be employed in the business of fishing, and particularly with any degree
of success; but when the multitude of fish is taken into the account,
the wonder will cease. Indeed they were so numerous at the foot of the
fall, that when a light pole, armed with a few spikes, which was the
instrument the old woman used, was put under water, and hauled up with a
jerk, it was scarcely possible to miss them. Some of my Indians tried
the method, for curiosity, with the old woman's staff, and seldom got
less than two at a jerk, sometimes three or four. Those fish, though
very fine, and beautifully red, are but small, seldom weighing more (as
near as I could judge) than six or seven pounds, and in general much
less. Their numbers at this place were almost incredible, perhaps equal
to any thing that is related of the salmon in Kamschatka, or any other
part of the world. It does not appear that the Esquimaux have any other
method of catching the fish, unless it be by spears and darts; for no
appearance of nets was discovered either at their tents, or on any part
of the shore. This is the case with all the Esquimaux on the West side
of Hudson's Bay; spearing in Summer, and angling in Winter, are the only
methods they have yet devised to catch fish, though at {160} times their
whole dependence for support is on that article.[AO]
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
{161} When the Indians had plundered the seven tents of all the copper
utensils, which seemed the only thing worth {162} their notice, they
threw all the tents and tent-poles into the river, destroyed a vast
quantity of dried salmon, musk-oxen flesh, and other provisions; broke
all the stone kettles; and, in fact, did all the mischief they possibly
could to distress the poor creatures they could not murder, and who were
standing on the shoal before mentioned, obliged to be woeful spectators
of their great, or perhaps irreparable loss.
After the Indians had completed this piece of wantonness we sat down,
and made a good meal of fresh salmon, which were as numerous at the
place where we now rested, as they were on the West side of the river.
When we had finished our meal, which was the first we had enjoyed for
many hours, the Indians told me that they were again ready to assist me
in making an end of my survey. It was then about five o'clock in the
morning of the seventeenth, the sea being in sight from the North West
by West to the North East, about eight miles distant. I therefore set
instantly about commencing my survey, and pursued it to the mouth of the
river, which I found all the way so full of shoals and falls that it was
not navigable even for a boat, and that it emptied itself into the sea
over a ridge or bar. {163} The tide was then out; but I judged from the
marks which I saw on the edge of the ice, that it flowed about twelve
or fourteen feet, which will only reach a little way within the river's
mouth. The tide being out, the water in the river was perfectly fresh;
but I am certain of its being the sea, or some branch of it, by the
quantity of whalebone and seal-skins which the Esquimaux had at their
tents, and also by the number of seals[72] which I saw on the ice. At
the mouth of the river, the sea is full of islands and shoals, as far as
I could see with the assistance of a good pocket telescope. The ice was
not then broke up, but was melted away for about three quarters of a
mile from the main shore, and to a little distance round the islands and
shoals.
[Sidenote: 18th.]
By the time I had completed this survey, it was about one in the morning
of the eighteenth; but in those high latitudes, and at this season of
the year, the Sun is always at a good height above the horizon, so that
we had not only day light, but sunshine the whole night: a thick fog and
drizzling rain then came on, and finding that neither the river nor sea
were likely to be of any use, I did not think it worth while to wait for
fair weather to determine the latitude exactly by an observation; but by
the extraordinary care I took in observing the courses and distances
when I walked from Congecathawhachaga, where I had two good
observations, the latitude may be depended upon within twenty miles at
the utmost. For the sake of form, {164} however, after having had some
consultation with the Indians, I erected a mark, and took possession of
the coast, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company.[73]
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
Having finished this business, we set out on our return, and walked
about twelve miles to the South by East, when we stopped and took a
little sleep, which was the first time that any of us had closed our
eyes from the fifteenth instant, and it was now six o'clock in the
morning of the eighteenth. Here the Indians killed a musk-ox, but the
moss being very wet, we could not make a fire, so that we were obliged
to eat the meat raw, which was intolerable, as it happened to be an old
beast.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
Before I proceed farther on my return, it may not be improper to give
some account of the river, and the country adjacent; its productions,
and the animals which constantly inhabit those dreary regions, as well
as those that only migrate thither in Summer, in order to breed and rear
their young, unmolested by man. That I may do this to better purpose,
it will be necessary to go back to the place where I first came to the
river, which was about forty miles from its mouth.
Beside the stunted pines already mentioned, there are some tufts of
dwarf willows; plenty of Wishacumpuckey,[74] (as the English call it,
and which they use as tea); some {165} jackasheypuck, which the natives
use as tobacco; and a few cranberry and heathberry bushes; but not the
least appearance of any fruit.
The woods grow gradually thinner and smaller as you approach the sea;
and the last little tuft of pines that I saw is about thirty miles from
the mouth of the river, so that we meet with nothing between that spot
and the sea-side but barren hills and marshes.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
The general course of the river is about North by East; but in some
places it is very crooked, and its breadth varies from twenty yards to
four or five hundred. The banks are in general a solid rock, both sides
of which correspond so exactly with each other, as to leave no doubt
that the channel of the river has been caused by some terrible
convulsion of nature; and the stream is supplied by a variety of little
rivulets, that rush down the sides of the hills, occasioned chiefly by
the melting of the snow. Some of the Indians say, that this river takes
its rise from the North West side of Large White Stone Lake, which is at
the distance of near three hundred miles on a straight line; but I can
scarcely think that is the case, unless there be many intervening lakes,
which are supplied by the vast quantity of water that is collected in so
great an extent of hilly and mountainous country: for were it otherwise,
I should imagine that the multitude of small rivers, which must empty
themselves into the main stream in the course of so {166} great a
distance, would have formed a much deeper and stronger current than I
discovered, and occasioned an annual deluge at the breaking up of the
ice in the Spring, of which there was not the least appearance, except
at Bloody Fall, where the river was contracted to the breadth of about
twenty yards. It was at the foot of this fall that my Indians killed the
Esquimaux; which was the reason why I distinguished it by that
appellation. From this fall, which is about eight miles from the
sea-side, there are very few hills, and those not high. The land between
them is a stiff loam and clay, which, in some parts, produces patches of
pretty good grass, and in others tallish dwarf willows: at the foot of
the hills also there is plenty of fine scurvy-grass.
The Esquimaux at this river are but low in stature, none exceeding the
middle size, and though broad set, are neither well-made nor strong
bodied. Their complexion is of a dirty copper colour; some of the women,
however, are more fair and ruddy. Their dress much resembles that of the
Greenlanders in Davis's Straits, except the women's boots, which are not
stiffened out with whalebone, and the tails of their jackets are not
more than a foot long.
Their arms and fishing-tackle are bows and arrows, spears, lances,
darts, &c. which exactly resemble those made use of by the Esquimaux in
Hudson's Straits, and {167} which have been well described by
Crantz[AP]; but, for want of good edge-tools, are far inferior to them
in workmanship. Their arrows are either shod with a triangular piece of
black stone, like slate, or a piece of copper; but most commonly the
former.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
The body of their canoes is on the same construction as that of the
other Esquimaux, and there is no unnecessary prow-projection beyond the
body of the vessel; these, like their arms and other utensils, are, for
the want of better tools, by no means so neat as those I have seen in
Hudson's Bay and Straits. The double-bladed paddle is in universal use
among all the tribes of this people.
Their tents are made of parchment deer-skins in the hair, and are
pitched in a circular form, the same as those of the Esquimaux in
Hudson's Bay. These tents are undoubtedly no more than their Summer
habitations, for I saw the remains of two miserable hovels, which, from
the situation, the structure, and the vast quantity of bones, old shoes,
scraps of skins, and other rubbish lying near them, had certainly been
some of their Winter retreats. These houses were situated on the South
side of a hill; one half of them were under-ground, and the upper parts
closely set round with poles, meeting at the top in a conical form, like
their Summer-houses or tents. These tents, {168} when inhabited, had
undoubtedly been covered with skins; and in Winter entirely overspread
with the snow-drift, which must have greatly contributed to their
warmth. They were so small, that they did not contain more than six or
eight persons each; and even that number of any other people would have
found them but miserable habitations.
Their household furniture chiefly consists of stone kettles, and wooden
troughs of various sizes; also dishes, scoops, and spoons, made of the
buffalo or musk-ox horns. Their kettles are formed of a pepper and salt
coloured stone; and though the texture appears to be very coarse, and as
porous as a dripstone, yet they are perfectly tight, and will sound as
clear as a china bowl. Some of those kettles are so large as to be
capable of containing five or six gallons; and though it is impossible
these poor people can perform this arduous work with any other tools
than harder stones, yet they are by far superior to any that I had ever
seen in Hudson's Bay; every one of them being ornamented with neat
mouldings round the rim, and some of the large ones with a kind of
flute-work at each corner. In shape they were a long square, something
wider at the top than bottom, like a knife-tray, and strong handles of
the solid stone were left at each end to lift them up.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
Their hatchets are made of a thick lump of copper, about five or six
inches long, and from one and a half to two inches square; they are
bevelled away at one end like a {169} mortice-chissel. This is lashed
into the end of a piece of wood about twelve or fourteen inches long, in
such a manner as to act like an adze: in general they are applied to the
wood like a chissel, and driven in with a heavy club, instead of a
mallet. Neither the weight of the tool nor the sharpness of the metal
will admit of their being handled either as adze or axe, with any degree
of success.
The men's bayonets and women's knives are also made of copper; the
former are in shape like the ace of spades, with the handle of deers
horn a foot long, and the latter exactly resemble those described by
Crantz. Samples of both these implements I formerly sent home to James
Fitzgerald, Esq. then one of the Hudson's Bay Committee.
Among all the spoils of the twelve tents which my companions plundered,
only two small pieces of iron were found; one of which was about an inch
and a half long, and three eighths of an inch broad, made into a woman's
knife; the other was barely an inch long, and a quarter of an inch wide.
This last was rivetted into a piece of ivory, so as to form a man's
knife, known in Hudson's Bay by the name of _Mokeatoggan_, and is the
only instrument used by them in shaping all their wood-work.
Those people had a fine and numerous breed of dogs, with sharp erect
ears, sharp noses, bushy tails, &c. {170} exactly like those seen among
the Esquimaux in Hudson's Bay and Straits. They were all tethered to
stones, to prevent them, as I suppose, from eating the fish that were
spread all over the rocks to dry. I do not recollect that my companions
killed or hurt one of those animals; but after we had left the tents,
they often wished they had taken some of those fine dogs with them.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
Though the dress, canoes, utensils, and many other articles belonging to
these people, are very similar to those of Hudson's Bay, yet there is
one custom that prevails among them--namely, that of the men having all
the hair of their heads pulled out by the roots--which pronounces them
to be of a different tribe from any hitherto seen either on the coast of
Labradore, Hudson's Bay, or Davis's Straits. The women wore their hair
at full length, and exactly in the same stile as all the other Esquimaux
women do whom I have seen.
When at the sea-side, (at the mouth of the Copper River,) besides seeing
many seals on the ice, I also observed several flocks of sea-fowl flying
about the shores; such as, gulls, black-heads, loons, old wives,
ha-ha-wie's, dunter geese, arctic gulls, and willicks. In the adjacent
ponds also were some swans and geese in a moulting state, and in the
marshes some curlews and plover; plenty of hawks-eyes, (i.e. the green
plover,) and some yellow-legs;[75] also several other small birds, that
visit those Northern parts in the {171} Spring to breed and moult, and
which doubtless return Southward as the fall advances. My reason for
this conjecture is founded on a certain knowledge that all those birds
migrate in Hudson's Bay; and it is but reasonable to think that they are
less capable of withstanding the rigour of such a long and cold Winter
as they must necessarily experience in a country which is so many
degrees within the Arctic Circle, as that is where I now saw them.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
That the musk-oxen, deer, bears, wolves, wolvarines, foxes, Alpine
hares,[76] white owls, ravens, partridges, ground-squirrels, common
squirrels, ermins, mice, &c. are the constant inhabitants of those
parts, is not to be doubted. In many places, by the sides of the hills,
where the snow lay to a great depth, the dung of the musk-oxen and deer
was lying in such long and continued heaps, as clearly to point out that
those places had been their much-frequented paths during the preceding
Winter. There were also many other similar appearances on the hills, and
other parts, where the snow was entirely thawed away, without any print
of a foot being visible in the moss; which is a certain proof that these
long ridges of dung must have been dropped in the snow as the beasts
were passing and repassing over it in the Winter. There are likewise
similar proofs that the Alpine hare[77] and the partridge[78] do not
migrate, but remain there the whole year: the latter we found in
considerable flocks among the tufts of willows which grow near the sea.
{172} It is perhaps not generally known, even to the curious, therefore
may not be unworthy of observation, that the dung of the musk-ox, though
so large an animal, is not larger, and at the same time so near the
shape and colour of that of the Alpine hare, that the difference is not
easily distinguished but by the natives, though in general the quantity
may lead to a discovery of the animal to which it belongs.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
I did not see any birds peculiar to those parts, except what the Copper
Indians call the "Alarm Bird," or "Bird of Warning."[79] In size and
colour it resembles a Cobadekoock, and is of the owl genus. The name is
said to be well adapted to its qualities; for when it perceives any
people, or beast, it directs its way towards them immediately, and after
hovering over them some time, flies round them in circles, or goes
a-head in the same direction in which they walk. They repeat their
visits frequently; and if they see any other moving objects, fly
alternately from one party to the other, hover over them for some time,
and make a loud screaming noise, like the crying of a child. In this
manner they are said sometimes to follow passengers a whole day. The
Copper Indians put great confidence in those birds, and say they are
frequently apprized by them of the approach of strangers, and conducted
by them to herds of deer and musk-oxen; which, without their assistance,
in all probability, they never could have found.
{173} The Esquimaux seem not to have imbibed the same opinion of those
birds; for if they had, they must have been apprized of our approach
toward their tents, because all the time the Indians lay in ambush,
(before they began the massacre,) a large flock of those birds were
continually flying about, and hovering alternately over them and the
tents, making a noise sufficient to awaken any man out of the soundest
sleep.
After a sleep of five or six hours we once more set out, and walked
eighteen or nineteen miles to the South South East, when we arrived at
one of the copper mines, which lies, from the river's mouth about South
South East, distant about twenty-nine or thirty miles.
This mine, if it deserve that appellation, is no more than an entire
jumble of rocks and gravel, which has been rent many ways by an
earthquake. Through these ruins there runs a small river; but no part of
it, at the time I was there, was more than knee-deep.[80]
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
The Indians who were the occasion of my undertaking this journey,
represented this mine to be so rich and valuable, that if a factory were
built at the river, a ship might be ballasted with the ore, instead of
stone; and that with the same ease and dispatch as is done with stones
at Churchill River. By their account the hills were entirely composed of
that metal, all in handy lumps, like {174} a heap of pebbles. But their
account differed so much from the truth, that I and almost all my
companions expended near four hours in search of some of this metal,
with such poor success, that among us all, only one piece of any size
could be found. This, however, was remarkably good, and weighed above
four pounds.[AQ] I believe the copper has formerly been in much greater
plenty; for in many places, both on the surface and in the cavities and
crevices of the rocks, the stones are much tinged with verdigrise.
It may not be unworthy the notice of the curious, or undeserving a place
in my Journal, to remark, that the Indians imagine that every bit of
copper they find resembles some object in nature; but by what I saw of
the large piece, and some smaller ones which were found by my
companions, it requires a great share of invention to make this out. I
found that different people had different ideas on the subject, for the
large piece of copper above mentioned had not been found long before it
had twenty different names. One saying that it resembled this animal,
and another that it represented a particular part of another; at last it
was generally allowed to resemble an Alpine hare couchant: for my part,
I must confess that I could not see it had the least resemblance to any
thing to which they compared it. It would be endless to {175} enumerate
the different parts of a deer, and other animals, which the Indians say
the best pieces of copper resemble: it may therefore be sufficient to
say, that the largest pieces, with the fewest branches and the least
dross, are the best for their use; as by the help of fire, and two
stones, they can beat it out to any shape they wish.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
Before Churchill River was settled by the Hudson's Bay Company, which
was not more than fifty years previous to this journey being undertaken,
the Northern Indians had no other metal but copper among them, except a
small quantity of iron-work, which a party of them who visited York Fort
about the year one thousand seven hundred and thirteen, or one thousand
seven hundred and fourteen, purchased; and a few pieces of old iron
found at Churchill River, which had undoubtedly been left there by
Captain Monk. This being the case, numbers of them from all quarters
used every Summer to resort to these hills in search of copper; of which
they made hatchets, ice-chissels, bayonets, knives, awls, arrow-heads,
&c.[AR] The many {176} paths that had been beaten by the Indians on
these occasions, and which are yet, in many places, very perfect,
especially on the dry ridges and hills, is surprising; in the vallies
and marshy grounds, however, they are mostly grown over with herbage, so
as not to be discerned.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
The Copper Indians set a great value on their native metal even to this
day; and prefer it to iron, for almost every use except that of a
hatchet, a knife, and an awl: for these three necessary implements,
copper makes but a very poor substitute. When they exchange copper for
iron-work with our trading Northern Indians, which is but seldom, the
standard is an ice-chissel of copper for an ice-chissel of iron, or an
ice-chissel and a few arrow-heads of copper, for a half-worn hatchet;
but when they barter furrs with our Indians, the established rule is to
give ten times the price for every thing they purchase that is given for
them at the Company's Factory. Thus, a hatchet that is bought at the
Factory for one beaver-skin, or one cat-skin, or three ordinary martins'
skins, is sold to {177} those people at the advanced price of one
thousand _per cent._; they also pay in proportion, for knives, and every
other smaller piece of iron-work. For a small brass kettle of two
pounds, or two pounds and a half weight, they pay sixty martins, or
twenty beaver in other kinds of furrs.[AS] If the kettles are not
bruised, or ill-used in any other respect, the Northern traders have the
conscience at times to exact something more. It is at this extravagant
price that all the Copper and Dog-ribbed Indians, who traffic with our
yearly traders, supply themselves with iron-work, &c.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
From those two tribes our Northern Indians used formerly to purchase
most of the furrs they brought to the Company's Factory; for their own
country produced very few of those articles, and being, at that time, at
war with the Southern Indians, they were prevented from penetrating far
enough backwards to meet with many animals of the furr kind; so that
deer-skins, and {178} such furrs as they could extort from the Copper
and Dog-ribbed Indians, composed the whole of their trade; which, on an
average of many years, and indeed till very lately, seldom or ever
exceeded six thousand _Made Beaver per annum_.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]
At present happy it is for them, and greatly to the advantage of the
Company, that they are in perfect peace, and live in friendship with
their Southern neighbours. The good effect of this harmony is already so
visible, that within a few years the trade from that quarter has
increased many thousands of Made Beaver annually; some years even to the
amount of eleven thousand skins.[AT] Besides {179} the advantage arising
to the Company from this increase, the poor Northern Indians reap
innumerable benefits from a fine and plentiful country, with the produce
of which they annually load themselves for trade, without giving the
least offence to the proper inhabitants.
[Sidenote: 1771. July.]