Our camp visited by a band of Mountain Stonies--My schooling in the
university of frontier life--Back to our Mission again--Limited
_cuisine_--Home-made agricultural implements--We visit Victoria--Off
to Fort Carlton for Mission supplies--Inquisitive Chippewyans--My
eldest sister married to Mr. Hardisty, of the Hudson's Bay
Company--The honeymoon trip to Mountain House--Rival
sportsmen--Charging a flock of wild geese at full gallop--Return to
Pigeon Lake--Our work extending.
While we were near Spotted Lake we fell in with some five or six
lodges of Mountain Stonies, who were so overjoyed to see us that they
moved over and camped beside us for a time. Among them were the two
young fellows who came to our camp at the bend of Battle River during
the autumn of 1863, as readers of "SADDLE, SLED AND SNOWSHOE" may
remember.
This was our first meeting since that time, and we were naturally
pleased. Here was my opportunity as a missionary, and I seized it
with eagerness. In the tent, on the hunt, at our services, Sunday
and Monday and all the week, we were watching our opportunities and
preaching the gospel of peace and good-will, of a present and eternal
salvation. What a school to be placed in by the order of God's
providence!
For the work I had to do I must acquire an actual knowledge of the
country, I must gain the confidence of the people, I must learn their
language and mode of life, I must become familiar with their history,
their religion, and their idioms of thought; and here amongst these
Crees and Stonies, living with them in their own way and in their own
country, I was being educated for the work God had in hand for me to
do.
A short time ago, in one of the favored cities of older Canada, a
prominent lawyer asked me at the close of the service one Sunday
morning, "What university did you graduate from, Mr. McDougall?"
"The largest on earth," I answered; "all out of doors, amid the
varied experiences of frontier life." "Certainly," said the lawyer,
"it was a grand schooling, and you have profited by it." Thus God
was training me. My teachers were Samson and Paul, Cree and Stony,
Blackfoot and Blood, Piegan and Sarcee, and every Hudson's Bay
Company officer and employee, every cultivated traveller and hardy
pioneer and wild western empire foundation layer; and along with
these the grand pages of the older Bible, as written upon the
mountains and plains and forests and streams of this big new country.
I was learning every day some needed lesson.
Our Sundays were busy times. When the weather permitted we held
three open-air meetings. When it rained we went from lodge to lodge.
Mrs. McDougall sang well and rendered effective aid. The Indians
generally take to singing, and as some of the translations we used
were full of the very pith of the gospel message, their hearts were
reached; the men cried out for salvation, and through Jesus found it.
For some two weeks the Stonies remained with us, we doing what we
could for them in instruction in religious matters, as also awakening
within them a desire for knowledge as to the world and things in
general. When they left us to go back to the mountains we began to
move northward, and I concluded to leave with Samson what horses of
mine were still without loads, and move straight on to the lake, for
the time was drawing near when other parties might visit the Mission.
Accordingly we started, travelling as fast as our cow could keep
pace. While we had open country we kept the calf on an ordinary
travois, but when we came to the woods near Pigeon Lake, we made a
narrower one to suit the more limited space of the bridle-path. Mrs.
McDougall and our baby, old Maria and her boy, and myself constituted
the party. Travelling as we did, we reached the Mission on the fifth
day, and were glad to be at home once more. Our little one-roomed
house seemed a palace beside the smoky lodge of our pilgrimage.
We found everything as we left it. Apparently we were the first to
come in to the Mission, but in a day or two others from the west and
north came straggling in, and our work was ready to hand. In a
couple of weeks Samson arrived with more dried meat, having killed
several elk and moose after we had left him. The reader will be
astonished at the amount of meat we got through with, but one must
remember that our diet in those days was for the most part of the
time "meat straight" or "fish straight," with duck and rabbit for an
occasional change. It was one thing or the other; there were no
courses at our meals. Not only, however, were we without variety of
food, but we were as badly off for a change of dishes. Indeed, our
outfit for household purposes was small, and unique of its kind. But
our neighbors were even more poorly provided than we. Often when
invited to a feast by some successful friend, the shout would come
from the door of his lodge, "John, come along and bring your dish
with you." And I would take my dish or plate with me as I went.
[Illustration: "We carried the haycocks in between us on two poles."]
As we contemplated wintering at this point, I took Samson and went to
work making hay. Our implements were of the crudest sort. We had
scythes with improvised handles and wooden pitchforks, and when
stacking we carried the haycocks in between us on two poles. Samson
had never swung a scythe before, and he soon broke his, but
fortunately I had a spare one. He was apt, however, and learned
quickly. We worked hard and "made hay while the sun shone," and when
it rained we went hunting. When we had several good-sized stacks
made and strongly fenced, the time was come to journey down to the
older Mission, as per arrangement with our Chairman when we left
there last spring.
Our migratory people--for here people as well as preacher were
itinerants--had scattered, some for the mountains, others into the
northern forests, and quite a few to join the autumn hunt on the
plains. And as my wife and I were owners of three wooden carts and
three sets of rawhide cart harness, and a few cayuses, we concluded
to let old Paul's wife have a cart and horse on shares for this
"plain hunt." If the hunt was successful the outfit would bring us
some provisions for the coming winter.
I engaged Samson to go with us to Victoria, and when we left the lake
old Paul and Samson's wife and children were the only residents of
the Mission. Reaching Victoria, I found that father wanted me to
take charge of the transports from Whitefish Lake and Victoria
Missions and go with these to Fort Carlton, to bring from that point
the supplies needed for these Missions; it having been arranged that
the Hudson's Bay Company should bring these supplies to Carlton, but
no farther.
The party from the sister Mission joined forces with ours some little
distance below Saddle Lake, and we journeyed on as fast as was
consistent with conserving the strength of our stock for the return
journey. I was glad to find my old friend Peter Erasmus in charge of
the carts from Whitefish Lake Mission, and in great harmony and
good-fellowship we journeyed eastward. My friend Samson was a
decided acquisition on such a trip. He was dead sure on stock, up
early and late, and was ever an inspiration to the rest of our Indian
drivers. We made long days, and in short time compassed the three
hundred and more miles to Fort Carlton.
I camped my party on the north side of the river, at the foot of the
high bank of the Saskatchewan, and crossing over I met the Chief
Factor, who had just come across the plains from Fort Garry, and who
told me that our supplies had not yet reached Carlton. This was a
disappointment, but I at once asked him to give us Hudson's Bay
Company freight instead, and have them bring ours on later, to which
he at once acceded. Within an hour of our arrival we were carting
H.B.C. freight from their storehouse within the fort to the river
bank, and crossing this in a small boat and loading it into our own
carts on the north side.
It was while rushing this work that a small party of Chippewyans from
the north were looking on as we worked, and speculating as to who I
was. Was he a Hudson's Bay Company clerk, a free trader, or a
traveller bent on sport? "Who is this fellow, anyway?" was the
question which engaged their attention just then. Presently the
"Solon" of the party, doubtless wishing to evidence the fact that the
East had not a monopoly of wisdom, said, "I will tell you what he
is," and stepping up to me he offered to shake hands, and in doing
so, turned up the palm of my hand and saw the marks of blisters, for
I had been working hard. Seeing the condition of my hand, he turned
to his fellows and said, "He is only a common fellow." Like many
another man who lives under more favorable conditions, his judgment
of men was peculiar.
Early the next day we were on the road westward, and with incidents
no more exciting than breaking axles and splitting felloes and
snapping dowel-pins and handling balky horses, and in my own case
fighting a wretched toothache, we very soon rolled into the valley at
Victoria, and were complimented by my father on having made an
uncommonly quick trip.
We remained at Victoria until the Hudson's Bay Company brought along
father's outfit. Helping in all matters around the Mission kept us
busy with hands and head and heart. While we were at Victoria my
eldest sister, Eliza, was married to Richard Hardisty, of the
Hudson's Bay Company's service, who was then in charge of the
Mountain House. Immediately after the marriage they and Nellie, one
of my younger sisters, started on their long overland trip to the
distant trading-post. Some of us accompanied them out for a few
miles, enjoying some good shooting by the way, for the fowl were now
starting south. Hardisty and Philip Tait, another Hudson's Bay
Company officer, challenged my brother David and myself as to size
and quality of our several hunts, and we kept about even up to almost
the last minute, when David and I luckily saw a flock of geese light
in a shallow swamp at some distance from us. There was no cover
whatever to aid our approach, so I said to David, "Let us separate
and charge that swamp at full speed from two sides. Perhaps we will
bamboozle those geese by so doing." This we proceeded to do, and
urging our steeds to full speed, we came upon the birds so suddenly
that they did not know what to do. When they rose on David's side he
knocked two down; that sent them over to me, and I was equally
successful, so that we were thus put four birds ahead of our
competitors. This sport gave us a good time in giving our
newly-married friends a "send-off" on their honeymoon trip. Away up
at the foot of the Rockies, among the wild tribes of the mountains,
my sisters were to make their home for a time; but we all had great
faith in our new brother, so we wished them a hearty God-speed and
returned to Victoria. When the goods came, father helped us all he
could, and we soon were on the way back to Pigeon Lake. As I hoped
to build a small church, I took with me an English half-breed,
Francis Whitford by name, a handy fellow with an axe and saw, to aid
in the building operations.
It was now late in September, and we had a house to build for my man,
and a stable for a couple of oxen I had secured and for the calf,
whose mother we found had committed suicide while we were away! The
foolish old thing had started off in search of a mate, and despairing
of finding one, went into a miry lake some thirty-five miles from
home and there died.
And now that our Mission was permanently established, the Indians
came from long distances to sojourn for a little time with us, to
attend our meetings and listen to our message. Stonies and Crees and
mixed bloods, pagan and Roman Catholic and Protestant, all came to us
and were eager to learn. We were busy all day long and on into the
night, when by the light of the camp or chimney fire we preached and
lectured and sang and prayed, till out of the old life and old faith
men and women came into the light of the Gospel and into the life
that is born of the kingdom of Christ.