By Canoe And Dog-Train Part 5

No surveyor, up to the years about which I am writing, had visited those regions, and there were literally no roads as understood in civilised lands.

So numerous are the lakes and rivers that roads are unnecessary to the Indian in the summer time. With his light birch canoe he can go almost everywhere he desires. If obstructions block up his pa.s.sage, all he has to do is to put his little canoe on his head, and a short run will take him across the portage, or around the cataracts or falls, or over the height of land to some other lake or stream, where he quickly embarks and continues his journey.

All summer travelling is done along the water routes. Naturally the various trading posts and Indian villages or encampments are located on the edges of the lakes or rivers, or very near them, so as to be most conveniently reached in this way. So short are the summers that there are only about five months of open water to be depended upon in these high lat.i.tudes. During the other seven months the dog sled is the only conveyance for purposes of travelling. So rough and wild is the country that we know of no vehicle that could take its place, and no animals that could do the work of the dogs.

As the years of toil rolled on, my Mission field or Circuit so enlarged that it extended irregularly north and south over five hundred miles, with a width in some places of over three hundred. In summer I travelled over it in a birch canoe, and in winter with my dog-trains.

At first it seemed very novel, and almost like child's play, to be dragged along by dogs, and there was almost a feeling of rebellion against what seemed such frivolous work. But we soon found out that we had travelled in worse conveyances and with poorer steeds than in a good dog sled, when whirled along by a train of first-cla.s.s dogs.

The dogs generally used are of the Esquimaux breed, although in many places they have become so mixed up with other varieties as to be almost unrecognisable. The pure Esquimaux sled dogs are well-built, compact animals, weighing from eighty to a hundred and twenty pounds. They are of various colours, and have a close, warm, furry coat of hair. They have sharp-pointed ears and very bushy, curly tails. They are the most notorious thieves. I never could completely break an Esquimaux dog of this propensity. It seemed ingrained in their very natures. I have purchased young puppies of this breed from the natives, have fed them well, and have faithfully endeavoured to bring them up in the way in which they ought to go, but I never could get them to stay there. Steal they would, and did, whenever they had an opportunity.

This serious defect may have been the result of the constant and unremitting neglect with which Indians generally treat their dogs. They are fond of them in a way, and are unwilling to part with them, except at a good price; yet, except when working them, they very seldom feed them. The dogs are generally left to steal their living, and some of them become very clever at it, as more than once I found to my sorrow.

When the fisheries are successful, or many deer have been killed, the dogs, like their owners, are fat and flourishing. When food is scarce, the dogs' allowance is the first cut off. We could always tell at a glance, when a band of wild, wandering pagan Indians came in to visit our village from their distant hunting grounds, how they had prospered.

If they and their dogs were fat and good-natured, they had had abundance of food. If, while the people looked fairly well, the dogs were thin and wolfish, we knew they had fared but moderately. If the dogs were all gone and the people looked gaunt and famine-stricken, we knew they had had hard times, and, as a last resort, had eaten their poor dogs to keep themselves alive.

Some of the Indians who make a pretence to feed their dogs in winter never think of doing so in summer. The result is that, as they have to steal, hunt, or starve, they become adepts in one or the other.

Everything that is eatable, and many things apparently uneatable, are devoured by them. They fairly howled with delight when they found access to such things as old leather moccasins, dog harness, whips, fur caps, mitts, and similar things. They greedily devoured all they could, and then most cunningly buried the rest. Many of them go off in summer- time on long fishing excursions. I once, when away on a canoe trip, met a pack of them up a great river over a hundred miles from their home.

When we first saw them at a long distance, we mistook them for wolves, and began to prepare for battle. The quick eyes of my Indian canoe men soon saw what they were, and putting down our guns, we spent a little time in watching them. To my great surprise I found out that they were fishing on their own account. This was something new to me, and so I watched them with much interest.

On the side of the river on which they were was a shallow, reedy marsh, where the water was from a few inches to a foot in depth. In these shallow waters, at certain seasons of the year, different varieties of fish are to be found. The princ.i.p.al is the Jack fish, or pike, some of which are over three feet long. As they crowd along in these shallows, often with their back fins out of the water, they are observed by the dogs, who quietly wade out, often to a distance of many yards, and seize them with such a grip that, in spite of their struggles, they are carried in triumph to the sh.o.r.e, and there speedily devoured. Sometimes the dogs will remain away for weeks together on these fishing excursions, and will return in much better condition than when they left.

During the winter of the first Riel Rebellion, when all our supplies had been cut off, my good wife and I got tired of dining twenty-one times a week on fish diet, varied only by a pot of boiled musk rats, or a roast hind-quarter of a wild cat. To improve our bill of fare, the next summer, when I went into the Red River Settlement, I bought a sheep, which I carefully took out with me in a little open boat. I succeeded in getting it safely home, and put it in a yard that had a heavy stockade fence twelve feet high around it. In some way the dogs got in and devoured my sheep.

The next summer, I took out a couple of pigs, and put them into a little log stable with a two-inch spruce plank door. To my great disgust, one night the dogs ate a hole through the door and devoured my pigs.

There seemed to be a good deal of the wolf in their nature. Many of them never manifested much affection for their masters, and never could be fully depended upon. Still I always found that even with Esquimaux dogs patience and kindness went farther than anything else in teaching them to know what was required of them, and in inducing them to accept the situation. Some of them are naturally lazy, and some of them are incorrigible shirks; and so there is in dog-driving a capital opportunity for the exercise of the cardinal virtue of patience.

As my Mission increased in size, and new appointments were taken up, I found I should have to be on the move nearly all the winter if those who longed for the Word of Life were to be visited. Do the best I could, there were some bands so remote that I could only visit them twice a year. In summer I went by canoe, and in winter by dog-train. After a few wretched experiences with native dogs, where I suffered most intensely, as much on account of their inferior powers as anything else, I began to think of the many splendid St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs I had seen in civilised lands, doing nothing in return for the care and affection lavished upon them. These thoughts, which came to me while far from home, were promptly followed by action as soon as that terrible trip was ended, in which every part of my face exposed to the intense cold had been frozen, even to my eyebrows and lips.

Missionary Secretaries were amused at the requisition for dogs, and had their laugh at what they called "my unique request," and wrote me to that effect. Thanks, however, to the kindness of such men as the Honourable Mr Sanford, of Hamilton, the Honourable Mr Ferrier, of Montreal, and other friends, I had in my possession some splendid dogs before the next season opened, and then the work went on with increasing interest and satisfaction. With splendid, well-trained dogs, I could so shorten the time of the three hundred miles' trip, that, instead of shivering seven or eight nights in a hole dug in the snow, we could reduce the number to four or five.

Those who have experienced the sufferings and hardships of camping out in the forest with the temperature ranging from thirty to sixty degrees below zero, will agree that to escape two or three nights of it meant a good deal.

I found by years of experience that the St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs had all the good qualities, and none of the defects, of the Esquimaux. By kindness and firmness they were easily broken in, and then a whip was only an ornamental appendage of the driver's picturesque costume. Of these splendid dogs I often had in my possession, counting old and young, as many as twenty at a time. The largest and best of them all was Jack, a n.o.ble St. Bernard. He was black as jet, and stood over thirty-three inches high at his fore shoulder. When in good working trim, he weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds. He had no equal in all that northern land. Several times he saved my life, as we shall see further on. No whip ever ruffled his glossy coat; no danger ever deterred him from his work, when he with his marvellous intelligence once got to know what was expected of him. No blizzard storm, no matter how fickle and changeful, could lead him off from the desired camping place, even if the courage of other dogs failed them, and even though the guides gave up in despair.

The distance we could travel with dogs depended of course very much on the character of the trail or route. On the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg, when no blinding gales opposed us, and our dogs were good and loads not too heavy, we have made from seventy to ninety miles a day.

One winter I accomplished the journey from Fort Garry to Norway House in five days and a half--a distance of nearly four hundred miles. When we were toiling along in the dense forests, where the snow lay deep and the obstructions were many, and the country was broken with hills and ravines, we often did not make more than a third of that distance, and then suffered much more than when we had made much greater journeys under more favourable auspices.

The dog sleds are made of two oak or birch boards, about twelve feet long, eight or nine inches wide, and from half an inch to an inch thick.

These two boards are fastened securely together, edge to edge, by crossbars. Then one of the ends is planed down thin, and so thoroughly steamed or soaked in hot water that it can easily be bent or curved up to form what is called the head of the sled. It is then planed smooth, and fitted out with side loops. The front ones are those to which the traces of the dogs are attached, and the others along the sides are used to fasten the load securely. When finished, allowing two or three feet for the curled-up head, a good dog sled is nine or ten feet long, and from sixteen to eighteen inches wide.

Sometimes they are fitted with parchment sides and a comfortable back.

Then they are called carioles. When the dogs were strong enough, or the trail was a well beaten one, or we were travelling on the great frozen lakes, I was able to ride the greater part of the time. Then it was not unpleasant or toilsome work. But as many of my winter trails led me through the primeval forests, where the snow was often very deep, and the hills were steep, and the fallen trees many, and the standing ones thickly cl.u.s.tered together, on such journeys there was but little riding. One had to strap on his snow shoes, and help his faithful Indians to tramp down the deep snow in the trail, that the poor dogs might drag the heavily loaded sleds along.

Four dogs const.i.tute a train. They are harnessed in tandem style, as all this vast country north of the fertile prairies is a region of forests. The Esquimaux style of giving each dog a separate trace, thus letting them spread out in a fan-like form, would never do in this land of trees and dense under-bush.

The harness, which is made of moose skin, is often decorated with ribbons and little musical bells. Singular as it may appear, the dogs were very fond of the bells, and always seemed to travel better and be in greater spirits when they could dash along in unison with their tinkling. Some dogs could not be more severely punished than by taking the bells off their harness.

The head dog of the train is called "the leader." Upon him depends a great deal of the comfort and success, and at times the safety, of the whole party. A really good leader is a very valuable animal. Some of them are so intelligent that they do not require a guide to run ahead of them, except in the most dense and unbeaten forest trails. I had a long-legged white dog, of mixed breed, that ever seemed to consider a guide a nuisance, when once he had got into his big head an idea of what I wanted him to do. Outside of his harness Old Voyager, as we called him, was a morose, sullen, unsociable brute. So hard to approach was he that generally a rope about sixty feet long, with one end fastened around his neck, trailed out behind him. When we wanted to catch him, we generally had to start off in the opposite direction from him, for he was as cunning as a fox, and ever objected to being caught. In zigzag ways we moved about until he was thrown off his guard, and then by-and- by it was possible to come near enough to get hold of the long rope and haul him in. When once the collar was on his neck, and he had taken his place at the head of the party, he was the unrivalled leader. No matter how many trains might happen to be travelling together, no one thought of taking first place while Old Voyager was at hand.

Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with deep, wide bays. The headlands are from five to thirty miles apart. When dog-travelling on that great lake in winter, the general plan is to travel from headland to headland.

When leaving one where perhaps we had slept or dined, all we had to do was to turn Old Voyager's head in the right direction, and show him the distant point to which we wished to go; and although it might be many miles away, a surveyor's line could not be much straighter than the trail our sleds would make under his unerring guidance.

I have gone into these details about this mode of travelling, because there is so little known about it in the outside world. Doubtless it will soon become a thing of the past, as the Indians are settling down in their Reservations, and, each tribe or band having a resident Missionary, these long, toilsome journeys will not be essential.

The companions of my long trips were the far-famed Indian runners of the north. The princ.i.p.al one of our party was called "the guide." To him was committed the responsibility of leading us by the quickest and safest route to the band of Indians we wished to visit with the good news of a Saviour's love. His place was in front of the dogs, unless the way happened to lead us for a time over frozen lakes or well-beaten trails, where the dogs were able to go on alone, cheered by the voice of their drivers behind. When the trail was of this description, the guide generally strode along in company with one of the drivers.

As the greater part of my work was in the wild forest regions, there were many trips when the guide was always at the front. Marvellously gifted were some of these men. The reader must bear in mind the fact that there were no roads or vestiges of a path. Often the whole distance we wished to go was through the dense unbroken forest. The snow, some winters, was from two to four feet deep. Often the trees were cl.u.s.tered so closely together that it was at times difficult to find them standing far enough apart to get our sleds, narrow as they were, between them. In many places the under-brush was so dense that it was laborious work to force our way through it. Yet the guide on his large snowshoes was expected to push on through all obstructions, and open the way where it was possible for the dog-sleds to follow. His chief work was to mark out the trail, along which the rest of us travelled as rapidly as our loaded sleds, or wearied limbs, and often bleeding feet, would allow.

Wonderfully clever and active were these guides in this difficult and trying work. To them it made but little difference whether the sun shone brightly, or clouds obscured the sky. On and on they pushed without hesitancy or delay. There were times when the sun's rays were reflected with such splendour from the snowy wastes, that our eyes became so affected by the glare, that it was impossible to travel by sunlight. The black eyes of the Indians seemed very susceptible to this disease, which they call "snow blindness." It is very painful, as I know by sad experience. The sensation is like that of having red-hot sand thrown on the eyeb.a.l.l.s. Often my faithful dog-drivers used to suffer so from it that, stoical as they naturally are, I have known them to groan and almost cry out like children in the camp.

Once, in travelling near Oxford Lake, we came across a couple of Indians who were stone-blind from this disease. Fortunately they had been able to reach the woods and make a camp and get some food ready ere total blindness came upon them. We went out of our course to guide them to their friends.

To guard against the attack of this disease, which seldom occurs except in the months of March and April, when the increasing brightness of the sun, in those lengthening days, makes its rays so powerful, we often travelled only during the night-time, and rested in the sheltered camps during the hours of sunshine. On some of our long trips we have travelled eight nights continuously in this way. We generally left our camp about sundown. At midnight we groped about as well as we could, aided by the light of the stars or the brilliant auroras, and found some dry wood and birch bark, with which we made a fire and cooked a midnight dinner. Then on we went until the morning light came. Then a regular camp was prepared, and breakfast cooked and eaten, and the dogs were fed, instead of at night. Prayers said, and ourselves wrapped up in our blankets and robes, we slept until the hours of brilliant sunshine were over, when on we went.

It always seemed to me that the work of the guides would be much more difficult at night than during the daytime. They, however, did not think so. With unerring accuracy they pushed on. It made no matter to them whether the stars shone out in all the beauty and brilliancy of the Arctic sky, or whether clouds arose and obscured them all. On the guide pushed through tangled underwood or dense gloomy forest, where there were not to be seen, for days, or rather nights, together, any other tracks than those made by the wild beasts of the forest.

Sometimes the wondrous auroras blazed out, flashing and scintillating with a splendour indescribable. At times the whole heavens seemed aglow with their fickle, inconstant beauty, and then various portions of the sky were illumined in succession by their ever-changing bars, or columns of coloured light. Man's mightiest pyrotechnic displays dwarfed into insignificance in the presence of these celestial visions. For hours at a time have I been entranced amidst their glories. So bewildering were they at times to me that I have lost all ideas of location, and knew not which was north or south.

But to the experienced guide, although, like many of the Indians, he had a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, so intent was he on his duties that these changing auroras made no difference, and caused him no bewilderment in his work. This, to me, was often a matter of surprise.

They are very susceptible in their natures, and their souls are full of poetry, as many of their expressive and beautiful names indicate. To them, in their pagan state, those scintillating bars of coloured light were the spirits of their forefathers, rank after rank, rushing out to battle. Yet, while on our long trips I have had Indians as guides who became intensely interested in these wondrous visions of the night, I never knew them to lose the trail or become confused as to the proper route.

Very pleasant are my memories of different guides and dog-drivers. With very few exceptions they served me loyally and well. Most of them were devoted Christian men. With me they rejoiced to go on these long journeys to their countrymen who were still groping in the darkness, but most of them longing for the light. Many of them were capable of giving exhortations or addresses; and if not able to do this, they could, Paul- like, tell the story of their conversion, and how they had found the Saviour.

My heart warms to those faithful men, my companions in many a storm, my bed-fellows in many a cold wintry camp. Memory brings up many incidents where they risked their lives for me, and where, when food was about exhausted, and the possibilities of obtaining additional supplies for days were very poor, they quietly and unostentatiously put themselves on quarter rations, for days together, that their beloved missionary might not starve.

Some of them have finished their course. Up the shining trail, following the unerring Guide, they have gone beyond the auroras and beyond the stars right to the throne of G.o.d.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

ON THE TRAIL WITH THE DOGS, TO FIELDS RIPE FOR THE REAPER--THE PLACE-- THE TRIP--THE WINTER CAMP--THE BITTER COLD--ENDURING HARDNESS--DEATH SHAKING HANDS WITH US--MANY DAYS ON THE TRAIL.

In January, 1869, I started on my first winter trip to Nelson River, to visit a band of Indians there, who had never yet seen a missionary or heard the glad tidings of salvation. Their princ.i.p.al gatherings were at the little trading post on the Burntwood River. Their hunting grounds extended so very far north that they bordered on those of the Esquimaux, with whom, however, the Indians have no dealings. Between these two races, the Indian and the Esquimaux, there is no affinity whatever.

They differ very materially in appearance, language, customs, and beliefs. Though they will seldom engage in open hostilities, yet they are very rarely at peace with each other, and generally strive to keep as far apart as possible.

The weather was bitterly cold, as the temperature ranged from thirty- five to fifty-five below zero. Our course was due north all the way.

The road we made, for there was none ahead of the snow-shoe tracks of our guide, was a rugged, unbroken forest path. As the country through which we pa.s.sed is rich in fur-bearing animals, we saw many evidences of their presence, and occasionally crossed a hunter's trail. We pa.s.sed over twenty little lakes, averaging from one to thirty miles in diameter. Over these our dogs drew us very fast, and we could indulge in the luxury of a ride; but in the portages and wood-roads our progress was very slow, and generally all of us, with our snow-shoes on, and at times with axes in hand, had to tramp on ahead and pack the deep snow down, and occasionally cut out an obstructing log, that our dogs might be able to drag our heavily laden sleds along. Sometimes the trees were so thickly cl.u.s.tered together that it was almost impossible to get our sleds through them. At times we were testing our agility by climbing over fallen trees, and then on our hands and knees had to crawl under reclining ones. Our faces were often bleeding, and our feet bruised.

There were times when the strap of my snowshoes so frayed and lacerated my feet that the blood soaked through the moccasins and webbing of the snowshoes, and occasionally the trail was marked with blood. We always travelled in Indian file. At the head ran or walked the guide, as the roads would permit. On these trips, when I got to understand dog- driving, I generally followed next; and behind me were three other dog- trains, each with an Indian driver.

Sometimes the snow was so deep that the four dog-drivers went ahead of the dogs, immediately behind the guide, and, keeping in line with him, industriously packed down the snow, that the dogs might the more easily drag the heavy sleds along. The reason why our loads were so heavy was this. We were not in a country where, when night overtook us, we could find some hospitable home to welcome us. Neither were we where there were hotels or houses in which for money we could secure lodgings. We were in one of the most desolate and thinly inhabited parts of the world, where those who travel long distances see no human beings, except the Indian hunters, and these but rarely. Hence, in spite of all our efforts to make our loads as light as possible, they would be heavy, although we were only carrying what was considered absolutely essential.

We had to take our provisions, fish for our dogs, kettles, tin dishes, axes, bedding, guns, extra clothing, and various other things, to meet emergencies that might arise.

The heaviest item on our sleds was the fish for the dogs. Each dog was fed once a day, and then received two good white fishes, each weighing from four to six pounds. So that if the daily allowance for each dog averaged five pounds, the fish alone on each sled would weigh one hundred and twenty pounds, when we began a trip of a week's duration.

Then the bitter cold and the vigorous exercise gave both the drivers and the missionary good appet.i.tes, and so the food provided for them was of no insignificant weight.

We generally stopped about half an hour before sundown in order to have time, ere darkness enshrouded us, to prepare our camp. As we journeyed on we had observed that the guide who had been running along in front had been, for the last half hour or so, carefully scanning the forest to the right and left. At length he stopped, and as we came up to him we said, "Well, Tom, what is the matter?"