Boy reader, you have heard of the Hudson's Bay Company? Ten to one, you
have worn a piece of fur, which it has provided for you; if not, your
pretty little sister has--in her muff, or her boa, or as a trimming for
her winter dress. Would you like to know something of the country
whence come these furs?--of the animals whose backs have been stripped
to obtain them? As I feel certain that you and I are old friends, I
make bold to answer for you--yes. Come, then! let us journey together
to the "Fur Countries;" let us cross them from south to north.
A vast journey it will be. It will cost us many thousand miles of
travel. We shall find neither railway-train, nor steamboat, nor
stage-coach, to carry us on our way. We shall not even have the help of
a horse. For us no hotel shall spread its luxurious board; no road-side
inn shall hang out its inviting sign and "clean beds;" no roof of any
kind shall offer us its hospitable shelter. Our table shall be a rock,
a log, or the earth itself; our lodging a tent; and our bed the skin of
a wild beast. Such are the best accommodations we can expect upon our
journey. Are you still ready to undertake it? Does the prospect not
deter you?
No--I hear you exclaim. I shall be satisfied with the table--what care
I for mahogany? With the lodging--I can tent like an Arab. With the
bed--fling feathers to the wind!
Enough, brave boy! you shall go with me to the wild regions of the
"North-west," to the far "fur countries" of America. But, first--a word
about the land through which we are going to travel.
Take down your Atlas. Bend your eye upon the map of North America.
Note two large islands--one upon the right side, Newfoundland; another
upon the left, Vancouver. Draw a line from one to the other; it will
nearly bisect the continent. North of that line you behold a vast
territory. How vast! You may take your scissors, and clip fifty
Englands out of it! There are lakes there in which you might _drown_
England, or make an island of it! Now, you may form some idea of the
vastness of that region known as the "fur countries."
Will you believe me, when I tell you that all this immense tract is a
wilderness--a howling wilderness, if you like a poetical name? It is
even so. From north to south, from ocean to ocean,--throughout all that
vast domain, there is neither town nor village--hardly anything that can
be dignified with the name of "settlement." The only signs of
civilisation to be seen are the "forts," or trading posts, of the
Hudson's Bay Company; and these "signs" are few and far--hundreds of
miles--between. For inhabitants, the country has less than ten thousand
white men, the _employes_ of the Company; and its native people are
Indians of many tribes, living far apart, few in numbers, subsisting by
the chase, and half starving for at least a third part of every year!
In truth, the territory can hardly be called "inhabited." There is not
a man to every ten miles; and in many parts of it you may travel
hundreds of miles without seeing a face, red, white, or black!
The physical aspect is, therefore, entirely wild. It is very different
in different parts of the territory. One tract is peculiar. It has
been long known as the "Barren Grounds." It is a tract of vast extent.
It lies north-west from the shores of Hudson's Bay, extending nearly to
the Mackenzie River. Its rocks are _primitive_. It is a land of hills
and valleys,--of deep dark lakes and sharp-running streams. It is a
woodless region. No timber is found there that deserves the name. No
trees but glandular dwarf birches, willows, and black spruce, small and
stunted. Even these only grow in isolated valleys. More generally the
surface is covered with coarse sand--the _debris_ of granite or
quartz-rock--upon which no vegetable, save the lichen or the moss, can
find life and nourishment. In one respect these "Barren Grounds" are
unlike the deserts of Africa: they are well watered. In almost every
valley there is a lake; and though many of these are landlocked, yet do
they contain fish of several species. Sometimes these lakes communicate
with each other by means of rapid and turbulent streams passing through
narrow gorges; and lines of those connected lakes form the great rivers
of the district.
Such is a large portion of the Hudson's Bay territory. Most of the
extensive peninsula of Labrador partakes of a similar character; and
there are other like tracts west of the Rocky Mountain range in the
"Russian possessions."
Yet these "Barren Grounds" have their denizens. Nature has formed
animals that delight to dwell there, and that are never found in more
fertile regions. Two ruminating creatures find sustenance upon the
mosses and lichens that cover their cold rocks: they are the caribou
(reindeer) and the musk-ox. These, in their turn, become the food and
subsistence of preying creatures. The wolf, in all its varieties of
grey, black, white, pied, and dusky, follows upon their trail. The
"brown bear,"--a large species, nearly resembling the "grizzly,"--is
found only in the Barren Grounds; and the great "Polar bear" comes
within their borders, but the latter is a dweller upon their shores
alone, and finds his food among the finny tribes of the seas that
surround them. In marshy ponds, existing here and there, the musk-rat
(_Fibre zibethieus_) builds his house, like that of his larger cousin,
the beaver. Upon the water sedge he finds subsistence; but his natural
enemy, the wolverene (_Gulo luscus_), skulks in the same neighbourhood.
The "Polar hare" lives upon the leaves and twigs of the dwarf
birch-tree; and this, transformed into its own white flesh, becomes the
food of the Arctic fox. The herbage, sparse though it be, does not grow
in vain. The seeds fall to the earth, but they are not suffered to
decay. They are gathered by the little lemmings and meadow-mice
(_arvicolae_), who, in their turn, become the prey of two species of
_mustelidae_, the ermine and vison weasels. Have the fish of the lakes
no enemy? Yes--a terrible one in the Canada otter. The mink-weasel,
too, pursues them; and in summer, the osprey, the great pelican, the
cormorant, and the white-headed eagle.
These are the _fauna_ of the Barren Grounds. Man rarely ventures within
their boundaries. The wretched creatures who find a living there are
the Esquimaux on their coasts, and a few Chippewa Indians in the
interior, who hunt the caribou, and are known as "caribou-eaters."
Other Indians enter them only in summer, in search of game, or
journeying from point to point; and so perilous are these journeyings,
that numbers frequently perish by the way. There are no white men in
the Barren Grounds. The "Company" has no commerce there. No fort is
established in them: so scarce are the fur-bearing animals of these
parts, their skins would not repay the expense of a "trading post."
Far different are the "wooded tracts" of the fur countries. These lie
mostly in the southern and central regions of the Hudson's Bay
territory. There are found the valuable beaver, and the wolverene that
preys upon it. There dwells the American hare, with its enemy the
Canada lynx. There are the squirrels, and the beautiful martens
(sables) that hunt them from tree to tree. There are found the foxes of
every variety, the red, the cross, and the rare and highly-prized
silver-fox (_Vulpes argentatus_), whose shining skin sells for its
weight in gold! There, too, the black bear (_Ursus Americanus_) yields
its fine coat to adorn the winter carriage, the holsters of the dragoon,
and the shako of the grenadier. There the fur-bearing animals exist in
greatest plenty, and many others whose skins are valuable in commerce,
as the moose, the wapiti, and the wood-bison.
But there is also a "prairie" district in the fur countries. The great
table prairies of North America, that slope eastward from the Rocky
Mountains, also extend northward into the Hudson's Bay territory. They
gradually grow narrower, however, as you proceed farther north, until,
on reaching the latitude of the Great Slave Lake, they end altogether.
This "prairie land" has its peculiar animals. Upon it roams the
buffalo, the prong-horned antelope, and the mule-deer. There, too, may
be seen the "barking-wolf" and the "swift fox." It is the favourite
home of the marmots, and the gauffres or sand-rats; and there, too, the
noblest of animals, the horse, runs wild. West of this prairie tract is
a region of far different aspect,--the region of the Rocky Mountains.
This stupendous chain, sometimes called the Andes of North America,
continues throughout the fur countries from their southern limits to the
shores of the Arctic Sea. Some of its peaks overlook the waters of that
sea itself, towering up near the coast. Many of these, even in southern
latitudes, carry the "eternal snow." This "mountain-chain" is, in
places, of great breadth. Deep valleys lie in its embrace, many of
which have never been visited by man. Some are desolate and dreary;
others are oases of vegetation, which fascinate the traveller whose
fortune it has been, after toiling among naked rocks, to gaze upon their
smiling fertility. These lovely wilds are the favourite home of many
strange animals. The argali, or mountain-sheep, with his huge curving
horns, is seen there; and the shaggy wild goat bounds along the steepest
cliffs. The black bear wanders through the wooded ravines; and his
fiercer congener, the "grizzly"--the most dreaded of all American
animals--drags his huge body along the rocky declivities.
Having crossed the mountains, the fur countries extend westward to the
Pacific. There you encounter barren plains, treeless and waterless;
rapid rivers, that foam through deep, rock-bound channels; and a country
altogether rougher in aspect, and more mountainous, than that lying to
the east of the great chain. A warmer atmosphere prevails as you
approach the Pacific, and in some places forests of tall trees cover the
earth. In these are found most of the fur-bearing animals; and, on
account of the greater warmth of the climate, the true _felidae_--the
long-tailed cats--here wander much farther north than upon the eastern
side of the continent. Even so far north as the forests of Oregon these
appear in the forms of the cougar (_Felis concolor_), and the ounce
(_Felis onza_).
But it is not our intention at present to cross the Rocky Mountains.
Our journey will lie altogether on the eastern side of that great chain.
It will extend from the frontiers of civilisation to the shores of the
Arctic Sea. It is a long and perilous journey, boy reader; but as we
have made up our minds to it, let us waste no more time in talking, but
set forth at once. You are ready? Hurrah!