The Long Labrador Trail Part 16

When we said our farewells the women cried. In their G.o.dspeed the note of friendship rang true and honest and sincere. These people had proved themselves in a hundred ways. In civilization, where the selfish instinct governs so generally, there are too many Judases. On the frontier, in spite of the rough exterior of the people, you find real men and women. That is one reason why I like the North so well.

We left Whale River on Sat.u.r.day, the sixth of January, with one hundred and twenty miles of barrens to cross before reaching George River Post, the nearest human habitation to the eastward. Our fresh team of nine dogs was in splendid trim and worked well, but a three or four inch covering of light snow upon the harder under crust made the going hard and wearisome for the animals. The frost flakes that filled the air covered everything. Clinging to the eyelashes and faces of the men it gave them a ghostly appearance, our skin clothing was white with it, long icicles weighted our beards, and the sharp atmosphere made it necessary to grasp one's nose frequently to make certain that the member was not freezing.

When we stopped for the night our snow house which Emuk and Sam soon had ready seemed really cheerful. Our halt was made purposely near a cl.u.s.ter of small spruce where enough firewood was found to cook our supper of boiled venison, hard-tack and tea, water being procured by melting ice. Spruce boughs were scattered upon the igloo floor and deerskins spread over these.

After everything was made snug, and whatever the dogs might eat or destroy put safely out of their reach, the animals were unharnessed and fed the one meal that was allowed them each day after their work was done. Feeding the dogs was always an interesting function. While one man cut the frozen food into chunks, the rest of us armed with cudgels beat back the animals. When the word was given we stepped to one side to avoid the onrush as they came upon the food, which was bolted with little or no chewing. They will eat anything that is fed them--seal meat, deer's meat, fish, or even old hides. There was always a fight or two to settle after the feeding and then the dogs made holes for themselves in the snow and lay down for the drift to cover them.

The dogs fed, we crawled with our hot supper into the igloo, put a block of snow against the entrance and stopped the c.h.i.n.ks around it with loose snow. Then the kettle covers were lifted and the place was filled at once with steam so thick that one could hardly see his elbow neighbor. By the time the meal was eaten the temperature had risen to such a point that the place was quite warm and comfortable--so warm that the snow in the top of the igloo was soft enough to pack but not quite soft enough to drip water. Then we smoked some of The'venet's cigars and blessed him for his thoughtfulness in providing them.

Usually our snow igloos allowed each man from eighteen to twenty inches s.p.a.ce in which to lie down, and just room enough to stretch his legs well. With our sleeping bags they were entirely comfortable, no matter what the weather outside. The snow is porous enough to admit of air circulation, but even a gale of wind without would not affect the temperature within. It is claimed by the natives that when the wind blows, a snow house is warmer than in a period of still cold. I could see no difference. A new snow igloo is, however, more comfortable than one that has been used, for newly cut snow blocks are more porous. In one that has been used there is always a crust of ice on the interior which prevents a proper circulation of air.

On the second day we pa.s.sed the shack where Easton and I had held our five-day fast, and shortly after came out upon the plains--a wide stretch of flat, treeless country where no hills rise as guiding landmarks for the voyageur. This was beyond the zone of Emuk's wanderings, and Sam went several miles astray in his calculations, which, in view of the character of the country, was not to be wondered at, piloting as he did without a compa.s.s. However, we were soon set right and pa.s.sed again into the rolling barrens, with ever higher hills with each eastern mile we traveled.

At two o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, January ninth, we dropped over the bank upon the ice of George River just above the Post, and at three o'clock were under Mr. Ford's hospitable roof again.

Here we had to encounter another vexatious delay of a week. Ford's dogs had been working hard and were in no condition to travel and not an Eskimo team was there within reach of the Post that could be had.

There was nothing to do but wait for Ford's team to rest and get into condition before taking them upon the trying journey across the barren grounds that lay between us and the Atlantic.

CHAPTER XXI

CROSSING THE BARRENS

On Tuesday morning, January sixteenth, we swung out upon the river ice with a powerful team of twelve dogs. Will Ford and an Eskimo named Etuksoak, called by the Post folk "Peter," for short, were our drivers.

The dogs began the day with a misunderstanding amongst themselves, and stopped to fight it out. When they were finally beaten into docility one of them, apparently the outcast of the pack, was limping on three legs and leaving a trail of blood behind him. Every team has its bully, and sometimes its outcast. The bully is master of them all. He fights his way to his position of supremacy, and holds it by punishing upon the slightest provocation, real or fancied, any encroachment upon his autocratic prerogatives. Likewise he disciplines the pack when he thinks they need it or when he feels like it, and he is always the ringleader in mischief. When there is an outcast he is a doomed dog.

The others hara.s.s and fight him at every opportunity. They are pitiless. They do not a.s.sociate with him, and sooner or later a morning will come when they are noticed licking their chops contentedly, as dogs do when they have had a good meal--and after that no more is seen of the outcast. The bully is not always, or, in fact, often the leader in harness. The dog that the driver finds most intelligent in following a trail and in answering his commands is chosen for this important position, regardless of his fighting prowess.

This morning as we started the weather was perfect--thirty-odd degrees below zero and a bright sun that made the h.o.a.r frost sparkle like flakes of silver. For ten miles our course lay down the river to a point just below the "Narrows." Then we left the ice and hit the overland trail in an almost due northerly direction. It was a rough country and there was much pulling and hauling and pushing to be done crossing the hills. Before noon the wind began to rise, and by the time we stopped to prepare our snow igloo for the night a northwest gale had developed and the air was filled with drifting snow.

Early in the afternoon I began to have cramps in the calves of my legs, and finally it seemed to me that the muscles were tied into knots.

Sharp, intense pains in the groin made it torture to lift in feet above the level of the snow, and I was never more thankful for rest in my life than when that day's work was finished. Easton confessed to me that he had an attack similar to my own. This was the result of our inactivity at Fort Chimo. We were suffering with what among the Canadian voyageurs is known as _mal de roquette_. There was nothing to do but endure it without complaint, for there is no relief until in time it gradually pa.s.ses away of its own accord.

This first night from George River was spent upon the sh.o.r.es of a lake which, hidden by drifted snow, appeared to be about two miles wide and seven or eight miles long. It lay amongst low, barren hills, where a few small bunches of gnarled black spruce relieved the otherwise unbroken field of white.

The following morning it was snowing and drifting, and as the day grew the storm increased. An hour's traveling carried us to the Koroksoak River--River of the Great Gulch--which flows from the northeast, following the lower Torngaek mountains and emptying into Ungava Bay near the mouth of the George. The Koroksoak is apparently a shallow stream, with a width of from fifty to two hundred yards. Its bed forms the chief part of the komatik route to Nachvak, and therefore our route. For several miles the banks are low and sandy, but farther up the sand disappears and the hills crowd close upon the river. The gales that sweep down the valley with every storm had blown away the snow and drifted the bank sand in a layer over the river ice. This made the going exceedingly hard and ground the mud from the komatik runners.

The snowstorm, directly in our teeth, increased in force with every mile we traveled, and with the continued cramps and pains in my legs it seemed to me that the misery of it all was about as refined and complete as it could be. It may be imagined, therefore, the relief I felt when at noon Will and Peter stopped the komatik with the announcement that we must camp, as further progress could not be made against the blinding snow and head wind.

Advantage was taken of the daylight hours to mend the komatik mud. This was done by mixing caribou moss with water, applying the mixture to the mud where most needed, and permitting it to freeze, which it did instantly. Then the surface was planed smooth with a little jack plane carried for the purpose.

That night the storm blew itself out, and before daylight, after a breakfast of coffee and hard-tack, we were off. The half day's rest had done wonders for me, and the pains in my legs were not nearly so severe as on the previous day.

January and February see the lowest temperatures of the Labrador winter. Now the cold was bitter, rasping--so intensely cold was the atmosphere that it was almost stifling as it entered the lungs. The vapor from our nostrils froze in ma.s.ses of ice upon our beards. The dogs, straining in the harness, were white with h.o.a.r frost, and our deerskin clothing was also thickly coated with it. For long weeks these were to be the prevailing conditions in our homeward march.

Dark and ominous were the spruce-lined river banks on either side that morning as we toiled onward, and grim and repellent indeed were the rocky hills outlined against the sky beyond. Everything seemed frozen stiff and dead except ourselves. No sound broke the absolute silence save the crunch, crunch, crunch of our feet, the squeak of the komatik runners complaining as they slid reluctantly over the snow, and the "oo-isht-oo-isht, oksuit, oksuit" of the drivers, constantly urging the dogs to greater effort. Shimmering frost flakes, suspended in the air like a veil of thinnest gauze, half hid the sun when very timidly he raised his head above the southeastern horizon, as though afraid to venture into the domain of the indomitable ice king who had wrested the world from his last summer's power and ruled it now so absolutely.

With every mile the spruce on the river banks became thinner and thinner, and the hills grew higher and higher, until finally there was scarcely a stick to be seen and the lower eminences had given way to lofty mountains which raised their jagged, irregular peaks from two to four thousand feet in solemn and majestic grandeur above our heads. The gray basaltic rocks at their base shut in the tortuous river bed, and we knew now why the Koroksoak was called the "River of the Great Gulch." These were the mighty Torngaeks, which farther north attain an alt.i.tude above the sea of full seven thousand feet. We pa.s.sed the place where Torngak dwells in his mountain cavern and sends forth his decrees to the spirits of Storm and Starvation and Death to do destruction, or restrains them, at his will.

In the forenoon of the third day after leaving George River we stopped to lash a few sticks on top of our komatik load. "No more wood," said Will. "This'll have to see us through to Nachvak." That afternoon we turned out of the Koroksoak River into a pa.s.s leading to the northward, and that night's igloo was at the headwaters of a stream that they said ran into Nachvak Bay.

The upper part of this new gulch was strewn with bowlders, and much hard work and ingenuity were necessary the following morning to get the komatik through them at all. Farther down the stream widened. Here the wind had swept the snow clear of the ice, and it was as smooth as a piece of gla.s.s, broken only by an occasional bowlder sticking above the surface. A heavy wind blew in our backs and carried the komatik before it at a terrific pace, with the dogs racing to keep out of the way.

Sometimes we were carried sidewise, sometimes stern first, but seldom right end foremost. Lively work was necessary to prevent being wrecked upon the rocks, and occasionally we did turn over, when a bowlder was struck side on.

There were several steep down grades. Before descending one of the first of these a line was attached to the rear end of the komatik and Will asked Easton to hang on to it and hold back, to keep the komatik straight. There was no foothold for him, however, on the smooth surface of the ice, and Easton found that he could not hold back as directed. The momentum was considerable, and he was afraid to let go for fear of losing his balance on the slippery ice, and so, wild-eyed and erect, he slid along, clinging for dear life to the line. Pretty soon he managed to attain a sitting posture, and with his legs spread before him, but still holding desperately on, he skimmed along after the komatik. The next and last evolution was a "belly-gutter"

position. This became too strenuous for him, however, and the line was jerked out of his hands. I was afraid he might have been injured on a rock, but my anxiety was soon relieved when I saw him running along the sh.o.r.e to overtake the komatik where it had been stopped to wait for him below.

This gulch was exceedingly narrow, with mountains, lofty, rugged and grand rising directly from the stream's bank, some of them attaining an alt.i.tude of five thousand feet or more. At one point they squeezed the brook through a pa.s.s only ten feet in width, with perpendicular walls towering high above our heads on either side. This place is known to the Hudson's Bay Company people as "The Porch."

In the afternoon Peter caught his foot in a crevice, and the komatik jammed him with such force that he narrowly escaped a broken leg and was crippled for the rest of the journey. Early in the afternoon we were on salt water ice, and at two o'clock sighted Nachvak Post of the Hudson's Bay Company, and at half past four were hospitably welcomed by Mrs. Ford, the wife of George Ford, the agent.

This was Sat.u.r.day, January twentieth. Since the previous Tuesday morning we had had no fire to warm ourselves by and had been living chiefly on hard-tack, and the comfort and luxury of the Post sitting room, with the hot supper of arctic hare that came in due course, were appreciated. Mr. Ford had gone south with Dr. Milne to Davis Inlet Post and was not expected back for a week, but Mrs. Ford and her son Solomon Ford, who was in charge during his father's absence, did everything possible for our comfort.

The injury to Peter's leg made it out of the question for him to go on with us, and we therefore found it necessary to engage another team to carry us to Ramah, the first of the Moravian missionary stations on our route of travel, and this required a day's delay at Nachvak, as no Eskimos could be seen that night. The Fords offered us every a.s.sistance in securing drivers, and went to much trouble on our behalf.

Solomon personally took it upon himself to find dogs and drivers for us, and through his kindness arrangements were made with two Eskimos, Taikrauk and Nikartok by name, who agreed to furnish a team of ten dogs and be on hand early on Monday morning. I considered myself fortunate in securing so large a team, for the seal hunt had been bad the previous fall and the Eskimos had therefore fallen short of dog food and had killed a good many of their dogs. I should not have been so ready with my self-congratulation had I seen the dogs that we were to have.

Nachvak is the most G.o.d-forsaken place for a trading post that I have ever seen. Wherever you look bare rocks and towering mountains stare you in the face; nowhere is there a tree or shrub of any kind to relieve the rock-bound desolation, and every bit of fuel has to be brought in during the summer by steamer. They have coal, but even the wood to kindle the coal is imported. The Eskimos necessarily use stone lamps in which seal oil is burned to heat their igloos. The Fords have lived here for a quarter of a century, but now the Company is abandoning the Post as unprofitable and they are to be transferred to some other quarter.

"G.o.d knows how lonely it is sometimes," Mrs. Ford said to me, "and how glad I'll be if we go where there's some one besides just greasy heathen Eskimos to see."

The Moravian mission at Killenek, a station three days' travel to the northward, on Cape Chidley, has deflected some of the former trade from Nachvak and the Ramah station more of it, until but twenty-seven Eskimos now remain at Nachvak.

Early on Monday morning not only our two Eskimos appeared, but the entire Eskimo population, even the women with babies in their hoods, to see us off. The ten-dog team that I had congratulated myself so proudly upon securing proved to be the most miserable aggregation of dogskin and bones I had ever seen, and in so horribly emaciated a condition that had there been any possible way of doing without them I should have declined to permit them to haul our komatik. However I had no choice, as no other dogs were to be had, and at six o'clock--more than two hours before daybreak--we said farewell to good Mrs. Ford and her family and started forward with our caravan of followers.

We took what is known as the "outside" route, turning right out toward the mouth of the bay. By this route it is fully forty miles to Ramah.

By a short cut overland, which is not so level, the distance is only about thirty miles, but our Eskimos chose the level course, as it is doubtful whether their excuses for dogs could have hauled the komatik over the hills on the short cut. An hour after our start we pa.s.sed a collection of snow igloos, and all our following, after shaking hands and repeating, "Okusi," left us--all but one man, Korganuk by name, who decided to honor us with his society to Ramah; so we had three Eskimos instead of the more than sufficient two.

Though the traveling was fairly good the poor starved dogs crawled along so slowly that with a jog trot we easily kept in advance of them, and not even the extreme cruelty of the heathen drivers, who beat them sometimes unmercifully, could induce them to do better. I remonstrated with the human brutes on several occasions, but they pretended not to understand me, smiling blandly in return, and making unintelligible responses in Eskimo.

Before dawn the sky clouded, and by the time we reached the end of the bay and turned southward across the neck, toward noon, it began to snow heavily. This capped the climax of our troubles and I questioned whether our team would ever reach our destination with this added impediment of soft, new snow to plow through.

From the first the snow fell thick and fast. Then the wind rose, and with every moment grew in velocity. I soon realized that we were caught under the worst possible conditions in the throes of a Labrador winter storm--the kind of storm that has cost so many native travelers on that bleak coast their lives.

We were now on the ice again beyond the neck. Perpendicular, clifflike walls shut us off from retreat to the land and there was not a possibility of shelter anywhere. Previous snows had found no lodgment into banks, and an igloo could not be built. Our throats were parched with thirst, but there was no water to drink and nowhere a stick of wood with which to build a fire to melt snow. The dogs were lying down in harness and crying with distress, and the Eskimos had continually to kick them into renewed efforts. On we trudged, on and endlessly on.

We were still far from our goal.

All of us, even the Eskimos, were utterly weary. Finally frequent stops were necessary to rest the poor toiling brutes, and we were glad to take advantage of each opportunity to throw ourselves at full length on the snow-covered ice for a moment's repose. Sometimes we would walk ahead of the komatik and lie down until it overtook us, frequently falling asleep in the brief interim. Now and again an Eskimo would look into my face and repeat, "Oksunae" (be strong), and I would encourage him in the same way.

Darkness fell thick and black. No signs of land were visible--nothing but the whirling, driving, pitiless snow around us and the ice under our feet. Sometimes one of us would stumble on a hummock and fall, then rise again to resume the mechanical plodding. I wondered sometimes whether we were not going right out to sea and how long it would be before we should drop into open water and be swallowed up. My faculties were too benumbed to care much, and it was just a calculation in which I had no particular but only a pa.s.sive interest.

The thirst of the snow fields is most agonizing, and can only be likened to the thirst of the desert. The snow around you is tantalizing, for to eat it does not quench the thirst in the slightest; it aggravates it. If I ever longed for water it was then.

Hour after hour pa.s.sed and the night seemed interminable. But somehow we kept going, and the poor crying brutes kept going. All misery has its ending, however, and ours ended when I least looked for it.

Unexpectedly the dogs' pitiful cries changed to gleeful howls and they visibly increased their efforts. Then Korganuk put his face close to mine and said: "Ramah! Ramah!" and quite suddenly we stopped before the big mission house at Ramah.

CHAPTER XXII