[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: KA-KAKE AND THE BUFFALO--(See page 155).]
FOREST, LAKE
AND PRAIRIE
TWENTY YEARS OF FRONTIER LIFE
IN WESTERN CANADA--1842-62.
BY
JOHN McDOUGALL
SECOND EDITION
TORONTO:
WILLIAM BRIGGS
1910
Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the
year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by WILLIAM BRIGGS,
Toronto, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, at Ottawa.
TO
My Dear Mother
THIS BOOK
is
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Childhood--Indians--Canoes--"Old Isaiah"--Father goes to college
CHAPTER II.
Guardians--School--Trip to Nottawasaga--Journey to Alderville--Elder
Case--The wild colt, etc
CHAPTER III.
Move into the far north--Trip from Alderville to Garden
River--Father's work--Wide range of big steamboat--My trip to Owen
Sound--Peril in storm--In store at Penetanguishene--Isolation--First
boat--Brother David knocked down
CHAPTER IV.
Move to Rama--I go to college--My chum--How I cure him--Work in store
in Orillia--Again attend college--Father receives appointment to
"Hudson's Bay "--Asks me to accompany him.
CHAPTER V.
From Rama to St. Paul--Mississippi steamers--Slaves--Pilot--Race
CHAPTER VI.
Across the plains--Mississippi to the
Red--Pemmican--Mosquitoes--Dogs--Hunting--Flat boat--Hostile Indians
CHAPTER VII.
From Georgetown on the Red to Norway House on the Nelson--Old Fort
Garry--Governor MacTavish--York boats--Indian gamblers--Welcome by H.
B. Co. people
CHAPTER VIII.
New mission--The people--School--Invest in
pups--Dog-driving--Foot-ball--Beautiful aurora
CHAPTER IX.
First real winter trip--Start--Extreme fatigue--Conceit all
gone--Cramps--Change--Will-power--Find myself--Am as capable as
others--Oxford House--Jackson's Bay
CHAPTER X.
Enlarging church--Winter camp--How evenings are spent--My
boys--Spring--The first goose, etc
CHAPTER XI.
Opening of navigation--Sturgeon fishing--Rafting timber--Sawing lumber
CHAPTER XII.
Summer transport--Voyageurs--Norway House--The meeting place of many
brigades--Missionary work intensified
CHAPTER XIII.
Canoe trip to Oxford--Serious accident
CHAPTER XIV.
Establish a fishery--Breaking dogs--Dog-driving, etc.
CHAPTER XV.
Winter trip to Oxford--Extreme cold--Quick travelling
CHAPTER XVI.
Mother and baby's upset--My humiliation
CHAPTER XVII.
From Norway House to the great plains--Portaging--Pulling and poling
against the strong current--Tracking
CHAPTER XVIII.
Enter the plains--Meet a flood--Reach Fort Carlton
CHAPTER XIX.
The Fort--Buffalo steak--"Out of the latitude of bread"
CHAPTER XX.
New surroundings--Plain Indians--Strange costumes--Glorious
gallops--Father and party arrive
CHAPTER XXI.
Continue journey--Old "La Gress"--Fifty miles per day
CHAPTER XXII.
Fort Pitt--Hunter's paradise--Sixteen buffalo with seventeen
arrows--"Big Bear"
CHAPTER XXIII.
On to White-fish Lake--Beautiful country--Indian camp--Strike
northward into forest land
CHAPTER XXIV.
The new Mission--Mr. Steinhauer--Benjamin Sinclair
CHAPTER XXV.
Measurement of time--Start for Smoking Lake--Ka-Kake--Wonderful
hunting feat--Lose horse--Tough meat
CHAPTER XXVI.
Mr. Woolsey--Another new mission
CHAPTER XXVII.
Strike south for buffalo and Indians--Strange mode of crossing "Big
River"--Old Besho and his eccentricities--Five men dine on two small
ducks
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Bear hunt--Big grizzlies--Surfeit of fat meat
CHAPTER XXIX.
The first buffalo--Father excited--Mr. Woolsey lost--Strike trail of
big camp--Indians dash at us--Meet Maskepetoon
CHAPTER XXX.
Large camp--Meet Mr. Steinhauer--Witness process of making
provisions--Strange life
CHAPTER XXXI.
Great meeting--Conjurers and medicine-men look on under
protest--Father prophesies--Peter waxes eloquent as interpreter--I
find a friend
CHAPTER XXXII.
The big hunt--Buffalo by the thousand--I kill my first
buffalo--Wonderful scene
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Another big meeting--Move camp--Sunday service all day
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Great horse-race--"Blackfoot," "Moose Hair," and others--No
gambling--How "Blackfoot" was captured
CHAPTER XXXV.
Formed friendships--Make a start--Fat wolves--Run one--Reach the
Saskatchewan at Edmonton
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Swim horses--Cross in small boat--Dine at officers' table on pounded
meat without anything else--Sup on ducks--No carving
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Start for new home--Miss seeing father--Am very lonely--Join Mr.
Woolsey
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
William goes to the plains--I begin work at Victoria--Make
hay--Plough--Hunt--Storm
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Establish a fishery--Build a boat--Neils becomes morbid--I watch him
CHAPTER XL.
Lake freezes--I go for rope--Have a narrow escape from wolf and
drowning--We finish our fishing--Make sleds--Go home--Camp of
starving Indians en route
CHAPTER XLI.
Mr. O. B.--The murderer--The liquor keg
CHAPTER XLII.
William comes back--Another refuge seeker comes to us--Haul our fish
home--Hard work
CHAPTER XLIII.
Flying trip to Edmonton--No snow--Bare ice--Hard travel--A
Blackfoot's prayer
CHAPTER XLIV.
Midnight mass--Little Mary--Foot-races--Dog-races, etc.--Reach my
twentieth birthday--End of this book
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Ka-Kake and the buffalo ... _Frontispiece_
Isaiah and the bear
The _Traveller_ in distress
How I cured my chum
My delight was to drive the four-in-hand
I had a big time keeping them out of our boat
My first winter trip
The upset
I lose my balance--and some conceit
Fort Carlton
An expert hunter
A new kind of boat
I kill my first bear
Buffalo and hunters disappeared in the hills from our view (missing
from book)
We were surprised by a troop of Indian cavalry
Maskepetoon's camp
The buffalo hunt
When the camp moved, parallel columns were formed
The horse-race
"Gun-shock"--"Goose-comfort"
The start to the fishery
A big haul
A close call
Straight out from the danger the strong train drew us
FOREST, LAKE AND PRAIRIE.
CHAPTER I.
Childhood--Indians--Canoes--"Old Isaiah"--Father goes to college.
My parents were pioneers. I was born on the banks of the Sydenham
River in a log-house, one of the first dwellings, a very few of which
made up the frontier village of Owen Sound. This was in the year
1842.
My earliest recollections are of stumps, log heaps, great forests,
corduroy roads, Indians, log and birch-bark canoes, bateaux, Mackinaw
boats, etc. I have also a very vivid recollection of deep snow in
winter, and very hot weather and myriad mosquitoes in summer.
My father was first settler, trapper, trader, sailor, and local
preacher. He was one of the grand army of pioneers who took
possession of the wilderness of Ontario, and in the name of God and
country began the work of reclamation which has ever since gone
gloriously on, until to-day Ontario is one of the most comfortable
and prosperous parts of our great country.
God fitted those early settlers for their work, and they did it like
heroes. Mother was a strong Christian woman, content, patient,
plodding, full of quiet, restful assurance, pre-eminently qualified
to be the companion and helper of one who had to hew his way from the
start out of the wildness of this new world. My mother says I spoke
Indian before I spoke English.
My first memories are of these original dwellers in the land. I grew
up amongst them, ate corn-soup out of their wooden bowls, roasted
green ears at their camp-fires, feasted with them on deer and bear's
meat, went with them to set their nets and to spear fish at nights by
the light of birch-bark flambeaux, and, later on, fat pine light-jack
torches. Bows and arrows, paddles and canoes were my playthings, and
the dusky forest children were my playmates.
Father, very early in my childhood, taught me how to swim, and, later
on, to shoot and skate and sail. Many a trip I had with my father on
his trading voyages to the Manitoulin and other islands of Lake Huron
and Georgian Bay, where he would obtain his loads of fish, furs and
maple sugar, and sail with these to Detroit and other eastern and
southern ports. Father had for cook and general servant a colored
man, Isaiah by name. Isaiah was my special friend; I was his
particular charge. His bigness and blackness and great kindness made
him a hero in my boyish mind. My contact with Isaiah, and my
association with the Indians, very early made a real democrat of me.
I never could bear to hear a black man called a "nigger," nor yet an
Indian a "buck." Isaiah was an expert sailor, as also a good cook,
but it was his great big heart that won me to him, and which to-day,
though nearly fifty years have passed since then, brings a dampness
to my eye as I remember my "big black friend."
On some of his voyages father had a tame bear with him. This bear
was a source of great annoyance to Isaiah, for Bruin would be
constantly smelling around the caboose in which the stove and cooking
apparatus were placed, and where Isaiah would fain reign supreme.
One evening Isaiah was cooking pancakes, and was, while doing so,
absent-minded--perhaps thinking of those old slavery days when he had
undergone terrible hardships and great cruelty from his ignorant and
selfish brothers, who claimed to own him, "soul and body." Whatever
it was, he forgot to watch his cakes sufficiently, for Mr. Bear was
whipping them off the plate as fast as Isaiah was putting them on.
Father and a fellow-passenger were looking on and enjoying the fun.
By and by Isaiah was heard to say, "Guess he had enough for the
gentlemans to begin with;" but, lo! to his wonderment when he went to
take the cakes, they were gone; and in his surprise he looked around,
but there was no one near but the bear, and he looked very innocent.
So Isaiah seemed to conclude that he had not made any cakes, and
accordingly went to work in earnest, but, at the same time,
determined that there should be no mistake in the matter. Presently
he caught the thief in the act of taking the cake from the plate, and
then he went for the bear with the big spoon in his hand, with which
he was dipping and beating the batter. The chase became exciting.
Around the caboose, across the deck, up the rigging flew the bear.
Isaiah was close after him, but finally found that the bear was too
agile for him, for presently he came back, a wiser and, for the time,
a more watchful man.
When I was six years of age I had two little brothers, one between
three and four, and the other a baby boy, about a year old--the older
one named David, who is still living, and is now my nearest neighbor.
The other we called Moses; he was a beautiful little fellow, and
father almost idolized him. Once we lost him. What excitement we
had, and also great alarm! By and by I found him in a sort of
store-room behind the door, digging into a "mo-kuk," or bark vessel
of maple sugar, face and hands smeared with it. What joy there was
over the little innocent!
But one summer, while father was away on one of his fishing and
trading trips, our baby boy "sickened and died." This was my first
contact with death; it was terrible to witness baby's pain and
mother's grief. We buried our loved one in the Indian burying-ground
at Newash (now Brook).
[Illustration: ISAIAH AND THE BEAR]
Two years ago I looked in vain for the grave; it is lost to view, but
never will I forget those sad days and nights during my little
brother's sickness. Our Indian neighbors did all they could to help
and comfort. Neither will I forget the hard time of meeting father
at the beach, when he came ashore and found that his darling boy was
dead and buried. Often since then have I come into contact with
death in many shapes, but this first experience stamped itself on my
brain.
Sometimes I went with father to his appointments to preach in the
homes of the new settlers. What deep snow, what narrow roads, what
great, dark, sombre woods we drove through! How solemn the meetings
in those humble homes! How poor some of the people were--little
clearings in great forests; rough, unhewn logs, with trough roofs.
How those people did sing! What loud amens! I almost seem to hear
them now.
I had an uncle settled in the bush not far from Owen Sound. I
remember distinctly going with him and his family to meeting one
winter's day. We had a yoke of oxen and a big sleigh. "Whoa! Haw!
Gee!" and the old woods rang as we drove slowly to that "Gospel
meeting" through the deep, deep snow in those early days. Then, as
now, the cursed liquor traffic was to the front, and many a white man
went by the board and ruined himself and family under its baneful
influence. Many a poor Indian was either burned, or drowned, or
killed in some other way, because of the trade which was carried on
through this death-dealing stuff. The white man's cupidity, and
selfishness, and gross brutality too often found a victim in his
weaker red brother.
Very early in my childhood I was made to witness scenes and listen to
sounds which were more of "hell than earth," and which made me, even
then, a profound hater of the vile stuff, as also of the viler
traffic.
My father, who was a strong temperance man, had many a "close call"
in his endeavors to stop this trade, and to save the Indians from its
influence, incurring the hatred of both white and red men of the
vilest class.
Once when I was walking with him through the Indian village of
Newash, I saw an Indian under the influence of liquor come at us with
his gun pointed. I was greatly startled, and wondered what father
would do; but he merely stood to face him, and, unbuttoning his coat,
dared the Indian to shoot him. This bold conduct on father's part
made the drunken fellow slink away, muttering as he went. Ah!
thought I, what a brave man father is! and this early learned
object-lesson was not lost on the little boy who saw it all.
Whiskey, wickedness and cowardice were on one side, and on the other,
manliness, pluck and righteousness.
About this time, when I was between six and seven years of age, my
father arranged to go to college. He left my brother David with our
uncle, who lived up in the bush, and myself with a Mr. Cathey, who
taught the Mission School at Newash.
I well remember the stormy winter's morn, when father and mother
started for the long journey, as it seemed to me, through the forests
of Ontario, from Owen Sound to Cobourg. I thought my little heart
would break, and mother was quite broken up with grief at the parting
from her boys, and, no doubt, father felt it as keenly; but his
strong will was master, and believing in Providence, he took this
step, as he thought, in the path of duty and in the interest of each
one of us.