rest a bit, but not for long. The sled was heavily loaded, and furthermore we had to run to keep warm.
That first day runs in my memory as a pleasant dream. The novelty of this new kind of travel was fascinating. We pitched the tent that night at the edge of the woods, ate a hearty meal of fried moose meat, biscuits and tea, and rolled into our rabbit-skin blankets—what greater comfort could one wish?
Now, in retrospect, I want to be back again, with a loaded sled creaking its way over rough ice or running smoothly and quietly over level places, with a good team of dogs trotting steadily in front, muzzles low, tails waving high—and the snow stretching away until broken by the blue line of woods where we might camp for the night.
I never tired of watching the husky dogs at work. Hitherto I had only seen them loafing about camps in summer, filthy, mangy-looking beasts, kicked and beaten at every turn. They certainly seemed like unpromising creatures. As winter came they improved in appearance, but I had never seen them at work until this trip. Just as I had admired the Indians in their performance in the rapids, so now I admired the huskies. It is well to withhold judgment of anyone until you have seen him at his best. These dogs—wellfurred, tireless, efficient—were at their best in harness, on the winter trail.
As we traveled on, each day seemed colder than the last. There was always a wind. Finally, as we struggled along, wild thoughts would shoot through my mind: “Can we keep this up long enough? Will that flimsy tent be protection enough against this furious weather?”
We had no thermometer, but I learned later that on at least one night it had been forty degrees below zero. The guides complained very little, yet they were not dressed as warmly as I, who had a couple of layers of warm woolen clothing topped by a parka and leggings of Hudson Bay moleskin cloth. Charlie, the silent one, had an ordinary winter coat and a small scarf around his throat. His face was bare to the wind, but he didn’t get a single frostbite. Willie, who wore a hood over his head Eskimo style, was frequently frostbitten, further disfiguring his misshapen face. But he also seemed indifferent to it all. In all my days with Willie, I could not see that he was ever moved either by pleasure or pain.
It was a great sight when, on the fourth day, we made out the snow-covered roofs of Rupert House in the distance. In a little while the guides began to adjust their caps and clothing, and to check that the load was all lashed in neatly. The arrival of the mail packet was an important event at these northern posts, and the guides were preparing for their dashing entry into the village. The dogs understood, too, and increased their speed until we could hardly keep up with the sled. With a dash we started up the bank below the store—and the sled tipped over. “Hell!” was the silent one’s comment as we all hurried to right the heavy sled.
The hospitality shown me at this trading post, the comfortable evening meal with Mr. Nicholson the trader in his warm living quarter—only someone who has had a similar experience can imagine these pleasures. But the visit here was brief. The dogteam from East Main had been there for several days awaiting the mail from the south and would start back in the morning. The guides agreed to let me go along, and I was eager to get as far north as I could.
Next morning we were again speeding over the sea ice, the two Indians from East Main and I. In such open-surface sledding the dogteam is harnessed to the sled in a far different way than in wooded country. Each dog had a towline tied to a central point on the sled. Each line was of a different length, the leader having the longest one, so he could be out in front. The whole arrangement was fan-shaped, so the dogs with the shortest traces were far out to the sides. From time to time some of the dogs would change position, crossing from one side to the other, passing under or over the other traces. Thus the traces would become tangled, forming a sort of braid next to the sled which little by little worked forward. Twice on this day we tried to stop the team to undo this tangle, but the dogs were wild to keep moving, so we let them go. This team was by far the liveliest of my whole trip.
My knowledge of Cree was very limited, and the two Indians knew very little English. I wanted to get acquainted, so I tried to ask one of the drivers what he called the porcupine in his language. Mustering what little Cree I knew and using signs, I said: “Peyuk mistik—mitsu, mitsu, mitsu” (“One tree—eat, eat, eat”). I was trying to tell him that this animal often spends days in one tree, eating the inner bark. The driver knew porcupine habits so well that he broke into a big smile, told me the Indian name, gave me to understand that there were some porcupines back in the forest. At least we had communicated!
East Main is only seventy miles from Rupert House, and we arrived on the second day. Now I had a long wait, for no dogteam was going north for many days. But I had a profitable and restful time in the quarters of the friendly trader, Mr. Jobson. He had been in the service for about forty years, and I learned from him a good deal about the life of the Indians. I was surprised to learn of several cases of cannibalism among them. In a few instances, when a family was starving back in the “bush,” one member— generally the husband—had attempted to kill some of the others to allay his own hunger. In most cases, some or all escaped from the cannibal and eventually reached the nearest trading post, nearly dead with fatigue and starvation. Then I remembered a comment Mr. Wilson of Moose Factory had made as he pointed out a passing Indian: “He had a snack off his wife last winter.”
These cases are rare, but hunger is not rare, particularly farther north. The Cree Indians were primarily hunters and had not learned to hoard or lay up for the future. This was not so much the fault of the Indian as of circumstances. The Crees depended on hunting, directly or indirectly, for both food and clothing. The depleted game supply of the Labrador Peninsula is a variable quantity, unreliable and deceiving. The food that the Indian bought at the trading post, with the winter’s fur catch, was often used up before the next winter’s trapping began.
One of the most astonishing natural history notes I got from Mr. Jobson was his account of the passenger pigeon, now gone forever. He said “wild pigeons” had been common in the 1860s. He saw them on Albany River, Moose River, and one at Woswanapi as late as 1884. His description certainly fit the passenger pigeon: bluish, with a reddish breast, long tail, and “small feet.” They flew about in flocks and fed on berries. Mr. Jobson had even seen them in burned woods; sometimes they alighted on houses.
It was not until February 17 that I could press northward again. Then there were several teams going toward Fort George.
One night in an Indian camp stands out in my memories of this part of my journey north. Running through a spruce forest, we came to a large wigwam. I could see that it was made of upright poles set close together and apparently covered with moss, but the details of its architecture were not clear since it was coated with snow. It seemed very large for a wigwam, but still I did not guess there were as many Indians living in it as we saw when we stepped inside. In the center were two roaring stoves. Around the edge, bordering the wall, ten families found room to spread their blankets and stack their belongings, each family appropriating a certain space. A place was cleared for my sleeping bag, and my grub box was carried in and put beside it.
I had wondered about the Crees, with their ill-fitting “civilized” store clothes, in this wilderness environment. But this camp was something different, some of it dating far back in their history. The floor of the wigwam was covered thickly with spruce tips, wonderfully smooth and level. Most of the men were away somewhere, but the women were busy. At one side of the door a young woman was industriously weaving a rabbit-skin blanket. With slender brown fingers she deftly handled the furry white strips. Another woman was cleaning fish. Several others, in a group by themselves, were busy picking cones off spruce boughs and dropping them into a kettle. I wondered what kind of brew that was to be. Above them hung an arctic fox, recently trapped. It was a picturesque bit of Indian household activity.
After a little warming by one of the stoves I went outside to look around. A small group of children, dressed in rabbit-skin clothes, were coasting down a little slope on a
