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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. I. 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 9 10 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. II 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 12 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 o > ^ O ^!^ H rrr^ r "Slewed Again." 13 "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 o 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. i6 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] w {/) 50 « 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 I If i M i8 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. -«. mm 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 1 I 20 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. 21 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 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 [ 1 s\ l\ ■ ! 24 The Outfit. 8 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, 25 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. !i I THE LUWEK KEU KIVIiK (AFTER HINU). ^v.^ * III. I# 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 c 7^ H X w I w i A Sick lihiian. 27 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 28 hhiians and Mosqui/oes, fc 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, 29 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 \ -> i 30 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. 31 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 32 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 IM 34 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? 35 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 36 Indians and Mosquitoes. «■ I - ; ( 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. 37 i 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. 38 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. M f, BILLY TATE. OGORGC WHITEFORD. PADDLING. FKANCIS SINCLAIR. * h =1 L Paddling. 39 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. vl '4 Si* ( i 1 40 Indians and Mosquitoes. r 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. L. 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 4' I I' 1 If; 42 Pemmican and Patience, » I! ;! '; 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- !\ 11 A Dangerous Run. 43 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 ! 44 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 \ L Loading the Canoe. 41 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 ; 46 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 »