sagacity, would be as absurd in me, as it is in those Authors who think
they cannot allow them too much. I shall willingly grant them their full
share; but it is impossible for any one to conceive how, or by what
means, a beaver, whose full height when standing erect does not exceed
two feet and a half, or three feet at most, and whose fore-paws are not
much larger than a half-crown piece, can "drive stakes as thick as a
man's leg into the ground three or four feet deep." Their "wattling
those stakes with twigs," is equally absurd; and their "plaistering the
inside of their houses with a composition of mud and straw," and
"swimming with mud and stones on their tails," are still more
incredible. The form and size of the animal, notwithstanding all its
sagacity, will not admit of its performing such feats; and it would be
as impossible for a beaver to use its tail as a trowel, except on the
surface of the ground on which it walks, as it {233} would have been for
Sir James Thornhill to have painted the dome of St. Paul's cathedral
without the assistance of scaffolding. The joints of their tail will not
admit of their turning it over their backs on any occasion whatever, as
it has a natural inclination to bend downwards; and it is not without
some considerable exertion that they can keep it from trailing on the
ground. This being the case, they cannot sit erect like a squirrel,
which is their common posture: particularly when eating, or when they
are cleaning themselves, as a cat or squirrel does, without having their
tails bent forward between their legs; and which may not improperly be
called their trencher.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
So far are the beaver from driving stakes into the ground when building
their houses, that they lay most of the wood crosswise, and nearly
horizontal, and without any other order than that of leaving a hollow or
cavity in the middle; when any unnecessary branches project inward, they
cut them off with their teeth, and throw them in among the rest, to
prevent the mud from falling through the roof. It is a mistaken notion,
that the wood-work is first completed and then plaistered; for the whole
of their houses, as well as their dams, are from the foundation one mass
of wood and mud, mixed with stones, if they can be procured. The mud is
always taken from the edge of the bank, or the bottom of the creek or
pond, near the door of the house; and though their fore-paws are so
small, yet it is held close up between them, under their throat, {234}
that they carry both mud and stones; while they always drag the wood
with their teeth.
All their work is executed in the night; and they are so expeditious in
completing it, that in the course of one night I have known them to have
collected as much mud at their houses as to have amounted to some
thousands of their little handfuls; and when any mixture of grass or
straw has appeared in it, it has been, most assuredly, mere chance,
owing to the nature of the ground from which they had taken it. As to
their designedly making a composition for that purpose, it is entirely
void of truth.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
It is a great piece of policy in those animals, to cover, or plaister,
as it is usually called, the outside of their houses every fall with
fresh mud, and as late as possible in the Autumn, even when the frost
becomes pretty severe; as by this means it soon freezes as hard as a
stone, and prevents their common enemy, the quiquehatch, from disturbing
them during the Winter. And as they are frequently seen to walk over
their work, and sometimes to give a flap with their tail, particularly
when plunging into the water, this has, without doubt, given rise to the
vulgar opinion that they use their tails as a trowel, with which they
plaister their houses; whereas that flapping of the tail is no more than
a custom, which they always preserve, even when they become tame and
domestic, and more particularly so when they are startled.
{235} Their food chiefly consists of a large root, something resembling
a cabbage-stalk, which grows at the bottom of the lakes and rivers. They
eat also the bark of trees, particularly that of the poplar, birch, and
willow; but the ice preventing them from getting to the land in Winter,
they have not any barks to feed upon during that season, except that of
such sticks as they cut down in Summer, and throw into the water
opposite the doors of their houses; and as they generally eat a great
deal, the roots above mentioned constitute a chief part of their food
during the Winter. In Summer they vary their diet, by eating various
kinds of herbage, and such berries as grow near their haunts during that
season.
When the ice breaks up in the Spring, the beaver always leave their
houses, and rove about the whole Summer, probably in search of a more
commodious situation; but in case of not succeeding in their endeavours,
they return again to their old habitations a little before the fall of
the leaf, and lay in their Winter stock of woods. They seldom begin to
repair the houses till the frost commences, and never finish the
outer-coat till the cold is pretty severe, as hath been already
mentioned.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
When they shift their habitations, or when the increase of their number
renders it necessary to make some addition to their houses, or to erect
new ones, they begin felling {236} the wood for these purposes early in
the Summer, but seldom begin to build till the middle or latter end of
August, and never complete their houses till the cold weather be set in.
Notwithstanding what has been so repeatedly reported of those animals
assembling in great bodies, and jointly erecting large towns, cities,
and commonwealths, as they have sometimes been called, I am confident,
from many circumstances, that even where the greatest numbers of beaver
are situated in the neighbourhood of each other, their labours are not
carried on jointly in the erection of their different habitations, nor
have they any reciprocal interest, except it be such as live immediately
under the same roof; and then it extends no farther than to build or
keep a dam which is common to several houses. In such cases it is
natural to think that every one who receives benefit from such dams,
should assist in erecting it, being sensible of its utility to all.
Persons who attempt to take beaver in Winter should be thoroughly
acquainted with their manner of life, otherwise they will have endless
trouble to effect their purpose, and probably without success in the
end; because they have always a number of holes in the banks, which
serve them as places of retreat when any injury is offered to their
houses; and in general it is in those holes that they are taken.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
{237} When the beaver which are situated in a small river or creek are
to be taken, the Indians sometimes find it necessary to stake the river
across, to prevent them from passing; after which, they endeavour to
find out all their holes or places of retreat in the banks. This
requires much practice and experience to accomplish, and is performed in
the following manner: Every man being furnished with an ice-chisel,
lashes it to the end of a small staff about four or five feet long; he
then walks along the edge of the banks, and keeps knocking his chisels
against the ice. Those who are well acquainted with that kind of work
well know by the sound of the ice when they are opposite to any of the
beavers' holes or vaults.
As soon as they suspect any, they cut a hole through the ice big enough
to admit an old beaver; and in this manner proceed till they have found
out all their places of retreat, or at least as many of them as
possible. While the principal men are thus employed, some of the
understrappers, and the women, are busy in breaking open the house,
which at times is no easy task; for I have frequently known these houses
to be five and six feet thick; and one in particular, was more than
eight feet thick on the crown. When the beaver find that their
habitations are invaded, they fly to their holes in the banks for
shelter; and on being perceived by the Indians, which is easily done, by
attending to the motion of the water, they block up the entrance with
stakes of wood, and then haul the beaver out of its hole, either by
hand, if they can reach it, or with a large hook {238} made for that
purpose, which is fastened to the end of a long stick.
In this kind of hunting, every man has the sole right to all the beaver
caught by him in the holes or vaults; and as this is a constant rule,
each person takes care to mark such as he discovers, by sticking up the
branch of a tree, or some other distinguishing post, by which he may
know them. All that are caught in the house also are the property of the
person who finds it.
The same regulations are observed, and the same process used in taking
beaver that are found in lakes and other standing waters, except it be
that of staking the lake across, which would be both unnecessary and
impossible. Taking beaver-houses in these situations is generally
attended with less trouble and more success than in the former.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
The beaver is an animal which cannot keep under water long at a time; so
that when their houses are broke open, and all their places of retreat
discovered, they have but one choice left, as it may be called, either
to be taken in their houses or their vaults: in general they prefer the
latter; for where there is one beaver caught in the house, many
thousands are taken in their vaults in the banks. Sometimes they are
caught in nets, and in the Summer very frequently in traps. In Winter
they are very fat and {239} delicious; but the trouble of rearing their
young, the thinness of their hair, and their constantly roving from
place to place, with the trouble they have in providing against the
approach of Winter, generally keep them very poor during the Summer
season, at which time their flesh is but indifferent eating, and their
skins of so little value, that the Indians generally singe them, even to
the amount of many thousands in one Summer. They have from two to five
young, at a time. Mr. Dobbs, in his Account of Hudson's Bay, enumerates
no less than eight different kinds of beaver[99]; but it must be
understood that they are all of one kind and species; his distinctions
arise wholly from the different seasons of the year in which they are
killed, and the different uses to which their skins are applied, which
is the sole reason that they vary so much in value.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
Joseph Lefranc, or Mr. Dobbs for him, says, that a good hunter can kill
six hundred beaver in one season, and can only carry one hundred to
market. If that was really the case in Lefranc's time, the canoes must
have been much smaller than they are at present; for it is well known
that the generality of the canoes which have visited the Company's
Factories for the last forty or fifty years, are capable of carrying
three hundred beaver-skins with great ease, exclusive of the Indians
luggage, provisions, &c.[100]
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
{240} If ever a particular Indian killed six hundred beaver in one
Winter, (which is rather to be doubted), it is more than probable that
many in his company did not kill twenty, and perhaps some none at all,
so that by distributing them among those who had bad success, and others
who had no abilities for that kind of hunting, there would be no
necessity of leaving them to rot, or for singing them in the fire, as
related by that Author. During my residence among the Indians I have
known some individuals kill more beaver, and other heavy furrs, in the
course of a Winter, than their wives could manage; but the overplus was
never wantonly destroyed, but always given to their relations, or to
those who had been less successful; so that the whole of the great
hunters' labours were always brought to the Factory. It is indeed too
frequently a custom among the Southern Indians to singe many otters, as
well as beaver; but this is seldom done, except in Summer, when their
skins are of so little value as to be scarcely worth the duty; on which
account it has been always thought impolitic to encourage the natives to
kill such valuable animals at a time when their skins are not in season.
The white beaver, mentioned by Lefranc, are so rare, that instead of
being "blown upon by the Company's Factors," as he asserts, I rather
doubt whether one-tenth of them ever saw one during the time of their
residence in this country. In the course of twenty years experience in
the countries {241} about Hudson's Bay, though I travelled six hundred
miles to the West of the sea-coast, I never saw but one white
beaver-skin, and it had many reddish and brown hairs along the ridge of
the back, and the sides and belly were of a glossy silvery white. It was
deemed by the Indians a great curiosity; and I offered three times the
usual price for a few of them, if they could be got; but in the course
of ten years that I remained there afterward, I could not procure
another; which is a convincing proof there is no such thing as a breed
of that kind, and that a variation from the usual colour is very rare.
Black beaver, and that of a beautiful gloss, are not uncommon: perhaps
they are more plentiful at Churchill than at any other Factory in the
Bay; but it is rare to get more than twelve or fifteen of their skins in
the course of one year's trade.
Lefranc, as an Indian, must have known better than to have informed Mr.
Dobbs that the beaver have from ten to fifteen young at a time; or if he
did, he must have deceived him wilfully; for the Indians, by killing
them in all stages of gestation, have abundant opportunities of
ascertaining the usual number of their offspring. I have seen some
hundreds of them killed at the seasons favourable for those
observations, and never could discover more than six young in one
female, and that only in two {242} instances; for the usual number, as I
have before observed, is from two to five.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
Besides this unerring method of ascertaining the real number of young
which any animal has at a time, there is another rule to go by, with
respect to the beaver, which experience has proved to the Indians never
to vary or deceive them, that is by dissection; for on examining the
womb of a beaver, even at a time when not with young, there is always
found a hardish round knob for every young she had at the last litter.
This is a circumstance I have been particularly careful to examine, and
can affirm it to be true, from real experience.
Most of the accounts, nay I may say all the accounts now extant,
respecting the beaver, are taken from the authority of the French who
have resided in Canada; but those accounts differ so much from the real
state and oeconomy of all the beaver to the North of that place, as to
leave great room to suspect the truth of them altogether. In the first
place, the assertion that they have two doors to their houses, one on
the land-side, and the other next the water, is, as I have before
observed, quite contrary to fact and common sense, as it would render
their houses of no use to them, either as places of shelter from the
inclemency of the extreme cold in Winter, or as a retreat from their
common enemy the quiquehatch. The only thing {243} that could have made
M. Du Pratz, and other French writers, conjecture that such a thing did
exist, must have been from having seen some old beaver houses which had
been taken by the Indians; for they are always obliged to make a hole in
one side of the house before they can drive them out; and it is more
than probable that in so mild a climate as Canada, the Indians do
generally make those holes on the land-side,[BA] which without doubt
gave rise to the suggestion.
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
[Sidenote: 1771. December.]
In respect to the beaver dunging in their houses, as some persons
assert, it is quite wrong, as they always plunge into the water to do
it. I am the better enabled to make this assertion, from having kept
several of them till they became so domesticated as to answer to their
name, and follow those to whom they were accustomed, in the same manner
as a dog would do; and they were as much pleased at being fondled, as
any animal I ever saw. I had a house built for them, and a small piece
of water before the door, into which they always plunged when they
wanted to ease nature; and their dung being of a light substance,
immediately rises and floats on the surface, {244} then separates and
subsides to the bottom. When the Winter sets in so as to freeze the
water solid, they still continue their custom of coming out of their
house, and dunging and making water on the ice; and when the weather was
so cold that I was obliged to take them into my house, they always went
into a large tub of water which I set for that purpose; so that they
made not the least dirt, though they were kept in my own sitting-room,
where they were the constant companions of the Indian women and
children, and were so fond of their company, that when the Indians were
absent for any considerable time, the beaver discovered great signs of
uneasiness, and on their return shewed equal marks of pleasure, by
fondling on them, crawling into their laps, laying on their backs,
sitting erect like a squirrel, and behaving to them like children who
see their parents but seldom. In general, during the Winter they lived
on the same food as the women did, and were remarkably fond of rice and
plum-pudding: they would eat partridges and fresh venison very freely,
but I never tried them with fish, though I have heard they will at times
prey on them. In fact, there are few of the granivorous animals that may
not be brought to be carnivorous. It is well known that our domestic
poultry will eat animal food: thousands of geese that come to London
market are fattened on tallow-craps; and our horses in Hudson's Bay
would not only eat all kinds of animal food, but also drink freely of
the wash, or pot-liquor, intended for the {245} hogs. And we are assured
by the most authentic Authors, that in Iceland, not only black cattle,
but also the sheep, are almost entirely fed on fish and fish-bones
during the Winter season. Even in the Isles of Orkney, and that in
Summer, the sheep attend the ebbing of the tide as regular as the
Esquimaux curlew, and go down to the shore which the tide has left, to
feed on the sea-weed. This, however, is through necessity, for even the
famous Island of Pomona[BB] will not afford them an existence above
high-water-mark.
With respect to the inferior, or slave-beaver, of which some Authors
speak, it is, in my opinion, very difficult for those who are best
acquainted with the oeconomy of this animal to determine whether there
are any that deserve that appellation or not. It sometimes happens, that
a beaver is caught, which has but a very indifferent coat, and which has
broad patches on the back, and shoulders almost wholly without hair.
This is the only foundation for asserting that there is an inferior, or
slave-beaver, among them. And when one of the above description is
taken, it is perhaps too hastily inferred that the hair is worn off from
those parts by carrying heavy loads: whereas it is most probable that it
is caused by a disorder that attacks them somewhat similar to the mange;
for {246} were that falling off of the hair occasioned by performing
extra labour, it is natural to think that instances of it would be more
frequent than there are; as it is rare to see one of them in the course
of seven or ten years. I have seen a whole house of those animals that
had nothing on the surface of their bodies but the fine soft down; all
the long hairs having molted off. This and every other deviation from
the general run is undoubtedly owing to some particular disorder.
FOOTNOTES:
[86] Sir John Richardson says of Thaye-chuck-gyed Lake that it lies a
short way to the northward of Point Lake.
[87] These are larvæ of a fly (_Hypoderma liniata?_), the eggs of which
are laid in the skins of the deer in the early part of the summer. Here
they develop to the size of buckshot or larger, and those portions of
the skin covering them become very thin, so that when the hide is taken
off and tanned it is so full of holes, a quarter of an inch or more in
diameter, as to be almost entirely useless.
[88] Sir John Franklin crossed Point Lake in 1821, and the "small
scrubby woods" on its banks were noted by him, when he descended and
surveyed the Coppermine River from it to the sea. Hearne places the
south side of this lake on his map in North latitude 65° 45', only about
thirty-five miles north of its true position. Caspar Whitney crossed
Point Lake in the spring of 1895, and calls it Ecka tua (Fat-Water
Lake). ("On Snowshoes to the Barren Grounds." By Caspar Whitney, p.
209.) Russell, in speaking of the Coppermine River which he crossed in
April 1894, says, "It takes its rise in a large lake, called Ek-a Tooh,
which is two days' journey in length." ("Explorations in the Far North."
By Frank Russell, p. 112.)
[89] There is no evidence that any observations for latitude had been
taken since he left Congecathawhachaga. Possibly the quadrant had been
left behind with the women at that place, to be picked up again when he
returned. But now, with the destruction of the quadrant, all uncertainty
as to the character of the remainder of his survey is set at rest. His
distances were estimated, and the general directions were doubtless
taken with a magnetic compass, while observations for latitude were
impossible.
[AV] The piece of iron above mentioned was the coulter of a
new-fashioned plough, invented by Captain John Fowler, late Governor of
Churchill River, with which he had a large piece of ground ploughed, and
afterwards sowed with oats: but the part being nothing but a hot burning
sand, like the Spanish lines at Gibraltar, the success may easily be
guessed; which was, that it did not produce a single grain.
[90] This lake is identified by Sir John Richardson as the Providence
Lake of Franklin and of the present maps, but it is more likely to be
Mackay Lake, which is much more nearly the size of lake here described,
and the description of the woods on the south shore agrees closely with
the description of Lake Mackay given by Mr. Warburton Pike, who visited
that region in 1890. This determination agrees also with the statement
of Hearne, that No Name Lake lies but a short distance north of the edge
of the "main woods," for the northern edge of the forest crosses the
country from east to west, a few miles south of this lake. On Caspar
Whitney's map of his trip through the barren grounds this lake is called
King or Grizzly Bear Lake. Mr. C. Harding, the officer in charge of Fort
Resolution, the Hudson Bay Company's post on Great Slave Lake, has sent
me the following Chipewyan Indian names of lakes, &c., in this region:--
ENGLISH. CHIPEWYAN. MEANING.
Mackay Lake. Clayki thua. White Sand Lake.
Le Gras Lake. A ka thua. Fat Lake.
(doubtless the same as Point Lake).
Aylmer Lake. Chlueata thua. Caribou swimming among
the ice Lake.
Artillery Lake. Atacho thua. Caribou crossing in the
middle of the lake Lake.
Coppermine River. Sanka taza. Copper River.
Musk Ox Mountain. Edegadaniyatha.
[91] Mr. Harding informs me this is a lake lying a short distance south
of Mackay Lake, and now known as "Lake of the Enemy." Anaw'd is
doubtless the same word as Enna, which is the Chipewyan name for a Cree
Indian.
Away to the west of this another large lake is indicated on the map,
doubtless from the reports of the Indians, but no name is attached to
it. On the Cook map this western lake is called Edlande Lake.
[92] L'abbé Petitot states (_op. cit._, p. 143) that there are five
rivers flowing into the north side of McLeod Bay of Great Slave Lake,
and the little stream which flows from Methy Lake is doubtless one of
these, and possibly Hoarfrost River. In that case Methy Lake is almost
certainly Cook Lake, which agrees with Hearne's description inasmuch as
it lies just within the edge of the woods.
[93] Great Slave Lake.
[AW] The course of this river is nearly South West.
[94] _Lepus americanus_ (Erxl.).--E. A. P.
[95] _Canachites canadensis_ (Linn.).--E. A. P.
[AX] His name was Cos-abyagh, the Northern Indian name for the Rock
Partridge.