A project for Arthur's Classic Novels. Markup by Arthur Wendover. mail@arthurwendover.com, May 20, 2002. This is the etext version of the book Hudson's Bay by R. M. Ballantyne, taken from the original etext hdsnby10.txt.
Arthur's Classic Novels
BEFORE Ballantyne, or so it seems to me in recollection, lie nursery rhymes and the mists of infancy. For his are the first novels of which I have a clear memory extending out of childhood: a memory of pristine worlds which enveloped the actual adventures that provided ways for the mind to enter. The setting, now at least, seems all important; I am aware of an empty and unspoilt world -- as of course Ballantyne's world of the nineteenth century was in comparison with our own -- and the dominant image is a crystalline one, of the ice world of the Canadian North, of underwater luminosities in The Coral Island. After many years one forgets the details of such books -- the action and even the characters grow vague -- but their atmosphere curiously remains, with the sense of excitement at realizing that other self-consistent worlds could exist outside one's own, and that it did not really matter if their existence was literal. Later the reading of Ballantyne led to the reading of actual travellers' narratives, to the reinforcing of the fiction of adventure with the solidity of scientific journeyings in such books as Bates's Naturalist on the River Amazons or Darwin's inimitable Voyage of the Beagle.
But Ballantyne was not merely the creator of fictional worlds in books that set young readers travelling in the mind and longing to travel in the flesh, not merely the principal founder of a tradition of writing for boys carried on vigorously by Henty and Stevenson and diluted into that diet of imperial pabulum provided so regularly and over so many years by the recently deceased Boy's Own Paper and its lesser rivals. He was a man who had experienced, as a boy, at least one of the primitive worlds of which he wrote, and Hudson's Bay is the record of that experience.
As the reader, his antennae attuned to mid-Victorian tastes, becomes quickly aware, Hudson's Bay is not a book intended primarily for boys. There is too much drinking (in which the writer-hero indulges without moralizing) for that, and it is significant that, though the adventures described in this book resemble those narrated in such juvenile novels as Ungava and The Young Fur Traders, it is not one of the books by Ballantyne that were reprinted regularly and still are today. For many years, indeed, it has been out of print.
Yet Hudson's Bay is the most readable, because it is the most concerned with personal adventure, of a number of non-fictional books that resulted from Ballantyne's lasting interest in North America. He put together in 1853 a compilation -- rather like those done more recently by Farley Mowat -- of accounts of Arctic voyages entitled The Northern Coasts of America, and the Hudson's Bay Territories, and in 1858, when British Columbia sprang into being and fame, he seized the moment to prepare a topical Handbook to the New Gold fields. These were ephemeral works, and there is no reason to revive them. Hudson's Bay is another matter. It is interesting as the first book of an afterwards celebrated author, containing much that anticipates his later and more popular works. And in its own right it is a vigorous and informative account of the fur trade at a time -- midway between the union of the Hudson's Bay and North West companies in 1820 and the surrender of the Northwest in 1870 -- about which little of enduring interest was written.
Unlike Palliser, Butler and other writers of the 50s and 60s who described the Northwest as travellers unattached to its regular life, Ballantyne actually lived and worked in the Canadian North as a member of the aristocracy of fur traders which gave the country what slight simulacrum of government it possessed. Yet he differed from most of his fellow Hudson's Bay men because of the background that made writing come easily to him -- more easily perhaps than fur trading, as his narrative suggests. He came from one of the distinguished literary families of Scotland. Two of his uncles were noted Edinburgh publishers and one of them, James, was the friend as well as the printer of Sir Walter Scott. His elder brother, another James Ballantyne, balanced Robert Michael's passion for the wild and uncrowded portions of the earth by an interest in ancient India and, after a period teaching in Benares he returned to become a leading authority on Sanskrit literature.
It seems likely from R. M. Ballantyne's later career -- for most of his twenties were spent, in publishing and his life thereafter became that of the hard -- working professional writer -- that he never intended to stay I permanently in the fur trade and to follow the long ladder of promotion which led to a chief factorship and a share in the company's profits. His period in the North was a kind of education, the equivalent of those wander years of the Grand Tour which his less enterprising contemporaries were still taking on the well-trodden paths of Europe and the Levant. And, though (he was only sixteen when he set off from London on the company's ship Prince Rupert for the long voyage via Stornoway to York Factory on Hudson's Bay, he appears already to have developed literary aspirations; from the beginning he kept a diary of his experiences, and before leaving the company's service he beguiled the solitude of the remote St. Lawrence post of Sept-Iles by writing the first chapters of Hudson's Bay.
In a double sense, in fact, Hudson's Bay is a work of youth. Leaving home as a boy less than five feet tall, Ballantyne returned in 1847 as a young man of 22; he completed his book immediately and published it in 1848, first in a special edition for private circulation (from which this text is reproduced) and then in a general edition. It was not the work of an older man looking back on his youth, and this fact explains both the main virtue of Hudson's Bay -- its sense of vigorous immediacy -- and its principal weakness, the lack of a real sense of the historical forces that were already reshaping the old dominion of Prince Rupert's successors.
For by the time Ballantyne arrived, the Northwest was already in a process of change whose impetus was mounting from year to year. To the young clerk, impressed by the vast emptinesses of the country, by the fact that three fur-trading posts with a handful of white men might represent British power in an area as large as the whole United Kingdom, that process was not so evident as it is to us in hindsight or as it already was to politicians in Upper Canada and to the more astute of the company's own factors and traders. Under the ruthless hand of Sir George Simpson, who still reigned at Lachine as the company's governor-in-chief, the multitude of posts (often set up out of mere rivalry) which existed at the time of the union of the companies in 1820 had been drastically reduced in number. Apart from the Columbia region on the Pacific Coast, and the posts along the St. Lawrence, the main body of the company's trade was now directed through York Factory on Hudson's Bay; and the great route from Montreal to the Saskatchewan country through the Great Lakes and the Shield country which the North West Company had established was now almost abandoned. No brigades followed it any longer, and when Ballantyne passed that way from Norway House to Montreal in 1845 even the portages were falling into decay.
Far to the west, beyond Ballantyne's journeyings, the company's power had vanished and its trade was waning in the Oregon Territory. Up the Ottawa River, once a wilderness thoroughfare of Indians and fur traders, the lumbermen were steadily advancing and in the clearings they made, agricultural villages were established, while along the Red River, in the very heart of Rupert's Land, Lord Selkirk's colony had endured and grown into a chain of settlements that soon would tempt the hungry land hunters of Upper Canada. The company's dominion, which had survived French challenges on the bay and had remained undiminished for more than a century and a half, was at last waning. Even the fur trade itself was changing, for beaver hats were going out of fashion in Europe and other furs were taking the place of what had once been the great staple of the Canadian economy.
Ballantyne, unlike other fur traders who claim their place in literature, did not have the opportunity to become a great traveller. Most of his time was spent on desk work in York Factory, Norway House and Fort Garry, and his leisure was occupied in wandering in the immediate environs of those posts. But he did journey more than once between York Factory and Norway House; he travelled on the Red River, and he followed the old North West route from the Red over the height of land and by the Great Lakes to Montreal, continuing afterwards, by sleigh and boat and snowshoe, along the St. Lawrence, first to Tadousac and then to what seemed to him the end of the world at Sept-Iles. He never reached the prairies or the Rockies or the Pacific Coast, and though his travelling was often hard, it was rarely dangerous. Always he was following established routes, and there is nothing in his travels that can be graced with the title of exploration.
Indeed, there is little Ballantyne tells us except in terms of personal incident that we cannot find elsewhere, scattered in various pages of other books on the Northwest. what really distinguishes Hudson's Bay is, first, that it brings together in an interesting single pattern enough information to give us a vivid picture of fur-trading life at a time when vast transitions were impending; secondly, that Ballantyne brings to his narrative a youthful zest, a sense of action and how to render it in prose and a power of describing the physical environment which one finds among none of his contemporaries. He brings a skill that is sophisticated in terms of his age and times, and applies it to what-by Mackenzie and Fraser and the other writers of fur-trade journals -- was usually described in such laconic and utilitarian terms. The result is pleasing and evocative. Scenes take on the sharpness and depth of vignettes in the mind. Episodes are highlighted into comedy or pathos.
Not least important, a personality is projected, and a developing one at that. One follows the mental growth of Ballantyne from a boy given to horseplay and thrilled by shooting his first duck in the early days at Norway House, to the responsible and observant young man commanding small boats and minor trading posts on the St. Lawrence during the last months of his service in 1847.
In many ways, of course, the book is marked by its period, by attitudes that seem alien in a post -- imperial age but which did not seem so as recently as my own boyhood. Ballantyne and his fellow clerks, and even more the senior officers of the company, had no doubt at all that they were, in the words of the company's charter, "True and absolute Lordes and Proprietors" of the land they so thinly occupied. The canoemen and other servants -- whether Orkneymen or French Canadians or Me'tis -- were regarded as something like feudal retainers, and towards the Indians, Ballantyne (and doubtless his companions) maintained the attitude of condescension that goes with suzerainty, a facetious condescension that will refer to an Indian elder as a "dingy gentleman" and exaggerate immoderately the incidence of cannibalism in Indian life.
There is also at times a callousness which a modern writer would allow himself only if he were writing deliberately for sadistic effect. Ballantyne tells nonchalantly of shooting birds with no intention of eating them; he recounts a gruesome little tale of gull eggs being hatched in hot water and the young birds boiled alive; and when he goes on a seal-clubbing expedition he strives for comic effect by emphasizing the laughable antics of an inexperienced tailor, though in the end he admits it was a cruel little incident.
What strikes one most, however, are the vast areas of Ballantyne's incuriosity. He describes vividly what he actually sees or experiences; what he learns from others on matters that interest him is well recounted. Details of the fur trade, the lore of hunting and fishing, the practicalities of travelling and living in the wilderness are all presented copiously and accurately, and Ballantyne also shows a lively interest in exploration, demonstrated particularly in his description of a chance meeting on a lonely portage with the explorer, Dr. John Rae. This was in 1845, before Rae had carried out the great journeys that resulted in the first discoveries regarding the fate of Franklin. But Ballantyne was already able to assess and to contrast the importance of Rae's method of travelling unencumbered and living like the native peoples off the land, with what he calls the ''vague and uncertain notions of Back and Franklin'' a few years later the failure of Franklin's last expedition proved Ballantyne's point.
Yet it is still amazing how little Ballantyne learned about the people who were native to the country where he lived for six years. Admiring Rae, he did not imitate him. For the most part he was content to learn about Indian customs so far as they affected the fur trade -- ways of trapping, fishing, etc. -- but very little further.
He never appears to have learned an Indian language enough to speak it, and he has nothing to tell about the social organization of native peoples or -- except in the vaguest terms -- about their beliefs. Even about the voyageurs with whom he travelled he appears to have known amazingly little. Officers and servants of the company, even on journeys, ate apart, and appear rarely to have conversed; thus, though Ballantyne tells us of the traditional French Canadian songs with which the voyageurs lightened their labors, one never has the feeling that he is interested in the working of their minds or curious about the part of their lives that had been lived away from canoes.
In other words -- as the sentimentality which at times mars his otherwise functional prose may demonstrate -- Ballantyne was a typically Victorian man who happened to have lived during the years of adolescence with a special intensity. And this, undoubtedly, was why he was so successful as a writer for boys. He shared the conservatism and the practicality which so many adolescents display; he was able to transfer to young people in an adult world the sense of importance and self-reliance he himself had developed on Hudson's Bay (for unusual resourcefulness is a dominant characteristic among his young heroes). Above all, he could translate that vision of a pristine world which is already present in Hudson's Bay into the crystalline images which stay in the mind for decades as the residues of books like Snowflake and Sunbeams; or, the Young Fur Traders (his first story, written nine years after his return from Canada), and those masterpieces (out of eighty other novels) Ungava and The Coral Island. Apart from The Coral Island, which was a rare and unique work of escapist fantasy, Ballantyne remained at his best in writing of the Canadian North, and best of all in those early books which he wrote within the decade from 1848 to 1858 following his return to Scotland, when his recollections were still as sharp and clear as they appear in Hudson's Bay.
George Woodcock
IN venturing to bring out the present work, the author rests his hope of its being in any measure favourably received, entirely upon the fact, that the subject of which it treats is, comparatively speaking, a new one.
It is true that others have slightly sketched the same subject, in books upon Arctic discovery, and in works of general information; but the very nature of these publications prohibits their entering into a lengthened or minute description of EVERY -- DAY LIFE, which is the leading feature of the present work.
The illustrative wood-cuts were executed from drawings made on the spot by the author, -- who has slightly changed his plan regarding them, since the first sheets of the contents were issued to his subscribers; being of opinion, that a number of small cuts, illustrative of several parts of Indian costume, etc., intermingled with three or four landscapes, will prove more interesting to the. general reader than a number of drawings representing eight or ten of the Hudson's Bay Company's forts and establishments, which was his first intention.
READER, -- I take it for granted that you are tolerably well acquainted with the different modes of life and travelling peculiar to European nations. I also presume that you know something of the inhabitants of the East; and, it may be, a good deal of the Americans in general. But I suspect, at least I would fain hope, that you have only a vague and indefinite knowledge of life in those wild, uncivilised regions in the northern continent of America, around the shores of Hudson's Bay. I would fain hope this, I say, that I may have the satisfaction of giving you information on the subject, and of showing you that there is a body of civilised men who move, and breathe, (pretty cool air, by the way!) and spend their lives a quarter of the globe as totally different, in most respects, from the part you inhabit, as a beaver, roaming among the ponds and marshes of his native home, is from that sagacious animal when converted into a fashionable hat.
About the middle of May, eighteen hundred and forty -- one, I was thrown into a state of extatic joy by the arrival of a letter appointing me to the enviable situation of apprentice clerk in the service of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. To describe the immense extent to which I expanded, both mentally and bodily, upon the receipt of this letter, is impossible; it is sufficient to know, that from that moment I fancied myself a complete man-of-business, and treated my old companions with the condescending suavity of one who knows that he is talking to his inferiors.
A few days after, however, my pride was brought very low indeed, as I lay tossing about in my berth on the tumbling waves of the German ocean, eschewing breakfast as a dangerous meal, and looking upon dinner with a species of horror utterly incomprehensible by those who have not experienced an attack of sea-sickness. Miseries of this description, fortunately, do not last long. In a couple of days we got into the comparatively still water of the Thames; and I, with a host of pale-faced young ladies, and cadaverous-looking young gentlemen, emerged for the first time from the interior of the ship, to behold the beauties and wonders of the great metropolis, as we glided slowly up the crowded river.
Leave-taking is a disagreeable subject, either to reflect upon or to write about, so we will skip that part of the business and proceed at once to Gravesend, where I stood (having parted from all my friends) on the deck of the good ship Prince Rupert, contemplating the boats and crowds of shipping that passed continually before me, and thinking how soon I was to leave the scenes to which I had been so long accustomed, for a far distant land. I was a boy, however, and this, I think, is equivalent to saying that I did not sorrow long. My future companion and fellow-clerk, Mr W -- , was pacing the deck near me. This turned my thoughts into another channel, and set me speculating upon his probable temper, qualities, and age; whether or not he was strong enough to thrash me, and if we were likely to be good friends. The captain, too, was chatting and laughing with the doctor with as much carelessness as if he had not the great responsibility of taking a huge ship across a boundless waste of waters, and through fields and islands of ice, to a distant country some three thousand miles to the nor'-west of England! So, under the influence of these favourable circumstances, my spirits began to rise, and, when the cry arose on deck that the steamer containing the committee of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company was in sight, I sprang up the companion-ladder in a state of mind, if not happy, at least as nearly so as, under the circumstances, could be expected.
Upon gaining the deck, I beheld a small steam-boat passing close to us, filled with a number of elderly consequential -- looking gentlemen, who eyed us with a very critical expression of countenance. I had a pretty good guess who these gentlemen were; but, had I been entirely ignorant, I should soon have been enlightened by the remark of a sailor, who whispered to his comrade, "I say, Bill, them's the great guns!"
I suppose the fact of their being so had a sympathetic effect upon the guns of the Company's three ships, the Prince Rupert, Prince Albert, and Prince of Wales, which fired a number of blank cartridges at the steamer as she passed them in succession. The steamer then ranged alongside of us, and the elderly gentlemen came on board and shook hands with the captain and officers, smiling blandly as they observed the neat, trim appearance of the three fine vessels, which, with every thing in readiness for setting sail on the following morning, strained at their cables, as if anxious to commence their struggle with the waves.
It is a custom of the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company, to give a public dinner to the officers of their ships upon the eve of their departure from Gravesend; and, ere the gentlemen of the committee left the vessel, one of them invited the captain and officers to attend, and, to my astonishment and delight, also begged me to honour them with my company. I accepted the invitation with extreme politeness; and, from inability to express my joy in any other way, winked to my friend with whom I had become, by this time, pretty familiar. He, having been also invited, winked in return to me; and, having disposed of this piece of juvenile free-masonry to our satisfaction, we assisted the crew in giving three hearty cheers as the little steamer darted from us and proceeded to the shore.
The dinner, like all other public dinners, was as good and substantial as a lavish expenditure of cash could make it; but really my recollections of it are very indistinct. The ceaseless din of plates, glasses, knives, forks, and tongues, was tremendous; and this, together with the novelty of the scene, the heat of the room, and excellence of the viands, tended to render me oblivious of much that took place. Almost all the faces present were strange to me. Who were, and who were not, the gentlemen of the committee, to me was matter of the most perfect indifference; and as no one took the trouble to address me in particular, I confined myself to the interesting occupation of trying to make sense of a conversation held by upwards of fifty pairs of lungs, at one and the same time. Nothing intelligible, however, was to be heard, except when a sudden lull in the noise gave a bald-headed old gentleman, near the head of the table, an opportunity of drinking the health of a redfaced old gentleman near the foot, upon whom he bestowed an amount of flattery perfectly bewildering; and, after making the unfortunate red-faced gentleman writhe for half an hour in a fever of modesty, sat down amid thunders of applause. Whether the applause, by the way, was intended for the speaker, or the speakee, I do not know; but, being quite indifferent, I clapped my hands with the rest. The red-faced gentle -- man, now become purple with excitement, then rose, and during a solemn silence, delivered himself of a speech, to the effect, that the day then passing was certainly the happiest in his mortal career, and that he felt quite faint with the mighty load of honour just thrown upon his delighted shoulders by his bald -- headed friend. The red-faced gentleman then sat down to the national air of Rat -- tat -- tat, played in full chorus, with knives, forks, spoons, nutcrackers, and knuckles, on the polished surface of the mahogany table.
We left the dinner-table at a late hour, and after I,in company with some other youngsters, had done as much mischief as we conveniently could without risking our detention by the strong arm of the law, we went down to the beach and embarked in a boat with the captain, for the ship. How the sailors ever found her in the darkness is a mystery to me to this day. Find her, however, they did, and in half an hour I was in the land of Nod.
The sun was high in the heavens next morning when I awoke, and gazed around for a few moments to discover where I was; but the rattling of ropes and blocks, stamping of feet over-head, and above all, a certain strange and disagreeable motion in my dormitory, soon enlightened me on that point. We were going rapidly down the Thames, with a fair breeze, and had actually set sail for the distant shores of Hudson's Bay. What took place during the next five or six days, I know not, for the demon of sea-sickness had again completely prostrated my faculties, bodily and mental. Some faint recollections I have of stormy weather, horrible noises, and hurried dinners; but the greater part of the time is a miserable blank in my memory. Towards the sixth day, however, the savoury flavour of a splendid salmon-trout floated past my dried-up nostrils, like " Afric's spicy gale," and caused my collapsed stomach to yearn with strong emotion. The ship, too, was going more quietly through the water, and a broad stream of sunshine shot through the small window of my berth into my breast, and through that into my heart, filling it with a calm but melancholy pleasure, quite indescribable. Sounds, however, of an attack upon the trout roused me, and with a mighty effort I tumbled out of bed, donned my clothes, and seated myself, for the first time, at the table.
Our party was composed of the captain, Mr C -- , a chief factor in the Company's service, the doctor, two apprentice clerks, the first and second mates, and myself all excellent fellows in their way. Soon after this, we anchored in the quiet little harbour of Stornoway. The bay is surrounded by high hills, except at the entrance, where a passage, not more, I should think, than three hundred yards wide, admits vessels of any tonnage into its sheltering bosom. Stornoway, a pretty, modest-looking little village, apparently pleased with its lot, and contented to be far away from the busy and bustling world, lies snugly at the bottom of the bay. Here we remained upwards of a week, engaging men for the wild Nor'- west, and cultivating the acquaintance of the villagers, who were extremely kind and hospitable. Occasionally, I amused myself with fishing excursions to the middle of the bay in small boats, in which excursions I was usually accompanied by two or three very ragged little boys from the village. Our sport was good, and rendered extremely interesting by our uncertainty as to which of the monsters of the deep would first attack our hooks. Rock-codlings and flounders appeared the most voracious, and occasionally a skate or long-legged crab came struggling to the surface.
Just before leaving this peaceful little spot, our captain gave a grand ball on board, to which were invited the elite of Stornoway. Great preparations were made for the occasion. The quarter-deck was well washed and scrubbed; an awning was spread over it, which formed a capital ceiling, and representatives of almost every flag that waves formed the walls of the large and airy apartment. Oil lamps, placed upon the sky-lights, companion, and capstan, shed a mellow light upon the scene, the romantic effect of which was greatly height -- cued by a few flickering rays of the moon, which shot through various openings in the drapery, and disported playfully upon the deck. At an early and very unfashionable hour on the evening of the appointed night, the guests arrived in detachments; and, while the gentlemen scrambled up the side of the vessel, the ladies, amid a good deal of blushing and hesitation, were hoisted on board in a chair. Tea was served on deck; and, after half an hour's laughing and chatting, during which time our violin-player was endeavouring to coax his first string to the proper pitch without breaking, the ball opened with a Scotch reel.
Great was the fun, and numerous the ludicrous incidents that happened during that mirthful night; and loud the noise and merriment of the dancers as they went, with vigorous energy, through the bewildering evolutions of country-dance and reel. Immense was the delight of the company when the funniest old gentleman there volunteered a song; and extatic the mirth, when he followed it up by a speech upon every subject that an ordinary mind could possibly embrace in a quarter of an hour. But who can describe the scene that ensued, when supper was reported ready in the cabin Such pushing, squeezing, laughing, shrieking, and joking, in the vain attempt made to get upwards of thirty people crammed into a room of twelve feet by ten Such droll, and sometimes cutting remarks as were made when they were at last requested to sup in detachments! All this, however, was nothing to the fun that ensued after supper, when the fiddler became more energetic, and the dancers more vigorous and active. But it is useless trying to describe the merry scene, and I blush to think I have had the audacity to attempt it. The first grey streaks of morning glimmered in the east ere the joyous party tumbled down the sides and departed to their homes.
There is a sweet, yet melancholy pleasure, when far away from friends and home, in thinking over happy days gone by, and dwelling on the merry scenes and pleasures that have passed, perhaps for ever. So I thought and felt, as I recalled to mind the fun and frolic of the Stornoway ball, the graver mirth of the Gravesend dinner, and the peaceful time when I lived in sweet P -- , surrounded by the gentle inmates of my happy home. We had now left the shores of Scotland, and were ploughing through the heaving waves of the wide Atlantic; and, when I turned my straining eyes towards the faint blue line of the lessening hills, "a tear unbidden trembled," as the thought arose that I looked, perhaps, for the last time, upon my dear native land.
The sea, for ages back, has been an inexhaustible subject for the pens of all writers. The poet, the traveller, and the novelist, have each devoted a portion of their time and talents to the mighty ocean; but alas! that part of it which it has fallen to my lot to describe, is very different from those about which the poets have sung with rapture. Here, none of the many wouders of the tropical latitudes beguile the tedium of the voyage; no glittering dolphins force the winged inhabitants of the deep to seek shelter on the vessel's deck; no ravenous sharks follow in our wake to eat us if we chance to fall overboard, or amuse us by swallowing our baited hook; no passing vessel cheers the passenger with the knowledge that there are others besides himself roaming over the interminable waste of waters. All was dreary and monotonous; the same view of sky and water met our gaze each morning as we ascended to the deck to walk for half an hour before breakfast; except when the topsails of our accompanying vessels fluttered for a moment on the distant horizon. Occasionally we approached closer to each other, and once or twice hailed with the trumpet; but these breaks in the gloom of our existence were few and far between.
Towards the end of July we approached Hudson's Straits, having seen nothing on the way worth mentioning, except one whale, which passed close under the stern of the ship. This was a great novelty to me, being the first whale I had seen, and it gave me something to talk of and think about for the next four days.
The ships now began to close in, as we neared the entrance of the straits, and we had the pleasure of sailing in company for a few days. The shores of the straits became visible occasionally, and we soon sailed, with perfect confidence and security, among these narrow channels and mountains of ice that had damped the ardour and retarded the progress of Hudson, Button, Gibbons, and other navigators in days of yore.
One day, during a dead calm, our ship and the Prince of Wales lay close to each other, rolling in the swell of the glassy ocean; and, there seeming to be no prospect of a breeze, the captain ordered his gig to be launched, and invited the doctor, Mr C -- , and myself, to go on board the Prince of Wales with him. We accepted his offer joyfully, and were soon alongside.
Old Captain R --, a veteran in the Company's service, received us kindly, and prevailed on our captain to stay tea. The passengers on board were Mr F -- , a chief factor, (the highest rank attainable in the service,) who had been home on leave of absence, and was returning to end his days, perhaps, in the north-west; and Mr John M -- a young apprentice clerk, going, like myself, to try his fortune in Hudson's Bay. He was a fine, candid young fellow, full of fun and frolic, with a kind, engaging disposition, and I formed a great friendship for him the moment I saw him, which was destined to ripen into a lasting one many years after. Yes, little did I think, when I parted from him that evening on the bosom of the sea, that I should ever meet him again; yet so it was. About six years from the time I parted from him in Hudson's Straits, I again grasped his hand on the shores of the mighty St Lawrence, and renewed that friendship which afforded me the greatest pleasure I enjoyed in the country, and which, I trust, neither time nor distance will ever lessen.
We spent the evening delightfully, the more so that we were not likely to have such an opportunity again, as the Prince of Wales would shortly part company from us, and direct her course to Moose factory, in James's Bay, while we should proceed across Hudson's Bay to York factory. We left the ship just as a few cat's-paws on the surface of the water gave indications of a coming breeze.
Ice now began to surround us in all directions, and soon after this I saw, for the first time, that monster of the Polar Seas, an iceberg. We passed quite close, and had a fine opportunity of observing it. Though not so large as they are frequently seen, it was beautifully and fantastically formed. High peaks rose from it on various places, and down its sides streams of water and miniature cataracts flowed in torrents. The whole mass was of a beautiful greenish-white colour, and its lofty pinnacles sparkled in the moonbeams as it floated past, bending majestically in the swell of the ocean. About this time, too, we began to meet with numerous fields and floes of ice, to get through which we often experienced considerable difficulty.
My favourite amusement, while thus threading our way through the ice, was to ascend to the royal-yard, aid there, where gazing on these most romantic scenes, cogitate on the wonders of creation.
It is impossible to convey a correct idea of the beauty, the magnificence, of some of the scenes through which we passed. Thousands of the most grotesque, fanciful, and beautiful little icebergs, and fields, surrounded us on all sides, intersected by numerous serpentine canals, which glittered in the sun, (for the weather was fine all the time we were in the straits) like threads of silver, twining round ruined palaces of crystal. The masses assumed every variety of form and size, and many of them bore such a striking resemblance to cathedrals, churches, columns, arches, and spires, that I could almost fancy we had been transported to one of the floating cities of Fairy-land. The rapid motion, too, of our ship, in what appeared a dead calm, added much to the magical effect of the scene. A light but steady breeze urged her along, with considerable velocity, through a maze of ponds and canals, which, from the immense quantity of ice that surrounded them, were calm and unruffled as the surface of a mill-pond.
Not a sound disturbed the delightful stillness of nature, save the gentle rippling of the vessel's bow as she sped on her way, or the occasional puffing of a lazy whale, awakened from a nap by our unceremonious intrusion on his domains. Now and then, however, my reveries were disagreeably interrupted by the ship coming into sudden contact with huge lumps of ice. This happened occasionally when we arrived at the termination of one of those natural canals through which we passed, and found it necessary to force our way into the next, These concussions were sometimes very severe, and even made the ship's bell ring; but we heeded this little, as the vessel was provided with huge blocks of timber on her bows, called ice-pieces, and was besides built expressly for sailing in the northern seas. It only became annoying at meal-times, when a spoonful of soup would sometimes make a little private excursion of its own, over the shoulder of the owner instead of into his mouth.
As we proceeded, the ice became more closely packed, and at last compelled us to bore through it. The ship, however, was never altogether detained, though much retarded. I recollect, while thus surrounded, filling a bucket with water from a pool on the ice, to see whether it was fresh or not, as I had been rather sceptical upon this point. It was excellent, and might almost compete with the water from the famous spring of Crawley! In a few days we got out of the ice altogether, and in this, as the ships are frequently detained for weeks in the straits, we considered ourselves very fortunate.
I experienced at this time a severe disappointment in the non-appearance of the Esquimaux upon the coast. The captain said they would be sure to come off to us, as they had always been in the habit of doing so, for the purpose of exchanging ivory and oil, for saws, files, needles, etc., a large chest full of which is put on board annually for this purpose. The ivory usually procured from them is walrus tusks. These are not very large, and are of inferior quality.
As we approached the shores of the straits we shortened sail and fired three or four guns, but no noisy "chimo" floated across the water in answer to our salute; still we lingered for a while, but, as there was no sign of the natives on shore, the captain concluded they had gone off to the interior, and steered out to sea again. I was very much disappointed at this, as it was wholly unexpected, and I had promised myself much pleasure in trading with them, for which purpose all the buttons of my old waistcoats had been amputated. It was useless, however, to repine, so I contented myself with the hope that they would yet visit us in some other part of the straits. We afterwards learned that our guns had attracted them to the coast in time to board the Prince Albert, (which was out of sight astern,) though too late for us.
Our passage across Hudson's Bay was stormy, but no one on board cared for this, having become quite accustomed to it. For my part, I had become quite a sailor, and could ascend and descend easily to the truck, without creeping through the lubber's hole. I shall not forget the first time I attempted this: our youngest apprentice had challenged me to try it, so up we went together -- he on the fore, and I on the main-mast. The tops were gained easily, and we even made two or three steps up the top-mast shrouds with affected indifference; but, alas! our courage was failing, at least mine was, very fast. However, we gained the cross-trees pretty well, and then sat down for a little to recover breath. The top-gallant-mast still reared its taper form high above me, and the worst was yet to come. The top-gallant shrouds had no rattlins on them, so I was obliged to shin up; and, as I worked my self up the two small ropes, the tenacity with which I grasped them was fearful. At last I reached the top, and with my feet on the small collar that fastens the ropes to the mast, and my arms circling the mast itself -- for nothing but a bare pole, and the signal halyards, now rose above me -- I glanced up -- wards. After taking a long breath, and screwing up my courage, I slowly shinned up the slender pole, and, standing on the royal-yard, laid my hand upon the truck. After a while I got accustomed to it, and thought nothing of taking an airing on the royal-yard after breakfast.
About the 5th or 6th of August, the captain said we must be near the land. The deep-sea lead was rigged and a sharp lookout kept, but no land appeared. At last one fine day, while at the mast-head, I saw something like land on the horizon, and told them so on deck. They saw it too, but gave me no answer. Soon a hurried order to dowse top-gallant-sails and reef top-sails made me slide down rather hastily from my elevated position; and I had scarcely gained the deck when a squall, the severest we had yet encountered, struck the ship and laid her almost on her beam-ends, and the sea, which had been nearly calm, foamed and hissed like a seething cauldron, and became white as snow. This, I found, was that sailors call a white squall. It has as short as it was severe, and great was my joy when the ship regained her natural position in the water. Next day we saw land in earnest, and in the afternoon anchored in "Five Fathom Hole," after passing in safety a sand-bar which renders the entrance into this roadstead rather difficult.
Here, then, for the first time, I beheld the shores of Hudson's Bay; and truly their appearance was any thing but prepossessing. Though only at the distance of two miles, so low and flat was the land that it appeared ten miles off, and scarcely a tree was to be seen. We could just see the tops of one or two houses in York factory, which was seven miles up the river from where we lay. In a short time, the sails of a small schooner came in sight, and in half an hour more the Frances, (named after the lady of the governor, Sir George Simpson,) was bobbing alongside.
Mr P -- , the skipper, came on board, and there commenced between him and the captain a sharp fire of questions and answers, in the midst of which I left them and went on deck. Here the face of things had changed. The hatches were off and goods scattered about in all directions; another small schooner had arrived, and the process of discharging the vessel was going rapidly forward. A boat was dispatched to the factory with the packet-box and letter-bag, and soon after the Frances stood in for the shore.
The Prince Albert had arrived almost at the same moment with us, and was now visited by the second schooner, which soon returned to our own ship to take the passengers on shore. Those of our consort, Messrs G -- and R -- , with the wife of the former, were already on board. These gentlemen were missionaries bound for Red River Colony, and as I had some prospect of going there myself, I was delighted to have the probable chance of travelling with such agreeable companions.
Mr C -- , Mr W -- , and myself, now bade adieu to the Prince Rupert, which had been our home for such a length of time, (but I must say I did not regret the parting,) and followed our baggage on board the schooner, expecting to reach the factory before dusk. But alas! "there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip," and we had not been long under weigh before the ebb tide began to run so strong against us as to preclude the possibility of our reaching the shore that night. There was no help for it, however, so down went the anchor to the bottom, and down went I to the cabin. Such a cabin! A goodly sized trunk, with a small table in it, and the lid shut down, had about as much right to the name. It was awfully small; even I could not stand upright in it, though at the time I had only attained to the altitude of four feet eleven inches; yet here we were destined to pass the night; and a wretched night we did pass We got over the first part tolerably, but when it began to grow late, our eyes began to grow heavy then we yawned, and fidgeted, and made superhuman efforts to keep awake and seem happy; but it would not do. There were only two berths in the cabin; and, as so many gentlemen were present Mrs G -- would not get into one of them, and declared she would sit up all night. The gentlemen, on the other hand, could not be so impolite as to go to sleep while the only lady present sat up. The case was desperate, so I went off to the hold, intending to lie down on a bale if I could find one. In my search, I tumbled on Mr W --, who had anticipated me, and found a convenient place whereon to lie. My search, however, was less successful; not a place big enough for a cat to sleep in was to be found, so I was obliged to return to the cabin, where I found the unhappy inmates all winking and blinking at each other like owls in the sunshine.
These good folks, compassionating, I fancy, the sleepy "youngster," urged me to get into one of the berths; but, feeling my dignity as a new-made man-of-business considerably compromised by their friendly advice, I would not think of so ungallant an action, and determined manfully to sit it out with the rest. Nod went my head, bang against the wall, wakening them all up suddenly; and then, after smiling faintly at the accident, I made another attempt at sleep again. Flesh and blood could not stand this: I would have lain down on the floor, but alas! it was too small. At last I began to reason thus with myself: "Here are two capital beds with nobody in them; it is the height of folly to leave them empty: but then what a selfish-looking thing to leave Mrs G -- sitting up! After all, she won't go to bed. Oh dear! what is to be done?" (Bang goes the head again.)
"You'd better turn in," says Mr G -- . Again I protest that I cannot think of it; but my eyes won't keep open to look him in the face. At last my scruples, I blush to say it, were overcome, and I allowed myself to be half forced into the berth, while Mr R -- , taking advantage of the confusion thus occasioned, vanished into the other like a harlequin. Poor Mr and Mrs G -- laid their innocent heads side by side upon the table, and snored in concert.
How long I slept I know not; but, long before day, a tremendous thumping awoke me, and after I had collected myself enough to understand it, I found that the schooner was grounding. "Oh!" thought I, and, being utterly incapable of thinking or saying more, I fell back on the pillow again sound asleep, and did not awake till long after day-break.
The morning was beautiful; but we were still aground, and from what the skipper said, there appeared to be no prospect of getting ashore till the afternoon. Our patience, however, was not tried so long; for, early in the day, a boat came off from the factory to take us ashore, but the missionaries preferred remaining in the schooner. Mr C --, young W --, and I, gladly availed ourselves of the opportunity, and were soon sailing with a fair breeze up Hayes River. We approached to within a few yards of the shore; and I formed, at first sight, a very poor opinion of the country which, two years later, I was destined to traverse full many a weary hour in search of the feathered inhabitants of the marshes.
The point of marsh, which was the just land we made, was quite low, only a few feet above the sea, and studded here and there with thick willows, but not a single tree. bong lank grass covered it in every place, and afforded ducks and geese shelter in the spring and autumn. In the centre of it, the ship-beacon, a tall ungainly looking pile, rose upwards like a monster in the water: altogether, a more desolate prospect could not well be imagined.
The banks of Hayes River are formed of clay, and they improved a little in height and verdure as we ascended; but still, wherever the eye turned, the same universal flatness met the gaze. The river was here about two miles wide, and filled with shallows and sand-banks, which render the navigation difficult for vessels above fifty tons.
As we proceeded, a small bark canoe, with an Indian and his wife in it, glided swiftly past us, and this was the first Indian, and the first of these slender craft, I had seen. Afterwards, I became more intimately acquainted with them than was altogether agreeable.
In a short time we reached the wooden wharf, which had rather an imposing look, and projected a long way into the water; but our boat passed this and made for a small slip, on which two or three gentlemen were waiting to receive us. My voyage was ended. The boat's keel grated harshly on the gravel, and the next moment my feet once more pressed terra firma. I stood at last on the shores of the New World, a stranger in a strange land.
I do not intend to give a minute description of York factory here, as a full account of it will be found in a succeeding chapter. I shall, therefore, confine myself to a slight sketch of the establishment, and my proceedings there, during a stay of about three weeks.
York factory is the principal depot of the Northern department, from whence all the supplies for the trade are issued, and where all the returns of the department are collected and shipped for England. As may be supposed, then, the establishment is a large one. There are always between thirty and forty men resident at the post, summer and winter; generally four or five clerks, a postmaster, and a skipper for the small schooners; and the whole is under the direction and superintendence of a chief factor, or chief trader.
As the winter is very long, nearly eight months, and the summer consequently very short, all the transport of goods to, and returns from, the interior, must necessarily be effected as quickly as possible. The consequence is, that great numbers of men and boats are constantly arriving from inland, and departing again during the summer; and, as each brigade is commanded by a chief factor, trader, or clerk, there is a constant succession of new faces, which, after a long and dreary winter, during which the inhabitants never see any stranger, renders the summer months at York factory the most agreeable part of the year. The arrival of the ship from England too, delights them with letters from home, which can only be received twice a year.
The fort (as all establishments in the Indian country, whether small or great, are called) is a large square, I should think about six or seven acres, inclosed within high stockades, and built on the banks of Hayes River, nearly five miles from its mouth. The houses are all of wood, and of course, have no pretension to architectual beauty; but their clean white appearance, and regularity, have a very pleasing effect on the eye. Before the front gate stand four large brass field-pieces; but these warlike instruments are only used for the purpose of saluting the ship with blank cartridge, on her arrival and departure, tile decayed state of the carriages rendering it dangerous to load the guns with a full charge.
The country, as I said before, is flat and swampy, and the only objects that rise very prominently above the rest, and catch the wandering eye, are a lofty "out-look" of wood, painted black, from which to look out for the arrival of the ship; and a flag-staff, from which on Sundays the snowy folds of St George's flag flutter in the breeze.
Such was York factory in 1841, and as this description is sufficient to give a general idea of the place, I shall conclude it, and proceed with my narrative.
Mr. H -- , the chief factor then in charge, received us very kindly, and introduced us to some of the gentlemen standing beside him on the wharf. Mr C --, being also a chief factor, was then taken by him to the commissioned gentlemen's house, while young W -- and I, being apprentice clerks, were shown the young gentlemen's house, -- or as the young gentlemen themselves call it, Bachelor's Hall, -- and were told to make ourselves at home. To Bachelor's Hall, then, we proceeded, and introduced ourselves. The persons assembled there were the accountant, some clerks, the post-master, and one or two others. Some of them were smoking, and some talking, and a pretty considerable noise they made too. Bachelor's Hall, indeed, was worthy of its name, being a place that would have killed any woman, so full was it of smoke, noise, and confusion.
After having made ourselves acquainted with everybody, I thought it time to present my letter of introduction to Mrs H -- , who received me very kindly. I was much indebted to this lady for supplying me with several pairs of moccassins for my further voyage, without which I should have been badly off indeed; and had it not been for her kindness, I should, in all probability, have been allowed to depart very ill provided for the journey to Red River, for which I was desired to hold myself in readiness. Young W -- , on the other hand, learned that lie was to remain at York factory that winter, and was placed in the office the day after our arrival, when he commenced work for the first time. We had a long and sage conversation upon the subject the same evening, and I well remember congratulating him, with an extremely grave face, upon his having now begun to do for himself Poor fellow, his subsequent travels in the country were long and perilous.
As I have now landed the reader in a new country, it may be well, before describing my voyage to Red River, to make him acquainted with the peculiarities of the service, and the people with whom lie will, in imagination, have to associate.
IN the year 1669, a company was formed in London, under the direction of Prince Rupert, for the purpose of prosecuting the fur trade in the regions surrounding Hudson's Bay. This company obtained a charter from Charles II., granting to them and their successors, under the name of "The Governor and Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay," the sole right of trading in all the country watered by rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay. The charter also authorised them to build and fit out men-of-war, establish forts, prevent any other company from carrying on trade with the natives in their territories, and required that they should do all in their power to promote discovery.
Armed with these powers, then, the Hudson's Bay Company established a fort near the head of James' Bay, and soon after, several others were built in different parts of the country; and soon the company began to read and grow wealthy, and extended their trade far beyond the chartered limits.
With the internal economy of the company under the superintendence of Prince Rupert, however, I am not acquainted; but as it will be necessary to the reader's forming a correct idea of the peculiarities of the country and service, that he should know something of its character under the direction of the present active governor, I shall give a brief outline of its arrangements.
Reader, you will materially assist me in my description, if you will endeavour to draw the following landscape on the retina of your mind's eye.
Imagine an immense extent of country, many hundred miles broad, and many hundred miles long, covered with dense forests, expanded lakes, broad rivers, and mighty mountains; and all in a state of primeval simplicity -- undefaced by the axe of civilized man, and untenanted by aught save a few roving hordes of Red Indians, and myriads of wild animals. Imagine, amid this wilderness, a number of small squares, inclosing half-a-dozen wooden houses, and about a dozen men, and, between each of these establishments, a space of forest varying from fifty to three hundred miles long, and you will have a pretty correct idea of the illusion's Bay Company's territories, and the number of, and distance between, their forts. The idea, however, may be still more correctly obtained, by imagining populous Great Britain converted into a wilderness and planted in the middle of Rupert's Land; the company would, in that case, build three one in Wales, and one in the highlands; so that -- in Britain there would be but three hamlets, with a population of some thirty men, half-a-dozen women, and a few children ! The company's posts extend, with these intervals between from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and from within the Arctic Circle to the northern boundaries of the United States.
Thoughout this immense country there are probably not more ladies than would suffice to form half-a-dozen quadrilles; and these, poor banished creatures! are chiefly the wives of the principal gentlemen connected with the fur trade. The rest of the female population consist chiefly of half-breeds and Indians; the latter entirely devoid of education, and the former as much enlightened as can be expected from those whose life is spent in such a country. Even these are not very numerous, and yet, without them, the men would be in a sad condition, for they are the only tailors and washer-women in the country, and make all the mittens, moccassins, fur caps, deer-skin coats, etc., etc., worn in the land.
There are one or two favoured spots, however, into which a missionary or two have penetrated; and in Red River settlement, the only colony in the company's territories, there are several Protestant churches and clergymen, besides others of Roman Catholics.
The country is divided into four large departments. The Northern department, which includes all the establishments in the far north and frozen regions; the Southern department, including those to the south and east of this, the posts at the head of James' Bay and along the shores of Lake Superior; the Montreal department, including the country in the neighbourhood of Montreal, up the Ottawa river, and along the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence and Esquimaux Bay; and the Columbia department, which comprehends an immense extent of country to the west of the Rocky Mountains, including the Oregon territory, which, although the Hudson's Bay Company still trade in it; now belongs, as every one is aware, to the Americans. These departments are divided into a number of districts, each under the direction of an influential officer, and these again are subdivided into numerous establishments, forts, posts, and outposts.
The name of fort, as already remarked, is given to nearly all the posts in the country, but some of them certainly do not merit the name; indeed, few of them do. The only two in the country that are real, bona fide forts, are Fort Garry and the Stone fort in the colony of Red River, which are surrounded by stone walls with bastions at the corners. The others are merely defended by wooden pickets or stockades; and a few, where the Indians are quiet and harmless, are entirely destitute of defence of any kind. Some of the chief posts have a complement of about thirty or forty men; but the most of them have only ten, five, four, and even two, besides the gentleman in charge. As, in most instances, these posts are planted in a wilderness far from men, and the inhabitants have only the society of each other, some idea may be formed of the solitary life led by many of the Company's servants.
The following is a list of the forts in the four different departments, as correctly given as possible; but, owing to the great number in the country, the constant abandoning of old, and establishing of new forts, it is difficult to get at a perfectly correct knowledge of their number and names : --
Northern Department.
York Fort (the depot.) Rocky Mountain House. Churchill. Fort Assinaboine. Severn. Jasper's House. Oxford House. Henry's House. Trout Lake House. Fort Chipewyan. Norway House. Fort Vermilion. Nelson River House. Fort Dunvegan. Berens River House. Fort Simpson. Red River Colony Fort Norman. Fort Garry. Fort Good Hope. Stone Fort. Fort Halkett. Manitoba House. Fort Resolution. Fort Pelly. Peel's River. Cumberland House. Fort Alexander. Carlton House. Rat Portage House. Fort Pitt. Fort Frances. Edmonton. Isle a la Crosse.
Southern Department.
Moose Factory (the depot.) Temiscamingue. Rupert's House. Grand Lac. Fort George. Trout Lake. Michiskan. Matarva. Albany. Canasicomica. Lac Seul. Lacloche. Kinogomousse. Sault de Ste Maria. Matawagamingue. Fort William. Kuckatoosh. Pic House. New Brunswick. Michipicoton. Abitibi. Bachiwino. Nepigon. Temagarny. Washwonaby. Green Lake. Pike Lake. Missisague.
Montreal Department.
Lachine (the depot.) Goodbout. Riviere du Moine. Trinity River. Lac des Allumettes. Seven Islands. Fort Coulonge. Mingan. Riviere Desert. Nabisippi. Lac des Sables. Natosquene. Lake of Two Mountains. Musquarro. Kikandatch. Fort Nascopie. Weymontachingue. Mainewan Lake. Rat River. Sandy Banks. Ashabmoushwan. Gull Islands. Chicoutimie. Northwest River. Lake St John's. Rigolet. Tadousac. Kiboksk. Isle Jeremie. Eyelick. Port Neuf.
Columbia Department.
Fort Vancouver (the depot) Flathead Post. Fort George. Nisqually. Nez Perce. Alexandria. Ockanagan. Fort Chilcotin. Colvile. Fort James. Fort Hall. Fort Fluz Cuz. Thompson's River. Babine Lake. Fort Langley. And an agency in the Cootanies. Sandwich Islands.
There are seven different grades in the service. First, the labourer, who is ready to turn his hand to any thing; to become a trapper, fisherman, or rough carpenter, at the shortest notice. He is generally employed in cutting firewood, for the consumption of the establishment at which he is stationed, shovelling snow from before the doors, mending all sorts of damages to all sorts of things; and, during the summer months, in transporting furs and goods between his post and the nearest depot. Next in rank is the interpreter. He is generally an intelligent labourer, of pretty long standing in the service, who having picked up a smattering of Indian, is consequently very useful ill trading with the natives. After the interpreter comes the postmaster. He is generally a promoted labourer, who, for good behaviour or valuable services, has been put upon a footing with the gentlemen of the service, in the same manner that a private soldier in the army is sometimes raised to the rank of a commissioned officer. At whatever station a postmaster may happen to be placed, he is generally the most useful and active man there. He is often placed in charge of one of the many small stations, or outposts, throughout the country. Next are the apprentice clerks -- raw lads, who come out fresh from school at home, with their mouths agape at the wonders they behold in Hudson's Bay. They generally, for the purpose of appearing many, acquire all the bad habits of the country as quickly as possible, and are stuffed full of what they call fun, with a strong spice of mischief mixed through. They generally, however, become more sensible and sedate ere they spend the first five years of their apprenticeship, after which they attain to the rank of clerks. The clerk, after a number of years' service (averaging from thirteen to twenty), becomes a chief trader (or half-share holder), and in a few years more, he attains the highest rank to which any one can rise in the service, that of chief factor (or shareholder).
It is a strange fact, that three-fourths of the Company's servants are Scotch Highlanders, and Orkneymen. There are very few Irishmen, and still fewer english. A great number, however, are half-breeds, and French Canadians, especially among the labourers and voyageurs.
From the great extent, and variety of feature, in the country occupied by the furtraders, they subsist, as may be supposed, on widely different kinds of food. In the prairie, or plain countries, animal food is chiefly used, as there, thousands of deer and bisons wander about, while the woods are stocked with game and wild-fowl. Jn other places, however, where deer are scarce, and game not so abundant, fish of various kinds are caught in the rivers and lakes; and in other parts of the country they live partly upon fish and partly upon animal food. Yege tables are very scarce in the more northern posts, owing to the severity of the winter, and consequent shortness of summer. As the Company's servants are liable, on the shortest notice, to be sent from one end of the continent to another, they are quite accustomed to change of diet ; -- one year rejoicing in buffalo-humps and marrow-bones, in the prairies of the Saskatchewan, and the next devouring hung white -- fish, and scarce venison, in the sterile regions of Mackenzie's River, or varying the meal with a little of that delectable substance often spoken of by Franklin, Back and Richardson as their only dish -- namely, tripe-de-roche -- a lichen or moss which grows on the most barren rocks, and is only used as food in the absence of all other provisions.
During the first years of the Company, they were much censured for not carrying out the provision contained in the royal charter, that they should prosecute discovery as much as possible; and it was even alleged that they endeavoured to prevent adventurers, not connected with themselves, from advancing in their researches. There is every reason to believe, however, that this censure was undeserved. A new company, recently formed in a wild country, could not at first be expected to have time or funds to advance the arduous and expensive cause of discovery. With regard to their having impeded the attempts of others, it is doubtful whether any one in the service ever did so; but even had such been the ease, the unauthorised and dishonourable conduct of one or two of their servants, does not sanction the condemnation of the whole Company. Besides, discoveries were made in former days by Herne, and in later years by Dease and Simpson; so that, whatever might have been the case at first, there can be no doubt that the Company are doing much for the cause now. At this moment there is an expedition on foot, under one of their most experienced and talented servants, to complete the survey of the northern coast of America, left unfinished by the last-named explorers.
The trade carried on by the Company is in peltries of all sorts of dried and salted fish, feathers, quills, etc.; and a list of some of their principal articles of commerce, is subjoined : --
Beaver-skins. Fox-skins, Cross. Bear-skins, Black. Ditto, Red. Ditto, Brown. Ditto, White. Ditto, White or Polar. Ditto, Blue. Ditto, Grizly. Ivory (tusks of the Walrus.) Badger-skins. Lynx-skins. Buffalo or Bison Robes. * Marten-skins. Castorum. ** Musquash-skins. Deer-skins, Rein. Otter-skins. Ditto, Red. Oil, Seal. Ditto, Moose or Elk. Ditto, Whale. Ditto, parchment. Swan-skins. Feathers of all kinds. Salmon, salted. Fisher-skins. Seal-skins. Goose-skins. Wolf-skins. Fox-skins, Black. Wolverine-skins. Ditto, Silver.
The most valuable of the furs mentioned in the above list is that of the black fox. This beautiful animal resembles in shape the common fox of England, but it is much larger, and jet black, with the exception of one or two white hairs along the back bone, and a pure white tuft on the end of the tail. A single skin sometimes brings from twenty-five to thirty guineas in the British market; but unfortunately they are very scarce. The
silver fox differs from the black fox only in the number of white hairs with which its fur is sprinkled; and the more numerous the white hairs, the less valuable does it become. The cross fox is a cross between the black or silver and the red fox. The red fox bears a much inferior fur to the other kinds; yet it is a good article of trade, as this species is very numerous. These four kinds of foxes are sometimes produced in the same litter, the mother being a red fox. The white fox bears about the same value as the red, and is also very numerous, particularly on the shores of Hudson's Bay. The variety termed the blue fox is neither numerous nor very valuable. It is of a dirty blueish -- gray colour, and seldom makes its appearance at the Company's posts.
Beaver, in days of yore, was the staple fur of the country; but alas! the silk hat has given it its deathblow, and the star of the beaver has now probably set for ever -- that is to say, with regard to men; probably the animals themselves fancy that their lucky star has just risen. The most profitable fur in the country is that of the marten. It somewhat resembles the Russian sable, and generally maintains a steady price. These animals, moreover, are very numerous throughout most part of the Company's territories, particularly in Mackenzie's River, from whence great numbers are annually sent to England.
All the above animals and a few others are caught in steel and wooden traps by the natives while deer., buffaloes. etc. are run down shot, and snared in various ways, the details of which will be found in another part of this volume.
Trade is carried on with the natives by means of a standard valuation, called in some parts of the country a castor. This is to obviate the necessity of circulating money, of which there is little or none excepting in the colony of Red River. Thus an Indian arrives at a fort with a bundle of furs, with which he proceeds to the Indian trading-room. There the trader separates the furs into different lots, and, valuing each at the standard valuation, adds the amount together, and tells the Indian (who has been gazing all the time at the procedure with great interest and anxiety) that he has got fifty or sixty castors; at the same time he hands the Indian fifty or sixty little bits of wood in lieu of cash, so that the latter may know, by returning these in payment of the goods for which he really exchanges his skins, how fast his funds are decreasing. The Indian then proceeds to look round upon the bales of cloth, powder-horns, guns, blankets, knives, etc., with which the shop is filled, and after a good while makes up his mind to have a small blanket. This being given him, the trader tells him that the price is six casters; the purchaser hands back six of his little bits of wood, and proceeds to select something else. In this way he goes on till all his wooden cash is expended, and then, packing up his goods, departs to show his treasures to his wife, and another Indian takes his place. The value of a castor is from one to two shillings. The natives generally visit the establishments of the Company twice a-year -- once in October, when they bring in the produce of their autumn hunts, and again in March, when they come in with of the great winter hunt.
The number of castors that an Indian makes in a winter hunt varies from fifty to two hundred, according to his perseverance and activity, and the part of the country in which he hunts. The largest amount I ever heard of was made by a man called Piaquata-Kiscum, who brought in furs, on one occasion, to the value of two hundred and sixty castors. The poor fellow was soon afterwards poisoned by his relatives, who were jealous of his superior abilities as a hunter, and envied him for the favour shown him by the white men.
After the furs are collected in spring at all the different outposts, they are packed in conveniently sized bales, and forwarded, by means of boats and canoes, to the three chief depots on the sea-coast -- namely, Fort Vancouver at the mouth of the Columbia river, on the shores of the Pacific; York Fort on the shores of Hudson's Bay; and Moose Factory, on the shores of James's Bay -- from whence they are transported in the Company's ships to England. The whole country, in summer, is consequently in commotion with the passing and repassing of brigades of boats laden with bales of merchandise and furs; the still waters of the lakes and rivers are rippled by the paddle and the oar; and the long-silent echoes, which have been slumbering in the icy embrace of a dreary winter, are now once more awakened by the merry voice and tuneful song of the hardy voyageur.
This slight sketch of the Hudson's Bay Company, and of the territories occupied by them, may for the present serve to give a sufficiently correct idea of the nature of the service and the appearance of the country: we shall now proceed to write of the Indians inhabiting these wild regions.
THE aborigines of North America are divided into a great number of nations or tribes, differing not only in their outward appearance, but also in their customs, and modes of life, and in some instances entertaining for each other a bitter and implacable hatred.
To describe the leading peculiarities of some of these tribes, particularly those called Crees, will be my object in the present chapter.
Some of the tribes are known by the following names -- Crees, Seauteaux, Stone Indians, Sioux, Blackfeet, Chipewyans, Slave Indians, Crows, Flatheads, etc. Of these, the Crees are the quietest and most inoffensive; they inhabit the woody country surrounding Hudson's Bay; dwell in tents; never go to war; and spend their time in trapping, shooting, and fishing. The Seauteaux are similar to the Crees in many respects, and inhabit the country farther in the interior. The Stone Indians, Sioux, Blackfeet, Slave Indians, Crows, and Flatheads, inhabit the vast plains and forests in the interior of America, on the east and west of the Rocky Mountains, and live chiefly by the produce of the chase. Their country swarms with bisons, and varieties of deer, bears, etc. -- which they hunt, shoot, snare, and kill in various ways. Some of these tribes are well supplied with horses, with which they hunt the buffalo. This is a wild inspiriting chase, and the natives are very fond of it. They use the gun a good deal, but prefer the bow and arrow (in the use of which they are very expert) for the chase, and reserve the gun for warfare, many of them being constantly engaged in skirmishing with their enemies. As the Crees were the Indians with whom I had the most intercourse, I shall endeavour to describe my old friends more at length.
The personal appearance of the men of this tribe is not bad. Although they have not the bold daring carriage of the wilder tribes, yet they have active-looking figures, fine intelligent countenances, and a peculiar brightness in their dark eyes, which, from a constant habit of looking around them while travelling through the woods, are seldom for a moment at rest. Their jet black hair generally hangs in straight matted locks over their shoulders, sometimes ornamented with beads and pieces of metal, and occasionally with a few partridge feathers; but they seldom wear a hat or cap of any kind, except in winter, when they make clumsy imitations of foraging caps with furs, -- preferring, if the weather be warm, to go about without any head-dress at all, or, if it be cold, using the large hood of their capotes as a covering. They are thin, wiry meu, not generally very muscular in their proportions, but yet capable of enduring great fatigue. Their average height is about five feet five inches; and one rarely meets with individuals varying much from this average, nor with deformed people, among them. The step of a Cree Indian is much longer than that of a European, owing, probably, to his being so much accustomed to walking through swamps and forests, where it is necessary to take long strides. This peculiarity becomes apparent when an Indian arrives at a fort and walks along the hard ground inside the walls with the trader, whose short, bustling, active step contrasts oddly with the long, solemn, ostrich-like stride of the savage; which, however appropriate in the woods, is certainly strange and ungraceful on a good road.
The summer dress of the Indian is almost entirely provided for him by the Hudson's Bay Company; it consists chiefly of a blue or gray cloth, or else a blanket capote reaching below the knee, made much too loose for the figure, and strapped round the waist with a scarlet or crimson worsted belt. A very coarse blue striped cotton shirt is all the under-clothing they wear, holding trowsers to be quite superfluous; in lieu of which they make leggins of various kinds of cloth, which reach from a few inches above the knee down to the ankle. These leggins are sometimes very tastefully decorated with bead-work, particularly those of the women, and are provided with flaps or wings on either side, which have a pretty and novel appearance.
This costume, however, is slightly varied in winter. The blanket or cloth capote is then laid aside for one of smoked red-deer-skin, which has very much the appearance of chamois leather. This is lined with flannel, or some other thick warm substance, and edged with fur (more for ornament, however, than warmth) of different kinds. Fingerless mittens, with a, place for the thumb are also adopted; and shoes or moccasins, of the same soft material. The moccasins are very beautiful, fitting the feet as tightly as a glove, and are tastefully ornamented with dyed porcupine quills and silk thread of various colours; at which work the women are particularly au fait. As the leather of the moccasin is very thin, * blanket and flannel socks are worn underneath, -- one, two, or even four pairs, according to the degree of cold; and in proportion as these socks are increased in number, the moccasin, of course, loses its elegant appearance. The annexed figure represents the moccasin under its most favourable aspect, without any sock beneath it at all.
* Many people at home have asked me how such thin things can keep out the wet of the snow. The reader must bear in mind that the snow, for nearly seven months, is not even damp for five minutes, so constant is the frost. When it becomes wet in spring, Europeans adopt ordinary English shoes, and Indians do not mind the wet.
The Indian women are not so good-looking as the men. They have an awkward slouching gait, and a downcast look, -- arising, probably, from the rude treatment they experience from their husbands; for the North American Indians, like all other savages, make complete drudges of their women, obliging them to do all the laborious and dirty work, while they reserve the pleasures of the chase for themselves. Their features are sometimes good, but I never saw a really pretty woman among the Crees. Their colour, as well as that of the men, is a dingy brown, which, together with their extreme filthiness, renders them any thing but attractive. They are, however, quiet, sweet-tempered, and inoffensive creatures, destitute as well of artificial manners as of stays. Their dress is a gown, made without sleeves, and very scanty in the skirt, of coarse blue or green cloth; it reaches down to a little below the knee, below which their limbs are cased in leggins beautifully ornamented. Their whole costume, however, like that of the men, is almost always hid from sight by a thick blanket, without which the Indian seldom ventures abroad. The women usually make the top of the blanket answer the purpose of a head-dress; but when they wish to appeal very much to advantage, they put on the cap represented in the accompanying illustration It is a square piece of blue cloth, profusely decorated with different coloured beads, and merely sewed up at the top. They wear their hair in long straggling locks, which have not the slightest tendency to curl, and occasionally in queues or pigtails behind ; but in this respect, as in every other, they are very careless of their personal appearance.
These primitive children of the forest live in tents of deer-skin or bark; and, sometimes, where these are scarce, of branches of trees. They are conically shaped, and are constructed thus -- the Indian and his family, (probably two wives and three or four children) arrive in their bark canoe at a pretty level spot, sheltered from the north wind, and conveniently situated on the banks of a small steam, where fish are plentiful, and pine branches (or brush), for the floor of his tent, abundant. Here he runs his canoe ashore, and carries his goods and chattels up the bank. His first business is to cut a number of long poles, and tie three of them at the top, spreading them out in the form of a tripod. He then piles all the other poles round these, at half-a-foot distance from each other, and thus incloses a, circle of nearly fifteen or twenty feet in diameter. Over the poles (if he is a good hunter, and has plenty of deer-skins), he spreads the skin tent, leaving an opening at the top for the egress of the smoke. If the tent be a birch-bark one, he has it in separate rolls, which are spread over the poles, till the whole is covered. A small opening is left facing the river or lake, which serves for a doorway; and this is covered with an old blanket, a piece of deer-skin, or, in some instances, by a bison-skin or buffalo robe. The floor is covered with a layer of small pine branches, which serve for carpet and mattress; and in the centre is placed the wood fire, which, when blazing brightly, gives a warmth and comfort to the slight habitation that could scarcely be believed. Here the Indian spends a few days or weeks, according to the amount of game in the vicinity; and then removes to some other place, carrying with him the covering of the tent, but leaving the poles standing, as they would be cumbrous to carry in his small canoe, and thousands can be had at every place where he may wish to land.
The Indian canoe is an exceedingly light and graceful little craft, and well adapted for travelling in through a wild country, where the rivers are obstructed by long rapids, waterfalls, and shallows. It is so light that one man can easily carry it on his shoulders over the land, when a waterfall obstructs his progress; and as it only sinks about four or six inches in the water, few places are too shallow to float it. The birch bark of which it is made is about a quarter of an inch thick, and the inside is lined with extremely thin flakes of wood, over which a number of light timbers are driven, to give strength and tightness to the machine. In this frail bark, which generally means about twelve or fifteen feet long, and from two to three feet broad in the middle, a whole Indian family of eight or ten souls will travel hundreds of miles over rivers and lakes innumerable now floating swiftly down a foaming rapid, and anon gliding over the surface of a quiet lake, or making a portage over-land when a rapid is too dangerous to descend; and, while the elders of the family assist in carrying the canoe, the youngsters run about plucking berries, and the shaggy little curs (one or two of which are possessed by every Indian family) search for food, or bask in the sun at the foot of the baby's cradle, which stands bolt upright against a tree, while the child gazes upon all these operations with serene indifference.
Not less elegant and useful than the canoe, is the snowshoe, without which the Indian would be badly off indeed. It is not, as many suppose, used as a kind of skate, with which to slide over the snow, but as a machine to prevent, by its size and breadth, the wearer from sinking into the snow, which is so deep that, without the assistance of the snow-shoe, no one could walk a quarter of a mile through the woods in winter without being utterly exhausted.
It is formed of two thin pieces of light wood, which are tied at both ends, and spread out near the middle; thus making a kind of long oval, the interior of which is filled up with network of deer-skin threads. Strength is given to the frame by placing wooden bars across ; and it is fastened loosely to the foot by a slight line going over the toe. In case, however, it may be supposed that by a shoe I mean an article something the size of a man's foot, it may be as well to state, that snow-shoes measure from four to six feet long, and from thirteen to twenty inches wide. Notwithstanding their great size yet, from the extreme lightness of tile material with which they are made , they are not at all cumbrous; and, after a little practice, a traveller forgets that he has them on, if the weather be good for such walking. Frosty weather is the best for snow-shoe travelling, as the snow is fine and dust-like, and falls through the net-work. If the weather is warm, the wet snow renders the shoe heavy, and the lines soon begin to gall the feet. The engraving above (fig. 1), represents the kind most commonly used by the Crees, but they vary in shape in different parts of the country, some times taking the form represented in fig. 2. On these shoes an Indian will travel between twenty and thirty miles a-day, and they often accomplish from thirty to forty, when hard pressed.
The food of the Indian varies according to circumstances. Sometimes he luxuriates on deer, partridges, and fat beaver; while at other times he is obliged to live almost entirely on fish, and not unfrequently on tripe-de-roche. This substance, however, does no more than retard his ultimate destruction by starvation; and, unless he meets with something more nourishing, it cannot prevent it. When starving, the Indian will not hesitate to appease the cravings of hunger by resorting to cannibalism ; and there were some old dames with whom I was myself acquainted, who had at different periods eaten several of their children. Indeed, some of them. it was said, had also eaten their husbands.
The following anecdote, related to me by a friend who spent many years of his life among the North American Indians, depicts one of the worst of these cases of cannibalism.
It was in the spring of that my friend, Mr C -- stood in the Indian Hall of one of the far-distant posts in Athabasca, conversing with a party of Chipewyan Indians, who had just arrived with furs from their winter hunting grounds. The large fires of wood, which sparkled and blazed cheerfully up the wide chimney, cast a bright light round the room, and shone upon the dusky countenances of the Chipewyans, as they sat gravely on the floor, smoking their spwagans in silence. A dark shade lowered upon every face, as if thoughts of an unpleasant nature disturbed their minds; and so it was. A deed of the most revolting description had been perpetrated by an Indian of the Cree tribe, and they were preparing to relate the story to Mr C --.
After a short silence, an old Indian removed his pipe: and, looking round upon the others, as if to ask their consent to his becoming spokesman, related the particulars of the story, the substance of which I now give.
Towards the middle of winter, Wisagun, a Cree Indians removed his encampment to another part of the country, as game was scarce in the place where lie had been residing. His family consisted of a wife, a son of eight or nine years of age, and two or three children, besides several of his relations; in all, ten souls, including himself. In a few days they arrived at their new encamping ground, after having suffered a great deal of misery by the way, from starvation. They were all much exhausted and worn out, but hoped, having heard that buffaloes were in the vicinity, that their sufferings would soon be relieved.
Here they remained several days without finding any game, and they were reduced to the necessity of devouring their moccasins and leather coats, which were rendered eatable by being singed over the fire. Soon this wretched resource was also gone, and they were reduced to the greatest extremity, when a band of buffaloes were descried, far away in the prairie, on the edge of which they were encamped. All were instantly on the qui vive. Guns were loaded, snow-shoes put on, and, in ten minutes, the males of the hungry party set off after the herd, leaving Wisagun's wife and children with another girl in the tent. It was not long, however, before the famished party began to grow tired. Some of the weakest dropped behind; while Wisagun, with his son Natappe, gave up the chase, and returned to the encampment. They soon arrived at it, and Wisagun, peeping in between the chinks of the tent, to see what the women were doing, saw his wife engaged in cutting up one of her own children, preparatory to cooking it. In a transport of passion, the Indian rushed forward and stabbed her, and also the other woman; and then, fearing the wrath of the other Indians, he fled to the woods. It may be conceived what were the feelings of the remainder of the party, when they returned, and found their relatives murdered. They were so much exhausted, however, by previous suffering, that they could only sit down and gaze on the mutilated bodies in despair. During the night, Wisagun and Natappe returned stealthily to the tent; and, under cover of the darkness, murdered the whole party, as they lay asleep. Soon after this, the two Indians were met, by another party of savages, in good condition; although, from the scarcity of game, the others were starving. The former accounted for this, however, by saying that they had fallen in with a deer not long ago; but that, before this had happened, all the rest of the family had died of starvation.
It was the party who had met the two Indians wandering in the plains, that now sat round the fire, relating the story to Mr C --.
While they were yet speaking, the hall door slowly opened, and Wisagun, gaunt and cadaverous, the very impersonation of famine, slunk into the room, with Natappe, and seated himself in a corner near the fire. Mr C -- soon learned the truth of the foregoing story from his own lips; but he excused his horrible deed by saying, that the most of his relations had died before he ate them.
In a few days after this the party of Indians took their departure from the house, to proceed to their village in the forest; and, shortly after, Wisagun and Natappe also left, to rejoin their tribe. The news of their deeds, however, had gone before them, so they were received very coldly; and soon after Wisagun pitched his tent, they all, with one accord, removed to another place, as though it were impossible to live happily under the shadow of the same trees. This exasperated Wisagun so much, that he packed up his tent and goods, launched his canoe, and then, before going off, went up to the village, and told them that it was true he had killed all his relatives, and that he was a conjuror, and had both power and inclination to conjure them to death too. He then strode down to the banks of the river, and, embarking with his son, shot out into the stream. The unhappy man had acted rashly in his anger. There is nothing more dangerous than to threaten to kill a savage, as he will certainly endeavour to kill the person who threatens him, in order to render the execution of his purpose impossible. Wisagun and his son had no sooner departed, than two men coolly took up their guns, and embarking in an empty canoe, followed after them. Upon arriving at a secluded spot, one of them raised his gun, and fired at Wisagun, who fell over the side of the canoe, and sank to rise no more. With the rapidity of thought, Natappe seized his father's gun, sprang ashore, and bounded up the bank; a shot was fired, which went through the fleshy part of his arm, and the next moment he was behind a tree. Here he called out to the Indians, who were reloading their guns, not to kill him, and he would tell them all. After a little consideration, they agreed to spare him: lie embarked with them, and was taken afterwards to the fort, where he remained many years in the Company's service.
Instances of cannibalism are not unusual among the Indian tribes; but they do not resort to it from choice, and, indeed, never but when urged to it by the irrepressible cravings of hunger.
All the tribes of Indians are fond of spirits; and in former times, when the distribution of rum and whisky to the natives was found necessary to compete with other companies, the use of the " fire -- water" was carried to a fearful extent. Since Sir George Simpson has been governor, however, the distribution of spirits has been almost entirely given up; and this has proved a most beneficial measure for the poor Indians.
Tobacco also is consumed by them in great quantities; indeed, the pipe is seldom out of the Indian's mouth. If he is not hunting, sleeping, or eating, he is sure to be smoking. A peculiar kind of shrub is much used by them, mixed with tobacco, partly for the purpose of making it go far, and partly because they can smoke more of it at a time with impunity.
The Indian is generally very lazy, but can endure great fatigue and much privation when necessary. He can go longer without eating than a European, and from the frequent fasts he has to sustain, he becomes accustomed, without injury, to eat more at a meal than would kill a white man. The Indian children exhibit this power in a very extraordinary degree, looking sometimes wretchedly thin and miserable, and an hour or two afterwards waddling about with their little stomachs swollen almost to bursting !
When an Indian wants a wife, he goes to the fair one's father and asks his consent. This being obtained, he informs the young lady of the circumstance, and then returns to his wigwam, whither the bride follows him, and installs herself as mistress of the house without further ceremony. Generally speaking, Indians content themselves with one wife, but it is neither looked upon as unusual nor improper should he take two, or even three wives. The great point to settle is his ability to support them. Thus, a bad hunter can only afford one wife, while a good one may have three or four.
If an old man or woman of the tribe becomes infirm, and unable to proceed with the rest when travelling, he or she, as the case may be, is left behind in a small tent made of willows, in which are placed a little firewood, some provisions, and a vessel of water. Here the unhappy wretch remains in solitude till the fuel and provisions are exhausted, and then dies. Should the tribe he in their encampment when an Indian dies, the deceased is buried sometimes in the ground and sometimes in a rough wooden coffin raised a few feet from the ground. They do not now bury guns, knives, etc., with their dead as they once did, probably owing to their intercourse with white men.
The Supreme Being among the Indians is called Manitow; but he can scarcely be said to be worshipped by them, and the few ideas they have of his attributes are imperfect and erroneous. Indeed, no religious rites exist among them, unless the unmeaning mummery of the medicine tent can be looked upon as such. Of late years, however, missionaries, both of the church of England and the Wesleyans, have been exerting themselves to spread the Christian religion among these tribes, than whom few savages can be more unenlightened or morally degraded; and there is reason to believe that the light of the gospel is now beginning to shine upon them with beneficial influence.
There is no music in the soul of a Cree, and the only time they attempt it is when gambling, of which they are passionately fond, when they sing a kind of monotonous chant accompanied with a noisy rattling on a tin kettle. The celebrated war-dance is now no longer in existence among this tribe. They have wisely renounced both war and its accompaniments long ago. Among the wilder inhabitants of the prairies, however, they are still in vogue, with all the dismal accompaniments of killing, scalping, roasting, and torturing, that distinguished American warfare a hundred years ago.
The different methods by which the Indian succeeds in snaring and trapping animals are numerous. A good idea of these may be had by following an Indian in his rounds.
Suppose yourself, gentle reader, standing at the gate of one of the forts in Hudson's Bay, watching a savage arranging his snow-shoes preparatory to entering the gloomy forest. Let us walk with this Indian while he visits his traps.
The night is very dark, as the moon is hid by thick clouds, yet it occasionally breaks out sufficiently to illumine our path to Stemaw's wigwam, and to throw the shadows of the neighbouring trees upon the pale snow, which crunches under our feet as we advance, owing to the intense cold. No wind breaks the stillness of the night, or shakes the lumps of snow off the branches of the neighbouring pines or willows; and nothing is heard save the occasional crackling of the trees as the severe frost acts upon their branches. The tent at which we soon arrive is pitched at the foot of an immense tree, which stands in a little hollow where the willows and pines are luxuriant enough to afford a shelter from the north wind. Just in front, a small path leads to the river, of which an extensive view is had through the opening, showing the long fantastic shadows of huge blocks and mounds of ice cast upon the white snow by the flickering moonlight. A huge chasm, filled with fallen trees and mounds of snow, yawns on the left of the tent, and the ruddy sparks of fire which issue from a hole in its top throw this and the surrounding forest into deeper gloom. The effect of this wintry scene upon the mind is melancholy in the extreme -- causing it to fly over the bleak and frozen plains, and visit again the warm fireside and happy faces in a far distant home; and yet there is a strange romantic attraction for the wild woods mingled with this feeling that gradually brings the mind back again, and makes us impatient to begin our walk with the Indian. Suddenly the deer-skin robe that covers the aperture of the wigwam is raised, and a bright stream of warm light gushes out, tipping the dark green points of the opposite trees, and mingling strangely with the paler light of the moon -- and Stemaw stands erect in the front of his solitary home, to gaze a few moments on the sky and judge of the weather, as he intends to take a long walk before laying his head upon his capote for the night. He is dressed in the usual costume of the Cree Indians: a large leathern coat, very much overlapped in front, and fastened round his waist with a scarlet belt, protects his body from the cold. A small rat-skin cap covers his head, and his legs are cased in the ordinary blue cloth leggins. Large moccasins, with two or three pair of blanket socks, cover his feet, and a pair of fingerless mittens, made of deer-skin, completes his costume. After having stood for a few minutes wrapped in contemplation of the heavens, the Indian proceeds to prepare himself for the walk. First he sticks a small axe in his belt, which serves as a counterpoise to a large hunting-knife and fire-bag which depend from the other side. He then slips his feet through the lines of his snow-shoes, and throws the line of a small hand-sledge over his shoulder. The hand-sledge is a thin flat slip or plank f wood, from five to six feet long by one foot broad, and is turned up at one end. It is extremely light and Indians invariably use it while visiting their traps, for the purpose of dragging home the animals or game they may have caught. Having attached this, then, to his back, he stoops to receive his gun from his faithful squaw, * who has been watching his operations through a hole in the tent; and throwing it on his shoulder, strides off, without uttering a word, across the moonlit space in front of the tent, and turning into a small narrow track, that leads down the dark ravine before mentioned, disappears in the dark shades of the forest. Soon he reaches the termination of the track (which had been made for the purpose of reaching some good dry trees for firewood), and, stepping into the deep snow with the long, regular, firm tread of one accustomed to snow-shoe walking, he winds his way rapidly through the thick stems of the surrounding trees, and turns aside the smaller branches of the bushes.
* Squeiaw is the Indian for a woman. Squaw is the English corruption of the word, and is used to signify a wife.
The forest is now almost quite dark, as the foliage over head has become so dense that the moon only penetrates through it in a few places, causing the spots on which it falls to shine with a strange phosphoric light, and rendering the surrounding masses more dark by contrast. The faint outline of an old snow-shoe track, which was at first discernible, is now quite invisible; but still Stemaw moves forward with rapid, noiseless step, as sure of his way as if he saw a broad beaten track before him. In this manner he moves on for near]y two miles, some -- times stooping to examine closely the newly made track of some wild animal, and occasionally giving a glance at the sky through the openings in the leafy canopy above him, when a faint sound among the bushes ahead brings him to a full stop. He listens attentively, and a faint sound, like the rattling of a chain, is heard proceeding from the recesses of a dark wild-looking hollow a few paces in front. Another moment, and the rattle is again distinctly heard: a slight smile of satisfaction crosses Stemaw's dark visage, for one of his traps had been set in that place, and lie knows that something has been caught. Quickly descending the slope, he enters the bushes from whence the sound proceeds, and pauses when within a yard or two of his trap to peer through the gloom. A cloud passes off the moon, and a faint ray reveals, it may be, a beautiful black fox caught in the snare. A slight blow on the snout from Stemaw's axe-handle kills the unfortunate animal; in ten minutes more it is tied to his sledge the trap re-set and again covered over with snow, so that it is almost impossible to tell that any thing is there; and the Indian pursues his way.
The steel trap used by the Indians is almost similar to the ordinary rat-trap of England, with this difference, that it is a little larger, is destitute of teeth, and has two springs in place of one. A chain is attached to one spring for the purpose of fixing a weight to the trap, so that the animal caught may not be able to drag it far from the place where it was set. The track in the snow enables the hunter to find his trap again. It is generally set so that the jaws, when spread out flat, are exactly on a level with the snow. The chain and weight are both hid, and a thin layer of snow spread on top of the trap. The bait (which generally consists of chips of a frozen partridge, rabbit, or fish) is then scattered around in every direction; and, with the exception of this, nothing distinguishes the spot. Foxes, beavers, wolves, lynx, and other animals are caught in this way, sometimes by a fore-leg, sometimes by a hind-leg, and sometimes by two legs at once, and occasionally by the nose. Of all these ways the Indians prefer catching by two legs, as there is then not the slightest possibility of the animal escaping. When foxes are caught by one leg, they often eat it off close to the trap, and escape on the other three. I have frequently seen this happen; and I once saw a fox caught which had evidently es caped in this way, as one of its legs was gone, and the stump healed up and covered again with hair. When they are caught by the nose they are almost sure to escape, unless taken out of the trap very soon after being caught, as their snouts are so sharp or wedge-like that they can pull them from between the jaws of the trap with the greatest ease.
Having now described the way of using this machine, we will rejoin Stemaw, whom we left on his way to the next trap. There he goes, moving swiftly over the snow mile after mile as if he could not feel fatigue, turning aside now and then to visit a trap, and giving a short grunt when nothing is in it, or killing the animal when caught, and tying it on the sledge. Towards midnight, however, he begins to walk more cautiously, examines the priming of his gun, and moves the axe on his belt as if he expected to meet some enemy suddenly. The fact is, that close to where he now stands are two traps which he set in the morning close to each other for the purpose of catching one of the formidable coast wolves. These animals are so sagacious that they will scrape all round a trap, let it be ever so well set, and, after eating all the bait, leave it. Indians consequently endeavour in every possible way to catch them, and, among others, by setting two traps close together; so that, while the wolf is scraping at one, he may perhaps put his foot in the other. It is in this way that Stemaw's traps are set; and he now advances cautiously towards them with the gun in the hollow of his left arm. Slowly he advances peering through the bushes, but nothing is visible: suddenly a branch crashes under his snow-shoe, and a large wolf bounds from the snow towards him with a savage growl landing almost at his feet. A single glance, however, shows the Indian that both traps are on his legs and that the chains prevent him from advancing farther. He therefore, placing his gun against a tree, draws his axe from the belt, and advances to kill the animal. It is an undertaking, however, of some difficulty. The fierce brute, which is larger than a Newfoundland dog, strains every nerve and sinew to break its chains; while its eyes glisten in the uncertain light, and foam curls from its blood-red mouth. Now it retreats as the Indian advances, grinning horribly as it goes; and anon, as the chains check its farther retreat, it springs with fearful growl towards Stemaw, who slightly wounds it with his axe, as he jumps backward just in time to save himself from the infuriated animal, which catches in its fangs the flap of his leggin, and tears it from his limb. Again Stemaw advances, and the wolf retreats and again springs on him, but without success. At last, as the wolf glances for a moment to one side -- apparently to see if there is no way of escape -- quick as lighting the axe flashes in the air, and descends with stunning violence on its head: another blow follows, and in five minutes more the animal is fastened to the sledge.
This, however, has turned out a more exhausting business than Stemaw expected; so he determines to encamp and rest for a few hours. Selecting a large pine, whose spreading branches cover a tolerably large space of ground free from underwood, he proceeds to scrape away the snow with his snow-shoe. Silently but busily he labours for a quarter of an hour; and then, after having cleared a space about seven or eight feet in diameter, and nearly four feet deep, he cuts down a number of small branches, which he strews on the bottom of the encampment, till all the snow is covered. This done, he fells two or three of the nearest trees, cuts them up into lengths of about five feet long, and piles them at the root of the tree. A light is soon applied to the pile, and up glances the ruddy flame, crackling among the branches overhead, and sending thousands of bright sparks into the air. No one who has not seen it can have the least idea of the change that takes place in the appearance of the woods at night, when a large fire suddenly lighted. Before, all was cold, silent, chilling, gloomy, and desolate, and the pale snow looked unearthly in the dark. Now, a bright ruddy glow falls upon the thick stems of the trees, and penetrates through the branches overhead, tipping those nearest the fire with a ruby tinge, that actually warms one to look at. The white snow changes to a beautiful pink, while the stems of the trees, bright and clearly visible near at hand, become more and more indistinct in the distance, till they are lost in the black background. The darkness, however, need not be seen from the encampment, for, when the Indian lies down, he will be surrounded by the snow walls, which sparkle in the firelight as if set with diamonds. It does not melt either, as might be expected. The frost is much too intense for that, and nothing melts except the snow quite close to the fire. Stemaw has now concluded his arrangements: a small piece of dried deer's meat, which he brought with him, warms before the blaze; and while this is preparing, he spreads his green blanket on the ground, and proceeds to fill a stone callumet (or pipe with a wooden stem) with tobacco, mixed with a kind of weed prepared by himself. The white smoke from this soon mingles with the thicker volumes from the fire, which curl up through the branches into the sky, now shrouding him in their wreaths, and then, as the bright flame obtains the mastery, leaving his dark face and coal-black eyes shining in the warm light. No one enjoys a pipe more than an Indian; and Stemaw's tranquil visage, wreathed in tobacco smoke, as he reclines at full length under the spreading branches of the pine, and allows the white vapour to pass slowly out of his mouth and nose, certainly gives one an excellent idea of savage enjoyment.
Leaving him here, then, to solace himself with a pipe, preparatory to resting his wearied limbs for the night, we will change the hour, and conduct the reader to a different scene.
It is now day. The upper edge of the sun has just risen, red and frosty-looking, in the east, and countless myriads of icy particles glitter on every tree and bush, in its red rays; while the white tops of the snow-drifts, which dot the surface of the small lake at which we have just arrived, are tipped with the same rosy hue. The lake is of considerable breadth, and the woods on its opposite shore are barely visible. An unbroken coat of pure white snow covers its entire surface, while here and there a small islet, covered with luxuriant evergreens, attracts the eye, and breaks the sameness of the scene. At the extreme left of the lake, where the points of a few bullrushes and sedgy plants appear above the snow, are seen a number of small earthy mounds, in the immediate vicinity of which the trees and bushes are cut and barked in many places, while some of them are nearly cut down. This is a colony of beaver. In the warm months of summer and autumn, this spot is a lively stirring place, as the beavers are then employed nibbling down trees and bushes, for the purpose of repairing their dams, and supplying their store-houses with food. The bark of willows is their chief food, and all the bushes in the vicinity are more or less cut through by these persevering little animals. Their dams, however, (which are made for the purpose of securing to themselves a constant sufficiency of water) are made with large trees; and stumps will be found, if you choose to look for them, as thick as a man's leg, which the beavers have entirely nibbled through, and dragged by their united efforts many yards from where they grew.
Now, however, no sign of animal life is to be seen, as the beaver keep within doors all winter; yet I venture to state that there are many now asleep under the snow before us. It is not, reader, merely for the purpose of showing you the outside of a beaver-lodge that I have brought you such a distance from human habitations. Be patient and you shall soon see more. Do you observe that small black speck moving over the white surface of the lake, far away on the horizon? It looks like a crow, but the forward motion is much too steady and constant for that. As it approaches it assumes the form of a man, and at last the figure of Stemaw, dragging his empty sleigh behind him, (for he has left his wolf and foxes in the last night's encampment, to be taken up when returning home,) becomes clearly distinguishable through the dreamy haze of the cold wintry morning. He arrives at the beaver-lodges, and, I warrant, will soon create some havoc among the inmates.
His first proceeding is to cut down several stakes, which he points at the ends. These are driven, after he has cut away a good deal of ice from around the beaver-lodge, into the ground between it and the shore. The reason of this is to prevent the beaver from running along the passage which they always have from their lodges to the shore, where their store-house is kept, which would make it necessary to excavate the whole passage. The beaver, if there are any, being thus imprisoned in the lodge, the hunter next proceeds to stake up the opening into the store-house on shore, and so imprison those that may have fled there for shelter, on hearing the noise of his axe at the other house. Things being thus arranged to his entire satisfaction, he takes an instrument called an ice-chisel, which is a bit of steel about a foot long, by one inch broad, fastened to the end of a stout pole, wherewith he proceeds to dig through the lodge. This is by no means an easy operation; and although he has covered the snow around him with great quantities of mud and sticks, yet his work is not half finished. In process of time, however, the interior of the hut is laid bare, and the Indian, stooping down, gives a great pull, when out comes a