Young Alaskans in the Far North Part 10

"Many ducks, and this seems a breeding-ground. A great many islands. Sh.o.r.es are broken. The river or lake is about three-quarters of a mile to three miles wide. At 2.40 in the afternoon we got into what they call the Mackenzie River proper. It is only about a half to three-quarters of a mile wide. It is bold and clearer than the other waters we have been traveling on.

"Late in the evening reached the sh.o.r.es of Fort Providence, a very sightly spot. The mission school formed their red-clad girls in a platoon on the bank, waiting for us.

Every girl had her hands folded in front of her. The boys were in ranks, too. They wore a gray uniform. The balcony of the building back of them was filled with the older girls and with the Sisters in a dark sort of uniform. All the flags were flying. The sun was very bright. This made a striking picture. Crowds of Indians came and sat on the bank, waiting for us to land. A good many tepees on the flat ground. There is a mission garden in a stockade, the best garden we have yet seen. Here there are many onions, potatoes, rhubarb, and a hedge of rose-bushes--a very beautiful sight in this far land, and one I did not think we would find.

"A good many men on the boat are trading with the Indians for bead-work. A pair of moccasins is worth from a dollar to a dollar and a half. One man bought the leggings of a squaw and _off_ the squaw--for she was wearing them when he bought them. They say the trade situation here is bad--too much compet.i.tion. Independents sometimes pay three hundred dollars for a silver-gray fox, which is only worth a hundred and twenty-five. The people here are Slavies, and are not much good. The post was out of goods when we got in, and had mighty little fur to send out, too. Indian village starving, living on rabbits and dried fish. No fish running now. These people seem a lazy lot.

"At Fort Resolution there were Chippewyans, Dog Ribs, Slavies, and Yellow Knives, all mixed. At Hay River there were Dog Ribs and Slavies. At Providence they are all Slavies, and the Indian commissioner says they are the worst lot on the whole river. Independent traders very angry here because their clerks have not made any money.

"_Thursday, July 3d._--On the Mackenzie. Reached the 'head of the line'--that is, the country where they have to track boats on the line. At 3 P.M. reached the mouth of the Liard, which seemed as big as the Peace River. It comes in on the left. A grand scene here. On ahead is Fort Simpson on a very high bluff--the most picturesque spot we have seen yet on this trip. They say they once had electric lights here, but not now. Some farms and gardens, much to our surprise.

Frost comes about September 1st. They all say there will be a city here some time. Maybe, but I wouldn't like to live there.

"Slavies at this post. Two villages, very wild and barbarous-looking. A great many fine canoes. The life is very wild about us here. One canoe comes in loaded down with rabbits which they have shot along the sh.o.r.es. Much gaudy clothing and savage finery now. Every one wears moccasins.

One woman here does fine porcupine-quill work. She is Mrs.

McLeod, and is the daughter of Old-man Firth, who is the factor at Fort McPherson, so they say. She is the wife of the factor at Fort Nelson, and knows how to trade.

Quill-work costs a lot.

"At this point we lost the wife of an Indian trader who had come this far north with us, also two Mounted Policemen, the ex-Indian agent and his family, a preacher and his son, and several others. The boat company is getting lighter now.

"There was a scow-load of supplies for treaties to be used up the Liard River. Now we find that the Hudson's Bay Company has left all this stuff at Fort Smith, away behind us! This shows what sort of transport it is. The Northwest Mounted Police grub, due last April, is not here yet. No wonder this is a starving country. It is very wild and interesting around here. John and Jesse and I are having a splendid time. This is the best trip we ever had.

"We had a bishop on board here. We boys talked quite a while with the post factor. He says there are many records written in the Company books here which go back seventy-five years and more. We bought a few things here which we thought we could take along with us.

"_Friday, July 4th._--It looked funny to see the British flag, and not the Stars and Stripes, to-day. We three boys celebrated, just the same--we went out in the woods and shot off our rifles several times. Weather is beautiful, soft, and warm. Made many photographs. The river here is about a mile wide.

"We left at 4 P.M., and soon stopped to take on wood. Ran till 8 o'clock before we could begin to see the outlines of the Nahanni Mountains. Suppose they are a spur of the great Rockies wandered this far away from home. A veil of smoke seems to hang over them. We boys could not sleep very well, and were up till 1 o'clock looking at the scenery. Uncle d.i.c.k has been talking with the captain of our boat about the Nahanni River, which comes down here through a notch in the mountains. The Indians go up to the North Nahanni, portage across to the South Nahanni, run down to the Liard River, and come down it to the Mackenzie. This is a trip no white man has ever taken. It must be a wild country in there. John is honest with his map, so he just marks this place 'Unknown.' Prospectors have gone up the Liard to the Nahanni. The geologists say there is no chance for gold in there.

"_Sat.u.r.day, July 5th._--Fort Wrigley at 7.35 in the morning.

One independent post besides the H. B. post. A good deal of fur in these two posts, and some very fine fox skins. The marten seem rather yellow, the lynx good, beaver and bear good. We saw one wolverine skin here, a good many mink, and one otter skin. This otter skin was not cased, as we fixed them in Alaska, but was split and stretched like a beaver skin. They say the Indians do that way with their otter here. Did not stop long at this post, as we are beginning to hurry now.

"It is a strange thing to us that we have not seen any game on all this trip. No one has seen a moose since the one that was killed above the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca. I suppose the game country is back in farther. The Indians get plenty of moose for their leather-work.

"In the evening we came to Fort Norman, which marks the entry of the Bear River. I should call that the gate of another land of mystery--up in there somewhere Sir John Franklin perished. They say the white Eskimos are descendants of some of his men. They say a man was taken captive by the Indians up in there, and lived with them several years, and then got out. He lives now somewhere in Saskatchewan.

"At 9.45 we saw a burning bank on the Mackenzie River. It is said to have burned forty-five years. It was in some sort of tar sand, of which we have seen a good deal on our journey.

Tied up at 10 o'clock. There is a whole village of Mountain Indians here at the foot of the bluff. A wild sight. The tepees are pitched very close together. Hundreds of dogs.

Children are eating and running around everywhere. The boat whistled, and the dogs all ran off up the hill and the children screamed. They say that five years ago these wild Indians left this place and went across the mountains to the Stuart River to trade. They brought back Yukon stoves for their tents, the same as they have up in Alaska. They came down the Gravel River here in skin boats. Their birch-bark canoes look like Eskimo kayaks. They have a short deck fore and aft, and sharply slanting stem and stern posts. The bow does not curve back.

"Fort Norman is on a high bluff. The H. B. Company has put in some stairs. Not very many buildings, very little goods, and little fur. We did some trading with the Indians for trinkets. There is an Anglican church here, a very small building. The little bell rang, and our bishop started over to hold services. It was said that these Indians who had come back from the Stuart River wanted to go to church again, so this service was held for them. It was the first time in five years in this church. There was a wedding there to-night, they tell me, and several children were christened, three or four years of age. One child was named Woodrow Wilson Quasinay. We did it for a joke, but the parents thought it was a fine name! He was four years old, and very dirty, and cried a good deal when he got his name.

"We are getting to where the sun does not stay down very long. The bishop read his services to-night by the natural light of the window. With the bishop's consent we made a flash-light picture of this scene in the church. Then there was Holy Communion. The services were not done when the whistle of the boat blew and everybody had to run to get on board. The captain scolded the bishop for being so late!

This is a funny country, I think.

"This closes a week which has been quite full of events, I think. Jesse and John very happy. The pictures around us seem more savage. We are getting into the Far North of which we have read so much. It is fine!"

IX

UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

Of the motley a.s.semblages which thronged the capacity of the steamer _Mackenzie River_ our three young companions were usually the first to arise in the morning. Morning, however, had come by this time to be a relative term, for the steady progress into the northern lat.i.tudes had now brought them almost under the Midnight Sun, so that there was but a brief period of darkness at any hour of the night. On the morning of July 6th they stood conversing on the fore deck, looking down the vast river as it pa.s.sed between its bold and broken sh.o.r.es.

"Well," said Rob to the others, "here we are, not quite forty days out from our start, and we have come more than sixteen hundred miles already! We're beginning to add now to our daily mileage, traveling this way day and night."

"Well, even at this rate," rejoined John, "I am not sure that I see how we will get out of this northern country inside of our three months' schedule. If we don't, we'll have to pa.s.s the winter, won't we?"

Jesse looked a little bit gloomy at this idea. To tell the truth, he, the youngest of the party, was at times just a little homesick. The country through which they pa.s.sed seemed so stupendous, so awesome, as almost to oppress the spirits of those not used to it.

"Cheer up! Jess," said Rob, clapping him on the shoulder. "There will be something happening now before long. We're almost up to the Arctic Circle, and to-day, if I'm not mistaken, we run into the best scenery on the Mackenzie River, what they call the Ramparts. The captain was telling me about it yesterday."

They did not, however, reach this portion of their voyage until very late in the evening, when they arrived at the head of that long and gentle bit of water called the Sans Sault Rapids. The river here was about a mile wide, but offered no bad chutes. The captain told them that it only took eight minutes to run through, but that the time coming up with the steamboat usually had averaged one and three-quarter hours.

The strange, luminous twilight of the sub-Artic day continued until midnight. It was, indeed, after eleven o'clock when the steamer struck that narrow shut-in of the Mackenzie River where the great flood, compressed between high and rocky sh.o.r.es, runs steadily and deep for a very considerable distance. Above the actual beginning of the narrower channel lay a great, deep pool, many hundreds of yards wide, while at the right hand of its lower extremity sprang up a bald white rock face of limestone.

So sharp was the bend of the great river here that at the turn it seemed as though the river itself had come to an end or had dropped out of sight. The walls on the left seemed perhaps a trifle higher, ranging in height from one hundred to a hundred and eighty feet, the crest in places broken into crenelated turrets.

"Well," said Rob, "this is the celebrated run of the Ramparts. I must confess I am disappointed. I think the Yukon beats this in a great many places. They may tip this off as a big attraction for tourists, but it's too far to come for the show, in my estimation."

John, busy charting the channel on his map, nodded his head in affirmation. "How wide do you think it is here, Rob?" he asked, and Rob was obliged to ask some of the boat officials as to that. They told him that the river was from three hundred to five hundred yards wide at this place, and that there were two great bends in the six miles of the run between the shut-in walls.

"How far is it to the Arctic Circle, Uncle d.i.c.k?" demanded Jesse of their leader when finally he came on deck after finishing his work in his state-room.

The latter rubbed his chin for a time before he could reply. "Well,"

said he, "I don't know just where it is, but it's somewhere on ahead of Fort Good Hope, and we'll strike Fort Good Hope now just beyond the foot of the Ramparts. We'll say that some time in the night we'll pa.s.s the Circle."

"Hurrah for that!" exclaimed Rob, and the other boys also became excited.

"What does the Circle look like?" asked Jesse, with much interest.

"Well," replied his uncle, "I don't think it looks like anything in particular. But I think we'll feel the b.u.mp when we run over it in the night. I can a.s.sure you of that. Also I can a.s.sure you that, once you get above it, at the end of our northern journey, you'll see a country different from any you have seen. You hardly realize, no doubt, the great extent of this tremendous run from the Rockies to the sea."

Meantime the boat had been continuing its progress steadily. It required about forty-five minutes to complete the run of the bolder part of the sh.o.r.es known as the Ramparts. Once below, there was to be seen, even in the faint midnight light, the scattered buildings of that far-northern post known as Good Hope.

The boys, with all the rest of the pa.s.sengers, went ash.o.r.e here and prowled about the curious old place, examining with much interest the mission school, the church, and the garden. Rob was able to make a picture of the interior of the church, putting his camera on a pile of hymn-books and making a long-time exposure.

The post trader told him later something of the history of this curious building which for some time had stood here upon the utmost borders of civilization.

"You see all the decorations and frescoes of the church, just like those in a cathedral of the Old World," said he. "It was all done by a young priest known as Brother Antel, now gone to his rest. The church was built thirty years ago by Bishop Clute, of Little Slave Lake, who brought up Brother Antel from that lower mission. The altar is considered an astonishing thing to be found here, almost directly under the Arctic Circle."

They all stood with their hats off in this curious and interesting structure of the Far North, hardly being able to realize that they were now so far beyond the land where such things ordinarily are seen.

"The decorations are fine and the frescoes splendid," said Jesse to John, as they pa.s.sed outside the door, "but I don't see why Father Antel has the angels playing on the mandolin. I didn't know they had mandolins that long ago."

"Never mind about that, Jesse," said Rob, reprovingly. "You mustn't make light of anything of the kind. You must remember that these Slavie Indians, who are the only people who come here for services, are most impressed by pictures which they can see and understand. I suppose it's all right. At any rate, it's an astonishing thing to find such a church away up here, even if it had angels listening to an H.

B. phonograph."