the time busily, making short excursions into the backcountry, getting a few specimens, painting watercolor pictures of birds, and—the happiest experience of all—getting acquainted with the people.
A new variation in my sojourn came when, with Mr. Maver’s help, I took two Eskimo boys up the river a few miles for a five-day camping trip. By this time I had learned some Eskimo words and could carry on a little conversation. But we didn’t need to talk. As we went snowshoeing off from the post, I on the long, slender type called “gillies” and the boys on their little round ones, they were striding along with big smiles on their young faces. There are times when we don’t need words.
Leaving the camp we established, we came upon many rock ptarmigan, crossed weasel and lemming tracks, and discovered where an otter had been playing in the snow. It impressed me that in the summer, when I was on salary, I had felt an obligation to the museum, and with some exceptions my journal consisted largely of factual, scientific observations. Now, when I was on my own, I recorded more of my impressions and reactions to the events of this big natural world. While in this camp, on April 3, I made the following attempt to express some of my feelings:
“We met a sociable pair of Hudsonian chickadees, who came up close to us when I chirped. One of them would occasionally give vent to his cheerfulness with a little song-like trill. Surely spring is coming in earnest now! A little farther on we saw two pine grosbeaks flying off, and four redpolls; then three Canada jays. These are perfect days, living a free and easy camp life amid perfect surroundings—and spring is coming on!”
In a few days the boys and I were back at the trading post. At the store I asked them what they wanted for helping me in camp. One chose a mouth organ, the other a jumping jack.
Still, not all was pleasant at Great Whale River. One day I learned how desperate life up north can be. A young Indian staggered into the trading post, nearly dead from starvation. His family, camped far back in the forest, had run out of food, and he and his brother had started out for the trading post. His brother was carrying a muzzle-loading gun in hope of getting some ptarmigan along the way, but he accidentally lost the contents of the powder horn, so he could shoot nothing. Yet they struggled on, hoping to make it to the post or find someone. Finally the brother could go no farther, and this young one went on alone. His brother was out there about a mile, he thought.
People from the village hurried out and found the Indian, but he was dead. The other boy finally recovered, but I never did learn what happened to the family back in the woods.
This was a hungry country. I learned to eat hawks, owls, seabirds— anything that had meat on it. The Indians up here lived a most rugged life; yet they somehow had a kind view of nature, like the hunters who begged the bear’s pardon before shooting it. They were a humble people.
One day an Indian brought us a big chunk of meat. Someone had been lucky enough to kill a caribou. It had evidently been brought a long way, for it smelled terrible from decay. But Mr. Maver, who was accustomed to such problems, trimmed away the smelly outside, and in the center was enough wholesome meat for a nice roast, which we all enjoyed.
I had one little difficulty of another kind. I had bought an arctic fox from an Eskimo, paying him the price he would get at the post. Someone higher up heard about this and felt I should pay to the Eskimo the price the Hudson’s Bay Company would get in London. Apparently someone suspected I was going into fur-buying, in opposition to the company. But I could not afford that kind of business. That was the only fur I bought, and I finally won the argument.
Following some instructions given me by Mr. Renouf, I learned one day about another Indian custom. Out on the beach I found a simple heap of boulders. Being curious, and rather bold I suppose, I pushed away the larger of the boulders and there found the remains of an Indian baby, tightly sewed into a coarse fabric. There was no marker of any kind. So this was the way they disposed of human remains! I carefully replaced every boulder just as I had found it.
One day in March some Eskimos came over the ice from the Belcher Islands to trade their furs, and another group arrived from up north somewhere. I began to see more Eskimos in the village, and my thoughts went longingly northward. One morning I watched an Eskimo family loading their dogsled to go back up north. There was a little child bundled up safely on top of the load. The mother pulled up a few plants of heather, or crowberry, which carries its black berries through the winter. These she placed on the load in front of the little child, so there would be something to eat as they traveled along. Would I see these people again? As they moved away out onto the ice, I thought more than ever about going on north.
On March 20, my brother Martin’s birthday, my thoughts went southward, to our home in Minnesota—to another world. How was my family getting along? Here I was, on a long adventure with no income, and I wondered how my younger brother was doing, supporting the household. That home, so far away, was close and dear in my thoughts. But there could be no turning back in this far country. I was spending a year on my own and planning to get still farther north
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