THE NEW NORTH

_Being Some Account of a Woman's Journey through Canada to the Arctic_

BY AGNES DEANS CAMERON

_WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR_

_Published November, 1909_

[Illustration: A Magnificent Trophy]

TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER

JESSIE ANDERSON CAMERON

AND

TO ALL THOSE WHO TRY TO LIVE OUT HER SIMPLE RULE "WE MUST JUST TRY TO DOTHE VERY BEST WE CAN"

PREFACE

It is customary to write a preface. Mine shall be short. Out of a fullheart, I wish to thank all the splendid people of the North who, bygiving me so freely information and photographs, and chapters out oftheir own lives, have facilitated the writing of this story. For theirspontaneous kindness to me and mine no acknowledgment that I can heremake is adequate. What we feel most strongly we cannot put into words. 

AGNES DEANS CAMERON. 

August, 1909. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE MENDICANTS REACH WINNIPEG

The Mendicants leave Chicago--The invisible parallel of 49 where theeagle perches and makes amorous eyes at the beaver--Union Jack floats onan ox-cart--A holy baggage-room--Winnipeg, the Buckle of theWheat-Belt--The trapper and the doctor--Mrs. Humphry Ward speaks--BoyMakers of Empire--The vespers of St. Boniface

CHAPTER II

WINNIPEG TO ATHABASCA LANDING

The 1, 000-mile wheat-field--Calgary-in-the-Foothills--Edmonton, the endof steel--The Brains of a Trans-Continental--Browning on theSaskatchewan--East Londoners in tents--Our outfit--A Waldorf-Astoria inthe wilderness--The lonely cross of the Galician--Height ofLand--Sergeant Anderson, R. N. W. M. P. , the sleuth of Lesser Slave

CHAPTER III

ATHABASCA LANDING

Athabasca Landing, the Gateway of the North--English gives place toCree--Limit of the Dry Martini--Will the rabbits run?--The womanprinter--Hymn-books by hand in the Cree syllabic--Baseball evenhere--Rain and reminiscences--The World's Oldest Trust

CHAPTER IV

DOWN THE ATHABASCA ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE MILES TO GRAND RAPIDS

"Farewell, Nistow!"--The rainy deck of a "sturgeon head" under atarpaulin--Drifting by starlight--The wild geese overhead--Forty-footgas-spout at the Pelican--The mosquito makes us blood-brothers--Fourdays on our Robinson Crusoe Island in the swirlingAthabasca--Nomenclature of the North--Sentinels of the Silence

CHAPTER V

NINETY MILES OF RAPIDS

The _Go-Quick-Her_ takes the bit in her mouth--Mallards on thehalf-shell--We set the Athabascan Thames afire--Sturgeon-head breaks herback on the Big Cascade--Fort McMurray--A stranded argosy, wreckage onthe beach--Miss Christine Gordon, the Free Trader--A land flowing withcoal and oil and gas and tar, timber and lime

CHAPTER VI

FORT CHIPEWYAN PAST AND PRESENT

Old Fort Chipewyan--In the footsteps of Mackenzie and Sir JohnFranklin--Sir John turns parson--Grey Nuns and brown babies--Where grewthe prize wheat of the Philadelphia Centennial--Militant missionariesfight each other for souls--The strong man Loutit--Wyllie at theforge--An electric watch-maker--Where the Gambel sparrow builds--"Out ofold books"

CHAPTER VII

LAKE ATHABASCA AND ITS FOND DU LAC

Farewell to the Mounted Police--Our blankets on the deck--Fern odours byuntravelled ways--Typewriting and kodaking in 20 hours ofdaylight--Navigating Lake Athabasca by the power o' man--A 23-inchtrout--First white women at Fond du Lac--Carlyle among the Chipewyans, aFond du Lac library--The hermit padre and the hermit thrush--Worn northtrails of the trapper--Caribou by the hundred thousands--The phalaropeand the suffragette

CHAPTER VIII

FOND DU LAC TO FORT SMITH

World's records beaten on the Athabasca--Down the Slave to Smith'sLanding--Priests sink in the Rapid of the Drowned--The MosquitoPortage--Fort Smith, the new headquarters--Lady-slippers andnight-hawks--Steamer built in the wilderness--Last stand of the woodbison--The grey wolf persists--Fur-trade and the silver-fox--Breedingpelicans. 

CHAPTER IX

SLAVE RIVER AND GREAT SLAVE LAKE

"Red lemol-lade" kiddies--Tons of crystal salt--Great Slave Lake and itsfertile shores--Yellow-Knife and Dog-Rib, subjects of the SeventhEdward--Hay River and its annual mail--Ploughing with dogs--Billbalked--The Alexandra Falls--Bishop Bompas as a surgeon; amputationswhile you wait. 

CHAPTER X

PROVIDENCE TO SIMPSON, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES DOWN THE MACKENZIE

Drowning of De-deed--Fort Simpson, the old headquarters--A mouldymuseum--The shrew-mice that were not preserved in rum--The farthestnorth library--Gold-seekers and grub-staked brides--Bishop Bompas, theApostle of the North--Owindia, the Weeping One--Fort Simpson in thefirst year of Victoria the Good. 

CHAPTER XI

FORT GOOD HOPE ON THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

Tenny Gouley tells us things--Mackenzie River, past and present--Thefringed gentian at Fort Wrigley--The fires Mackenzie saw--The weatheredknob of Bear Rock--Great Bear Lake--Orangeman's Day at Norman--TheRamparts of the Mackenzie--Fort Good Hope under the ArcticCircle--Mignonette and Old World courtesy--We meet Hagar oncemore--Potatoes on the Circle--The Little Church of the Open Door

CHAPTER XII

ARCTIC RED RIVER AND ITS ESKIMO

Arctic Red River--Wilfrid Laurier, the merger--Mrs. Ila-la-Rocko, thedanseuse--Marriage as the Oo-vai-oo-aks see it--Orange-blossoms atSu-pi-di-do's--Trading tryst at Barter Island--Floating fathers--By-oBaby Bunting--Wild roses and tame Eskimo--Midnight football with walrusbladder and enthusiasm--Education that makes for manliness

CHAPTER XIII

FORT MACPHERSON FOLK

Sir John Franklin's lobsticks at Point Separation--We reach FortMacpherson on the Peel--Sergeant Fitzgerald, R. N. W. M. P. , eulogizes theEskimo--An Eskimo wife must make boots that are waterproof--She arisethalso while it is yet night and cheweth the boots of herhousehold--Cribbage-boards the link between Dick Swiveller and theEskimo--Linked sweetness long drawn out--Chauncey Depew of theKogmollycs

CHAPTER XIV

MORALIZING UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN

The Midnight Sun--Our friend the heathen--"We want to go tohell"--Catching fish by prayer--The Eskimo and the Flood--Pink tea atthe Pole--Always a balance in the Eskimo Bank--Marriage for better andnot for worse--Christmas carols even here

CHAPTER XV

MAINLY CONCERNING FOOD

Jurisprudence on ice--The generous Innuit--Emmie-ray, the Delineatorpattern--Weak races are pressed south--Roxi, a re-incarnation of SirPhilip Sidney--Blubbery bon vivants--Eskimo knew the Elephant--We writethe last chapter of the story of McClure, the navigator--Cannibalism atthe Circle

CHAPTER XVI

THE TALE OF A WHALE

Circumpolar Bowhead makes his last stand--Whales here and elsewhere--TheYankee peddler at Canada's back-door--Thirteen and a half million inwhale values--Wind-swept Herschel, the Isle of Whales--One wife for athousand years--Baleen, Spermaceti, and Ambergris--Save the Whale

CHAPTER XVII

SOUTH FROM THE ARCTIC TO CHIPEWYAN

Lives lost for the sake of a white bead--The stars come back--The Keeleparty from the Dollarless Divide--"Here and there a grayling"--AcrossGreat Slave Lake--The first white women at Fort Rae--Land of themusk-ox--Tales of 76 below--Two Thursdays in one week--Rabbits on ice

CHAPTER XVIII

TO MC MURRAY AND BACK TO THE PEACE

The nuptials of 'Norine--Ladies round gents and gents don't go--Thefossil-gatherers--I give my name to a Cree kiddie--A solid mile of redraspberries--The typewriter an uncanny medicine--The Beetle Fleet leavesfor Outside--Shipwrecked on a batture

CHAPTER XIX

UP THE PEACE TO VERMILION

Ho! for the Peace--One break in 900 miles of navigation--A greywolf--Bear-meat and the Se-weep-i-gons--Ninety-foot spruces--Tom Kerrand his bairns--The fish-seine that never fails--Our lobsticks by RedRiver--The Chutes of the Peace

CHAPTER XX

VERMILION-ON-THE-PEACE

The farthest north flour-mill--The man who made Vermilion--Wheat at$1. 25 a bushel--An Experimental Farm in latitude 58° 30'--An unoccupiedkingdom as large as Belgium--Where the steamer _Peace River_ wasbuilt--The hospitable home of the Wilsons--Vermilion a Land of PromiseFulfilled--Culture and the Cloister--Thomas of Canterbury on the Stump

CHAPTER XXI

FORT VERMILION TO LESSER SLAVE

Se-li-nah of the happy heart--My premier moose--The rare and resourcefulboatmen of the North--Alexander Mackenzie's last camp

CHAPTER XXII

PEACE RIVER CROSSING TO LESSER SLAVE LAKE

Pleasant prairies of the Peace--We tramp a hundred miles--The Angelus atLesser Slave--Poole coats and Norfolk shooting-jackets--Roast duckgalore--Alec Kennedy of the Nile--Louise the Wetigo, she ate nineteen

CHAPTER XXIII

LESSER SLAVE LAKE TO EDMONTON

Jim wins: Allie Brick can't run--100, 000, 000 acres ofwheat-land--Jilly-Loo bird still lacks a rib--100 moose in onemonth--Peripatetic judges but no prisoners--The best-tattooed man in theProvince of Alberta--The-Man-Who-Goes-Around-and-Helps

CHAPTER XXIV

HOMES AMONG THE YELLOW WHEAT

Edmonton again--Wyllie goes out on the Long Journey--Donaldson killed bya walrus--Two drowned in the Athabasca--Steel kings and ironhorses--Wheat-plains the melting-pot of a New Nation

ROUTES OF TRAVEL

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A magnificent trophyMap showing the Author's RouteSir Wilfred LaurierEarl Grey, Governor-General of CanadaWinnipeg, the Buckle of the Wheat BeltThe Canadian Women's Press ClubA section of EdmontonThe Golden Fleece of SaskatchewanIrrigation ditch, Calgary, AlbertaA Waldorf-Astoria on the prairie's edgeAthabasca LandingNecessity knows no law at AthabascaThe Missionary Hymnal for the IndiansC. C. Chipman, Commissioner of the H. B. Co. A "sturgeon-head" on the Athabasca"Farewell, Nistow!"Grand Rapids, on the Athabasca RiverPortage at Grand Rapids IslandOur transport at Grand Rapids IslandCheese-shaped nodules, Grand Rapids IslandScouts of the Royal Northwest Mounted PoliceTowing the wrecked barge ashoreThe scow breaks her back and fillsMiss Gordon, a Fort McMurray traderThe steamer _Grahame_An oil derrick on the AthabascaTar banks on the AthabascaFort Chipewyan, Lake AthabascaThree of a kindWoman's work of the Far NorthLake Athabasca in winterBishop GrouardThe modern note-bookTepee of a Caribou-eater IndianA bit of Fond du LacBirch-barks at Fond du LacFond du LacFather Beibler carrying water to a dying IndianSmith's LandingA transport between Fort Smith and Smith's LandingLord Strathcona, Governor of the Hudson's Bay CompanyThe world's last buffaloTracking a scow across mountain portageThe "red lemol-lade" boysSalt bedsUnloading at Fort ResolutionComing to "take Treaty" on Great Slave LakeOn the SlaveDogs cultivating potatoesDavid VilleneuveHudson's Bay House, Fort SimpsonA Slavi family at Fort SimpsonA Slavi type from Fort SimpsonInterior of St. David's CathedralFort Simpson by the light of the AuroraIndians at Fort NormanRoman Catholic Church at Fort NormanThe ramparts of the MackenzieRampart House on the Porcupine near the Mackenzie mouthA Kogmollye familyRoxi and the Oo-vai-oo-ak familyFarthest North footballTwo spectators at the gameAn Eskimo exhibitConstable Walker and Sergeant Fitzgerald in Eskimo togsTwo wise onesA Nunatalmute Eskimo familyCribbage-boards of walrus tusksUseful articles made by the EskimoHome of Mrs. MacdonaldEskimo kayaks at the Arctic edgeA wise man of the Dog-RibsA study in expressionWe tell the tale of a whaleTwo little ones at Herschel IslandBreeding grounds of the sealThe Keele party on the Gravel RiverThe first typewriter on Great Slave LakeThe bell at Fort Rae missionThe musk-oxA meadow at McMurrayStarting up the AthabascaOn the ClearwaterEvening on the PeaceOur lobsticks on the PeaceThe chutes of the PeacePulling out the _Mee-wah-sin_The flour mill at Vermilion-on-the-PeaceArticles made by IndiansThe Hudson's Bay StorePapillon, a Beaver braveGoing to school in winterMy premier mooseBeaver camp, on Paddle RiverThe site of old Fort McLeodJean Baptiste, pilot on the PeaceFort Dunvegan on the PeaceFort St. John on the PeaceWhere King was arrestedAlec Kennedy with his two sonsCannibal Louise, her little girl and Miss CameronA Peace River PioneerThree generationsA family at the Lesser SlaveA one-night standA rye field in Brandon, ManitobaCharles M. Hays, President of the Grand Trunk RailwayWilliam Mackenzie, President of the Canadian Northern RailwayDonald D. Maun, Vice-president of the Canadian Northern RailwayWilliam Whyte, Second Vice-president of the Canadian Pacific RailwayIn the wheat fieldsHon. Frank Oliver, Minister of the InteriorThreshing grainDoukhobors threshing flaxSir William Van Horne, first President of the Canadian Pacific Railway

[Illustration: Map of the Author's Route]

THE NEW NORTH

CHAPTER I

THE MENDICANTS REACH WINNIPEG

"We are as mendicants who wait Along the roadside in the sun. Tatters of yesterday and shreds Of morrow clothe us every one. 

"And some are dotards, who believe And glory in the days of old;While some are dreamers, harping still Upon an unknown age of gold. 

"O foolish ones, put by your care! Where wants are many, joys are few;And at the wilding springs of peace, God keeps an open house for you. 

"But there be others, happier few, The vagabondish sons of God, Who know the by-ways and the flowers, And care not how the world may plod. "

Isn't it Riley who says, "Ef you want something, an' jest dead seta-longin' fer it with both eyes wet, and tears won't bring it, why, youtry sweat"? Well, we had tried sweat and longing for two years, withplanning and hoping and the saving of nickels, and now we are off!

Shakespeare makes his man say, "I will run as far as God has anyground, " and that is our ambition. We are to travel north and keep ongoing till we strike the Arctic, --straight up through Canada. Mostwriters who traverse The Dominion enter it at the Eastern portal andtravel west by the C. P. R. , following the line of least resistance tillthey reach the Pacific. Then they go back to dear old England and tellthe world all about Canada, their idea of the half-continent beingEuclid's conception of a straight line, "length without breadth. "

[Illustration: Sir Wilfred Laurier]

But Canada has a third dimension, a diameter that cuts through the Beltof Wheat and Belt of Fur, beginning south at the international boundaryand ending where in his winter-igloo the Arctic Eskimo lives and lovesafter his kind and works out his own destiny. This diameter we are tofollow. To what end? Not, we hope, to come back like him who went fromDan to Beersheba to say "All is barren, " but to come near to the people, our fellow-Britons, in this transverse section of a country bigger thanEurope. We want to see what they are doing, these Trail-Blazers ofCommerce, who, a last vedette, are holding the silent places, awaitingthat multitude whose coming footsteps it takes no prophet to hear. 

We will take the great waterways, our general direction being that ofall the world-migrations. Colonization in America has followed the trendof the great rivers, and it has ever been northward and westward, --tillyou and I have to look southward and eastward for the graves of ourancestors. The sons and grandsons of those who conquered the St. Lawrence and built on the Mississippi have since occupied the shores ofthe Red, the Assiniboine, and the Saskatchewan. They are laying stronghands upon the Peace, and within a decade will be platting townships onthe Athabasca, the Mackenzie, and the Slave. 

There has always been a West. For the Greeks there was Sicily; Carthagewas the western outpost of Tyre; and young Roman patricians conqueredGaul and speculated in real estate on the sites of London and Liverpool. But the West that we are entering upon is the Last West, the lastunoccupied frontier under a white man's sky. When this is staked out, pioneering shall be no more, or Amundsen must find for us adream-continent in Beaufort Sea. 

Kipling speaks of "a route unspoiled of Cook's, " and we have found it. Going to the office of Thos. Cook & Son, in Chicago, with a friend whohad planned a Mediterranean tour, I gently said, "I wonder if you cangive me information about a trip I am anxious to take this summer. " Theyoung man smiled and his tone was that which we accord to an indulgedchild, "I guess we can. Cook & Son give information on _most_ places. ""Very well, " I said, "I want to go from Chicago to the Arctic by theMackenzie River, returning home by the Peace and the Lesser Slave. Canyou tell me how long it will take, what it will cost, and how I make myconnections?" He was game; he didn't move an eyebrow, but went off tothe secret recesses in the back office to consult "the main guy, " "thechief squeeze, " "the head push, " "the big noise. " Back they cametogether with a frank laugh, "Well, Miss Cameron, I guess you've got us. Cook's have no schedule to the Arctic that way. " They were able, however, to give accurate information as to how one should reach HudsonBay, with modes of travel, dates, and approximate cost. But this journeyfor another day. 

Leaving Chicago one sizzling Sunday in mid-May, we (my niece and I) stopfor a day to revel in bird and blossoms at Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota, then silently in the night cross the invisible parallel of 49° where theeagle perches and makes amorous eyes at the beaver. 

With the Polar Ocean as ultimate goal, we cannot help thinking howduring the last generation the Arctic Circle has been pushed steadilyfarther north. Forty years ago Minneapolis and St. Paul were strugglingtrading-posts, and all America north of them was the range of thebuffalo and the Indian. Then Fort Garry (Winnipeg) became FarthestNorth. Before starting, I had dug out from the Public Library the recordof a Convention of Wheat-Growers who, fifteen years ago in Chicago, deliberately came to the conclusion (and had the same engrossed on theirminutes) that "Our Northern tier of States is too far north tosuccessfully grow wheat. " For years Winnipeg was considered the northernlimit of wheat-growth, the Arctic Circle of endeavour. Then that line oflimitation was pushed farther back until it isEdmonton-on-the-Saskatchewan that is declared "Farthest North. " To-daywe are embarking on a journey which is to reach two thousand miles duenorth of Edmonton!

In the train between Minneapolis and Winnipeg an old man with a be-goshbeard looks worth while. We tell him where we are going, and he is allinterest. He remembers the time when Montreal merchants wishing to reachFort Garry had to bend down by way of St. Paul to gain their goal. Thesewere the days of Indian raids and bloody treachery. "But, " the old chapsays, "the Hudson's Bay people always played fa'r and squar' with theInjuns. Even in them days the Injun knowed that crossed flag and what itstood for. I mind one Englishman and his wife who had come from Montrealto St. Paul in an ox-cart. The whole plains was covered with sneakin'red cusses on the war-path. But that darned Britisher was stubborn-seton pullin' out that night for Fort Garry, with his wife and kid, andwhat did the cuss do but nail a blame little Union Jack on his cart, poke the goad in his ox, and hit the trail! My God, I kin still see theold ox with that bit of the British Empire, wiggling out of St. Paul atsundown. And the cuss got there all right, too, though we was allwearing crape beforehand for his sweet-faced wife. " This incident wasnot unique. In the early '60's an English curate, afterwards to be knownto the world as Bishop Bompas, passed north through St. Cloud on hisway from England to the Arctic. When the Sioux were reported on thewar-path, Mr. Bompas improvised a Union Jack with bits of colouredclothing and fastened it on the first ox-cart of his cavalcade. Seeingthis, the hostile Sioux turned bridle and rode away; and, protected bythe flag of the clustered crosses, the Gospel-cart passed on. 

[Illustration: Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada]

What Cook & Son failed to supply, the Hudson's Bay Company in Winnipegfurnished. This concern has been foster-mother to Canada's Northland fortwo hundred and thirty-nine years. Its foundation reaches back to whenthe Second Charles ruled in England, --an age when men said not "Howcheap?" but "How good?", not "How easy?" but "How well?" The Hudson'sBay Company is to-day the Cook's Tourist Company of the North, theCoutts' Banking concern, and the freshwater Lloyd's. No man or woman cantravel with any degree of comfort throughout Northwest America exceptunder the kindly aegis of the Old Company. They plan your journey foryou, give you introductions to their factors at the different posts, andsell you an outfit guiltless of the earmarks of the tenderfoot. Moreover, they will furnish you with a letter of credit which can betransmuted into bacon and beans and blankets, sturgeon-head boats, guides' services, and succulent sow-belly, at any point between FortChimo on Ungava Bay and Hudson's Hope-on-the-Peace, betweenWinnipeg-on-the-Red and that point in the Arctic where the seagullwhistles over the whaling-ships at Herschel. 

For a railroad station, the wall-notices in the baggage room of theCanadian Northern at Winnipeg are unique. Evidently inspired for thebenefit of employés, they give the incoming traveller a surprise. Herethey are as we copied them down:

Let all things be done decently and in order. 1 Cor. Xiv, 40. 

Be punctual, be regular, be clean. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Be obliging and kind one to another. Let no angry word be heard among youBe not fond of change. (Sic. )Be clothed with humility, not finery. Take all things by the smooth handle. Be civil to all, but familiar with few. 

As we smile over this Canadian substitute for the American, --

"Hang on to your hand-baggage. Don't letgo your overcoat. Thieves are around, "

the baggage-master with a strong Scottish accent says over ourshoulders, "Guid maxims, and we live up t' them!"

A big Irish policeman is talking to a traveller who has stepped off atranscontinental train, and who asks with a drawl, "What makesWinnipeg?" Scraping a lump of mud from his boot-heel, the Bobby holds itout. "This is the sordid dhross and filthy lucre which keeps ournineteen chartered banks and their one and twenty suburban branchesgoing. Just beyant is one hundred million acres of it, and the dhirtystuff grows forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Don't be like theremittance man from England, sorr, " with a quizzical look at the checkedsuit of his interlocutor, "shure they turn the bottom of their trowsiesup so high that divil of the dhross sticks to them!" As Mulcahey winksthe other eye, we drift out into this "Buckle of the Wheat-Belt. "

What has the policeman's hard wheat done for Winnipeg? Well, it gave hera building expansion, a year ago, greater than that of any other city ofher population in America. One year has seen in Western Canada anincrease in crop area under the one cereal of winter wheat of over onehundred and fifty per cent, a development absolutely unique in theworld's history. 

Winnipeg, having acquired the growing habit, expands by leaps andbounds. No city on the continent within the last thirty-three years hashad such phenomenal growth. In 1876 the population was 6, 000; it nowcounts 150, 000 souls. This city is the greatest grain-market in theBritish Empire, and from it radiate twenty-two distinct pairs of railwaytracks. Architects have in preparation plans for fifteen milliondollars' worth of buildings during the coming year. The bank clearingsin 1903 were $246, 108, 000; last year they had increased to $618, 111, 801;and a Winnipeg bank has never failed. Western Canada cannot grow withoutWinnipeg's reaping a benefit, for most of the inward and outward tradefilters through here. During the spring months three hundred people aday cross the border from the United States. Before the year has closeda hundred thousand of them will have merged themselves into WesternCanada's melting-pot, drawn by that strongest of lures--the lure of theland. And these hundred thousand people do not come empty-handed. It isestimated that they bring with them in settlers' effects and cash onethousand dollars each, thus adding in portable property to the wealthof Western Canada one hundred million dollars. In addition they bringthe personal producing-factor, an asset which cannot be measured infigures--the "power of the man. "

[Illustration: Winnipeg, the Buckle of the Wheat-Belt]

Not only from the United States do Winnipeg's citizens come. This Cityof the Plains is a human mosaic to which finished pattern every nationof the Old World furnishes its patine. The Bible Society of Winnipegsells Bibles printed in fifty-one different languages--Armenian, Arabic, Burmese, Cree, Esth, Korean, Persian, Sanscrit, Slavonic, Tinne, Urdu, Yiddish, and nine and thirty other tongues. It is to be supposed thatsome buy their Bible not because it is the Bible but in order to feastthe eye on the familiar characters of the home tongue. So wouldRobinson Crusoe have glutted his sight with a copy of the _LondonTimes_, could the goat have committed the anachronism of digging one outfrom among the flotsam in the kelp. 

Going into a hardware store to get a hatchet and a copper kettle, wecajole the proprietor into talking shop. He has orders for six hundredsteam-ploughs to be delivered to farmers the coming season. We estimatethat each of these will break at least fifteen hundred acres during thesix months that must elapse before we hope to return to Winnipeg. Thiswill make nearly a million acres to be broken by the steam-ploughs soldby this one concern, and practically the whole number will be used forbreaking wild land. A peep into the ledger of this merchant shows in thelist of his plough-buyers Russian names and unpronounceable patronymicsof the Finn, the Doukhobor, and the Buckowinian. It is to be hoped thatthese will drive furrows that look straighter than their signatures do. "But they are all good pay, " the implement-man says. Looking at the redploughs, we see in each a new chapter to be written in Canada's history. The page of the book is the prairie, as yet inviolate, and running outinto flowers to the skyline. The tools to do the writing are theseploughs and mowers and threshers, the stout arms of men and offaith-possessed women. It is all new and splendid and hopeful andformative!

We get in Winnipeg another picture, one that will remain with us till wereach the last Great Divide. At the Winnipeg General Hospital, Dr. D. A. Stewart says to us, "Come, I want to show you a brave chap, one who hasfallen by the way. " We find this man, Alvin Carlton, stretched on acot. "Tell him that you are going into the land of fur, " whispers thedoctor, "he has been a trapper all his life. "

Crossing soft ice on the Lake of the Woods, Carlton broke through, andhis snow-shoes pinned him fast. When dragged out he had suffered so withthe intense cold that he became partially paralysed and was sent here tothe hospital. Hard luck? Yes, but the misfortune was tempered withmercy. Within these walls Carlton met a doctor full of the mellow juiceof life, --a doctor with a man's brain, the sympathy of a woman, and theheart of a little child. The trapper, as we are introduced to him, hasone leg and both hands paralysed, with just a perceptible sense ofmotion remaining in the other leg. His vocal cords are so affected thatthe sounds he makes are to us absolutely unintelligible, more like themumblings of an animal than the speech of a man. Between patient anddoctor, a third man entered the drama, --Mr. Grey, a convalescent. Appointed special nurse to the trapper, Grey studied him as a motherstudies her deficient child, and now was able, to our unceasing marvel, to translate these sad mouthings of Carlton into human speech. 

Who is this patient? A man without friends or influence, not attractivein appearance, more than distressing to listen to, --just one more workerthrown off from the gear of the rapidly-turning wheel of life. Theconsulting doctors agreed that no skill could perform a cure, could noteven arrest the creeping death. Winnipeg is big and busy, and no cornerof it more crowded than the General Hospital, no corps more overworked. Dr. Stewart had two men's work to do. He worked all day and was busywell into the night. A doctor's natural tendency is to see in each manthat he ministers to merely "a case, " a manifestation of some disease tobe watched and tabulated and ticked off into percentages. But in theStewart-Carlton-Grey combination, Fate had thrown together three youngmen in whom the human part, the man element, loomed large. 

The doctor guessed that under that brave front the heart of the trapperwas eating itself out for the cry of the moose, the smell of wood-smokeby twilight. We are happiest when we create. So he said to Carlton, "Didyou ever write a story?" The head shook answer. "Well, why don't youtry? You must know a lot, old chap, about out-door things, that nobodyelse knows. Think some of it out, and then dictate it to Grey here. "

The outcome was disappointing. The uncouth sounds, translated by Grey, were bald, bare, and stiff. Soon the stiffness worked off. Withhalf-shut eyes Carlton lived again in the woods. He lifted the dewybranch of a tree and surprised the mother deer making the toilet of herfawn, saw the beaver busied with his home of mud and wattles, heard thecoyote scream across the prairie edge. Easily the thought flowed, andthe stuff that Grey handed in was a live story that breathed. In thatbrave heart the joy of the creator stirred, and with it that feelingwhich makes all endeavour worth while--the thought that somebody cares. A close observer at this stage of the game may read, too, on the face ofGrey the kindly look that comes when we forget ourselves long enough totake the trouble to reach out for another man's viewpoint. 

Carlton's short stories, submitted to a publisher, were pronouncedgood, were accepted, and brought a cash return. They struck a new noteamong the squabblings of the nature-fakers. Favourable comment came fromthose who read them, who, reading, knew naught of their three authors. Before this Carlton had never written a line for publication; but he hadbeen a true observer. He had felt, and was able to project himself intothe minds of those living things he had seen and hunted. 

I leave the hospital cot with a strange lump forming in my throat, although every one around me, and the patient most of all, is gay andblithe. I say to Carlton, "I wish I could take your knowledge and youreyes with me into the North, there is so much I will miss because of mylack of knowledge. " With Grey's kindly interpretation I get my answer, "You must take your own mind, your own eyes; you must see for yourself. "

During the last day in Winnipeg, while the Kid (like faithfulAriovistus) is looking after the impedimenta, I snatch half an hour tolook in at the Royal Alexandra upon the reception which the Women'sCanadian Club is tendering to Mrs. Humphry Ward. Rain-bespattered, short-skirted, and anchored with disreputable rubbers gluey withWinnipeg mud, I sit on the fringe of things, fairly intoxicated with theidea that we are off and this North trip no dream. Mrs. Sanford Evanspresides with her usual _savoir faire_ and ushers in the guest of theday, beautifully-gowned and gracious. 

Like a bolt from the blue came the summons from the president, and I, all muddy, am called to the seats of the mighty. I have never seen amore splendid aggregation of women than the members of the WinnipegCanadian Club, tall, strong, alert, and full of initiative. To facethem is a mental and moral challenge. I try to hide those muddy shoes ofmine. The Winnipeg women are indulgent, they make allowance for myunpresentable attire, and shower upon me cheery wishes for the successof my journey. Mrs. Humphry Ward calls attention to the lack ofplaygrounds in England. She wants to bring more fresh air and space tothe crowded people of the Old World. I submit that my wish is themathematical converse to hers. My great desire is to call attention tothe great unoccupied lands of Canada, to induce people from the crowdedcentres of the Old World to use the fresh air of the New. 

[Illustration: The Canadian Women's Press Club]

To those who bid us good-bye at the train, the Kid and I yellexultantly, "All aboard for the Arctic Ocean and way ports!"

A group of Galicians sitting by the curb, two mothers and seven smallchildren, one a baby at the breast, make the last picture we see as thetrain pulls out. It was the end of their first day in Winnipeg. Thefathers of the flock evidently were seeking work and had left theirfamilies gazing through the portals of the strange new land. In thehalf-sad, altogether-brave lines on the young mothers' faces and theirtender looks bent on the little ones we read the motive responsible forall migrations--"Better conditions for the babies. " In the littlefellows of seven or eight with their ill-fitting clothes and theirdogged looks of determination one sees the makers of empire. Before adecade is past they will be active wheat-growers in their own right, making two grains grow where one grew before and so "deserving better ofmankind than the whole race of politicians put together. " I think it wasPresident Garfield who said, "I always feel more respect for a boy thanfor a man. Who knows what possibilities may be buttoned up under thatragged jacket?" It doesn't take long for the foreigners to make good. Ayoung Icelander, Skuli Johnson, of all the thousands of Winnipegstudents, this year captured the coveted honor of the academicworld--the Rhodes scholarship. 

We slip out of Winnipeg as the bells of St. Boniface ring the vespersfrom their turrets twain. Whittier, who never saw this quaint cathedral, has immortalized it in verse. The story is one of those bits offorgotten history so hard to get hold of in a day when Winnipeg measuresits every thought in bushels and bullion. 

The settlers who came to Selkirk on the outskirts of present Winnipegjust a hundred years ago were sturdy Scots, weaned on the Psalms ofDavid and the Shorter Catechism. There were English missionaries hereand priests of the Church of Rome, but the disciples of John Knox wantedsome one to expound Predestination to them. A religious ceremonyperformed by any man who was not a Presbyterian seemed scarcely binding. One old lady, speaking of the nuptials of her daughter, said, "I wudnahave Janet marrit by the bishop. She maun wait till we can have aproperly-ordained meenister. " And he was coming. Even now he wasfloating in on the Red River with Indian and half-breed boatmen, havingreached St. Paul from Scotland via the Atlantic seaboard some weeksbefore. 

When a Scot and an Indian get in a boat together, to use a Will Carletonphrase, "they do not teem with conversational grace. " Straight fromAberdeen, the young Dominee coming into Winnipeg little dreamed that theChurch of Rome had established its Mission on the Red River decades ago. In fact, he knew as little about Canada as he did about Timbuctoo, andin his simplicity thought himself "the first that ever burst into thatsilent sea. " When the evening breeze brought to his ears a muffledsound, he was in doubt how to place it. 

"Is it the clang of wild-geese? Is it the Indian's yell, That lends to the voice of the North-wind The tones of a far-off bell?"

The Indian boatmen _said_ nothing, but thought deep, like the Irishman'sparrot. 

"The voyageur smiles as he listens To the sound that grows apace;Well he knows the vesper ringing Of the bells of St. Boniface. "

Once the young Scot had reached his flock, he wrote back to a friend inthe States telling how he came across on the edge of the wilderness

"The bells of the Roman Mission, That call from their turrets twainTo the boatmen on the river, To the hunter on the plain. "

That friend was a fellow-townsman of the "Quaker Poet. " The story wastold to Whittier and inspired the lines of _The Red River Voyageur_. 

CHAPTER II

WINNIPEG TO ATHABASCA LANDING

"To the far-flung fenceless prairie Where the quick cloud-shadows trail, To our neighbor's barn in the offing And the line of the new-cut rail;To the plough in her league-long furrow. "

--_Rudyard Kipling_. 

Place a pair of dividers with one leg on Winnipeg and the other leg atKey West, Florida. Then swing the lower leg to the northwest, and itwill not reach the limit of good agricultural land. 

From Winnipeg to Edmonton, roughly speaking, is a thousand miles, andtwo railway lines are open to us, --the Canadian Pacific and the CanadianNorthern. We go by the former route and return in the autumn by thelatter. 

Pulling out from Winnipeg, we enter a prairie wheat-field one thousandmiles long and of unknown width, into which the nations of the world arepouring. "The sleeping nation beyond, " is what General Sherman in amoment of pique once called Canada. The sleeping giant has awakened. Weare on the heels of the greatest economic trek this world has ever seen. The historian of to-morrow will rank it with the world migrations. 

The flourishing centres of Portage la Prairie, Brandon with itsExperimental Farm, Regina, the headquarters of the Mounted Police, Moose Jaw, and Medicine Hat are passed, and with these the new, rawtowns in the tar-paper stage, towns that smell of sawdust, naked standof paint. Never in the world's history did towns spring into life asthese do. To-day the wind on the prairie, to-morrow the sharpconversation of the hammer on the nail-head, next week the implementwarehouse, the tent hotel, the little cluster of homes. In England ittakes a bishop to make a city, but here the nucleus needed is a wheatelevator, red against the setting sun. 

The ploughs that we saw in Winnipeg are at work here among the buffalobones and the spring anemones. As day breaks we catch a glimpse of asunbonneted mother and her three little kiddies. An ox is their rudecoadjutor, and through the flower-sod they cut their first furrow. It isthe beginning of a new home. Involuntarily one's mind jumps to thecrowded cities of the Old World with their pale-cheeked children andfetid alleyways. Surely in bringing the workless man of the Old World tothe manless work of the New, the Canadian Government and thetransportation companies are doing a bit of God's work. 

Half way between Winnipeg and the Pacific we reach Calgary, breezy, buoyant Calgary, the commercial metropolis of the foothills, already abusy mart and predestined to be the distributing point for manyrailroads. The biggest man-made thing in Calgary is the C. P. R. Irrigation works, the largest on this continent. The area included inthe irrigation block is twice as big as the Island of Porto Rico andone-eighth the size of England and Wales; and the ultimate expenditureon the undertaking will reach the five million mark. 

Calgary is the centre of a country literally flowing with milk and honeyand fat things. The oil-fields of Pincher Creek, with their rich promiseof becoming a second Pennsylvania, are contiguous to the city. Thewinter wheat grown in Southern Alberta was awarded first prize and goldmedal at the World's Fair in Oregon in 1905. The hackney carriage horseswhich took first prize at the last Montreal and New York horse-fairswere foaled and raised near Calgary. If we were to continue going duewest from this point, all the scenic glories of the Rocky Mountainswould be ours--seventy Switzerlands in one. But that journey must standover for another day, with the journey to Prince Rupert, the oceanterminus of the Grand Trunk Pacific. 

Turning sharply to the north, we travel two hundred miles, and draw intowhere Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, sits smiling on the banks of hersilver Saskatchewan. As he sees us digging out our tents and dunnage, the porter asks, "Then yer not comin' back?" "No. " "You _are_ goin' tothe North Pole, then, the place you wuz hollerin' fer!"

With the exception of Victoria, Edmonton has the most charming locationof all cities of Western Canada. High Hope stalks her streets. There isa spirit of initiative and assuredness in this virile town, a cultureand thoughtfulness in her people, expectancy in the very air. It is thecity of contrasts; the ox-cart dodges the automobile; in the track ofFrench heel treads the moccasin; the silk hat salutes the Stetson. 

Edmonton is the end of steel. Three lines converge here: the CanadianNorthern, the Canadian Pacific, and the Grand Trunk Pacific. TheCanadian Northern arrived first, coming in four years ago. Now thatEdmonton has arrived, it seems the most natural thing in the world thatthere should have sprung up on the Saskatchewan this rich metropolis, anticipating for itself a future expansion second to no city incommercial Canada. But some one had to have faith and prescience beforeEdmonton got her start, and the god-from-the-machine was the CanadianNorthern, in other words, William Mackenzie and D. D. Mann. Individualsand nations as they reap a harvest are apt to forget the hands thatsowed the seed in faith, nothing doubting. When this railroad went intoEdmonton, as little was known of the valley of the Saskatchewan as isknown now of the valley of the Peace. Without exception, Canadian men ofletters go to other countries for recognition, but not so all our men ofdeeds. Mackenzie and Mann, "the Brains of a Trans-Continental, " stayedin Canada and put their genius to work here. The Canadian Northern isthe product of Canadian minds and Canadian money. 

[Illustration: A Section of Edmonton]

We walk Edmonton streets for ten days and see neither an old man nor anold woman. The government and the business interests are in the hands ofyoung people who have adopted modern methods of doing things; single taxis the basis of taxation; the city owns its public utilities, includingan interurban street railroad, electric lighting plant, water-works, andthe automatic telephone. Mr. C. W. Cross, the Attorney-General ofAlberta, is the youngest man in Canada to hold that high office. Duringthe first session of the first legislature of this baby province lessthan three years ago, an enabling act was passed for a university. Nowhere else have I been sensible of such a feeling of unitedpublic-spiritedness as obtains here. 

Down in the river valley are hundreds of people living under canvas, notbecause they are poor but because building contractors cannot keep pacewith the demand for homes. As we pass these tents, we are rude enough tolook in. Most of them are furnished with telephones and the city water;here a bride bends over a chafing dish; another glance discloses anoil-painting that was once shown in the Royal Academy. From the nexttent float the strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and, as we stopto listen, a gentleman and his wife step out. An auto picks them up andoff they whirl to Jasper Avenue. The Lord o' the Tents of Shemdisappears into his bank and Milady drives on to the Government house toread before the Literary Club a paper on Browning's _Saul_. To thetenderfoot from the South it is all delightfully disconcerting--oxen andautos and Browning on the Saskatchewan!

The Sunday before we leave Edmonton I find another set of tents, put upby the Immigration Department, where East-End Londoners are housedpending their going out upon the land. In the first call I make Iunearth a baby who rejoices in the name of Hester Beatrice Cran. "H. B. C. , " I remark, "aren't you rather infringing on a right, takingthat trade-mark?" Quick came the retort, "Ho! If she gets as good a 'oldon the land as the 'Udson's Bay Company 'as, she'll do!"

Another lady in the next tent proudly marshalled her olive branches. "D'isy and the baiby were born in the Heast Hend. They're Henglish;please God they'll make good Canaidians. They're tellin' me, miss, there'll be five 'undred more of us on the 'igh seas comin' out toHedmonton from the Heast Hend, all poor people like ourselves. I oftenwonder w'y they don't bring out a few dukes to give the country a touchof 'igh life--it's very plain 'ere. "

By the first day of June we have our kit complete and are ready toleave. We have tried to cut everything down to the last ounce, but stillthe stuff makes a rather formidable array. What have we? Tent, tent-poles, typewriter, two cameras, two small steamer-trunks, bedding(a thin mattress with waterproof bottom and waterproof extension-flapsand within this our two blankets), a flour-bag or "Hudson's Baysuit-case" (containing tent-pegs, hatchet, and tin wash-basin), tworaincoats, a tiny bag with brush and comb and soap--and last, but yetfirst, the kodak films wrapped in oilcloth and packed in biscuit-tins. The bits of impedimenta look unfamiliar as we take our first inventory, but we are to come to know them soon by their feel in the dark, toestimate to an ounce the weight of each on many a lonely portage. 

[Illustration: The Golden Fleece of Saskatchewan]

At seven in the morning the stage pulls up for us, and it rains--nogentle sizzle-sozzle, but a sod-soaker, yea a gully-washer! Theaccusing newness of those raincoats is to come off at once. ExpansiveKennedy looks askance at the tenderfoots who climb over his wheel. HisMajesty's Royal Mail Stage sifts through the town picking up the othervictims. We are two big stage-loads, our baggage marked for every pointbetween Edmonton and the Arctic Ocean. Every passenger but ourselveslooks forward to indefinite periods of expatriation in the silentplaces. We alone are going for fun. Our one care is to keep thoseprecious cameras dry. This is the beginning of a camera nightmare whichlasts six months until we again reach Chicago. 

And the fellow-passengers? Law is represented, and medicine, and theall-powerful H. B. Co. With us is Mr. Angus Brabant going in on hisinitial official trip in charge of H. B. Interests in the whole MackenzieRiver District, and with him two cadets of The Company. On the seatbehind us sit a Frenchman reading a French novel, a man from Dakota, anda third passenger complaining of a camera "which cost fifty poundssterling" that somehow has fallen by the way. Sergeant Anderson, R. N. W. M. P. , with his wife and two babies are in the other stage. 

Kennedy, the driver, is a character. Driving in and out and covering onthis one trail twelve thousand miles every year, he is fairly soakedwith stories of the North and Northmen. The other stage is driven byKennedy's son, who, tradition says, was struck by lightning when he wasjust forgetting to be a boy and beginning to be a man. Dwarfed in mindand body, he makes a mild-flavoured pocket-edition of Quilp. 

The roads are a quagmire. The querulous voice of the man who lost hiscamera claims our attention. "I thought I would be able to get out andrun behind and pick flowers. " Turning and introducing ourselves, we findthe troubled one to be an English doctor going north off his own batwith the idea of founding a hospital for sick Indians on the ArcticCircle. 

[Illustration: Irrigation Ditch, Calgary, Alberta]

The girlish figure of a teacher struggling through the awful mud ingum-boots indicates that we have not travelled beyond the range of thelittle red schoolhouse. Stray wee figures splashing their way schoolwardlook dreary enough, and I seem to hear the monotonous drone of "seventimes nine, " "the mountains of Asia, " "the Tudor sovereigns with datesof accession, " and other things appertaining to "that imperial palacewhence I came. " All the summer afterwards, when mosquitoes are plentyand food scarce, a backward thought to this teacher making muddy trackstoward the well of English undefiled, brings pleased content. 

[Illustration: A Waldorf-Astoria on the Prairie's Edge]

At noon it clears, and as we "make tea" at Sturgeon Creek (the NamaoSepee of the Indians), the first of the "stopping-places" orWaldorf-Astorias of the wilderness, the Doctor has his will and gathersviolets, moccasin flowers, and the purple _dodecatheon_. As we pass LilyLake he remarks, "This reminds me of the Duke of Norfolk's place atArundel; it is just like this. " South Dakoty returns, "I don't knowhim. "

Here and there we pass clusters of Galician huts. Instead of followingthe line of least resistance in the fertile plains to the south, thesepeople, the Mark Tapleys of the prairies, choose cheap land up here forthe pleasure of conquering it and "coming out strong. " They are a frugalpeople, with a fondness for work, a wholesome horror of debt, and thereligious instinct strongly insistent. Off on a hillside near eachlittle settlement a naked cross extends its arms. These are theiropen-air churches, and in all weathers, men, women, and children gatherat the foot of the cross to worship the God of their fathers. By and by, when the soil has yielded to their labours, with their own hands willthey build a church and without debt it will be dedicated. The idea ofraising an imposing church and presenting God with the mortgage does notappeal to the Galician. 

The clean sheets at "Eggie's, " the second stopping-place, areattractive, and we sleep the sleep of the just. We acknowledge withinward shame that two years of city life have given us the soft musclesof the chee-chaco; we'll have to harden up a bit if we are to reach thatfar-away ocean. 

Next day, midway between Edmonton and Athabasca Landing, we water ourhorses at the Tautinau. We are standing at the Height of Land, thewatershed between the Saskatchewan and the Athabasca. This little ridgewhere the harebells grow divides the drops of rain of the noon-dayshower. Some of these drops, by way of the Saskatchewan, Lake Winnipeg, and Hudson Bay, will reach the Atlantic. Others, falling into theAthabasca, will form part of that yellow-tinged flood which, by way ofGreat Slave Lake and the mighty Mackenzie, carries its tribute to theFrozen Ocean. These last are the drops we follow. 

To save the horses we walk the hills, and I try to match giant stepswith Sergeant Anderson. Kennedy, Junior, joins us and has a knotty pointto settle regarding "the gentleman wot murdered the man. " It is hard toinduce a Mounted Policeman to talk. However, to be striding AthabascaTrail with the hero of the Hayward-King murder-trial is too good anopportunity to lose, and, reluctantly rendered, bit by bit the storycomes out. 

Most people looking at a map of Northwest Canada would think it a safewilderness for a live man or a dead man to disappear in with noquestions asked. In reality, it is about the worst place in America inwhich to commit a crime and hope to go unpunished. 

In September, 1904, the Indians reported to the Mounted Police that theyhad seen two white men in the early summer, and that afterwards one manwalked alone, and was now at Lesser Slave. An observant Cree boy added, "The dog won't follow that other white fellow any more. " SergeantAnderson, going to their last camp, turned over the ashes and foundthree hard lumps of flesh and a small piece of skull bone. Convincedthat murder had been done, he arrested the suspected man and sent him toFort Saskatchewan for trial. No one knew the identity of either the deadman or the living. In front of the old camp-fire was a little slough orlake, and this seemed a promising place to look for evidence. SergeantAnderson hired Indian women to wade in the ooze, feeling with their toesfor any hard substance. In this way were secured a sovereign-case and astick-pin of unusual make. The lake was systematically drained andyielded a shoe with a broken-eyed needle sticking in it. Sifting theashes of the camp-fire and examining them with a microscope, Andersondiscovered the eye of the broken needle and thus established aconnection between the camp with its burnt flesh and the exhibits fromthe lake. The maker of the stick-pin in London, England, was cabled toby the Canadian Government, and a Mr. Hayward summoned to come fromthere to identify the trinkets of his murdered brother. A cheque drawnby the dead Hayward in favour of King came to the surface in a BritishColumbia bank. Link by link the chain of evidence grew. 

It took eleven months for Sergeant Anderson to get his case in shape. Then he convoyed forty Indian witnesses two hundred and fifty miles fromLesser Slave to Edmonton to tell what they knew about the crimecommitted in the silent places. The evidence was placed before the jury, and the Indians returned to their homes. A legal technicality cropped upand the trial had to be repeated. Once more the forty Indians travelledfrom Lesser Slave to repeat their story. The result was that CharlesKing of Utah was found guilty of the murder of Edward Hayward and paidthe death penalty. 

This trial cost the Canadian Government over $30, 000, --all to avenge thedeath of one of the wandering units to be found in every corner of thefrontier, one unknown prospector. Was it worth while? Did it pay? Yes, it paid. It is by such object-lessons that to Indian and white alike isforced home the truth that God's law, "Thou shalt not kill, " is also thelaw of Britain and of Canada. 

We are still on foot, when a cry from the Kid hurries us to thehilltop. Reaching the crest, we catch our breaths. Down below lies thelittle village of "The Landing. " That sparkling flood beyond proves theAthabasca to be a live, northward-trending river, a river capable ofcarrying us with it, and no mere wiggly line on a map. 

CHAPTER III

ATHABASCA LANDING

"I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods;I wait for the men who will win me--and I will not be won in a day;And I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave and mild, But by men with the hearts of vikings, and the simple faith of a child. "

--_Robert Service_

[Illustration: Athabasca Landing]

Athabasca Landing, a funnel through which percolates the whole tradebetween the wheat-belt and the Arctic, is the true gateway of the North. Seeing our baggage tucked away in the bar-room of the Grand UnionHotel, and snatching a hasty supper, we walk down to the river, itsedges still encrusted with fragments of winter ice. It is anincomparable sunset, the light a veritable spilt spectrum, spreadingitself with prodigality over the swift river. 

The Athabasca, after dipping to the south, here takes a sudden northwardbend. Its source is in the crest of the continent far back in theCommittee's Punch-Bowl of the Rockies, the general trend of the riverbeing northeasterly. It is the most southerly of the three greattributaries of the mighty Mackenzie, and from its source in Rockies toembouchure in Athabasca Lake it is about seven hundred and seventy-fivemiles long; through a wooded valley two miles wide it runs with perhapsan average width of two hundred and fifty yards. 

We are in latitude 55° North, and between us and the Arctic lies anunknown country, which supports but a few hundred Indian trappers andthe fur-traders of the Ancient Company in their little posts, clinginglike swallows' nests to the river banks. The wheat-plains to the southof us are so fertile and accessible that the tide of immigration hasstopped south of where we stand. But that there stretches beyond us acountry rich in possibilities we know, and one day this land, unknownand dubbed "barren" because unknown, will support its teeming millions. Chimerical? Why so?

Parallels of latitude are great illuminators. When we run this line of55° westward what do we strike in Asia? The southern boundary of theRussian Province of Tobolsk. Superimpose a map of that Province on a mapof Canada and we find that the great Mackenzie waterway which we are tofollow cuts Tobolsk almost directly through the centre. In the year1900, Russian Tobolsk produced twenty-one million bushels of grain, grazed two and a half million head of live stock, exported one and ahalf million dollars' worth of butter, and supported a population of oneand a half million souls. There is not one climatic condition obtainingin the Asiatic Province that this similar section of Canada which we areabout to enter does not enjoy. 

Off a little jetty some lads are fishing. There is a camaraderie felt byall fishermen, and soon I have a rod and access to the chunk ofmoose-meat which is the community bait. Within half an hour, rejoicingin a string of seventeen chub and grayling, we wend our way back to thelittle village. The elements that compose it? Here we have a largeestablishment of the Hudson's Bay Company, an Anglican and a RomanMission, a little public school, a barracks of the Northwest MountedPolice, a post office, a dozen stores, a reading-room, two hotels, and ablacksmith shop, and for population a few whites leavening a host ofCree-Scots half-breeds. 

Athabasca Landing is part of the British Empire. But English is at adiscount here; Cree and French and a mixture of these are spoken on allsides. The swart boatmen are the most interesting feature of theplace, --tall, silent, moccasined men, followed at the heel by ghostlikedogs. From this point north dogs are the beasts of burden; the camel maybe the ship of the desert, but the dog is the automobile of thesilences. The wise missionary translates his Bible stories into thelanguage of the latitude. As Count von Hammerstein says, "What means acamel to a Cree? I tell him it is a moose that cannot go through aneedle's eye. " The Scriptural sheep and goats become caribou andcoyotes, and the celestial Lamb is typified by the baby seal with itscoat of shimmering whiteness. Into the prohibition territory thatstretches north of this no liquor can be taken except by a permit signedby an Attorney-General of Canada, and then only "for medicinalpurposes. " By an easy transferring of epithets, the term "permit" hascome to signify the revivifying juice itself. 

[Illustration: Necessity Knows No Law at Athabasca]

One illusion vanishes here. We had expected to find the people of theNorth intensely interested in the affairs of the world outside, but as arule they are not. There is no discussion of American banks and equallyno mention of the wheat crop. The one conjecture round the bar and inthe home is, "When will the rabbits run this year?" The rabbits in theNorth are the food of the lynx; cheap little bunny keeps the vital sparkaglow in the bodies of those animals with richer fur who feed upon him. Every seven years an epidemic attacks the wild rabbits, and that yearmeans a scarcity of all kinds of fur. As surely as wheat stands forbullion in the grain-belt, little Molly Cottontail is the currency ofthe North. 

It is at this point we join the Fur-Brigade of the Hudson's Bay Companymaking its annual transport to the posts of the Far North, taking insupplies for trading material and bringing back the peltries obtained inbarter during the previous winter. The big open scows, or"sturgeon-heads, " which are to form our convoy have been built, thefreight is all at The Landing, but for three days the half-breed boatmendrag along the process of loading, and we get our introduction to theword which is the keynote of the Cree character, --"Kee-am, " freelytranslated, "Never mind, " "Don't get excited, " "There's plenty of time, ""It's all right, " "It will all come out in the wash. "

When the present Commissioner of the Hudson's Bay Company entered officehe determined to reduce chaos to a methodical exactness, and framed atime-table covering every movement in the northward traffic. When it wasshown by the local representative to the Cree boatmen at The Landing, old Duncan Tremblé, a river-dog on the Athabasca for forty years, lookedadmiringly at the printed slip and said, "Aye, aye; the Commissioner hemakes laws, but the river he boss. " It is only when ice is out andcurrent serves that the brigade moves forward. Old Duncan knows sevenlanguages, --English, French, Cree, Chipewyan, Beaver, Chinook, Montagnais, --he speaks seven languages, thinks in Cree, andprevaricates in them all. 

[Illustration: The Missionary Hymnal for the Indians]

At the foot of the hill we visit the English parsonage, with itsold-time sun-dial at the garden-gate. Within, we find what must surelybe the farthest north printing-press. Here two devoted women have spentyears of their lives printing in Cree on a hand-press syllabic hymns andportions of the Gospel for the enlightenment of the Indians. We wanderinto the school where a young teacher is explaining to his uneasydisciples the intricacies of Present Worth and Compound Interest. Idlywe wonder to what use these bare-footed half-Cree urchins will put theirexact banking knowledge. 

Everywhere around us the wild flowers are a great joy; we hail with thegladness of released children the posies that sweetened childhoodmeadows--the dwarf cornel (Cornel Canadensis), dandelions, strawberryblossoms, wild roses, the pale wood-violet on its long stem, and amidthese familiars the saskatoon or service-berry bushes, with blueberryvines, and viburnums of many kinds. On the street the natty uniforms ofthe Mounted Police are in evidence, and baseball has penetrated as farnorth as this. In the post office we read, "It is decided to hold sports on the first day of July. The Committeepromises a splendid programme, --horse-races, foot-races, football match, baseball game. There will also be prizes for the best piece of Indianfancy-work. Dancing will be in full swing in the evening. All welcome. "

Opposite the hotel is a reading-room built by a Methodist parson whoalso made the furniture with his own hands; magazines, books, writing-material, games are available to all. This practical work of oneman who accepted the responsibility of being his brother's keeperappealed to us. In a store near the hotel we see a Cree boatmanpurchasing a farewell present for his sweetheart. As he turns over thefancy articles, we have bad form enough to observe his choice. Heselects a fine-tooth comb, for which he pays fifty cents, or as he callsit, "two skins, " and asks, as he tucks it into his jerkin, if he canchange it "if she doesn't like it. "

In the evening it rains, and the room assigned us becomes a livingillustration of the new word we have just learned, --"muskeg, " a swamp. Putting the precious cameras on top of the bureau, we let the rest ofthe things swim at their pleasure. Starting with the rest of theunattached community of Athabasca Landing to go down to the pool-room, we catch sight of Dr. Sussex and the Cree priest, who have found alittle oasis of their own around a big stove in the upper hall and, withchairs tilted back, are enjoying some portable hospitality from below. The doctor arises to escort us through the flood, and when I rally himabout his liquid refreshment, he says, "Oh, I had lemonade. "

"I see. And the priest?"

"He had--what he liked. "

If local colour and local smell is what we have come north for, we findit here. Mr. Brabant comes up with "I wonder if that bunch of nuns isgoing to get here in time to take scows with us, " and we pass into thebilliard-room and watch the game. The players gliding round in moccasinsare all half-breeds. The exclamations are for the most part in Cree orbad French, and as I crowd in looking for some local terms all that Ihear intelligible is, "That is damn close, I think me. "

For thirty-six hours on end it rains. That roof was full of surprises;you never knew where it would spring a fresh leak. One room is a littlebetter than the rest, and we all gather there and make the best ofit, --smoking, writing, telling yarns. A bumping noise from across thehall and the cry of a child startles us. It proves to be SergeantAnderson's baby whose cradle has started afloat, and there is a generalrush to rescue Moses from his bulrushes. Everybody is in good humour. 

As we calm the baby, South Dakota says "It reminds me of the Englishmanand his musical bath. " We demand the story. "Well, a rich American tooka great liking to an Englishman he had been travelling with, and senthim for a birthday present a Yankee invention to set up in hiscountry-house--a musical bath. As you turned on the spigot, the thingplayed a tune while you were washing, and sort of relieved the tee-deum. The two gents met next Christmas in New York, and the Yankee he sez, 'And how did you like the bath?' 'Oh, thank you very much, it was kindof you indeed, but I found it a little irksome standing all the time, you know. ' 'Standing, what the blazes do you mean?' asked the Yankee. 'Well, ' says the Britisher, 'the tune you furnished, you know, with thebawth, was _God Save the King_, and as soon as it began, you know, I hadto stand, and it's rather tiresome taking your bawth standing, youknow. "

Sergeant Joyce tells how at a Mounted Police dinner at Fort Saskatchewana parson, who was a guest, in proposing a toast, facetiously advised hisentertainers to have nothing to do with either a doctor or a lawyer. Itwas interesting to watch the parson's face when there arose to reply alawyer and a doctor, each a constable in the rank and file. 

Mrs. Leslie Wood of Athabasca Landing adds her quota to the Tales of aWayside Inn. We could have listened to her for a week and regrettedneither the rain nor the waiting scows. As a girl she remembers beingshocked at seeing men hold tin cups to the throats of newly-slaughteredbuffalo, drinking with gusto the warm blood. 

"What are the two greatest things on earth?" Mrs. Wood, as a young girl, asked the dusky disciples of her Sunday School class. "The Queen and TheCompany, " was the ready response. "And of these, which is the greater?"Little Marten-Tail rubbed one moccasin over the other, and the answercame thoughtfully in Cree, "The Company. The Queen sometimes dies, butThe Company never dies. "

"The Company, " of which the little girl spoke, "The Governor and Companyof Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay, " deriving its charter in 1670from the Second Charles of England, is the oldest chartered concern inthe world, with a present-day sphere of influence as large as GreatBritain, France, Spain, and Germany combined. From lone Labrador to thePacific littoral and from Winnipeg to the Frozen Ocean are scattered thetwo hundred and fifty fur-trading forts of this concern in charge of itstwo thousand strong silent servants. Last year it paid to itsstockholders a profit of forty-five per cent on the invested capital, and for two hundred and thirty-nine consecutive years it has beendeclaring dividends. The motto of the Company, _Pro Pelle Cutein_, isprominently displayed at Athabasca Landing. Literally translated, thephrase means "Skin for skin"; but why the promoters should have chosenas war-cry the words which Satan used when fighting with the Lord forthe soul of Job, is not so apparent. 

As we watch the trading goods being carried in the rain from warehouseto scows, we think how, weaving its cross-Atlantic way through thecenturies and joining the periwigged days of the Stuarts to this day, the one man-made thing that has persisted is this commerce-shuttle ofthe H. B. Co. 

In the days when The Company had its birth, the blind Milton wasdictating his message and the liberated Bunyan preached the spoken word, the iniquitous Cabal Ministry was forming in England, and Panama wassacked by Morgan the buccaneer. New York merchants of Manhattan metevery Friday at noon on the bridge over the Broad Street Canal forbarter, South Carolina was settled on the Ashley River, Virginia enactedthat "all servants not being Christians, imported into this country byshipping shall be slaves, " and her Governor, Sir William Berkeley, wasinspired to exclaim piously, "I hope we shall have neither free schoolsnor printing these hundred years, for learning has brought disobedienceand heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them. Godkeep us from both!" It was not until two years later that Addison wasborn, and that Marquette and Joliet sailed down the Mississippi, even aswe now are essaying the Athabasca. 

Unique in commercial annals is the Royal Charter which gave, with powerof life and death, to the Company of Gentlemen Adventurers, less thantwenty in number, "forever hereafter" possession and jurisdiction over acountry as large as Europe. Liberty here for utter despotism, the widestof excesses. We marvel that from the first Prince Rupert of the Rhine tothe latest Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, the Governors of theAncient Company have, with Duncan-like demeanour, borne themselves someek in their great office. 

It has been fashionable to paint the H. B. Co. As an agrarian oligarchy. Organized for the purpose of "making fur" before the time of the HabeasCorpus, two decades ahead of the Bank of England, sixty-two years beforeBenjamin Franklin began publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac, " and acentury in advance of Watt's steam-engine, it is true that The Company, throughout the years, devoted itself to peltries and not to plattingtown sites. This was its business. From the beginning it hasconsistently kept faith with the Indians; the word of The Company has, for reward or for punishment, ever been worth its full face value. Itwas not an H. B. Scot who exclaimed feelingly, "Honesty _is_ the bestpolicy, I've tried baith. "

The feeling of devotion to The Company is as strong today as it everwas. When the present Commissioner took office he penetrated the Northon a tour of inspection. At Athabasca Landing, since it was not knownjust when the Head would arrive, the local official charged all hisclerks and minions to be ready at the sound of a whistle to salute andfall into line for inspection. The call to arms came on Sunday morningduring divine service. Every attaché of The Company with one exceptionobeyed the signal. Young Tom Helly, the paid organist, stuck to hispost; and next day he was called on the carpet. "It was a specialservice; I was in the middle of the anthem, sir, and didn't like toleave the House of God. " "Couldn't you show some respect?" roared thelocal officer. Man was near in Athabasca Landing and God far away. Downin the big office at Winnipeg is a Doomsday Book where the life-recordof every servant of The Company is kept, for no man who has ever servedThe Company is lost sight of. When there is a good fur-winter, everyemployé of The Company is handed an envelope which contains abonus-cheque, --ten per cent of his yearly salary. 

[Illustration: C. C. Chipman, Commissioner of the H. B. Co. ]

The Commissioner of the Hudson's Bay Company and the head of one ofCanada's big department stores were dining together at a Toronto Club. "After six o'clock I don't want to see or hear of an employé--he doesn'texist for me until eight o'clock next morning, " said the head of thedepartment store. "Well, I'm more curious than you, " smiled theCommissioner of the H. B. Co. , "I want to be reasonably assured of whatevery man-Jack of my people is doing all the time. I want to know whathe reads, and if he treats his wife well, and how his last baby isgetting along--you see, he's a working-partner of mine. "

There came out of Northern British Columbia last year the Indian wifeand half-breed daughters of an H. B. Co. Factor. They were bound forMontreal and it was their first trip "outside. " The Commissioner atWinnipeg contradicts the old saw, and surely has "a soul above abeaver-skin"; like Mulvaney, too, he "has bowels. " Quickly went forwarda letter to a tactful woman in the border-town through which thevisiting ladies must pass--"Meet them, and see that they get the properthings to wear in society circles in Montreal. I don't want them to feelill at ease when they get there. " Stories like these give us glimpses ofthe kind of paternalism exercised by the Ancient Company, the one trustthat has never ground the faces of the poor, and in whose people to-dayappears the "constant service of the Old World. "

The big books of The Company a year or two ago in unmistakableround-hand declared that one Running Rabbit, lawful widow of Blueskin, was entitled to draw from the coffers clear-side bacon and a modicum offlour. But one quarterly paysheet, returned to Winnipeg from FortChurchill, showed that Running Rabbit in addition to her food allowancehad been handed out forty cents' worth of cotton. Stern enquiry, backedby red-tape and The Company's seal as big as a saucer, was sent up tothe Churchill Factor. Why had the allowance of Mrs. Blueskin (néeRunning Rabbit) been exceeded? By "return mail" nine months later theFactor reported, "The widow's gone, Her tent's forsaken, No more she comes For flour and bacon. N. B. The cotton was used for her shroud. "

The Ancient Company was penny-wise, but in spite of the copybook line, not pound-foolish, as its dividend paysheets conclusively prove. 

There is no desire to show forth these silent ones of the North asinfallible men and immaculate. They make many mistakes; they were andare delightfully human, and we couldn't picture one of them with asaintly aureole. But in the past, as in the present, they were largemen; they honoured their word, and you couldn't buy them. Men of action, whether inside fort walls, bartering in the tepee of the Indian, or offon silent trails alone, --it has been given to each of them to live lifeat firsthand. In every undertaking the determining factor of success ismen, and not money or monopoly. And because the North still breeds menof the H. B. Type, the eye of The Great Company is not dimmed, its forcenot abated. 

We spoke with no fewer than three men at The Landing who came into theNorth in the year of the Klondike rush, that is, just ten years ago. Into the human warp and woof of the Great Lone Land of Northern Canadathe Klondike gold-rush intruded a new strand. The news of the strike onYukon fields flashed round the world on wires invisible and visible, passed by word of mouth from chum to chum, and by moccasin telegraph wascarried to remotest corners of the continent. Gold-fever is a diseasewithout diagnosis or doctor--infectious, contagious, and hereditary; ifits germ once stirs in a man's blood, till the day of his death he isnot immune from an attack. The discovery of gold-dust in Dawson sentswarming through the waterways of sub-Arctic Canada a heterogeneoushorde, --gamblers of a hundred hells, old-time miners from quietfiresides, beardless boys from their books, human parasites of twocontinents, and dreamers from the Seven Seas. 

Coastwise they sought the North by steamers from 'Frisco, Seattle, andVancouver Island, and of the numbers of these the shipping offices havesome records. But of that vast army who from the east and from the southtravelled inland waterways towards the golden goal no tabulation hasever been made. Singly they went, in groups, and by partnerships of twoand three. There was no route marked out by which they were to reach theglittering streams of which they dreamed; the general direction of northand west was all that guided them. Athabasca Landing was the portalthrough which they passed, and by every northward stream theytravelled, --down the Athabasca toward the Mackenzie and up the Athabascato the Peace, leaving stranded men and stranded boats on every shore. Byraft and dug-out, scow and canoe, men essayed to travel rapid waterwayswho had never handled craft before, and the Indians still point out toyou near Grand Rapids on the Athabasca the site of the Mounted PoliceStation where Sergeant Anderson rescued a dozen tenderfoots fromdrowning. 

To the Indians of this vast country the unwonted inundation of thewhites was a revelation. Before this, their knowledge of Europeans hadbeen limited to men of the Hudson's Bay posts and the few black-robedFathers of the missions. The priests had told the Indians that in theoutside world French was the accepted language of the white man and thatonly the degraded and debased spoke English. Most of the NorthernIndians who speak English will tell you that they got their firstlessons from the Klondike miners. 

And what of the men who followed the gleam? Some reached Dawson. Thesewere few. Those who gained fortunes, were fewer still. In the old booksof the H. B. Co. A favourite phrase of the Factor is "a band of Indians_cast up_ from the east, " "the Express from the North _cast up_ at alate hour last night. " On the way to Dawson, and filtering backward fromthat point, hundreds of gold-miners are "cast up" on every interiorshore. Acting as attachés to Hudson's Bay posts, engaging as freetraders, manipulating missionary boats for Protestant and Roman Catholicseekers for souls, trapping off their own bat, and, in one instance atleast, marrying the missionary, they were constantly passing us. Roundthe home hearths wives wonder about them, and the old bent mother stillprays for her absent son. A silence like this once entered upon is hardto break, and the wanderer in the silence wraps tighter about him thegarment of the recluse. Outcropping from the strata in strikingindividuality, they belong to a different race to the plodding people ofthe Hudson's Bay posts, and are interesting men wherever you meet them. Keen of vision, slow of speech, and with that dreamy look which onlythose acquire who have seen Nature at her secrets in the quietplaces, --they are like boulders, brought down by the glacial drift anddropped here and there over the white map of the North. 

CHAPTER IV

DOWN THE ATHABASCA ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE MILES TO GRAND RAPIDS

"Set me in the urge and tide-driftOf the streaming hosts a-wing!Breast of scarlet, throat of yellow, Raucous challenge, wooings mellow--Every migrant is my fellow, Making northward with the Spring. "

--_Bliss Carman_. 

If you have to do with Indian or half-breed boatmen in the North youplan to begin your journey in the evening, even though you hope to runonly a few miles before nightfall. This ensures a good start nextmorning, whereas it would be humanly impossible to tear men away fromthe flesh-pots (beer pots) of Athabasca Landing early in any day. Ittook these chaps all the afternoon to say good-bye, for each one in thevillage had to be shaken hands with, every dog apostrophized by name. 

The Athabasca Transport of which we form joyous part makes a formidableflotilla: seven specially-built scows or "sturgeon-heads. " Each runsforty to fifty feet with a twelve-foot beam and carries ten tons. Theoars are twenty feet long. It takes a strong man to handle theforty-foot steering-sweep which is mounted with an iron pivot on thestern. 

Our particular shallop is no different from the others, except thatthere is a slightly raised platform in the stern-sheets, evidently adedication to the new Northern Manager of the H. B. Co. We share thepleasant company of a fourth passenger, Mrs. Harding, on her way home toFort Resolution on Great Slave Lake. The second sturgeon-head carriesseven members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, jolly laughingchaps, for are not they, too, like us, off duty? Inspector Pelletier andthree men are to go with our Fur Transport as far as Resolution and thendiverge to the east, essaying a cross-continent cut from there to saltwater on Hudson Bay. For this purpose they ship two splendidly madePeterborough canoes. The other three members of the force are youngchaps assigned to Smith's Landing on the Slave River, sent there toprotect the wood bison of that region, the world's last wild buffalo. The third craft we observe with due respect as "the cook boat. " Theremaining four scows carry cargo only, --the trade term being "pieces, "each piece from eighty to a hundred pounds, a convenient weight forcarrying on the portages. 

[Illustration: A "Sturgeon-head" at Athabasca]

[Illustration: "Farewell, Nistow!"]

June 6th at a quarter of seven saw the whole populace of AthabascaLanding on the river bank--dogs, babies, the officials of the Hudson'sBay, parson, priest, police, and even the barkeep, --and with the yelpingof dogs and "Farewell, Nistow!" we are off. We are embarked on a2500-mile journey, the longest water route on the continent, down whichfloats each year the food, clothing, and frugal supplies of a country asbig as Europe. 

The river is running five miles an hour and there is no need of theoars. The steersman is our admiration, as with that clumsy stern-sweephe dodges rocks, runs riffles, and makes bends. The scow is made ofgreen wood, and its resilience stands it in good stead as, like a snake, it writhes through tight channels or over ugly bits of water. Everybodyis in good humour; we are dreamers dreaming greatly. Why should we notbe happy? Mrs. Harding is homeward-bound, Mr. Brabant on a new rung ofthe fur ladder of preferment, Inspector Pelletier and his associatesstarting on a quest of their own seeking. Sitting low among the "pieces"of the police boat, with only his head visible in the sunset glow, Dr. Sussex builds air-castles of that eleemosynary hospital of his on theArctic Circle. The cook is whistling from the cook-boat. Five years agohe graduated from a business college, but the preparation of bannock andsow-belly appeals to the blood more insistently than trial balances andthe petty cash book. As for ourselves, the Kid's smile is almost audibleas she runs a loving hand over the oilskin cover of the camera. Afavourite expression of mine in the latitudes below when the worldsmiled was, "Oh, I'm glad I'm alive and white!" On this exclamation Istart now, but stop at the word "white. " North of Athabasca Landingwhite gives place to a tint more tawny. 

A hundred yards out, the Policemen are boyish enough to launch thoseshiny Peterboroughs just to try them, and in and out among the bigsturgeon-heads, debonair dolphins, they dart. Then comes the rain, andone by one the clumsy boats turn toward shore. There are some thingsthat even the enquiring mind cannot run to ground, things that justhappen out of the blue. For fifteen successive springs I have tried todiscover the first boy who brought marbles to school when marble-seasoncame in, and I have never yet been able to put my finger on that elusivehistory-maker. So on this voyage, the fleet is started and stopped, landings are made, camping-places decided upon, and no ear can detectthe sound of command. 

The scows tie up, and without undressing we sleep on board, pulling atarpaulin over us and letting the rain rain. At 5:30 next morning wehear the familiar "Nistow! Nistow!" of the awakened camp. This wordliterally means "brother-in-law, " but it is the vocative used by theCree in speaking to anybody he feels kindly toward. The cook makes adouble entry with bacon and bannock, and there is exulting joy in oursoul. Who would napkins bear, or finger-bowls? We had put them farbehind, with the fardels. 

It is the season of lengthening days and fading nights. At seven o'clockwe are in the river again, and for three glorious hours we float, firstone scow in front, then the other, social amenities in Cree beingshouted from boat to boat. Then, in one voice from three boats, "Mooswa!" and far beyond white man's vision the boatmen sight a moose. There is a little red tape about the ethics of taking off those preciousPeterboroughs which were to make history on the map, and in the delaythe moose wandered into pleasant pastures. The boatmen were very muchdisgruntled, as the moose is treasure-trove, the chief fresh meat thathis world offers the Indian. From here to the Arctic are no domesticanimals, the taste of beef or mutton or pork or chicken is unknown, bread gives place to bannock (with its consequent indigestion"bannockburn"), and coffee is a beverage discredited. Tobacco to smoke, strong, black, sweetened tea to drink from a copper kettle, --this isluxury's lap. 

The bowsman points to a rude cross on the right bank where a smallrunway makes in, "Gon-sta-wa-bit" (man who was drowned), he volunteers. Yesterday a Mounted Policeman buried there the body of an Indian man, his wife and his baby, who fell through the ice in a dog-sled thisspring, --three in one grave, Lamartine's trinity, the Father, theMother, and the Child. 

It is Sunday, and we have music from a li'l fiddle made by a squaw atLac Ste. Anne. Lac la Biche River we pass, and Calling River, and atfive in the evening are at Swift Current, Peachy Pruden's place, andthen Red Mud. Sunday night is clear and beautiful, and we float allnight. Making a pillow of a squat packing-case consigned to themissionary at Hay River, and idly wondering what it might contain, Idraw up a canvas sheet. But it is too wonderful a night to sleep. Lyingflat upon our backs and looking upward, we gaze at the low heaven fullof stars, big, lustrous, hanging down so low that we can almost reach upand pluck them. Two feet away, holding in both hands the stern sweep, isthe form of the Cree steersman, his thoughtful face a cameo against theshadow of the cut-banks. At his feet another half-breed is wrapped inhis blanket, and from here to the bow the boat is strewn with thesehuman cocoons. The reclining friend breaks the silence with a word ortwo of Cree in an undertone to the steersman, a screech-owl cries, fromhigh overhead drops down that sound which never fails to stir vagrantblood--the "unseen flight of strong hosts prophesying as they go. " It isthe wild geese feeling the old spring fret even as we feel it. Inimagination I pierce the distance and see the red panting throat of thatlong-necked voyageur as he turns to shout back raucous encouragement tohis long, sky-clinging V. 

Floating as we float, it is no longer a marvel to us that this Northholds so many scientific men and finished scholars--colonial Esausserving as cooks, dog-drivers, packers, trackers, oil-borers. The notknowing what is round the next corner, the old heart-hunger for newplaces and untrod ways, --who would exchange all this for the easy waysof fatted civilization!

At five in the morning there is a drawing-in of the fleet to PelicanPortage. Before two hours have passed the grasshopper has become aburden, and it is 102° in the shade, and no shade to be had. We are nowa hundred miles from Athabasca Landing. On the left bank we come acrossa magnificent gas-well with a gush of flame twenty or thirty feet inheight. 

It seems that eleven years ago, seeking for petroleum, the DominionGovernment had a shaft sunk here; their boring apparatus was heavy, theplunger with its attachment weighing nearly a ton. At eight hundred feetthe operator broke into an ocean of gas, and the pressure blew him withplunger and appliances into the air as a ball comes from a cannon-bore. The flow of gas was so heavy that it clogged his drills with maltha andsand, and from then to now the gas has been escaping. To-day the soundof the escape ricochets up and down the palisaded channel so that wecannot hear each other speak. There is gas enough here, if we could pipeit and bring it under control, to supply with free illumination everycity of prairie Canada. It has destroyed all vegetation for a radius oftwenty yards; but, oddly enough, outside this range of demarcation thegrowth is more luxuriant and comes earlier and stays later than that ofthe surrounding country. One redheaded Klondiker, ignorant of gas andits ways, ten years ago struck a match to this escaping stream, wasblown into the bushes beyond, and came out minus hair, eye-brows and redbeard--the quickest and closest shave he ever had. The shells of birds'eggs, tea-leaves from many a cheering copper-kettle, tufts ofrabbit-hair, and cracked shin-bones of the moose, with here a greasynine of diamonds, show, this Stromboli of the Athabasca to be thegathering-place of up and down-river wanderers. You can boil a kettle orbroil a moose-steak on this gas-jet in six minutes, and there is nothought of accusing metre to mar your joy. The Doctor has found apatient in a cabin on the high bank, and rejoices. The Indian hasconsumption. The only things the Doctor could get at were rhubarb pillsand cod-liver oil, but these, with faith, go a long way. They may haveeased the mind of poor Lo, around whose dying bunk we hear the relativesscrapping over his residuary estate of rusty rifle, much-mendedfishing-net, and three gaunt dogs. 

We pass House River, and the devout cross themselves and murmur aprayer. The point is marked by a group of graves covered with canvas. Here years ago a family of four, travelling alone, contracteddiphtheria, and died before help could reach them. There is anotherlegend of which the boatmen unwillingly speak, the story of the_Wetigo_, or Indian turned cannibal, who murdered a priest on thislonely point, and ate the body of his victim. The taste for human flesh, Philip Atkinson assures us, grows with the using, and this lunatic oflong ago went back to the camps, secured an Indian girl as bride, carried her to this point, took her life, and ate of her flesh. It is agruesome story. 

[Illustration: Grand Rapids on the Athabasca River]

Now begin the rapids, ninety miles of which we are to run. This roughwater on the Athabasca is one of the only two impediments to navigationon the long course between Athabasca Landing and the Polar Ocean. Thesefirst rapids, frankly, are a disappointment. The water is high, higherthan it has been for ten years, so the boiling over the boulders is notvery noticeable. The Pelican Rapid and the Stony we shoot withoutturning a hair; the Joli Fou is a bit more insistent, but, as the cooksays, "nothing to write home about. "

We drift in a drowsy dream of delight, and in the evening arrive at thehead of Grand Rapids. If we had looked slightingly on the rough waterpassed, what we now see would satisfy the greediest. We tie up and get agood view of what lies ahead, and get also our first real introductionto the mosquito. In mid-stream he had not bothered us much, but aftersupper it rained a little, the day had been warm, and with cymbals, banners, and brass-bands, he comes in cohorts to greet us. The scowshave their noses poked into the bank, the men have built smudge fires infront, but we decide that the best way to escape the mosquito is to goto bed. We lie down in the stern-sheets with our clothes on, makenight-caps of our Stetson hats, pull the veils down over our necks, andtry to sleep, but it is no avail. Each one of these mosquitoes is aPresbyterian mosquito and it has been ordained that this night he is totaste of white blood. It rains incessantly, and that hot hole in whichwe lie is one brown cloud of mosquitoes. The men on the bank havefinally given it up as a bad job, and they set round the fires smokingand slapping different parts of their persons, swearing volubly inEnglish. For the Cree language is devoid of invective. In the morning weare a sorry crowd, conversation is monosyllabic and very much to thepoint. It is the first serious trial to individual good-humour. Wheneach one of your four million pores is an irritation-channel ofmosquito-virus it would be a relief to growl at somebody aboutsomething. But the sun and smiles come out at the same time, and, havingbled together, we cement bonds of friendship. What did Henry the Fifthsay on the eve of Agincourt, --"For he to-day who sheds his blood with meshall be my brother"?

Who would worry about mosquitoes with that splendid spectacular of theGrand Rapids at our feet? The great flood (Kitchee Abowstik) is dividedinto two channels by an island probably half a mile in length, with itslong axis parallel to the flow of the river, and this island solves thequestion of progress. The main channel to the left is impassable; it iscertain death that way. Between the island and the right shore is apassage which on its island side, with nice manipulation, is practicablefor empty boats. Then the problem before us is to run the rough water atthe near end of the island, tie up there, unload, transfer the pieces byhand-car over the island to its other end, let the empty scows downcarefully through the channel by ropes, and reload at the other end. 

Between the bank where we are and the island ahead is a stretch ofroaring water dangerous enough looking. We have learned ere this, however, to sit tight and watch for events. The careless Indians havestraightened into keen-eyed, responsible voyageurs, each muscle taut, every sense alert. Our boat goes first, one half-breed with huge polebraces himself as bowsman, the most able man takes the stern sweep, theothers stand at the oars. Fifteen minutes of good head-work brings us tothe island and we step out with relief. The other boats follow andanchor, and we have opportunity at close range to inspect these worstrapids of the Athabascan chain. The current on the west side of thedividing island looks innocent, and we understand how the greenhornwould choose this passage-way, to his destruction. 

[Illustration: Portage at Grand Rapids Island]

The transportation of pieces occupied four days, every moment of whichwe enjoyed. Grand Rapids Island is prodigal in wild flowers, --vetches, woodbine, purple and pink columbines, wild roses, several varieties offalse Solomon's seal, our persisting friend dwarf cornel, and, treasure-trove, our first anemone, --that beautiful buttercup springingfrom its silvered sheath--

"And where a tear has dropt a wind-flower blows. "

I measured a grass-stem and found it two feet three inches high, risingamid last year's prostrate growth. 

[Illustration: Our transport at Grand Rapids Island]

At Grand Rapids Island we overtook two scows which had preceded us fromThe Landing and whose crews had waited here to assist in the transport. It gave us opportunity to observe these sixty representative half-breedsfrom Lac la Biche. Tall, strong, happy-go-lucky, with no sordid strainin their make-up, they are fellows that one cannot help feeling sympathyfor. A natural link between the East and the West, the South of Canadaand the North, they have bridged over the animosity and awkwardnesswith which the Red race elsewhere has approached the White. 

[Illustration: Cheese-shaped Nodules, Grand Rapids Island]

In a glade our camp is made, inside our tents we arrange themosquito-bar (a tent within a tent looking something like a good-sizeddog-kennel), and here we lie in our blankets. The hum of the foiledmosquito is unction to our souls. It is a relief, too, to remove theday's clothing, the first time in ninety-six hours. 

The Athabasca here cuts through a cretaceous sandstone, --soft, yellowish, homogeneous. In passing Grand Rapids Island it has a fall ofninety feet. The river has weathered the banks into vertical cliffs fouror five hundred feet high, imbedded in which are wonderful cheese-shapednodules, some the size of baseballs, some as big as mill-stones. Theriver-bed is strewn thick with these concretions from which the swiftcurrent has worn the softer matrix away, and many of the stones are asspherical as if turned out by a hand-lathe. The sandstone banks oppositethe island are overlain with a stratum of lignite three or four feetthick, which burns freely and makes acceptable fuel. Sections of fossiltrees are also seen, and the whole thing is fascinating, one's greatwish being for a larger knowledge of geology so as to read aright thisstrange page of history in stone. 

Timber along the Athabasca has suffered much from forest fires. What wesee is largely second growth, --Banksian pine, fir, spruce, birch, andaspen. The aspen is the first deciduous tree to leaf. Tall, slender, delicate, its bole is clean as an organ-pipe and its terraced featherybranches seem to float in air. 

Across the roaring water swallows are nesting in the clayey cliffs:--

"This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breathSmells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this birdHath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle:Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, The air is delicate. "

We learn that half-breeds share the Scottish superstition that it isunlucky to disturb bank-swallows. 

Others of the migrant host travel in upper air more quickly than we onwater, and have left us far behind, --swans, the Canada goose, greatflocks of brant, waveys by the millions, followed by their cousins ofthe duck tribe, --spoon-bill, canvas-back, mallard, pin-tail, ring-neck, wood duck, and merganser. The geese will not stop until they have passedthe Arctic Circle. Why people use the word "goose" as synonym forstupidity is beyond the ken of the ordinary observer. The text-bookstell us tritely that the goose lives to be a hundred years. If she does, she may exclaim with the Churchmen, "Yet are my years but labour andsorrow. " The little chaps who have their birthday parties amongsub-Arctic reeds are surrounded with enemies from the first day theycrack their baby shells. Lynx and raccoon prey upon them by land, eaglesand owls swoop upon them as they swim; and as with one eye they scan thesky above them, a greedy pike is apt to snap their web-feet from underthem and draw them to a watery grave. 

The cadets of the Hudson's Bay Company exchange courtesies with theMounted Police, each considering himself a distinct cut above the other. One Mounted Policeman, whose duty it had been to escort the crazedRussian Doukhobortsi on one of their "altogether" pilgrimages, is hailedacross the circle, "Here, lend us your knife, you nursemaid to theDouks. " "Who spoke?" yawned the Policeman. "Was it that fur-pup of theHudson's Bay?" "Yes, " retorted the first, "and I'm glad I'm it; youcouldn't pay me to wear a red coat and say 'Sir' to a damned littleFrenchman, even if you are going to blaze a trail to Hudson Bay. "

Some one asks Sergeant Joyce to tell his Bible story. He says, "Oh, about Coal-Oil Johnnie! It was the cub's first year in the service, andhe got off with some civilians and was drunk for a week. When he was inthe Guard Room awaiting court-martial he had lots of time 'to sit inclink, admirin' 'ow the world was made. ' Likewise he was very dry. Therewas nothing for him to amuse himself with but a paper of pins. He tookthe pillow of his cot and used the whole bunch of pins in working on itthe one word 'Hagar, ' in letters six inches high. The inspecting officercame in and the pin sign caught his eye. He spelled it out letter byletter, 'H-a-g-a-r, --what was the matter with him?' Johnnie retorted, 'The him was a her, and she died of thirst in the wilderness. ' Theinspecting officer says to Johnnie, 'Well, that would never happen toyou. '"

A peculiar drumming wafts from the shore-line. "Pa-pas-ku, " says one ofthe Cree lads, pulling his pipe from his mouth and listening. YoungHudson's Bay to my enquiring look returns, "The Canadian ruffed grouse, "which Sussex elucidated, "_Bonasa umbellus logata_, " at which we allfeel very much relieved. 

The Kid was pressing specimens, and, holding up a branch, the MountedPoliceman next her said, "Young jackpine, I think. " "It belongs to theConifer family, " corrects the Doctor. "Oh!" says the Mounted Policeman, with a sniff, "then we'll give it back to 'em the next time one of theConifer boys comes round. " The man of the river and the woods hates aLatin name, and any stray classic knowledge you have is best hiddenunder a napkin. The descriptive terms men use here are crisp and to thepoint. The vicious habit of giving birds bad names is one that grows, and you never know when the scientific have come to a finality. Forinstance, little Robin Red-Breast _("the pious bird with scarletbreast_" whose nest with four eggs the Kid discovered to-day), hassuccessively lived through three tags, "_Turdus migratorius_, ""_Planesticus migratorius_, " and "_Turdus canadensis_. " If he had notbeen an especially plucky little beggar he would have died under thelibels long ago. For my own part I cannot conceive how a man with goodred blood in his veins could look a chirky little robin in the eye andcall him to his face a "_Planesticus migratorius_, " when as chubbyyoungster he had known the bird and loved him as Robin Red-Breast. Oneis inclined to ask with suspicion, "Is naming a lost art?" Any newflower discovered these days, every clever invention in the realm ofmachinery, is forthwith saddled with an impossible name. If it had notbeen easy to clip the term "automobile" down to the working stub "auto, "the machine would never have run our streets. Again, the decimal systemis conceded to be far ahead of the asinine "five and one-half yards makeone rod, pole or perch"; the only reason why the commonsense thing doesnot supersede the foolish one is that the sensible measurement has thefool tag on it. Who could imagine ever going into a store and asking forseven decimetres and nine centimetres of picture-moulding, or droppinginto the corner grocery to buy a hectolitre of green onions? When mandug gold and iron and tin out of the earth he made things with them. Nowwhen we discover a new mineral we dub it "molybdenum" and let it rust ininnocuous ease. When man loses the art of nervous speech, his power ofaction goes with it. And as we ruminate, the _Bonasa umbellus togata_drums on. 

When we pass the parallel of 55°N. We come into a very wealth of newwords, a vocabulary that has found its way into no dictionary but whichis accepted of all men. The steep bank opposite us is a "cut bank, " anisland or sandbar in a river is a "batture. " A narrow channel is calleda "she-ny, " evidently a corruption of the French _chenal_. When it leadsnowhere and you have to back down to get out, you have encountered a"blind she-ny. " The land we have come from is known as "Outside" or "_LeGrand Pays_. " Anywhere other than where we sit is "that side, " evidentlyoriginating from the viewpoint of a man to whom all the world lay eitheron this side or that side of the river that stretched before him. Whenyou obtain credit from a Hudson's Bay store, you "get debt. " A Factor'sunwillingness to advance you goods on credit would be expressed thus, "The Company will give me no debt this winter. " From here northward theterms "dollars" and "cents" are unheard. An article is valued at "threeskins" or "eight skins" or "five skins, " harking back to the time when abeaver-skin was the unit of money. The rate of exchange to-day is fromfour skins to two skins for a dollar. Trapping animals is "making fur. ""I made no fur last winter and The Company would give me no debt, " is apainful picture of hard times. Whenever an Indian has a scanty larder, he is "starving, " and you may be "starving" many moons without dying orthinking of dying. "Babiche" in the North is the tie that binds, and"sinew" is the thread, babiche being merely cured rawhide from moose orcaribou, the sinew the longitudinal strands taken from either side ofthe spinal column of the same animals. 

[Illustration: Scouts of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police]

There is but one thing on this planet longer than the equator, and thatis the arm of British justice, and the Mounted Police, these chapssprawling at our feet, are the men who enforce it. The history of otherlands shows a determined fight for the frontier, inch by inchadvancement where an older civilization pushes back the native, --thereare wars and feuds and bloody raids. Not so here. When the homesteadercomes down the river we are threading and, in a flood, colonizationfollows him, he will find British law established and his home ready. The most compelling factor making for dignity and decency in thisborder-country is the little band of red-coated riders, scarcely athousand in number. Spurring singly across the plains that we havetraversed since leaving Winnipeg, they turn up on lone riverway orlakeside in the North just when most wanted. 

Varied indeed is this man's duty, --"nursemaid to the Doukhobor" was athrust literally true. His, too, was the task on the plains of seeingthat the Mormon doesn't marry overmuch. He brands stray cattle, interrogates each new arrival in a prairie-waggon, dips every doubtfulhead of stock, prevents forest-fires, keeps weather records, escorts alunatic to an asylum eight hundred miles away, herds wood bison on theSlave, makes a cross-continent dash from Great Slave Lake to Hudson Bay, preserves the balance of power between American whaler and Eskimo on theArctic edge!

At one time the roll-call of one troup of Mounted Police included in itsrank and file three men who had held commissions in the British service, an ex-midshipman, a son of a Colonial Governor, a grandson of aMajor-General, a medical student from Dublin, two troopers of the LifeGuards, an Oxford M. A. , and half a dozen ubiquitous Scots. Recently anex-despatch-bearer from De Wet joined the force at Regina, and althoughthe cold shoulder was turned on him for a day or two, he soon made good. One of the young fellows stretched before us, now going to Fort Smith toround up wood bison, was born in Tasmania, ran away from school atfourteen, sheared sheep and hunted the wallaby, stoked a steamer fromAustralia to England and from England to Africa, and in the early daysof bicycles was a professional racer. 

Constable Walker, lying lazily on his back blowing blue spirals intothe air, has in the long winter night made more than once, with dogs, that perilous journey from the Yukon to the Mackenzie mouth (onethousand miles over an unknown trail), carrying to the shut-in whalerstheir winter mail. On one of these overland journeys he cut off the tipsof his four toes. His guide fainted, but Walker took babiche and, without a needle, sewed up the wound. On this trip he was fifty-sevendays on the trail, during five days of which the thermometer hoveredbetween sixty-two and sixty-eight degrees below. 

CHAPTER V

NINETY MILES OF RAPIDS

"On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre, De win' she blow, blow, blow, An' de crew of de wood scow '_Julie Plante_' Got scar't an' run below--For de win' she blow lak hurricane Bimeby she blow some more, An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre Wan arpent from de shore. "

--_Dr. Drummond_. 

This morning we are to leave the Island; it is June 12th and Friday. Thedaylight lengthens from day to day and last night at half past tenunderneath the mosquito-bar within the tent, it was light enough tothread a needle. We have mending to do each night, and dragging clothesbehind the boat makes a satisfactory kind of progressive laundry. Atdusk we had seen an empty scow floating down river, adrift fromAthabasca Landing. In the middle of Grand Rapids she broke amidships, but held together until in the darkness she floated beyond our ken. 

Trouble of our own awaits us. With no one noting, an adventurous scow, with all her precious cargo, has pulled loose from her moorings. By thetime the Cree watchman discovers that the "_Go-Quick-Her_" has taken thebit in her teeth, the runaway with tail-sweep set has turned the nextcorner of the Athabasca. Great excitement! Billy Loutit and EmileFosseneuve borrow the Police canoe and go in chase. It is such a roughbit of water that we hold our breaths, for a false stroke means death toboth; but that false stroke does not come. Billy Loutit knows this riveras we know the borders and shrubs in our garden-bed. 

[Illustration: Towing the Wrecked Barge Ashore]

This accident causes everyone to look grave. The Edmonton value of thecargo is over two thousand dollars, but it is a loss that cannot bemeasured in dollars and cents. These wrecked goods, gaily sailing downthe Athabasca, cannot be duplicated at some convenient grocery aroundthe corner. 

We have learned that any untoward happening means a half day's delay. Philip Atkinson calls me to one side to suggest that it would be a"clear waste" to leave behind the eggs of "that duck's nest I showed youthe day we came. " Atkinson is a half-breed with a Hercules-build wholooks forty-five and owns up to sixty. He and I chatted over the mallardeggs and my collection of wild flowers, he respecting the preservativeart and I in full awe of that art gastronomic of his which gulps theMallards-in-embryo, sans fourchette, sans salt, sans ceremony. 

They are an interesting study, these half-breeds; it means much to eachon which side of the English Channel his father had birth. When aFrenchman marries an Indian woman he reverts to her scale ofcivilization; when a Scot takes a native to wife he draws her up to his. Our crew live at Lac la Biche and were engaged last winter for theirseason's work at from twenty to forty dollars a month, with board andmoccasins. They walked a hundred miles to Athabasca Landing to connectwith their summer's job, and the absolute certainty of regular mealsjust now appeals. They get three meals a day going with the current, andfour while tracking back, with meals thrown in when anything unusualhappens or a moose is killed. One cannot help wondering how that elasticterm "the law of heredity" works out with these people, cut off from thelives their fathers led and from the free woods-life of thepre-civilization Indian. 

Philip, duck-stuffed but untroubled by "that full feeling after eating, "lights his pipe and looks back through the years. "My father belonged toThe Company, my mother was an Ojibway from the Lake of the Woodscountry. My father went back to the Old Country when I was seven, leaving me to an uncle to be educated, and I don't know 'B' from abull's foot. He put me to work on the woodpile from morning till night. When my father came back after twelve years and found me ignorant, hecried like a baby. I have no education, but, " with a contemplativepuff, "I have friends wherever I go. " Philip is good to look at and heis a linguist, speaking Cree, French, and excellent English with adelightful Scotch accent. He is an ardent admirer of the H. B. Company. "They always kept their word with a man, and when they had done withhim, returned him without cost to his old home. " Philip and his two sonswere the first to shoot the Grand Rapids, and he tells us that thisstretch of the Athabasca River has been used only twenty years. Beforethat time people from the North reached Winnipeg by the Clearwater. Philip is a Loyalist. During the half-breed rebellion of 1885 he carrieddispatches to Middleton and Otter, going seventy-five miles one day onfoot. He had his horse, "a draught-horse as black as a crow, " taken fromhim twice, got through the lines and stole another, and tells proudlyhow for his deed of valor he was presented with an Assomption belt. 

At last we are off, keeping sharp look-out for the lost scow. BuffaloRiver, where we pull up for the night, is a recognized camping-place. The men know where to put their hands on old-time tent-poles, the boysdig out shin-bones of the moose, --the relics of some formerfeast, --which they gnaw as a puppy mumbles an old bone. 

Another manifestation of gas is here. It bubbles up on the shore andthrough the water at the boat's bow, and as we strike a match the wholesurface flames like the brandy on a Christmas plum-pudding. On theopposite side of the river are "lobsticks, " a new word to us and a newthing. To stand as a living totem-pole, the Indians select on a strikingpromontory a tall spruce and from a section of the trunk lop all thebranches except two, which are left as wings. If the lobstick is tostand a monument to a certain man or party, the names of those to behonored are written in Cree on an attached slab. We were to noticelobsticks from point to point along the rest of our journey, some ofthem indicating good hunting-grounds or fishing-places back from theshore, but most of them memorials of happenings on the river. 

The Little Buffalo carries to the Athabasca its noisy current betweentwo high escarpments, and on the shelf leading back from the banks ofthe main stream is a far-reaching plateau of splendidly-fertile land. Inthe scow next us the two young Crees who are preparing the food for ourevening "meat-su" carry on a religious controversy as they slice thesow-belly. We gather that one has been taken into the Protestant foldand that the other follows the priests. Duncan Tremblé comes down andcuffs them both soundly, putting an end to the argument with, "It's allthe same as the other, just like the Hudson's Bay Company and the freetrader. Each one tells you his goods is the best and the other is_nee-moy-yuh mee-wah-sin_ (no good). It's that way with the God-goods ofthe white men. Each church tells you that his is the best, but they allcome down to us in the same scow, both the priest and the missionary. "

Next morning we are all keyed-up for the rapids, and about six milesdown we encounter the Brulé, the first one, and take it square inmid-channel. We ship a little water, but pass through it all too soon, for the compelling grandeur of the Brulé grips one. The river here isheld between vertical walls of the reddest of red sandstone againstwhich the lush greenery makes a striking contrast. Twenty miles below isthe Boiler Rapid. It got its name not from its churning water butbecause the boiler of the steamer _Wrigley_ was lost here and stillremains at the bottom of the basin. The walls of this rapid are asclear-cut as if wrought into smoothness by mallet and chisel. Thetar-soaked sands appear off and on all the way to McMurray. Next comesthe Long Rapid _(Kawkinwalk Abowstick_), which we run close to its rightbank. 

From the distance sounds the ominous roar of the Big Cascade. At quarterpast four we reach the head of the swirling fall. The underlying causeof the Big Cascade is a limestone ledge which cuts the channeldiagonally and makes ugly-looking water. We plan to run the rapid oneboat at a time. The crews are doubled. Our steersman is alert, expectant, and as agile as a cat, his black hair switching in the wind. Sitting in the centre of the scow, as we do, the sensation is verydifferent to that which one experiences in running rapids in a canoe. Then it is all swiftness and dexterity, for your craft is light, and, inexpert hands, easily dirigible with one clever turn of the wrist. With aten-ton scow the conditions change and you feel correspondingly morehelpless. 

The great rapid stretches from shore to shore and the drop is sheer. With much excitement, the bowsman points out the channel that seems tohim the safe one. No one speaks, and the big awkward craft is brought upfor the jump. It is an elephant drawing his feet together to take awater-fence. For all we own in the world we wouldn't be anywhere butjust where we sit. If it is going to be our last minute, well, Kismet!let it come. At least it will not be a tame way of going out. For thelife of me I cannot forbear a cry of exultation. Then there is thefeeling below one's feet which you experienced when you were a kiddielying flat on your stomach coasting down a side-hill and your little redsled struck a stone. We, too, have struck something, but do not stop toask what the obstruction is. 

[Illustration: The Scow Breaks Her Back and Fills]

At the foot of the rapids, we hurry the boatmen ashore. I want tophotograph the next scow as she shoots the fall. We reach a goodvantage-point and, getting the coming craft in the finder, I have justtime to notice that her passengers are Inspector Pelletier and Dr. Sussex, when a sharp crack rings out like the shot of a pistol. Just aswe touch the button, something happens. We wanted a snap-shot, and itwas a snap-shot we got. The scow has broken her back and begins to fill. 

The blue-and-white jerkin of Isadore Tremblé, the pilot, dances in thesun as he gesticulates and directs his two passengers to crawl to thetop of the boat's freight. In less time than it takes to write it, themen from our scow have launched the police canoes and make their waythrough the boiling water to take off Pelletier and the Doctor. TheInspector says, "Step quick, Doctor, there's no time to waste. " Thenative politeness of Sussex doesn't fail him, even in this crisis, "After you, Inspector. " Then Pelletier says, sharply, "Jump, I tell you, jump; there's no time for--Gaston-and-Alphonse business here. "

As always, it is impossible to tell who directs affairs, but quicklythings happen. Lines are run from the wreck to the shore, other scowsdischarge their cargo on the bank and push out to take the water-loggedgoods from the wreck. The lightened craft is pulled ashore. There hasbeen no loss of life, but it is a sorry-looking cargo that piles up onthe bank, --five thousand dollars' worth of goods destroyed in threeminutes!

A sad procession, we make the boats, and drop downstream towardMcMurray. The night is beautiful. The sun sank in a crimson splendour anhour ago. A low-hung moon comes out and is visible and is hiddenalternately as we pass on the shore-line high hill and interveningswale. With a blanket thrown over me, as the others sleep, I lie alongthe gunwale, and the beauty of it sinks into my very soul. Just beforewe enter McMurray the wraith of a tall oil-derrick tells of theenterprise of some pioneer in the wilderness. 

The location of Fort McMurray is ideal. At this point the river breaksinto two branches which encircle a high-banked and thickly-woodedisland. Some hundreds of yards farther on the Clearwater River makes in;so here we have three streams. The fort has a foundation dating backforty years. This fur outpost will be the terminus of the Alberta andGreat Waterways Railway, and one could not well imagine a more beautifulsite for a great city. On the broad flat as we enter appear a handful ofIndian houses and the little stores of the fur-traders. 

Letters from the outside are not as eagerly looked for as one wouldexpect. To the people who live within the North, the North is theirworld, and to them the news of who is to be appointed to the charge ofthe next post down the river is of more, importance than the partitionof Turkey or a possible redistribution of the thrones of Europe. Mr. Brabant says, "Oh, by the way, Bob, there is a package of letters foryou somewhere in the scow. Shall I dig them out for you?" "Never mind, "says Bob, "I'll get them to-morrow. Have you got any whiskey?"

It is Sunday the fourteenth of June. On the long beach is strewn thewater-soaked cargo of the wrecked scow, the abomination of desolation. Mrs. Harding, although all of her personal belongings and her "specialorders" are ruined, smiles bravely. It is a point of honour in the Northnot to whine, whatever happens. All day we work trying to save some ofthe wrecked cargo. Bales of goods are unwound and stretched out forhundreds of yards in the sun. Bandanna handkerchiefs flutter on bushes. Toilet soap, boots, and bear-traps are at our feet. The Fire-Ranger ofthe district, Mr. Biggs, has his barley and rice spread out on sheeting, and, turning it over, says bravely, "I think it will dry. " Mathematicaland astronomical instruments consigned to a scientist on the Arcticedge are shaken off centre and already have begun to rust, and there aremiles and miles of cordage and nets, with braids and sewing silks andHudson's Bay blankets!

In the midst of his wrecked drugs and cherished personal effects theDoctor is a pitiful sight. By stage and by scow, he has been confidingto us that, in order to save bulk, his medicines have been specially putup for him in highly concentrated form by London chemists. One littlepill-box of powder is potent enough to make a dozen quart-bottles ofeffective medicine. And now all these precious powders have meltedtogether, and appear like Dicken's stew at the Inn of the JollySand-boys "all in one delicious gravy. " The Doctor is dazed, and offersto white and brown alike a tin box with "Have a pastile, do. " He wandersamong the half-breeds, offering plasters for weak backs, which theyaccept with avidity as combining two things that the red man speciallyappreciates, --something free and something medicinal. Sad-faced, theDoctor brings to me a glass case holding a dozen lozenge-shaped disks oneach of which an infinitesimal piece of wood rests. "Here are someauthenticated relics, but unfortunately the water has made them run andI don't know them apart. You see they have the seal of the CarthusianMonastery on the back. One of them is a piece of the true Cross, but Ishall never be able to tell which it is. " One by one the Doctor digs outfrom the wreck his water-soaked treasures, --a presentation "Life of theCountess of Munster, " also a crucifix from her, and a beautifully-carvedholy water stoup of French design which he declares to be "as old as theConqueror. " There is a medal of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers whichcarries with it the freedom of the City of London. Another order showsthe Doctor to be a Knight of the Primrose League; and, fished from undera side of bacon, is a print of "my great-grandfather who discovered acure for scurvy. " A missionary's box of toys for some Christmas tree inFar North fastnesses is opened, and here a native stops work to leadalong the sand a pink-and-blue alligator. 

[Illustration: Miss Gordon, a Fort McMurray Trader]

Although the wrecked scow has its grotesque features, the sight is a sadone, and we are glad to leave it and pull across the river to FortMcMurray. We call upon Miss Christine Gordon, a young Scottish woman anda free-trader, if you please, in her own right, operating in oppositionto the great and only Hudson's Bay Company. The only white woman on afive hundred mile stretch of the Athabasca, she has lived here for yearswith the Indians for companions, her days being marked out by theirmigrations and tribal feasts. We question, "Are you not lonely, especially in the winter?" But she smiles and refuses to be regarded asheroic. "Often in the winter a trapper passes through, and the Indiansare always coming and going, and they are full of interest. "

We have not walked with Miss Gordon for half an hour among the tepeeswhen we discover the secret of her cheeriness and content. Our happinessconsists not in our havings but in our attitude of mind. The world isdivided sharply into two classes. The classes are not the white and theblack, the good and the bad, the sheep and the goats, as the orthodoxwould have us believe. We are all good and bad, not black or white, butvarying shades of grey. Neither are we sheep or goats, but moralalpacas, all of us, --something between a sheep and a goat. But no lessare we divided into two clear-cut classes. Each of us puts himself ofhis own volition into the class of the self-centred, or theself-forgetting, and in the act marks himself as happy or unhappy. 

As Miss Gordon lifts the tent-flaps, smiles greet her from every home. The baby in the moss-bag is handed up for her inspection, and old blindPaul Cree, the Chief, knows her moccasined step, and rises on his elbowfrom his couch of spruce-boughs to greet her eagerly and salute any thatshe may present as friend. The Chief is in his ninety-sixth year anddepends upon chance visitors for his companionship and food. Yet anassured air of dignity shows that Paul Cree is aware of the respect dueto the Chief of the McMurrays. He addresses us in Cree, which MissGordon translates. "I am delighted that ladies have come such a longdistance on purpose to see me. The white man is my friend. I think allwhite women must be good. Their mothers have taught them to be kind toold people. I am sorry I am blind. Be glad that you can see the water, the sky, the birds and flowers and the faces of little children, " andthe tired old head sinks on the fir-boughs and we are dismissed. "Beglad you are alive, and use that sight while you have it. " It is theadvice given by that other strong man laid on his back, Carlton in theWinnipeg Hospital. 

We are joined by Paul Cree's brother. He has long hair, and wears a pairof pince-nez as an English gallant wears his monocle--merely for effect, for there is nothing the matter with the vision of those sharp eyes. Inone tepee a young mother is reading a service book of the Roman Churchto her little girl of five. Across the plateau under the shadow of thehill we enter a camp where Miss Gordon has a patient with an injuredhand. The cut is ugly and is surrounded by proud flesh, and we find thattwice a day Miss Gordon leaves her household work and her little storeto go across and dress this wound. 

When a schoolboy takes to his bosom a _fidus Achates_, the first thinghe does is to offer to show his birds' nests; so Miss Gordon introducesus to her find, --nests of the Gambel sparrow. We take two views, one ofa nest of five eggs and another of the nesting mother. 

During the past winter Miss Gordon has fed the Indians in families, asthey had "made little fur, " entertaining them as courteously as youwould your special friends at an afternoon of pink tea and pinkthoughts. Visiting the sick, trading fur, cultivating her little garden, bringing wolf pups and bear cubs up by hand, thus this plucky womanpasses her days. It takes the adaptability and dour determination of aScot to fit into this niche. Your Irishwoman would last in McMurray justabout three days. 

A new duty has been taken on by Miss Gordon, --the reading of therain-gauge just installed by the Canadian Government. Slyly taking apeep into her records, we feel that they will have to be adjusted to thelatitude of Ottawa when they get there, for with a true Northerncontempt for fractions she has made all the decimals read as fullfractions. The outside world which feasts on blue-books is apt in thefuture to be startled at the generous precipitation accorded FortMcMurray! Miss Gordon's ambitions run in other lines than themathematical. Holding us by both hands as we bade good-by, she said, "Oh, that I were young again, I would learn, learn, learn. I would learnmedicine so that I could help these poor creatures. " Her tone ofunselfish sincerity we carry with us as we make our way back to thescows, bearing with us, as token of good-will from the Gordon garden, radishes and lettuce for an evening salad. 

Next morning we start bird-hunting on our own account, and get a pair ofpictures as striking as those we have Miss Gordon to thank for--aFoxsparrow on the nest, then the baby sparrows but one day old. If anyone thinks it easy to find and photograph birds' nests in the heart ofthe ancient wood on Athabascan banks in mosquito time he has "anotherguess coming. " The mosquito here is not a joke, not a theorem, but astinging entity. During the five days we are at Fort McMurray thepotatoes in Miss Gordon's garden have grown as many inches, literallyan inch a day. Wood violets, wild roses, false Solomon-seal, and thewild sarsaparilla are everywhere; the air is full of the scent ofgrowing things. 

[Illustration: The Steamer _Grahame_]

Fort McMurray is the parting of the ways where the Hudson's BayCompany's steamer _Grahame_ meets us, bringing her tale of outward-goingpassengers from the North. The journey of these people from FortMcMurray to The Landing is going to be a very different thing from theeasy floating with the current that we have enjoyed. All northern riversare navigated against stream by "tacking, " that is, towing the boats, weary mile after mile, "by the power o' man, " the half-breed boatmenscrambling now on the bank, now in the water, tugging the heavily-ladencraft after them. It is a mode of transportation that neither writtenword nor camera can do justice to. We shake hands with those going outto civilization and take our dunnage aboard the steamer. The _Grahame_has its advantages, --clean beds, white men's meals served in realdishes, and best of all, a bath!

On the _Grahame_ we meet Mr. Harris, of Fond du Lac, who has come thusfar to greet the incoming transport and who goes back again with it. Scholarly and versatile, we are to find in Mr. Harris a very mint ofIndian lore and woodland wisdom and the most wonderful memory I haveever encountered. All the vicissitudes of a Northern life have failed torub out one line of the Virgil and Horace of his schoolboy days, wholechapters of which, without one false quantity, he repeats for us in aresonant voice. He can recite the whole of "Paradise Lost" asfaultlessly as Macaulay was credited with being able to do. If Mr. Harris could be induced to write a story of the North it would put toshame all the weak efforts of one-season visitors who of necessity seeonly the surface and have to guess the depths. 

As we pull out, we mentally run our fingers along the parallel of 56°40' North to find out by comparison, as they say in Chicago, "where weare at. " In Europe we would be on the top of Ben Nevis and not so farnorth as Aberdeen. Our line of latitude run westward will cut Sitka, andthe lone Pribilof, "where the little blue fox is bred for his skin andthe seals they breed for themselves. " Crossing the junction of theClearwater with the Athabasca, we strike for the first time the trail ofSir Alexander Mackenzie, who came in by Portage la Loche, and in 1789traced to the sea the great river which bears his name. At itsconfluence with the Clearwater the Athabasca is perhaps three-quartersof a mile wide, and it maintains a steady current with a somewhatcontracting channel to the point of its discharge into Lake Athabasca inlatitude 58° 36' North. 

[Illustration: An Oil Derrick on the Athabasca]

In all Canada there is no more interesting stretch of waterway than thatupon which we are entering. An earth-movement here has created a line offault clearly visible for seventy or eighty miles along the river-bank, out of which oil oozes at frequent intervals. Count von Hammerstein, building derricks from point to point along the stream, has put in muchtime, toil, and money in oil-development here. Our traverse of thoseninety miles of Athabasca Rapids has given us respect for the labor anddetermination which in this wilderness has erected these giantderricks. Looking at them, we waft a wish that the plucky prospector mayreap his reward and abundantly strike oil. The Count tells us ofstriking one hundred and fifty feet of rock salt while "punching" one ofhis oil-shafts through the ground. Here are overhanging dykes oflimestone; and out of the lime and clay shoot up splendid trees of pine, poplar, and spruce. 

[Illustration: Tar Banks on the Athabasca]

At Fort McKay, thirty miles below McMurray, a fine seam of coal isexposed on the river-bank. It is bituminous, and can be used forblacksmithing, but probably not for welding. Ochre is found on thesebanks, with sand of the very best quality for making glass, whileextensive sulphur deposits have been discovered on the east side of theriver between Fort McMurray and the lake. On the Clearwater aremedicinal springs whose output tastes very much like Hunyadi water. 

Tar there is, too, in plenty. Out of the over-hanging banks it oozes atevery fissure, and into some of the bituminous tar-wells we can poke atwenty foot pole and find no resistance. These tar-sands lithologicallymay be described as a soft sandstone, the cementing material of which isa bitumen or petroleum. They are estimated to have a distribution ofover five hundred square miles. Where it is possible to expose asection, as on a river-bank, the formation extends from one hundred andtwenty-five to two hundred feet in depth, the bitumen being distributedthrough the sands. 

Twelve miles below the last exposure of the tar-sands and about twomiles above the mouth of Red Earth Creek a copious saline spring bubblesup, and there is an escape of sulphurretted hydrogen whose unmistakableodour follows the boat for half a mile. Kipling was right when he said, "Smells are surer than sounds or sights. "

We speak only of what we observe from the deck of a boat as we pass downthis wonderful river. What is hidden is a richer story which only thecoming of the railroad can bring to light. 

CHAPTER VI

FORT CHIPEWYAN PAST AND PRESENT

"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their humble joys and destiny obscure. "

--_Gray's Elegy_. 

At seven in the morning of Sunday, June 21st, we enter Lake Athabasca, and catch our first glimpse of Fort Chipewyan. An acceptance of theinvitation, "Come, shake your leg, " has kept the men busy half the nightover a hot sequence of Red River jigs among "pieces" on the lower deck, and we have this superb sweep almost to ourselves. 

The great lake-scape is blue and green and grey and opaline as the sunstrikes it and the surface breaks to a south wind. Ours is the one crafton this inland sea, but overhead a whole navy of clouds manœuvres, theships of the ghostly argosy doubling themselves in the lake. As we drawin, the village takes shape. What haunts us as we look at the whitehouses, that crescent beach of pinkest sand? We have it! It is a print, an old woodcut of "Russian America" that we used to pore over in thedays when one wore "pinnies" of flour-sacking, and "hankies" were madefrom meal-bags. 

At one end of the village are the little smithy of the Hudson's BayCompany and the pretentious buildings of their establishment. At theother gibbous horn of this Athens of the Athabasca rise the steeplesand convent-school of the Roman Church, with the free-trading-post ofColin Fraser. Midway between is the little Church of England, and higherup and farther back the Barracks of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. The white-washed homes of the employés of The Company, littlematch-boxes dazzling in the sun, stretch from one end of the beach tothe other. In among the half-breed populace stalk policeman and priest, red jacket keeping the dark-skinned people straight in this world andblack robe laying out conditions for the world to come. So is Chipewyanfate chequered with the _rouge et noir_ of compulsion and expediency. 

[Illustration: Fort Chipewyan, Lake Athabasca]

Fort Chipewyan is the oldest post in the North, and every boulder of redgneissic rock, if we could interrogate it, has a story to tell. PeterPond, of the North-West Company, in 1778 built a post on the AthabascaRiver thirty miles to the south of the lake. The far-seeing AlexanderMackenzie, in the interests of the same company, sent his cousinRoderick ten years later to build Fort Chipewyan on the lake, and forover a century this was the entrepôt and emporium of the whole North. The Hudson's Bay Company meanwhile were maintaining a post, FortWedderburne, not far away on Potato Island, and upon the amalgamation ofthe Companies in 1821 they took possession of the present FortChipewyan. 

This metropolis is one hundred and twenty years old. Chipewyan was doingbusiness at the same old stand before Toronto was the capital of UpperCanada, while Ottawa was still unheard of, and when of Chicago not eventhe Fort Dearborn nucleus had been built. 1788! We wonder if the old oxthat conveys our "cassette" and "pieces" up to the big gateway of TheCompany's quadrangle was a drawer of wood and drinker of water at thatdate. He looks as if he might have been. George III was reigning inEngland when Fort Chipewyan was built, Arkwright was making his spinningjenny, and Watts experimenting with the steam-engine. Sir JoshuaReynolds painted his pictures, Burns, a young man of twenty-nine, wasbusy with his ballads. In London a little baby saw the light of day, whom the world afterwards hailed as Lord Byron. Three British boys mighthave been seen with arms thrown over each other's shoulders, "dreaminggreatly"--Coleridge aged sixteen, young Walter Scott, seventeen, andWordsworth just eighteen. Across the Channel the French Revolution wasat its height. Shelley and Keats were not yet born. Down on theAtlantic seaboard of America a new people just twelve years before hadgone through the birth-throes of nationhood. It is a far call. 

Scraping the yellow lichens off the old sun-dial, we adjust ourbearings. We are 111° West of Greenwich and in latitude 58° 45' North. Our parallel carried eastward would strike the Orkneyan skerries andpass through Stromness. All untouched by the development of that busycontinent to the south which has grown up within its lifetime, Chipewyanis a little pearl of the periwigged days of the early Georges. From itsred sands, tamarack swamps, and mossy muskeg one almost expects to seearise the forms of those great of old who outfitted here, makingChipewyan the base of their northward explorations. The ghostly companyis a goodly one--Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Sir George Simpson, and SirJohn Franklin (their honorary prefixes coming to them in the after daysas reward of their labors), Back and Richardson and Rae, and in laterdays that young stripling curate who was afterwards to be knownthroughout the world of letters as Bishop Bompas, the "Apostle of theNorth. " Then there is the great unnamed horde who rested tired limbs atChipewyan on their northward journeys, each on his ownmission--fur-traders and hunters of big game, devoted nuns and silentpriests, the infrequent scientist, and the hundreds of Klondikers, theirhearts hot with the greed for gold. These all through the century haveenjoyed as we now enjoy the spontaneous hospitality of this little bitof Britain which floats the Union Jack from its fort walls, and whosepeople, brown and white, when the belated news of the passing ofVictoria the Great reached this her northern outpost, gathered on thebeach and bewailed aloud their personal loss. We seem to hear again thefar-flung cry "The Queen is dead! The Queen is dead!" from thehalf-breed runners coming in that Christmas Day across the winter ice. 

Mackenzie made Chipewyan his headquarters for eight years. It was fromhere he started on his voyage to the Arctic Sea in 1789, and three yearslater on that other history-making journey to the far Pacific. Sir JohnFranklin outfitted here for his two land-journeys--in July, 1820, withDr. Richardson, and again in 1825. Chipewyan is a mine of interest. Wealmost begrudge time given to the dainty meals of our hostess, Mrs. William Johnson, and the hours spent between her lavender-scentedsheets. 

In the loft above the office of the H. B. Company, in among oldflintlock rifles and discarded ox-yokes, we browse through the dailyrecords of The Company, old journals written by the Factors at the closeof their day's work through the years and here preserved for ourinquisitive eyes. Sitting on the floor, making extracts from thesetomes, one has the half-guilty feeling of being caught poking into atomb. 

On this page the ink is thin and one can see the old writer thawing outhis frozen ink-pot of stone at the end of a tired day and sitting downto write his simple tale. Here are finger-marks where the blood of abuffalo gives a marginal note. The journalist had been called away fromhis writing to weigh and pay for some fresh meat. Drops from a tallowcandle show the light of other days. A pressed mosquito of the vintageof 1790 is very suggestive. We picture the trivial round and common taskof the man who writes, see him exchanging fathoms of tobacco forbeaver-pelts in those long, cold winters, and eagerly hunger with himfor the signs presaging the going-out of the ice and the coming-in ofSpring. We follow out the short Summer with him and revel in itsperpetual daylight. With him we make the fall fishery and shoot ourwinter's supply of waveys and southward-flying cranes. We wonder, as hewondered, what news the next packet will bring from the old folks in theOrkneys or the Hebrides. We study, as he studied, the problem ofgoverning his servants, placating the Indians, and making enough fur tosatisfy that inexorable Board of Directors back in London whose motto is"Skin for skin. "

It has been a grim enough life as the author of this journal records it. He is far from those who direct his fate, and recognition and reward areslow in coming. Companionship and the gentle arts of "outside" aredenied him. He must make his own world and rear within it his duskybrood, that they in honourable service may follow his round of "workdone squarely and unwasted days. " What made the charm of this life tothese men? It is hard to see. The master of the post was also master ofthe situation, and an autocrat in his community, a little Fur King, aCaptain of Industry. A thing was law because he said it. And isn't itCaesar himself who declares, "Better be first in a little Iberianvillage than second in Rome?"

We get a delightful picture in an entry under the date of Wednesday, 23rd May, 1827, when Sir John Franklin was on his way back to England atthe end of his second journey. 

"To-day William McGillivary and Katherine Stewart, daughterof Alexander Stewart, Chief Factor, were joined in holy wedlockby Captain John Franklin, R. N. , Commander of the Land ArcticExpedition. "

Great is the force of example, for five days later appears the entry

"This evening the ceremonial of marriage took place betweenRobert McVicar, Esq. , and Christy McBeath. Captain Franklinacted on the occasion as clergyman. The ceremony o'er, theevening was agreeably spent in a family assembly. "

Looking at these records, we are reminded of a not-very-well-known storyof international courtesy which connects itself with the third andill-fated journey of Franklin. Old Sir John, then in his sixtieth year, had sailed from England in an attempt at the Northwest Passage. Yearspassed and no word came from the explorer, and in 1852 the ice-desertwas still mute. 

In this year, Sir Edward Belcher in the _Resolute_ headed one of themany Arctic Relief Expeditions, subsequently abandoning his boat in theice off Melville Island. Next year the American whaler _Henry George_met the deserted _Resolute_ in sound condition about forty miles fromCape Mercy; she must have drifted through Barrow Strait, LancasterSound, and Baffin Bay. She was recovered, the Government of the UnitedStates bought her and with international compliments presented her inperfect condition to Queen Victoria in 1856. The old ship was broken upabout thirty years ago, and from the soundest of her timbers a soliddesk was made by direction of Queen Victoria, who presented it to thethen President of the United States. This is the desk which stands inPresident Taft's reception room to-day, and on it the papers of eightadministrations have been written. 

There is living as well as buried history in Chipewyan. A stroll fromone end of its lacustrine street to the other is lush with interest. Wecall upon Colin Fraser, whose father was piper to Sir George Simpson. Colin treats us to a skirl of the very pipes which announced theapproach of Simpson whenever that little Northern autocrat, during histriumphal progress through a bailiwick as big as Europe, made his wayinto a new fort. 

With the echo of the "_Gay Gordons_" in our ears we pass into thelargest convent in the North country, managed by the Grey Nuns ofMontreal. Sister Brunelle came into the North in 1866. Forty-two yearsin a convent-school of the Northland! It makes one gasp. 

These Indian schools, assisted by the Canadian Government, catch thelittle Indians in the camps and hold their prey on school-benches fromthe age of four to fourteen. One boy is dumb, another a hunchback. In acorner we came upon a poor old derelict of the camps, a Cree woman, paralysed and mentally deranged, who within these quiet walls has foundharbour. The kiddies are taught one clay in French and the next day inEnglish; but when they hide behind their spellers to talk about thewhite visitors, the whisper is in Chipewyan. What do they learn?Reading, (vertical) writing, arithmetic, hymns, and hoeing potatoes, grammar, sewing and shoemaking, and one more branch, never taught inSouthern schools. When the fall fishery comes, the nuns kilt up theirskirts, slates are shoved far back into desks, and shepherdess and sheep(young brown moose!) together clean the whitefish which are to furnishmeals for a twelve-month to come. If fish be brain food, then shouldthis convent of Chipewyan gather in medals, degrees, and awards, capturing for its black-eyed boys Rhodes scholarships _ad lib_. 

[Illustration: Three of a Kind]

Back of the convent stretches a farm with an historic record. It wasfrom this enclosure, tilled by the priests and their protégés, that thesample of wheat came which at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphiain competition with the wheats of the world took the bronze medal. Thiswheat ran sixty-eight pounds to the bushel. 

We linger in the convent, looking at the rows of tiny beds neat andimmaculate, each covered with its little blue counterpane. Sister Jigot, with the air of divulging a state secret, tells that the prettybed-covering is flour-sacking, that it is dyed on the premises from arecipe brought out of Chipewyan woods. In the long winter evenings thesegood step-mothers of savages do all their reading and sewing before sixo'clock. The mid-winter sun sinks at four, and two hours of candle-lightis all that the frugal exchequer can afford. "What in the world do youdo after six?" I venture; for well we know those busy fingers are notcontent to rest in idle laps. "Oh! we knit, opening the stove-doors togive us light. " Many a time are we to throw a glance backward throughthe years to these devoted souls upon Athabascan shores, trying to grafta new civilisation on an old stock, and in the process economising theircandles like Alfred of old. 

Both Protestant and Roman missionaries are amateur doctors and we find astimulating rivalry in bodily and spiritual ministrations. At the Churchof England Mission we are shown with triumph a piece of bone salved fromthe leg of an injured Indian. Afterward we learn that the peripateticpatient accepted the Church of England treatment in the daytime, and inthe evening shadows was carried across the rocks to the shrine of Rome. Poor chap, he died in the process! But while he lived he stimulatedtrade, and his memory lingers to point a moral and adorn a tale. Ifthere had but been a Presbyterian Church within range, he might havecomforted himself with the thought that it had all been comfortablyfore-ordained. 

An interesting family lives next to the English Mission--the Loutits. The father tells of the days when as a young man he served The Company, and "for breakfast on the march they gave you a club and showed you arabbit-track. " There were Loutits in Chipewyan as far back as the oldjournals reach. The Scottish blood has intermingled with that of Creeand Chipewyan and the resultant in this day's generation is a family ofstriking young people--the girls good to look at and clever in bead-workand quill-ornamentation, the boys skilled in nemoral arts and holdingthe strong men's records of the North. 

George Loutit without help brought a scow with four thousand pounds fromAthabasca Landing to Chipewyan through the ninety miles of rapids. Hisbrother Billy, carrying a special dispatch of the Mounted Police, ranwith a hand-sled (and no dogs) from Chipewyan to Fort Smith and back inthree days--a distance of two hundred miles at least. Once, when theriver rose suddenly in the night, Billy unloaded nine tons from one scowto another, astonishing the owners, who snored while Billy was toilingupward in the night. The rivermen tell of George Loutit's quarrelingwith a man one afternoon in a saloon at Edmonton and throwing hisadversary out of the window. When he heard him slump, George immediatelythought of the North as a most desirable place and started hot-foot forAthabasca Landing, a hundred miles away. He arrived there in time fornoon luncheon next day. 

At the H. B. Co. End of the village we find Pierre Mercredi in charge. AFrench Bishop once wanted to train him for the priesthood, but it ispeltries and not souls that Pierre is after. His forebears were IrishMcCarthys, but this name failed to fall trippingly from the tongue ofFrench priests, and became corrupted into the Mercredi as he now signsit. 

Throughout the journals of the last forty years we run across suchentries as these:--"Wyllie at the forge, " "Wyllie making nails, " "Wylliestraightening the fowling-pieces, " "Wyllie making sled-runners, " "Thisday Wyllie made a coffin for an Indian. " We step into the old man'ssmithy, and he turns to greet us with an outstretched hand and a "Goodmornin', " in richest Doric. The date 1863 cut into the wooden foundationof his forge marks the year when Wyllie came to Chipewyan. He was bornin the Orkneys, and had never seen a city in the Old World. Coming outto America in a sailing vessel of The Company by way of Hudson Bay, hethreaded the inland waterway which brought him to Chipewyan withoutseeing a city in America. Torontonians think the hub of the universe istheir capital on Lake Ontario. A smart young man from Toronto filteredin one day to Chipewyan, and asked the old blacksmith, "Came from theOld Country, didn't you? What did you think of Toronto?" "Naething, Ididna see the place. "

Mr. Wyllie has never seen an electric light nor a railway train nor atwo-story building nor a telegraph wire nor a telephone. In theforty-five years in which he has presided over this forge, the limits ofhis wanderings have been McMurray on the south, Fort Smith on the north, Fond du Lac on the east, the Chutes of the Peace on the west. To himthese are innocuous days of ease, in which we are falling intoluxuriousness with all its weakening influence. "It was much better inthe old days when we had only dried meat and fish-oil. Nowadays, when wehave flour and tinned meats and preserved fruits, all my teeth arecoming out!"

No one feels like smiling a smile of superiority in talking with old Mr. Wyllie. He has taught himself the gentle arts of gunsmithing andblacksmithing. The tools that we see all around us are marvels ofmechanical skill and would be the joy of a modern Arts and CraftsExhibition. His sledges and augurs, planes and chisels have been made bythe old man out of pig iron which came as ballast in the holds of thoseold sailing ships which beat their way into Fort Churchill throughHudson Strait. The hand-made tools are set into convenient handles ofmoose-horn and bone. Clever indeed is the workmanship that Wyllie hasdone with them. The last triumph from this unique forge was the weldingof the broken shaft of the little tug _Primrose_. The steamer _Grahame_was built at Chipewyan of whipsawn lumber, and much of her steel andironwork was wrought on Wyllie's forge. 

Wyllie left the Scottish Isles when a mere lad, but they are still"Home" to him and he tells us that this autumn he is going back on avisit. It was a prototype of Wyllie's

"From the lone sheiling and the misty island, Mountains divide us and a waste of seas, But still the heart, the heart is Highland, And we in _dreams_ behold the Hebrides, "

who prayed "O, Lord, we beseech Thee, send down Thy covenanted blessin'on the Muckle Hebrides, the Lesser Hebrides, and the adjacent islandsof Great Britain and Ireland. " Talking with the old gentleman, you areconscious of the innate moral strength rather than the mechanical skillof the craftsman. Instinctively you feel the splendid power of hispresence and come out from his forge murmuring, "Thank God I have seen a_man_ this day. " Wyllie belongs to the age of the old journals, to thedays that bred Joe Gargerys and old Adams in whom appeared "the constantservice of the antique world. "

[Illustration: Samples of Woman's Work of the Far North. 

EXPLANATION OF PLATE

A and C--_Muski-moots_, or bags used by the duck-hunter for his game. Made by Dog-Rib women, of _babiche_, or rawhide of the moose or caribou. 

B--Velvet leggings richly embroidered in violet-coloured bead-work, madeby Mrs. (Archdeacon) Macdonald, a full-blooded Loucheaux woman. 

D--Wall-pocket of white deerskin embroidered in silk. Made by aRabbit-Skin woman at Fort Good Hope under the Arctic Circle. 

E--Wall-pocket ornamented with porcupine-quill work, made by aYellow-Knife Indian woman at Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake. 

F--_Fire-bag_, or tobacco-pouch, made of two claws of the black bear. The work of a Beaver Indian woman at Vermilion-on-the-Peace. 

G--_Fire-bag_ of velvet ornamented with silk-work, made by Chipewyanwoman at Fond du Lac, Lake Athabasca. 

H--Velvet watch-bag embroidered in silk, made by Slavi Indian woman atFort Providence, at the head of Mackenzie River. 

I--Watch-pocket of smoked moose-skin, embroidered in silk-work, made bya Cree girl at Fort McMurray on the Athabasca. 

J--Armlets ornamented in porcupine quills, made by a half-breed woman onthe Liard River (a feeder of the Mackenzie). 

K--Three hat bands--the first two ornamented with porcupine quills, andthe last in silk embroidery--made by Chipewyan woman at Fond du Lac, Lake Athabasca. 

L--Beautiful belt of porcupine work, made by a half-breed woman at FortNelson on the Liard (a feeder of the Mackenzie). 

M--Armlets of porcupine-quill work, made by half-breed girl at FortChipewyan. ]

Mr. And Mrs. William Johnson, with generous courtesy, have made ustheir guests while we stay, and their refined home is a clear delight. Mr. Johnson is as clever a man as Mr. Wyllie, but in other lines. Without ever having seen an electric light, he learned by study andresearch more about electricity than nine men out of ten know who gothrough Electrical Training Schools. With the knowledge thus gained heconstructed and put into working use an electric-light plant at FortSimpson on the Mackenzie. Far up here on the map, too, the "Judge, " ashe is lovingly called, taught himself all about watches, and he is nowFather Time for the whole Mackenzie District, regulating and mendingevery timepiece in the country. The corrected watches are carried totheir owners by the next obliging person who passes the post, where theowner is notching off the days on a piece of stick while he waits. Awatch, the works of which were extracted from three old ones andassembled within one case by this Burbank of Watchdom, found its waydown to Chicago. The jeweller into whose hands it fell declared thatamong all his workmen there was not one who could have duplicated thejob. 

Chipewyan is a bird paradise; the whole woods are vocal to-day. In theautumn, wonderful hunts are made of the southward-flying cranes, geese, and waveys, thousands of these great birds being killed and salted andput in ice chambers for winter use. If the mosquitoes were not so bad wewould spend hours in the woods here with "God's jocund little fowls. "These sweet songsters seem to have left far behind them to the south allsuspicion of bigger bipeds. We hear the note of the ruby-crowned kinglet(_regulus calendula_) which some one says sounds like "Chappie, chappie, jackfish. " The American red-start comes to our very feet, the yellowwarbler, the Tennessee warbler, the red-eyed vireo, and the magnoliawarbler, which last, a young Cree tells us, is"High-Chief-of-all-the-small-birds. " Rusty blackbirds are here withslate-coloured junco, and we see a pair of purple finches. We arefortunate in getting a picture of the nest of the Gambel sparrow and twoof the nesting white-throated, sparrow. They are ferreted out for us bythe sharp eyes of a girl who says her Cree name is"A-wandering-bolt-of-night-lightning!" At our feet blossom cinquefoil, immortelles, the dainty flowers of the bed-straw. 

It has been a full day, and by the way the "permits" are opening up inthe settlement when we come back, promises to be a full night. These menhave waited a whole year for a drink, and now the lids can't come offquick enough. "Come, hurry up, Flynn, we're all as dry as wooden gods, we're so dry that we're brittle--we'd break if you hit us. " "Well, I'mhurrying; I'm as much in a rush as any of you; I'm so warped the hoopsare falling off. "

It doesn't take long to polish off the permits proper (or improper). Bymorning all this liquor, imported for "medicinal purposes, " is gone. Whoever in Chipewyan is thoughtless enough to get ill during the nexttwelve months must fall back on the medicine-chest of the EnglishMission or of the Grey Nuns. Anything strong will do for the creation ofjoyousness during the remaining three hundred and sixty-four days of theyear--Jamaica ginger, lavender-water, flavouring extracts. 

Next morning the bon vivants of Chipewyan are down to essences of lemon, vanilla, and ginger, which have been specially imported as stimulatingbeverages. We ask if they are any good. "Good? I should say so, and onebottle just makes a drink. Can I offer" (politely) "to exhilarate youladies with vanilla?" The most jovial of the celebrants tells of hisearly imbibition of red ink. "I used to get a gallon of red ink with myoutfit every year, and it gives you the good feel, but when this newCommissioner comes in he writes, 'I don't see how you can use a gallonof red ink at your post in one year, ' and I writes back, 'What we don'tuse we abuse, ' and next year he writes to me, 'It's the abuse wecomplain of, ' and, with regretful reminiscence, "I got no more red ink. "The substitution of red tape for the carmine fluid that inebriates is aninnovation not appreciated. 

The old records fascinate us. We spend every spare moment before thecoming of the treaty party in transcribing choice bits from them. Therewere drinks and drinkers in these old days. 

"_1830, Friday 1st. January_. All hands came as is customary to wish usthe compliments of the season, and they were treated with cakes each, apipe, and two feet tobacco. In the evening they have the use of the hallto dance, and are regaled with a beverage. "

"_1830, April 30. Poitras_, a Chipewyan half-breed, arrived, anddelivered 81 made beavers in prime furs, though he says he has beensickly all winter. I therefore presented him with a complete clothingand a Feather. "

"_1830, May 16th_. One of our Indians having been in company withIndians from Isle a la Crosse got married to one of their young women, consequently has followed the father-in-law and taken his hunt away fromus. "

"_1830, August 13th_. One Indian, _The Rat_, passed us on the Portage, he was treated with a dram for 'Old Acquaintance' sake. "

On New Year's Eve the old chronicler drops into verse. In tall thinletters in faded ink we read, "If New Year's Eve the wind blow south, It betokeneth warmth and growth;If west, much milk, and fish in the sea;If north, much storms and cold will be;If east, the trees will bear much fruit;If northeast, flee it man and beast. "

"_1831, January 1_. The thermometer this morning was 29 below cypher. "

_1831, May 22_. They bring intelligence that _Mousi-toosese-capo_ is attheir tent, having lately joined them, without his family of two womenand two children, who perished during the winter. From his frequentprevarication when questioned by the other Crees, they suspect he hasmurdered and eaten them. "

"_1831, May 30th. _ The fellow has got too large a family for a FortHunter, he cannot feed them with unlimited Indulgence and supply us atthe same time. " [Would Mr. Roosevelt second this?]

"_1831, June 19th_. Two Chipewyans came from the Long Point informing usthat _Big Head's_ son is dead, that _Big Head_ has thrown away hisproperty in consequence of the loss of his boy, and that he told them tobeg a shirt and tobacco. The shirt, of course, I did not send, thescoundrel is not worthy of it. I merely sent him six inches of tobaccowith reluctance. That cursed family is a perfect pest to the place, andit is my humble opinion that the hand of Providence sends them thepresent calamity for their ill deeds. "[!]

"_1834, November 27th. _ A party of the Isle à la Crosse Indians with old_Nulooh_ and _Gauche_ cast up. They have not come in this direction forthe sake of running about, some of their relations is dead, and in theirown words they are travelling on strange lands to kill grief, not anunusual custom among the Northern Indians. "

"_1865, October 23rd_. We were surprised yesterday at the arrival of aProtestant missionary, a Mr. Bompas from England; he came in a canoefrom the Portage with Sylvestre and _Vadnoit_. "

"_1866, January 1st_. The whole Establishment breakfasted in the Halland in the evening a Ball came off with great eclat. Two marriages alsoto-day, Francis Villebrun to Marie Cyre, and Baptiste St. Cyre, Jr. , toJustine McKay--so that all things considered the New Year was usheredin with a tremendous row! Verily, times are improving in the North. "

"_1866, January 2nd_. The men are rather seedy to-day after theirtremendous kick-up of yesterday. "

"_1840, January 25th. _ The object of sending _Lafleur_ to the LittleIsland is that he may procure a kind of willow that the Canadians call'Courmier, ' the bark of which scraped and boiled in water has healingqualities which they think will be of great service for Hassel'scomplaint. Confidence in anything is half the cure. "[!]

"_1840, February 1st_. Hassel is still without much appearance for thebetter, and at his earnest request was bled. "

"_1841, December 31st_. The men from the Fishery made their appearanceas usual at this time, and as usual, too, the best we had (whichby-the-by is not great as will be seen by this journal) was served outto them. The other men had the time to themselves to prepare for theholiday of to-morrow, for the _Jour de Tan_ is the greatest day of theCanadians in these distant Northern posts. To finish things properlythere is still wanting the famous aqua vitae, which we are sorry tostate is not in our means to furnish. Adieu the year one thousand eighthundred and forty-one!"

"_1842, February 13th_. The Rev. Mr. Evans proposing to take hisdeparture to-morrow for Isle a la Crosse edified us with a farewellservice, several of the women and children were baptized, and Flett andHassel were married to their wives. "

From the records we compile this Chipewyan calendar:--

March 17th, House-flies. April 8th, Grey goose seen. April 11th, Catkins. April 12th, Barking crows. April 19th, Blackbirds andmosquitoes. April 21st, Plover, two hawks, and a butterfly. April 22nd, Gulls, white waveys, robins. April 28th, White cranes. April 30th, Frogs, most of snow gone. May 2nd, Dark butterfly, four purple crocuses. May 4th, Frogs noisy, bumble bees. May 5th, Nearly clear of ice. May8th, Water from Peace River flowing into lake. An Eagle. May 10th, Sandmartins. Ice drifting in channel in front of fort. May 20th, Swanspassing north. May 21st, Trees bursting into leaf. July 11th, Strawberries and raspberries. August 18th, Cranes passing south. October11th, Small birds passing south. October 12th, First ptarmigan seenabout the fort. October 24th, Lake in front closed up this morning. 

CHAPTER VII

LAKE ATHABASCA AND ITS FOND DU LAC

"Afar from stir of streets, The city's dust and din, What healing silence meets And greets us gliding in!

"The noisy strife And bitter carpings cease. Here is the lap of life, Here are the lips of peace. "

--_C. G. D. Roberts_. 

For fresh woods and pastures new this Friday, June 26th! Our little"bunch" breaks up. Mr. Brabant and Mrs. Harding, of the Hudson's BayCompany contingent, go on in the _Grahame_ to Smith's Landing, and withthem the two detachments of the R. N. W. M. P. As we shake hands with thepolice party, we wonder what Fate has in store for each of us. Breakingoff at Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake, and trending eastward by canoeover unchartered ways, will they reach salt water on Hudson Bay as theyhope?

For our two selves, great good fortune is ours. The Canadian GovernmentIndian Treaty party, consisting of Mr. Conroy in command, Mr. Laird assecretary, Dr. Donald, and Mr. Mooney in charge of the commissariat, with Constable Gairdner, R. N. W. M. P. , as Escort, has just come down thePeace. To-day they pay treaty in Chipewyan, and this afternoon startfor far Fond du Lac, at the eastern extremity of Lake Athabasca. Thelittle H. B. Tug _Primrose_ will tow them and their outfit in a York-boatand a scow, and the captain has been persuaded to allow us, too, to takeour blankets and come along, sleeping on the deck. The _Primrose_ fromstem to stern is not big enough to swing a cat in, but who wants toswing a cat? It is blue Lake Athabasca that we long to see; no whitewoman has yet traversed it to its eastern extremity and we would go ifwe had to work our passage at the sweeps of the scow. 

[Illustration: Lake Athabasca in Winter]

Athabasca Lake (whose name means "In Muskeg Abounding"), is two hundredmiles long, with thirty-five miles at its greatest width. It lies in ageneral easterly and westerly direction. No survey has been made of thelake; its height above ocean level is seven hundred feet, and it coversperhaps three thousand square miles. Its chief feeder is the AthabascaRiver, down which we have come from the south. This stream, assisted bythe Peace, is fast filling up with detritus the western portion of LakeAthabasca. There is a marked contrast between the upper and lower coastsof the lake. The north shore consists of Laurentian gneiss with a sparsewood growth; the south bank for the most part is low, the formationbeing a cretaceous sandstone. Ice holds fast this beautiful sheet forsix months every year. As we puff along the surface of its incomparableblue it is hard to realise that, although the Peace and Athabasca Riversopen their icy mouths about May-day, parts ot the lake are not free fortravel until mid-May. The lake freezes fast at Fort Chipewyan some timein November. Lying on the deck of the tug, we look down and takeinventory of our odd tow. Just behind comes the scow. It holds wood forthe engine, a long sled, a canoe, a "skift, " all this year's tradingsupplies for Fond du Lac, and half a dozen chained husky dogs. Trailingthe scow is a York-boat carrying the treaty party and Mr. Harris. 

It is late in the afternoon when we pull out from Chipewyan, but the sunis still heaven-high, with the offshore air a tonic. At seven o'clockColin Fraser's boat passes us with Bishop Grouard standing upright atthe prow. This stately figure, clear-cut against the sky-line, may wellstand as the type of the pioneer Church of the Northland. On the littledeck we can use the camera with facility at ten in the evening, and thetypewriter all night. The light manifestation is a marvel and wooes usfrom sleep. Have we not all the tame nights of the after-days forslumber? Here we lose the moon and those friendly stars which at PelicanPortage dipped almost to meet our hands. No more are we to see themuntil the Arctic has been reached and we have turned southward many, many hundreds of miles. 

[Illustration: Bishop Grouard]

Hours since all the badinage was silenced in the York-boat behind us. Onboard the _Primrose_ the mate sleeps, and Captain Prothero has thewheel. I creep along the wobbly gunwale to sit out a four hours' watchwith him. "I never saw any one navigate as you do, captain, you seem tohave neither chart nor compass. "

"No, " assents he, biting hard on the little black pipe, "we just go bythe power o' man, " and with the words a sharp turn of the wheel lurchesus out from the lee of a batture. The jolt jerks up its passengers inthe semidetached steerage. A growling of huskies, a kick, and a mutteredadjuration in Cree, and all is silent again. 

By six o'clock every one is astir, and Saturday is a long glorious day. At noon we stop to take aboard an Indian who hails us from thescrub-pine, sore afraid that he will miss connection with his fivedollar treaty present from the Government. It is good to stretch out onthe grass after this somewhat restricted Primrose path of dalliance. Infront of us extends a long row of islands, in the hot haze suspendedmidway between blue of lake and blue of sky. Their covering ofbaby-willows suggests a face guilty of a three days' beard. We rest, sofar as the mosquitoes think it proper we should rest, on a bed ofreindeer moss (_cladonia rangiferina_?), the _tripe de roche_ of theNorth. This constitutes almost the sole winter-food of the reindeer, itsgelatinous or starchy matter giving the nutritive property to theodd-looking stuff. Reindeer-moss has saved the life of many an Indianlost in these woods. We try it, and find the taste slightly pungent andacrid; but when boiled it forms a jelly said to be nourishing andtonic. 

No orders are given when we land, and we study countenances and actionsto guess the time-limit of our tether. For twenty-four hours we havewondered if there were trout in Lake Athabasca and if they would rise tothe fly. With a borrowed rod we take a canoe and off the shadow of acottonwood point try a cast at random. The gut carries three flies--abrown hackle, a coachman, with a Jock Scott at the tail--a rainbowaggregation. To the coachman we get a rise and it takes three of us toland him. There are no scales; so his weight must forever be unrecorded, but as we lay him out he measures just a trifle over twenty-threeinches, as beautiful a lake trout as ever sent thrill up and down asympathetic spine. Bye-and-bye this road we travel is going to belisted on the sporting routes of the world, and tired souls from theSeven Seas with rod and gun will here find Nepenthe. 

[Illustration: The Modern Note-book]

Clutching our catch, we step gingerly along an outstretched oar andclimb on board. The orders of the captain to the mate are sporty andsuggest turf rather than surf. "Kick her up, Mac!" "Give her a kickahead!" "Who-o-oa!" On Sunday evening, June 28th, we reach Fond du Lac, clinging close to the water-line on her beautiful stretch of sand. Allunregarded are the church-bells, and the Indians crowd to meet us, --bentold crones, strong men, and black-eyed babies. For is not the coming ofthe treaty party the one event of the Fond du Lac year?

Half way along the traverse of the lake we had crossed theinter-Provincial boundary, and now find ourselves near the northernlimit of the Province of Saskatchewan, and in the latitude of Sweden'sStockholm. There are but two people in Fond du Lac who speakEnglish, --Mr. Harris who trades fur with the Indians, and Father Beiblerwho would fain shepherd their souls. 

These Caribou-Eater Indians are true nomads who come into the post onlyat treaty-payment time or to dispose of their hunt. In the_moon-when-the-birds-cast-their-feathers_ (July) they will press backeast and north to the land of the caribou. September, _the-moon-when-the-moose-loose-their-horns_, will find them camping onthe shore of some far unnamed lake, and by the time of the_hour-frost-moon, _ or the _ice-moon, _ they will be laying lines oftraps. 

We have learned to estimate the prosperity or otherwise of the Indiansby the condition of their dogs. Fond du Lac dogs are fat; each baby inits moss-bag exudes oil from every pore. Peace and Plenty have crownedthe Caribou-Eaters during the winter that is past. The law ofSaskatchewan permits the taking of the beaver. Alberta for the presenthas enacted restrictive legislation on this hunt, to which restriction, by the way, among the Indians at the treaty-tent at Chipewyan, objectionhad been loud and eloquent. 

[Illustration: Tepee of a Caribou-Eater Indian]

We call upon Mr. Harris and his Chipewyan wife, a tall handsome womanwhom he addresses as "Josette. " Their three girls are being educated inthe convent at Fort Chipewyan. The room in which we sit reflects thegrafting of red life on white. A rough bookcase of birchwood, withthumbed copies of schoolboy classics, Carlyle, the Areopagitica, and thelatest Tractate on Radium, gives one a glimpse of the long, long winternights when all race and latitude limitations fade away and the mind ofthe Master of Fond du Lac jumps the barrier of ice and snow to mix withthe great world of thought outside. "Stone walls do not a prison makenor iron bars a cage. " Fighting our way with the mosquitoes, underbirches somewhat dwarfed but beautiful, through a pungent bocage ofground pine, wild roses, giant willow-herb, mints innumerable andLabrador tea _(Ledum latifolium_), we reach the H. B. Garden where thepotatoes are six or eight inches high. We wander into a littlegraveyard, surely the most lonely God's acre in all Canada. Theinscriptions in syllabic Chipewyan show the patient devotion of FatherBeihler, who comes across us as we gaze at the graves. Eight long yearsthe priest has put in at Fond du Lac, sent here when but three months inthe priesthood. His English, acquired from Mr. Harris, is a bithesitating. His home was in Alsace-Lorraine; he tells us his mother wasout of her mind for three days when he was ordered here, and he himselfwept. White women are a _rara avis_. Father Beihler wants to know howold we are and if we are Catholics and how much money we earn. Pointingwisely to the Kid, he assures me, "They are not an-gell (angel) at thatage, " and says, "I am not a woman-hater, and I am not a _womanchercher_. " The priest is as great a curiosity to us as we are to him, and each is interested in studying a new kind of animal. One sympathy wehave in common, --the good Father knows every bird that flies over Fonddu Lac. Who can tell what they whisper to him of the sweet Alsace sofar away? We are treated to peeps into the nests of the orange-crownedwarbler, the hermit thrush, and that shy wader, the spotted sandpiper. 

[Illustration: A Bit of Fond du Lac]

These ultimate woods fascinate us, with their worn north trails of thetrapper beaten as hard as asphalt with the moccasins of generations. Thefather of the Chipewyan down at the tents receiving his treaty moneyto-day and his grandfather before him trod these same trails and servedThe Company. Dusky feet trod these paths when good Queen Anne ruled inEngland, men made toilsome portages up these waterways, and hereCrowfoot and Running Rabbit and Gaston Lamousette kept undisturbed thetenour of their way and matched wits with Carcajou the wolverine. 

To the student who would read at first hand the story of fur, moreinteresting than dark otters, Hudson Bay sables, or silver-fox, one formsilhouettes on the white canvas of the North. It is the figure of theTrapper. Here, as elsewhere, the man who mixes brains with his bait andmakes a scientific art of a rude craft is the man who succeeds. It is acontest of wit worthy the cleverest. The animals, as the years pass, become more rather than less wary, and the days of the magenta stringtying a chunk of fat to a nice new shiny trap are long past. The man whoused to "make fur" in that way is, like Fenimore Cooper's Indians, theextinct product of a past race that never existed. 

The Chipewyan trapper eats at once, or dries for the future, every ounceof flesh he traps, from the scant flesh-covering over the animal's skullto the feet and the entrails. As soon as the skins of beaver andmusquash are removed, the bodies, so many skinned cats, are impaled onsticks of jack-pine and set sizzling before the fire. In the woods as inthe camp, the laborious work falls to the woman. Lordly man kills theanimal and that is all. With her babies on her back or toddling by herside, the wife trails the game home on hand-sled, and afterwards in campshe must dress the meat and preserve the skin. 

The band of Fond du Lac Indians is the largest in the whole North, andthey are perhaps the least unspoiled of "civilisation, " as their rangeis removed from the north-and-south route afforded by the Mackenzie. To-morrow the treaty party will leave, the skin tepees will be pulleddown, and in those beautiful birchbark canoes whole families will be onthe move. These people are essentially meat-eaters. Their hearts havenot learned to hunger for those soggy bannocks, unventilated shacks, andsheet-iron stoves which are luring their tribal cousins on thegerm-strewn way to higher culture with convenient stopping-places inthe graves by the wayside. 

[Illustration: Birch-barks at Fond du Lac]

Starting from Fond du Lac in July, a Chipewyan family sets out in twocanoes, the big communal one, and the little hunting-canoe, the dogsfollowing along shore. It is paddle and portage for days and wearyweeks, inland and ever inland. In October the frost crisps into silencethe running water and the lake lip. Snow begins to fall, and the grindof forming ice warns the Chipewyan it is time to change birchbark formoccasin and snow-shoe. Canoes are _cached_, and the trail strikes intothe banksian pine and birchwood. The door of the forest is lonely andeerie. It no longer seems incongruous that, although Big Partridgewears a scapular on his burnt-umber breast and carries with him on hisjourney the blessing of Father Beihler, he also murmurs the huntingincantation of the Chipewyans and hangs the finest furs of his trapsflapping in the top of the jack-pine, a sop to the Cerberus of MitchieManitou, the feared Spirit of the Wood. 

Winter sees Indian families, each little group a vignette in the heartof the wider panorama, flitting over lake surfaces to ancestralfur-preserves. In the early snow they pitch tepee, family fires arelighted, and from this centre the trapper radiates. The man sets histraps, and if the couple is childless his wife makes an independent lineof snares. Each individual traps for miles and days alone, and anaccident in the woods means a death as lonely and agonising as that ofthe animal he snares. With blanket, bait, and bacon on a smallhand-sled, silently the trapper trudges forward. The Northern Lightscome down o' nights, and it is cold; but cold makes finer fur. Down fartrails in gloomy forests, across the breasts of silent streams, theChipewyan trudges from trap to trap; if he finds fifty dollars worth offur along the whole line he is content. It is not this lonely man whogets the high price, madame, for your marten stole or opera-cloak ofermine. 

On the trail the hunter may go hungry for two days and no word ofcomplaint, just a tightening of the lips and L'Assumption belt, and afirm set to the jaw; but when a moose is killed life is one long supper. A jolly priest whispers of this confession from a son of the Church, arecent brand from the burning, "O Father, I know that Christianity istrue, the great, the strong religion. When I was a heathen Chipewyan andtrapped with my mother's tribe I ate ten rabbits a day. But now I am aChristian, a good Catholic, seven rabbits are enough for me--I will eatno more!"

In the early days the H. B. Company allowed its men _en voyage_ fivepounds of meat a day, and each kiddie three pounds. In British Columbiaand the Yukon the ration was one salmon; up here on the Athabasca onewild goose or three big whitefish; on the Arctic foreshore two fish andthree pounds of reindeer meat. This was the scheduled fare, but thegrimness of the joke appears in the fact that each man had to run hisbreakfast to earth before he ate it. 

Forty miles a day from trap to trap is a hard tramp on snowshoes whenthe wind sweeps down from the Arctic and the silence can be felt. Thewhole thing is a Louisiana lottery. The very next trap may hold asilver-fox that spells kudos for a year round the winter camp-fires anda trade valuation of one hundred dollars from the tempting stores of Mr. Harris. As long as the red fox brings forth her cubs to play in thestarlight and marten and musquash increase after their kind, just solong will there be trappers and sons of trappers setting out from Fonddu Lac. In October or November these Chipewyans will meet the migratingcaribou on the northern side of Athabasca Lake. Caribou skins are inprime condition then to make coats and robes, and caribou venison, freshor dried, is the daily bread which Providence sends to these far folk. About Christmas time, if they find themselves at a convenient distancefrom the post, the Indians come in to Fond du Lac to trade their furswith Mr. Harris and to get from Father Beihler the blessing of MotherChurch. Out they go again and make their spring hunt of otter, bear, and beaver, whose skins they bring in when they come for their treatymoney and annual reunion in July. 

Interesting indeed is the life-history of the Barren Ground caribou(_rangifer articus_), whose migrant hordes to-day rival in number thebands of the dead and gone buffalo. Caribou go north in spring and southin autumn, as the birds do; and, unlike the seals, the female caribouform the advance line. They drop their young far out toward the seacoastin June, by which month the ground is showing up through melting snow. The male caribou never reach the coast, but join their wives and makethe acquaintance of their babies at the end of July. From this time theystay together till the rutting season is over late in October. Then thegreat herds of caribou, --"la foule, "--gather on the edge of the woodsand start on their southern migrations toward the shelter and foodafforded by the country of the larger pine trees. A month later thefemales and males separate, the cows with their intent fixed on theuttermost edge of things beginning to work their way north toward theend of February and reaching the edge of the woods by April. 

This is the general rule. Broadly speaking, the north shore of AthabascaLake to-day forms the southern limit of the caribou range, while theMackenzie River makes a natural dividing-line between eastward andwestward branches of the caribou family. But the trend of this mightymigration will not be pent between mathematical lines of limitation, andthe direction of prevailing winds may turn the numberless hosts anddivert them from their line of march. Individuals and scattered bands, indeed, have been known not to migrate at all. Fifteen years ago in thelast days of July, in latitude 62° 15' North, the Tyrrell Brothers saw aherd of caribou which they estimate contained over one hundred thousandindividuals. In 1877 a line of caribou crossed Great Slave Lake nearFort Rae on the ice. It took them two weeks to pass that point, and, inthe words of an eye-witness, "daylight could not be seen through thecolumn. "

A priest, on the winter trail between Fond du Lac and Fort Chipewyan afew winters ago, was travelling without fire-arms and, as his trailcrossed that of the moving caribou, he had to delay his journey tillthey deigned to give him the right of way. It was impossible to passthrough their ranks, and he hadn't even the satisfaction of making a fatbull pay tribute to his Mother Hubbard cupboard. 

Mr. Hislop, a fur-trader of Great Slave Lake, said to the writer, "AtFort Rae the caribou are and always have been very plentiful, I don'tthink they will ever die out. " Rae was the old meat-station for the FarNorth, and the records show that after supplying local needs threethousand tongues were often exported in one season. If one intercepts acaribou-band in a little lake he may with patience kill them all withoutany trouble, as they run round and round on the ice, mystified by thewood-echoes and the reverberation of the shots. 

When the Chipewyan filters into southern latitudes and weakens with pinkteas the virility that should go with red blood, aping the elect he willcast round for a suitable coat-of-arms. The proper caper for him wouldbe the caribou rampant with a whitefish flotsam. The whitefish(_coregonus clupeiformis_) is gregarious, reaching shallow water tospawn. Wherever you see Indian tepee-poles by the side of Northernwaters you may guess that to be a good fishing spot. The poles arealways hospitably left for the next comer, the Indian merely carryingwith him the skin or canvas cover of his tepee. The location of theHudson's Bay forts was in the beginning determined by the goodfishing-grounds, although now there is but indifferent fishing near someof the posts. It would almost seem that the whitefish have in theirchilly veins as variable blood as any vagrant horde of caribou. Thewhitefish contains all elements necessary for human nourishment, and itis a happy fact that it does, for men and dogs in the North often livefor solid months on nothing else. It is a rich fat fish and the usualmode of cooking it is by boiling. Northern people tell you that it isthe only fish whose taste will never produce satiety, as it becomesdaily more agreeable to the palate. I can't say that it worked on oursensibilities in just that way. But it is the old story of _degustibus_, etc. We see the Fond du Lac people this evening roasting uponthe coals, as choice tit-bits, the stomachs of the whitefish. Scrapingthe dirt and ashes from the blackened morsel, they offer it to us as onewould pass the olives in those lands so far below us where people weardress-suits and railroads run. It is all a matter of latitude, afterall, for when a bottle of olives was salved from the wrecked scow we hadoverheard this dialogue between two boatmen, as surreptitiously theybroached cargo. "Do you like these?" "Yes. " "You're a liar!" On theAthabasca trail, too, we had seen an untried soul struggling with hisfirst olive. It was Shorty, the lightning-stricken heir of the house ofKennedy. He coveted one of the "plums" from our lunch-basket, and wasmuch surprised when we suggested that it was an olive. "What are them?""Olives, " we elucidated; "they come from Southern Europe by steamer. ""Do they?" (slightingly). "The one I et must have come steerage. "

We are to make the acquaintance of other Northerndelicacies, --beaver-tails, moose-nose, rabbits' kidneys, caribou-tongues, and the liver of the loche, an ugly-looking fish ofthese waters. But the whitefish remains the staple; the fish-harvesthere is as important a season as Harvest Home elsewhere. At the fishery, whitefish are hung upon sticks across a permanent staging to dry andfreeze; an inch-thick stick is pierced through the tail, and the fishhang head downwards in groups of ten. This process makes the fleshfirmer if the days continue cool, but if the weather turns mild as thefish are hanging they acquire both a flavour and a smell exceedinglygamy. This is the "Fall Fishery. " Winter fishing is done through holesin the ice, the net being spread by means of a long thin pole. Thehandling of net and fish is terrible work in the bitter cold. 

As a whole, Canadian Indians are more independent than those of theUnited States, and certainly they have been more fairly dealt with inCanada than in the sister Republic. There is in the Dominion to-day anIndian population of 110, 000. The amount expended last year by Canadafrom the Consolidated Revenue Fund for her Indian Department was$1, 358, 254. The Canadian Government has sedulously kept faith with itsIndians and has refrained from pauperizing them by pap-feeding orration-folly; very largely to-day the Canadian Indian plays the gameoff his own bat. 

Into the sturdy and intelligent faces of the Fond du Lac Indian we look, seeking in vain any trace of "the wild Red Man. " The _raison d'être_ ofthese annual "treaty-payment parties" is merely the acknowledgment onone side and the recognition on the other that the Northern Indian is aBritish subject protected by and amenable to British law. In addition tothe present of five dollars per head each year, the Canadian Governmentsends in by the Indian Agent presents of fishing twine and ammunition, with eleemosynary bacon for the indigent and old. The chiefs strutaround in official coats enriched with yellow braid, wearing medals asbig as dinner-plates. 

From Edmonton northward to Fort Chipewyan the Indians are all Crees. AtFort Chipewyan the northern limit of the Crees impinges on the southernlimit of the Chipewyan, but here at Fond du Lac the Indians are all trueChipewyans. The Chipewyan wife is the New Red Woman. We see in her theessential head of the household. No fur is sold to the trader, no yardor pound of goods bought, without her expressed consent. Indeed, thetraders refuse to make a bargain of any kind with a Chipewyan manwithout the active approbation of the wife. When a Chipewyan familymoves camp, it is Mrs. Chipewyan who directs the line of march. How didshe happen to break away from the bonds that limit and restrain most Redbrides? This is the question that has troubled ethnologists since theNorth was first invaded by the, scientific. We think we have found theanswer. Along the shores of Fond du Lac we descry a long-legged wader, the phalarope. This is the militant suffragette of all bird-dom. MadamePhalarope lays her own eggs (this depository act could scarcely be doneby proxy), but in this culminates and terminates all herresponsibilities connubial and maternal, --"this, no more. " FatherPhalarope builds the house, the one hen-pecked husband of all featheredfamilies who does. He alone incubates the eggs, and when the littlePhalaropes are ushered into the vale, it is Papa who tucks their bibsunder their chins and teaches them to peep their morning grace and toeat nicely. Mamma, meanwhile, contrary to all laws of the game, wearsthe brilliant plumage. When evening shadows fall where rolls theAthabasca, she struts long-leggedly with other female phalaropes, andtogether they discuss the upward struggles toward freedom of theirunfeathered prototypes. 

CHAPTER VIII

FOND DU LAC TO FORT SMITH

"On we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master, And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as swinging heel and toe, We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to anywhere, The tragic road to Anywhere but one dear year ago. "

--_Service_. 

Everybody is to say farewell to Fond du Lac to-day, June 29th, so thereis a hurried finishing up of loose ends. A loud yowl as of a lost soulletting go of life starts the lake echoes! No hand is staining itself inbrother's blood. The treaty doctor, who visits these people, to usetheir own word, "as a bird on the wing, " has just succeeded inextracting a tooth for a Chipewyan bride, Misère Bonnet Rouge. Misèrelooks ashamed of her howl when the operation is over, and lisping, "Merci very, " bears off in expansive triumph the detached molar. 

[Illustration: Fond du Lac]

Down at the lake edge, belly prone, men and women lap the water as dogsdo, while the festive small boy from the Government bags of poor-housebacon is slyly licking the oozing fat. Of the taste of red-cheekedapples and chewing-gum he is guiltless; popcorn, bananas, and thesucculent peanut are alike alien. This _pee-mee_ or oil of bacon isdelicious morsel enough for his red palate. We trade a brier pipe withyoung McDonald, a full-blood, for his beautiful hat-band of porcupinequills, and in the French of the North he confides to us, "I have twoboys. The mother can have the younger one to help her in the house, andthe priest can teach him to be a white man if he likes; but the otherone goes with me, no school for him. I will make him a hunter likemyself. " Last year McDonald went into the woods on New Year's Day anddidn't return until June, when he came back with three hundred caribou. 

Father Beibler is carrying a cup of water up to a tepee where an oldIndian lies dying, to whom he is giving extreme unction. The slantingsun strikes the tin cup and the big crucifix of the good Father, and sowe leave Fond du Lac. 

[Illustration: Father Beihler Carrying Water to a Dying Indian]

The man who tells the story crosses himself piously and immediatelybegins a bit of rag-time of the vintage of '08. We ask him where heheard the tune. "O, I catch him from the phunny-graph, me at theMission. " Canned culture even here! It is light enough to read on thedeck at quarter past eleven. We chunk along through a lake of amethystand opal, the marvellous midnight light keeping us from sleep. On thescow astern, sprawled on the season's output of fur, the men smoke andargue. In the North, men talk of feats of strength and endurance, boastabout their dogs, and discuss food. Two kindred souls may hark back toboyhood days and quote a page of Virgil or demonstrate on a bit ofbirchbark the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid, but you overheard nodiscussion of elections or ward-politics, no chatter of the marketplace. That is all "long ago and far away. " To-night it is "You know there arefellows in here who can run like hell. The world's record is beatenevery winter. " "The world's record in lying, do you mean?" "No, running--a man can run one hundred miles a day in this country. " "Well, what makes a day?" "Twelve hours, --that is what I learned at school. ""No: there's twenty-four hours in a day. " "Well, a day, _I_ take it, isas far as you can go without stoppin'--it never gets dark, so how is aman to know what's a day?"

We reach Chipewyan Wednesday, July 1st, and there is no soul who cares awhitefish for the fact that this is Dominion Day, Canada's nationalholiday. For our dinner Mrs. Johnson gives us home-grown parsley, radishes, lettuce, and green onions; the potatoes are eight or teninches high, and rhubarb stalks an inch and a half in diameter. Wildgooseberries are big enough to make delectable "gooseberry fool. " Whohungers for whitefish-stomachs or liver of the loche?

Early in the morning we start north in the _Primrose_, cross AthabascaLake, and enter the Rocher River. Thirty miles from Fort Chipewyan theRocher, uniting with the main channel of the Peace, makes a resultantstream known as the Slave, down which we pass in an incomparable summerday, our hearts dancing within us for the clear joy of living. Poplarsand willows alternate with white spruce (_Picea canadensis_) fully onehundred and fifty feet high and three feet in diameter. It is an idealrun, --this hundred miles between Fort Chipewyan and Smith's Landing, andwe make it in twelve hours. 

[Illustration: Smith's Landing]

"How did Smith's Landing get its name?" I ask the _Primrose_ Captain. "Some ould fish o' the Hudson's Bay, " from the tightly-bitten black pipeleaves one wondering if Lord Strathcona (Sir Donald Smith) was meant. AtSmith's Landing we encounter the only obstacle to steamboat navigationin the magnificent stretch of sixteen hundred miles between FortMcMurray and the Arctic Ocean. Between Smith's Landing and Fort Smiththe Slave River presents sixteen miles of churning rapids with a totaldrop of two hundred and forty feet. Until within a few years every ounceof freight for the lower Mackenzie River posts had to negotiate thisturbulent waterway, making seven portages and many decharges. The "freetrader" still takes his scows down this Rapid of the Damned, but theH. B. Company (thanks be!) has provided a cross-country portage. 

We land on the heels of a tragedy. Some days before, in this surgingswirl of waters two priests pushed out in a canoe. The older man hadbeen in the North for years and was "going out, " the other had come fromEurope to take his place; the Father would show to his successor all thebeauties of the rapids. In their enthusiasm they ventured too near the"Rapid of the Drowned, " and canoe and men went down. An old Indianwoman, the only eye-witness, said to me, "One arm lifted out of theriver, the paddle pointing to the sky--a cry came over the water, andthat was all. " Our thought jumps to that peasant's home in far Francewhere the mother waits and wearies for news from America. We see theunsteady fingers tearing open the first letter that comes out of thatremote land where devotion and duty had called her son. We wonder whowrote that letter to her, and, turning away, wonder too at the destinywhich suddenly breaks off the thread of lives like these and leavesdotards dozing in the sun. 

At Smith's Landing we join our Athabasca friends and meet new ones, among the latter Mr. Max Hamilton, who will tell you more of the Northand its little ways in a forenoon than you could glean from books in awinter's study. Corporal Mellor and Constables Johnson and Bates, R. N. W. M. P. , no longer gay birds of travel, have gotten down to brasstacks. With gay visions of striding blooded mounts, herding bison, andmaking history, they find themselves employed at present in making abarracks, making it out of logs and sweat with the lonely ox ascoadjutor. Johnson, who has broken horses in the ring at Regina, is headof a wagon transport and tries to get speed and form from Wall-Eye Buck, an ox that came in with the Klondike rush and hasn't rushed since. Johnson holds the ribbons well and bows acknowledgment when we find aprototype for him in Mulvaney, the tamer of elephants. He can afford totake our banter good naturedly, for he knows what lies before us on theMosquito Portage and we do not. 

We thought we had met mosquitoes on the Athabasca. The Athabascamosquito is gentle, ineffective, compared with his cousin of Smith'sPortage. Dr. Sussex sits on the wagon-seat behind and explains themosquito. He tells us that they are "of the order _Diptera_, " "sub-order_Nemocera_, " and chiefly "of the family _Culicidae_, " and he also goesso far as to tell us that they "annoy man. " As we bump along in themuskeg and the creatures surround us in a smother, he ventures to assertthat "the life of the adult insect is very short" and that it is thefemale who stings. The Doctor is a born instructor. We learn that "thenatural food of the mosquito is a drop or two of the juice of a plant. "We suspect the Doctor of fagging up on "Mosquito" out of some conventdictionary while we have been at Fond du Lac. He is like the parsonintroduced by his friend of the cloth. "Brother Jones will now give anaddress on Satan. I bespeak for him your courteous attention, as thereverend gentleman has been preparing this address for weeks, and comesto you _full of his subject. "_

The adult mosquito may have a short life, but it is a life crammed fullof interest; if the natural food of the mosquito is the sweet juice of apretty flower then a lot of them in this latitude are imperilling theirdigestion on an unnatural commissariat. And if the female mosquitoes doall the fine work, there is a great scarcity of male mosquitoes onSmith's portage, and once more in the North the suffragette comes intoher own. We fear that these mosquitoes are like the Indians of whom aSlave River priest had said to us, "These have not delicatesensibilities such as gratitude and affection, but they have a properappreciation of _material things_. "

Opposition is the life of trade. For every vantage-point as big as amatch-head on our face and hands the "bull-dog" contests with themosquito. An interesting study is the "bull-dog. " He looks like a crossbetween a blue-bottle fly and a bumble bee, and we took leisure as wewent along to examine the different parts of his person under amicroscope that some one carried as a watch-charm. The head of theinsect (if he is an insect) looks exactly like that of a bull-dog, hemakes his perforation with a five-bladed lancet, and he is good workmanenough to keep his tools always well sharpened. The Doctor was not"long" on the "bull-dog. " He told us that his Sunday name was"_Tabanus_, " and that was about all he could impart. The rest we couldlearn for ourselves by direct contact. 

Personally I have very little rancour against the "bull-dog. " He looksworse than he is, and an adversary armed with hands can easily repelhim. Four-legged brutes find it different. On the Bloody Portage weovertook five teams of oxen which had been more than twelve hours tryingto make sixteen miles and were bleeding profusely from the fly-bites. Finally two of them succumbed and a relief team had to be sent out fromFort Smith. Moose in the North, maddened by the "bull-dogs, " often jumpover precipices and river-banks, as the Scriptural swine did when _they_were possessed of devils. 

Johnny-Come-Lately from dear old Lunnon reading in a Western paper, "Thedeer are chased into the water by the bull-dogs, " ruminates audibly, "Chase the de-ah into the wa-tah with bull-dogs! How interesting! Jollyresourceful beggars, these Colonials. " A literary scientist sending outcopy from the North wrote, "My two greatest troubles are mosquitoes andbull-dogs, " which the intelligent proof-reader amended into, "My twogreatest troubles are mosquitoes and bull-frogs. "

Bringing in our daily treasure-trove of flowers we can scarcely realisethat at Fort Smith we are in latitude 60° North, the northern boundaryof the Province of Alberta and in the same latitude as St. Petersburg. One day we gathered careopsis, pretty painted-cups, the dandelion inseed, shinleaf (_Pyrola elliptica_), our old friend yarrow, andgolden-rod. Another day brought to the blotting-pads great bunches ofgoldenrod, a pink anemone, harebells of a more delicate blue than we hadever seen before, the flower of the wolf-berry, fireweed, andladies'-tresses. The third day we identified the bear-berry orkinnikinic-tobacco (_Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)_ with its astringentleaves, and that dear friend of lower latitudes and far-away days, thepink lady-slipper. The last time we had seen it was in a school-room infar-off Vancouver Island where in early April the children had broughtit in, drooping in their hot little fists. This same evening, watching anight-hawk careering in mid-air by the rapids of the Slave and enjoyingits easy grace in twisting and doubling as with hoarse cry it fell androse again, we were fortunate in literally running to ground its nest. 

[Illustration: A Transport between Fort Smith and Smith's Landing]

[Illustration: Lord Strathcona, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company]

Fort Smith, as places go in this country, is an infant in age, havingbeen established only thirty-four years. Resting on the edge of the highbank of the Slave, it enjoys an eternal outlook on those wonderfulrapids. The river here is a mile wide. The sweep and eddy-wash of ageshave cut out a deep bay, on the inner shore of which stand the buildingsof The Company, the little Roman Church, the houses of the priests. Backof the permanent structures rise, this glorious July day, the tepees ofthe Chipewyans, Slavis, and Dog-Ribs who have come in from thehunting-grounds for their treaty money. Fort Smith struck us as beingmore "dead" than any northern post. But it is on the verge of greatthings. Mr. Brabant has announced that this place is to succeed FortSimpson as headquarters for the Northern fur-trade, and his personalitywill soon send unction into the dry bones of the valley. 

At the foot of the high hill looms a monument to the initiative andcommercial enterprise of the H. B. Company, --a modern steamship in thewaters of a wilderness-country. Ours is to be the honor of making in herthe initial journey to the Mackenzie mouth. It is impossible coming fromthe South to navigate the Slave River rapids by steam. Any boatambitious to ply on the waters lying northward between Fort Smith andthe Arctic must be either taken in in sections or built on the ground. With enterprise and pluck, the Hudson's Bay Company has just completedthe construction at Fort Smith of the steamship, _The Mackenzie River_. Its great boilers and engines made in far factories of the south came inover the Athabasca trail on sleighs in winter. Down that whole distanceof ninety miles of Athabascan rapids they floated on scows as wefloated, and while human ingenuity is bringing north the iron bowels, skilful hands out of native timber are framing the staunch body toreceive them. 

The builders of the big boat have had disasters which would have dauntedany but the dogged Company of Fur-Traders. Two land-slides threatened toslice off and carry into the river the partially-made boat, a fireburned up the blacksmith shop and with it all the imported doors, window-sashes and interior finishings, so that she sails to-morrow withcarpenters still at work. While the hull of this carefully modelledvessel is necessarily of light construction, with special steel toenable her to navigate safely the waters of the Mackenzie River, longitudinal strength has been adequately provided in the form of fivelattice girders and by numerous hog-posts and ties, and the diagonalbracing of the bulkheads will provide ample transverse strength. The bowalso has been made especially strong to resist the impact of ice, snags, etc. The hull is one hundred and twenty-five feet in length, twenty-sixfeet broad at the water-line, and five and one-third feet deep to thestructural deck. The strength and safety of the hull are increased byfive water-tight compartments. Propulsion is effected by a pair ofmodern stern paddle-wheel engines capable of being worked up to over twohundred and fifty horse power, giving her a speed of ten miles an hour. She has stateroom accommodation for twenty-two passengers, draws threeand a half feet of water aft, and eats up half a cord of wood an hour. She will carry to the northern posts their trading-goods for the year. 

Within a day's ride of Fort Smith grazes a herd of four to five hundredwood bison, the last unconfined herd of buffalo in the world. Doubtlessthe wood buffalo were originally buffalo of the plains. Their wanderingnorthward from the scoured and hunted prairies has not only saved themfrom extinction but has developed in them resistance and robustvitality. These bison appear darker and larger than their picturedcousins of the past. Probably the inner hair of these is finer and ofthicker texture, a difference which the change of habitat to morenorthern latitudes would easily account for. The bison have twoenemies: the grey wolf and the Indian, one an enemy _in esse_, the other_in posse_. The Government of Canada has prohibited the killing of thebuffalo, and my opinion is that this law, as all other Canadian laws, isobeyed in the North. I questioned every one I talked with who lives onthe rim of the buffalo-habitat, and the concensus of testimony ofpriests, H. B. Men, settlers, traders, and Mounted Police, is that theIndians do not molest these animals. The arch-enemy of the wood buffalois the timber wolf. 

[Illustration: The World's Last Buffalo]

Evidently the beautiful thick coat of the woodland bisons allows them tolaugh at the mosquito, for we come upon them in an almost impenetrablemosquito-infested muskeg. An untoward frost is more to be feared bythese great brutes than the attacks of any insect. Thirty-eight yearsago a heavy rainfall in the winter soaked the snow and formed asubsequent ice-crust which prevented them from grazing, and as they donot browse on the branches of trees, the herd was almost exterminated. In the past, they have been abundant throughout sections of this Northcountry. In the beginning of the last century, the upper Peace Riverand as far north as the Liard was stocked with them. As the Hudson's BayCompany never traded in these skins for export, the Indians hunted themfor food only, Fort Chipewyan being regularly supplied by its forthunters with buffalo for its winter use up to the year 1885. 

In sections of the wooded country of the north the bison in times pastwere as plentiful as on the southern plains. During Sir John Franklin'sfirst journey, his people near where the Athabasca River enters the lake"observed the traces of herds of buffalo where they had crossed theriver, the trees being trodden down and strewed as if by a whirlwind. "In 1871, two travellers making a portage to Hay River near its entranceinto Great Slave Lake saw countless numbers of buffalo skulls piled onthe ground two or three feet deep. The terrible loss of life indicatedby these bones they attributed to a fourteen-foot fall of snow whichoccurred in the winter of 1820 and enveloped the travelling animals. 

One cannot but be intensely interested in the preservation of this herdof wood bison making here their last stand. The Canadian Government hasshown a splendid spirit in its attitude toward every phase of thebuffalo question, as its purchase of the Pablo herd from Montana nowensconced in the new Buffalo Park near Wainwright, in Alberta, as wellas the measures for preserving these northern brands from the burning, conclusively prove. 

Upon my chatting with Chief Pierre Squirrel, and admiring largely hismagenta mosquito-veil, the astute chap tells me that he himself, back ofFort Smith a few years ago, saw a full-grown buffalo pulled down and theflesh literally torn off it by woodland wolves, strong brutes, heassured me, which weighed from one hundred and fifty to two hundredpounds each. A wolf shot on the Mackenzie last year measured from snoutto the root of the tail sixty-four inches. The Dominion bounty on thetimber-wolf is twenty dollars, but this is not an off-set to thenative's superstitious aversion to killing this animal; the Indian'sbelief is that such slaughter on his part queers his hunt for a wholeseason. He never goes out with malice aforethought on a wolf-hunt, butif one of these animals crosses his track he may kill it, althoughalways with inward foreboding. A man brought in a wolf to Fort Smithwhile we were there and throwing down his hunting gear said, "There, ithad better all be destroyed, I will have no luck with it more. " Shortlyafterwards a fish-staging fell on his son, for which the dead wolf washeld responsible. As the female wolf has from three to five young at alitter and as the mother buffalo gives birth to but one calf, Fate, inboth birth-rate and death-rate, would seem to favour the smaller animal. It is up to the red-coated lads of the river-edge to appear in the dramaas gods-from-the-machine. While one's sympathy is with the shaggy bisonhost, still one cannot withhold admiration for the grit and tenacity ofthe wolf. Archbishop Taché tells of the persevering fortitude of a bigwolf caught years ago in a steel trap at Isle â la Crosse. Thirty daysafterwards, near Green Lake, a hundred miles away, it was killed, withtrap and wood block still fixed to a hind leg. The poor brute throughthe intense cold of a Northern winter had dragged this burden all thoseweary miles. 

With Fort Smith as a centre, there remains an unmarred fur-preserve anda race of hardy trappers. Is the fur-trade diminishing? Statistics areextremely difficult to get, dealers do not publish dividend-sheets, thestockholders of the Mother-Lodge of the H. B. Company do not advertise. There is no import duty on raw skins into the United States, and so nomeans of keeping tally on the large shipments of fur which yearly findtheir way south from Canada. The statistics which are available overlap. Raw furs making out by Montreal to Europe come back, many of them, asmanufactured imports into this continent by way of New York. Canada in1904 sent to her American cousins furs and skins and manufactures of thesame to the value of $670, 472. This year the export has been more thandoubled; the exact figures are $1, 531, 912. In 1908, Canada sent toFrance $110, 184 worth of raw and manufactured fur, to Germany $23, 173worth, and to Belgium $19, 090 worth. 

More money goes to the trapper to-day for such common skins as red-foxand skunk and muskrat than was ever paid to the fur-hunter for beaver, seal, and sea-otter in the old days. Six million dollars worth of rawfurs are sold annually by auction in London, and Canada is the MotherCountry's chief feeder. Included in these London sales are some hundredthousand martens, or Hudson Bay sables, and probably four times thatnumber of mink. The imports of raw furs and exports of the manufacturedarticle cross each other so perplexingly that to-day the wearer of furclothing has no way of finding out in what part of the world her stoleor cap or jacket had origin. On the feet of the sacrificed animal, bysnowshoe of trapper and scow of the trader, it may have travelled halfround the world before, in the shop-window, it tempted her taste andpocket-book. Furs will be always fashionable; the poet of old whodeclared, "I'll rob no ermyn of his dainty skin to make mine own growproud, " would find scanty following among the women of fashion in thisage. 

In some parts of the United States an ingenious by-industry to thefur-trade has arisen, for the offered-bounty destructive animals arecarefully reared in illicit kindergartens. As some states pay for thescalps of these animal pests and other states for the tails, theundertaking is interesting and profitable. The only gamble is in thenursery. When the gladsome breeder gets his wild-cat or coyote bigenough to market, it is "heads I win, tails you lose. " The UnitedStates, in twenty-five years, has paid two and a half millions in wildanimal bounties. California paid in a year and a half $190, 000 oncoyotes alone, and no breed of noxious animals is yet extinct. 

What is true of the undesirable animals fortunately is true also of theharmless fur-bearers. Several causes make against the extermination ofthese in Canada. The range is so wide that, harassed in one quarter, theanimal may get his family around him and make tracks for safer pastures. Hunted in the winter only, he has a good six months of planning andputting into practice plans of preservation as against the six months ofactive warfare when the trapper's wits are pitted against his. Thefickleness of Fashion's foibles, too, in his favour. In no line ofpersonal adornment is there such changing fashion as in furs. A furpopular this season and last will next spring be unsaleable at half itsoriginal value, and some despised fur comes to the front. 

What causes the changed standard? Who shall say? World's Fairs, inshowing perfect specimens, popularise particular skins. Some princess ofthe blood or of bullion wears mink at a regal or republican function, and the trick is turned. The trade-ticker on mink runs skyward and awireless thrill of warning should by poetic justice be impelled here tothe shores of the Slave where Mr. And Mrs. Mink and all the littleminxes love and hate and eat and sleep (with one eye open). During thelast five years furs have been increasingly fashionable, and to this endno one cause has contributed so strongly as the automobile. Theexhilarating motion makes necessary clothing of compact texture. Thistruth is self-evident and does not require the involved chain ofreasoning by which a friend over our milkless teacups last night stroveto prove that by all laws of the game the auto makes milk cheap. 

The burden of his demonstration is this. Autos have largely done awaywith the keeping of horses for pleasures. Horses and horse-stablesinevitably breed flies. Flies in summer worry cows, and they, to escapethe annoyance, stand for hours in running streams and do not graze. Forlack of food, the milk-supply yielded by the cow is scanty, and milkrises in price. The auto upsets all this, and, undeterred by thehorse-bred fly, complacent cows crop grass and distend their udders withcheap and grateful milk. Now, the reasoning is plain andincontrovertible at any one point, and yet urban milk grows dearer andNorthern travellers drink boiled tea _au natural_. Cows are the eternalfeminine and will not be explained by logic. 

But we are in the latitude of the fox and not the cow. Should the mostvaluable fox that runs be called a black-fox, or a silver-fox? What isthe highest price ever paid for a fox-skin? Do not try to get to thebottom of these two innocent-looking demands. That way madness lies. "How old is Ann?" pales before this. Canadian foxes present themselvespatriotically in red, white, and blue, and there are also black foxesand silver ones. The black-fox is only less elusive than the black tulipor the blue rose, and yet he inhabits the same section and cohabitsoften the same burrow with the red and the cross-fox. By the way, across-fox is not a hybrid; he bears the sign of the cross on hisshoulders, and so his name. The red-fox of America is not dissimilar tothe red-fox of Europe, and yet a red-fox in Canada may have a silver-foxfor its mother and itself give birth to a silver-cub. At the Mission atIsle â la Crosse in latitude 55° 30', about twenty years ago, anexperiment was made in breeding black-foxes. The missionary--Burbanksgot two black-fox pups, male and female, and mated these when they weremature. From them always came mixed litters of red-fox, cross-fox, andblack and silver. It reminds one of the Black Prince of England, who wasson of a King and father of a King, yet never was a King!

We are told that Messrs. McDougall & Secord, of Edmonton, enjoy thedistinction of having received the highest price for a silver-fox peltever paid on the London market, --$1700, that it was one of the mostbeautiful skins seen in the history of the trade, and that it went tothe Paris Exposition. Official Russian records at St. Petersburg state, "Of the American silver-fox (_Canis vulpes argentatus_) black skins havea ready market at from $1500 to $4000. They are used for Court robes andby the nobles. "

[Illustration: Tracking a Scow across Mountain Portage]

And so the stories go on. A dealer in Calgary told us that last winterhe had handled a silver-fox skin that subsequently brought $1950 in theLondon market. One quotes these tales blithely and with pleasedfinality. Then arises from some unsuspected quarter the voice of onecavilling in the wilderness, who contradicts your every story and findswith keen discriminating sight, "Black's not so black nor white so verywhite. " Mr. Thompson-Seton makes declaration, "The silver-fox is but aphase or freak of a common-fox, exactly as a black sheep is, but with adifference--!" Yes, there's that fatal and fascinating difference. As wemust have salmon-hatcheries, so Nature demands intelligent fox-farms, and beaver-farms, and skunk-farms. Forty acres under fur promisesgreater interest than even forty-bushel wheat, and, to the imaginative, the way opens up for the development of a new Cat-o-Dog or Dog-o-Cat, Goatee-rabbiticus or Rabbito-goat. 

I would not like to vouch for the story told on the mosquito-portage bythe half-breed driver, who declared that last year a red-fox on theSlave stole a decoy duck and hunted with it for three seasons at theriver-lip, placing it among the sedges and pouncing on the lured game. He was a serious-minded saturnine Scots-Slavi and told the story withoutmoving an eye-brow. 

At Fort Smith we enjoyed a close study of the American White Pelican_(Pelecanus crythrorhynchos)_ which in the Mountain Rapids of the Slavefinds its farthest north nesting-place. It, too, has the saving grace ofcontinuance exhibited by the grey wolf. Mackenzie, a century ago, cameacross the birds here, and they have persisted ever since, although inthe direct line of the river-transit of the fur-traders. A wooded islandin the swirl of the rapids is their wild breeding-place, and while wewere there the young birds were very much in evidence. We foundsomething fascinating about this bird, so famed in song and story. Theplumage is white, relieved with rose and yellow. The pelican nests areslight depressions in the sand, some of them softened with an algoidmatting. The eggs are white, rough-shelled, and equal-ended, with, sofar as we could see, only one to three in a nest. One by one theillusions of childhood vanish. Some wretched historian proves withoutshadow of doubt that Sir John Moore at Corunna met decent daylightsepulture and was not "darkly buried at dead of night, the sod with ourbayonets turning. " There arises one Ferrero who demonstrates withconclusive exactness that Antony was attracted by Cleopatra's money andhis breast was not stirred by the divine passion. A French scientistrobs Benjamin Franklin of the kudos of his lightning-rod. I myself onVancouver Island have happened to be in at the death of two swans, andneither gurgled a musical note but yielded the ghost in dignifiedsilence. And now candour compels me to report that the Slave Riverpelican feeds her nestlings on prosaic fish without the slightestattempt to "open to her young her tender breast. " It is rank libel forByron to state

"Her beak unlocks her bosom's streamTo still her famished nestling's scream. "

And, when Keats states so sententiously in _Endymion_, "We are nurturedlike a pelican brood, " he merely calls the world at large, fish-eaters. 

CHAPTER IX

SLAVE RIVER AND GREAT SLAVE LAKE

"Wild for the hunter's roving, and the use Of trappers in its dark and trackless vales, Wild with the trampling of the giant moose, And the weird magic of old Indian tales. "

--_Archibald Lampman_. 

A double cabin is assigned us on _The Mackenzie River_ and the nightmarethat haunted us on the scows of wet negatives and spoiled filmsvanishes. On Tuesday, July 7th, the new steamer takes the water. Although, as we have said, we are in the latitude of St. Petersburg, still twelve hundred miles in an almost due northwest directionstretches between us and that far point where the Mackenzie disemboguesinto the Polar Ocean. The Union Jack dips and all Fort Smith is on thebank to see us off. On the Fourth of July we had improvised a program ofsports for the Dog-Rib and Slavi boys, introducing them to thefascinations of sack-races, hop-step-and-jump, and the three-leggedrace. The thing had taken so that the fathers came out and participated, and, surreptitiously behind the tepees, the mothers began to hop. Havingno popcorn, fizz, or Coney-Island red-hots to distribute, we did thenext best thing, --became barkers and gave the calls that go withfestivities. So now, as the boat swings out from the soft bank, it is agay company of urchins who wave their caps and yell, "R-r-r-redlemol-lade, everybody drinks it!"

There is only one Fort Smith! Established for three decades, it has asyet seen no wells dug. The people still climb that steep bank, carryingin pendant buckets from wooden shoulder-yokes water for the dailydrinking and ablutions. At four o'clock in the afternoon, should youvisit Fort Smith forty years from now, you will see the same dailyprocession of women and kiddies bearing buckets, --the Aquarius sign ofthe Fort Smith zodiac. A scoffer at my elbow grins, "Why should theybother to dig wells? It's cheaper to bring out Orkney-men in sail-boatsfrom Scotland to tote their water up the banks. "

[Illustration: The "Red Lemol-lade" Boys]

At noon we reach the Salt River, twenty-two miles up, which is one ofthe most marvellous salt deposits in the world. The Salt River winds increscent curves through a valley wooded with aspen and spruce, and theSalt Plains six miles in extent stretch at the base of hills six orseven hundred feet high. The salt lies all over the ground in beautifulcubes, --pure crystal salt. It is anybody's salt plain; you can come herewhen you will and scoop up all you want. These plains have supplied theNorth country with salt since first white men penetrated the country. Atthe mouth of the Salt River are the shacks of the presentrepresentatives of the Beaulieus, --a family which has acted as guidesfor all the great men who ever trended northward. They have beeninteresting characters always, and as we look in upon them to-dayneither Beaulieu nor salt has lost his savour. 

[Illustration: Salt Beds]

The Slave River from where it leaves Fort Smith to its embouchure inGreat Slave Lake is about two hundred miles long, with an average widthof half a mile, except where it expands in its course to encloseislands. The big boat behaves beautifully in the water, and on we slipwith no excitement until about five o'clock, when a moose and her calfare espied, well out of range. Each in his narrow cell, we sleep thesleep of the just and wake to find ourselves tied to the bank. Thecaptain fears a storm is brooding on Great Slave Lake; so, tethered atthe marge of the reedy lagoon, we wait all the forenoon. A corner ofGreat Slave Lake has to be traversed in order to reach Fort Resolution. 

To Samuel Hearne, the Mungo Park of Canada, belongs the double honour oftracing the Coppermine River and discovering Great Slave Lake. Just onehundred and thirty-seven years ago on Christmas Eve, Hearne got hisfirst glimpse of this magnificent inland sea which is cut through thecentre by the parallel of 62°, and which lies east and west between themeridians of 109° and 117°. No survey of Great Slave Lake has been made, but it is estimated to have a superficial area of 10, 500 squaremiles--just one-third the size of troubled Ireland, and as great asDelaware, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined. 

Great Slave Lake, lying wholly within the forested region, is threehundred miles long, and its width at one point exceeds sixty miles. Atevery place on its banks where the fur-traders have their stationsordinary farm-crops are grown. Barley sown at Fort Resolution in mid-Mayreaches maturity in a hundred days; potatoes planted at the same timeare dug in mid-September. The gardens of Fort Rae on the North Arm ofthe Lake produce beets, peas, cabbages, onions, carrots, and turnips. AsFort Rae is built on a rocky island with a bleak exposure, this wouldseem to promise in some future day generous harvests for the morefavoured lands on the south and west. 

The names given by the old fur-traders to their posts make thetraveller think that in these North lands he, a second Christian, isessaying a new Pilgrim's Progress. At the south entry to the Lake we areat Resolution; when we cross it we arrive at Providence; away off at theeastern extremity is Reliance; Confidence takes us to Great Bear Lake;and Good Hope stretches far ahead down the lower reaches of theMackenzie. Fort Resolution on the south side of Great Slave Lake, alittle west of the mouth of the Slave, lies back of an island-shelteredentrance. 

[Illustration: Unloading at Fort Resolution]

The striking feature as we enter is an immense Roman Catholic Missionschool in process of construction, to supplement the existing church andschool of that faith. There is neither station of the Mounted Police norChurch of England here; their places are taken by two independentfur-trading concerns operating in opposition to the Ancient Company. 

We had been told that the children down North had the kiddies at FortSmith and Chipewyan "all skinned" for politeness, and we find it evenso. The good nuns are trying to make reputable citizens of the youngscions of the Dog-Rib and Yellow-Knife nations and are succeedingadmirably as far as surface indications go. We approach a group ofsmiling boys arrayed in their Sunday clothes, awaiting a visit of theBishop. With one accord come off their Glengarry bonnets, smoking caps, and Christie stiffs, and a row of brown hands is extended to greet us. Very trim the laddies look in their convent-made cadet-uniforms, as, standing at "'Shun!" they answered our every question with, "Yes, missus, " "No, missus. " When we ask their names, without tittering orlooking silly they render up the whole list of saintly cognomens. Herethey have once more their white brothers "skinned"; no civilised man, woman, or child ever stood up in public and announced his full baptismalname in an audible tone without feeling a fool. I have seen grizzledjudges from the bench, when called upon to give evidence as witnesses, squirm like schoolboys in acknowledging that their godfathers had dubbedthem "Archer Martin" or "Peter Secord" or whatever it might be. 

It is certainly Old Worldish. We speak with Father Laity who, allunconscious of the commotion around him, marches up and down the trailand reads his breviary. He tells us he is a Breton and that in an agethat is past he served as a drummer-boy in the Prussian war. The Fathercame to this shut-in land forty-one years ago. 

Great Slave Lake, which presents a formidable barrier to the passage ofthe smaller land birds, is a breeding station of the sea-swallow. TheArctic tern hatches on its shores, laying its eggs in the beach gravel. The bird, with its slender body, deeply-forked tail, andshrilly-querulous voice, is everywhere in evidence. Does the wholefamily of lake birds show any more exquisite colour-scheme than thepearly plumage, small coral feet, carmine bill, and black cap of thistern? In a dell carpeted with silverweed and wild mustard, we comeacross a nest of our persisting friend, the chipping sparrow. Afterwardwe wander down to the shore and make the acquaintance of Pilot JulienPassepartout, whose calling as Mackenzie River navigator allows him tolive out the largeness of his title, though I like best to think of himby the cradle-name his mother gave him, Tenny Gouley, which means "_Aman born_. "

Down at the Treaty tent, Dog-Rib and Yellow-Knife are being handed thefive one dollar bills which remind each that he is a loyal subject ofHis Imperial Majesty Edward the Seventh. The Yellow-Knives were so namedby Mackenzie far back in 1789 when he first saw them and their weaponsof native copper. Each head of a family is issued anidentification-ticket which he presents and has punched from year toyear. A father "draws treaty" for his olive-skinned branches until eachmarries and erects a tepee for himself. Government Agent Conroy, bigbodied and big hearted, sits on a nail-keg, represents the King, andgives out largesse; and Mr. Laird presides over the Doomsday book. Inside the tent we take up a sheltered position and watch the fun. Thereare marked zones of names as well as of vegetation. The _Fiddler Anns, Waggon-box Julias_, and _Mrs. Turkeylegs_ of the Plains country areabsent here, in the Land of the Yellow-Knife, where neitherwaggon-boxes nor turkeys flourish. 

[Illustration: Coming to "Take Treaty" on Great Slave Lake]

_Mary Catholic_ comes along hand-in-hand with _Samuel the Worm_. Full ofanimal spirits is a group of four--_Antoine Gullsmouth, Tongue-of-the-Jackfish, Baptiste Wolftail, _ and _The Cat's Son_. Alittle chap who announces himself as _T'tum_ turns out to be _PetiteHomme_, the squat mate of _The Beloved_. It would be interesting to knowjust how each of the next couple acquired his name, for neither_Trois-Pouces_ and _Owl-Plucked-Out-His-Eye_ bears evidence of abnormalconditions. On a whole the names are more striking than our John Smiths;Richard Roes, and Tom Browns, as for instance the next three--_Le Pèredes Carriboux, Geroux the Eldest, Alixi To-rong-jo. The-man-who-stands-still_ is evidently a stand-patter, while one wondersif it would be right to call _The-Man-Who-Walks-With-The-Red-Hair, _ aCrimson Rambler. 

_Carry-the-Kettle_ appears with _Star Blanket_ and _The Mosquito, _ andthe next man in line, who has the tongs from a bon-bon box stuck in theband of his hat, rejoices in the name of _Strike-Him-on-the-Back, _ whichsomehow suggests the match-box in the hotel hall-way. As the dignifiedfather, _Having-Passed-Many-Birthdays, _ claims five dollars each for hisfour daughters, _Smiling Martin, My-Wigwam-is-White, _ and the twins_Make-Daylight-Appear_ and _Red-Sky-of-the-Morning, _ we acknowledge thathere again, in the art of naming, the Yellow-Knife has his white brother"skinned. "

Birth, dowry, divorce, death, each must be noted on the treaty ticket, with a corresponding adjustment of the number of dollar-bills to bedrawn from the coffer. If a man between treaty-paying and treaty-payingmarries a widow with a family, he draws five dollars each for the newpeople he has annexed. If there is an exchange of wives (anot-infrequent thing), the babies have to be newly parcelled out. Through all the family intricacies Mr. Conroy follows the interpreterwith infinite patience and bonhomie. To the listener it sounds startlingas the interpreter, presenting two tickets says, "He married these threepeople--this fellow. " "O, he give dat baby away to Charles. " When wehear in a dazed way that "_Mary Catholic's_ son married his dead woman'ssister who was the widow of _Anton Larucom_ and the mother of two boys, "we take a long breath and murmur, "If the angle ACB is not equal to theangle ABC, then how can the angle DEF be equal to the angle DFE?" Ayoung couple, looking neither of them more than sixteen or seventeen, return with a shake of the head five of the fifteen dollars profferedthem, and the interpreter explains, "Their little boy died--there's onlytwo of them. "

Gregory Daniels in a Scottish voice, which cannot quite hide itstriumphant ring, pushes back his five dollars and demands forty-five. "Igot a wife and siven since last year, she's a Cree wumman. " Anotherhalf-breed asks anxiously if he would be allowed to send for a "permit"like a white man if he refused to take treaty. 

One man with long black hair and a cheese-cutter cap createsconsternation at the tent-door by claiming treaty for two wives andseventeen children. Mr. Conroy, scenting an attempt to stuff theballot-box, produces seventeen matches, lays them at my feet on thetent-floor and asks _The-Lean-Man_ to name them. He starts in all right. We hear, "_Long Lodge, Little Pine, Blue Fish, Birdtail, Little Bone, Sweet Grass, Ermine Skin_, " and then in a monotone he begins over again, "_Long Lodge, Little Pine, Blue Fish_, " and finally gives it up, eagerlyasking the interpreter to wait "a-little-sun. " The drama of paying andrecording has gone on for half an hour and we have quite forgotten_The-Lean-Man_, when back he comes with _Mrs. Lean-Man, Sr. _, and _Mrs. Lean-Man, Jr_. Each spouse leads her own progeny. Seeing is believing, and off _Lean-Man_ goes with a fat wallet. We wander into the stores tosee what purchases the Indians will make. One young blade is looking ata box of stogies, and the clerk says, "He can afford to blow in his wadon perfumes and cigars, that chap, he got a silver-fox last winter. "They tell the story of how old Maurice, Chief of the Chipewyans, puthis first treaty money in a cassette and kept it there all the yearbecause he had heard one white man tell another that money grows, and hewanted to see if a white man lies when he talks to another white man. 

Sometimes, though, the Indian scores one on the white. This was markedlythe case when the first treaty payments were made at Lesser Slave. Twoyoung Jews had followed the treaty party all the way in from Edmontonwith an Old Aunt Sally stand where you throw wooden balls at stuffedfigures at ten shies for a quarter. "Every time you hit 'em, you get asee-gar!" They thought they were going to clear out the Indians, but ittook a bunch of Lesser Slave braves just an hour and a quarter to breakthe bank at Monte Carlo. As an appreciative onlooker reported, "Themchaps pinked them dolls every time. "

As we leave Resolution in the evening through an open door, we get aglimpse of a woman placing her hands in blessing on a boy's head. It isthe mother of one of our boatmen, Baptiste Bouvier, or "De-deed. " Thelad in turn puts a hand on each of his mother's shoulders and kisses hergaily on both cheeks, grabs the camera, and helps us down the bank. Thewhistle toots impatiently. We both turn and wave our hands to the motherat the open door. 

Travelling all night, we do not go to bed, but merely throw ourselvesdown for an hour's rest about midnight, for we must not lose the lighteffects on this great silent lake. As the captain finds, amid shiftingsandbars, a fairway for his vessel, there comes offshore the subduednight-noises of the small wild things that populate the wilderness. Here a heavy tree, its footway eaten out by the lake-swirl round a highpoint, slumps into the water, and joins the fleet of arboreal derelicts. The raucous voice of a night-fowl cries alarm. Then there descends overall a measureless silence. At three o'clock in the morning we haul intothe Hay River Mission, where the familiar mosquito-smudge greets us atthe landing. 

[Illustration: On the Slave]

This was by far the most attractive English Church Mission in the wholeNorth--although comparisons are odorous and yet illuminating. All HayRiver had been up over night, anticipating their yearly mail. Red girlsand boys of every tribe in the North are housed in this Mission, learning how to play the white man's game--jolly and clean little bodiesthey are. It looks like Christmas time. Parcels are being done up, thereis much whispering and running to and fro, and the sparkling of blackeyes. Would you like to see the letters that _The Teaser, The Twin, Johnny Little Hunter_, and _Mary Blue Quill_ are sending out to theirparents? For the most part the missives consist of cakes of pink scentedsoap tightly wrapped round with cotton cloth, on which the teachers arewriting in ink the syllabic characters that stand for each father's andmother's name. The soap has been bought with the children's penniesearned by quill-work and wood-carving done in the long winter nights. The parcels will be passed from one trapper's jerkin to another, andwhen, months afterwards, they reach their destination in far tepee orlodge of the deerskin, _Mrs. Woman-of-the-Bright-Foam_ and _Mr. Kee-noo-shay-o_, or _The Fish_, will know their boys and girls "stillremember. "

One of the Hay River teachers is married to a Chicagoan who started tenyears ago for the Klondike, knew when he had found pure gold, ceased hisquest here, and lived happily ever after. Their children are the mostfascinating little people we have seen for many months. Life is quaintat the Hay River Mission. The impression we carry away is of earnest andsweet-hearted women bringing mother-love to the waifs of the wilderness, letting their light shine where few there are to see it. We discoverthe moccasin-flower in bloom, see old Indian women bringing inevergreen boughs for their summer bedding--a delightful Ostermoormattress of their own devising. Dogs cultivate potatoes at Hay River insummer, and in the winter they haul hay. The hay causes our enquiry, andwe learn that this Mission boasts one old ox, deposited here no doubt bysome glacial drift of the long ago. And thereby hangs a tale. Charlie, an attaché of the school-force, drove this old ox afield day by day. Asman and beast returned wearily in the evening, the teachers asked, "Well, what happened to-day, Charlie?" "Bill balked, " was the laconicreply. Tuesday's question would bring the same response, "Bill balked. "And "Bill balked, " on Wednesday. Thursday it is--"Bill didn't balk"; andso the days divided themselves into days of blueness and red-letterdays. 

[Illustration: Dogs Cultivating Potatoes]

The mean July temperature at Hay River is 60° Fahrenheit, and themonthly mean for January, 18° below zero. Vegetables of their owngrowing, with whitefish from the lake, furnish almost the entire foodsupply of this thrifty Mission, one season's harvest giving them athousand bushels of potatoes, fifteen of turnips, and five each ofbeets, carrots, and parsnips, with two hundred cabbages and over tenthousand whitefish. 

Hay River has never been explored. It is supposed to head near thesource of the Nelson and to flow northeast for three hundred milesbefore emptying, as we see it, into Great Slave Lake. This river marksthe limit of those grassy plains which extend at intervals all the wayfrom Mexico northward. Bishop Bompas, years ago, descended a longstretch of the river, discovering not far back from where we stand amajestic cataract, which he named the "Alexandra Falls" after the thenPrincess of Wales. He describes it as a perpendicular fall one hundredfeet high, five hundred feet wide, and of surpassing beauty. "The ambercolour of the falling water gives the appearance of golden tressestwined with pearls. "

Crossing Great Slave Lake, we think of Chant-la, Chief of the Slavis atHay River. Bishop Reeves was anxious to convert him to the Christianfaith, but had great difficulty in giving Chant-la a proper conceptionof the Trinity. The old man would not say he believed or understood whatwas inexplicable to him. Setting out once on a long journey, the clericadjured the Chief to struggle with the problem during his absence. TheBishop returning, Chant-la came out in his canoe to meet him, eagerlyreporting that all now was clear. "It is like Great Slave Lake, " saidthe old man. "It is all water now, just like the Father. When wintercomes it will be frozen over, but Great Slave Lake just the same; thatis like the Son. In the spring when the ice breaks and the rain makesthe snow into slush, it is still Great Slave Lake; and that is like theHoly Ghost. "

Beyond Great Slave Lake, forty-five miles down the Mackenzie, we reachFort Providence, as strongly French in its atmosphere as Hay River isBritish. Our coming is a gala day. The hamlet flies three flags, thefree trader sports his own initials "H. N. , " the Hudson's Bay Companyloyally runs the Union Jack to the masthead, over the convent floats thetri-colour of France. Fort Providence is hot. We walk to the convent andare hospitably received by the nuns. They call their Red flock togetherfor us to inspect and show us marvellous handwork of silk embroidery onwhite deerskin. The daintiest of dainty slippers calls forth thequestion, "Where are you going to find the Cinderella for these?" Ablank look is my answer, for no one in Providence Convent has ever heardof Cinderella! But then, convents are not supposed to be therepositories of man-knowledge (although a half-breed, on our passageacross the lake, did whisper a romantic story of a Klondiker whoassailed this very fortress and tried to carry off the prettiest nun ofthe north). The garden of the Sisters is a bower of all theold-fashioned flowers--hollyhocks, wall-flower, Canterbury bells, andsweet-William--and down in the corner a young girl of the Dog-Ribsdiscovers to us a nest of fledgling chipping sparrows. 

As we landed from the boat, Tenny Gouley dressed in his Sunday best hadbeamed, "Nice day--go veesit. " And "veesit" we did. Mrs. Herron, of theH. B. Company, has spent many years at Old Fort Rae, and her thoughtshark back to one severe winter spent there. She turns to the wife of ourgood Captain with, "Hard living, Mrs. Mills, dry suckers. " It is a shortspeech, but fraught with meaning. I honestly think a dry sucker (wellsanded) the least succulent of all the impossible fish-dishes of theNorth. There are many young Herrons all as neat as new pins, thelast--no, the latest, enshrined in a moss-bag. Tradition tells thatonce, when they were fewer in number, the father took the flock out toWinnipeg to school. The children cried so at the parting that Mr. Herronturned and brought them all back with him to the Mackenzie!

[Illustration: David Villeneuve]

The most interesting man in all Fort Providence is David Villeneuve, oneof the Company's Old Guard. He was anxious to be "tooken" with his wifeand grandchild, and over the camera we chatted. David goes through lifeon one leg--fishes through the ice in winter, traps, mends nets, drivesdogs, and does it all with the dexterity and cheerfulness of a youngstrong man. He tells of his accident. "I was young fellow, me, when afish-stage fell on me. I didn't pay no notice to my leg until it beganto go bad, den I take it to the English Church to Bishop Bompas. He toleme de leg must come off, an' ax me to get a letter from de priest (I'mCat-o-lic, me) telling it was all right to cut him. I get de letter andbring my leg to Bompas. He cut 'im off wid meat-saw. No, I tak' not'in', me. I chew tobacco and tak' one big drink of Pain-killer. Yas, it hurtwen he strike de marrow. "

"Heavens! Didn't you faint with the awful pain?"

"What? Faint, me? No. I say, 'Get me my fire-bag, I want to have asmok'. '"

CHAPTER X

PROVIDENCE TO SIMPSON, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES DOWN THE MACKENZIE

"Never the Spirit was born: the Spirit shall cease to be never. Never was time, it was not; end and beginning are dreams. Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit, Death hath not touched it at all, though dead the house of it seems. "

We have just finished supper and are sitting reading on the upper deckabout seven o'clock, when a cry comes from below, followed by therushing back and forth of moccasined feet. In a flash Bunny Langford, one of the engineers, has grabbed a lifebuoy, runs past us to the stern, and throws it well out toward a floating figure. 

It is De-deed, De-deed who had smilingly helped us aboard at Resolutionjust twenty-four hours before. Finishing his turn at stoking, he hadgone to draw a bucket of water, leaned over too far, and fallen, carrying the hatch with him. At first we think nothing of the incident, as he is a good swimmer and the current is with him. As soon as thestartled people realise what has happened the steamer's engines arereversed and a boat is lowered. We call out to De-deed to swim to thebuoy, but he doesn't see it or doesn't understand. The black head getssmaller in the distance; it disappears, and comes up again. Down it goesfor the second time. A strange, constricted feeling comes into ourthroats as we cry out, "Swim, De-deed, the boat is coming! They arealmost up to you!" The boat, pulling hard against the current, seems buta dozen yards away. Will he hold up? As we look, the head sinks, _and itdoes not come up_. Within a few feet of buoy and boat, the body ofDe-deed disappears for the last time. We search for an hour or more withgrappling irons, but he is never seen again. A strange silence settlesdown above and below deck, and all night long two faces flit beforeus--the grave face of the mother calling down blessings on her boy, therallying smile of De-deed bidding her good-by and telling her all iswell. It is a brave and happy spirit which, in the "Little Lake" of theMackenzie, goes out with the current. 

The Mackenzie River, "La Grande Rivière en Bas, " as the people ofResolution call it, on whose waters we are now fairly embarked, is thegreatest water-way in the British Empire, and of earth's great riversthe one least traversed by man. Counting back from the headwaters ofeither its more northerly tributary the Peace or its southern feeder theAthabasca, the length of the river is three thousand miles. At LittleLake, where it issues out of Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie is eightmiles wide, and its delta a thousand miles below here has an expansionof fifty miles. The average width of the stream, as we traverse it fromsource to mouth, is a mile and a half, widening out often in its sweepto two and a half to three miles. 

From Little Lake the current is somewhat sluggish, the river bank seldomexceeding one hundred feet in height until we reach what is known as"The Head of the Line. " Before the advent of steam on the Mackenzie, when the patient voyager made his way up south from the ocean, it wasat this point that the tracking-line was exchanged for oars. The plainsbordering the river here are forested with white spruce and broken withmuskeg and lakes. The statistician on board works out that the volume ofwater the Mackenzie carries to the sea is half a million feet a second. No one is wise enough to challenge his calculation, and we merely hazarda wonder if this most magnificent water-power will ever be used forcommercial and economic purposes. There is surely enough "white coal"rushing by us to turn the wheels of the factories of a continent. TheMackenzie is the only river whose basin is cut by a thousand mile range. The sources of the Peace and the Liard lie on the west side of theRockies, from where these giant feeders bring their tribute to the mainriver through passes in that range. 

At intervals all the way down the river to Fort Simpson we are treatedon our right hand to views of the Horn Mountains, which slope away ontheir north side but show a steep face to the south. Along our coursethe bluish Devonian shales are capped by yellow boulder-clay. 

We awaken on Friday, July 10th, to find ourselves at Rabbitskin Riverand everybody busy carrying on wood for fuel. By ten o'clock we are atFort Simpson in latitude 62°, the old metropolis of the North. FortSimpson is built on an island where the Liard River joins the Mackenzie, the river being a mile and a half wide at this point. The foundation ofthe fort dates back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, when itwas known in fur annals as "The Forks of the Mackenzie. "

Simpson is essentially a has-been. We look upon the warehouses of itsquadrangle with their slanting walls and dipping moss-covered roofs andtry to conjure up the time long past when all was smart and imposing. Inthose days when the Indians brought in their precious peltries they werereceived and sent out again with military precision and all that goeswith red tape and gold braid. Surely the musty archives of Simpson holdstories well worth the reading! We would fain linger and dream in frontof this sun-dial across whose dulled face the suns of twenty lustrumshave cast their shadows, but we begrudge every moment not spent infossicking round the old buildings. We seek for threads which shallunite this mid-summer day to all the days of glamour that are gone. In arambling building, forming the back of a hollow square, we come acrossthe mouldy remains of a once splendid museum of natural history, thelife work of one Captain Bell of the Old Company. It gives us a sorryfeeling to look at these specimens, now dropping their glass eyes andexposing their cotton-batting vitals to the careless on-looker, whilethe skeleton ribs of that canoe with which Dr. Richardson made historyso long ago add their share to the general desolation. In a journal ofthe vintage of 1842 we read an appeal for natural history exhibits sentto Fort Simpson by an official of the British Museum. He writes, [Illustration: Hudson's Bay House, Fort Simpson]

"I may observe that in addition to the specimens asked for, any mice, bats, shrew-mice, moles, lizards, snakes or other small quadrupeds orreptiles would be acceptable. They may either be skinned or placed inrum or strong spirits of any kind, a cut being first made in the side ofthe body to admit the spirits to the intestines. "

Of all the rare humour disclosed in the old records, this entry mosttickles my fancy. 

I think of the little group that we had forgathered with at Chipewyan, driven even in this year of grace to lavender-water and red ink, whenpermits run dry. One turns back the clock to the time of the Chartistsand the year of the nuptials of the young Queen in England. We see uphere on the fringe of things the dour and canny but exceedingly humorousAdam McBeaths, John Lee Lewises, and George Simpsons, the outer vedetteof the British Empire; and, seeing them, get some half-way adequateconception of what a modicum of rum or "strong spirits of any kind"meant in the way of cheer at old Fort Simpson in those days. When we tryto get a picture of one of these Hudson's Bay men gravely opening ashrew-mouse, mole, or "other small quadruped, " while his chum pours inthe _aqua vitae_ or precious conversation water, we declare that scienceasks too much. 

An outer stairway leading to the second story of a big building invitesus. Opening the door, we find ourselves in the midst of an old library, and moth and rust, too, here corrupt. We close the door softly behind usand try to realise what it meant to bring a library from England to FortSimpson a generation ago. First, there arose the desire in the mind ofsome man for something beyond dried meat and bales of fur. He had topersuade the authorities in England to send out the books. Leather-covered books cost something six or seven decades ago, and theLondon shareholders liked better to get money than to spend it. We seethe precious volumes finally coming across the Atlantic in woodensailing-ships to Hudson Bay, follow them on the long portages, watchthem shoot rapids and make journeys by winter dog-sled, to reach Simpsonat last on the backs of men. The old journals reveal stories of thediscussion evoked by the reading of these books afterward as, along withthe dried fish, deer-meat, and other inter-fort courtesies, they passedfrom post to post. Was never a circulating library like this one. Andnow the old books, broken-backed and disembowelled, lie under foot, andnone so poor to do them reverence. Everything is so old in this Norththat there is no veneration for old things. 

It is but a few years since the founder of this library died, and hisson now sits in his saddle at Fort Simpson. If you were to wander acrossthe court, as I did to-day, and look into the Sales Shop, you would seethe presentation sword of this last-generation Carnegie, ignobly slicingbacon for an Indian customer. _Sic transit gloria mundi_!

What are the books which this sub-Arctic library sent out? We get downon the floor and gently touch the historic old things. Isn't it Johnsonwho says, "I love to browse in a library"? Judging by the dust andcobwebs, there hasn't been much browsing done among these volumes foryears. Present-day Simpson has seldom "fed on the dainties that are bredin a book. " Here is a first edition of _The Spectator_, and next it a_Life of Garrick_, with copies of _Virgil_, and all _Voltaire_ and_Corneille_ in the original. A set of Shakespeare with exquisite linedrawings by Howard shows signs of hard reading, and so does the _Apologyfor the Life of Mr. Colly Cibber_. One wonders how a man embedded inFort Simpson, as a fly in amber, would ever think of sending to the_Grand Pays_ for _Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy_, yet we find it here, cheek by jowl with _The Philosophy of Living or the Way to Enjoy Lifeand Its Comforts. The Annual Register of History, Politics, andLiterature of the Year 1764_ looks plummy, but we have to forego it. Thelengthy titles of the books of this vintage, as for instance, _Death-BedTriumphs of Eminent Christians, Exemplifying the Power of Religion in aDying Hour_, bring to mind the small boy's definition ofporridge--"fillin', but not satis-fyin'. " Two more little books with bigtitles are _Actors' Budget of Wit and Merriment, Consisting ofMonologues, Prologues and Epilogues_, and _The London Prisons, with anAccount of the More Distinguished Persons Who Have Been Confined inThem_. 

But the book that most tempts our cupidity is _Memoirs of Miss A---- n, Who Was Educated For a Nun, with Many Interesting Particulars_. We wantthat book, we want to take it on with us and read it when we reach theLand of the Eskimo, where the Mackenzie slips into the Arctic by all itssilver mouths. We lift the volume up, and put it down again, and wehunger to steal it. Jekyll struggles with Hyde. At last the ShorterCatechism and the Westminster Confession of Faith triumph; we put itdown and softly close the door behind us. And ever since we haveregretted our Presbyterian training. 

At Fort Simpson, it is like walking across a churchyard or through anold cathedral. Here men lived and wrought and hoped, cut off from theirkind, and did it all with no thought of being heroic. We walk along theshore to watch Indian women busied in making a birchbark canoe and inwashing clothes with washboards--the old order and the new. A littledive into the mosquito-ridden woods discloses a wonderful patch ofPyrola and a nest of Traills' flycatcher, and makes us wish that theminutes were longer and the mosquitoes fewer. What a beautiful tilingthis Pyrola is, with its inverted anthers and the cobwebby margins ofits capsule! Its bracted, nodding flowers run through all shades ofwhite, pale yellow, and dark yellow. 

Down on the beach we chat with a prospector and his son, a lad offifteen, who are building a skiff in which to ascend the Liard, huntinggold. Yesterday a Mr. And Mrs. Carl and a Mr. And Mrs. Hall passed us onthe river. Outfitted for two years, they will prospect for gold in theNahanni Mountains and toward the headwaters of the Liard. One of thecouples has just come out from Glasgow and this is their honeymoon. Wehalf envy them their journey. Can anything compare with the deardelights of travelling when you do not know and nobody knows just whatlies round the next corner?

[Illustration: A Slavi Family at Fort Simpson]

The dogs at Simpson are "wicked. " Picking our way among them, Iparticularly approve this term of the natives, attributing as it does ahuman conception and malice aforethought to these long-legged wraiths. The first articulate sound an Indian child of the Mackenzie learns tomake is "Mash!" an evident corruption of the French "_Marche_. " This iswhat Shakespeare meant when he speaks of "a word to throw at a dog. " Abrown baby just emerged from the cocoon stage of the moss-bag toddleswith uplifted pole into a bunch of these hungry mongrels and dispersesthem with a whack of the stick and the lordly "Mash!" of the superioranimal. For our own part we are "scared stiff, " but follow along in thewake of our infant protector to a wee wooden church which staggers underthe official title, "The Cathedral of St. David. "

[Illustration: A Slavi Type from Fort Simpson]

We have had occasion to speak of the splendid service rendered toNorthern and Western Canada by the Hudson's Bay Company and by the RoyalNorthwest Mounted Police. A third factor through the years has beenbuilding Empire with these. Are we not as a people too prone to minimisethe great nation-building work performed by the scattered missionariesin the lone lands beyond the railway? Ostensibly engaged in the work ofsaving souls, Canadian missionaries, both Roman and English, have openedthe gates of commerce, prosecuted geographical discovery, tried tocorrect social evils, and added materially to our store of exactscience. Through their influence, orphanages have been founded, schoolsestablished, and hospitals opened. Creeds take a secondary place todeeds in this land, and when you discuss a man, be he cleric or layman, the last thing you ask is, "To what church does he belong?"Incidentally, it does seem rather odd that with Scottish blood runningthrough the veins of nine-tenths of the people of this North as yet noPresbyterian missionary has penetrated beyond the latitude of Edmonton. The great Churches of England and Rome, north of the Athabasca, dividethe field between them. 

The records of the whole missionary world show no more striking figurethan that of Bishop Bompas of the Anglican Church. We have already hadtwo glimpses of this young Cockney curate; once, hoisting his homemadeUnion Jack on the ox-cart at St. Cloud, and, again, passing north as thewild-fowl flew south in October, 1865, chronicled by the Chipewyanscribe merely as "a Protestant missionary coming in a canoe from thePortage. " In the forty years of missionary life which intervened betweenhis coming into the North and his death in the Yukon just two years ago, only twice did the Bishop emerge from these Northern fastnesses. It isliteral truth to state that no one on any part of the world's map hasever made so many long and toilsome journeys as did this man. With hissheep scattered over a country a million square miles in extent, wemight compare a parochial visit of this parson to a barge-journey fromLondon to Constantinople, replacing the European capitals by Hudson'sBay forts, and substituting for Europe's vineyards and pleasant vales anunbroken line of jack-pine and muskeg. 

We are told that Bishop Bompas's father was Dicken's prototype forSergeant Buzfuz. A new vista would open up to the counsel for Mrs. Bardell could he turn from his chops and tomato-sauce to follow theforty-years' wandering in the wilderness of this splendid man of God, who succeeded, if ever man succeeds, in following Paul's advice ofkeeping his body under. 

Bishops Bompas was one of the greatest linguists the Mother Country everproduced. Steeped in Hebrew and the classics when he entered theNorthland, he immediately set himself to studying the various nativelanguages, becoming thoroughly master of the Slavi, Beaver, Dog-Rib, andTukudk dialects. When Mrs. Bompas sent him a Syriac testament andlexicon, he threw himself with characteristic energy into the study ofthat tongue. There is something in the picture of this devoted manwriting Gospels in Slavi, primers in Dog-Rib, and a Prayer Book insyllabic Chipewyan, which brings to mind the figure of Caxton bendinghis silvered head over the blocks of the first printing-press in the oldAlmonry so many years before. What were the "libraries" in which thisArctic Apostle did his work? The floor of a scow on the Peace, a hole inthe snow, a fetid corner of an Eskimo hut. His "Bishop's Palace, " whenhe was not afloat, consisted of a bare room twelve feet by eight, inwhich he studied, cooked, slept, and taught the Indians. 

They tell you stories up here of seeing the good Bishop come back from adistant journey to some isolated tribe, followed at heel by a dozenlittle Indian babies, his disciples for the days to come. Bishop Bompaslived in one continent, but manifested in two, keeping himself closelyin touch with the religious and Church growth of the Old World. When theBritish press had been given over to any particularreligious-controversial subject, and the savants had finally disposed ofthe matter to their own satisfaction, travelling out by summer traverseor winter dog-sled would come a convincing pamphlet by Bishop Bompas, toupset altogether the conclusions of the wranglers. 

There is one tale of this man which only those can appreciate who travelhis trail. An Indian lad confides to us, "Yes, my name is WilliamCarpenter--Bishop Bompas gave me my name, he was a good man. He wouldn'thurt anybody, he never hit a dog, he wouldn't kill a mosquito. He hadnot much hair on his head, and when it was _meetsu_, when the Bishop eathis fish, he shoo that mosquito away and he say, 'Room for you, mylittle friend, and room for me, but this is not your place: go. '"

We call upon the present incumbents of the little church of St. David. They are young people, the Rev. And Mrs. Day, putting in their firstyear in this Northern charge. Their home with its spotless floors andwalls papered with old copies of _The Graphic_ and _Illustrated LondonNews_ is restful and attractive. The garden of the parsonage shows anamount of patient work on the part of some one. Potatoes eighteeninches high and peas twice the height of this, with turnips and cabbagesand cauliflower are good to look at. There are records to show that, years ago, Fort Simpson produced tomatoes and decent crops of barley. 

[Illustration: Interior of St. David's Cathedral]

Entering the little church we see the neat font sent here by Mrs. Bompas, "In dear memory of Lucy May Owindia, baptised in this Church, January, 1879. " Owindia was one of the many red waifs that the goodBishop and Mrs. Bompas took into their big hearts. Her story is a sadone. Along the beach at Simpson, _Friday_, an Indian, in a burst ofungovernable temper murdered his wife and fled, leaving their one babyto perish. It was not until next day that the little one was found, unconscious and dying. The Bishop and Mrs. Bompas took the child intotheir loving care. To the name Owindia, which means _The Weeping One_, was added the modern Lucy May, and the little girlie twined herselfclosely round the hearts of her protectors. When the time seemed ripe, Owindia was taken back to England to school, but the wee red plant wouldnot flourish in that soil. She sickened and died. Hence the memorial andthe inscription we read this July day. Much history of militant energy, much of endurance, and countless chapters of benevolence did the goodBishop write into the history of the North before, off on the Yukon sidein 1906, "God's finger touched him and he slept. "

Missionaries of the present day are not without their troubles. Mrs. Daytells of potato-whiskey making in some illicit still back in themosquito-woods, the results of which she fears; and, even as we speak, an Indian lunatic pokes his head through the palings of thepotato-patch. From far back in Fort Nelson, British Columbia, and fromFort Liard, the Hudson's Bay men have come to make their reports to Mr. Brabant at Simpson. They brought their wives and babies with them, brought also a quantity of beautiful porcupine-quill work, Fort Liardbeing one of the few places in the North where this art flourishes. Tomorrow they will start back, tacking against the stream, as theimported brides are doing before them. 

To dive into the journals of the past, of which the loft above theoffices here at Simpson is full, is even more interesting than talkingwith the people of the present. We take 1837, the year which saw theaccession in England of the young and well-beloved Queen, and fromthese musty books unearth a running commentary of what is doing in FortSimpson in that year. 

"_1837, January 1_. The people were brought into the Hall, and enjoyedtheir meal with great appetites, being also treated to a glass of wineand a fathom of tobacco and a pipe. Wind East. "

"_1837, February 11_. Rabbits are numerous, but the ladies of theEstablishment make no great effort in snaring them. "

"_1837, February 14_. Late last night arrived a woman, _Thawyase_, and aboy, the family of the late _Thoesty_. They have all come to take refugehere as they are starving. The woman at dusk decoyed old Jack away tocamp in the woods--and the old fellow has found a mate. "

One wonders if either _Thawyase_, the decoyed Jack, or the oldchronicler was conscious of the fact that this was St. Valentine's Day. 

"_1837, March 27_. Two geese have been seen to-day, the first thisseason. "

"_1837, May 2_. _Marcel_ sowed some oats. Mosquitoes begin to becomeannoying. "

"_1837, May 5_. Wild fowl are beginning to frequent the small lakes ofthe neighbourhood. The willows and young trees are now budding forthbeautifully. "

"_1837, May 18_. _Hope_ began to plough this morning with the bull, butas this is the first time he has been yoked, the day's work is found tobe but poor. "

"_1837, May 19_. Felix and Roderick McLeod made twelve bags of pemmicanto-day. "

_1837, May 21_. The Mackenzie River broke up to-day, and continueddrifting pretty thick till evening. "

"_1837, June 18_. Some of the Indians killed a bear before the door andit supplied us with a little fresh meat. "

"_1837, June 19_. Flies so numerous that we are under the necessity ofputting our cattle into the stable, otherwise they will fall victims tothe cruel insects. "

"_1837, June 20_. Weather very suffocating, thermometer 85 above atthree p. M. , not as much as a cloud to be seen in the firmament and notthe least air to afford any refreshment; this along with the solitude ofthe time is enough to make people dull. No Indian from any quarter: wellsupplied with ammunition last spring, they forget us when they can gettheir own mouths satisfied. Ashley grinding barley in the steel mill. "

"_1837, June 21_. _Le Mari_ has just brought in some fish and a littlebearskin in order to get a chemise, he says he is not able to huntwithout a chemise, as there are so many flies just now. I have taken itupon myself to give him the shirt on credit. "

Here a new hand writes the records, untrammelled by any orthographicrules. 

"_1837, June 24_. Flys very numerus and trublsome to the Cattel. "

"_1837, July 11_. Starvan Indians going and coming ourly. "

"_1837, July 13_. Six squas arrived with plenty Bearrys--that's all theysubsist on in this part of the River. "

"_1837, July 26_. Barley is getting ripe. But small birds nip off theends of the stalks as fast as it ripens. "

"_1837, August 23_. Last night the bull broke into one of the gardenswhere oats was sown and eat the whole up. "

"_1837, September 18_. An Express arrived from Fort Norman withdespatches from the Gentlemen of the Arctic Discovery Expedition, and itis most satisfying to learn that the first object of the Expedition wassuccessfully accomplished: on the 4th August the Company's flag wasplanted on Point Barrow. "

"_1837, September 19th_. _Louson_ put parchment in the window-frames. "

"_1837, October 11_. Ice is forming since yesterday along the beach. "

"_1837, November 1_. This being the holiday for All Saints, the menthough no saints celebrated it off duty. The weather cold but fine. "

"_1837, November 2_. I have been these two days occupied with theblacksmith in making an oven, and this evening it being finished we giveit a fair trial by placing a large trout in it for supper and it isfound to answer most excellently. "

"_1837, November 3_. Strong northwest wind with drift and cold. Aboutone o'clock of last night the Aurora had a most unusual appearance, seemingly black in place of the white commonly observed and forming anarch from east to west, consisting of five streaks, here and therebroken off. "

"_1827, November 5_. Blacksmith making iron runners for our traineauxfrom old gun-barrels. "

"_1837, November 30_. This being the anniversary of the Tutelar Saint ofScotland, we had in addition to our usual dinner a roasted swan and amoose-nose, a rice pudding, a cranberry tart, and a glass of wine. "

"_1837, December 1_. I was obliged to give four pounds of dried meat tothe dogs for there are some that are almost dead and they et all thewindows of the Forge. "

"_1837, December 2_. Three of the Fort women fell into a fit ofinsanity and kept all of the men at the Fort to hold them and preventthem devouring themselves. "

_December 25_. Thermometer 35 below the cypher this morning, this beingChristmas no labour done. Wind N. W. "

"_1838, January 1_. The morning was ushered in by a salute fired by ourpeople at the windows and doors, after which they came to wish us aHappy New Year--and in return, in conformity to the custom of thecountry they were treated, the men with half a glass of brandy each, andthe women with a kiss, and the whole of them with as many cakes as theychoose to take and some raisins. One of our gentlemen who had a bottleof shrub treated them to a glass, and after some chit-chat conversationthey retired, firing a salute on going out. In the evening they playedat Blind-man's-buff, concluding the fête by a supper in the Hall. I alsogave each of the men a fathom of twist tobacco and a clay pipe. "

CHAPTER XI

FORT GOOD HOPE ON THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

"With souls grown clear In this sweet atmosphere, With influences serene, Our blood and brain washed clean, We've idled down the breast Of broadening tides. "

--_Chas. G. D. Roberts_. 

About ten o'clock on the evening of July loth, in broad daylight, wepush out from Fort Simpson, with the whole population, white, red, andparti-coloured, on the banks to bid us good-bye. We have seenpresent-day Simpson and opened for a little way the volume of the past. We try to imagine what it is like in winter-time, and a picture pushedinto our hands at parting gives us another viewpoint, showing the hamletphotographed by the light of the Aurora. As we leave Fort Simpson, theMackenzie's channel is a mile wide and it increases in width as weproceed. For about seventy-five miles the course of the river is duenorthwest, running four miles an hour. The banks look low, but when thepilot takes us close in to shore, we see that it is the size of theriver which has cheated our eyes, and the cliffs that seemed solow-lying will measure two hundred feet or over. At the Great Bend weimpinge against two peaks, Mt. Camsell and Mt. Stand Alone, and here theNahanni joins the Mackenzie. The great river takes a due north coursefor another thirty miles, and the Willow River flows in from the east. 

[Illustration: Fort Simpson by the Light of the Aurora]

At this point the Mackenzie enters the Rockies, this great spinalmountain-chain of North America breaking into parallel ranges to allowthe mighty flood to flow between. We feel, as the boatman did on LakeAthabasca, that a day is as long as you can go without stopping. Aladder takes us to a seat by the side of Tenny Gouley in thepilot-house, who merely drops the window to give us an unobstructedview, and says nothing. Tenny Gouley is one of the rare people whounderstand. Talk of civilising these half-breeds of the North! They havethat gift of repose which we know nothing of, which we may hope toattain after we have lived through automobiles and air-ships and whenmany incarnations will have allayed the fever of that unrest which we soblatantly dub "progress. "

It is an ancient something, this unmapped Mackenzie into whose silencewe intrude. Before man was, these waters had cut for themselves a roadto the ocean. These banks were once marked by the mammoth. Previous tothe Glacial Age, prehistoric man here hunted prehistoric prey; eonspassed; and when the Ice Age went out, willows and aspens occupied thesilt, delicate flower-growth flourished, and birds sang in the branches. 

Three thousand miles of waterway, forest-fringed and rampart-guarded, and of its treasures the world knows naught! They await man'sdevelopment and acceptance--banks of pitch, wells of oil, outcroppingsof coal, great masses of unmined salt, mineral wealth uncounted andunguessed. Silent forests have followed us from where we entered theAthabasca, and these woods persist to where the great river divides intoits delta channels. Of the mineral wealth of the Liard, the Peace, theNahanni, and the half hundred other waterways tributary to theMackenzie, practically nothing is known. There remain in these streamshundreds of miles unnavigated, and channels innumerable known only tothe _inconnu_ and the Indian. 

It is one hundred and twenty years since Mackenzie descended this streamto its mouth, "discovering" a river along whose shores centuries beforehad smoked the watch-fires and risen the tepees of an anterior race, wanderers from Asia, who here, guiltless alike of onlooker orchronicler, lived and loved and worked out their drama of life. Agefollows age, a new generation is evolved in the new habitat, and in timethese once-migrants from Asia are dubbed "the red men" and "the AmericanIndian. "

We watch out the night with Tenny Gouley. In the early morning, sharplyturning a corner, we flush a mixed family of water-fowl--gulls in greatvariety, something that looks like a brant, and a loon with its uncannylaughter. Snipe are on every batture, and sand-pipers, with kingfishersand all the lesser waders. The boreal summer is short and if broods areto be raised there is no time to waste. A riot of blossoms fringes thebanks--the uplifted magenta torches of the fireweed, tufts of vividgolden-rod, the pink petals of the rose, and a clustering carpet of mossdotted with the dead white of the dwarf cornel. Now and again a splashbreaks the silence, as great slices of the bank, gnawed under by theswollen river, slip into the current, carrying each its cargo ofupstanding spruce. So the channel of the Mackenzie is ever beingmodified, and no permanent chart of its course can be attempted. 

Winter changes all this. With October the leaves fall and the watersbegin to crisp into ice, fishes and fowl part company, the birds flysouth to kinder skies, the _inconnu_ hurry northward seeking the sea. Out of the sky comes the snow, the half-breed's "_Le convert du bonDieu_, " silent, soft, and all-covering. The coat of fox and rabbit andptarmigan whitens, too. It is the coming of stern winter. WanderingDog-Rib, Slavi, and Loucheux, lone trapper, the people of each isolatedfur-post, must alike take warning. God pity man or beast who enters thesix months of a Mackenzie winter unfortified by caches of food orunwitting of shelter. 

According to Tenny Gouley there are but two seasons in this country: theice season and the mosquito season. He likes winter best. As he holdsthe wheel in those clever hands of his, we fill and light his pipe forhim, and half a dozen of his illuminating phrases give us a clear-cutetching of the winter story. From the lowest form of life to the highestit is a struggle for existence. Sinuous as a serpent, the mink in hisman-envied coat winds among the willows on rapine bent, the marten preysupon the field-mouse, the lynx hunts the hare, each form of life pursuesa lower while hiding from a higher, and all are the prey of the greathunter, man. 

In these high latitudes it is the wind that is feared rather than theintense cold. Before the coming of the missionary, the Indian of theMackenzie basin heard in the winter wind no monition. The storm spokenot to him of Divine wrath or an outraged Deity. The wind was the voiceof God, but it assured the heathen Slavi of protection and power--theGitchi Manitou coming out of the all-whiteness to talk with hischildren. 

Spring up here is but a flutter of invisible garments; even when one issaying "Spring, " full-blown summer is hot afoot. In high noon, in theopen places, pools of water form in the ice. With glee is hailed thehonk of the first wild goose, the coats of ptarmigan and rabbit thin anddarken. There is water on the trail of the kit-fox. The subsidiarystreams that feed the Mackenzie fill their banks and flush the rottingice. With a crash, the drift-logs, with pan-ice and floating islands andall the gathered debris, roll headlong to the frozen ocean. 

Do we wonder that Indians worship the great forces of Nature? Gloomy andwide-reaching between her banks of tamarack and spruce, now opening intoa lake expansion, here narrowing between her stony ramparts, but everhurrying on and on and on to that far ocean of ice, the Mackenzie hasalways been good to her own, the self-contained and silent people alongher banks. In this vast land men speak not of bread as the staff oflife; their unvoiced prayer is, "Give us our fish in due season. " Fromthe waters of this river, since man was, have the Indians drawn anddipped and seined their sustenance--inconnu, jack-fish, grayling, white-fish, and loche. The wide bosom of the Mackenzie, in winter's iceor summer's spate, forever has been the people's highway--a trail wornsmooth by sled-runner and moccasin in the ice-season, melting its breastin the spring-time to open a way to the questing bow of the birch-bark. 

Along these banks, forgotten tepee-poles, deserted fish-stage, andlonely grave remain, a crumbling commentary of yesterday, a hint ofrecurring to-morrows. Son succeeds father, race replaces race, but thegreat Mackenzie flows on, and, as it flows, unwritten history alongthese banks is ever in the making. Tragedy and triumph, self-aggrandisement and self-obliteration, are here as well as in thenoisy world we have left. Lessons these are for us, too, if we bring thekeen eye and listening ear. Among Mackenzie tribes no Yellow-Knife, Dog-Rib, or Slavi starved while another had meat, no thievish handdespoiled the cache of another. A man's word was his bond, and a promisewas kept to the death. Not all the real things of life are taught to theCree by the Christian. Courage is better than culture, playing the gameof more importance than the surface niceties of civilisation, to be aman now of more moment than to hope to be an angel hereafter. 

About noon we reach Fort Wrigley, and are boarded by priests andIndians all interested in the new steamer and impressed with its size. One asks if it is a boat or an island, and another declares it is "justlike a town. " Fort Wrigley is an inconspicuous post with a dreary enoughrecord of hunger and hardship. We find it rich in flowers and willalways remember it as the one place in the North in which we gatheredthe fringed gentian (_Gentiana crinata_) with its lance-shaped leaves, delicately-fringed corollas, and deep violet blue. The fringed gentianis rapidly becoming a thing of the past in a great many localities, andit gives us pleased surprise to find it far up in latitude 63°. Purpleasters are here, too, and the heart-shaped seed-pods of shepherd's-purseor mother's-heart. Wrigley adds to our collection the green-penciledflowers of the grass of Parnassus, with wild flax, and both pink andpurple columbines already forming seed. 

Below Wrigley rugged ranges border both sides of the river at a distancefrom the shore-line of ten or twelve miles, and we come to RocheTrempe-l'eau or "The Rock by the Riverside, " an outcrop of Devonianlimestone rising on the right bank a sheer fifteen hundred feet abovethe river. We come into view of the "boucans" or beds of lignite coalwhich have been continuously burning here since Mackenzie saw them in1789 and mistook their smoke for tepee fires. At this point of hisjourney, had Mackenzie been a timorous man, he would have turned back, for natives came to meet him and told him with great empressment that itwould require several winters to get to the sea and that old age wouldcome upon him before the period of his return. He would also encountermonsters of gigantic stature adorned with wings. They added that therewere two impossible falls in the river, and described the people of theArctic coast as possessing the extraordinary power of killing with theireyes. These Indians told Mackenzie of "small white buffalo" which theyhunted to the westward. Perhaps they meant the mountain sheep, the_Sass-sei-yeuneh_ or "Foolish Bear" of the Slavis. 

[Illustration: Indians at Fort Norman]

It is midnight in the midst of a howling wind-storm when we come abreastof Fort Norman where Bear River, the outlet of Great Bear Lake, makesinto the Mackenzie. It is not an easy thing to handle the big steamer ina swift current and in the teeth of a storm like this, and we have beenin more comfortable places at midnight. However, after running with thecurrent, backing water, and clever finesse, we come safely to anchoragainst the shore opposite the Fort, under the lee of Bear Rock. This isa fourteen-hundred foot peak which starts up from the angle formed bythe junction of the Bear River with the Mackenzie. 

The water of Bear River is clear and its current swift through the wholeof its hundred-mile course. Great Bear Lake, known chiefly to theoutside world from the fact that Sir John Franklin establishedwinter-quarters here at Fort Confidence, is an immense sheet of water, probably 11, 500 square miles in extent, and bigger even than Great SlaveLake. Five arms meeting in a common centre give the lake an unusualshape, the longest distance from shore to shore being one hundred andfifty miles. The south and west banks are well wooded, and we aresurprised to learn that the lake remains open at the outlet until verylate in the autumn and sometimes throughout the whole winter. 

March sees the greatest depth of snow at Great Bear Lake, probably threefeet. In mid-April the thaws begin, and by May-day arrive the earlierwater-fowl. By the end of May the herbaceous plants begin to leaf, frogsare heard, and there is bright light at midnight. The end of July bringsblueberries, and at this time stars are visible at midnight. Septemberis ushered in by flurries of snow, and by the tenth of October the lastof the wild-fowl depart; but it is often Christmas Day before the centreof the lake freezes over. 

When we awake it is Sunday, July 12th, Orangeman's Day, with no onegoing round with a chip on his shoulder, and nobody to whistle "BoyneWater. " The wind falling, the steamer is turned and we bear away acrossthe river to Fort Norman, leaving the shelter of Bear Rock, the "Nest ofthe Wind" of the Indian. Tradition and superstition hang round thisgreat butte, with its heart of coloured gypsum several hundred feet inthickness, and on its face we plainly see the three beaver-skins thatthe Great Spirit, "in the beginning, " spread out there to dry. We findFort Norman a beautiful place in the sunshine of this Sunday morning, the souls of its scanty populace well looked after by Roman andProtestant missionary. Bishop Breynat is expected on the mission boatcoming up the river, and all is excitement among the sheep belonging tohis particular flock. The parson of the other fold is in his library, and, visiting him, we duly admire his neat garden of potatoes and peas, beets and turnips. The reverend gentleman owns up to finding Normanlonely in winter and recalls with appreciation his last charge in theoutports of Newfoundland, where the tedium was relieved by tennis andpink-teas. 

[Illustration: Roman Catholic Church at Fort Norman]

[Illustration: The Ramparts of the Mackenzie]

Seldom have we seen a more beautiful vista than the up-climbing pathleading from the shore to the Roman chapel at the head of the hill. Itis bordered by flaming fireweed and lined with the eager faces ofchildren dressed in their Sunday best, ready for morning mass andawaiting the blessing of their Bishop. Wherever the willow-herbflourishes there a Guadet is serving The Company. One was in charge atlonely Wrigley, and we find his brother here. 

Leaving Norman before church-time, we travel on, the glory of thepeerless day reflected in the face of every one on board. We floatbetween two spurs of the Rockies, and about eight in the evening passRoche Carcajou, looking in vain for the wolverine the name calls for. The Indians would seem to be strangely inconsistent in this connection. If there is one animal they fear it is the carcajou, and with him theyhave an old, old pact: the Indian on his side promises never to shoot awolverine, and that cunning thief agrees to leave unmolested the cacheof the Red man. While this bargain still holds, since the day whenammunition first came into the country no Indian has passed this rockyreplica of the carcajou without firing a shot at the face of the cliff. 

It is an hour before midnight when we reach one of the two greatestspectaculars of our whole six months' journeying, --the Ramparts. Thegreat river which has been running at a width of several miles, herenarrows to five hundred yards, and for a distance of five or six milesforces its flow between perpendicular walls of limestone three hundredfeet high. Between the cliffs, scarped by Nature into turrets, towers, and castellated summits, the great Mackenzie, "turned on edge, " flows, maintaining a steady rate of four or five miles an hour. The depth ofthe water equals the visible height of the palisaded walls. In spring, the ice jams the stupendous current. The dammed-up water once lifted askiff bodily, leaving it, when the flood subsided, a derelict on thecliffs above. 

As we pass in silence we can but look and feel. One day a Canadianartist will travel north and paint the Ramparts, some poet, gifted withthe inevitable word, here write the Canadian Epic. Awed and uplifted, our one wish is to be alone; the vision that is ours for one hour ofthis Arctic night repays the whole summer's travel. The setting of thepicture is that ineffable light, clear yet mellow, which without dawnand without twilight rises from flowing river to starless heavens, andenvelopes the earth as with a garment, --the light that never was on seaor land. We could not have chosen a more impressive hour in which topass the portal into the Arctic World. 

[Illustration: Rampart House on the Porcupine near the Mackenzie Mouth]

A hundred yards from the entrance to the Ramparts, a group of Indianshas found foothold at the base of the escarpment. They have been waitingfor three days to signal our arrival, and as they catch sight of the bigsteamer they cry out their greeting and fire a volley from theirold-fashioned rifles. The sound reverberates from rock to rock, ricochets, and is carried on to waiting Indians on the other side lowerdown. They repeat the salute, and others take it up. Signals are flashedfrom each little camp, the lights being repeated in the dancing river;and so it is by salvos of musketry and answering watch-fires that, atmidnight in broad daylight, we reach Fort Good Hope under the ArcticCircle. 

The Arctic Circle! When we used to sit on uneasy school-benches and sayour "joggafy" lesson, what did that term spell for us? Icebergs, polarbears, and the snows of eternal winter. Nine-tenths of the people inAmerica to-day share the same idea, and so far as they think of theArctic Circle at all, think of it as a forbidding place, a frozensilence where human beings seldom penetrate. What did we find there?Approaching the shore, we stand in the bow with the pilot and hisdaughter, whose name suggests the Stone Age, --Mrs. Pierre la Hache. Tenny wears his "other clothes" and a resplendent l'Assumption belt, forthis is his home. "It looks like a swan on the water, " he says, when thefirst white houses come into view. "You like it, do you not?" "Like it?Good Hope is God's Country!" There is no place like home, even when itis the Arctic Circle!

The populace look down upon us from the high bank, every wiggle of thedogs' tails indicating the general impatience at the time it takes thebig boat to make a landing. Down the steps comes a stately figure, Mr. C. P. Gaudet, the head and brains of Good Hope. Of the two thousandservants of the Hudson's Bay Company, this is the man who has thegreatest number of years of active service to his credit. Mr. Gaudet hascontinuously served The Company for fifty-seven years, and his ambitionis to put in three years more. The Company gives its employés a pensionafter thirty years' service, and this veteran of Good Hope surelydeserves two pensions. The steps are almost precipitous, but the oldgentleman insists upon coming down to present in person his report tohis superior officer. Then the two climb up the bank together, theyounger man giving a strong arm to the older. We follow, and half-way upthe two figures stop, ostensibly for Mr. Gaudet to point out to Mr. Brabant the view up river. We suspect the halt is to allow the Fort HopeFactor to get breath, for the sky-line stairway is hard on asthma. 

Reaching the top, we find the air heavy with the perfume of wild roses, and we can scarcely make our way through the sea of welcoming Indians. Old people grasp our hands as if we were life-time friends just backfrom a far journey. Young men greet us as long-lost chums, the womencall to the children, and there seems to be a reception committee torout out the old beldames, little children, and the bed-ridden: it ishand-shaking gone mad. We shake hands with every soul on the voting-listof Good Hope, to say nothing of minors, suffragettes, and theunfranchised proletariat, before at last we are rescued by smiling MissGaudet and dragged in to one of the sweetest homes in all the wideworld. 

We meet Mrs. Gaudet, a dear old lady with a black cap, the pinkest ofpink cheeks, and the kind of smile that brings a choky feeling into yourthroat and makes you think of your mother. She gives us home-made wineand _galettes_, and as we smell the mignonette flowering in thewindow-ledge and look around the walls of the "homey" room we wonder ifthis really can be the "Arctic Circle, 23-1/2° from the North Pole, which marks the distance that the sun's rays, " etc. , etc. , as the littlegeographies so blithely used to state. On the walls are the SundaySchool tickets that the young Gaudets, now grey-haired men and women, earned by reciting the Catechism when they were little boys andgirls--the same old tickets that flourish in the latitudes below. Here apink Prodigal feeds sky-blue swine in a saffron landscape, and off therea little old lady in a basque leads a boy in gaiters and a bell-crownedhat down a shiny road. They seem to be going on a picnic, and the legendruns, --"Hagar and Ishmael her son into the desert led, with water in abottle and a little loaf of bread. "

Thirty years ago when Miss Gaudet was a little girl she got her firstScripture lesson from an R. C. Sister, the story of our old Mother in thefirst garden. One Sunday was review day, and this question arose: "Andhow did God punish Adam and Eve for their disobedience?" Quick came thegirlie's reply, "They had to leave The Company's service!"

Mrs. Gaudet thinks people rush very much nowadays. "We get a mail everyyear without fail, and sometimes there is a second mail. " This is to herthe height of modernism. That second mail is an interesting one. Aletter written in Montreal in winter and addressed to Fort Good Hopecrosses Canada by the C. P. R. To Vancouver, by coastwise steamer ittravels north and reaches the Yukon. Then some plucky constable of theMounted Police makes a winter patrol and takes the precious mail-bags bydog-sled across an unmarked map to Fort Macpherson on Peel River. Thencethe Montreal-written letter is carried by Indian runner south to GoodHope on the Arctic Circle. 

We love to talk with Mrs. Gaudet, she is so dear. Mother-love anddevotion to The Company, --these are the two key-notes of her character. Looking back through the years, she tells of a visit she made "outside"to Montreal when she was a young mother--it was just fifty yearsago, --measles attacked her three babies and within a week they all died, "_Le bon Dieu prit les tous, mes trois jolis enfants_!" Some years afterthis at Macpherson an Eskimo woman stole another of her babies, snatching it from a swing in the fort yard, and not yielding it up untilit was torn from her by force. 

We wander out into the midnight daylight where with dogs and Indians thewhole settlement is still a stirred-up ant-hill. Splendid vegetablegardens are in evidence here, --potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbages. Should we reach the North Pole itself we would expect there a Hudson'sBay fort, its Old World courtesy and its potato-patch. As we pass thestore of the "free-trader, " he says, "Yes, Mrs. Gaudet is a sweet woman, kindly, and dear, but she doesn't approve of me. She makes a point ofnot seeing me as she passes here twice a day on her way to church. "

"Why?" we ask, much surprised. 

"Oh, " with a laugh, "you see, I sort of trade in opposition to the H. B. Company, and a fellow who would do this comes mighty near having hornsand a tail!"

We step into the "Little Church of the Open Door, " and sit down andthink. The quaint altar and pictures, the hand-carved chairs, and themural decorations all point to the patient work of priests. We seeacross the lane the home of the R. C. Clergy, looking like atransplanted Swiss chalet and carrying on each door-lintel the name of asaint, --St. Matthew, St. Bartholomew, St. John. From the shrubberyoutside wafts in the sweet old-world perfume of wild-roses. Our thoughtswill often drift back to this restful little sanctuary, "Our Lady ofGood Hope, " the mission founded here in the year 1859 by M. HenriGrollier, R. C. Missionary priest of Montpelier. 

CHAPTER XII

ARCTIC RED RIVER AND ITS ESKIMO

"Behold, I sing a pagan song of old, And out of my full heart, Hold forth my hands that so I would enfoldThe Infinite thou art. What matter all the creeds that come and go, The many gods of men?My blood outcasts them from its joyous flow. "

--_A Pagan Hymn_. 

"The Eskimo is a short, squat, dirty man who lives on blubber, " saidtext-books we had been weaned on, and this was the man we looked for. Wedidn't find him. 

It was at Arctic Red River, one hundred and ninety miles of river-travelsince we cut the Polar Circle, that we came upon our first Eskimo, thetrue class-conscious Socialist of Karl Marx, the one man without amaster on the American continent. A little band of Kogmollycs they were, men, women, and kiddies, who had come in to trade silver-fox skins fortobacco and tea at the Post of the Hudson's Bay Company. 

On the rocks they sat, waiting for the new steamer to make her landing, and much excited were they over the iron bowels of this puffing kayak ofthe white men. An Eskimo generally lets you know what he thinks, andthis is a basic difference between him and the Indian. An Indian isalways trying to impress you with his importance; he thinks about hisdignity all day and dreams of it at night. The Mackenzie River Eskimo isa man who commands your respect the moment you look at him, and yet heis withal the frankest of mortals, affable, joyous, fairly effervescingwith good-humour. His attitude toward the world is that of a littlehalf-Swiss, half-Chinese baby friend of mine who, in an ecstacy ofgood-will when she saw her first Christmas-tree, clutched me tightlyround the neck with, "Everybody are my friend. "

One of the Kogmollycs, rejoicing in the name of Wilfrid Laurier, strodeon deck with the swing of a cavalryman and signified his willingness totrade. Loading down my hunting-coat with pictures, pipes, tobacco, looking-glasses, needles, files, knives, I climbed over the cliffs withhim to his hut. Down on the floor we sat. Wilfrid put his treasuresbetween his knees before him, I sat opposite, and the barter began. "What for this fellow, huh?" and he held up a piece of carved ivory, alittle triangular mincing-knife, a fur mat that his wife had made, orthe skin of a baby-seal. The first thing he asked for was scented soap, the ring that I was wearing, and my porcupine-quill hat-band whichlooked good to him; every exchange was accompanied with smiles, eachbargain sealed with a handshake. 

Wilfrid Laurier is doing his part toward bridging the old chasm ofanimosity existing between the Eskimo and their next-door neighbours, the Loucheux Indians to the South. Wilfrid, in taking to himself aLoucheux woman to wife, has done what the Seventh Henry of England didwhen he married Elizabeth of York. Wilfrid's son and heir holds the sameplace in Northern history as did Henry VIII, who united in himself theclaims of the rival Roses of York and Lancaster. 

[Illustration: A Kogmollye Family]

Mrs. Ila-la-Rocko asked us into her hut, where we reclined on fur matswhile the whole family, wreathed in smiles, tumbled over themselves todo us honour. One by one they danced for us, stopping to tell theirnames and to ask ours. "Major Jabussy, " "Missa Blown, " they got thenames all right but applied them promiscuously, and then went intoroars of laughter at their blunder. The merriment was infectious. Let noone waste further sympathy over the poor benighted Eskimo of thisCanadian North. The Mackenzie River Eskimo is, with perhaps the oneexception of an Arab I fraternized with in Chicago at the World's Fair, the most splendid specimen of physical manhood I have ever seen; inphysique he stood out in splendid contrast to the Europeans andAmericans who were investigating him and his. Arrow-straight and sixfeet tall, mark him as he swings along the strand. His is the carriageand bearing of the high-bred Tartar. This man has "arrived"; he has anair of assuredness that in the drawing-rooms "Outside" you seldom see. 

The Eskimo of the Arctic foreshore are of two tribes: the Kogmollycs tothe east of the Mackenzie mouth, the Nunatalmutes, Dwellers in theHills, or Deermen, originally from the interior to the West, but now forthe great part making their home at Herschel Island, eighty miles fromthe Mackenzie delta, attracted there by the opportunity of working forthe American whalers. 

One of the striking figures of the North is Oo-vai-oo-ak, headman of theKogmollycs, living in dignified happiness with his children and his twowives. This second wife was the cause of much comment among us. How didshe happen? It was this way. Mr. Oo-vai-oo-ak married Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-akthe Elder when they were both young. Children were born to them, the bigseal was plenty, succulent beluga-steaks graced the board, and the yearsfollowed one another as smoothly as glacial drift or the strip ofwalrus-blubber that the last baby drops down its red gullet as a plummetsinks in a well. 

One day after a big hunt, as Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak placed before her lordthe matutinal mess of whale-skin boiled to that particular rubber-bootconsistency which was his taste, she said, "I'm not as young as I was, you entertain much, the household cares are heavy, I'd like you to getanother wife to help me with the work. " Chief Oo-vai-oo-ak chewed uponthe whale-skin and the suggestion of his spouse. Out in his kayak, dodging the icebergs, he turned it over in his mind for half a day; andas the outcome of his cogitations Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak the Younger, arollicking and comely maiden, joined the family circle. 

How does it work out? For ten days I sat round their hospitable firetrying hard for the viewpoint of each member of this Farthest Northfamily of fellow-Canadians. I have lived under many roof-trees, butnever have I seen a more harmonious family, nor a ménage of niceradjustment. Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak the Elder, full of the mellow juice oflife, waggish and keen, "quick at the uptak', " as the Scotch say, presides over her household with dignity, never for a moment relaxingher hold on the situation. Chief Oo-vai-oo-ak wisely leaves the interioreconomy of the household in the hands of the women. He is the quiet, dignified gentleman with an easy manner that courtiers andplenipotentiaries extraordinary might envy. His six feet two inches ofheight, magnificent physique and superb carriage would mark him out as aman of distinction at any race-course, polo-meet, or political receptionwhere men of the world forgather. 

Observing the small, strong, exquisitely-formed hands and feet of theOo-vai-oo-aks, the almost-white complexions dashed with ruddy scarlet, the easy grace that even the children have, and, above all, the simpledignity which compels respect, one recognizes here an ancestry harkingback to Old World culture and distinction. 

[Illustration: Roxi and the Oo-vai-oo-ak Family]

How does the young wife fit in? No suffragette need break a lance forher, demanding a ballot, dower-rights, and the rest of it. She is happyand busy. All day long she sings and laughs as she prepares the familyfish and feast of fat things, she pays deference to her co-wife, rompswith the children, and expands like an anemone under the ardent smile ofher lord. When the grave question was under discussion regarding theexchange of her pendant bead-and-shell ear-rings for a pair we hadbrought from the shops of the white men, the two spouses discussed thematter in all its phases earnestly together, as chummy as twoschool-girls. 

The Oo-vai-oo-ak family was a puzzle to the on-lookers, who sought invain for some one of the three contracting parties to pity. They wereall so abundantly happy, each in his or her own way, that WalkingDelegate could find no crack here for the opening wedge of discord. Ifno one is to be pitied, then surely for this new departure in matrimonythere must be some one for the virtuous to blame. But why?

Kipling declares, "There's never a law of God or man runs north offifty-three. " The Eskimo has worked out his life-problem independentquite from the so-called civilisations evolved to the south of him. Heis his own man. 

In the rest of America and in Europe we have formulated a rule of "Oneman, One wife, " allowing an elasticity of the rule in Chicago andelsewhere, so that it may read, "One man, one wife at a time. " Are we sosure of results that we are in a position to force our rule upon theEskimo?

Following the animals that God has ordained shall be their daily bread, in little communal bands they thread the silent places of the North. Onthe Arctic foreshore we have a people different to all other peoples;here is no inherited wealth, no accumulation of property. A man's skillas a hunter determines his ability to support others, the pursuit ofseal is the pursuit of happiness; life and liberty belong to all. Inmany of the little wandering groups or septs or clans the womenoutnumber the men. A mighty hunter is able to kill seals at will andprovide blubber enough for two or even three wives. The Canadian Eskimois the direct antithesis of the French-Canadian in the matter of largefamilies; seldom are more than three children born to one mother. Now, the crux of the matter is this: is it better for one man to marry andprovide for one wife and three children, leaving on the community afloating sisterhood of unattached females, or is it more sane andgenerous for the Northland Nimrod to marry as many wives as he cancomfortably support, and raise up olive-branches to save fromextermination the men of the Kogmollycs, the honourable people of theNunatalmutes?

The fact that the women prefer a vulgar-fraction of a man, an Eskimoequity in connubial bliss, to spearing walrus on their own account is asignificant factor in the problem. And before we piously condemn eitherthe lord or the lady in the case, it is well that we adjust our judgmentto the latitude of 68° North and take cognizance of the fact that noseductive "Want Columns" in the daily press here offer a niche wherebyunappropriated spinsters may become self-supporting wage-earners aschaste typewriters, school-teachers, Marcel-wavers, or manicurists. Tokeep the vital spark aglow you must kill walrus and seal in your ownproper person or by proxy, for no other talent of body or grace of mindis convertible into that sustaining meat and heating blubber which allmust have in order to live. 

Economically, then, a woman must herself hunt or have a man or part of aman to hunt for her. Ethically, it works out beautifully, for eachpartner to the hymeneal bargain is fat and full of content, happinessfairly oozing out of every oily pore. And is not happiness the goal ofhuman endeavour, whether a man seeks it amid the electric lights, subtleperfumes, and dreamy waltz-music of a New York ballroom, or finds itseated with his community wives on a hummock of ice under the Aurora?

I wouldn't like to picture our cousin the Eskimo woman as being alwayscontent with a circulating decimal of a husband instead of a whole unit, nor would such presentment be just. The shield, like most shields, has areverse. Last winter, at the Mackenzie Delta, one Eskimo bride ofseventeen took her fourth consecutive husband. She is dark but comely, but truth will not carry the analogy further. I have yet to see theEskimo who is like a bunch of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi. Threewinters ago, at Baillie Island, the three-times-widowed one had both herfeet amputated as the result of exposure to cold. 

In the latest wedding, the one that came under our notice (we hesitateto call it the last), the much-sought one was given away by herbrother-in-law Su-pi-di-do, or Sour Potatoes. The wedding breakfastconsisted of seal-meat, frozen rotten fish, and muktuk (whale-meat). Theceremony took place at the igloo of Su-pi-di-do, with fifty guestspresent, and as the size of Su-pi-di-do's bungalow is ten by twelve, oneneeds only suggest what the old hymn speaks of as "odours of Edom andofferings Divine. "

The festivities began to warm up about midnight. An old chap, with aretrospective look in his left eye peering back through eighty midnightsuns and noonday nights, set the ball a-rolling by raising his handsabove his head and hopping about in the middle-distance. His wife, agay old girl of twice his age, lilted a song, and the guests joined inthe chorus; line by line in a minor key the wedding song was sung, theair being confined to three notes. After each line came the chorus twicerepeated, "Ai, yea, yae! Yae, yae, ya--yae!"

Dancing was kept up to an early hour. Overcome by the air, respiratoryand vocal, we made our adieus to the crippled but captivating bride, pushing our way through the ghostly dogs and sleeping babies at two a. M. 

By natural gifts and temperament the Eskimo is probably the mostadmirable, certainly the most interesting, and by circumstances the mostmisunderstood and misrepresented of all the native races of America. TheEskimo of any one group would seem within historic times to have knownbut little of other bands than his own. Yet sometimes they met. There isan island, called Barter Island, in the Arctic at the dividing linebetween Alaska and the Canadian Yukon Territory, one hundred and fiftymiles west of Herschel. For years this was a trading rendezvous for fourpeoples: the Kogmollycs or Mackenzie Delta Eskimo, the Alaska Eskimo, and the Indians and Nunatalmute Eskimo whose habitat lay due south ofBarter Island. To this point the Cape Barrow Eskimo in the old daysbrought their most precious medium of exchange, --a peculiar blue jade, one bead of which was worth six or seven fox-skins. And thereby hangs atale. Mineralogists assure us there is no true jade in North America, sothe blue labret ornamenting the lip of Roxi must have come as Roxi'sancestors came, by a long chain of exchanges from Siberia or from China. 

This trading tryst at Barter Island was made an occasion of joy andmerriment. In imagination we see the chiefs in their kayaks, the oldmen, the women, and the babies in the slower and more commodiousoomiaks, making their way across the lonely ocean to exchange gifts andcourtesies with their half-known kin. The barter consummated, theseNorthland voyageurs had their yearly dance and sing-song and orgy ofdelight. No shooting the chutes, no pop-corn, no pink lemonade, nored-hots nor "fr-resh Virginia peanuts, l-large sacks and well-f-filledand f-five a bag!", but the Arctic concomitants of these, --boiledbeluga-skin, luscious strips of walrus-blubber, and frozen fish thatsmells to high heaven. Joy is the same, gastronomic and aesthetic, inthe latitude of Boston and the latitude of Barter Island. It is only thecounters that are different. 

Meagre are the bits of knowledge of the Eskimo that have floated downinto our ken through the ages; on the icy edge of things this unique andfascinating people worked out their drama, the world unknowing by theworld forgot. The white men who reached the Eskimo land from the southwere discoverers following to the sea the three great rivers thatdisembogue into the Polar Sea: the Mackenzie, Coppermine, Back or GreatFish. The first of these explorers was Samuel Hearne who, in 1771, followed the Coppermine to the Frozen Ocean. For the northern nativestheir first contact with white explorers was a disastrous one, for atBloody Falls on the Coppermine Hearne's Indians set upon the only bandof Eskimo they saw and almost exterminated them. Sir John Franklin in1820 was more happy. He says, "The Eskimo danced and tossed their handsin the air to signify their desire for peace; they exhibited no hostileintention; our men saluted them by taking off their hats and makingbows. " Back, who explored the Back or Great Fish River in 1834, has thistribute of respect and appreciation. He says, "I called out '_Tima_'(Peace), and putting their hands on their breasts they also called out'_Tima_. ' I adopted the John Bull fashion of shaking them each heartilyby the hand; patting their breasts, I conveyed to them that the whiteman and the Eskimo were very good friends. They were good natured, andthey understood the rights of property, for one of them having picked upa small piece of pemmican repeatedly asked my permission before he wouldeat it. "

Through all these years, if we except the noble devotion of the Moravianmissionaries on the northeast of Canada and the splendid Christianity ofsuch men as Bishop Bompas who sought them from the south, no one visitedthe Eskimo from the outside with the purpose of doing him good, butrather with the idea of exploiting him. Yet, from the days of Sir JohnFranklin and Sir Alexander Mackenzie to the recent voyage of Amundsen, the spontaneous tribute of every man who has met them, talked with them, and received their hospitality is the same. The Eskimo is generous, andhis word is worth its full face value. What we have done for the Eskimois a minus quantity; what he has done for us is to point a splendidmoral of integrity, manliness, and intrepid courage. 

Indians beg and boast, the Eskimo does neither. With no formulatedreligion or set creed, he has a code of ethics which forbids him toturn the necessity of another to his own advantage. Amundsen's farewellto his Eskimo friends sets the thoughtful of us thinking, "Goodbye, mydear, dear friends. My best wish for you is that civilisation may neverreach you. "

The trite saying is that the Loucheux Indians forced the Eskimo north, "keeping them with patient faces turned toward the Pole. " But the Eskimohas a better country than the Loucheux has, for it is less rigorous andit produces more food stuffs. The Loucheux at Fort Macpherson knows whatit is to experience a temperature of 60 below Fahr. , while at the coastit doesn't drop below 55. 

The Eskimo has two fields in which to hunt food, --the land and the sea, with fish the great staple; and both fresh and salt-water fish are his, that in the mouths of the great rivers being better than what theLoucheux gets higher up. If the Eskimo wrote copy-book lines, the mostinsistent one would be, "Lose your matches, throw away your guns, buthang on to your fish-net. "

Through the years there was bad blood and mutual distrust between Eskimoand Loucheux. The last pitched battle occurred in the 60's, when of thecontestants only two Loucheux escaped and not one Eskimo was killed. TheHudson's Bay Company officer at the close of the fight called togetherthe relatives of the slain Loucheux, upon whom rested the duty ofrevenge, and out of The Company's stores paid in trade-goods theblood-price of the slain. Since then both peoples have traded at FortsMacpherson and Arctic Red River, maintaining a sort of armed peace, butwith no deeds of violence. The Loucheux Indian, his wives, his babies, and his slab-sided dogs suffer from starvation almost every winter. Inthe whole history of the Eskimo there is not an authenticated story ofone of this people having starved to death. Once more we protest againstmisapplied sympathy. However it may have been in the past, the Eskimostays on the coast to-day because it is to him "God's country" and notbecause any hostile Loucheux sends him there. 

For the past twenty years the men on the American ships have employedthe Eskimo to aid them in the whaling industry, picking up differentbands all the way from Bering Sea eastward as they sail in from thePacific, and depositing each group at their individual beaches as theships take out their rich spoils of baleen and oil at the close of theseason. The Eskimo has proven a valued aid to this industry; how has theintrusion of the whites into his ancestral sea-domain affected theEskimo?

Within two decades the European population of this Mackenzie River deltaregion has been cut down from two thousand to probably one-fourth ofthat number. The causes? White men's diseases: scarlet fever, consumption, measles, syphilis must account for most of the startlingdecrease. Scarletina has killed many, consumption some, thoughconsumption is not nearly so fatal with the Eskimo as with the Indian, measles perhaps more than all. Measles among the Eskimo is more fatalthan the Bubonic plague among Europeans. 

What other changes is the yearly presence of American whalers among themmaking in Eskimo evolution? Who shall say? It is so easy to be dogmatic, so hard to be just. This intrusion of the whites has changed the wholehorizon here; we can scarcely call it the coming of civilisation, butcall it rather the coming of commerce. The whalers have taught palatesonce satisfied with rotten fish and blubber to want coffee and tea andmolasses, yeast-bread, whiskey, and canned peaches. To the credit sideof the account, we must fairly state that the ships have brought theEskimo whale-boats, good guns, and ammunition. 

The Eskimo population of the Mackenzie delta is becoming mixed bymarriages between the different tribes brought together to work on thewhaling-ships. Each of these intertribal alliances brings about itschanged culture characteristics. But as a more far-reaching result ofthe coming of the whalers there is springing up on the edge of theArctic a unique colony of half-caste Eskimo children, having Eskimomothers, and, for "floating fathers, " marking their escutcheon withevery nationality under the sun, --American, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Italian, Portuguese, Lascar. This state of things startles one, as allmiscegenation does, and this particular European-Eskimo alliance isdifferent from all others. In the hinterland of the Arctic, when aFrenchman or a Scot took a dusky bride from the tepee of Cree orChipewyan it was with an idea of making the marriage a permanent one. There is no intent on the part of the whalers to take their Eskimo"wives" outside with them, nor does the wife so-called look for this. One or two cases are on record where the half-breed child has been taken"outside" by his father to school, and through the years perhaps six oreight half-Eskimo kiddies have percolated the interior waterways southto some mission-school, Anglican or Roman. As a rule, themarriage-contract is "good for this season only, " and the wife andchildren bid their quondam husband and father farewell, smiling at himwith neither animosity nor reproach as the boats go out. 

What is then the ice-widow's condition? Is she an outcast among herpeople? No, you must remember that neither the matrimonial standard ofPall-Mall nor Washington, D. C, obtains here. The trade-ticker of theerstwhile wife of the whaler ticks skyward in the hymeneal Lloyd's; sheis much sought of her own people. Has she not gained in both kudos andcapital? The knowledge which she must have acquired from the white manof whalers' ways of trading is supposed to be of monetary use to hersecond lord. Moreover, the tent, utensils, and cooking-kit which sheshared with her spouse from the ships makes a substantial dower when sheagain essays Hymen's lottery. 

Eskimo women are neither petulant nor morose. With the men they sharethat calm-bearing of distinction, combined with the spontaneity of achild which makes such a rare and winning mixture. In moving among thehalf-caste Eskimo children up here on the edge of things, fairnessforces us to admit that neither in stature nor physique do they fallbelow the standard of the thorough-bred natives. About the morals, theethical, or mental standards, we venture no comparison, for heredityplays such strange tricks. The whole condition is formative, for theblending of races has been going on scarcely long enough for one to seeand tabulate results. The influence of the mother will be longer appliedand its results more lasting than that of the evanescent father, and inthis is their hope. For years we have been repeating the trite, "Thesins of the father are visited upon the children to the third andfourth generation;" it remained for Charles Dickens to ask, in his owninimitable way, if the virtues of the mothers do not occasionallydescend in direct line. 

We respect the Eskimo for many things: for his physical courage as heapproaches the bear in single combat, for his uncomplaining endurance ofhardships, for his unceasing industry, the cleverness of his handicraft, his unsullied integrity, sunny good-humour, and simple dignity. But, most of all, he claims my respect for the way he brings up his children. "A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure, " is a pretty theory, but Charles Lamb reminds us that each child must stand on his ownfooting as an individual, and be liked or disliked accordingly. In theigloo and the tupik the child has his own accorded place and moves inand out of the home and about his occupations with that hard-to-describeair of assuredness that so distinguishes his father and mother. 

The Eskimo child accepts himself as the equal of any created thing, butthere is nothing blatant about him, nor is his independence obtrusive. He is born hardy, and lives hardy, trudging along on the march in hisplace beside the grown-ups. Each Eskimo man and woman is an independententity, free to go where he pleases. There is no law, no tribunal, nopower to limit or command him, but instinctively he observes the rule ofdoing as he would be done by, and he teaches his child the same GoldenRule. A boy or girl is never considered an encumbrance and is readilyeven eagerly adopted if his own parents die. The Eskimo child is usheredinto the earthly arena with no flourish of trumpets, for his coming isbut an incident of the journey if Fate has decreed that he should beborn when the family is on the march. The hour's stop for the mid-daymeal often sees a new little valiant soldier added to the ranks of theclan and starting his traverse of Arctic trails. If the baby is bornwhile the family is in camp, mother and babe separate themselves fromthe rest of the family for a month, no one being allowed to look at, much less fuss over, the little stranger. 

Naming an Eskimo baby is fraught with significance. If the last grownman who died in the band was one revered, one whose footsteps are worthyto be followed, the name of the departed clansman is given to thenewborn child. The belief is that the spirit of the dead man hoversaround the community and immediately upon the birth of the child takespossession, a re-incarnation in the baby-body. Withdrawing itself intwelve months' time, the spirit of the ghostly god-father lingers by toinfluence the character and destiny of the growing child. 

We trace a well-known nursery rhyme to the igloo of the Eskimo. Thesummer-born baby dispenses with clothing for the first six months of itsearthly pilgrimage, cuddling its little bare body close to its mother'sback under her _artikki_, or upper garment, which has been madevoluminous to accommodate him. But the husky babe who comes when KingWenceslaus looks out on the Feast of Stephen has his limbs popped into abag of feathers before his mother takes him pick-a-back, or else he iswrapped in a robe of rabbit-skin. So we see that it was an Eskimo motherwho first crooned in love and literalness, "By-o, Baby Bunting, Daddy's gone a-hunting, To get a little rabbit-skin, To wrap his Baby Bunting in. "

Mother-love is a platform upon which even ancestral enemies can meet. While I sat cross-legged (and, like cotton, absorbent) last summerenjoying the hospitality of the Oo-vai-oo-aks, to us entered abeautiful-faced Loucheux Indian mother with a pair of twinspendant, --rollicking chaps. The younger Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak dropped on thefloor her lord's boot which she had been dutifully biting into shape andjumped up to greet her visitor. There was no mistaking that smile ofhospitality. Snatching from the visitor one of her baby boys, the younghostess kissed and cried out to it with an abandon of maternal joy, theculminating point of which was feeding it from her own breast. Thus, inone instance at least, has the ancient feud of Loucheux and Eskimo died. 

A baby Eskimo is nursed until it is two years old or older, and learnsto smoke and to walk about the same time. The family pipe is laid uponthe couch, and papa, mamma, and the children take a solacing whiff asthe spirit moves them. These pipes are identical with those used by theChinese, and hold but half a thimbleful of tobacco, the smoke beinginhaled and swallowed with dreamy joy. 

The hardihood of Eskimo children is scarcely believable. It is notunusual for children of six years to trudge uncomplainingly fortwenty-five miles by the side of their elders; and we came to know alittle seven-year old chap who was quite a duck-hunter, and who went outevery day alone and seldom came back without at least two brace. Ateleven years, with his watertight boots, spear in hand, and coil of lineon his back, he takes up the Innuit man's burden, and does it with anair both determined and debonair. If you ask a mother if she does notthink this a somewhat tender age for her boy to essay to keep up withthe men on the hunt, she merely smiles as she sews her waterproof seam, and says, "The First Innuits [Eskimo] did so. "

These fur-clad philosophers are perhaps seen at their best in theirplay, for there is always harmony in the crystal nursery of the North, as these little people have no bad names nor threatening terms in theirvocabulary Yet the play is often very rough, and your Eskimo lad is nomolly-coddle. The writer watched five small boys playing football with awalrus-bladder among the roses on the edge of the Arctic. The game wasneither Rugby nor "Soccer, " but there seemed to be a good deal oftackling in it. Four of them got the fifth one, who hugged the ball, down, and were sitting on him and digging their skin boots into the softparts of his anatomy. "You're angry, now, " said a Major of the RoyalNorthwest Mounted Police who was looking on. "No, sir, " said the underdog, with difficulty protruding his head, "I never get mad when I play. "

The boys have a sort of duel which they have copied from their elders. It is customary for the grown men of the tribe to settle accumulateddifficulties by standing a selected number of contestants, say four oneach side, facing each other. Each man is allowed to strike hisadversary a number of blows, the recipient of the buffeting being boundby the laws of the game to stand quiescent and take what is coming tohim. Then striker and strikee change places and reverse the courtesy. All sorts of feelings come into your throat to choke you, as you watch arow of "heathen" Eskimo lads carry out an ungentle joust of this kind, for the blows are no child's play. Think of what this self-inflicteddiscipline means in the way of character-building, then think of theignoble tactics that obtain on some of our race-courses, baseballdiamonds, and "sport" carnivals, and then do some more thinking. A lineof Tennyson came persistently to my mind last summer as I walked in andout among the camps of the Eskimo, --"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. "

[Illustration: Farthest North Football]

What of the little girls? They have dolls made of reindeer skins, rudeimitations of their elders. And they play "house, " and "ladies, " and"visiting, " just as their cousins do on every shore of the Seven Seas;but no little Eskimo girl has ever yet had the pleasure of dressing upin her mother's long dresses. 

[Illustration: Two Spectators at the Game]

When the ptarmigan gets dark in feather and the sun begins to return inspring after the long six months' night, it is the pleased prerogativeof the children to blow out the lamp in the snow-house. All the timethat the sun is travelling south, clever combinations of cat's-cradleare played by the mothers and the children to entangle the sun in themeshes and so prevent its being entirely lost by continuing south andsouth and forgetting entirely to turn back to the land of theanxiously-waiting Eskimo. The boys, by playing a cup-and-ball game, help, too, to hasten its return. When the sun forgets you for sixmonths, you become fearful lest you have lost his loving care forever. The spring is an anxious time in more ways than one, for if there is anysuffering from hunger it is felt now, when the winter supplies arefinished and the new hunts not yet begun. "I'll eat my hat" is an emptythreat in the south, but many an Eskimo kiddie has satisfied the gnawingpains of spring hunger by chewing his little skin boots. 

At the Mackenzie delta last year, Roxi the Eskimo came in and told methis sad story. Six weeks before, a party of Eskimo had left BaillieIsland with dogs for Kopuk. On their way they found a dead whale andcooked and ate of it; the next day they found another and againindulged. After travelling twenty-five miles, the whole party was takenviolently ill, and six adults and two children died, leaving only onelittle girl alive. There for three days and four nights she remained, alone in the camp of the dead, until by the merest chance a youngEskimo, attending his line of traps from Toker Point, stumbled into thesilent camp. 

One can faintly glimpse at, but must utterly fail to grasp, what thatlittle girlie suffered mentally. We picture her sleeping, sobbing, waiting in that snow-hut in the silences, surrounded by the still bodiesof every one she loved on earth. The sequel of the story is as sad asits first chapter. The band of Eskimo to which the rescuer belonged wentin their turn and ate of this stranded whale, with the result thatA-von-tul and Ita-chi-uk, two youths of twenty or twenty-one, died, too, and with them a little four-year-old girl. The drift whale must havebeen poisoned either by ptomaine or by the remnants of the highlycompressed tonite, the explosive used by the whale-hunters. 

[Illustration: An Eskimo Exhibit

A--Eskimo woman's head-dress of reindeer skin. 

B--Skin of the baby seal, its shimmering whiteness used by themissionaries to typify the Lamb of God, the word "Lamb" having nomeaning to an Eskimo. 

C--Ornamental skin mat, the work of an Eskimo woman. 

D--Quiver of arrows used by Eskimo boys. 

E--Model of Eskimo paddle. 

F--Skin model of the _Oomiak_ or Eskimo woman's boat. 

G and H--Eskimo pipes of true Oriental type, the bowl holding only halfa thimbleful of tobacco. ]

As we visit in friendly wise the Eskimo and their children, a feeling ofloving admiration and appreciation tightens round our hearts. We hadnever heard a harsh word bestowed upon a child, no impatient or angryadmonition. If a boy gives way to bursts of temper, and this is rare, heis gently taken to task, reproved, and reasoned with _after_ the fit ofpassion is over. Certainly, without churches or teachers or schools, with no educational journals, and no Conventions of Teachers, with theirwise papers on the training of "the child, " the Eskimo children we sawwere better behaved, more independent, gentler, and in the literal senseof the word, more truly "educated" than many of our children are. Instinctively you feel that here are boys and girls being trainedadmirably for the duties of life, a life that must be lived out in sternconditions. 

Perchance, floating down on the Aurora, has come to the Eskimo a glintof the truth that has passed us by, the truth that God's own plan is thefamily plan, that there are life lessons to learn which, by the verynature of things, the parents alone can impart. Teaching children in themass has its advantages, but it is the family after all and not thefifty children in a school grade which forms the unit of nationalgreatness. 

CHAPTER XIII

FORT MACPHERSON FOLK

"I have drunk the Sea's good wine, Was ever step so light as mine, Was ever heart so gay?O, thanks to thee, great Mother, thanks to thee, For this old joy renewed, For tightened sinew and clear blood imbuedWith sunlight and with sea. "

--_A Pagan Hymn_. 

On July 14th, shortly after we leave Arctic Red River, an open scowpasses us, floating northward with the stream. It comes in close to thesteamer, and we look down and see that every one of its seven occupantsis sound asleep. In traversing the Mackenzie, there is no danger ofrunning into ferry-boats or river-locks, if you strike the soft alluvialbanks here the current will soon free you and on you go. The voyagers inthe scow may sleep in peace. 

At Point Separation, 67° 37' N. , the Mackenzie delta begins. Where theeast and west branches diverge, the width of the river is fifty miles, the channel becoming one maze of islands, battures, and half-hiddensand-bars. The archipelago at the Arctic edge extends a full hundredmiles east and west. 

The two lob-sticks at Point Separation are full of historic interest. Itwas here, on the evening of July 3rd, 1826, that Sir John Franklin andDr. Richardson parted, Franklin to trend west and Richardson east, intheir mission of Arctic coastal exploration. Twenty-two years later, Richardson, this time concerned with the _Plover_ Relief Expedition ofthe lost Franklin, again visited Point Separation. He records, "July 30th, 1848, Point Separation. In compliance with my instructions, a case of pemmican was buried at this place. We dug a pit at a distanceof ten feet from the best grown tree on the Point, and placed in it, along with the pemmican, a bottle containing a memorandum of theExpedition, and such information respecting the Company's post as Ijudged would be useful to the boat party of the _Plover_ should theyreach this river. The lower branches of the tree were lopped off, a partof its trunk denuded of bark, and a broad arrow painted thereon with redpaint. In performing these duties at this place, I could not but recallto mind the evening of July 3rd, 1826, passed on the very same spot withSir John Franklin. We were then full of joyous anticipation. "

As we look at these enduring lobsticks, we recollect that CommanderPullen, with two boats from the _Plover_ in 1849, visited the depot andfound the precious pemmican. We leave the Mackenzie proper for thepresent and enter the easternmost channel of its farthest northtributary, the Peel, and follow this considerable stream thirty-threemiles to Fort Macpherson, the most northerly post of the Hudson's BayCompany. 

Fort Macpherson has a striking site. To the east, spreads a rollingwooded plain of alluvial origin, containing thousands of lakes. The westaspect gives us an uninterrupted view of the wooded valley of the Peel, backed by a heathery slope with the northern Rockies on the far horizon. Due north, upstarts a peak of the Rockies known locally as BlackMountain--a dark barren spur two thousand feet in height. A winter trailfrom Macpherson to Arctic Red River cuts no fewer than thirty-threesmall lakes. 

[Illustration: Constable Walker and Sergeant Fitzgerald in Eskimo Togs]

On the beach to meet us are Mounted Police and Eskimo from HerschelIsland, Church of England missionaries, traders of the H. B. Co. , andLoucheux Indians. But here, as at Arctic Red River, it is that Polargentleman the Eskimo who claims our attention. Let Sergeant Fitzgerald, R. N. W. M. P. , stationed at Herschel Island, speak for the Kogmollye andNunatalmute Eskimo. In his departmental report this officer states, "Ihave found these natives honest all the time I have been at HerschelIsland. I never heard of a case of stealing among them. " He has beenthere five years. Up here on the Arctic the bare word of an Eskimo isaccepted of all men. If he states to an H. B. Co. Factor that he has anorder from a whaling captain to get certain goods for himself, thatunwritten order is honoured though it may date back two or even threeyears, whereas an order presented by a white man must be in writing andcertified. 

Why should I enter the lists and take up icy spear for my Eskimo fellowBritish subject? Because he is so very worth while. Because through theyears the world has conspired to libel him. Because within a decade ortwo he will have passed utterly off the map. And because it is so verymuch pleasanter to write appreciations than epitaphs. This man wins youat once by his frank directness; his bearing is that of a fearlesschild. The Indian, like Ossian's hero, scorns to tell his name, and onoccasion will dodge the camera, but the Eskimo likes to be photographed. Young and old, they press to our side like friendly boys and girls rounda "chummy" teacher, volunteering information of age, sex, and previouscondition, with all sorts of covetable bits of intimate family history. You love the Eskimo because he is kind to his dogs and gentle to littlechildren. His entire willingness to take you on credit is contagious, trust begets trust even in walrus latitudes. 

[Illustration: Two Wise Ones]

The Mackenzie River Eskimo is a clever chap. With no school-teacher, noschool, no modern appliances, he does many things and does eachadmirably. He is a hunter by land and sea, a fearless traveller, afurrier, a fisherman, a carver, a metal-smith, and he takes in everytask the pride of a master mechanic, --"the gods see everywhere. " Theduties of the man and the woman are well-defined. The head of theKogmollyc household is the blood-and-flesh-winner, the navigator of thekayak, the driver of dogs. It is he who builds the houses on the march, and when occasion requires he does not consider it _infra dig. _ to getthe breakfast or mind the baby. The wife dresses the skins, preparesthe food, makes all the clothing, and the lord of the igloo demands fromher the same perfect work that he turns out himself. 

[Illustration: A Nunatalmute Eskimo Family]

When an Eskimo wife has finished making her spouse a pair of waterproofboots, she hands them to him, and he blows them up. If there is onelittle pin-hole and the air oozes out, he throws the boots back to her, and she may take up the pedal gauntlet in one of two ways. Either shemust meekly start to make a new pair of boots without murmuring a word, or leave it open to him to take to his bosom another conjugal bootmaker. We noticed with interest in watching this little tableau that there wasno recrimination. No word was spoken on either side, the exactinghusband contenting himself with blowing up the boots and not the wife. 

With uncanny fascination we watched one old woman curry a sealskin. Hertongue was kept busy cleaning the scraper, while her mouth was arepository for the scrapings, which went first there, then to a woodendish, then to the waiting circle of pop-eyed dogs. The whole performancewas executed with a precision of movement that held us fascinated. 

If a white woman were to be shipwrecked and thrown upon an Eskimoforeshore and presenting herself at a Husky employment bureau, manysurprises would await her. Instead of asking for references from herlast employer, the genial proprietor would first ask to inspect herteeth. In prosecuting female Eskimo handicraft your teeth are asimportant a factor as your hands. The reporter for the funeral column ofan Eskimo daily, writing the obituary of a good wife, instead ofspeaking of the tired hands seamed by labor for her husband and littleones, would call pathetic attention to, "the tired and patient teethworn to their sockets by the yearly chewing for the household. " A youngwife's cobbling duty does not end with making for her mate boots thatshall be utterly waterproof, but each morning she must arise before theseagull and chew these into shape. You see, after the boots are weteach day they get as stiff as boards, then they must be lubricated withoil and chewed into shape. We watched Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak the Younger atthis wifely duty. Taking the big boot up in her well-shaped hands, incisively, quarter-inch by quarter-inch, the white teeth made their wayround the borderland between upper and sole, the indentations lookinglike the crisped edges on the rims of the pies your mother used to make. Solomon's eulogy of Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak corrected to the latitude of 70°North would read, "She seeketh fish and the liver of seals and workethwillingly with her hands; she riseth also while it is yet night andcheweth the boots of her household. "

Every bit of Eskimo skin-clothing is as soft and pliable as a kid glove. The effect is not produced without patient labor, and again the teeth ofthe woman are brought into requisition. The raw sealskins or hides ofthe reindeer and bear are staked out in the sun with the skin-side upand dried thoroughly. Before this stiff material can be worked up intogarments it must be made pliable, and this is done by systematicallychewing the fibres, a slow and painstaking task. Creasing the hide alongits whole length, the women take it in their hands and chew their wayalong the bend from one end of the skin to the other, working their wayback along the next half-inch line. Watching them, one is reminded ofthe ploughman driving his team afield up one furrow and down the other. 

It falls to the lot of the woman, too, to do her share of boat-making. The men deftly fashion the frames of kayak and oomiak, using in theirconstruction not a single nail or piece of iron, but fastening the woodtogether by pegs and thongs of skin. Then the women come on the scene, measure the frame, and sew green hides of the proper shape to fit, making wonderful overlapping seams that are absolutely watertight. As itis necessary to put the skin covering on while the hides are raw, thewhole job has to be completed at one sitting. So a bee is held of thewomen of the communal camp. 

[Illustration: Cribbage-boards of Walrus Tusks

The scenes etched in the larger represent the events of one year of thecarver. ]

Where did the Eskimo get his versatile ability? Only the walrus knows. The whalers have inducted the Eskimo into the art of makingcribbage-boards. They use for each board a complete tusk ofwalrus-ivory, covering the whole with a wealth of descriptive carvingsillustrative of all that comes into the yearly round of an Eskimo'slife, --ice-fishing, bear-hunting, walrus-sticking. So far as we couldfind out, the Husky's connection with cribbage ceased with his makingthese _edition de luxe_ boards. He seemed himself to have gathered noinkling of the fine points of that game which one instinctivelyassociates with Dick Swiveller as tutor and as pupil the littleMarchioness, "that very extraordinary person, surrounded by mysteries, ignorant of the taste of beer, and taking a limited view of societythrough the key-holes of doors. " In the world outside, far from igloosand ice-floes, where people gather round cheery Christmas fires with"one for his nob, " "two for his heels, " and "a double run of three, "these ivory crib-boards are sold for from seventy-five to one hundreddollars each. We have two among our most treasured trophies, and withthem an ivory ring beautifully formed which we saw made. Set in the ringis a blue stone of irregular shape which was fitted into its ivory nichewith a nicety of workmanship that few jewellers could attain. I hadfashioned for me also a gavel in the shape of a sleeping seal, made offossil ivory from the Little Diomedes. The contrast of the weatheredbrown of the outside of the ivory with the pure white of the innerlayers, when worked up into a carved design, gives the effect of cameoand intaglio combined. 

We tasted many new Eskimo dishes. When, on our return, we confessed thatthe brain of the seal served here is a delicious dish, we ran againstthe sensibilities of refined natures. But why is it cruder to enjoyseal's brains _â la vinaigrette_, than to tickle our taste with brainsof the frolicking calf? The seal furnished a more equivocal dinner thanthis, nothing less than entrails _au naturel_, which our hostess drawsthrough her fingers yard by yard in pure anticipative delight, eachguest being presented with two or three feet of the ribbon-like _piècede résistance_. The scene that jumps to our memory as we watch thisfeast of fat things is connected with food-manipulations in Chicago. Itwas down at Armour's in the stockyards that we had seen Polacks andScandinavian girls preparing in the succulent sausage a comestible thatbore strange family semblance to that which our friends are now eatingbefore us, this linked sweetness long drawn out. 

[Illustration: Useful Articles Made by the Eskimo

A--Eskimo soapstone lamp which burns seal-oil. The wick is of reindeermoss. 

B--Eskimo knife of Stone Age. 

C--Its modern successor, fashioned from part of a steel saw, with handleof ivory. This is the knife used by the women; note how the old shape isretained. 

D--Eskimo Tam O'Shanter. The band is of loonskins, the cap proper beingcarefully constructed from swans' feet. This admirably shows thecleverness of the Eskimo in adapting natural forms to economic use, eachfoot of the swan being a true sector of a circle. 

E--Old-time stone hatchet. 

F and G--Knives filed from saw-blades, with bone handles. 

H--Mortar for pulverising tobacco into snuff. 

I--Needle set in a wood handle, and by rapid rotary motion used topierce ivory. ]

Mr. John Firth, of the Hudson's Bay Company here, gives us muchinformation regarding these people who for thirty-seven consecutiveyears have traded with him. The Kogmollycs have been here "from thebeginning, " the Nunatalmutes moving into this region in 1889, driven outof their hunting grounds inland from Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, by ascarcity of game. The two tribes live in peace and intermarry. The agedamong them are respected. Criminals and lunatics are quietly removedfrom the drama. Supposed incurables commit suicide and in that actreach immediately a hot underground heaven. 

Nature to these Eskimo is especially benign. The junction of theMackenzie and the Peel is covered with a forest of spruce, and even tothe ocean-lip we trace foot-prints of moose and black bear. In the deltaare cross, red, and silver foxes, mink and marten, with lynx and rabbitsaccording to the fortunes of war. The Eskimo declare that, east of CapeParry, bears are so numerous that from ten to twenty are seen at onetime from a high hilltop. 

The Chauncey Depew of the Kogmollycs, the man with the best stories andthe most inimitable way of telling them, is Roxi. It was Roxi who gaveus the love story of his cousin the Nuntalmute Lochinvar. This young manwooed a maid. The girl's father had no very good opinion of the lad'shunting ability and was obdurate. The lover determined to take destinyinto his own hands. A ravine of ice stretched between his igloo and thatof the family to whom he would fain be son, and over the chasm adrift-log formed a temporary bridge. Lothario, one night, crossed theicy gully, entered the igloo of his elect, seized her in her_shin-ig-bee_ or sleeping-bag and lifted the dear burden over his back. In spite of struggles and muffled cries from within, he strode off withher to his side of the stream. The gulch safely crossed, he gaily kickedthe log bridge into the gulf and bore his squirming treasure to his ownigloo floor. He had left his seal-oil lamp burning and now it was withan anticipative chuckle of joy that he untied the drawstring. We end thestory where Roxi did, by telling that the figure which rolled outsputtering from the _shin-ig-bee_ was the would-not-be father-in-lawinstead of the would-be bride!

CHAPTER XIV

MORALIZING UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN

"Into this Universe, and _Why_ not knowingNor _Whence_, like Water willy-nilly flowing, And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, I know not _Whither_, willy-nilly blowing. "

--_The Rubaiyat_. 

The Midnight Sun! The sun does not sink to the horizon, but pauses for amoment and rises again. Dawn and eventide are one. The manifestations oflight ever since we left Athabasca Landing have been wonderful, uplifting. The supreme marvel of the Midnight Sun is not what we see butwhat we feel. Standing at this outpost of Britain's Empire, we give ourimagination rein and see waking worlds and cities of sleep. As this redsun rises from its horizon-dip, it is the first of the unnumberedsunrises which, as hour follows hour, will come to the continents. Longfellow says:

"Think, every morning where the sun peeps throughThe dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, How jubilant the happy birds renewTheir old, melodious madrigals of love!And when you think of this, remember too_'Tis always morning somewhere_, and aboveThe awakening continents, from shore to shore, Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. "

[Illustration: Home of Mrs. Macdonald. ]

How do the people of Macpherson divide into day and night theirlargesse of light? By common consent four o'clock in the morning seemsto be bedtime, and by four in the afternoon people are busyingthemselves with breakfast. _In Polar Circles, do as the Polars do_, isgood advice, and we follow suit. Individuality is strongly marked atthis metropolis on the Peel. Every one you meet is a mine of interest, and sharp contrasts present themselves. Mrs. Macdonald discusses fur anddeer-meat with Jack Johnson. He is a trapper who plays the game aloneand who last year was reduced to killing his favourite dog for food. Current report credits him with having "killed his man in the Yukon. "Mrs. Macdonald is a Loucheux woman who, at the age of fourteen orfifteen, married Archdeacon Macdonald of the English Church and foreight long years afterwards assisted him in his life work of translatingthe Gospels into the Loucheux language. She has come all the way fromWinnipeg to the Arctic Circle to spend the summer visiting her people. We lose our hearts to her two sons, splendid fellows both. 

It is the Eskimo who brings both missionary and trader to FortMcPherson. Are these Eskimo, Christians? Are they _civilised_? These arethe questions that confront us when we speak of these Farthest NorthCanadians. It is an age of classification. You cannot find a flowernowadays that some one has not tacked a Latin name to, and it goes byinverse ratio--the smaller the flower the longer the name. Every birdyou hear sing, even though it stop but an hour to rest its tired pinionon its northern migration, has an invisible label pinned under its coat. How can a man, a tribe, a people, hope to escape? In the northeast ofCanada the Eskimo is a disciple of the Moravian missionary. In Alaska, on the extreme northwest of the continent, the Greek Church takes him toits bosom. In between these two come the people we are studying. TheEpiscopalians through the years have made some sporadic attempt toinfluence these people, but so far as I know these Eskimo are notEpiscopalians. What then must we call these splendid fellows so full ofintegrity and honour, whose every impulse is a generous one? Heathens?The question sets us thinking. 

The Century Dictionary defines a heathen as "Any irreligious, rude, barbarous or unthinking class or person. " This Eskimo is not"irreligious, " for he has a well-formed conception of a Great Spirit andan Evil One, he looks to a place of reward or punishment after death, and he accedes to Kipling's line without ever having heard it, --"Theythat are good shall be happy. " He is not "rude, " but exceedinglycourteous, with a delicacy of feeling that is rare in any latitude. "Unthinking" he certainly is not. Six months' darkness within the igloogives him the same enviable opportunity of thinking that the shoemakerhas in his stall, and the whole world knows that the sequestratedcobbler is your true philosopher. 

There remains but the one ear-mark, "barbarous. " The dictionary declaresthat barbarous means, "not classical or pure, " "showing ignorance ofarts and civilisation. " On the first of these indictments our poorKogmollyc must fall down, for he is not classical. And what man darepronounce on the purity of another? Then we come to "arts" and"civilisation. " In arts, this Eskimo can give cards and spades to everyEuropean who has visited him. The stumbling-block in this honest searchfor a tag to put on my people is the term "civilisation. " One isreminded of the utterance of the Member of the British House of Commons:"Orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy is the other man's doxy. " Was it notLowell who at a Harvard anniversary said, "I am conscious that life hasbeen trying to _civilise_ me for now seventy years with what seems to mevery inadequate results"?

If "Christianity" with the Eskimo means taking him into the white man'schurch, and "civilising" means bringing him into close contact withwhite men's lives, then he has not yet attained the first, and has butlittle to thank the second for. Two years ago eighty of these people inone tribe died of measles, a white man's disease. A stray chaplainwandered into an encampment of Eskimo, finding his way from a whalingship. He told the people of Heaven, its golden streets, pearly gates, and harp-songs, and it meant nothing to these children of frost. Theywere not interested. Then he changed his theme, and spoke of Hell withits everlasting fires that needed no replenishing. "Where is it? Tellus, that we may go!" and little and big they clambered over him, eagerfor details. 

Prayer as presented by the white man is recognised as an incantationwhich should bring immediate and literal results. An enquiring scientistwas seated one day with Oo-vai-oo-ak, the two fishing through adjacentair-holes in the ice. Calling across to the white man, Oo-vai-oo-aksaid, "How is it, brother, have you any fish?"

"No, " replied the man of letters, "I have taken nothing. "

"Have you spoken to God this morning?" asked the Eskimo in abusiness-like tone. 

"No, " said the wilted Walton. 

"Well, that's what's the matter, " returned Oo-vai-oo-ak; "I always speakto God every morning before I go fishing. Once, when I went to HerschelIsland, a missionary told me what to say. It always works. I have manyfish. "

The scientist, interested, queried, "And do you do the same when you goduck-hunting or goose-hunting or when you are after seal?"

"No, " eagerly responded Oo-vai-oo-ak, dropping his line and pressingclose to the geologist, "Is there a prayer for duck, and for geese, andone for seal? The missionary never told me that. You teach it to me, eh?I like to make sure what to say to catch that fellow, --goose and seal. "

But, unfortunately for both, the university man did not have the charm. 

[Illustration: Eskimo Kayaks at the Arctic Edge]

Broadly speaking, the Eskimo's theory of things, evolved from whitespirits on the ice-floes or carried across in the age of the mastodonfrom sires and grandsires in Asia, does not differ materially from ourown. There is a Good Spirit, called by different tribes Cood-la-pom-e-o, Kelligabuk, or Sidne, who dwells high in the zenith, and to whom it isgood to pray. There is an Evil Spirit, Atti, symbolising cold and death. Their heaven is a warm underworld reached by entrances from the sea. Hell is a far, white, dreary plain. The Eskimo pray to Sidne; but it iswise to propitiate Atti or Tornarsuk, and in this last idea they butfollow their Chinese or Tartar ancestors. In common with all nations, the Kogmollycs have a tradition of the flood. Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak theElder said, "This world once covered with the sea. " Asked why shethought so, she replied, "You have been down to the land of thecaribou, eh? Little smooth stones from the sea are there, and shells. "

The labrets or lip-ornaments, shirt-stud shaped effects worn in holespierced in the cheek, strike us with interest. Is it too daring aconjecture to trace in these, which Eskimo men so sedulously cherish andresolutely refuse to talk about, a religious significance? The term"Kelligabuk" in a literal translation means "Mastodon. " This animal, whose bones not infrequently are unearthed from ice-floes, has been forall time venerated as a god of the hunting grounds. Is it too fancifulto suggest that the labrets are a sort of peripatetic idol carriedaround on the person as an imitation of the tusks of this God-Mammoth?

East and south of the Mackenzie delta the Eskimo tell of a SupremeGoddess, Nuliayok, who was once a coy maiden and refused to marry amortal. Wooed by a gull, she accompanied the bird to an inland home, tofind instead of her dreams of delight a nest of sticks and rotten fishon a high-hung ledge. Jostled by the other fulmars, or gulls, who triedto push her off the rocks, she sent for her father. In the night-time hecame and sailed with her over the water in an oomiak. The desertedfulmar-bridegroom, taking a leaf out of Prospero's book, raised a storm. The father, to lighten the craft and propitiate the storm-spirit at thesame time, threw the poor bride over-board, and cut off her fingers asshe clung to the boat. As the four fingers dropped into the sea theychanged respectively into beluga the white whale, nutchook the commonseal, oog-zook the big seal, and ibyl the walrus. After thus givingorigin to the four great sea-friends of the Innuit, the GoddessNuliayok let go the boat and went to the world beneath the sea, whereshe now lives in a whalebone house with a dog for husband. She cannotstand erect, but hunches over the ground, holding one foot under her asa baby does who has not yet learned to walk. 

It is to Nuliayok that the spirits of sea-animals go after staying threedays by their dead bodies; and this is the reason why the Eskimo breaksthe eyes of a killed seal. He does not want it to witness the indignityof seeing its own body denuded of its skin. This too is the _raisond'être_ of the ceremonies which every Eskimo punctiliously performs inconnection with the animal he kills. Each animal has a soul or spirit tobe offended or placated; if pleased, the spirit of the dead animalcommunicates with its living kin, who in turn will deem it an honour tobe killed by such considerate folk as the ceremonious Innuit. Round theigloo fire we heard another tradition of Nuliayok. The Goddess of theSea once gave birth to a litter of white and red puppies. These she putinto two little water-tight baby-boots and set them floating before anorth wind. The puppies landed on southern shores and became the whiterace and the red race, the Europeans and the Indians. The Innuit, ofcourse, had lived from the beginning. 

We arrogate to ourselves the term of "white race, " but if these Eskimowere to wash themselves daily (which they do not do yearly) they wouldbe as white as we are. They have fleshy intelligent faces and eyes withmore than a suggestion of the almond-slant of the Oriental. The ideaoccurs to us that the full appearance of the cheeks of the women is morelikely to be caused by the exercise of chewing skins and boots than byan accumulation of fatty tissue. The men are distinguished by the thin, straggling growth of beard and moustache which adorns their Asiaticprogenitors. The labrets of the men are offset by the long pendantearrings of the women, which are made from H. B. Co. Beads and shellsbrought by Alaska Indians from the Pacific, It is only the women whohere tattoo their faces, the three long stripes extending from lower lipto the chin. The men crop their hair in the style of the tonsure of themonk. Neither man nor woman provides any head covering except the hoodof the _artikki_ or smock, which hood, fringed with waving hair of thecarcajou or wolverine, hangs loosely at the back until called intorequisition by a winter's storm or a summer's siege of mosquitoes. 

Eskimo clothing is much lighter in weight than it seems, and this is onereason why the Eskimo attachés of every Arctic expedition have movedaround with less exhaustion than their European or American leaders. Awell-made Eskimo outfit of inner and outer suits, with mittens, socks, and boots, weighs about thirteen pounds, while one imported fur coat ofEuropean deerskin will alone weigh more than that. 

A custom noted at the afternoon whale-meets and pink-teas mightfittingly find way into the latitudes where narrow toes and French heelsobtain. Two ingenious young Kogmollyc belles had placed applique pocketsmid-leg on their lower garments. When the walrus was passed round andconversation became general, the boots were slipped off quietly and onefoot at a time was thrust for a resting spell into the pocket providedon the opposite trouser-leg. This act of easement was done deftly, andthe neat action of instep boot-jack never lost its fascination for us. 

[Illustration: A Wise Man of the Dog-Ribs]

All the way from boundary-line to ice-barrier we had seen Indianstricked out in grotesque garments borrowed from the white man and usedin combination with their own tribal covering of skins and furs. Thesesun-bonnets and shepherd's-plaid trousers, silk hats and red-flannelpetticoats, the trader had persuaded the child of the woods to buy. Thedebonair Eskimo is a re-incarnation of the bastard brother of Aragon'sPrince, and, leaning his furry back against the North Pole, says withhim, "I smile at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for noman's pleasure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour. "

[Illustration: A Study in Expression]

You cannot induce an Eskimo to think he wants anything just because youhave found that thing to your liking. There are two reasons for this. First, long experience in the most rigorous climate which the human raceinhabits has taught this man what garments are the most suitable for himin which to live and move and have his being. Second, although theIndian may ape the white man as a superior being from whom eleemosynarygrub and gew-gaws may be wheedled, the Eskimo of the Mackenzie deltaconsiders himself to be the superior of every created being. The Eskimoknows what he wants; he is always sure of it, and there is novacillating. When he comes into the H. B. Company's post to trade, skinsare his currency, the pelts of the silver-fox his gold coinage. A goodsilver, or black-fox is worth here about one hundred dollars in barter. 

We saw a band of Nunatalmutes come into Fort Macpherson to do theirsummer shopping. They wanted English breakfast tea, superior rifles andammunition, and a special brand of tobacco. Failing any or all of these, it was in vain that the Factor displayed before them the wares of JohnBull, Uncle Sam, or Johnny Canuck, or any seductive lure made inGermany. Ig-ly-o-bok and Nan-a-sook-tok bought what they found to theirliking, took small change out of two silver-fox skins, and put theremaining six pelts back into the wooden box which formed at once theirsavings bank and letter of credit for the season to come. Thehungry-eyed H. B. Man confided to us that two of these coveted pelts hadbeen thus exhibited to him and thus tucked back into the Eskimosinking-fund for three successive seasons. 

As regards weapons, we found Eskimo hunters in the transition stage. Theold-time spears, four feet long and tipped with ivory, are still inactive service. The bows, with arrows finished in copper, flint, andbone, have been relegated largely to the boys, while Krag-Jorgensen, Lee-Enfield, and other high-power guns are bought from American whalers. The fish-hooks which I got in friendly barter are interesting to any oneborn with angling blood in his veins. Beautifully fashioned of ivory, copper, bone, and beads, the contrivance is a sinker, bait, and hook, all in one. The daily baskets procured with this lure incontestablyproves the Husky a judicious hooker. 

The Eskimo is a merger. Father Petitot shows us the close analogybetween the Kogmollyc language and the tongues of eastern Asiatictribes, ancient and modern. This Eskimo's speech, then, gives him aconnection with the effete East (which is his west), while enamelledwashbasins, with here and there a corrugated wash-board, prove thatslowly but surely Canadian culture is reaching him from the south. 

With two modifications, this Eskimo is invariably truthful. Like theIndians to the south of him, seeking to please you by answering aquestion in the way that you desire, he will at times tell you anuntruth, for it seems to him discourteous to answer your question otherthan in the way which you anticipate. For instance, if you say to Roxi, "Wasn't that a grey goose we heard overhead?" Roxi will readily assent, though he well knows it to have been a mallard duck, but he would spareyour ignorance. Again, it is Eskimo etiquette to belittle your ownsuccess in hunting and, in so doing, be not literally truthful. When weplace this delightful trait alongside the fish-stories we are familiarwith, who would seek to change the heathen?

Marriage with the Eskimo is not a ceremony, it is not even the taking ofeach other for better or for worse. It is an easy union entered upon andmaintained so long as both parties are pleased. This arrangement has onemanifest advantage, --Eskimo annals tell of no unhappy marriages. Whenunhappiness conies in at the door of the igloo, marriage flies out ofthe chimney. When a woman leaves her tentative husband, she takesherself and her babies back to the paternal topik, and no odiumattaches. As the marriage vows melt into the Arctic air, the quondamhusband is expected, however, to play the game. Last winter a youngNunatalmute and his sorry spouse came to the parting of the ways. Sheasked him to take her back to Papa, but he said, "No. You may goto-morrow if you wish, but I am ready to hunt in the opposite direction, and I hunt. " Off to the chase he went and took the family auto, i. E. , the sled and dogs, with him. The once-wife, travelling five days and sixnights by the fitful light of the Aurora, found her way to her father, for the instinct of direction is unerring in these people; but theex-bride's feet became badly frozen. Public opinion in this case wasstrongly roused against the husband and probably if there had been atree handy he would have been lynched. This would have been the firstlynching recorded in Canada. The feeling of the Eskimo community wasthat, when the wife announced her intention of enforcing a divorce, thebounden duty of the husband was either to drive her himself in properstate to her father's door or to let her have the dogs. 

In their beliefs in the great powers of concentration and inre-incarnation we find traces in the Eskimo of those Theosophicalancestors of theirs far off on Asian shores. The ceremonies whichapproximate in time to our New Year's Day and Christmas show theimportance they attach to concentrated thought. Early in the morning ofwhat corresponds to our New Year's Day, two young men, one of themgrotesquely dressed in women's garments, visit every igloo and blow outeach seal-oil lamp. The lights are afterwards renewed from afreshly-kindled fire. The chief, asked the meaning of the ceremony, replied, "New light, new sun, " showing his belief that the sun wasyearly renewed at this time. This early morning visit from igloo toigloo reminds us of the "first-footing" of the Scottish village. Themummery of wearing the fantastic dress of the woman points back to theold Lord of Misrule. 

About the season of Christmas, a great meeting is held in the igloo, presided over by the Angekok or medicine-man, who entreats the invisiblepowers for good fortune, immunity from storms, and a plenitude ofblubber for the ensuing year. This invocation is followed by a familyfeast. Next day the ceremonies are carried on out-of-doors, where allfrom oldest to youngest form a ring-around-a-rosy. In the centre of thecircle is set a crock of water, while to the communal feast each personbrings from his own hut a piece of meat, raw preferred. This meat iseaten in the solemn silence of a communion, each person thinking ofSidne, the Good Spirit, and wishing for good. The oldest member of thetribe, a white-haired man or tottering dame, takes up a sealskin cup, kept for this annual ceremony, dips up some of the water and drinks it, all the time thinking of Sidne, the Good Spirit, while the others closetheir eyes in reverent silence. 

Before passing the cup on to the rest of the company that they maydrink, the old man or woman states aloud the date and place of his orher birth, as accurately as it can be remembered. The drinking andthinking ceremony is performed by all in succession, down to the lastnaked baby cuddling in its mother's _artikki_, the little child thatcannot yet speak. The solemn rite is brought to a close by the tossingof presents across the ring from one to the other, the theory beingthat, as they generously deal with others, so Sidne will deal with themin the coming year. So up here on the edge of things, among our"uncivilised heathens, " we have our Christmas presents and "_Peace onearth, good will to men_. "

CHAPTER XV

MAINLY CONCERNING FOOD

"Man does not live by bread alone. "

Exigencies of life have caused the Mackenzie Eskimo to formulate onvital matters an unwritten law to which each gives assent. Succinctlystated, this system of Northland jurisprudence runs thus:--

_(a) Should a man, inadvertently or by malice aforethought, killanother, the wife and children of the man so killed remain a burden onthe murderer so long as he or they live. _

_(b) A drift-log found is treasure-trove, and belongs to the finder, whoindicates possession by placing upon it a pipe, mitten, or personaltrinket of some kind_. Whalers, missionaries and Mounted Police are aunit in testifying that precious flotsam of this kind has remained fouror five years in a land of wood-scarcity without being disturbed. 

_(c) No one must eat seal and walrus on the same day_. Thus a check isgiven to luxuriousness and the Eskimo is self-prevented from fallinginto the fate which overtook Rome. 

_(d) All large animals killed are to be looked upon as common propertyof the tribe and not as a personal belonging of the man who kills them_. Thus here, under the Northern Lights, do the Farthest North subjects ofthe Seventh Edward work out in deeds the dream of Sir Thomas More'screscent-isle of Utopia where men lived and worked as brothers, holdingall things in common. 

The Eskimo realises that the pleasure of life is in pursuit, not inacquisition. Where wants are many, joys are few; the very austerity ofhis life has made a man of him. Laying up few treasures for the elementsto corrupt, accumulating no property except a little, a very little, ofthe kind designated by Wemmick as "portable, " he, to better and sanereffect than any man, decreases the denominator of his wants instead ofincreasing the numerator of his havings. Surrounded by the palcocrysticice, the genial current of his soul has not been frozen by that ice. AnEskimo family accepts life with a smile and, in the faith of littlechildren, goes on its way. 

An old Scot once prayed, "O Lord, send down to Thy worshippin' people atthis time the savin' grace o' _continuance_. " Only one man has less needto pray that prayer than the Scot himself, and that man is the Eskimo. The Indian eats and sleeps as his wife works, but while there isspear-head to fashion or net to mend, the clever hands of the Eskimo arenever idle. Thrifty as a Scot, ingenious as a Yankee, every bit of thelittle property that he has is well kept. You find around this igloo nobroken sled-runner, untrustworthy fishing-gear, nor worn-outdog-harness. Civilisation has nothing to teach this man concerningclothing, house-building, or Arctic travel. Indeed, one may hazard theopinion that the ambitious explorer from the outside, if he reach thePole at all, will reach it along Eskimo avenues with this man as activeally and by adopting his methods of coping with Northern conditions. 

On account of the malignity of nature, it is rare that an Eskimoattains the three score and ten Scriptural years. Few, indeed, livebeyond the age of fifty-five or sixty. If his life is short, it ishappy. This pagan has grasped a great truth that his Christian brotheroften misses, the truth that happiness is not a luxury, but the highestof all virtues, a virtue filling the life where it originates andspreading over every life it touches. 

There is about this Mackenzie Eskimo a certain other-worldliness whichwe insistently feel but which is hard to describe, and to us hisgenerosity is sometimes embarrassing. At Peel River a band of Kogmollycsmet us, carrying on board pieces of their ivory-carving. One manexhibited a watch-chain containing fifteen links and a cross-bar, allcarved from a single piece of ivory. He wanted thirty-five dollars orthe equivalent of that for his work, saying that it represented theleisure hours of two months. The engineer tried to make him lower hisprice, but with a courteous smile he shook his head, and the carving wasdropped back into _artikki_ recesses. Afterwards, with the air of a shychild, the clever carver came to me and offered me the chain as a gift. It was probably a difficulty of articulation rather than a desire to bescathing which induced this man subsequently to refer to the one whotried to beat down his price as "the _cheap_ engineer. "

Surprised at the magnificent physique and unusual height of this littlegroup, one of us began measuring the chest expansions, length of limbs, and width of shoulders of the men and women we were talking with, whilethe other of us jotted the figures down in a note-book. Many of the menwere over six feet tall, and none that we measured was under five feetnine inches. One young giant, Emmie-ray, was much interested in ourresearches. The whalers call him "Set-'em-Up, " for his name bears theconvivial translation, "Give us a drink. " "You going to make better man, you get Outside--make him like Emmie-ray?" As Emmie-ray pursues thetenour of his Arctic way, hunting the walrus, standing, a frozen statue, with uplifted spear over the breathing-hole of the seal, to the end ofthe chapter he will think of himself as being used for a stimulatingDelineator-pattern in the igloo of the white man. 

Forty years ago, when Bishop Bompas came across a band of these people, instead of being awed at the appearance of a white man, they took himfor a son of Cain! Their tradition was that, in the early history of theworld, an Eskimo murdered his brother and fled to the inhospitable partsof the earth. The bishop, coming to them from the unknown south, must bea direct descendant of the outlaw, with his hands red with a brother'sblood. 

Circling the ocean-edge from Siberia, without doubt this people cameoriginally from Asia, as the Chipewyans did before them and the Creesbefore that, the more newly arrived in each case pressing theirpredecessors farther away from the food-yielding ocean. The Anglo-Saxonestimates all habitable land by his ell-measure, fertility of the soil, its ability to yield turnips, potatoes, and flax, and forty-bushelwheat. The measure of desirability of range of northern tribes hasanother unit--blood, and flesh, and fish. Your Eskimo and Chipewyan andCree cares not a potato-skin for your waving fields of grain, yourapple-orchards and grape-vines. What he is after is blood and blubberand good dripping flesh; these his soul craves in the night season. These peoples who made their way into the continent by the open door atthe north have come down through the years toward the habitat of thewhite man, not because they loved him, but because a stronger tribe haspushed them back from Arctic flesh-pots. 

At the Mackenzie mouth we enjoyed the companionship of that courteousEskimo gentleman, Roxi, and heard the story of his last winter's larder, but not from his lips. At the beginning of the season Roxi hadwhale-meat and fresh walrus, and also flour that he had earned from thewhalers. In a characteristic burst of generosity he gave the greaterpart of this to needy members of other tribes who had had poor hunts andwho found themselves at the beginning of the Long Night with emptyMother Hubbard cupboards. The Eskimo winter has many mealtimes, and Roxihad but a poor idea of the higher mathematics. Long ere the darkness ofthe Great Night relaxed its overbearing blackness Roxi got very hungry, and he had no food. Life is dear, even on the edge of things. So intothe silence Roxi crept and dug down through the ice and frozen sand tothe skeleton of a stranded whale killed three years before. All thesustaining flesh had been eaten from it more than a year ago, but thedried tendons were still there. By chewing these assiduously and pickingbones already bare, this generous soul kept life in his body. As I heardthe story, the last words of the gallant Sidney dying in agony onZutphen's field that another's thirst might be quenched came across theocean from another age and a far land, "Thy necessity is greater thanmine. " Britain's heroes, men of the finest mould, manifest on theshores of many seas. 

Inherited tastes in foods, like inherited creeds, are mainly a matter ofgeography, or of history, or of both. An Englishman had preceded us tothe Arctic, going in in 1907, and the story of his food discriminationstill lives in tepee of the Cree and Eskimo topik. The North is full ofrivers, the cold bottle is always at your disposal, and generally, ifyou are any shot at all, you can get the hot bird. But this son of athousand earls, or of something else, wouldn't eat owl when owl wasserved, though he _would_ eat crow. Now, eating crow is to most adistasteful task, and the guides questioned the Englishman regarding thegastronomic line he drew. "Aw!" replied he, "No fellow eats owl, youknow. Never heard of the bweastly bird at home, but crow ought to go allright. The crow's a kind of _rook_, you know, and every fellow eats_rook-pie. "_

Having put the seal's body into his own body and then encasing his skinin the seal's, the cheery Eskimo strides the strand, a veritablecompensation-pendulum. The seal is so much an integral part of thispeople that if a geologist were to freeze a typical Eskimo and saw himthrough to get a cross-section he would have in the concentric strata ahybrid of Husky and seal. Holding up his transverse section under thelight of the Aurora, the investigator would discover an Arctic roly-polypudding with, instead of fruit and flour, a layer first of all of seal, then biped, seal in the centre, then biped, and seal again. Thisjam-tart combination is very self-sustaining and enduring. Deprived offood for three days at a stretch the Eskimo lives luxuriously on hisown rounded body, as a camel on his hump. 

Reading an Arctic bill-of-fare in southern latitudes may give one afeeling of disgust and nausea, for it is all so "bluggy. " You feeldifferently about it at 70º North. You put prejudice far from you, comfort yourself with the reflection that raw oysters, lively cheese, and high game are acquired tastes, and approach the Arctic menu withmind and stomach open to conviction. It is all a matter of adjustment. Because raw rotten fish is not eaten in Boston or in Berkeley Squarethere is no reason why it should not be a staple on Banks's Land. 

We had brought with us on our transport two years' provisions for thedetachment of Royal Northwest Mounted Police stationed at HerschelIsland, and we had been privileged to taste the concentratedcooking-eggs and desiccated vegetables which formed part of theircommissariat. Now, a concentrated egg and a desiccated carrot or turnipbear no more family-likeness to the new-laid triumph of the old Dominickor the succulent vegetable growing in your own back-yard than thetin-type of Aunt Mary taken at the country fair does to the dear oldbody herself. Whale-meat is better than concentrated cooking-egg, seal-blood piping hot more to be desired than that vile mess ofdesiccated vegetables. I know. I feel like the old Scot who exclaimed, "Honesty _is_ the best policy. _I've tried baith_. "

But we do not live on seal alone in the North, for there is abewildering bill-of-fare. Reindeer have a parasite living on the backbetween the skin and the flesh, a mellifluous maggot an inch long. Rawor cooked it is a great delicacy, and if you shut your eyes it tasteslike a sweet shrimp. Don't be disgusted. If you have scooped shrimpsfrom their native heath, you have discovered the shrimp, too, to be aparasite. 

Another Arctic titbit is that fleshy cushion of the jaw of the whalewhich in life holds the baleen. What is whale-gum like? It tastes likechestnuts, looks like cocoa-nut, and cuts like old cheese. Whale-blubbertastes like raw bacon and it cannot very easily be cooked, as it wouldliquify too soon. It is a good deal better than seal-oil, which to asouthern palate is sweet, mawkish, and sickly. Seal-oil tastes aslamp-oil smells. But you can approach without a qualm boiledbeluga-skin, which is the skin of the white whale. In its soft andgelatinous form it ranks among northern delicacies with beaver-tail andmoose-nose, being exceedingly tasty and ever so much more palatable thanpigs-feet. 

Musquash in the spring is said to be tender and toothsome, but thatoverpowering smell of musk proved too much for our determination. Youmay break, you may shatter the rat if you will, but the scent of themusk-rose will cling to it still. There is a limit to every one'sscientific research, and, personally, until insistent hunger gnaws at myvitals and starvation looms round the edge of the next iceberg, I drawthe line at muskrat and am not ashamed to say so. Compelling is theassociation of ideas, and the thought grips one that muskrat _must_taste as domestic rats (are rats domestic?) look. Raw fish at the firstblush does not sound palatable, yet raw oysters appeal. The truth isthat meat or fish frozen is eaten raw without any distaste, the freezingexerting on the tissues a metabolic change similar to that effected bycooking; and it is convincingly true that bad fish is ever so muchbetter frozen than cooked. 

Blubber is not a staple, as is so often misstated, but it is a muchesteemed delicacy. During the summer months the Eskimo has to providelight and fuel for that long half-year of darkness within the igloo. Theblubber obtained in summer is carefully rendered down and stored insealskin bags--the winter provision of gas-tank, electricstorage-battery, coal-cellar, and wood-pile. In using oil for fuel, thismaster artificer of the North has anticipated by decades, if notcenturies, the inventive adaptability of his "civilised" cousins. Theblubber appears in a blanket between the skin of the animal and itsflesh, and when it is spared for food, is cut into delicious strings, aninch wide, an inch deep, and the longer the better. Give a Fur-Landkiddie a strip of this sweetmeat and he grins like that Cheshire cat hehas never seen. He doesn't eat it, but drops it into the cavernousrecesses of his stomach, as you lower your buckets into the well ofEnglish undefiled. "Disgusting, " you say. It's all a matter of latitude. Watching a roly-poly Innuit baby finding its stomach-level with plummetof seal-blubber sustains the interest of the grand-stand for a longerperiod than watching your child dallying with the dripping delights ofan "all-day sucker. " These little babies have the digestion of anostrich and his omnivorous appetite. Suckled at their mothers' breastsuntil they are two or even three years old, when they are weaned they atonce graduate into the bill-of-fare of the adult. Walrus-hide is aboutas uncompromising as elephant-hide, and an inch thick. You see littlechaps of three and four struggling valiantly with this, nibbling at itwith keen delight, as a puppy does on an old shoe, or your curledFauntleroy on an imported apple. The Eskimo mother has no green applesto contend with in her kindergarten and need never pour castor-oil uponthe troubled waters. Every day in the year her babies are crammed withmarrow and grease, the oil of gladness and the fat of the land. 

To many Eskimo the contents of the paunch of the reindeer is the onlyvegetable food they get, and this is eaten without salt, as all theirfood is eaten. They crack the bones of any animal they kill to get themarrow, which is eaten on the spot, the broken bones being pulverisedand boiled to make much-prized gelatine. To his fish and flesh theEskimo adds a bewildering plenitude of wildfowl. Last spring, eighteenhundred geese and ducks were killed by Eskimo on Herschel Islandsand-pit. It is the paradise of pot-hunter and wing-shot. Captain Ellisof the _Karluk_, with one Eskimo fellow-sportsman, got a bag of 1132ducks, geese, and swans in three days' shooting, to send to the wreckedwhalers off Point Barrow, Alaska. 

Who are these people, and whence came they? Each little tribe is a bookunread before, and full to the brim of fascination. When they areconfronted with the picture of an elephant in a current magazine, theyare all excitement. The book is carried eagerly to the old man sunninghimself down in the anchored oomiak. Animation, retrospection, agitationchase from his seamed face all traces of drowsiness. "_We used to knowit. " "Our fathers have told us. " "This land-whale with its tail infront once lived in the land of the Innuit_. " We are now the ones tobecome excited. Intending merely to amuse these fellow-Canadians who hadbeen kind to us, we stumble upon a story of intense interest. "Where didyour fathers see this animal?" we asked. "Here, in this country. In theice his bones were hidden, " said the old man. With this he relapsed intothe torpor we had disturbed, and no further word did we elicit. 

Captain Mogg, of the whaling schooner _Olga_, two winters ago pursuedhis whaling operations far to the north and east. Ice-bound at PrinceAlbert Land, he stumbled upon a little settlement of Eskimo. These werecompletely isolated from and had had no communication with white men orany community of their own race. Only one of their number had seen awhite man before--one old, old woman, the grandmother of the band. Thecaptain of the _Olga_ speaks Eskimo fluently, and to him this ancestressof the "lost tribe" had an interesting story to tell. She remembered awhite man who came across the Great Sea from the west in "a big kayak, "and she extended her arms to show its size. Her people had given thisstranger seal-meat and blubber and the "Chief" from the great ship hadpresented her with a piece of cloth as red as the new-spilt blood of theseal. This grandmother-in-Ice-Land is without shadow of doubt the verychild to whom M'Clure gave a piece of red flannel far back in the earlyfifties while prosecuting his double search for the Northwest Passageand the lost Franklin. We have M'Clure's record of the incident and thelittle girl's questioning wonder, --"Of what animal is this the skin?"Thus does history manifest itself on the other side of the shield "aftermany days. "

Through the years, the Eskimo has fared better than the Indian. Itwould seem that the London Directorate of the H. B. Co. Expected itsservants within the Arctic Circle in the days that are past to do almosta Creator's part and make all things of nothing. The scanty provisionsand trading goods from England which filtered in thus far were to begiven to the Indians in exchange for furs, while the Factor and hispeople were largely expected to "live on the country. "

Cannibalism was not unknown. The winter of 1841-2 was an especially hardone. On the 18th March, 1841, J. William Spence and Murdock Morrisonwere dispatched with the winter express from Fort Good Hope to FortMacpherson. During the second night out, while they were asleep in theencampment, they were knocked on the head by four starving Indian women, immediately cut to pieces, and devoured. It is further reported thatthese women previously had killed and eaten their husbands and all theirchildren except one little boy. Of the two murdered Scots they ate whatthey could that night and made pemmican of what was over, reportingafterward that one was sweet but that the other, tasting of tobacco, wasnot so good. 

Father Petitot gives us another glimpse of that awful winter. His naïvewords are, "_Chie-ke-nayelle, _ a Slavi from Fort Norman, was a winningfellow, handsome, gracious, the possessor of a happy countenance. On hisfeatures played always a smile of contentment and innocence. In hisyouth he had eaten of human flesh during the terrible famine of 1841. Hekilled his young daughter with a hatchet-blow, cooked her like flesh, and ate her as a meat-pate. It is said that after one has partaken ofhuman flesh, the appetite for it often returns. I hasten to add that_Chie-ke-nayelle, _ in spite of the soubriquet _mangeur de monde_ whichis irrevocably rivetted to his name, has not succumbed to such anappetite. He is indeed an excellent Christian. Nevertheless, I would notlike to camp with _Chie-ke-nayelle_ in time of famine. "

Another starvation story related by the good Father is not quite soghastly. He tells us of one "M. Finlaison of burlesque memory, " who, when all provisions were out, took his fiddle and, calling the men ofhis fort before the door of his empty larder, played to them a Scottishreel. That was their dinner for the day, --instead of meat they hadsound. The narrator adds, "In America they would have lynched thetoo-jovial Scotchman. In the Northwest the good half-breeds laughed andapplauded the master. "

The winter of 1844 also was a season of distress. Referring to thisyear, a beautiful young Indian woman said to the sympathetic priest, "Idid not wish to eat the arm of my father. I was then a small child ofeight, and I had not been able to see my old father eaten without cryingout with loud screams. But my mother called to me in rage, 'If you donot eat of it, it is that you condemn us and hate us, then you willsurely go the same way. ' And I ate the flesh of my father, hiding mysobs and devouring my tears, for fear of being killed like him; so muchwas I afraid of the eyes of my mother. "

Another Indian woman confesses, "I left my husband, a hunter at thefort, and took with me by the hand my only child, a boy of six, anddirected my steps towards _Ka-cho-Gottine. _ It was indeed far. I onlyknew the way by hearsay. Once I myself have eaten of my father, but nowI am a Christian and that horrible time is far from me. I have a qualmin thinking that my stomach has partaken of the author of my days. Meanwhile his flesh has become mine, and what will happen to us both onthe final resurrection day?" Here Father Petitot interpolates, "Ah! ifshe had only read Dante!" "I did not intend to keep my boy with me, hewas too young and too weak. I did not wish to devour him. I had no heartfor that. I decided to abandon him. At the first camp I left him, andknew they would eat him there. I wept on thinking of the horrible deaththat awaited my only child. But what could I do?" This story has a morecomfortable ending than the previous one. We breathe relief in learningfrom the priest that the following night the little boy overtook hismother. He had walked all day and all night, following her snowshoetracks. They went on together, the third day they snared some hares, andtheir troubles were over. 

Father Petitot tells of a Rabbit-skin Indian who found a mummified bodyin the forks of a tree near the Ramparts of the Mackenzie and who camerunning into the Mission, his hair on end with fright, asking excitedly, "Did God make that man or was he made by the men of the Hudson's Bay?"

Another tale of his is of an Indian, _Le Petit Cochon_, who had atape-worm and thought it was a whale. "Unfortunate!" exclaims theFather, "possessed of a whale! That's the difference between _Le PetitCochon_ and Jonah. " Sucking Pig said he would join the Church if thepriest would rid him of the tape-worm. But we must use the words ofPetitot himself, for they are too delicious to lose. "Christmas night, 1865, after midnight mass, _Le Petit Cochon, _ carefully purged, both asto body and soul, by an emetic, two purgatives, and a good confession, content as a King, received holy baptism. I gave him the name of Noel. "

In starvation times, guests were not appreciated. Robert Campbell of theH. B. Company, writing from Fort Halkett in 1840, says, "God grant thatthe time of privation may soon end, and that I may not see a soul frombelow till the snow disappears. " These days of the early forties whenEngland was engaged with the Chartist risings at home and her Chinesewars abroad, were surely parlous times up on this edge of empire. TheFort Simpson journals of February 4, 1843, record, "The _Cannibal_, withyoung _Noir_, and others of the party of _Laman_, arrived this eveningin the last stage of existence, being compelled by starvation to eat alltheir furs. "

Still these sonsy Scots kept a good heart and were able to jest at theirmisfortunes with the grim humour that belongs to their race. Neitherempty larder nor other misfortune disheartened them. The recurrence ofNew Year's Day and the Feast of St. Andrew were made ever occasions forrejoicing. Up on the Pelly Forks under date of November 30th, 1848, therecord reads, "Though far from our native land and countrymen, let uspass St. Andrew's Day in social glee. So fill your glasses, my lads, andpass the bottle round. " Three years later, on the same anniversary, thelines are, "Very cold for St. Andrew's, and no haggis for dinner. "

And as January Ist ushers in the year 1845, the Factor at FortMacpherson bursts into verse:

"This day, Time winds th' exhausted chainTo run the twelvemonths' length again. I see the old bald-pated fellowWith ardent eyes, complexion sallow, Adjust the unimpaired machineTo wheel the equal, dull routine. 

Underneath the record a postscript appears, in another hand:

"Oh let us love our occupations, Bless the Co. And their relations, Be content with our poor rations, And always know our proper stations. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE TALE OF A WHALE

"In the North Sea lived a whale. "

What is a whale? Well, although the whalers dub it so, it is not a fish, but is a true mammal, the last of the mammoth creatures that trod theearth and floundered the seas of a past age. The whale is the biggest, the meekest, and the most interesting of living animals. As we go north, we readjust all our ideas of distance and immensity. Rivers are longer, lakes more majestic, and whales bigger than we have ever dreamed. Examining a stranded whale at Herschel, we see the flippers to be reallyhands with four fingers and a thumb enveloped in a sheath, andrudimentary hind-legs are discovered under the tough skin. Withoutdoubt, the ancestors of the whale were land mammals which became adaptedto a littoral life, and in splashing round the shore acquired the habitof swimming. Subsequently carried out to sea, they became under the newenvironment the structure as we see it. 

Off the delta of the Mackenzie, the Circumpolar of Arctic Bowhead whale_(Balaena mysticetus_) is making his last stand. Unless a close seasonis enforced, this cetacean carrying round his ten thousand dollarmouthful of baleen will soon fold his fluked fins like the Arab andswing that huge body of his into line with the Great Auk, theSea-Otter, the Plains Buffalo, and all the melancholy procession ofCanadian Has-Beens. 

[Illustration: We Tell the Tale of a Whale]

Whales divide themselves into two great classes: those furnished withteeth (the _Denticete_) and those in which the place of teeth issupplied by a sieve process, furnishing the baleen or "whalebone" ofcommerce (the _Mysticete_ or _Balaenidae_). The members of the BaleenWhale family are the Sulphur-Bottoms, the Finner Whales or Rorquals, theHumpbacks, and the king of all whales, the founder of the municipalityof Herschel Island, whom his pursuers call indiscriminately the "ArcticWhale, " "Polar Whale, " "Greenland Whale, " "Bowhead, " "Right Whale, " or"Icebreaker. "

Bowheads run in length from seventy to one hundred feet, weighing up toone hundred and ten tons each, there being authentic records ofexceptional specimens whose weight reached two hundred and fifty tons. Comparisons are illuminating. The mammoth or hairy elephant in the FieldColumbian Museum is nine feet six inches high and twelve feet inlongitudinal measurement. The lips of a Bowhead whale are from fifteento twenty feet in length and yield from one to two tons of pure oileach, --lips that turn a nigger-minstrel green with envy! The eyes placedin the posterior part of the head are each as big as an orange. Thetongue of the whale is twenty feet long, and this member, by means ofwhich he pushes to the top of his palate the animalculae on which hefeeds (as you would a gooseberry), gives the whaler six tons of oil. Theaorta is as big as a man's waist and, at each pulsation of the heart, spurts out ten to fifteen gallons of blood. The heart itself is morethan a yard in transverse diameter. The toothed whales carry the teethin their lower jaw, the most valuable of this lot being the Spermacetior Sperm Whale or Cachalot, the Pilot Whale or Ca'ing Whale, the WhiteWhale or Beluga, the Killer or Orca, the Narwhal, and such small fry asBlackfish, Porpoises, and Dolphins. Only the toothed whale eats fish;the others live upon animalculae and the most minute of marine life, called "brit" by the whalers. The Bowhead that we have come up to theArctic to see feeds on the smallest infusoria. He couldn't eat a herringif by that one act he might attain immortality. 

Whale errors die hard. Artists persistently depict the big animals asspouting beautiful fountains of water, but the fact is that whalesbreathe out air only from their lungs. They come to the surface forthat purpose, the "blowing" being quite analogous to the breathing ofland mammals. Noticing the condensation of a whale's breath up here inthe icy Arctic, we guess at the cause which gave rise to this particularblunder. Milton in thirteen words manages to perpetrate three (whale)bulls. "At his gills draws in, and at his trunk, spouts out, a sea. "Guiltless of either gills or trunk, no whale ever spouted out anythingbut common or seaside air. 

The Bowhead is hunted for his "whalebone"; the Cachalot or true Sperm, the lord of the toothed whales, for that great lake of sperm oil andspermaceti which he carries round in a portable tank in the top of hishead. 

It is customary to call whales "fierce, " "savage, " "murderous, " but thisis rank libel, for the whale is timid and affectionate. Every family, however, has its black sheep. The Orca or Killer is the terror alike ofsealing-rookeries, fish-schools, and whale bone whales. One Killer takenup here had in its stomach fourteen porpoises and fourteen large seals, and it choked to death on the fifteenth. Banded in Molly Maguire groups, the Killers murder the young seal-pups taking their first lessons inswimming off the Pribilofs. We have seen them, a pack of hungrysea-wolves, surround a Bowhead whale! A number of these brigands of theBering Sea hang on to the lower lip of the big whale till the openedmouth allows a Killer to enter bodily, when the Bowhead's tongue iseaten out and the whole sea is a shambles. At the approach of the Killereven sea-lions seek the shore. And the Alaska Indian who would pose asBad Bill of the Clambank to the third generation carves a Killer as thecrest of his totem. 

The American is more aggressive--shall we say progressive?--than theCanadian. The Bowhead whale has within recent years chosen for hissummer habitat the pleasant waters off Arctic Canada. Each of thesefloating tanks of baleen and oil nets his lucky captor from thirteenthousand dollars upward?, and yet for twenty years Canadians have beencontent to see their more enterprising cousins from California come intotheir back-yard and carry off these oily prizes. 

[Illustration: Two Little Ones at Herschel Island]

Is there much money in whales to-day? Are not oil and whalebone drugs inthe market? Let us see. Off the Mackenzie mouth is Herschel Islandanchorage. Here, since 1889, the American whaling-fleet, setting outfrom San Francisco, has made its summer stand, its winterwaiting-quarters. One whale to one boat in a season covers the cost ofoutfitting and maintenance, and more than one spells substantial profit. In 1887, one of the Arctic whalers, the steamer _Orca_, capturedtwenty-eight whales. The _Jeanette_ in 1905 got ten whales and a calf, the _Karluk_ got seven whales, the _Alexander_ eight, the _Bowhead_seven. The boats wintering at Herschel in that year had among themthirty-three whales and one calf. At fifteen thousand dollars each (SanFrancisco values for that season) the thirty-three whales netted verynearly half a million. Two years later the _Narwhal_ took out fifteenwhales, the _Jeanette_ and _Bowhead_ each four. Although the averagebone per head is two thousand pounds, sometimes the catch runs farbeyond that figure. A whale caught by Capt. Simmons of the ship _John M. Winthrop_ carried thirty-three hundred and fifty pounds of bone in itshead, --$16, 750! One of these at a time would be good fishing. 

The first Bowhead taken from these waters went in 1891 to the Americansteam-whaler _Grampus_, her catch for three seasons being twenty-onewhales. Previous to this, even wise whale-men thought it useless to go"to the east'ard of P'int Barrow" for this big whale; since that datethe catch in Canadian waters has been thirteen hundred and forty-fivewhales. Ignoring the oil altogether and putting the "bone" (baleen) attwo thousand pounds each whale and the value of it at five dollars apound, both conservative figures, we find that thirteen and a halfmillions in whale-values have gone out of this Canadian sea-pasture thepast twenty years, by the back-door route. 

Are there as good fish in the sea as have come out of it? Expertevidence differs. Captain George B. Leavitt, of the _Narwhal_, in 1907lowered twenty-two times without striking and yet went out with fifteenwhales. He says he saw that season more whales than any year previous, but that they are on the move east and north. 

The general practice is for a ship to reach this water from SanFrancisco in the early summer; whale as long as the ice will permit; gointo winter quarters at Herschel; get out of the ice as soon as possiblenext summer, probably the first week in July; whale as long as it canstay without getting nipped by the new ice of September; carry out itscatch through Bering Strait to San Francisco as late as possible;dispose of the cargo; refit; return next season, and do it all overagain. The active whaling-season is restricted to eight or ten weeks, and every one on board a whaler from captain to galley-devil works on alay. The captain gets one-twelfth of the take, the first mate onetwenty-second, the second mate one-thirtieth, the third mate oneforty-fifth, the carpenter one seventy-fifth, the steward one eightieth, fore-mast sailors one eightieth, green hands one two-hundredth. Engineers get about one hundred and twenty dollars a month straight. Itlooks all right in the contract signed a year ago in a San Franciscowaterfront dive, but it never works out as it looks on paper. The A. B. Overdraws from the slop-chest (often before the whale is caught) thevulgar-fraction which stands for his share of fat things, and you comeacross him possessed of the sulky mood which dining on dead horse (landor marine) induces in most of us. 

A trade in fur also makes out by this Pacific-Arctic, Arctic-Pacificroute. We estimate that total products to the value of a million and ahalf find their way each year out of Canada in the ships of thewhaling-fleet. "The farther north the finer fur" is a recognised law. The American ship brings flour, provisions, Krag-Jorgensen guns, ammunition, tea, trinkets to the Eskimo, and receive for these thechoicest furs this continent produces. 

The Canadian Provinces which propinquity would seem to call to thisinternational whale-joust are British Columbia and Alberta. BritishColumbia, in her splendid whaling-stations and refineries on VancouverIsland, has tasted whale-blood, the blood of the Humpback and Sulphurbottom, the Orca or Killer, the Cachalot or true Sperm, and one wouldthink her appetite sufficiently whetted to want to acquire the "feel" ofArctic Bowhead profits, the fattest dividend-sheets of them all. Albertaclaims as rich hinterland all the coal and gas and timber, tar, furs, feathers, and fish between the parallel of 60° and the uttermost edge ofthings. These winning bulks of blubber should by all laws of the game behers. Some day Alberta's metropolis on the Saskatchewan, overcoming therapids on the Athabasca and the Slave, will send her deep-sea vessels byinterior waterways to pull down into Canadian pockets a tardy share ofthese leviathans. Will there be any left? It is hard to say. 

Little wind-swept island of Herschel! We reach you to-day not bydeep-sea vessel from the westward but up through the continent by itsbiggest northward-trending stream. Eighty miles through the NorthernOcean itself from the Mackenzie mouth brings our whale-boat grating uponthe shingle. "As far as we go!" This is essentially the Island ofWhales, the farthest north industrial centre in America, the world'slast and most lucrative whaling-ground. It is well to take our bearings. We are in latitude 69-1/2° N. And just about 139° west of Greenwich; weare a full thousand miles nearer our Pole than the Tierra del Fuegan inSouth America is to his. And it blows. A nor'easter on Herschel neverdies in debt to a sou'wester. Lifting itself one thousand feet abovesea-level, this septentrional shelter for ships where the seagulls wheelat our approach, and as they wheel, whine like lost souls, istwenty-three miles in circumference, with neither water nor fuel. Forsix months every year comparative darkness wraps it around. Snow and icehold it fast till mid-July; and yet people with tropic isles to choosefrom and green valleys where the meadow-lark sings have crowded here fortwenty years to make their home!

The most incongruous lot that Fate ever jostled together into onecorner, --who are they? The whaler of every country and complexion fromLascar to Swede, Eskimo men and women and big-eyed babies, half-castehybrids of these two factors, Missionaries, and Mounted Police. It isinteresting to note the order of their arrival. The whaler drawn by oilylure followed the Bowhead east and north from Bering Sea. To man hisboats, to hunt caribou for him, and to furnish temporary spouses, thewhaler picked up and attached to his ménage the Eskimo from the mainlandin little bunches _en famille_. Ensuing connubial complications broughtthe missionary on the scene. To keep the whaler and the missionary fromeach other's throats, and incidentally to make it easy for the Americancitizen to trade in Canadian baleen and blubber, came the debonair RoyalNorthwest Mounted Policeman, the red-coated incarnation of PaxBritannica. There winter at Herschel every year two hundred and fiftywhalers and an equal number of Kogmollye and Nunatalmute Eskimo. 

Pauline Cove on Herschel Island has three fathoms of water and canwinter fifty ships. Landing and looking about us, we experience afeeling of remoteness, of alienation from the world of railroads andautomobiles and opera tickets. Back of the harbour are the officers'quarters of the whaling company, the barracks of the Royal NorthwestMounted Police, the huts of the Eskimo; in front of us the clearpanorama of the mountains on the shore-line. 

North America here, in profound and lasting loneliness, dips its shaggyarms and ice-bound capes into an ocean illuminated now by the briefsmile of summer but, for ten months out of the twelve, drear and utterlydesolate. The most striking features of the off-shore islands is thatthey are islands of ice rather than of earth. Slightly rising aboveocean-level, they exhibit one or two feet of sandy soil, and betweenthis scant counterpane and the interior foundations of the earth isnothing but pure translucent ice. There is going on a rapiddisintegrating of these islands. The whaler calls this far fringe ofAmerica "the ocean graveyard" and "the step-mother to ships. " There havebeen five wrecks on this coast in recent years: the _Penelope_ offShingle Point, the _Bonanza_ off King Point, the _Triton_ on the shoresof Herschel itself, the _Alexander_ near Horton River, a littlemissionary craft off Shingle Point, and Mikklesen's ship _The Duchess ofBedford_, abandoning her ambitious search for a dream-continent inBeaufort Sea to deposit her tapped-camphor-wood bones on the edge of theocean of her quest. 

The Mackenzie River carries the freshening influence of its current formiles out to sea, and the whole mainland coast is piled high withdrift-trees carried by its stream to the Eskimo, --a boon more prized bythem than the most seductive story the missionary can tell of the harpsand golden streets of that strange heaven of the white man wherewhale-meat is unknown and blubber enters not. 

In July, resurrection comes to Herschel, --saxifrages, white anemonesthrough the snow, the whoop of the mosquito-hawk, and the wild foxdodging among the dwarf-junipers and uncovered graves! And the MidnightSun? It is not a continual blare of light for twenty-four hours. Itsweeps through the midnight heavens, but between ten o'clock in theevening and four in the morning there is a sensible change. Colour tintsand lines of demarcation on sea and ships are harder to distinguish, shadows less clearcut. Birds roost and even flowers close, Naturewhispering to both that, if they would reproduce after their kind in theshort Arctic summer, energies must be conserved. Surely the world holdsnothing more beautiful than this Polar night, this compelling gloaming, the "cockshut light" of Francis Thompson. Here the evening and themorning sit together hand in hand, and, even as you watch, lead in theday, the new day born beneath the starless sky. The July sun stabs intoactivity our incongruous community. On board the vessels guns arecleaned, harpoons pointed, whale-boats caulked, and the winterdeck-house is lifted off bodily. Up in the rigging fox-skins and all theyear's fur-booty sweeten in the sunlight, and eagerly the spring "leads"in the ice are watched from hour to hour if a way be opened to trendout in the track of the big Bowhead. 

Strange people crowd the fo'castle. Two years ago the ships bound for"Outside" got nipped in early ice and were forced to winter at Herschelall unprepared. Reduced to half-rations the crew got weak, and scurvythreatened. The Mounted Police (who by the way are "mounted" inimagination only, as there is nothing for the most gallant to stridehere but Husky dogs), in making examination of the men below decks, gotto their enquiries a technical reply that staggered them. Oneable-bodied seaman, busied with between-decks blubber, proved to be amedical man with degrees from two colleges. He subsequently made at therequest of the Police a searching report on the state of health of theisland community, adding suggestions for its improvement. The report wassigned "T. H. Toynbee Wright, M. D. , " and, after making it, the A. B. , M. D. Saluted, donned his oily overalls, and turned once more to the savouryspoils of the Bowhead. Which all goes to prove that in these latitudes"you never can tell. "

Whale-men at Herschel give whales five names according to age and size:they are "suckers" under a year, "short-heads" as long as they aresuckled, "stunts" at two years, "skull-fish" with baleen less than sixfeet long, and "size-fish" at the age when a boy reaches man's estate. Awhale needs no re-incarnation theory of the theosophist, for he crowdsenough experience into one sea-life to satisfy the fact-thirst of thegreediest little Gradgrind. Fancy, thrashing the sea for a thousandyears! A "sucker" who happened to be disporting round the British Isleswhen Alfred the Great was burning those historic cakes and prefiguringwith candles the eight-hour day may still be chasing whale-brit round anArctic iceberg. The whale mates, we are told, once and for keeps. Jogging along from one ocean end to another with the same wife for athousand years without turning fluke to look at an affinity! Shades ofChicago and Pittsburg, hide your wings! Whales follow their annualmigration as regularly as do moose and caribou on land, the seal andsalmon in the Pacific. Seen first in May in Bering Strait, the Bowheadstrend from here north and east, doubling back on their westward journeyin July and August, when the Herschel Island whalers go out to interceptthem. September sees the great mammals off Southern Kamchatka, and yearby year with regularity they follow this Arctic orbit, edging farther insuccessive seasons to the north and east. The usual track of any familyof whales may be left at a tangent on account of a furious storm, excessive cold, the want of food, the harassing of an enemy, or a changein the season of their amours. 

A whale, for an old party, is not so slow. Alarmed while extendedmotionless at the surface of the sea, he can sink in five or six secondsbeyond the reach of human enemies. His velocity along the surfacehorizontally, diving obliquely or perpendicularly, seems to be the same, a rate of from twelve to fourteen miles an hour. Now, to carry a whaleof seventy-four tons through the Arctic at the rate of twelve miles anhour would require a (sea) horse-power of one hundred and forty-five. Captain Scoresby, a whale expert, by careful calculation estimates thata surface of two square miles of the Arctic Ocean contains23, 888, 000, 000, 000, 000 of the minute animalculae on which the Bowheadfeeds, so we hope there is enough to go round. He quaintly elucidatesthis inconceivable number by explaining that eighty thousand personswould have been employed since Adam in counting these little medusae inthe two square miles. Why any one should count them we fail to conceiveand gladly accept Scoresby's figures. 

The poet tells of shooting an arrow into the air and "long yearsafterwards in an oak he found the arrow still unbroke. " Those who stickharpoons into whales and suffer the animal to get away start floatingrumours (a sort of cyclometer of the sea) for their grandsons to read inblubbery history three generations after. England offered knighthood anda bag of sterling pounds to him who would discover a Northwest Passageconnecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. M'Clure and the heirs of SirJohn Franklin disputed the honour of this achievement. In the "NorthSea" lived a whale who exhibited in his own person indubitable proof ofhaving found that elusive Anian Strait. At Herald Island, due north ofBering Strait, in 1886, a whale was caught who carried round in hisinside pocket of blubber the head of a harpoon marked _Ansell Gibbs_. The _Ansell Gibbs_ was wrecked at Marble Island south of ChesterfieldInlet on Hudson Bay on October 13, 1871. Imagination sees opportunity inthis for establishing hyperborean letter-service between lovers keptapart by cruel ice-floes. Eskimo Evangeline wandering under NorthernLights seeking Dusky Gabriel might find here a carrier-pigeon ofutility. Is it not Pliny who gives us a delightful account of Hippo'senamoured dolphin?

Captain Kelly was the first to notice that whales sing One Sunday, while officers from three ships were "gamming" over their afternoonwalrus-meat, Kelly dropped his glass with, "I hear a Bowhead!" There wasmuch chaffing about "Kelly's band, " but Kelly weighed anchor and went tofind the band-wagon. Every sail followed his, and the result was thebagging of three whales. Among Bowheads, this sing-song is a call madeby the leader of a school as he forces passage through Bering Sea togive notice to those who follow that the straits are clear of ice. Walruses and seals and all true mammals having lungs and living in thewater have a bark that sounds weird enough coming up from hidden depths. Every look-out from a mast-head notices that, when one whale is struck, at the very impact of the harpoon the whole school is "gallied" orstampeded as they hear the death-song. The dying swan may not sing, butthere is no doubt about the ante-mortem Valkyrie song of the whale. Fromthe Bowhead the sound comes like the drawn-out "hoo-hoo-oo-oo-oo" of thehoot-owl. A whaler stops coiling his harpoon-line to tell you that"beginning on 'F' the cry may rise to 'A, ' 'B, ' or even 'C' beforeslipping back to 'F' again. " He assures us that, "with the Humpback thetone is much finer, sounding across the water like the 'E' string of aviolin. "

Whalers themselves on this grim shore die without requiem. Every yearmen desert from the ships. They make their way across from Herschel to amainland of whose geography they know nothing, thinking that once theystrike the shore they can find railway trains which will take them tothe gold-mines. One man, Morand, left his ship without sled or dogs. Hecarried only a gun, twenty rounds of ammunition, some cigarette papersand tobacco. In the spring they found him about a day's journey from theship, frozen to death. He sat with his gun leaning against his left arm, and a cigarette in his mouth. Both feet and one hand were eaten off. Hehad fired off nine shots, probably as a signal which was never heard. 

[Illustration: Breeding Grounds of the Seals]

Within recent years, on other shores but this one, an innovation hasentered the whaling business. The modern plan is to haveshore-refineries and from these strategic bases to send outstrongly-built high-speed steamers to shoot detonating harpoons from acannon into the whale. Such methods are pursued with profit onNewfoundland and Vancouver Island shores. The gun-harpoon, the inventionof Sven Foyn, a Norwegian, is furnished at the point with a contrivancewhich, as it enters the whale, opens out anchor-like flukes whichclutch his vitals. Connected by a line to the whaling-steamer, theharpoon holds the quarry until the whaler steams alongside, when the"fish" is soon dispatched. A nozzle is attached to the harpoon-wound, and hot air from the engine pumped into the "proposition" keeps itafloat. The Vancouver Island station has bagged as many as five whalesin one day, --Cachalots, Humpbacks, and Sulphur-Bottoms. 

The Eskimo say, "There is no part of a seal that is not good, " and thesame applies to whales. Blubber and bone have their regular markets. Theviscera, scraps of fat and oddments tried out in fiery furnaces, appearin the form of pungent snuff-like powder, a much-sought fertiliser. Fromthe Vancouver Island stations it goes across to enrich the cane-fieldsof Honolulu and the rose-gardens of Nippon. The Japs are eager customersfor the dried or smoked whale-meat; and whale-steak broiled to a turncan scarcely be distinguished from choice porterhouse, since it isabsolutely free from fishy taste. Far back in the fourteenth century theBiscayans made whale-venison their staple, and Norway to-day has morethan one establishment which turns out canned whale. Newfoundlandersfind whale-meat a welcome change from cod perpetual, and I have seen theIndians of Cape Flattery eat it when it hailed you a mile to windwardand had more than begun to twine like a giddy honeysuckle. Now, enterprising people are talking of canning whales' milk, a dense yellowfluid like soft tallow. When the milk-maid goes out to milk a whale shemust take half a dozen barrels along as milking pails. The Eskimo likeit. Soon the soda-fountains on Fort Macpherson and Herschel Island willbear the legend, "Whale cream soda" and "Best Whale Milkshake. "

To have an even superficial knowledge of the commercial products of thewhale, one must learn of baleen, of whale-oils and spermaceti, ofambergris, whale-guano, whale-ivory, and whale-leather. 

What do we do with baleen? It so combines lightness, elasticity, andflexibility, that nothing yet invented adapts itself so perfectly to allthe requirements of the fashionable corset. Whalebone whips are madefrom single pieces of baleen seven or eight feet long. A whalebonehorsewhip costs from fifteen to eighteen dollars and will outlast adozen cheaper persuaders. The Sairy Gamp umbrella of the lastgeneration, which boasted whalebone ribs, never "broke its mighty heart"in a rainstorm (and incidentally could never be shut up tight). Flexiblesteel has taken the place of whalebone in many of the arts; but newavenues of usefulness open up to baleen. Out of it artificial feathersof exquisite lightness and wigs or toupees are made. Shredded into finefilaments, baleen is now woven in with the other fibres in themanufacture of the finest French silks, imparting resilience andelasticity to the rich material. A Chicago paper of the date of thiswriting advertises:

WHALEBONE TEETH $5A GREAT DISCOVERYTHE NEW WHALEBONE PLATE WHICH IS THE LIGHTESTAND STRONGEST SET KNOWNDOES NOT COVER THE ROOF OF THE MOUTHGuaranteed ten yearsYOU BITE CORN OFF THE COB

Spermaceti, the solid waxy body carried round in the Cachalot's head insolution, is a valuable whale-product. Bland and demulcent, spermacetiis employed as an ingredient in ointments, cosmetics, and cerates. Spermaceti candles of definite size form the measure of electric light, giving rise to the phrase "of so many candle-power. " Present-dayspermaceti is both a saving and a destructive agent. Large quantities ofit are used in Europe in the manufacture of ecclesiastical candles, andpart of the same consignment may help to make self-lubricatingcartridges. 

Most valuable of all whale-products, the costliest commodity on thisearth ounce for ounce with the one exception of radium, is ambergris. Asamber was once considered "the frozen tears of seagulls, " so ambergrisfor ages puzzled the ancients. Some called it "the solidified foam ofthe sea, " with others it was a "fungoidal growth of the ocean analogousto that on trees. " When people in the old days came across anythingexceedingly costly they wanted to eat it, on the same principle whichmakes the baby put each new gift into his mouth. So we have historicrecord of pearl soup a la Cleopatra, and dishes dashed with ambergris. Milton sings of, --

"Beasts of chase, or fowl of game, In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, Grisamber-steamed. "

What is this choice tidbit? It is a morbid secretion of the intestinesof the sick Sperm-whale, and sells for from thirty to forty dollars anounce. Ambergris, if discovered in the animal itself, is always in adead or dying body, but it is usually found floating on the ocean orcast up on the shore. Many a day, as kiddies on Vancouver Islandbeaches, have we turned over bunches of kelp, trying to smell out thatsolid, fatty, inflammable dull grey substance with its sweet earthyodour. The present-day use of ambergris is to impart to perfumes afloral fragrance. It has the power to intensify and fix any odour. Inpharmacy, it is regarded as a cardiac and anti-spasmodic and as aspecific against the rabies. For years it has been used in sacerdotalrites of the church; and suitors of old times sought with it to charmtheir mistresses. The dying sperm, spouting up the ghost, offers of hisvery vitals to aid the lover and serve the church. 

Fascinating are the finds of ambergris. The barque _Sea-Fox_ of NewBedford, in 1866, off the coast of Arabia, took a one hundred andfifty-six pound mass of ambergris, which was sold to the Arabs ofZanzibar for ten thousand dollars in gold. The _Adeline Gibbs_, in thesame year, took one hundred and thirty-two pounds from a bull-spermsouth of St. Helena, and sold the hunk for twenty-three thousanddollars. Three winters ago an Arctic whaling-crew put into Seattle, andthere leaked out the interesting story of how, not recognising thepriceless unguent, they had greased their oars, masts, and knee-bootswith "a big lump of ambergrease. "

In modern whaling not an ounce of the carcase is cast as rubbish to thevoid. The intestines make a soft kid which takes any dye and is largelyused for artistic leather-work. The size of these immense strips makespossible splendid belts for machinery with a minimum of joinings. Thechemically-macerated bones are turned into an "indestructible"crockery-ware which is far more enduring than anything made ofvegetable-fibre. The Beluga gives us the best shoe-strings in the world. You can lace your shoes with a Beluga lace for two years and be sure itwill not break the morning you are in an especial hurry to catch aninter-Reuben train. 

An interest attaches to living whales which outweighs the fascinationwith which we study their dead parts. Each species of the whalepropagates with one of its own species only. The fidelity of whales toeach other exceeds the constancy of birds. The whale mother gives birthto one calf, and in extremely rare cases two calves, producing everysecond year, the young being born between the end of March and thebeginning of May. When the mother suckles her young she throws herselfon one side on the surface of the sea and the calf regularly feeds atthe breast (like a young Eskimo) for nearly two years. During this timethe baby is extremely fat and the mother correspondingly emaciated. Perhaps nothing in nature is more touching than the devotion of a femalewhale to its wounded young. Whalers harpoon the babe at the breast sothat they may afterwards secure the dam. In this case, the mother joinsthe wounded young under the surface of the water, comes up with it whenit rises to breathe, encourages it to swim off, assists its flight bytaking it under her fin, and seldom deserts it while life remains. 

Unless the Circumpolar Bowhead is to become extinct within a decade, thethinking world should strengthen the hands of the Canadian authoritiesin an effort to put a close season for four or five years on the greatArctic Baleen Whale. At their rate of reproduction it is not so easy torestock a whale pasture as a salmon stream. Cutting down a whale whichhas taken ten centuries to grow is like cutting down an oak-tree with athousand concentric rings. You cannot in one or two or twenty scantgenerations of man grow another one to take its place. 

CHAPTER XVII

SOUTH FROM THE ARCTIC TO CHIPEWYAN

"The old lost stars wheel back, dear lass, That blaze in the velvet blue. They're God's own guides on the Long Trail--The trail that is always new. "

--_Kipling_. 

A tax on tea caused the revolt of the thirteen Colonies, a taunting loadof tennis-balls lost France to the Dauphin. Eighty years ago on thisArctic edge, white beads, or the lack of them, lost a lucrativefur-trade, alienated the Loucheux and caused the death of whites. "Trifles make the sum of human things. "

The old records tell the story. John Bell from Fort Good Hope, underdate of August 14th, 1827, writes to the Factor at Fort Simpson:

"The beads sent in for the Loucheux trade are not sufficiently large toplease them. I request you will endeavour to send in the largest sizefor the trade of the ensuing year. A specimen of the kind wanted I sendenclosed. "

The Factor at Fort Simpson, under date of November 22nd of the sameyear, writes to the Governor and Chief Factors at Montreal:

"I now forward a specimen of the common white beads wanted for the tradewith the Loucheux Indians. It is their request and I hope it will beattended to. I would not venture to make the demand, were it not fromconviction that without this favourite article these Indians look withindifference on the best of our goods. No other ornamental article isever asked for or wanted by these natives. "

The same official on March 15th, 1828, pleads with Montreal:

"The white beads demanded for the Loucheux trade I hope will be sent, and of the size according to sample enclosed. May I use the freedom ofrepresenting the importance of getting this article to the liking of theIndians, to come up by the Montreal canoes and be ready for outfit 1829?Three kegs will contain the quantity required, 200 to 250 pounds. "

Again on the 29th of November, 1829, he writes Montreal:

"The White Beads asked for the trade with the Loucheux are not accordingto the order sent, 15 pounds only of the quantity received (200 pounds)are of the proper size, the remainder being the same as those in outfit1825 so much complained of. They will not be satisfactory to theIndians. We request you will be pleased to make a strong representationto their Honours at Home that this article be sent according to orderand sample. We now conceive to say anything further would be tiresome. "

The Fort Simpson Factor on March 19th, 1830, reports to Montreal:

"The goods came. The white beads was too small and not according toorder or sample asked for. The Indians would not take them and left theFort dissatisfied. "

The Trader at Fort Good Hope augments the story by recording that theIndians would be better pleased in trade with two small kegs of thespecial beads they wanted than with half a ton of any other trade goodswhich London could manufacture and send out. The sequel of the story isthat, disappointed time and again in not getting their favourite beads, the Loucheux Indians failed to bring in the autumn supply of meat toFort Good Hope and in consequence, before the snows of the winter of1831 had melted, many of the white men attached to that post died ofstarvation. 

[Illustration: The Keele Party on the Gravel River]

We had gone North with the birds in spring and now, as we turn our faceshomeward, the first migrants with strong wing are beginning theirsouthward flight. Our travel is against current now, for we make slowertime than we did coming in and consequently see more of the passingshore-line. The last specimens we gather within the Arctic Circle arethe blue blossoms of the flax. In them we see the earnest of many acultivated farm of the future. The days are getting perceptibly shorterand one by one the old familiar constellations come back in theheavens. We find it a relief to have once more a twilight and asucceeding period of dusk. Yet are we loath to leave this fascinatingNorth with its sure future, its quaint to-days, and all the glamour ofits rich past. 

We had just passed Fort Norman when the sharp eyes of an Indiandeck-hand saw three figures on the beach ahead. Pulling in at the pointwhere the Gravel River joins the Mackenzie, we find a regular RobinsonCrusoe group, --Mr. J. Keele, of the Dominion Government Survey, and histwo associates. Going in on the Yukon side, Mr. Keele's task has been tocross the Divide between the Yukon and the Mackenzie, mapping the rocks. The only white man they had seen in sixteen months was a French priestwho had passed yesterday, and whose knowledge of current events inCanada and Europe was scanty. They were glad to see us. A moose-skinboat showed how they had run the rough Gravel; the meat of two moosesmoked over the camp-fire; their dogs were fat. These are men who knowthe woods--no hard-luck story here. It needs only Friday's funny fatumbrella to complete the picture, with the goat scampering in the middledistance. 

Coming on board, the surveyors are greedy for newspapers, and we inreturn learn somewhat of that great slice of land which they are thefirst to traverse. The Gravel River is two hundred and fifty-five mileslong, with "white water" all the way. The force of the current may beappreciated from the fact that it is forty-four hundred feet above thesea-level at the Height-of-Land, and only four hundred feet here whereit enters the Mackenzie. All along the banks of the Gravel are moose, mountain sheep, and caribou. The winter cabin of the party was built onthe Ross River and there, during the past winter, they experienced atemperature of 54° below. A party of this kind must be to a large extentself-supporting, as it would be impossible to carry from the outsidefood for such a long sojourn. Speaking with Mr. Keele, one is forciblystruck with the fact that what the technical schools teach theirstudents forms but a small part of the equipment of the man who would dofield work in Northern Canada--packing, tracking, hunting, and breakingtrail, --each man must do his share of these. 

The Keele party on the great watershed, as they travelled east, crossedtwo families of Mackenzie River Indians going westward to hunt, on thewest side of the ridge, the marten and the beaver. It was 32° below, andcold. The whole families were on the march, a little baby tucked in thecurve of the sled, and tottering on foot an old, old woman, bent andwrinkled and scarcely able to move. As the Indians were on their returnjourney toward the Mackenzie in spring, the Keele party saw them again. But the old woman was not there. Under some lonely mound where snowfalls in winter and the leaves of birch and cottonwood flutter down inthe shrieking winds of autumn rest the bones of the old woman, her manyjourneys ended. The wearer of a costly fur coat in the glitteringcapitals of the Old World seldom stops to conjecture how much ofhardship, patient suffering, and loneliness go to the making of thatluxurious garment. In order that one might be warmly clad, many havegone cold, more than one sad, tired, old head has lain down for the lasttime by the lonely camp-fire. 

Sad is the lot of the Indian woman of the North. Fated always to play asecondary part in the family drama, it is hard to see what of pleasurelife holds for her. The birth of a girl baby is not attended with joy orthankfulness. From the beginning the little one is pushed into thebackground. The boy babies, even the dogs, have the choicer bed atnight, and to them are given the best pieces of the meat. The littlegirl is made to feel that she has come into a world that has no welcomefor her and her whole life seems to be an apology. You read it in theface of every Indian girl or woman you meet, from the shrinking patheticlittle figure in the camp to the bent old crone, whose upturned facewith its sadly acceptive look gives you the flicker of a smile. 

Storm-stayed at Wrigley Harbour at the entrance to Great Slave Lake, wehave some splendid fishing, --jackfish, whitefish, loche, inconnu, "andhere and there a lusty trout and here and there a grayling. " Within anhour I get fifteen graylings to my own rod. Collectively they weigh justa little over thirty pounds. Swimming against the current, they take thefly eagerly; and one cannot hope to land a more gaudy or more gamy fish. Its big dorsal fin is rainbow-tinct, the tail an iridescent blue, andthe scales pure mother-of-pearl. Mr. Keele has had "The Complete Angler"for two years with him in the fastnesses, and as he helps us prepare thecatch for our evening meal over the coals, quotes blithely that thegrayling is eating fit only for "anglers and other honest men. "

The traverse of Great Slave Lake in the teeth of a wind is not withoutits interest, for the new steamer has yet to be tried in the waters ofwhat practically amounts to an open sea. She behaves well, and bringsus dry-shod into Fort Rae. 

[Illustration: The First Type-writer on Great Slave Lake]

We are the first white women who have penetrated to Fort Rae, and weafford as much interest to the Indians as they afford us. Lone Fort Rae, clinging to the Northern Arm of Great Slave Lake, was noted in the pastas a "meat-post. " It supplied the Mackenzie District with driedcaribou-meat, and formed an outfitting point for the few big gamehunters who trended east from here into the Barren Grounds seeking themusk-ox. Its foundation dates back to some time before the year 1820. Wecross a bridge of clever Indian construction and sit for a while to museon a flat boulder of primal rock. This stands as bell-tower to a quaintbell cast in Rome and bears an inscription to some dead and gone Pope. The missionary priest over half a century ago paddled in here bringingthe Gospel to the Dog-Ribs. 

[Illustration: The Bell at Fort Rae Mission]

The musk-ox _(Ovibos moschatus)_ is a gregarious animal which wouldappear to be a Creator's after-thought, --something between an ox and asheep. The long hair hanging down from the body foreshortens theappearance of the legs and gives a quaint look to the moving herd. Thepresent range of the musk-ox is from Fort Rae north to the Arctic andbetween the meridians of 86° and 125°. As it is the most inaccessiblegame in the world, there would seem to be no immediate fear of its beinghunted to extinction. Toothed like a sheep, footed like an ox, tailedlike a bear, and maned like a horse, the musk-ox does not circle upwind as the moose and caribou do, but travels in any direction he seesfit. Each little herd of ten or fifteen bunches up, tails to the middleand horns outside, to meet a common danger. The robe of the musk-ox is arich, dark brown streaked with grey, the hair all over the body beingvery long, with a coat of mouse-coloured wool at its base. According tothe Indians, the single young of the musk-ox is born in April. Themother buries the calf in the snow as soon as it is born, selecting asheltered place for the cradle. Three days after its post-natal burialit is able to frisk with its dam and begin to take up the musk-calf'sburden. 

[Illustration: The Musk-ox]

We are all day and all night crossing Great Slave Lake from Fort Rae toFort Resolution. Food values and the outgoing cargo of fur are thetopics of conversation. Years ago a delicate baby at Rae required milk, and with trouble and expense a cow was evolved from somewhere anddeposited at the front door of the H. B. Co. Factor there--a cow but nocow-food. All animals must learn to be adaptable in the North. She wasfed on fish and dried meat, lived happily, and produced milk after herkind. One of Mr. Keele's men tells of a horse on the Yukon side whichate bacon-rinds with a relish. The dogs at Smith eat raspberries, climbtrees for a succulent moss, and when times are really hard becomeburglars, burgling bacon in the night season, and even being ghoulishenough to visit Indian cemeteries to pick a bone with the dead. A dog inthe North Country is surely qualifying for some canine heaven in theasphodel meadows. I know of no created being who is undergoing a sternerprobation than this creature forced by man and the exigencies of Fate towork like a horse in winter and live on air in summer. 

From Great Slave Lake to Chipewyan the days are enlivened with storiesfrom the outgoing traders. We learn that when the church was stillyoung, some priests on the Mackenzie hungered after flesh-pots in thewilderness and wrote to the Pope, asking him whether beaver-tails wereto be considered fish, or flesh. Rome evidently was not "long" on NorthAmerican mammals and put itself into the class of Nature fakers foreverby declaring said tails "fish" and not flesh. This is why you candiscuss beaver-tails on top of the world on Fridays to this present andcommit no sin. 

The stories give us some idea of the difference between winter andsummer travel across Great Slave Lake. Captain Mills tells of two Indianwomen, one old enough to have a daughter of forty, who drove a dogsledone hundred and forty-eight miles from Providence to Rae, in four days. The older one walked ahead of the dogs and made the trail while theother drove. Coming back, it took them five days, and the old womanexplained, "We didn't make such good time, as we had a man with us. " Itwas her son-in-law whom she brought back with her. 

A striking picture is given us of a woman who walked alone from HayRiver to Province on snowshoes, taking thirteen days to do it. She hadno matches, and carried her fire with her, keeping it alight in a littlecopper kettle. This, of course, necessitated her guarding it veryclosely and stopping to renew the fire from time to time; for if theburning wood was once permitted to die down, her life in that intensecold would go out with it. 

How cold does it get? Mr. Campbell Young, of our little group, says thathe has been out when a thermometer--one obtained from the U. S. Meteorological Station--registered seventy-six degrees below zero, andhas worked in weather like that. "I've been trapping in thattemperature, when of course the weather was absolutely still, and I tellyou I'd rather be out in seventy-six below than to cross Smith Portagewith the mosquitoes. " Mr. Christie, of the Keele Survey Party, says, "Last winter I had to go out and get a moose for the camp, and on thesecond day I met the Mounted Police boys who told me it had beenseventy-five below. I had started out when it was quite mild, onlyforty-five below. You know when it is below fifty, for then your breathbegins to crackle, and that's a sure sign. " Mr. John Gaudet says, "Iwas driving last winter on Lesser Slave Lake when it was sixty-fourbelow. Yes, it was quite cold. "

At Resolution we see once more our old friend Dr. Sussex, happy andbusied among his Indians. It is just hail and farewell. The little "redlemonade" kiddies are the first to greet us as we come into Fort Smith, and here everybody goes visiting. Mrs. (Archdeacon) Macdonald tells usthat her grandfather had two wives, and was the father of twenty-twochildren. She says she and her brother are glad of this, as it givesthem so many friends in all parts of the country; and we notice that atevery port where we stop Mrs. MacDonald has friends to visit--a cousinhere, and an auntie there. The fancy bag in which you carry your callingcards and little friendly gifts up here is a "musky-moot"; the moreformidable receptacle, which gives your friends warning that you maystay a day or two, is a "_skin-ichi-mun. "_ Visiting a little on our ownaccount, we note that we have penetrated to a latitude into which thegaudy calendars of the advertiser have not yet made their way. Each man, foolish enough here to want a calendar, marks out his own on pencilledpaper. We come across an H. B. Journal of the vintage of 1826 where thereckless scribe introduces two Thursdays into one week, acknowledginghis error in a footnote with the remark, "It is not likely that the eyeof man will ever read this record. "

At Fort Smith we leave the steamer _Mackenzie River_ to take passage inthe _Grahame_ from Smith's Landing, and once more essay the MosquitoPortage. We find our winged friends in fine fettle. Their eyes are notdimmed, their strength not abated. For miles we notice blackened anddead stems of young spruce, cut off as if by machinery, at a uniformheight of two and a half feet from the ground. The top of the dead stemshows the depth of the snow when the rabbits, running along the surface, had nibbled off and eaten the growing spruce. A fur-trader at our sidesays, "While at Fort Macpherson I noticed that the ice always melted inthe spring in Peel's River before it did in the Mackenzie. It wouldbreak up in the Peel about the Queen's Birthday and begin to go out. Reaching the Mackenzie, it came up against a solid mass of unbroken icewhich sent it back to flood the whole country. It was a curiousexperience to paddle round in a canoe for miles and miles where one hadset rabbit snares but a few weeks before. The poor rabbits themselveswere at a loss, for no kind monition apprised them of the coming flood. We could see whole colonies of them, --each a shipwrecked sailor on hisown little raft of bark, buffeted here and there with the stream andpeering out across the swollen waters, like Noah's dove, seeking somegreen thing. "

CHAPTER XVIII

TO MCMURRAY AND BACK TO THE PEACE

"Think o' the stories round the camp, the yarns along the track--O' Lesser Slave an' Herschel's Isle an' Flynn at Fond du Lac;Of fur an' gun, an' ranch an' run, an' moose and caribou, An' bull-dogs eatin' us to death! Good-bye--good luck to you!"

Our arrival at Chipewyan is opportune. Honorine Daniels, unceremoniouslyknown as 'Norine among her friends (and they are legion), is about tojoin hand and fortune with one of the Mercredi boys. 'Norine owns acottage in her own right, and to-night under her roof-tree there is tobe a wedding-dance. We wait round, hungering for an invitation, finallyto be told largely, "You don't need no invitation, everybody goes. "

We go with the crowd. The room is full to overflowing. Babies aredeposited on the benches along the wall, dogs look in at the window. Theair is heavy with mosquitoes and tobacco-smoke. But joy reigns. Nobodyis too old or too obese to dance. Old Mr. Loutit and lame Jimmy Fletteach secures a sonsy partner. There are three fiddlers, and theserelieve each other in turn, for fiddling, beating time with yourmoccasin on the earthen floor, and "calling out" is hard work for oneman. There are but two kinds of dances, --the Red River jig, and a squaredance which probably had for honourable ancestors the lancers on thefather's side and a quadrille on the mother's. 

Endurance is a sign of merit in the Red River jig. A man or woman stepsinto the limelight and commences to jig, a dark form in moccasins slipsup in front of the dancer, and one jigs the other down, amid plauditsfor the survivor and jeers for the quitter. 

It is the square dance that interests us, our attention being dividedbetween watching the deft forms in the half light and listening to thecaller-off. _Louie-the-Moose_ first officiates. His eyes look dreamy butthere is a general's stern tone of command in his words:

"Ladeez, join de lily-white han's, Gents, your black-and-tan!Ladeez, bow! Gents, bow-wow!Swing 'em as hard's ye can. 

"Swing your corner Lady, Then the one you love!Then your corner Lady, Then your Turtle Dove!"

Over and over again Louie reiterates his injunction, to theaccompaniment of pattering moccasins and a humming chorus from door andwindows. There are phrases of variation, too. We catch the words, "_Address your pardner, " "Adaman left, " "Show your steps, " "Gents walkround, and all run away to the west_. "

Then Michel Manvil takes hold of the situation. He stands up to it, andwe hear

"Ladies round ladies, and gents all so!Ladies round gents, and gents don't go!"

Why should they, we wonder!

The third fiddler is a full-blooded Chipewyan. In some dancing academyin the woods he has learnt a "call-off" all his own, and proud indeed ishe of his stunt. We manage to copy it down in its entirety, fightingmosquitoes the while and dodging out into the open now and again for alittle air. 

"'Slute your ladies! All together! Ladies opposite, the same--Hit the lumber with yer leathers, Balance all, and swing yer dame!Bunch the moose-cows in the middle! Circle, stags, and do-si-do--Pay attention to the fiddle! Swing her round, an' off you go!

"First four forward! Back to places! Second foller--shuffle back!Now you've got it down to cases-- Swing 'em till their back-teeth crack!Gents, all right, a heel and toeing! Swing 'em, kiss 'em if you kin--On to next, and keep a-goin' Till you hit your pards ag'in!

"Gents to centre; ladies round 'em, Form a basket; balance all!Whirl yer gals to where you found 'em! Promenade around the hall!Balance to yer pards and trot 'em Round the circle, double quick!Grab and kiss 'em while you've got 'em-- Hold 'em to it; they won't kick!"

The perspiring musician pushes his instrument into the hands of _RunningAntelope_ and turns to us with, "There's another verse, but I don'talways give it. " We ask him to repeat it for us, but he seems a littleat a loss. "It's hard to call it out without the fiddle. When yerplayin' you just spit it out--the words come to you. "

It is August 6th at Chipewyan, and once again we are at the parting ofthe ways. Every one we know is heading for "Outside" by way of thesteamer _Grahame_ and the Athabasca scows. Our own ambition is to make atraverse of the great Peace River Country before the snows. We have hadno mail since last May, and the temptation to follow the multitude asfar as McMurray in the hope of finding letters there is too strong to beresisted. We will then return and try to perfect arrangements for thePeace. 

The outgoers are a cosmopolitan and happy "bunch, "--Major Jarvis, R. N. W. M. P. , fur-traders galore, three Grey Nuns and a priest, Mr. Wyllieand his family bound for the Orkney Islands, fifty-four souls in all, without counting the miscellaneous and interesting fraternity down onthe lower deck among the fur-bundles. 

It is essentially a _voyage de luxe_. When Mr. Keele imagines a place isgood, the steamer stops and we all gather fossils. When lame James, thesteward, our erstwhile jig-expert, is about to serve coffee, he pokeshis head over the side and orders the engines stopped that we may drinkthe beverage without spillage. The beardless prospector buys tinnedpeaches from the commissariat, opens them with a jack-knife and passesthem round the deck with impartiality and ato-hell-with-the-man-that-works smile. Who would envy kings?

We arrive at McMurray in time for treaty-payment. Tethered horses at thetepee-poles, store-dolls for the babies, and unmistakable "Outside"millinery prove the prosperity of these Crees, and proves also theirproximity to Edmonton. One little group looks tattered, out-at-heel, and hungry, --a Cree widow presenting her four offspring that they mayreceive the annual payment. The officials within the treaty tent declarethe youngest baby an illegitimate child and will pay it no treaty, --it"has no name. " I catch the anxious look in the mother's eye. Fivedollars goes a long way when baby bodies have to be fed and clothed. Thesituation is crucial. Without a sponsor, the priest will not name thebaby. With no name, it cannot draw treaty. I conclude to father thechild, as its own (un)lawful father will not. My offer to give my nameto the girlie, after due deliberation of Church and State, is accepted. Under the name of Agnes Deans Cameron the Cree kiddie is received intothe Mother Church and finds her place on the list of treaty-receivingIndians--No. 53 in the McMurray Band. May she follow pleasant trails!

[Illustration: A Meadow at McMurray]

Back of McMurray lies a lush land. We tread a path a full mile in lengthleading to meadows where, belly-high, the horses graze. Every yard ofour way is lined with raspberry bushes bent with their rich, red burden. 

While the furs are being transferred from the _Grahame_ to the scows, the working of our typewriter is a matter of much wonderment. Old PaulFontaine, a half-breed who thinks he is a white man, first looks throughthe door, then comes into the dining hall where we are, takes his hatoff, and watches respectfully. Then, with an air of great conviction, "This is the first time I ever see that. It is wonderful what man cando--wonderful. There is only one thing left to be done now--and that isto put the breath of life into a dead body. " Solemnly putting on hishat, he turns and walks out. 

Mrs. Loutit, another fellow-passenger attracted by the click of themachine, comes in and recounts her arts, wild and tame. In winter shegoes off in dog-cariole, traps cross-foxes off her own bat, shootsmoose, and smokes the hide according to the ancient accepted mode. Coming home, she takes the smoked hide and works upon it silk embroideryof a fineness which would be the envy of any young ladies' seminary inEurope or America. She weaves fantastic belts of beads and sets thefashion for the whole North in _chef d'oeuvres_ of the quills of theporcupine. She is a most observant "old wife. " Watching, fascinated, thelightning play of the machine, "Much hard that, I think, harder thanbead-work, eh?" Conquering her timidity, she at last glides across tofind out how the dickens when you strike capital "A" at one end of thekeyboard, it finds itself in the writing next to small "o" at the otherend. There is something uncanny about it, and our stock goes up. 

[Illustration: Starting up the Athabasca]

We confess to being a little homesick as we wave farewell to the halfhundred passengers in the familiar scows embarked for their two hundredand thirty-eight mile journey up the Athabasca. It will be a tiresomeenough trip, though, for every foot of the way the big boats will haveto be tracked (towed) by teams of half-breeds scrambling along theshore, now on land, now splashing in the water. The party will have themosquito as companion on the sorrowful way and it will take them fourweeks to make Athabasca Landing, the distance which in the spring wedropped down in little over a week. We send letters home, and withhand-shaking all round bid farewell to Mr. Wyllie, the Grey Nuns, andthe rest. 

[Illustration: On the Clearwater]

Our way back on the _Grahame_ to Chipewyan is not without adventure. Atthree o'clock in the afternoon we run up hard and fast on a batture!There is no swearing, no shouting of orders. The deck-hands from longexperience know exactly what to do. The engines are reversed and, intheir efforts, seem to speak Cree, for we catch the sound of thefamiliar "Wuh! Wey!" But it is no go. The sun sinks behind the bank, over the tops of the poplars floats a faint rosy glow which fades intopurple and then into black, and we are still there hard and fast. Thedrifting sand piles up against us, and, in scows, the whole cargo isremoved. The captain throws out a kedge-anchor, and in a mysterious waywe pull ourselves off by hawsers, as a man lifts himself by his ownboot-straps. 

We have head-winds all the way. At four o'clock on the morning of August14th, stress of weather causes us to run in under the lee of an island. We tie up at the base of some splendid timber. Spruce here will givethree feet in diameter twenty feet from the ground. With an improvisedtape-line I go ashore and measure the base-girth of three nearby bigpoplars (rough-backed). The first ran seven feet three inches, thesecond exactly eight feet, and the third eight feet four inches. Withinview were fifty of these trees which would run the same average, andinterspersed with them were spruce with a base-girth scarcely less. 

Arrived at Chipewyan, we are able to arrange to be taken up the Peace inthe same little tug _Primrose_ which had before carried us so safely toFond du Lac. 

CHAPTER XIX

UP THE PEACE TO VERMILION

"What lies ahead no human mind can know, To-morrow may bring happiness or woe. We cannot carry charts, save the hope that's in our heartsAs along the unknown trail we blithely go. "

When we leave Chipewyan August 17th, the fall hunt of waveys has alreadybegun. We learn afterwards that the Loutit boys alone made a bag ofsixteen hundred of these birds which, salted down, form a considerablepart of the winter food of the old Fort. Mrs. William Johnson comes downto see us embark. She has overwhelmed us with generous kindness at ourevery visit to Chipewyan, kindness we cannot soon forget. It is a smallgroup which now starts out in the little tug on the bosom of the mightyPeace, --Major Routledge, R. N. W. M. P. , Mr. And Mrs. John Gaudet with theirtwo olive-branches "Char-lee" and "Se-li-nah, " now returning to LesserSlave Lake from a visit to Fort Good Hope, Miss Brown and myself. 

This part of the journey we are to enjoy more keenly than all that hasgone before. Rising on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, thePeace River is the largest affluent of the Mackenzie, being already asplendid stream when it cuts through that range. With but one break, thePeace River affords a nine hundred mile stretch of navigation, and wecan justly describe the country through which it flows as a plateau inwhich the river has made for itself a somewhat deep valley. Extensivegrassy plains border it on both sides, and north of Fort Vermilioncountry of this character extends to the valley of the Hay River. Crossing the Quatre Fourches, an offshoot of the Peace at the LakeAthabasca edge, we turn our faces due west to a land of promise. TheMackenzie River and the banks of the Great Slave may some day affordhomes to a busy and prosperous populace, but there are many fertile andmore accessible lands to be settled first. With the Peace River Countrythere is no conjecture, for it is merely a question of the coming of therailway. Given a connection with the world to the south, the districtwatered by the Peace will at once support a vast agrarian population. The advance riders are already on the ground. 

It is not our intent to go to the expense of using a steamer for ourwhole journey up the Peace. Scows will allow us to proceed moreleisurely and to see more as we go, so the second day we turn thesteamer back and transfer ourselves and our belongings into a littleopen craft or model-boat _The Mee-wah-sin. _ We have a crew of five men, one on the steering-sweep and four to track, and in this wise we makeour way for three hundred miles up the great river to Fort Vermilion. One day we improvise a sail and so make fifty miles in a favourablewind, but, with this exception, every other mile of the journey is bypatient towing. 

Incidents are many. The first morning after we turned back the littletug, the Kid and I left the slow trackers behind and were glad tostretch ourselves in a long forenoon's tramp along the sandy beach. Themosquitoes were practically gone and for the first time all summer onecould really enjoy the woods, where a tang of autumn in the air madeevery breath a tonic draught. Exulting in the fact that we were alive, we turned a sharp corner and came suddenly face to face with a greywolf, loping along at a swinging pace at the water's edge, muzzle closeto the ground! To make the story worth telling, one should havesomething to say of "yawning jaws" and "bloodshot eyes" and "haunchestrembling for a spring. " But this grey wolf simply refused to play thatpart. He took one look at us, evidently didn't approve, and turned upfrom his tracks quietly into the cottonwoods above. As we on our sidehad brought neither gun nor camera from the _Mee-wah-sin_, we are unableto punctuate the story by either pelt or picture. _Sic transit lupus_!

A week out from Chipewyan, where the Swan River makes into the Peace, wecame one glorious afternoon upon a camp of Crees, the family of the_Se-weep-i-gons_. They had just killed two bears. We bought the skinsand a large portion of meat from them, and Mrs. _Se-weep-i-gon_ verykindly added to the feast of fat things some high-bush cranberries "in apresent. " As an excuse for listening to their soft voices, before weleft the camp we asked the name of every member of the little group, scratching the list down on a piece of birchbark. The Crees evidentlyconsidered this an official ceremony, for after we had paid our scoreand shaken hands with everybody from Grandpa to the latest baby and werewell out in mid-stream, Mrs. _Se-weep-i-gon_ came running down to thebank to call us back. Rowing to the shore we found that she hadremembered one more child whose name she wanted to add to the list. Sheassured us that this one too had a little brass cross hanging round hisneck, so we will be sure to know him if we meet him in the woods. 

We lived for the next two days on bear-meat and cranberries. 

[Illustration: Evening on the Peace]

So one wonderful day follows another as our little boat is towed firstagainst one bank then another of this majestic stream. The forest growthis a marvel. We measure one morning three of the spruce trees to whichour tent-ropes are tied, and get for base measurement six feet eightinches, five feet two inches, and five feet respectively. The treesaveraged ninety feet in height and would give perhaps one thousand feetto each tree. The autumn tints on the willows and alders of the highriver-banks are indescribably beautiful. We pass through one hundredmiles of a veritable field of the cloth of gold. We look out of ourtent-flaps at night on this living glory, and wake up to it again witheach new morning sun. 

One Sunday evening at dusk we slip into the Hudson's Bay post where theLittle Red River makes into the Peace, the dear home of Tom Kerr, hisScottish wife, and their four bairns. Let me try to give the picture. Tom had been off all day cutting meadowgrass, and now wended his wayhome with a load of it in a little Old Country cart drawn by a wall-eyedmare. At her side frisked a foal, and two great stag-hounds ran back andforward between the master and his home by the riverside. Three childrenbounded out to greet their father. "Oh! Daddy, Daddy, the red coo brokeaway from the byre and is far awa on the ither side o' the burn!" Here, in a nutshell, you have the difference between the Mackenzie River ofto-day and the Peace River. On the Mackenzie, swarthy forms are inevidence, Cree and French is spoken on all sides, there are no greatfields of waving grain, and the dog is the only domestic animal. On thePeace is an essentially white race, cows, chickens, trustworthy oldnags, porridge for breakfast, "the tongue that Shakespeare spake, "rendered in an accent born far ayont the Tweed. Right across the mouthof the Little Red River, Tom Kerr has a fishing scine. We go down withhim to lift it, after the cows have been brought back to the narrowpath. The net yields seven fish and they are of five differentspecies, --trout, ling, sucker, jack-fish, and something else that Tomcalls a "Maria. " Daily this net is set, and for three hundred andsixty-five days every year it furnishes food for the family, in summerin the flowing water, and in winter under the ice. You couldn't starveat Little Red River if you wanted to. This is one of the most beautifulspots in the whole North Countree. Long after Tom and we and Mrs. Tomare under the gowans, and the little Kerrs possess the land, there willbe populous cities along the Peace, and millionaires will plant theirsummer villas on the beauteous spot where we now stand. 

[Illustration: Our Lobsticks on the Peace]

Bidding the bairns good-bye, we press onward on our way, Tom Kerraccompanying us. A great honour awaits us round the next corner, whenthe boatmen announce that they are going to make us each a lobstick. Weland, as pleased as Punch over the suggestion. We now know what it feelslike when the philanthropist of a village takes his after-dinner walkthrough the square and sees the sparrows drinking from the memorialfountain surmounted with his own bust, done in copper, life-size. Ittakes fully two hours to trim the trees into significant shape, but thebeauty of this particular kind of Cook's Tour is that you go down whenyou like and stop when you want to. The lobsticks furnished, the menform a circle and discharge their muskets in salute, and on we go. Welearn that the ethics of lobsticks is that each of these men, shouldFate take him past this point again, will salute the lobstick just madeand send a strong thought across the spruce-tops to us. There is areverse to the shield. Should we, at any time before this journey ends, fail to make good, the men on the return voyage will cut the lobstickdown. We are going to make no impertinent enquiries regarding theulterior fate of these family trees. Is it not sufficient glory to say, "On the Peace River we _had_ a lobstick"?

The Chutes of the Peace! These will live forever with the Ramparts ofthe Mackenzie as the two most majestic visions which the whole NorthLand gave us. We had not been prepared for that wonderful spectaclewhich met us as we turned a sharp point in the river. The torrent roarsfor four or five hundred yards of rapid riverway before coming to itsgreat drop. The rock-reef over which the cataract falls extends quiteacross the mighty Peace, here a river of immense width. Measured in feetand inches, the Chutes of the Peace must take second place to Niagara, yet they impress us as Niagara never did. The awesome silence of thisland so pregnant with possibilities, a land which, though it echo nowonly the quiet foot of the Cree, is so unmistakably a White Man'sCountry, intensifies the sense of majesty and power which here takespossession of us. The men talk of the water-power furnished by the greatfalls, and hazard guesses of the future economic purposes to which itwill be put. For our own part, our one wish is to get away from thenoise of even these subdued voices and in silence feast our very soulson this manifestation of the power of God. The thoughts that we feelcannot be put into words. Why attempt the impossible?

[Illustration: The Chutes of the Peace]

Our way lies beyond this, and the Chutes have to be overcome. Thesehalf-breeds know exactly what to do in every emergency which arises. Only one of the men has traversed this river before, and he givesorders. We strip our little _Mee-wah-sin_ of her temporary masts andcanvas awning and take out all our belongings. Everybody works. Apurchase is obtained by throwing a pulley and rope over a nearbyjack-pine, and the boat is pulled out bodily from the water. Then thecrew drag her along the shore well beyond the head of the rapid, and wemake camp. 

[Illustration: Pulling out the _Mee-wah-sin_]

These delicious nights within the tent are memories that will remainthrough all the years to come. It is cool and silent and productive ofthought. We are selfishly glad that fifty people went out by Athabascaways, leaving to us all the mighty reaches and pleasant pastures of thePeace. The midnight is flooded by a glorious moon, and the thoughts bornthis afternoon of that stupendous fall have driven sleep far away. Opening the tent-flap, I slip through the camp of sleeping Indians tothe edge of the fast-flowing stream. The feeling is insistent here whichhas been ever-present since we entered this valley of the Peace--here isthe home prepared and held in waiting for the people who are to follow. 

"Listening there, I heard all tremulouslyFootfalls of Autumn passing on her way, And in the mellow silence every treeWhispered and crooned of hours that are to be. Then a soft wind like some small thing astrayComes sighing soothingly. "

CHAPTER XX

VERMILION-ON-THE-PEACE

"Lofty I stand from each sister land, patient and cheerily wise, With the weight of a world of wonder in my quiet, passionless eyes, Dreaming of men who will bless me, of women esteeming me good, Of children born in my borders, of radiant motherhood, Of cities leaping to stature, of fame like a flag unfurled, As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world. "

--_Service_. 

It is on August 27th, in the evening, that the crew, all slicked up intheir Sunday-go-to-meetings, draw us up on the beach of the City in theSilences, this Past-in-the-arms-of-the-Present, --Vermilion-on-the-Peace. The first thing to meet our eye is the red roof of the flour-mill of theH. B. Co. , a picture of progressiveness set in a living frame of goldenwheat, the heavy heads nodding to the harvest. 

Vermilion is an old post of the Old Company. Alexander Mackenzie on hisway to the Pacific found people at work here far back in 1792. TheVermilion of to-day stands a living monument to the initiative faith andhard work largely of one man, Mr. Francis D. Wilson, who has had chargeof H. B. Co. Interests here for nineteen years. Mr. Wilson found thisplace a fur-post on the edge of civilisation, and he has made of it acommercial, agricultural, and manufacturing centre. And his example hasbeen contagious, for the half-breeds around him have become farmers, theIndians who traded furs a dozen years ago now buy harness and ploughsand breach-loading guns from The Company, paying for the same with wheatof their own growing. 

[Illustration: The Flour Mill at Vermilion-on-the-Peace]

Vermilion is in latitude 58° 30' N. , --that is, about four hundred milesdue north of Edmonton, and on practically the same parallel asStockholm. The flour-mill that we now inspect is the most northerlywheat-mill on this continent, and it has been running for five years. Itis the roller process, with a capacity of fifty barrels a day, themotor-power being a 40 H. P. Corliss engine. The wheat which feeds theserollers is all grown in nearby fields, and the resultant flour isconsumed by the people of the lone posts of the Peace and the lowerMackenzie. Two years ago the H. B. Company paid to farmers, all of whomlived within a radius of five miles from the mill, the sum of $27, 000spot cash for their wheat. An electric plant lights the mill and fortbuildings, affording fifty six-candle-power lights. 

Right up to the door of the mill extends the sixty-acre wheat-field ofthe H. B. Company, from which Mr. Wilson computes that he will this yearthrash two thousand bushels. If the H. B. Wheat-field were to sell the H. B. Mill these two thousand bushels at $1. 25 a bushel (the rulingVermilion price), there would be a net profit of $1500, after paying allexpense of culture, to the credit of one branch of Mr. Wilson'scommercial institution. For thirty years, wheat, oats, barley, andvegetables have been grown in Vermilion, not as an experiment, but asregular commercial crops. Cereals are sown late in April or early inMay, and the harvest is gathered in August. More than once, wheat hasmatured in eighty-six days from seed-sowing to seed-garnering. 

Vermilion farmers boast sulkies and gang-ploughs and the latest gearedMcCormick, Massey-Harris, and Deering farm implements, --self-binders andseeders. Everything is up-to-date. We ourselves counted fifteenself-binders at work. And grain is not the whole story. The farmers ownthoroughbred Ayrshire stock and splendid horses. I happened to be at thegarden of the Church of England Mission when the potato-crop was beingharvested, and found that seven bags of seed planted in the middle ofMay produced one hundred bags by the end of August. Five potatoes that Igathered haphazard from one heap weighed exactly five and one-halfpounds. I photographed and weighed a collection of vegetables grown byRobert Jones on the Dominion Experimental Farm. 

[Illustration: Articles Made by Indians

A--Wall-pocket of white deerskin, embroidered in silk-work, and borderedwith ermine--the work of a Cree woman at Vermilion-on-the-Peace. 

B--Gloves of white deerskin embroidered in silk, the work of a Slaviwoman on the Liard River (a branch of the Mackenzie). 

C, D, E, F, G, H, I--Moccasins as worn respectively by the Crees, Chipewyans, Slavis, Dog-Ribs, Yellow-Knives, Loucheux--all the work ofthe women. 

J. --Flour bag from the mill at Vermilion-on-the-Peace, the mostnortherly flour-mill in America. 

K--Sinew, from close to the spine of the moose--used by the women of theNorth instead of thread. 

L--Very valuable net of willow-bark made by an old squaw at FortResolution. This is almost a lost art, and harks back to the pre-stringdays. 

M--The "crooked knife" or knife of the country. 

N--Match-box made from a copper kettle by an old Beaver Indian at FortVermilion-on-the-Peace. 

O--_Babiche_, or rawhide of the moose or caribou--"the iron of thecountry. "]

One cauliflower weighed eight pounds, half a dozen turnips weighed ninepounds each, and twenty table beets would easily average six poundseach. The carrots and onions were sown in the open in mid-May and wereas inviting specimens as I have ever seen. Tomatoes ripened in the openair on this farm on July 13th. Peas, sown on May 23rd and gathered onAugust 12th, weighed sixty-four pounds to the bushel. Experimental plotsof turnips gave sixteen tons to the acre, and white carrots twelve tons. Apple-trees and roses we found flourishing on this farm, withtwenty-five varieties of red, black, and white currants. The wheat storyis of compelling interest. Preston wheat, sown on May 6th and cut onAugust 22nd, weighed sixty-four pounds to the bushel; Ladoga wheat, sownon the last day of April and cut on September 5th, ran sixty-four poundsto the bushel also, and early Riga weighed sixty-three pounds. In thegarden of the R. C. Mission we were presented with splendid specimens ofripened corn and with three cucumbers grown in the open air, whichweighed over a pound each. 

[Illustration: The Hudson's Bay Store]

Vermilion is the centre of prairie and rolling timber-land greater inextent than the whole of Belgium. There are probably a million acres ofland immediately tributary to the place, all capable of producing cropslike those cited. Within a radius of ten miles of the H. B. Post thereare living now five hundred people of whom perhaps fifty are white. Theyall to some extent cultivate the soil, varying their farm operations byhunting, trapping, and freighting. The settlement boasts two churches, two mission schools, and two trading stores, --a happy, prosperous, andvery progressive community. Everything in the place points to thisconclusion. 

The H. B. Company here, in addition to buying beaver-skins and growing$1. 25 wheat and grinding flour and importing big red binders, breaks themonotony by running a sawmill and building modern steamboats. Thissawmill turned out all the lumber for the new steamer _Peace River_, built here four years ago of native timber. She is a hundred andten-foot stern-wheeler with twenty-two-foot beam, drawing two and a halffeet and carrying forty tons burden. She can accommodate thirtypassengers in comfortable cabins, and when going with the current, makesfifteen knots an hour. The sawmill which turned out the timbers for thisboat has a capacity of fifteen thousand feet a day. 

Within this mill I took, at random, the record sheet of one raft of oneman's logs for the spring of 1906, cut in the immediate vicinity ofVermilion and floated along the Peace to the mill. Edmond Paul's logs inone raft gave a total of two hundred and eighty-eight logs, which cut atthe mill 27, 029 board feet of lumber. The biggest log in this raft was atwelve-foot log with twenty-six inches diameter at the small end, whichcut three hundred and sixty-three feet of lumber. 

Vermilion in its soil fertility, its modernism, culture, andarrived-ness is a source of recurring marvel and pleasure. If a handfulof people four hundred miles from a railway, as the crow flies, andseven hundred miles by actual practicable trails, can accomplish whathas been done, into what status of producing activity will this wholecountry spring when it is given rail communication with theplains-people to the south?

Waiting for steamboat connection, we are for weeks in this gloriousautumn weather, guests in the hospitable home of Mr. And Mrs. Wilson. Can we ever forget the generous kindness extended to us within thesewalls? Months of travel in open scows, sleeping on the ground, andstretching out in blankets on the decks of little tugs have prepared usto enjoy to the full the comforts of a cultured home. It is a modernhouse, with beds of old-fashioned pansies and sweet-Williams and rows ofhollyhocks on all sides. The upper verandah affords a view of the Peace, here fully a mile in width, of incomparable beauty. To the visitor whosteps over its threshold, Mr. Wilson's library indicates at once thereading man and the clever artificer. Scientific works of reference, good pictures, the latest magazines, certainly look inviting to raggedtravellers who have opened no books, save those of nature andhuman-nature, for five long months. The office furniture, hand-made ofnative tamarack and birch, is Mr. Wilson's individual work in bothdesign and execution. Admiring the outcome of hand and head, we get alsoa glimpse of a warm heart, for we are quick to notice that all thesecarefully-filed magazines and papers are available for reference to anyone in the settlement, whether fort employé or not, who cares to come inhere for a quiet hour to read. 

Kipling says, "You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile, " but theWilson home gives the lie direct to this, blithe line. In a corner ofthe drawing-room stands an old-fashioned piano with a history. Thehonourable ancestress of all the modern square pianos and baby-grands ofCanada, this little instrument came long years ago in the hold of asailing ship to Hudson Bay, and by interior waterways was carried byportage and York-boat into Winnipeg, and subsequently into Edmonton. Itcarries on it the name of John Broadwood & Sons, London. Mrs. Wilsontells us that when she was little it was carried by the boys from houseto house on the prairies to do duty wherever there was a social dance. The ghost of the old thing has much quiet here in Vermilion to think ofthe pretty girls in their short sleeves and muslin frocks who once trodSir Rogers to its sweet strains. 

Mrs. Wilson, the grand-daughter of Peter Warren Dease, the explorer, andthe daughter of late Chief Factor Clarke of the H. B. Co. , has put in alife of loving service among the people of Vermilion. Her knowledge ofmedicine and her devoted attention and nursing, extended in the hour ofneed alike to Indians and whites, has saved the life of many a motherand child; for doctors and professional nurses are unknown in Vermilion. These are the pioneer days, when interdependence breeds neighbourlykindness. 

Everything on a Vermilion dinner-table is produced in the country, withthe exception only of tea, coffee, sugar, and pepper. The countryfurnishes beef, pork, and fowl all locally matured; home-cured ham andbacon; every known variety of hardy and tender vegetables; home-madebutter; bread made from flour grown and ground on the premises; pieswhose four constituents--flour, lard, butter and fruit--are products ofthe country; home-made cheese; wild honey; home-made wines; splendidfish caught from the Peace, and a bewildering variety of wildgame--moose, caribou, venison, grouse, brant, wild geese, canvas-backs, and mallards. Wild berries furnish jams and conserves of a dozendifferent kinds, such as raspberry, black currant, strawberry, blackberry, cranberry, blueberry, and saskatoon. The salt comes fromSlave River, and sugar could very readily be produced from Vermilionbeets if there should arise a market. What more would you? TheVermilionese on his fertile acres is as independent of the world outsideas is the Eskimo in his Arctic igloo. The farm of Sheridan Lawrence, exhibiting its wide-stretching wheat-fields, some heads of which countedseventy-one kernels, with its patches of one-pound potatoes, twelve-footsunflowers, and its quiverful of happy, tow-headed children, gives assweet a picture of Canadian thrift and happiness as one would wish tosee. Indeed, happiness seems to be the keynote of Vermilion, whether weseek it within the fort walls of the H. B. Co. , on the fat acres of thefarmers, or within the folds of Protestant or Roman Mission. 

[Illustration: Papillon, a Beaver Brave]

We carry away with us two pictures, that we like to cherish, of theconvent kiddies of Vermilion. The first thing we saw when we peeredround a corner of this old-fashioned building was the bright face ofSister Thomas of Canterbury playing see-saw with a dozen wide-grinningSlavi babies. When the morning came when we were to bid reluctantgood-bye to Vermilion and all its spontaneous kindness, the last sightthat met our eyes before we turned the corner of the Peace was the wholeconvent force of Vermilion perched high on stumps and fence-rails, wishing us _bon voyage_ with fluttering pocket-handkerchiefs, whileSister Thomas of Canterbury, on a ladder, surmounted the crowd and wavedher farewells with a table-cloth. 

CHAPTER XXI

FORT VERMILION TO LESSER SLAVE

"'Tis a summer such as broodsO'er enchanted solitudes, Where the hands of Fancy lead us through voluptuary moods, And with lavish love outpoursAll the wealth of out-of-doors. "

--_James Whitcomb Riley_. 

[Illustration: Going to School in Winter]

On September 15th we leave Vermilion, leave, too, on the beach thelittle _Mee-wah-sin, _ and in the tiny tug _Messenger_ of the H. B. Company pass on up the Peace. By night we tent on the banks, by day wepuff along between painted banks of gold and crimson, while all aroundus the air is a pungent tonic, and overhead the southward-passingcranes are flying. 

Little Se-li-nah, the sturdiest of travelling companions through monthsof wandering over portage and up river, has won our unbounded respectand created for herself a warm place in every heart. Se-li-nah, though, makes it impossible for us to pose as brave endurers of hardships. Eachnight and morning she carries her little pack on and off shore, takesher share of pot-luck at _meat-su, _ and is never cross. Bless thekiddie! If ablutions seem to her a work of supererogation and our dailyplay of toothbrush furnishes all the fascination of the unknown, stillhers is the right stuff for pioneer lands and she has lessons to teachus in pluck and endurance. 

The first night out from Vermilion we made camp after dark and, onwaking, found that in our blankets we had lain directly across four newbear-tracks. Moose-tracks are plentiful at every stopping-place, so wesee to it that both guns and camera are primed. At eight next morning wepass Not-in-a-gu Seepee. Some Indians hail us, asking for tea, and fromthese we learn that ten families who made this their winter camp lastseason bagged eighty moose among them. 

At half-past two our chance came. To get away from the noise of theengine, the Kid and I had moved our work directly after breakfast to aflour-laden scow that we had in tow, and I was dictating this story tothe machine when the sharp eyes of Showan in the distance spied a moose. He was on the shore cropping willows. It had been generously agreed thatif opportunity offered at a moose the shot was to be mine, so in excitedwhispers the news is telegraphed to our end of the scow and my rifle ishanded up. The fireman slows up on the engine, but still its throbbingsounds distressingly loud as we creep up on the feeding moose and scanthe lay of the land, calculating his chances of escape. The banks arehigh, --perhaps one hundred and fifty feet--and sheer, but there are twogullies which afford runway to the bench above. What an ungainlycreature he looks as we draw in nearer, all legs and clumsy head, --aregular grasshopper on stilts! He reminds me of nothing so much as thoseanimals we make for the baby by sticking four matches into a sweetbiscuit. And now at last he sees us. I fire, and the shot just grazeshis spine. Will he take to a gully? No, he plunges into the riverinstead and we follow him up in the little tug. One more shot iseffective, and I have killed my premier moose. "Cruel!" you say. Well, just you live from mid-May to mid-September without fresh meat, as, withthe exception of Vermilion's flesh-pots, we have done, and then find outif you would fly in the face of Providence when the Red Gods send you ayoung moose! To illuminate the problem I transcribe the menu of onesample week of the summer. 

[Illustration: My Premier Moose]

This is the literal "dope sheet" of the camp cook:

_Monday_:--Dried caribou and rice. 

_Tuesday_:--Salt fish and prunes. 

_Wednesday_:--Mess-pork and dried peaches. 

_Thursday_:--Salt horse and macaroni. 

_Friday_:--Sow-belly and bannock. 

_Saturday_:--Blue-fish and beans. 

_Sunday_:--Repeat. 

Dragged ashore, the moose proved to be a male of two prongs, abouteighteen months old, and weighed perhaps four or five hundred pounds. Afull-grown moose of this country will sometimes dress half a ton. We areto learn that there are many viewpoints from which to approach a moose. The Kid wants its photograph, Chiboo and Mrs. Gaudet each eloquentlyargue for the skin, the rest of us are gross enough to want to eat it, and Se-li-nah, looking demurely off into the pines, murmurs gently inCree, "_Marrow_ is nice. " Poor young stripling of the Royal House ofMoose, you could not have fallen into more appreciative hands!

The first thing Baptiste does is to plunge his penknife into the back tosee how deep the fat is. We had noticed this testing process before. Abunch of feathers is always plucked off the new-killed bird that one canimmediately gauge the gastronomic niche at which to set one's waitingstomach. No more voyaging to-night. The moose is cleaned and skinned. Mrs. Gaudet draws the skin. I claim the head. A little Indian boy, whowith his mother had been added to our ship's crew at Carcajou Point, appropriates the kidneys, which he proceeds to roast in the ashes. Ten-year-old Bill evidently likes his devilled kidneys rare, for withinthree minutes we see him prancing round the camp, nibbling his drippingdainty from the point of an impaling stick. 

[Illustration: Beaver Camp, on Paddle River]

Having sat round the barbecue half the night, we pull out late the nextmorning. And now, apprised by moccasin telegraph, we are all on the _quivive_ to catch sight of a floating bride. A fur-trader attached to "TheFrench Company" at Vermilion has been out on six months' leave and isbringing in a bride from Paris. We are to expect them to cross ourcourse on a raft, floating in with the current of the Peace as we makeour way upstream. We see the raft. All is excitement. We direct thesteersman to draw close in, and the men prime their rifles for a salute. She is not visible, --floating brides on the Peace shrink evidently frombeing the cynosure of passing eyes. Our men fire their salute, thesteersman on the raft looks puzzled when we, smiling our sympathy, peerover the edge of his craft, and see, instead of the Parisian bride, --aload of Poland pigs for Vermilion! It is the wrong raft. The real bridepasses us in the gloaming ten hours later, when it is too dark to get asatisfactory photograph!

On the evening of September 22nd we arrive at Peace River Crossing, orPeace River Landing, just a week out from Vermilion. Our course fromthere has been almost due south. We turn the little _Messenger_ backhere and regretfully bid good-bye to our staunch and friendly boatmen. No people in the world could be pleasanter to travel with than thesesplendid men of the North. Indefatigable and ready for any emergency, they know their business and are always master of the situation;moreover, nature has dowered them with an intuitive delicacy as rare asit is pleasing. Through all these weeks, intensely interested as theyare in everything that is new, never for a moment have they intrudedupon us or our doings. At night there is not a man of them who will notwalk a quarter of a mile through the woods rather than pass between ouroccupied tent and the camp fire. But let us offer to show them picturesor to explain the workings of the camera or the typewriter and it is adifferent story, for then every man Jack drops his oar or tump-line andrushes to our side like an excited schoolboy. 

Peace River Crossing is in latitude 56° N. And longitude 117° 20' W. From that far-off day in spring when we first touched the Clearwater wehave been following in the historic footprints of Sir AlexanderMackenzie. We now take a day off, with the object of locatingMackenzie's last camp on the Peace, which he reached in 1792 and fromwhich, in the spring of 1793, he started west across the map seeking anunknown route to the Pacific Ocean. We find the remains of that camp. Itis in the corner of a potato-field a little way beyond Peace RiverCrossing and on the opposite side of the river. Only the foundations ofthe walls are left and the crumbling bricks of two old chimneys. Mackenzie was the first man to cross the continent from sea to sea northof the latitude of Mexico, and it was from this point where we standthat he launched his ambitious canoe. There is no more historic spot onthe continent than that on which we stand this September day, and as yetit is all unmarked of commemorative stone or recording tablet. The lostcamp had never been photographed until we brought our inquisitive camerato bear upon it. 

I stoop and pluck from where it nods behind the old chimney a wildlarkspur, and as I half-mechanically count its forty-two seed-pods, Itry hard to throw back my thoughts to the year 1792, --one hundred andsixteen years. It is a far call! Canada is tardy in her recognition ofher early builders of Empire. Our cousins to the south would appear tobe more appreciative. In song and story and by a memorial World's Fairthe people of the United States have honoured the discoveries of Lewisand Clark, but Mackenzie crossed the continent a full dozen years inadvance of these explorers. 

[Illustration: The Site of old Fort McLeod]

Our mind feels back across the centuries to little-known Montreal where, amid the bales of peltries and the trading-trinkets of the Fur Company, a hidden voice is speaking and a young man listens. That young man isAlexander Mackenzie, a self-taught Scot, a Canadian bourgeois. In thenoisy midday clatter of the fort he hears the voice, in the waking hoursof dawn and "when evening shuts the deed off, calls the glory from thegrey. " He cannot get away from that haunting challenge, he would not ifhe could. There are interminable changes rung on the everlastingwhisper, but its burden is ever the same. 

"Something lost behind the Ranges, Lost and waiting for you: Go!"

No more might it satisfy him to out-do his competitors and carry back toGrand Portage canoes overflowing with furs. We have seen how the doughtyand determined Scot followed to the Arctic the river which now bears hisname. It gives us the measure of the man to know that the thoughtuppermost in the mind of Mackenzie returning from the Arctic was notpride in the deed accomplished but a realization of his limitations inastronomical knowledge. He would go back to Britain and study stars fora time instead of skins, planets for peltries. And back he went in 1791. His first achievement had but whetted his ambition. It was of a WesternSea that he had greatly dreamed among the bearskins and beavers ofMontreal, and to that ocean which split its waves "somewhere" far beyondthe snow crests of the Rockies he would go. With this strongdetermination he returned from Scotland, made toilsome way to FortChipewyan and pressed up the Peace to make the camp among whose ruins westand. The breaking of the spring ice of 1793 sent him forth on thequest of that Northwest Passage by Land. 

"O Young Mariner, Down to the harbor call your companions, Launch your vessel, and crowd your canvas, And, ere it vanishes over the margin, After it. Follow it. Follow the Gleam!"

We have not time to recount the chapters of the story, to name thestreams ascended, the boiling gorges passed, the discontent allayed, theencouragement given, the lonely night-watches when the leader himselflooked for comfort to his new-found stars. The Fraser was discovered, traced for a while; and then, striking westward, Mackenzie heard thebeat of the surf upon the rocks, and came out from among the pines tothe silver Pacific sparkling in the sun. It was a sweet day in summer'sprime, and as the gulls cried overhead and the sun mixed scent ofseaweed with balsam breath from in-shore, we can imagine but not divinethe feelings of that brave man who had thrown himself face-downward onthe sand and from whose presence the awed companions stole silentlyaway. We remember the words of another builder of Empire, --

"Anybody might have found it, But God's whisper came to me. "

CHAPTER XXII

PEACE RIVER CROSSING TO LESSER SLAVE LAKE

"A haze on the far horizon, The infinite tender sky, The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high, --And all over upland and lowland The charm of the goldenrod. Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God. "

--_W. H. Carruth_. 

At Peace River Crossing we say good-bye to the Gaudets, whose home ishere. While they have been making a little summer jaunt to Fort GoodHope under the Arctic Circle the garden-seeds they sowed before theyleft have not been idle. Mr. Gaudet shows us a pumpkin which weighstwenty-five pounds, a squash of the same weight, and citron melons, which weigh over ten pounds each. 

To those who continue up the Peace from here, three great open prairiespresent themselves: the Spirit River Prairie, the Grande Prairie, andthe Pouce Coupé. The Spirit River Prairie spreads over a thousand squaremiles of splendid soil, sandy loam on a subsoil of clay. Wood and waterare plentiful, horses winter in the open, and crops here have never beendamaged by frost. 

Trending south from the H. B. Post of Dunvegan, one reaches the GrandePrairie by passing through the fertile belt of Spirit River. GrandePrairie is a loose term given to an area of thirty-five hundred squaremiles of black-loam country. Settlers in this section never feed theircattle longer than six weeks each winter. 

[Illustration: Jean Batise, the Pilot on the Peace]

The Pouce Coupé would seem perhaps the most attractive of all the PeaceRiver Prairies. The natural vegetation on its one thousand acres provesthe soil exceedingly rich. Pea-vine and blue-joint hide a horse here inmid-August, and berry-vines show no touch of frost at mid-September. Shrub-grown knolls dot the rolling surface, while lakes and streams giveabundant water. Through three mountain-passes the Chinook drifts in, tempering everything it touches and making it possible for Indians andpack-train men to winter their horses here without any trouble on thenaturally-cured grasses. They drive the animals in at the end of autumn, and the horses come out in the spring hardened and fit for work. Thisis a paradise for wild animals. Rabbits seek the pea-vine, the lynx andthe fox follow the rabbits, and the bear finds here the berries thattickle his palate, --blackberries, strawberries, cherries, cranberries, willow-berries, and saskatoons. 

[Illustration: Fort Dunvegan on the Peace]

On September 24th we engage waggons to carry our dunnage a hundred milessouth from Peace River Crossing to Lesser Slave Lake. This stands out inour memory as one of the most beautiful bits of the whole ten thousandmiles that we travelled. With the cool mornings and evenings and thesuggestion of frost in the air it is ideal walking and we tramp almostall of the hundred miles, letting the waggons overtake us at meal-timesand waiting for them again when it is time to camp. The trail leads usthrough a rolling, lightly-wooded country, with many streams and openglades. At every lake and runway we flush ducks and wild-fowl, like usbound south, and like us, too, loath to leave the golden fulness of thisland. The sun is strong, the stretch of woods on each side of the trailis a painter's palette splotched with vivid golds, greens, crimsons, andtawny russets. Robins, little moose-birds, and saucy whiskey-jacks arefairly revelling in the berries, crowding close to us, disputing thevery berry we are popping into our mouths. Spring lingers late in thisLand of Promise. Strawberry blossoms are around us everywhere, nestlingamid the ripened fruit, and on September 25th in latitude 56° N. I plucka little pasque-flower, one beautiful belated anemone. 

Next evening's tramp brings to view the little settlement of LesserSlave, and we sigh to realise ourselves another one hundred miles nearercivilisation, --the "civilisation" of Chicago! A strong desire possessesus to about-face and back to the woods again. 

It is upon all the excitement of the Lesser Slave potato-harvest that weintrude. Every one is busy piling potatoes in heaps, putting them intosacks, wheel-barrowing the bags into winter storage, --men, women, children, cassocked priests, and nuns surrounded by their chatteringflocks. A noise in the upper air causes everyone to stop work. We lookup, to count a flock of high-sailing cranes floating far to thesouth, --one hundred and fifty-three of them. The observers make a prettypicture, --the rigid figures and uplifted faces of the monks, the nunswith their up-kilted skirts, the happy children. "It is the _Man withthe Hoe_, " I murmur. "Yes, " assents the Kid, "and _The Angelus at LesserSlave_. "

We are the guests at Hudson's Bay House of Mr. And Mrs. George Harvey. Mrs. Harvey is one of the best horsewomen in the North, and it is cleardelight, with her as pilot, to find ourselves once more in the "horselatitudes"--though, indeed, it is no belt of cairns where Mrs. Harveyleads. The only real accident of the summer writes itself on this page. The day after our arrival we were incontinently spilled from a democratand dragged half a mile through the muskeg, being saved only by Mrs. Harvey's splendid pluck and presence of mind. Climbing along the pole, this cool-nerved lady gathered up the lost lines, sawed the horses'mouths, and pulled our craft into the desired haven, incidentally in theact making possible the writing of this "immortal work"!

[Illustration: Fort St. John on the Peace]

Things are more on the move here than elsewhere we have been. Everybodyrides, from grandmothers to two years' babies, and everybody handles agun. Duck-shooting is at its height, for the wild-fowl linger to feedon their way south at Lesser Slave as they do at Chipewyan. Mr. Harveyand his assistants, Old Country boys, some of whom have seen service inBritain's foreign wars, are all wing-shots, and there is friendlyrivalry among them regarding the season's scores. The ducks are shot atdusk. After office hours we watch each little group, equipped with thelatest capers in London and Dublin sporting-irons, hie off to thevantage-points in the marshes. On the walls of the office each resultantbag is verified and recorded, the figures being kept from year to year. To make good at Lesser Slave, if you are a man you must ride well, shootstraight, honour The Company, and otherwise play the game. This is thehealthy standard Mr. Harvey sets and follows himself. 

[Illustration: Where King Was Arrested]

There is much to tempt the camera here. We see the identical shack inwhich Sergeant Anderson made his arrest of the murderer King, and, driving along a mile to the garden of the R. C. Mission, we photographgiant cabbages, one of which weighs full forty pounds. 

[Illustration: Alec Kennedy with His Two Sons]

By special good luck we run across Alec Kennedy, --tall, straight, fifty-seven or thereabouts, with a face that shows the mixing of Scotchblood with Sioux. On his coat shine two African Service medals, onegranted him by the British and one by the Egyptian government. Hisgrandfather was one of those Selkirk Scots who colonised the Red River acentury ago, but, in Kennedy, Indian blood far outweighs the white. Hemarried a full-blood and has several splendid-looking children. At thetime of Riel's first half-breed rising, Kennedy's services attracted thenotice of Sir Garnet Wolseley. When, in 1844, Wolseley was detailed tolead an expedition for the relief of Chinese Gordon, then at Khartoum, he had to think of the details of river-transportation, and theflat-boats of the Nile recalled the Canadian batteaux and Alec Kennedy. It is a far call from the Lesser Slave to the Nile, but men who cannavigate boats and manage crews are rare, and the outcome was that thisScots-Sioux, --strong, silent, faithful, was ordered to collect a partyof Canadian voyageurs and report to the Commander-in-Chief. ReachingEgypt, Kennedy was at once attached to a young officer, Kitchener, who, too, was later to win his spurs. Round the camp-fire we induce AlecKennedy, between puffs from a black pipe, to tell in short ruminatingsentences of the hansoms slurring over London mud, of the yellow Nile, of Africa's big game, of the camel that takes the place of the moose, ofthe swart Arabs and Egyptians. But of his own deeds of derring-do Alechas little to say. It was of men such as Kennedy that Kipling warns, "Donot expect him to speak, has he not done the deed?"

Lesser Slave holds many a person with a history behind him. As a youngfellow of the H. B. Co. Says, "It's beastly bad form to ask any man whocomes in here anything about his former history. If he wants to be awilful-missing, that's his privilege. " However, fate has thrown in ourway one person whom we will interview, bad form or not. From Chipewyanup the Peace we have traced the story of Louise the Wetigo, taking downat different posts, from the lips of nineteen different people, more orless garbled chapters of it. As great good luck will have it, Louiseherself has to-day come in to within six miles of Lesser Slave. We soonmake connection with her and at the same time with Archdeacon and Mrs. Scott, who are closely identified with the weird story. 

[Illustration: Cannibal Louise, Her Little Girl, and Miss Cameron]

Stripped of the horrible details, these are the related facts. Twentyyears ago Louise was a bride of seventeen. With her sister, agedeighteen, their respective husbands, father, mother, sisters, littlebrothers and cousins, _en famille_, they pitched off from Little RedRiver to make winter camp in the woods. The camp made, all the youngermen set off to hunt meat for the others. Neither moose nor caribou wasseen, and on and on they went. They shot one small beaver and ate it, and the white earth afforded no further food. Starving and hopeless, they stumbled on, finally to fall into a camp of stranger Indians, whonursed them back slowly through the winter to sane strength. 

How about their families, the camp of waiting ones left behind in thewoods? With no one to hunt for them, gaunt Famine held these in herclutch. Grandmothers' faces grew weary, the sharpened eyes of the littlechildren peered daily across the snow waiting, watching, for the hunterswho were to bring food. The fires were made in readiness, but no meatcame to those hanging kettles. Old and feeble, young and helpless, alikebecame weaker as they watched. One by one they died. The survivors ateof the dead bodies. At last, of the nineteen souls, Louise and hersister alone lived. Wild-eyed and starving, holding one old musketbetween them, these two sisters stumbled off together to try to makeLittle Red River, leaving behind them in the woods the most awfulexperience that two human beings could share. At the nightly camps eachfeared the other and neither dared to sleep. The third night out, thinking that Louise slept, the sister levelled the gun at her stoopingcompanion, but Louise was watching through burnt holes in the canvas. The next day brought no food, and the nightly watch was repeated. Thenthe sister died. _How_ she died God and the watching stars alone know. Some say that Louise carried with her a piece of her sister's flesh asfood when at last she staggered into Red River. This Louise denies, butadmits freely the cannibalism of the winter's camp. 

Cannibalism! As we use this term we regret the paucity of a languagewhich forces us, in describing the extremity of Louise, to use the sameword which we apply to those inhuman monsters who, of their ownvolition, choose the flesh of man for food. It is an awful story. Humanimagination and sympathy utterly fail to give a conception of the agonyundergone by these poor creatures--women and children with affectionslike our own--shut for the greater part of a winter within that cruelcamp of death!

Coming back to the world of men and women, Louise was for years arecluse, shunned of all Indians as a "Wetigo" or "Cannibal. " A friendwas raised up to her in the person of Mrs. Scott, the wife of ArchdeaconScott, who took her in and made her a member of their household. Yearspassed, and Louise married a man whose Cree name isThe-Man-Who-Looks-Like-Silver. To this marriage a little child has beenborn. 

As we arrange the little group for a photograph, the mother tenderlycaresses the child and the father smiles kindly upon both. Louise theCannibal! When we look on our joint picture, it might be somewhatdifficult to distinguish the writer from the Indian woman. She is "evenas you and me. "

CHAPTER XXIII

LESSER SLAVE LAKE TO EDMONTON

"I hear the tread of Nations yet to be, The first low wash of waves where soon shall roll a human sea. "

[Illustration: A Peace River Pioneer]

Taking passage on the steamer _Northern Light_, we leave the settlementof Lesser Slave Lake, this world-in-small, on the first day of October, and, from here to Athabasca Landing, travel in company with Mr. J. K. Cornwall, President of the Northern Transportation Company. Between thetime of our journey and this writing, Mr. Cornwall has been returned asMember of the Alberta Legislature for the district we are nowtraversing. He certainly knows his constituency better than mostrepresentatives do. There is scarcely a mile of these unmapped ways thathe has not tramped alone; not an Indian guide in the North can last with"Jim" for a week, in summer, or on snow-shoes. When some Lesser Slavehalf-breeds were told that Mr. Cornwall was going to run for thelegislature against Allie Brick, one of them said, "Jim wins. AllieBrick can't run. Not much fun in that race. No man on Peace River canrun like Jim. "

Mr. Cornwall's pronouncement on the North Country can be taken asauthoritative. He says, "Practically all the timber of any commercialvalue between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains is in thesenorthern watersheds. This timber will be a very important factor in thecoming development of Prairie Canada to the south, and fortunately, too, it is most get-at-able. There are thirty-six hundred miles of river andlake in the North on which steamers are plying to-day and which are openfor navigation for six months in every year. The first railway thatcomes in will tap a system of transporation equalled only on thiscontinent by the Mississippi and St. Lawrence with the Great Lakes. TheAmerican Government has spent two hundred million dollars on theimprovement of Mississippi navigation, and to-day it is not as valuablea national asset as the great Athabasca-Mackenzie-Peace system is as itcame from the hand of Nature. Thirty thousand bushels of wheat thatwould grade 'No. 1 Northern' was produced in the Peace River Countrythis year, besides thousands of bushels of oats and barley. In thisNorthland there are 100, 000, 000 acres of land fit for the growing ofgrain. "

Charles Dickens used to carry a note-book in his vest-pocket in which hejotted down names that tickled his fancy. Were Dickens to travel thisroute with us, his name-note-books would bulge. Where Lesser Slave Riverissues out of Lesser Slave Lake, we found Tom Lilac in earnestconversation with Jilly Loo-bird. Jilly has navigated the North all theway from Athabasca Landing to Hudson's Hope on the Peace, seeking awife, and still lacks his connubial rib. Being told that ladies are onboard, he breathlessly asks, "What colour?" When he learns that we arewhite, Jilly makes a dash for some cache in the woods which takes theplace of clothes-closet, but the steamer has passed on before heemerges. Another lost chance, both for Jilly and the writer! For two orthree miles here, where the river runs out of the lake, it neverfreezes, and ducks and wild-fowl remain here all the winter in openwater. Last month, in this immediate vicinity, no fewer than one hundredmoose were killed. Lilac tells us that last winter there was no snowhere until March, and two winters ago absolutely no snow fell whatever, so that the sleighs were not gotten out and all the freighting had to bedone with waggons. "No need to starve here, " says Lilac, "the trout runup to forty pounds each. There are whitefish and grayling, and I gatherberries all the year round. In summer, I get the red and white currants, raspberries, saskatoons, blueberries, gooseberries, and strawberries, and all winter long there are both high-bush and low-bush cranberries. "

[Illustration: Three Generations]

Travelling with us are Judge Noel and Judge Beck, making the firstcircuit of justice through this country. Although they had come all theway from Edmonton looking for trouble, so splendid has been thesurveillance of the Mounted Police here that no one could scrape up onecase for the judges to try. The Peace River people seemed somehow tothink that in greeting the judges with an empty house the settlement hadfailed to make good. Some one comforts them with setting forth as theethics of the case the fact that the judges should be presented withwhite gloves, as the traditional sign of an empty docket. Again is PeaceRiver chagrined, neither The Company nor the French Company has whitekids in stock. Each judge is made the recipient of a handsome pair ofmoose-skin gloves, as a substitute, ornamented with beads and quills ofthe porcupine. 

At Norris's, we leave the steamer and shoot the current of the swiftLesser Slave River in a cranky dugout. The Dominion Government, with aseries of wing-dams, is putting this river to school, teaching it how tomake its bed neatly and wash out its own channel. Where the Lesser SlaveRiver runs into the Athabasca, we change the dugout for a scow, and fromthere to Athabasca Landing float down the last stretch of our northernwaterways of delight. There is frost each night now and the deciduoustrees on the banks are a rich riot of colour. We resurrect from thedepths all the warm clothing available and have opportunity of testingin their own latitudes the lynx-paw robes, moose-skin hunting-coats, andother spoils that we are bringing out to civilisation. 

Every passenger who floats with us enlarges our knowledge and enrichesour vocabulary. Judge Noel's bodyguard is a young stripling of theMounted Police, born in dear old Lunnon. It is always interesting tonote the different things of which people are proud. Old men boast oftheir age and young ones of their youth. The fat woman in the side-showis arrogant over her avoirdupois; the debutante glories in her slenderwaist; and the globe-trotter triumphs in the miles he has travelled. Wyllie claimed distinction in never having left Chipewyan. This MountedPoliceman, who stretches out on the scow, plumes himself on two things:"I 'old the dahnsin' championship of Edmonton. I got a gold watch lahstwinter for waltzin'. " We smile approval, and the constable continues, "Iwaltzed, --reversin', --an 'our-an'-a-'alf! And--, " straightening himselfup, "I am the best-tattooed man in the Province of Alberta. "

[Illustration: A Family on the Lesser Slave]

Rich is the descriptive language of the North, and we lie awake on thescows, rolled in our blankets, loath to lose any of it. "Jim" is at thesweep. Many of the men are going out from the North for the first timein four or five years. They also seem too interested to slumber, and allnight long the conversation goes on. A priest is describing some man whoseems to be hard to identify. "You know him, --the son of the ole manwith the patch on his nose wot died. I christen him last winter. " No oneis more apt at naming than these men. Two days ago, at the treaty atLesser Slave, when a smiling couple drew five dollars for a baby one dayold, a Cree bystander dubbed the baby "dat little meal-ticket. " A younggirl who came up to claim her money was nicknamed "Pee-shoo, " or "TheLynx, " because of her bad temper. So we see where all the old cats ofthe south come from. 

[Illustration: A One Night Stand]

The scow glides on, and we doze, but do not sleep. In the dark she hitssomething and bumps us wide awake to hear the reassuring, "This is wherePat Cunningham's horses were drownded last week. " Under Jim's command, everybody works, even learned judges from Edmonton. He says, "Takeanother shot at the oars, and then you can hit the feathers. " In themorning, one half-breed fails to turn up for _meat-su_ and the commentis, "He feels the feathers pullin'. " "Don't blime 'im, " remarks theconstable, passing the tea, "only fools and 'orses work. "

"He reached out his hand for a drink, " rendered into trans-Athabascanwould be, "He got his thievin' irons on the joy-juice, " or "He stretchedhis mud-hooks for the fight-water. " "He set him a-foot for his horse"means "He stole his horse, " and from this we derive all such phrases as, "He set him a-foot for his blankets, " "He set him a-foot for his furs, ""He set him a-foot for his wife. "

The springy tussocks of grass growing in swampy places are _têtes desfemmes_, a name that pleased our fancy and made us think each time wenegotiated them of walking over the swaying heads of women in a crowd. To call the tribes together, Indians are wont to send out significantlittle pieces of wood. The announcement in the society columns, if theIndians had any, would be, "The Crees sent out chips for a crush. " AnIndian far down the Mackenzie had a name that kings might envy. He wasknown among his tribe as _The-Man-Who-Goes-Around-and-Helps_. When abeardless and ardent missionary approached this splendid chief, wantingto "convert" him to the Christian religion, the old man replied withindulgent dignity, "My son, for eighty years have I served the GreatSpirit in my own way. I fear I am now too old to change. "

CHAPTER XXIV

HOMES AMONG THE YELLOW WHEAT

"The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you asthe homeborn among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself. "

--_Leviticus, XIX_, 34. 

[Illustration: A Rye Field in Brandon, Manitoba]

Edmonton once more. Two Spanish sailors shipwrecked and navigating thePacific on a log, search the shore for a sign. Into what land are theydrifting? The one at the bow (does a log have a bow?) sees somethingthrough the haze--"_Gracias a Dios_! Praise be to God, it is aChristian country! I see the gallows!" We too get our sign. We reachEdmonton on Convocation Day. 

Most young countries for the first ten years of their lives confinetheir energies to roads, bridges, transportation--things of themarket-place. Alberta has been a full-fledged Province of Canada forbarely three years, and, coming out of the wilds, we sit on the backbenches and see her open the doors of her first Provincial University. The record is unique and significant. On the banks of the Saskatchewanrise the walls of the new Parliament Buildings, a replica in small ofMinnesota's State Capitol at St. Paul. This new Province, carved out ofthe heart of the world's biggest wheat-farm, would seem to hold withinit all the elements that make for national greatness: the richest soilin the world, oil, timber, fur, fish, great underlying coal measures, ahinterland which is a very Pandora's box of gifts. Strong, sane, youngpeople have the situation in hand, each alert to grasp the skirts ofhappy Chance. Peace walks within these western borders. What more wouldyou?

The very first man we hunt out in Edmonton is Mr. Wyllie of Chipewyan. On his promised visit to the Orkneys the old man had gotten as far asWinnipeg, where the crowds of the modern city affrighted him. "MissCameron, the men on the streets were as trees walking, and no manstopped to ask how the other was doing. If that is the world, I wantedto go no farther. I'm going back to Chipewyan, and I will take my familywith me. We go home with dogs on the first ice!" Poor Wyllie! Before thebells rang out the Old Year, his soul heard the summons none maydisregard, and alone he went out on the Long Journey. 

What of Inspector Pelletier, Walker, Joyce, and Conway, essaying thetraverse from Resolution to Hudson Bay? For weeks after coming out wewaited for news of the party. Month succeeded month and no word came outof the white silence. Hudson Bay has no daily mail service. "There ain'tno busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay. " It is not until March thatthe welcome word comes that the original party safely made salt water. The relieved tension at Regina headquarters and the joy of personalfriends is dimmed by the news of the death of Corporal Donaldson, whojoined the others at Chesterfield Inlet. Donaldson, in company withCorporal Reeves, started down Hudson Bay in an open boat and encountereda herd of walruses. Enraged and maddened at the shots of the men, onehuge animal made a charge, the boat was upset, and Donaldson, trying tomake shore, was drowned. Reeves survived. 

It seems to be a chapter of accidents. Just as this book goes to presswe learn of a double fatality which attended the transport of the 1909outfit of Count von Hammerstein. This plucky developer of McMurrayoilfields, while running Grand Rapids on the Athabasca (the rapids whichwe had descended in an empty while the other sturgeon-heads weredischarging freight at Grand Rapids Island), struck a boulder. The boatturned turtle and the three men were tossed into the torrent, --vonHamerstein, V. Volksooky, a young Russian, and a French half-breed, LaFrance. The Count was washed ashore and escaped, but the others weredrowned. Deaths such as these are the price of Empire. When therailroad reaches the Athabasca, the running of these dangerous rapidswill no longer be necessary. 

[Illustration: Charles M. Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railway]

In the footprints of Back and Samuel Hearne, Alexander Mackenzie and SirJohn Franklin, for six months we have been treading the silent places. We have thought much of these faith-possessed men who found the roadsthat others follow. In faith they wrought. Canada does well to honourthese great of old, and that she appreciates the work of her earlyexplorers is shown in the fact that British Columbia recently granted apension to the granddaughter of Simon Fraser, the man who in 1808 firstsailed down the great river that bears his name. But the day of ourgreat men is not over; Canada still in her great North and West hasPathfinders of Empire. The early voyageurs made their quest in thedugout and the birchbark; and the tools of these are rails of steel andiron horses. 

[Illustration: William Mackenzie, President of the Canadian NorthernRailway]

We are accustomed to look upon a railroad as a cold thing of dirt andsand and rock, ties and steel, --a mechanical something associated withgradients and curves. But the history of railroading in Canada is onelong romance; back of each line is its creative wizard. We are too nearthese men to get their proper measure; the historian of the future willplace their names on Canada's bead-roll:--Charles M. Hays, the forcefulPresident of the Grand Trunk Pacific; Mackenzie and Mann; William Whyteof the Canadian Pacific. Canada owes much to Caledonia. Nine-tenths ofthose pioneers of pioneers, the trading adventurers of the H. B. Company, came from Scotland, that grey land where a judicious mixture ofScripture and Shorter Catechism, oatmeal and austerity, breeds boys ofdour determination and pawky wit, boys who, whatever their shortcomings, are not wont to carry their wishbone where their backbone ought to be. Aconspicuous example of the dynamic Scottish Canadian, hale at sixty-six, is William Whyte, Vice-President of the Canadian Pacific Railway. At anage when most men are content to "drowse them close by a dying fire, "William Whyte finds himself in complete charge of all the affairs of theCanadian Pacific Railway Company between the Great Lakes and thePacific. Through the positions of brakemen, freight clerk, yard master, conductor, night station-agent, passenger agent, this man worked on hisown passage along Fame's ladder. Twenty years of adolescence andpreparation, twenty years with the Grand Trunk, a quarter of a centurywith the Canadian Pacific, this is William Whyte's record of splendidservice. He has always played the game and he is still in the harness. 

[Illustration: Donald D. Mann, Vice-president of the Canadian NorthernRailway]

[Illustration: William Whyte, Second Vice-president of the CanadianPacific Railway]

When people enquired of the early Christians, "What do you call your newreligion?" they answered, "We call it _The Road_. " If religion is thebest work of a man made visible, as I think it is, then the CanadianNorthern Road may well stand for the religious expression of the menwho made it. It takes more than money, more than dreams, more thanambition, for two men in twelve years to build, own, and personallycontrol five thousand miles of railway. As Riley says, it takes sweat. Amile a day for twelve years, --this is the construction-record of theCanadian Northern. It sounds like the story of Jonah's gourd. In 1896, nothing. In 1909, a railroad line with earnings of ten million dollars ayear west of Port Arthur alone, and twelve thousand people on theregular pay-roll. Beginning in Manitoba and operating in the threeprairie Provinces, the Canadian Northern is primarily a western railway, its remarkable growth being coincident with and closely related to thetide of immigration. 

[Illustration: In the Wheat Fields]

As a case in point, on our way south from Edmonton we pass through thedivisional point of Vermilion on the Canadian Northern, which is not tobe confounded with our Far North Vermilion-on-the-Peace. Vermilionexemplifies wonderfully the Go-Fever and the Grow-Fever of thePrairies. Before it was three months old its citizens had organised aBoard of Trade, had given it a Methodist Church, a newspaper, a bank, apublic school, three lumber-yards, three hotels, three restaurants, fourimplement warehouses, two hardware stores, two butcher shops, four realestate offices, a furniture store, a drugstore, a jewellery store, asteam laundry, a flour and feed store, a shoe-shop, a bakery, and abookshop. Three barbers had hung out their signs, and so had twodoctors, a photographer, a lawyer, a dentist, and an auctioneer. Therewere two pool-rooms and a bowling-alley. 

Farther south we reach the town of Vonda. The Canadian Northern reachedthis neighbourhood, and the town-site was surveyed in June, 1905. Thatyear Vonda shipped over the line one hundred thousand bushels of wheat, and in 1906 her exports were five hundred thousand bushels. The Canadianfarmer looks upon the railroad as his friend; you cannot expect _him_ touse the inclusive condemnation, "Corporations have no souls. " The mainline of the Canadian Northern runs from Port Arthur on LakeSuperior--where, by the way, stands the world's largest grainelevator--to beyond Edmonton on the North Saskatchewan, operating in theheart of one gigantic wheat-farm. The method of construction has beenunique. The owners commenced to build branch railways almost before theyhad a main line. Little spurs to small elevators grew into long branchesflanked with bigger elevators, and the elevators evolved into villages, towns, and cities, until to-day the result of twelve years' growth showsa main line of thirteen hundred miles, with over three thousand milesof branch railways. An orchard tree is a good fruit-bearer when thethick clustering branches are more in evidence than the long thin trunk, and the same applies to railroads. But this main line will grow, too. Working out from its wheaten heart, its natural line of growth is eastto Hudson Bay, north beyond Edmonton, and west to the Pacific. Surelythe tentacles are pushing out. Already the Alberta Legislature hasgranted the Canadian Northern a charter to Athabasca Landing, and onehundred miles of steel will here tap all the lush land watered by thePeace and the Athabasca. 

More interesting than the line which gridirons the wheat-lands we arepassing through, are the men who made it. To try to write the history ofWestern Canada's development and not speak of Mr. Mackenzie and Mr. Mannwould be as difficult as Mr. Dick's efforts to tell his story withoutmentioning the unfortunate Charles I. William Mackenzie is the CecilRhodes of Canada--gentle, kindly, almost retiring in his manner, andwith a glance as inscrutable as the sea. Beginning as a school-teacher, he early threw aside the ferule and the chalk, to get into the world ofaction. In his time he has built shacks, kept a country store, and run asaw-mill. Three things come to him as priceless treasure out of theself-discipline of these experiences: a rare aptitude to see and tofocus the central idea of any proposition, quick and unerring decision, and the power of ready calculation. "I am seldom wrong in a figure, " isone of his few admissions about himself. The President of the CanadianNorthern travels without a secretary, dictates letters sparingly, andworks in an office as bare of adornment as a monk's cell. 

And his working partner? Donald D. Mann is a man of deeds rather thanwords. James J. Hill has declared Mr. Mann to be the greatest railwaybuilder in the world. Mr. Mann was born in Ontario not far from thesleepy town of Acton and just six miles east of Rockwood, the birthplaceof James J. Hill. These two boys learned to swim in the sameswimming-hole. One wonders from what roadside spring they quaffed thedraught which sent them railroad-building. Mr. Mann thinks it a greatadvantage to be born a country boy, for he says it makes a lad frugal, strong, and resourceful. It worked out this way in his own case atleast, for there is not a thing in railroad building that Mr. Manncannot do with his own hands, from shoeing a mule to finding the bestpass in the Rockies through which to slide his iron horse down to thesea. Direct, strong, simple, he knows how to control himself and manageothers. D. D. Mann is a conspicuous example of what a Canadian boy hasmanaged to accomplish by his own efforts. The beauty of this WesternCanada is that it holds out opportunities to every plucky lad who hasinitiative and who is willing to work; nothing is stratified, the wholething is formative. 

While the steel kings are letting the light of day into this greatgranary, they are being helped by a government representative, asdemocratic and direct as any of the pathmakers whose visible work wehave been noticing. The Hon. Frank Oliver, Canada's Minister of theInterior, is essentially a self-made man. Before the railroad menrealised their vision splendid, young Mr. Oliver and his bride rode intoEdmonton on an ox-cart, with a modest little printing-press tucked awayamong the wedding-gifts and household goods. Oliver was a practicalprinter and soon issued a hand-dodger called by courtesy a newspaper. The editing habit sticks. The Minister of the Interior owns andpublishes the Edmonton _Bulletin_. Mr. Mann says, "I like buildingrailroads"; Mr. Oliver might parody him and say, "I like buildingnewspapers. "

[Illustration: Hon. Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior]

Arrived at Winnipeg, we look back across this great prairie we havetwice traversed. The land stands ready to produce bread for the nations;Nature has done her part, now man must do his. The two greatest needs ofWestern Canada to-day are transportation and immigration. Of the one wehave spoken; the other claims our interest even more compelling, for manis more vital than machinery. Canada is a country with a meagre past, asolid present, and an illimitable future. 

She, moreover, is the last unstaked Empire under a white man'ssky, --where wilderness and man are meeting. The flood of immigrationhither is not the outcome of the temporary mood of mankind or of theimmigration policy of a government. It is the natural sequence of theeconomic conditions of a continent seeking the outlet of leastresistance to a more favourable situation. The people who are coming inare not dreamers but workers. "The world's greatest wheat-farm, " saysthe economist. It is more than this: it is a human crucible, and we arewitnessing here the birth-throes of an entirely new nation. 

[Illustration: Threshing Grain]

While seventy-five per cent of Canada's wheat-farmers are eitherCanadian, American, or British-born, and of the class that preserves thehomogeneity of the race, every country on the map pays tribute to theplains. Austrians are here and Galicians, Hungarians and Belgians, Dutch and French and Germans, Italians and Polish, the RussianDoukhobortsi, Finns and Danes and Icelanders, Swedes in thousands andstalwart Norwegians. South Africans and West Indians are coming in withBermudians and Jamaicans and the bearded Spaniard. Far off on thePacific Coast, strangers are knocking at the western gate, --Chinese, Japanese, and Hindoos. 

[Illustration: Doukhobors Threshing Flax]

There is no Established Church in Canada; it is the freest land in theworld. On his one hundred and sixty government-given acres, the newarrival may worship his God in his own way. The Greek Church in Winnipeghas a Bishop who one day each year makes holy water of the Red Riverwhen the Czar is performing the same blessing on the Neva. Down inSouthern Alberta refugee Mormons from Salt Lake grow sugar-beets, revere the memory of Brigham Young, and multiply after their kind. Untilwithin two years ago the expatriated Russian Doukhobors maintained acommonwealth of ten thousand souls, eschewing liquors and flesh-meats, making the prairie blossom into bumper harvests, and holding all thingsin common. 

Winnipeg has three thousand Icelanders who, every August, take a day offto celebrate the fact that the Danish King, in 1874, granted aconstitution to Iceland. When you ask them why they came to America, they say, "Did not our Lief Ericcson discover this continent, whyshouldn't we come?" The Icelanders boast two members in the Manitobalegislature. A Mennonite is a member of the Parliament of Alberta. Thefirst graduate of Wesley College in Winnipeg to find a place on thestaff of his Alma Mater is also a Mennonite. Winnipeg has several, RomanCatholic Polish lawyers. Statistics prove that the young Jewish peopleof Western Canada patronise the public libraries more than any otherclass or race. All the citizens-in-the-making are closely interested inpolitics. Recently there was chronicled the formation in Winnipeg of aSyrian Liberal Club and a Syrian Conservative Club. Up in Edmonton theGalicians (Ruthenians?) have just organised a corps of volunteer militiato serve the Canadian country of their adoption. 

[Illustration: Sir William Van Horne, First President of the CanadianPacific Railway]

The Americanisation of Canada? During the past seven years over threehundred and fifty thousand people have come to us from the UnitedStates. Is this American invasion to be feared politically? WesternCanada has no more desirable citizens than those who come to us fromthe south. They are not failures, but are people who have made good, intent on making better. One generation at the most, --sometimes but afew years, --converts these into Canadian voters. The troubled Englishbrother should remember that when "American" farmers in Canada pronounceon Canadian matters they do so constitutionally at the polls and asCanadian citizens. As Canadians we believe that our nationalinstitutions, though far from perfect, are in some respects superior tothose of the United States. We believe they are at once more elastic, more responsive to the popular will, and more stable because moreelastic. The west is gaining in political power as it gains inpopulation and prosperity, and fortunately our government machinery hasbeen well tested before it is called upon to feel the strain of ourrapidly-increasing population. Canada may construct where older nationsmust reconstruct, and if we borrow an American institution or two, provided it be a good one, let no man hold up hands in holy horror. Japan has borrowed nationally whenever she saw, lying around loose, something she could use, and Japan is as Japanese at heart as she was inthe days of the Tycoon and the two-sworded Samurai. Belgium to-day, after centuries of contiguity and intercourse, is not exactly France;and little Switzerland, surrounded by the Powers, will be Switzerlandtill the last curtain-fall. 

"Is Canada loyal to England?" is a question that sometimes meets us. No, Canada is loyal to the British Empire of which she forms a part. LetEngland see to it that she, too, is loyal. 

Canada has two hundred millions of arable acres south of theSaskatchewan. North of this river, in the pleasant valleys of the Peace, are one hundred million acres more. If Canada were as thickly populatedas the British Isles it would have a billion people. The mind reels andthe imagination staggers in thinking of the future of this rich land. God has intended this to be the cradle of a new race, a race born of thediverse entities now fusing in its crucible. Most of these people intime will intermarry, --Germans and Latins, Celts and Slavs, and withthese the Semitic peoples, in varying proportions and combinations. Physically, what will be the result? Mentally and morally, what typewill prevail? Drawn by the lure of the wheat, all pour themselves intothe melting-pot. What of the new Canadian who will step out?

In the point of population, Canada begins the twentieth century wherethe United States began the nineteenth. The race is ours to run. Wisethe nation, as is the individual, who can learn his lesson from a pagetorn out of his neighbour's book, learn what to follow and what toavoid. Our fore-elders who laid the foundations for us laid themfour-square. As Canadians, we owe a debt to the Fathers of Confederationand their successors. In the West, our particular thanks are due to theHudson's Bay Company, the R. N. W. M. P. , and all those factors whichestablished British law "in the beginning. " Canada has never seen alynching; we have had no Indian war; with but one weak-kneed exceptionthere has been no attempt to hold up a train within our Western borders. This is the inheritance of the people of this generation, and on thisfoundation we must build. Our hope is in the children. 

On the benches of one school-room in Edmonton I found children who hadbeen born in Canada, the United States, England, Scotland, Russia, NewZealand, Poland, Switzerland, Australia, and Austro-Hungary. They wereall singing "_The Maple Leaf Forever_. " It is the lessons these childrenare to learn in that little red school-house which will determine thefuture of Western Canada, and not the yearly tale of forty-bushelwheat. In the past, nations out of their very fatness have decayed. Manysigns are full of hope. Last winter Mrs. Ray travelled alone withdog-sled all the way from Hudson Bay to Winnipeg to place her childrenin school. Her husband is a fur-trader and could not leave his post. Atall hazards the bairns must be educated, so the brave mother journeyedout with them!

May I close with a purely personal note? At the end of a summer whichhad showered us with kindness, I was to hear from the lips of a Romanpriest in St. Boniface the most delightful tribute I have had in mylife. We had gone across the river to see the holy relics and skulls, the result of the La Verendrye research carried on by this clergy in theLake of the Woods country. I was anxious to get the story of therecovery of these historic remains and also to secure photographs. Butthe Father was obdurate, for he thought his Bishop might not approve. Weturned to go downstairs from the third story of the seminary. Looking inat an open door, my eye was caught by the familiar wording of ablackboard problem. "If 16 men and 4 boys working 4 hours a day dig atrench 82 yards long----. " And I halted, as the one-time circus-horsestops when he hears the drum of a passing band. 

"You are interested?" queried the Father. 

"Yes, " I acknowledged, "I once taught school. "

He, still in the trammels, looked the enquiry he did not utter. 

"I taught school for twenty-five years, " I admitted. 

We walked on down the stairs to the next landing in silence, when heturned to me with, "And you taught school--for twen-ty five years?"

I nodded my head, and we went on. At the next landing the remark wasrepeated. At the foot of the stairs he excused himself and came backwith the photographs which he presented to me with an Old World courtesyand dignity. Grasping my hand in farewell, once more the man of Godwondered, "And for twen-ty five years you taught school. And you remainso--" He hesitated for the word, and I wondered what it would be. Atlast it came, --the tribute of one who expected to teach school all hislife to one who had put in a quarter of a century at the work and stillsurvived, --"You have taught school for twen-ty five years, _and youremain so glad!_"

And this is the keynote of what the summer has left with us. AsCanadians, looking at this Western Canada which has arrived and thinkingof the lands of Canada's fertile Northland far beyond, for the future weare full of optimism, and of the present we are _glad_. 

ROUTES OF TRAVEL

ROUTE FROM EDMONTON TO THE ARCTIC VIA THE ATHABASCA AND MACKENZIE RIVERSYSTEMS. 

MILES PLACE PASSENGER FREIGHT TARIFF MODE OF TRAVEL TIMES TARIFF per cwt. 0 Edmonton100 Athabasca Landing $8. 00 $1. 00 Mail stage, run by J. M. Kennedy Twice a week all year round

 DOWN RETURN DOWN RETURN STREAM UPSTREAM STREAM UPSTREAM 0 Athabasca Landing Northern Transportation Co. 's SS. 120 Pelican Rapids $ 7. 50 $ 7. 50 $ . 75 $ . 75 _Midnight Sun_ (when business offers)165 Grand Rapids 10. 00 15. 00 1. 50 1. 50 or scows. From Athabasca Landing to Grand Rapids. 252 Fort McMurray 20. 00 27. 50 3. 25 3. 25 Scows from Grand Rapids to Fort McMurray437 Fort Chipewyan 35. 00 45. 00 4. 50 4. 50 H. B. Co's SS. _Grahame_ (sternwheel539 Smith's Landing 45. 00 55. 00 5. 50 5. 50 river steamer, 130 ft. X 28 ft. ; accommodates 30 passengers; blankets supplied; bathroom; meals served 50 From June to cents each; 150 lbs. Baggage free). August inclusive[1] From Fort McMurray to Smith's Landing. 555 Fort Smith 48. 00 58. 00 6. 25 6. 25 H. B. Co. Transport, portage by teams from Smith's Landing to Fort Smith. 749 Fort Resolution 56. 00 68. 00 7. 25 8. 25 H. B. Co's SS. _Mackenzie River_819 Hay River 59. 00 73. 00 7. 75 9. 25 (strong new sternwheel, lake and869 Fort Rae 62. 00 78. 00 8. 25 10. 25 river steamer; accommodates 50917 Fort Providence 65. 00 82. 00 8. 25 10. 25 passengers, same conditions as _Grahame_1078 Fort Simpson 73. 00 92. 00 9. 25 12. 25 above). From Fort Smith to Fort1214 Fort Wrigley 80. 00 102. 00 10. 25 14. 25 Macpherson. 1398 Fort Norman 87. 00 112. 00 11. 25 16. 251572 Fort Good Hope 93. 00 122. 00 12. 25 18. 251780 Arctic Red River 100. 00 130. 00 13. 00 19. 501854 Fort Macpherson 103. 00 133. 00 13. 75 21. 25 (Peel's River)

[Footnote 1: For further particulars regarding dates and rates, application should be made to the Hudson's Bay Company, Winnipeg; J. K. Cornwall, M. P. P. , of the Northern Transportation Co. At Edmonton; or toA. G. Harrison, Secretary Edmonton Board of Trade, Edmonton, Alberta. ]

ROUTE FROM EDMONTON TO PEACE RIVER, VIA THE ATHABASCA RIVER (UPSTREAM), LESSER SLAVE RIVER AND LESSER SLAVE LAKE. 

MILES PLACE PASSENGER FREIGHT TARIFF MODE OF TRAVEL TIMES TARIFF per cwt. 0 Edmonton 100 Athabasca Landing $8. 00 $1. 00 Mail stage, run by J. M. Kennedy Twice a week all year round

 0 Athabasca Landing Northern Transportation Co. 's SS. 75 Mouth of Lesser Slave _Midnight Sun_ (sternwheel river River $6. 00 $ . 80 steamer, 120 ft. Long x 24 ft. Beam; accomodates 35 in staterooms; passengers supply their own blankets; meals served 50 cents each; freight-carrying capacity 50 tons). From Athabasca Landing to Mouth of Lesser Slave River. 

 91 Norris's (head of rapids) 8. 00 1. 40 Portage 16 miles in N. T. Co's passenger and freight waggons from From May 15 to Mouth of Lesser Slave River to Oct. 15. [2] Norris's (head of rapids). 

 194 Shaw's Point on Lesser Slave Lake 16. 00 2. 50 N. T. Co. 's SS. _Northern Light_ (sidewheel river and lake steamer, 100 ft. Long x 26 ft. Beam; accommodates 35 in staterooms; passengers supply their own blankets; meals served 50 cents each; freight capacity 30 tons). From Norris's to Shaw's Point. 

 201 Lesser Slave Lake Settlement Portage 7 miles to the settlement. 

 0 Lesser Slave Lake Settlement From Lesser Slave Lake Settlement to $10. 00 2. 00 Peace River Crossing, teams and to drivers may be hired; fare depends 25. 00 on number of passengers; takes 3 All the year round according days. Stopping places at intermediate to number points, with stabling and hay; bunkhouses for travellers who supply 90 Peace River Crossing (Peace their own bedding and provisions. River Landing)

[Footnote 2: For further particulars regarding dates and rates,  application should be made to the Hudson's Bay Company,  Winnipeg; J. K. Cornwall,  M. P. P. , of the Northern Transportation Co.  at Edmonton; or to A. G.  Harrison,  Secretary Board of Trade, Edmonton, Alberta. ]

PEACE RIVER ROUTES:--(1) FROM PEACE RIVER CROSSING UP TO HUDSON'S HOPE. (2) FROM PEACE RIVER CROSSING DOWN TO FORT CHIPEWYAN. 

MILES PLACE PASSENGER FREIGHT TARIFF MODE OF TRAVEL TIMES TARIFF per cwt. 

 UPSTREAM RETURN UPSTREAM RETURN Having arrived at Peace River Crossing, DOWN DOWN the traveller may go up the STREAM STREAM Peace by H. B. SS. _Peace River_ 0 Peace River Crossing (sternwheel river steamer, electric From June to August 70 Fort Dunvegan $10. 00 $ 5. 00 $1. 00 $ . 75 light, bathroom; accomodates 40 inclusive. [3] 200 Fort St. John's 25. 00 15. 00 3. 00 2. 25 passengers; blankets supplied; meals 240 Hudson's Hope 35. 00 20. 00 5. 00 4. 25 served 50 cents each; 150 lbs. Baggage free). 

 DOWN RETURN DOWN RETURN STREAM UPSTREAM STREAM UPSTREAM 0 Peace River Crossing Or, having arrived at Peace River 280 Fort Vermilion $15. 00 $25. 00 $1. 00 $3. 00 Crossing, the traveller may go down the Peace. -- 330 Chutes of the Peace 17. 00 30. 00 1. 75 4. 00 By the H. B. SS. _Peace River_, from From June to August Peace River Crossing to the Chutes inclusive. [3] of the Peace. 570 Fort Chipewyan 37. 00 60. 00 3. 25 7. 00 By H. B. SS. _Grahame_ or Tug _Primrose_, from Chutes of the Peace to Fort Chipewyan. 

[Footnote 3: For further particulars regarding dates and rates, application should be made to the Hudson's Bay Company, Winnipeg; J. K. Cornwall, M. P. P. , of the Northern Transportation Co. At Edmonton; or toA. G. Harrison, Secretary Board of Trade, Edmonton, Alberta. ]