a frolic in the snow, but they were also unconsciously training themselves for the work of grownups. In his winter travels in the forest, the Indian uses a small, slender toboggan such as these children were using. Now several more women came into camp, each hauling a log through the snow for firewood. A good supply had been cut and piled neatly in front of the wigwam. A little later the men came in, one by one. I gathered that they had been tending their fish nets, set under the ice.
Here was the winter home of the Indians. I appreciated their hospitality, but it was a restless night. Children cried and complained continuously. Some were evidently sickly, others just hungry. During the evening I had from time to time given a biscuit to some complaining youngster until, before I realized it, my supply was very low.
At other camps, too, I heard the hungry crying of children, and I kept giving away my food. The birthday cake went, and I ended up eating dog food. My Indian companion on this part of the trip was surprised that a white man would do this; and I, in my ignorance, was surprised that he was surprised. What was the custom of this northern country?
My visit at this camp impressed on me more than ever the uncertainties of the Indian’s life. He was never many meals ahead and depended largely on hunting, in a land where game is never plentiful.
After several days’ travel on the coastal sea ice, my Indian companion and I arrived at Fort George, another typical Hudson’s Bay Company village and post, several buildings at the edge of the coastal forest.
That evening in the house of the trader, where several white people of the post had gathered, I had an embarrassing moment. I had spent so much time with Indians in these past weeks that I had begun to speak like them.
The Crees on the Labrador side of James Bay had a very vigorous way of speaking. Their word for “yes” is eh-heh, pronounced quickly and vigorously. When I meant to say yes to a question that evening at Fort George, I heard myself saying, “eh-heh”—not at all the smooth “uh-huh” of a white man.
Here at Fort George I heard another story of cannibalism. In the store an Indian woman was pointed out to me. “She and her husband were camped back there in the woods,” the trader told me, “and they ran out of food. As they were starving, she sensed that her husband was planning to eat her. So she somehow escaped from the camp and made it in to this post.” I wondered what happened to the husband.
My visit at Fort George was very brief. Mr. Maver, the trader from Great Whale River, was there and was returning north the next morning. I was invited to go with him.
After we had said our good-byes in the crisp wintry air, the team started off. As I ran forward to keep up with the sled, I stumbled and fell flat in the snow. I remember the trader’s laughing voice calling after me as I picked myself up, “That’s a bad start you made, young man!”
This lap of the journey took five days of dog travel, with Mr. Maver, his Eskimo dog driver, and his fine team. (No white man ever drove dogteams in this part of the world.) I soon realized how fortunate I was to be traveling with Mr. Maver, who was friendly, outgoing, and helpful. I knew that he was liked by everyone on the entire coast and that he was very able. He held the key post of the region, one aspired to by all beginners in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Most of the time we all three trotted beside the sled—riding was too cold. But I knew that when the chief factor made an inspection trip of trading posts up the coast, he lay on the sled all the way, wrapped in many blankets and robes.
We spent one night with an Eskimo family in their tent. The atmosphere in that family group was cheerful and warm, although I later learned that for two days they had been without food—no seals.
I learned another thing on this coastal trip. The Eskimos, who had lived here for numerous generations, had observed and come to understand the physical factors affecting winter travel. As usual the undersides of the sled runners were covered with steel bands. But for the colder part of winter the Eskimos had improved on this. They applied a warm, wet mixture of mud to the bottom of the runner over the steel, shaping it like a round, mud tire. The mud quickly froze solid in the extreme cold. After smoothing the surface, they applied warm water, which quickly froze into a perfectly smooth coating of ice. Runners so treated slid smoothly over the winter landscape. I was told that at Moose Factory they sometimes used soft cattle manure instead of mud.
When the ice coating wore down, the driver would heat some water and apply a wet coating over the surface again with a rag. This froze at once, and we again had a glass-smooth runner to glide over the snow.
Before we reached Great Whale River there came a day when our driver tipped the sled over on its side and knocked off all the mud. “He must feel that the colder part of the winter is over,” said Mr. Maver. “From now on there will be some thawing, and for this the steel runners are better.”
A little after noon on February 27, we saw ahead of us a group of snow-covered buildings. In the bright blaze of February sunshine, the world appeared white and dazzling—the season of dusk and dark was over for that year, and we were arriving at Great Whale River! Slowly we drew nearer to those buildings, and finally we clambered up the steep bank, to the village, the post, and Mr. Maver’s home. Several Eskimos came hurrying to help the driver with the dogs and the unloading. I followed Mr. Maver through a snow porch, a sort of short tunnel about seven feet high, built to keep the snow from drifting against the door.
I had reached the goal of my winter journey—the real beginning of Eskimo land.
The region about Great Whale River in Quebec is broken and rocky—wooded in the valleys, bare and rugged on the hilltops. Of all the posts I visited, this proved the most interesting. It was really an overlapping of the more northern forests and the true Arctic, for a few Eskimos in coastal environments lived south of here, and some Indians lived north of the post, where there was still some forest. Each cultural group sought the surroundings their history had taught them to harmonize with; here at Great Whale River both Indians and Eskimos came to trade their fur. Even the Eskimos out on the Belcher Islands, about seventy miles off the coast, came over the winter ice to trade. On those treeless islands they had found the true Arctic—the Eskimo environment.
The same overlapping applied to the wildlife. Arctic forms appeared south of here; southern forms extended far to the north. Some species, such as the arctic hare, like the Eskimo, sought the open country. The varying hare, or snowshoe rabbit, like the Indian, preferred the forest. Each kind sought the habitat it had learned to survive in.
One day, as I was crossing the top of a rocky hill, I spied several rock ptarmigan squatting in the snow. I opened the Graflex camera and approached the nearest one. The image on the ground glass grew larger and larger, and finally I released the shutter. Still the bird did not move. Again I moved forward, and this time came so near I could hardly focus. I released the shutter. The bird was still sitting there! When I again drew nearer, the ptarmigan finally began to walk off in the snow. How tame could a wild bird be!
Another day I was tramping over the backcountry on snowshoes when I came across a fox track. A wild animal’s trail always fascinated me, so I followed it a way. I just wanted to see what the fox had been doing, and the trail in the snow would tell me.
That evening I told the folks at the trading post what I had seen. Harold, a Scandinavian who was one of the hired help at the post, showed an eager interest in my story and wanted to know where the track was. I wondered about his keen interest in natural history. Next morning he went out for a few hours—and came back with a silver fox! Thus I learned about the perseverance and skill of these hunters. However, I got something out of my fox trail,
