed, excepting
that they were now beginning to reach out
their hands toward the approaching stran-
ger, and, banding together for safety,
threaded their way in caravans through
the territory still subject to the roaming
savage, to barter their peltry for the more
varied products of the new world opened
to them. Several such caravans we had
met on our outward journey. At last they
were becoming independent of the " Hud-
son Bay Company of Adventurers," and
were beginning to feel the throbbing of
the world's pulse. Then in rapid strides
came the changes I have mentioned, which
have culminated in the advent of the rail-
way. The simplicity and picturesqueness

* It might however be remarked that Pembina is said to
have polled fifteen hundred Democratic votes in the Minnesota
election of 1S59 ( ?), before Dacotah was separated off. It is
also said that the messenger conveying the official declarations
to this effect was robbed of his papers on the way to Minne-
apolis, while indulging in a spree. However, he manufactured
a new set the next morning and kept on.

Taken hi to the World.

127

of the Selkirk Settlements have gone,
never to return ; nor can the experiment
be now repeated — at least with so long
a history — in any quarter of the globe.
Modern life is too quick.

A WINDMILL AT THE SETTLEMENTS.

t5i I

■^:^%'f

XI.

Ifc» b

t !*.'

ii'' '5

ribr^^ ^(f^/fs /« an Ox-cart.

OT many days after our arrival at
Fort Garry, the captain and some
of the crew of the grounded steam-
boat arrive, bringing with them, in a big
flat boat, the belated passengers, — a com-
pany of twenty-seven persons, They re-
port the steamer as laid up for the winter,
and the great question our philosophers
have now to solve is how to get out of the
trap in which they are caught. Two of
the passengers, Boston boys, came down
with the intention of making the journey
out, by way of ; Lake of the Woods ; but
the difficulty < procuring good guides, and
the length of the journey, have deterred
them, and they join our philosophers over

the puzzle. The " fall trains " to St. Paul
128

Our Party.

129

are not to start for nearly a month, at the
completion of harvest ; but, by dint of
persuasion and gold, our host of the Royal
Hotel, Mr. McKinney, a stalwart Canadian
and a brother-in-law of the Dr. Schultz
who afterward figured so largely in Mani-
toba history, finally agrees, on so good a
nucleus, to start a train himself. A cler-
gyman of the settlement and his wife
. (who by the way has never seen a railway),
the wife of one of the Hudson Bay Com-
pany's factors, going under their escort to
her Scottish home, a gentleman from St.
Paul, a returned miner from Colville Val-
ley, and a theological student from Toronto
University, add their names to the list ;
and in a little more than a week after the
advent of the steamer's company, our
little caravan takes its departure. To the
eleven patrons of the party are added Mr.
McKinney, who goes as master of the
train, and eight teamsters and servants,
n ostly balf-breeds. The driver who takes
the philosophers under his special care

130 Three Weeks in an Ox-Cart

rejoices in the name of Malcolm Mclver;
one other is detailed as special servant for
the ladies ; while Sanclin the cook, having
served as a clown iu a circus, and being
able to stand on the brink of a brook,
bend his body backward, thrust his head
between his legs, and drink from the
brook, turns out to have other accomplish-
ments than those affecting the cuisine.

It is a stylish enough turnout for Red
River. Three large emigrant-wagons, with
canvas coverings of the most approved
pattern, but of very different hues, drawn
each by a yoke of oxen, convey the pa-
trons of the party, with the exception of
the miner, who rides his horse. The phi-
losophers take the lead under a brown can-
vas ; the miscellaneous gentlemen follow
under a black canvas full of holes ; while
the third wagon, with a cover of spotless
purity, conveys the ladies and the clergy-
man.

Stylish enough at the front, but dete-
riorating toward the tail, for there follow.

<
m

O
>

o
a

Our Caravan.

131

not only half-a-dozen Red-river carts, with
a most promiscuous assortment of bag-
gage, peltry, and squeak, drawn mostly by
oxen, but also a stray ox and pony or two,
a number of armed horsemen, and a troop
of friends from the settlement, come, as
is their wont, to see their friends off, —
some ou ponies, and some in vehicles of
all sorts, even including a most discordant
buggy. Although these friends pass only
the first night with us, our caravan in-
creases rather than diminishes as we go
along, — just how we do not see, but prob-
ably by the nocturnil advent of some
belated party, who wishes to take this
opportunity of escaping to the outer world,
or of providing at an early day for his
winter wants. At any rate, when we are
three or four days out, our train is by no
means an insignificant one, as it threads
its way over the prairie in its devious
course, a dozen mounted warriors in ad-
vance on the lookout for signs of Indians,
followed by about two dozen carts, numer-

i;a

I I

111 /pi :

M t

!■! ( I

132 Thnr IVcchs in an Ox-Cari.

oils cattle and ponies dangling along for
half a mile, and one poor buffalo whose
calf is tied on the floor of one of the jolt-
ing carts, where it perishes miserably on
the road.

Ferrying over the Assiniboine, which
must be done at the very outset, detains
us a couple of hours, so that, as we start
after dinner, we are soon obliged to camp,
Our road lies southward along the Red
River, but here at some distance from it,
so that on camping we can find no water
beyond what can be baled painfully out
of a neighboring marsh ; and wood is so
scarce that it is difficult to procure enough
to cook by. The lack of any thing more
than the ghost of a camp-fire does not,
however, seem to dampen the "hilarious
ardor of our Red-river guests,, and the
camp is not quiet until the small hours of
the morning. We are roused again by
four o'clock ; but in the dense fog it takes
so long to gather in the wandering cattle,
that it is half-past five before we bid our

'1 •:

How We Pass the Time.

133

jovial friends adieu, and start breakfastless
on our five-hundred-mile journey over the
plains.

As in canoeing, with few exceptions,
one day is much like another, only here
the weather is not allowed in the least
to interfere with movement. We are
always up by daybreak, and travel an
hour or two before we breakfast ; another
spell of travel, and then a longer rest, as
the cattle must be allowed to graze to
their content. An old bit of straw-mat-
ting is spread on the grass, the dishes
piled on it promiscuously, and we seat
ourselves, Turk-fashion, until Sandin, by
the fire to leeward, has boiled the tea
and meat. Hard tack and pemmican are
again our staples. After a few hours
more of joggling, during which our prin-
cipal occupation, as in the morning, is
card-playing on the floor of the wagon,
seated on buffalo -skins, our camp is
pitched at some favorable spot, — some-
times, however, not reached until far into

III

If'

i. \

134 Three Weeks in an Ox-Cart

r i

it, i

the night. But however late or however
early we may camp, the dawn sees us
astir. And so day after day passes by,
its monotony rarely relieved by any stir-
ring events, excepting when it becomes
necessary to cross a river. Then there is
always some fun. -

In crossing Scratching River, north of
the boundary, we find a house, and an
apology for a ferry in the shape of a rick-
ety scow, three-fourths full of water, shaky
stakes to which to fasten the ferry-ropes,
and a couple of cripples to manage it,
who charge a quarter of a dollar per head
for the service. We actually effect a safe
passage, though one load nearly capsizes,
with our own wagon on it. This was the
way of it : one of the thirsty oxen rushed
to the side of the boat for a drink, over-
weighting the scow's side so suddenly
that the ox, still yoked, tumbled into the
river, and was with difficulty unyoked
during his flounderings, while we rushed
to the opposite side as a make-weight.

■.^'

ir-

i if

,! i

A Cart as a Ferrv-Boat. i

The lively fun, however, comes when we
reach the first of the Two Rivers, narrow,
deep, and swift streams, reached shortly
after we had crossed and left the Red
River, and were making our way in a
diagonal course through the State of Min-
nesota. Here the only apparent means
of crossing is a canoe with one end com-
pletely stove in ; by means of which,
however, one of the men, with a long
thong trailing behind him, manages to
reach the opposite shore just as it fills.
But the men are quite equal to the occa-
sion ; the box of the philosophers' wagon
is removed from its truck, the covering,
together with that of one of the other
wagons; wrapped around the bottom and
sides, long thongs attached to its two
ends, and behold ! a ferry-boat. It is
launched, filled with baggage, and while
the man on the other shore drags the
boat over as swiftly as possible, a light
fellow rides over to balance it in the
eddies, and to bale out the leakage as fast

' s-

136 Three Weeks in an Ox-Cart

as possible ; though with all his efforts it
always arrives half full of water, to the
no small detriment of its baggage, and
several times it is nearly swamped. It is
easily pulled back empty, with two men
afterward to do the heavy hauling.

So it goes on until it comes the passen-
gers* turn. A large box is then placed at
the bottom, and on this another, as a seat
above the waters, on which the ladies are
ferried over singly, not without fright, be-
ing warned by repeated shouts to "keep
perfectly still," as they begin to shriek
at the rapid filling of the strange craft
in mid-stream. Horses and oxen are
swum across, with many ludicrous adven-
tures, while the carts are drawn over by
a yoke of oxen on the opposite shore
attached to a long line, a man swimming
at the tail of each cart to keep it from
upsetting. As the stream is full of huge
sunken crees, the banks high, precipitous,
and of a most tenacious clay, and the
crossing has to be made in the rain, we

Overboard !

137

are not a little disgusted to find the sec-
ond of the Two Rivers close at hand, and
quite as bad as the first. This over, how-
ever, the remaining rivers are fordable
until we reach the Mississippi opposite
Crow Wing, where it is again provided
with a ferry.

Here, however, a ludicrous disaster oc-
curs. The ferry-boat is small, and only
two of the Red-river carts can be accom-
modated on it at once. Now, Sandin has
two carts in charge, one containing bales
of peltry, the other the provisions, the
cooking utensils, and a barrel containing
the bones of the buffalo-calf deceased en
route, which the naturalist prepared, on one
of the jolting, rickety carts, in the broiling
sun, alternating with heavy showers, at
much risk, and with the loss of one dinner

The ox in the cart in advance is a wild
creature, which has given Sandin no end
of trouble, and when he is driven upon
the unsteady ferry-boat, makes no stop
at the farther end, but leaps headlong

138 Three Weeks in an Ox-Cart

2 I'

if*'

into the deep river, pulling after him not
only his own cart as a matter of course,
but also the hinder ox and cart, attached
to the tail of his own by a raw-hide thong,
which only breaks too late to prevent the
double catastrophe. Every thing is upset,
and down the Mississippi go floating no
end of boxes, bales, pails, kegs, and barrels,
while the oxen, with empty carts but with
infinite difficulty, paddle their own way
across to the distant bank, and are finally
rescued a mile or more down stream, com-
pletely exhausted. vSandin jumps into a
dug-out at hand, and, cook-like, rescues
first his pots and kettles, and then the
more valuable stuff.

The poor naturalist's anxiety about the
rescue of the buffalo-bones, over which
he has expended so much time and pains,
draws down upon his innocent head the
imprecations of the master of the train,
whose most valuable furs have been wet
tb^-ough and through, and the unmerited
scorn of his companions, who gaze with

t. <'

A Soaking Iruleed.

139

mournful countenance upon soaked bis-
cuit, tea, and sugar. On two former oc-
casions the hard-tack had been rescued
one by one from a watery grave, not im-
proving their quality ; and as a day's
delay here is necessary to dry the soaked
skins, not only these but biscuit, tea and
sugar are spread out into the sun to dry.
At every meal thereafter we are reminded
of the Father of Waters. There is some-
thing a little insipid about the food.

Had we delayed our journey a single
week, we should have met a couple of
thousand Indians at Red Lake River,
assembled to make a treaty with the Gov-
ernment. So at least Gen. Patterson tells
us, who meets us here. As it is, we see
very few; Buffalo, and Mrs. and Miss
Buffalo, with Gen. Patterson, and Hole-in-
the-Day riding in a buggy on his way to
them, being the more notable. At tht
season in which we cross the prairies —
for it is prairie-land the entire distance —
there is no game, and, until we reach no

140 Three Weeks in an Ox-Cart

lake region, we only once or twice see
any thing larger than a gopher, namely,
a bear and a deer ; even birds art scarce,
a few dozen prairie-chickens and ducks,
and a few plover, being all worth men-
tioning, besides the sand-hill cranes.

Arrived at the lake region, we take
heart at pioneer towns, — so they call
them; nay, I should say cities, — which
betoken our approach to civilization. The
first is Leaf City,' actually down on the
maps of the day, though there is but a
single house there. We camp in the
neighborhood, and our songs, for long
life in the wilds has made us a roist. ring
set, ring to the praises of the mayor, the
board of aldermen, and the common coun-
cil of the great city, who have turned out
en masse to supp] ' us bountifully with
the products of their wide-extending ter-
ritory. Between this and the Chippeway
Agency, near Crow Wing, there is but a
single house, also dignified with a name,
Wadena, on the maps. .

^ See Appendix.

The Journeys Fjid. 141

Once on the east bank of the Missis-
sippi, the signs of settlement multiply, and
after a day's delay, as before mentioned,
to dry our stores at Crow Wing (which
we improve by a charming visit at Fort
Ripley), we reach in two days St. Cloud,
one day's staging from St. Paul, and on
our former line of travel. After one
more journey with the caravan, the whole
party grows impatient of the oxen, and,
some on foot and some in the stage, make
their way to St. Paul, a day in advance of
the train, twenty - two days from Fort
Garry. Here our connection wi^^h the
world is complete. We have regained
civilization, after an absence from it of
barely less than three months (June 16-
Sept. 13), during which we have travelled
about thirty-five hundred miles.

APPENDIX.

Thf ^vriter has not visited Minnesota since
the journey here recorded, but it may prove in-
teresting to add a word on the immense devel-
opment of the region through which he travelled
by stage and ox-cart, finding beyond the Missis-
sippi but one house to a " town," though these
were all duly registered, and placed on the maps
of the day.

A railway now runs through the fertile Sauk
River valley, with frequent stations between the
Mississippi and Red River, which it strikes about
a dozen miles below (icorgetown, at Fargo, and
so connects with the Northern Pacific. As far
as Evansville, it passes almost exactly over our
outward route. Kandota,' by the census of
1880, had 244 inhabitants; Alexandria, 1,494;
and Evansville. 554. Breckenridge on the Red
River, with all its aspirations, has only reached
436 ; though Wapi)eton, just across the river in

' 1 specify these places, because mentioned in the nana-
rative as our stopping-places, and as consisting each of a sin-
gle cabin.

142

Then ami Now in Minnesota. 143

Dacotah, and not then in existence, practically
adds 400. Campbell — which we saw as Camp-
bell's, an unfinished shanty not a week old, with
one occupant in the person of the original
Campbell — now numbers 493. As Georgetown,
though nea' a line of railway running north-
ward, is yet not on it, it can hardly l)e a place
of much importance ; its former use expired
with t'le encroaching railways, and even in 1870
the population of the whole county in which it
stands amounted to only 92 ; in 1880 the county
had nearly 6,000, but no special returns arc given
for the towns.

Our journey back, most of the way about fifty
miles eastward of our outward course, was largely
in sight of the line, even then graded, of the
present St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba
Railway, which crosses the Two Rivers where
we did, and has scattered towns all along its
track, where we found nothing but an endless
open prairie. Leaf City, the first house we
found in Minnesota, seems to be not yet on the
line of railway, and ai)]>ears in the census as
Leaf Lake, with a population of 159; but at
Wadena, our next cabin, we touch the Northern
Pacific Railway : this shows a population of
737, while all along the Crow Wing River to the
Mississippi are found other thriving villages.
Crow Wing, which I remember mostly for its
single store and hotel in one, which could not

* ^

■U' !

ii:

144

Appendix,

then have had a half dozen houses, and the
population of which nearly twenty years later
was only 200, is now apparently flourishing under
another name, as Brainerd, with a population of
1,865.

In the whole region traversed by us beyond
the Mississippi there > ere at that time, beyond
a day's march from the Mississippi, probably
less than 1,000 inhabitants. Now (or rather
five years ago, census of 1880) the population
of that portion of the transmississippian part of
the State which we traversed, has reached 70,-
000 (of whom three-fifths were born in the
State, and less than one-tenth are foreign-
born), is crossed by several railways with not
a few branch lines, and supports twenty-eight
newspapers.

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Hiotographic

Sciences

Corporation

33 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 872-4503

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AMERICAN E CLIP SE
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