_I.--From Civilisation to Savagery_
This was Sir William Francis Butler's second book on the
regions and the people of the great Northwest of Canada.
The fascination of the wilderness had got a grip upon him,
and he conveys something of the same fascination to the
reader, whom he allures through the immense and solemn
aisles of the great sub-Arctic forest, makes him a
joint-hunter after the bison on the Great Prairie, or
after the marten and the beaver on the tributary streams
to the Saskatchewan and the Assiniboine rivers. The reader
is carried into the fastnesses of the rapidly-disappearing
Red Man in mid-winter, and there are graphic revelations
of the daring deeds of the half-breed descendants of the
white pioneers of the Hudson Bay Company and the
_habitants_ from Lower Canada, who were the great
discoverers and exploiters of the vast country between the
Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, and beyond to the
Pacific. Sir William's story is restrained and convincing,
and his descriptions of his adventures in the Wild North
Land and its wonderful scenery charm by their eloquence
and poetic beauty.
It was late in the month of September, 1872, when, after a summer of
travel in Canada and the United States, I drew near the banks of the Red
River of the North. Two years had worked many changes in scene and
society. A "city" stood on the spot where, during a former visit, a
midnight storm had burst upon me in the then untenanted prairie.
Representative institutions had been established in the new province of
Manitoba. Civilisation had developed itself in other ways, but amidst
these changes of scene and society there was one thing still unchanged
on the confines of the Red River. Close to the stream of Frog's Point an
old friend met me with many tokens of recognition. It was my Esquimaux
dog, Cerf-Vola, who had led my train from Cumberland on the lower
Saskatchewan, across the ice of the Great Lakes. To become the owner of
this old friend again and of his new companions, Spanker and Pony, was a
work of necessity.
In the earliest days of October all phases of civilisation were passed
with little regret, and at the Rat Creek, near the southern shore of
Lake Manitoba, I bade good-bye to society, pushed on to the Hudson Bay
Company's post of Beaver Creek, from which point, with one man, three
horses, three dogs, and all the requisites of food, arms and raiment, I
started on October 14 for the North-west. I was virtually alone. My only
human associate was a worthless half-breed taken at chance. But I had
other companions. A good dog is so much more a nobler beast than an
indifferent man that one sometimes gladly exchanges the society of the
one for that of the other; and Cerf-Vola was that dog.
A long distance of rolling plain, of hills fringed with thickets, of
treeless wastes and lakes spreading into unseen declivities, stretches
from between the Qu'-Appelle to the Saskatchewan rivers. Through it the
great trail to the North lays its long, winding course, and over it
broods the loneliness of the untenanted. Alone in the vast waste Mount
Spathanaw Watchi lifts his head; a lonely grave at top; around 400 miles
of horizon. Reduced thus to its own nakedness, space stands forth with
almost terrible grandeur. It was October 25 when I once more drew near
the South Saskatchewan, and crossing to the southern shore I turned
eastward through a rich undulating land, and made for the Grand Forks of
the Saskatchewan, which we reached in the last days of October.
It is difficult to imagine a wilder scene than that presented from the
tongue of land which rises over the junction of the North and South
Saskatchewan rivers. One river has travelled through 800 miles of rich
rolling landscape; the other has run its course of 900 miles through
arid solitudes. Both have their sources in mountain summits where the
avalanche thundered forth to solitude the tiding of their birth.
_II.--The Twin Dwellers of the Prairie_
At the foot of the high ridge which marks the junction of these two
rivers was a winter hut built by two friends who proposed to accompany
me part of the long journey I meant to take into the Wild North Land.
Our winter stock of meat had first to be gathered in, and we accordingly
turned our faces westward in quest of buffalo. The snow had begun to
fall in many storms, and the landscape was wrapped in its winter mantle.
The buffalo were 200 miles distant on the Great Prairie. Only two wild
creatures have made this grassy desert their home--the Indian and the
bison. Of the origin of the strange, wild hunter, the keen untutored
scholar of Nature, who sickens beneath our civilisation, and dies amidst
our prosperity, fifty writers have broached various theories; but to me
it seems that he is of an older and more remote race than our own--a
stock coeval with a shadowy age, a remnant of an earlier creation which
has vanished from the earth, preserved in these wilds.
As to the other wild creatures who have made their dwelling on the Great
Prairie, the millions and millions of dusky bison, during whose
migration from the Far South to the Far North the earth trembled
beneath their tramp, and the air was filled with the deep, bellowing of
their unnumbered throats, no one can tell their origin. Before the
advent of the white man these twin dwellers on the Great Prairie are
fast disappearing.
It was mid-November before we reached the buffalo, and it was on
December 3, having secured enough animals to make the needful
pemmican--a hard mixture of fat and dried buffalo meat pounded down into
a solid mass--for our long journey, that, with thin and tired horses, we
returned to the Forks of the Saskatchewan. The cold had set in unusually
early, and even in mid-November the thermometer had fallen to thirty
degrees below zero, and unmittened fingers in handling the rifle became
frozen. During the sixteen days in which we traversed the Great Prairie
on our return journey we had not seen one human being moving over it.
The picture of desolation was complete.
When the year was drawing to its close, two Cree Indians pitched their
lodge on the opposite side of the North Saskatchewan and afforded us not
a little food for amusement in the long winter evenings. In the Red
Man's mental composition there is mixed up much simplicity and cunning,
close reasoning, and child-like suspicion, much natural quickness, sense
of humour, credulousness, power of observation, faith and fun and
selfishness.
Preparations had been made for my contemplated journey to the frozen
North. I only waited the arrival of the winter packet which was to be
carried 3,000 miles to distant stations of the Hudson Bay Company. A
score of different dog teams had handled it; it had camped more than 100
nights in the Great Northern forests; but the Indian postman, with dogs
and mail, had disappeared in a water-hole in the Saskatchewan river. On
February 3, therefore, I set out with my dog team, but without letters.
Two days afterwards we came to Carlton Fort, where there was a great
gathering of "agents" from all the forts of the Hudson Bay Company in
the north and west, many of them 2,000 miles distant, and one 4,000
miles. These "agents," or "winterers," as they are sometimes called,
have to face for a long season hardship, famine, disease, and a rigorous
climate. God knows their lives are hard. They hail generally from the
remote isles or highlands of Scotland. The routine of their lives is to
travel on foot a thousand miles in winter's darkest time, to live upon
the coarsest food, to feel cold such as Englishmen in England cannot
even comprehend, often to starve, always to dwell in exile from the
great world. Perchance, betimes, the savage scene is lost in a dreamy
vision of some lonely Scottish loch, some Druid mound in far-away Lewis,
some vista of a fireside, when storm howled and waves ran high on the
beach at Stornoway.
_III.--The Frozen Trail_
It was brilliant moonlight on February 11 when we left Fort Carlton, and
days of rapid travel carried us far to the north into the great
sub-Arctic forest, a line of lakes forming its rampart of defence
against the wasting fires of the prairie region. The cold was so intense
that, at mid-day with the sun shining, the thermometer stood at 26
degrees below zero. Right in our teeth blew the bitter blast; the dogs,
with low-bent heads, tugged steadily onward; the half-breeds and Indians
who drove our teams wrapped their blankets round their heads. To run was
instantly to freeze one's face; to lie on the sled was to chill through
the body to the very marrow. It was impossible to face it long, and over
and over again we had to put in to shore amongst the trees, make a fire,
and boil some tea. Thus we trudged, until we arrived at the Forks of the
Athabasca on the last day of February.
In the small fort at the Forks we camped for four days to enjoy a rest,
make up new dog trains--Cerf-Vola never gave out--and partake of the
tender steak of the wood-buffalo. For many days I had regularly used
snow-shoes, and now I seldom sought the respite of the sled, but tramped
behind the dogs. Over marsh and frozen river and portage we lagged till,
on March 6, a vast lake opened out upon our gaze, on the rising shore of
which were the clustered buildings of a large fort, with a red flag
flying above them in the cold north blast. The lake was Athabasca, the
clustered buildings Fort Chipewyan, and the flag--well, we all knew it;
but it is only when the wanderer's eye meets it in some lone spot like
this that he turns to it as the emblem of a home which distance has
shrined deeper in his heart.
Athabasca means "the meeting place of many waters." In its bosom many
rivers unite their currents, and from its northwestern rim pours the
Slave River, the true Mackenzie. Its first English discoverer called it
the "Lake of the Hills." A more appropriate title would have been the
"Lake of the Winds," for fierce and wild storms sweep over its waves.
Once more the sleds were packed, once more the untiring Cerf-Vola took
his place in the leading harness, and the word "march" was given. On the
evening of March 12 I camped alone in the wilderness, for the three
Indians and half-breeds who accompanied me were alien in every thought
and feeling, and on the fourth day after we were on the banks of the
Peace River.
Through 300 miles of mountain the Peace River takes its course.
Countless creeks and rivers seek its waters; 200 miles from
its source it cleaves the main Rocky Mountain chain through a chasm
whose straight, steep cliffs frown down on the black water through 6,000
feet of dizzy verge. Farther on it curves, and for 500 miles flows in a
deep, narrow valley, from 700 feet to 800 feet below the level of the
surrounding plateau. Then it reaches a lower level, the banks become of
moderate elevation, the country is densely wooded, the large river winds
in serpentine bends through an alluvial valley; the current, once so
strong, becomes sluggish, until at last it pours itself through a delta
of low-lying drift into the Slave River, and its long course of 1,100
miles is ended.
For 900 miles there are only two breaks in the even flow of its
waters--one at a point 250 miles from its mouth, a fall of eight feet
with a short rapid above it; the other is the great mountain cañon on
the outer and lower range of the Rocky Mountains, where a portage of
twelve miles is necessary. This Peace River was discovered in 1792 by a
daring Scotsman named Alexander Mackenzie, who was the first European
that ever passed the Rocky Mountains and crossed the northern continent
of America. The Peace River is the land of the moose, and, winter and
summer, hunter and trader, along the whole length of 900 miles, between
the Peace and Athabasca, live upon its delicious venison.
This, too, is the country of the Beaver Indians. It is not uncommon for
a single Indian to render from his winter trapping 200 marten skins, and
not less than 20,000 beavers are annually killed by the tribe. Towards
the end of March the sun had become warm enough to soften the surface
snow, and therefore we were compelled to travel during the night, when
the frost hardened it, and sleep all day.
On April 1, approaching the fort of Dunvegan, we were steering between
two huge walls of sandstone rock which towered up 700 feet above the
shore. Right in our onward track stood a large, dusky wolf. My dogs
caught sight of him, and in an instant they gave chase. The wolf kept
the centre of the river, and the carriole bounded from snow-pack to
snow-pack, or shot along the level ice. The wolf, however, sought refuge
amidst the rocky shore, and the dogs turned along the trail again. Two
hours later we reached Dunvegan, after having travelled incessantly for
four-and-twenty hours. Here I rested for three days, and then pushed on
to Fort St. John--our last dog march.
_IV.--Through Cañon and Rapid_
The time of winter travel had drawn to its close; the ice-road had done
its work. From April 15 the river began to break its ice covering, and
on April 20 spring had arrived; and with bud and sun and shower came the
first mosquito. I left Fort St. John on April 22, having parted with my
dog train, except the faithful, untiring Cerf-Vola; crossed the river on
an ice bridge at great risk, and horses and men scrambled up 1,000 feet
to the top of the plateau. There we mounted our steeds, and for two days
followed the trail through a country the beauty of which it is not easy
to exaggerate, and reached Half-way River, which we forded at infinite
risk on a roughly constructed raft, the horses being compelled to swim
the torrent.
Crossing the Peace River at the fort known as Hudson's Hope in a frail
canoe, I narrowly escaped drowning by the craft upsetting, losing gun
and revolver, although, wonderful to relate, the gun was recovered next
day by my half-breed attendant, who dredged it with a line and
fish-hook! From Hudson's Hope we made the portage of ten miles which
avoids the great cañon of the Peace River at the farther end of which
the river becomes navigable for canoes; and there we waited till April
29, when the ice in the upper part of the river broke up.
I took the opportunity of the delay to explore the cañon, which at this
point is 900 feet deep. Advancing cautiously to the smooth edge of the
chasm, I seized hold of a spruce-tree and looked down. Below lay one of
those grim glimpses which the earth holds hidden, save from the eagle
and the mid-day sun. Caught in a dark prison of stupendous cliffs,
hollowed beneath so that the topmost ledge literally hung over the
boiling abyss of water, the river foamed and lashed against rock and
precipice. The rocks at the base held the record of its wrath in great
trunks of trees, and blocks of ice lying piled and smashed in shapeless
ruin. It is difficult to imagine by what process the mighty river had
cloven asunder this wilderness of rock--giving us the singular
spectacle, after it had cleared the cañon, of a wide, deep, tranquil
stream flowing through the principal mountain range of the American
continent.
On May Day we started, a company of four--Little Jacques (a French miner
and trapper) as captain of the boat, another miner, my Scottish
half-breed servant, Kalder, myself, and Cerf-Vola--to pole and paddle
up-stream, fighting the battle with the current. Many a near shave we
had with the ice-floes and ice-jams. A week afterwards we emerged from
the pass to the open country, and before us lay the central mountain
system of north British Columbia, the highest snowcapped peak of which I
named Mount Garnet Wolseley, and there we camped. A mile from camp a
moose emerged from the forest; I took bead on him and fired, aiming just
below his long ears. There was a single plunge in the water; the giant
head went down, and all was quiet. We towed him ashore and cut him up as
he lay stranded like a whale. Directly opposite the camp a huge cone
mountain arose up some eight or nine thousand feet above us, and just
ere evening fell his topmost peak, glowing white in the sunlight, became
mirrored in the clear, quiet river, while the life stream of the moose
flowed out over the tranquil surface, dyeing the nearer waters into
brilliant crimson.
We came to the forks of the Peace River on May 9, took that branch known
as the Ominica, and through perils without number attempted to conquer
in our canoe the passage of the deep black cañon. Again and again we
were beaten back, and even lost our canoe in the rapids, although we
afterwards recovered it by building a raft. We discovered a mining
prospector who had a canoe at the upper end of the cañon, and agreed to
exchange canoes--he taking ours for his voyage down the river, while we
took his, after making a portage to a spot above the cañon, where it had
been cached.
Three days after we entered the great central snowy range of north
British Columbia; and on the night of May 19 camped at last at the mouth
of the Wolverine Creek by quiet water. There we parted with the river,
having climbed up to near the snow-line, and next day reached the mining
camp of Germansen, where I stayed several days and became acquainted
personally or by reputation with the leading "boys" of the northern
mining country. Twelve miles from Germansen there was another mining
camp, the Mansen, and from thence on to May 25 I started, in company
with an express agent, to walk across the Bald Mountains, on the topmost
ridge of which the snow ever dwells. On the other side of the mountains
we packed our goods on horses which we had obtained, and pushed forward,
only to encounter storms of snow and sleet on the summit of the
table-land which divides the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans.
Then followed the trail of the long ascent up Look-Out Mountain, from
which we gazed on 500 snowy peaks along the horizon, while the slopes
immediately beneath us were covered with the Douglas pine, the monarch
of the Columbian forest. It was May 29 when we entered the last post of
the Hudson Bay Company, St. James Fort on the southeast shore of the
beautiful Stuart's Lake, the favourite home of innumerable salmon and
colossal sturgeon, some of the latter weighing as much as 800 lb. After
a day's delay I parted with my half-breed Kalder, took canoe down the
Stuart River to the spot where the trail crosses the stream, and then
camped for the night. Having procured horses, we rode through a rich
land which fringes the banks of the Nacharcole River. Then during the
first two days of June we journeyed through a wild, undulating country,
filled with lakes and rolling hills, and finally drew rein on a ridge
overlooking Quesnelle. Before me spread civilisation and the waters of
the Pacific; behind me vague and vast, lay a hundred memories of the
Wild North Land; and for many reasons it is fitting to end this story
here.