FORT CHIPEWYAN PAST AND PRESENT
"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their humble joys and destiny obscure."
--_Gray's Elegy_.
At seven in the morning of Sunday, June 21st, we enter Lake Athabasca,
and catch our first glimpse of Fort Chipewyan. An acceptance of the
invitation, "Come, shake your leg," has kept the men busy half the night
over a hot sequence of Red River jigs among "pieces" on the lower deck,
and we have this superb sweep almost to ourselves.
The great lake-scape is blue and green and grey and opaline as the sun
strikes it and the surface breaks to a south wind. Ours is the one craft
on this inland sea, but overhead a whole navy of clouds manuvres, the
ships of the ghostly argosy doubling themselves in the lake. As we draw
in, the village takes shape. What haunts us as we look at the white
houses, that crescent beach of pinkest sand? We have it! It is a print,
an old woodcut of "Russian America" that we used to pore over in the
days when one wore "pinnies" of flour-sacking, and "hankies" were made
from meal-bags.
At one end of the village are the little smithy of the Hudson's Bay
Company and the pretentious buildings of their establishment. At the
other gibbous horn of this Athens of the Athabasca rise the steeples
and convent-school of the Roman Church, with the free-trading-post of
Colin Fraser. Midway between is the little Church of England, and higher
up and farther back the Barracks of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.
The white-washed homes of the employés of The Company, little
match-boxes dazzling in the sun, stretch from one end of the beach to
the other. In among the half-breed populace stalk policeman and priest,
red jacket keeping the dark-skinned people straight in this world and
black robe laying out conditions for the world to come. So is Chipewyan
fate chequered with the _rouge et noir_ of compulsion and expediency.
[Illustration: Fort Chipewyan, Lake Athabasca]
Fort Chipewyan is the oldest post in the North, and every boulder of red
gneissic rock, if we could interrogate it, has a story to tell. Peter
Pond, of the North-West Company, in 1778 built a post on the Athabasca
River thirty miles to the south of the lake. The far-seeing Alexander
Mackenzie, in the interests of the same company, sent his cousin
Roderick ten years later to build Fort Chipewyan on the lake, and for
over a century this was the entrepôt and emporium of the whole North.
The Hudson's Bay Company meanwhile were maintaining a post, Fort
Wedderburne, not far away on Potato Island, and upon the amalgamation of
the Companies in 1821 they took possession of the present Fort
Chipewyan.
This metropolis is one hundred and twenty years old. Chipewyan was doing
business at the same old stand before Toronto was the capital of Upper
Canada, while Ottawa was still unheard of, and when of Chicago not even
the Fort Dearborn nucleus had been built. 1788! We wonder if the old ox
that conveys our "cassette" and "pieces" up to the big gateway of The
Company's quadrangle was a drawer of wood and drinker of water at that
date. He looks as if he might have been. George III was reigning in
England when Fort Chipewyan was built, Arkwright was making his spinning
jenny, and Watts experimenting with the steam-engine. Sir Joshua
Reynolds painted his pictures, Burns, a young man of twenty-nine, was
busy with his ballads. In London a little baby saw the light of day,
whom the world afterwards hailed as Lord Byron. Three British boys might
have been seen with arms thrown over each other's shoulders, "dreaming
greatly"--Coleridge aged sixteen, young Walter Scott, seventeen, and
Wordsworth just eighteen. Across the Channel the French Revolution was
at its height. Shelley and Keats were not yet born. Down on the
Atlantic seaboard of America a new people just twelve years before had
gone through the birth-throes of nationhood. It is a far call.
Scraping the yellow lichens off the old sun-dial, we adjust our
bearings. We are 111° West of Greenwich and in latitude 58° 45' North.
Our parallel carried eastward would strike the Orkneyan skerries and
pass through Stromness. All untouched by the development of that busy
continent to the south which has grown up within its lifetime, Chipewyan
is a little pearl of the periwigged days of the early Georges. From its
red sands, tamarack swamps, and mossy muskeg one almost expects to see
arise the forms of those great of old who outfitted here, making
Chipewyan the base of their northward explorations. The ghostly company
is a goodly one--Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Sir George Simpson, and Sir
John Franklin (their honorary prefixes coming to them in the after days
as reward of their labors), Back and Richardson and Rae, and in later
days that young stripling curate who was afterwards to be known
throughout the world of letters as Bishop Bompas, the "Apostle of the
North." Then there is the great unnamed horde who rested tired limbs at
Chipewyan on their northward journeys, each on his own
mission--fur-traders and hunters of big game, devoted nuns and silent
priests, the infrequent scientist, and the hundreds of Klondikers, their
hearts hot with the greed for gold. These all through the century have
enjoyed as we now enjoy the spontaneous hospitality of this little bit
of Britain which floats the Union Jack from its fort walls, and whose
people, brown and white, when the belated news of the passing of
Victoria the Great reached this her northern outpost, gathered on the
beach and bewailed aloud their personal loss. We seem to hear again the
far-flung cry "The Queen is dead! The Queen is dead!" from the
half-breed runners coming in that Christmas Day across the winter ice.
Mackenzie made Chipewyan his headquarters for eight years. It was from
here he started on his voyage to the Arctic Sea in 1789, and three years
later on that other history-making journey to the far Pacific. Sir John
Franklin outfitted here for his two land-journeys--in July, 1820, with
Dr. Richardson, and again in 1825. Chipewyan is a mine of interest. We
almost begrudge time given to the dainty meals of our hostess, Mrs.
William Johnson, and the hours spent between her lavender-scented
sheets.
In the loft above the office of the H.B. Company, in among old
flintlock rifles and discarded ox-yokes, we browse through the daily
records of The Company, old journals written by the Factors at the close
of their day's work through the years and here preserved for our
inquisitive eyes. Sitting on the floor, making extracts from these
tomes, one has the half-guilty feeling of being caught poking into a
tomb.
On this page the ink is thin and one can see the old writer thawing out
his frozen ink-pot of stone at the end of a tired day and sitting down
to write his simple tale. Here are finger-marks where the blood of a
buffalo gives a marginal note. The journalist had been called away from
his writing to weigh and pay for some fresh meat. Drops from a tallow
candle show the light of other days. A pressed mosquito of the vintage
of 1790 is very suggestive. We picture the trivial round and common task
of the man who writes, see him exchanging fathoms of tobacco for
beaver-pelts in those long, cold winters, and eagerly hunger with him
for the signs presaging the going-out of the ice and the coming-in of
Spring. We follow out the short Summer with him and revel in its
perpetual daylight. With him we make the fall fishery and shoot our
winter's supply of waveys and southward-flying cranes. We wonder, as he
wondered, what news the next packet will bring from the old folks in the
Orkneys or the Hebrides. We study, as he studied, the problem of
governing his servants, placating the Indians, and making enough fur to
satisfy that inexorable Board of Directors back in London whose motto is
"Skin for skin."
It has been a grim enough life as the author of this journal records it.
He is far from those who direct his fate, and recognition and reward are
slow in coming. Companionship and the gentle arts of "outside" are
denied him. He must make his own world and rear within it his dusky
brood, that they in honourable service may follow his round of "work
done squarely and unwasted days." What made the charm of this life to
these men? It is hard to see. The master of the post was also master of
the situation, and an autocrat in his community, a little Fur King, a
Captain of Industry. A thing was law because he said it. And isn't it
Caesar himself who declares, "Better be first in a little Iberian
village than second in Rome?"
We get a delightful picture in an entry under the date of Wednesday,
23rd May, 1827, when Sir John Franklin was on his way back to England at
the end of his second journey.
"To-day William McGillivary and Katherine Stewart, daughter
of Alexander Stewart, Chief Factor, were joined in holy wedlock
by Captain John Franklin, R.N., Commander of the Land Arctic
Expedition."
Great is the force of example, for five days later appears the entry
"This evening the ceremonial of marriage took place between
Robert McVicar, Esq., and Christy McBeath. Captain Franklin
acted on the occasion as clergyman. The ceremony o'er, the
evening was agreeably spent in a family assembly."
Looking at these records, we are reminded of a not-very-well-known story
of international courtesy which connects itself with the third and
ill-fated journey of Franklin. Old Sir John, then in his sixtieth year,
had sailed from England in an attempt at the Northwest Passage. Years
passed and no word came from the explorer, and in 1852 the ice-desert
was still mute.
In this year, Sir Edward Belcher in the _Resolute_ headed one of the
many Arctic Relief Expeditions, subsequently abandoning his boat in the
ice off Melville Island. Next year the American whaler _Henry George_
met the deserted _Resolute_ in sound condition about forty miles from
Cape Mercy; she must have drifted through Barrow Strait, Lancaster
Sound, and Baffin Bay. She was recovered, the Government of the United
States bought her and with international compliments presented her in
perfect condition to Queen Victoria in 1856. The old ship was broken up
about thirty years ago, and from the soundest of her timbers a solid
desk was made by direction of Queen Victoria, who presented it to the
then President of the United States. This is the desk which stands in
President Taft's reception room to-day, and on it the papers of eight
administrations have been written.
There is living as well as buried history in Chipewyan. A stroll from
one end of its lacustrine street to the other is lush with interest. We
call upon Colin Fraser, whose father was piper to Sir George Simpson.
Colin treats us to a skirl of the very pipes which announced the
approach of Simpson whenever that little Northern autocrat, during his
triumphal progress through a bailiwick as big as Europe, made his way
into a new fort.
With the echo of the "_Gay Gordons_" in our ears we pass into the
largest convent in the North country, managed by the Grey Nuns of
Montreal. Sister Brunelle came into the North in 1866. Forty-two years
in a convent-school of the Northland! It makes one gasp.
These Indian schools, assisted by the Canadian Government, catch the
little Indians in the camps and hold their prey on school-benches from
the age of four to fourteen. One boy is dumb, another a hunchback. In a
corner we came upon a poor old derelict of the camps, a Cree woman,
paralysed and mentally deranged, who within these quiet walls has found
harbour. The kiddies are taught one clay in French and the next day in
English; but when they hide behind their spellers to talk about the
white visitors, the whisper is in Chipewyan. What do they learn?
Reading, (vertical) writing, arithmetic, hymns, and hoeing potatoes,
grammar, sewing and shoemaking, and one more branch, never taught in
Southern schools. When the fall fishery comes, the nuns kilt up their
skirts, slates are shoved far back into desks, and shepherdess and sheep
(young brown moose!) together clean the whitefish which are to furnish
meals for a twelve-month to come. If fish be brain food, then should
this convent of Chipewyan gather in medals, degrees, and awards,
capturing for its black-eyed boys Rhodes scholarships _ad lib_.
[Illustration: Three of a Kind]
Back of the convent stretches a farm with an historic record. It was
from this enclosure, tilled by the priests and their protégés, that the
sample of wheat came which at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
in competition with the wheats of the world took the bronze medal. This
wheat ran sixty-eight pounds to the bushel.
We linger in the convent, looking at the rows of tiny beds neat and
immaculate, each covered with its little blue counterpane. Sister Jigot,
with the air of divulging a state secret, tells that the pretty
bed-covering is flour-sacking, that it is dyed on the premises from a
recipe brought out of Chipewyan woods. In the long winter evenings these
good step-mothers of savages do all their reading and sewing before six
o'clock. The mid-winter sun sinks at four, and two hours of candle-light
is all that the frugal exchequer can afford. "What in the world do you
do after six?" I venture; for well we know those busy fingers are not
content to rest in idle laps. "Oh! we knit, opening the stove-doors to
give us light." Many a time are we to throw a glance backward through
the years to these devoted souls upon Athabascan shores, trying to graft
a new civilisation on an old stock, and in the process economising their
candles like Alfred of old.
Both Protestant and Roman missionaries are amateur doctors and we find a
stimulating rivalry in bodily and spiritual ministrations. At the Church
of England Mission we are shown with triumph a piece of bone salved from
the leg of an injured Indian. Afterward we learn that the peripatetic
patient accepted the Church of England treatment in the daytime, and in
the evening shadows was carried across the rocks to the shrine of Rome.
Poor chap, he died in the process! But while he lived he stimulated
trade, and his memory lingers to point a moral and adorn a tale. If
there had but been a Presbyterian Church within range, he might have
comforted himself with the thought that it had all been comfortably
fore-ordained.
An interesting family lives next to the English Mission--the Loutits.
The father tells of the days when as a young man he served The Company,
and "for breakfast on the march they gave you a club and showed you a
rabbit-track." There were Loutits in Chipewyan as far back as the old
journals reach. The Scottish blood has intermingled with that of Cree
and Chipewyan and the resultant in this day's generation is a family of
striking young people--the girls good to look at and clever in bead-work
and quill-ornamentation, the boys skilled in nemoral arts and holding
the strong men's records of the North.
George Loutit without help brought a scow with four thousand pounds from
Athabasca Landing to Chipewyan through the ninety miles of rapids. His
brother Billy, carrying a special dispatch of the Mounted Police, ran
with a hand-sled (and no dogs) from Chipewyan to Fort Smith and back in
three days--a distance of two hundred miles at least. Once, when the
river rose suddenly in the night, Billy unloaded nine tons from one scow
to another, astonishing the owners, who snored while Billy was toiling
upward in the night. The rivermen tell of George Loutit's quarreling
with a man one afternoon in a saloon at Edmonton and throwing his
adversary out of the window. When he heard him slump, George immediately
thought of the North as a most desirable place and started hot-foot for
Athabasca Landing, a hundred miles away. He arrived there in time for
noon luncheon next day.
At the H.B. Co. end of the village we find Pierre Mercredi in charge. A
French Bishop once wanted to train him for the priesthood, but it is
peltries and not souls that Pierre is after. His forebears were Irish
McCarthys, but this name failed to fall trippingly from the tongue of
French priests, and became corrupted into the Mercredi as he now signs
it.
Throughout the journals of the last forty years we run across such
entries as these:--"Wyllie at the forge," "Wyllie making nails," "Wyllie
straightening the fowling-pieces," "Wyllie making sled-runners," "This
day Wyllie made a coffin for an Indian." We step into the old man's
smithy, and he turns to greet us with an outstretched hand and a "Good
mornin'," in richest Doric. The date 1863 cut into the wooden foundation
of his forge marks the year when Wyllie came to Chipewyan. He was born
in the Orkneys, and had never seen a city in the Old World. Coming out
to America in a sailing vessel of The Company by way of Hudson Bay, he
threaded the inland waterway which brought him to Chipewyan without
seeing a city in America. Torontonians think the hub of the universe is
their capital on Lake Ontario. A smart young man from Toronto filtered
in one day to Chipewyan, and asked the old blacksmith, "Came from the
Old Country, didn't you? What did you think of Toronto?" "Naething, I
didna see the place."
Mr. Wyllie has never seen an electric light nor a railway train nor a
two-story building nor a telegraph wire nor a telephone. In the
forty-five years in which he has presided over this forge, the limits of
his wanderings have been McMurray on the south, Fort Smith on the north,
Fond du Lac on the east, the Chutes of the Peace on the west. To him
these are innocuous days of ease, in which we are falling into
luxuriousness with all its weakening influence. "It was much better in
the old days when we had only dried meat and fish-oil. Nowadays, when we
have flour and tinned meats and preserved fruits, all my teeth are
coming out!"
No one feels like smiling a smile of superiority in talking with old Mr.
Wyllie. He has taught himself the gentle arts of gunsmithing and
blacksmithing. The tools that we see all around us are marvels of
mechanical skill and would be the joy of a modern Arts and Crafts
Exhibition. His sledges and augurs, planes and chisels have been made by
the old man out of pig iron which came as ballast in the holds of those
old sailing ships which beat their way into Fort Churchill through
Hudson Strait. The hand-made tools are set into convenient handles of
moose-horn and bone. Clever indeed is the workmanship that Wyllie has
done with them. The last triumph from this unique forge was the welding
of the broken shaft of the little tug _Primrose_. The steamer _Grahame_
was built at Chipewyan of whipsawn lumber, and much of her steel and
ironwork was wrought on Wyllie's forge.
Wyllie left the Scottish Isles when a mere lad, but they are still
"Home" to him and he tells us that this autumn he is going back on a
visit. It was a prototype of Wyllie's
"From the lone sheiling and the misty island,
Mountains divide us and a waste of seas,
But still the heart, the heart is Highland,
And we in _dreams_ behold the Hebrides,"
who prayed "O, Lord, we beseech Thee, send down Thy covenanted blessin'
on the Muckle Hebrides, the Lesser Hebrides, and the adjacent islands
of Great Britain and Ireland." Talking with the old gentleman, you are
conscious of the innate moral strength rather than the mechanical skill
of the craftsman. Instinctively you feel the splendid power of his
presence and come out from his forge murmuring, "Thank God I have seen a
_man_ this day." Wyllie belongs to the age of the old journals, to the
days that bred Joe Gargerys and old Adams in whom appeared "the constant
service of the antique world."
[Illustration: Samples of Woman's Work of the Far North.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE
A and C--_Muski-moots_, or bags used by the duck-hunter for his game.
Made by Dog-Rib women, of _babiche_, or rawhide of the moose or caribou.
B--Velvet leggings richly embroidered in violet-coloured bead-work, made
by Mrs. (Archdeacon) Macdonald, a full-blooded Loucheaux woman.
D--Wall-pocket of white deerskin embroidered in silk. Made by a
Rabbit-Skin woman at Fort Good Hope under the Arctic Circle.
E--Wall-pocket ornamented with porcupine-quill work, made by a
Yellow-Knife Indian woman at Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake.
F--_Fire-bag_, or tobacco-pouch, made of two claws of the black bear.
The work of a Beaver Indian woman at Vermilion-on-the-Peace.
G--_Fire-bag_ of velvet ornamented with silk-work, made by Chipewyan
woman at Fond du Lac, Lake Athabasca.
H--Velvet watch-bag embroidered in silk, made by Slavi Indian woman at
Fort Providence, at the head of Mackenzie River.
I--Watch-pocket of smoked moose-skin, embroidered in silk-work, made by
a Cree girl at Fort McMurray on the Athabasca.
J--Armlets ornamented in porcupine quills, made by a half-breed woman on
the Liard River (a feeder of the Mackenzie).
K--Three hat bands--the first two ornamented with porcupine quills, and
the last in silk embroidery--made by Chipewyan woman at Fond du Lac,
Lake Athabasca.
L--Beautiful belt of porcupine work, made by a half-breed woman at Fort
Nelson on the Liard (a feeder of the Mackenzie).
M--Armlets of porcupine-quill work, made by half-breed girl at Fort
Chipewyan.]
Mr. and Mrs. William Johnson, with generous courtesy, have made us
their guests while we stay, and their refined home is a clear delight.
Mr. Johnson is as clever a man as Mr. Wyllie, but in other lines.
Without ever having seen an electric light, he learned by study and
research more about electricity than nine men out of ten know who go
through Electrical Training Schools. With the knowledge thus gained he
constructed and put into working use an electric-light plant at Fort
Simpson on the Mackenzie. Far up here on the map, too, the "Judge," as
he is lovingly called, taught himself all about watches, and he is now
Father Time for the whole Mackenzie District, regulating and mending
every timepiece in the country. The corrected watches are carried to
their owners by the next obliging person who passes the post, where the
owner is notching off the days on a piece of stick while he waits. A
watch, the works of which were extracted from three old ones and
assembled within one case by this Burbank of Watchdom, found its way
down to Chicago. The jeweller into whose hands it fell declared that
among all his workmen there was not one who could have duplicated the
job.
Chipewyan is a bird paradise; the whole woods are vocal to-day. In the
autumn, wonderful hunts are made of the southward-flying cranes, geese,
and waveys, thousands of these great birds being killed and salted and
put in ice chambers for winter use. If the mosquitoes were not so bad we
would spend hours in the woods here with "God's jocund little fowls."
These sweet songsters seem to have left far behind them to the south all
suspicion of bigger bipeds. We hear the note of the ruby-crowned kinglet
(_regulus calendula_) which some one says sounds like "Chappie, chappie,
jackfish." The American red-start comes to our very feet, the yellow
warbler, the Tennessee warbler, the red-eyed vireo, and the magnolia
warbler, which last, a young Cree tells us, is
"High-Chief-of-all-the-small-birds." Rusty blackbirds are here with
slate-coloured junco, and we see a pair of purple finches. We are
fortunate in getting a picture of the nest of the Gambel sparrow and two
of the nesting white-throated, sparrow. They are ferreted out for us by
the sharp eyes of a girl who says her Cree name is
"A-wandering-bolt-of-night-lightning!" At our feet blossom cinquefoil,
immortelles, the dainty flowers of the bed-straw.
It has been a full day, and by the way the "permits" are opening up in
the settlement when we come back, promises to be a full night. These men
have waited a whole year for a drink, and now the lids can't come off
quick enough. "Come, hurry up, Flynn, we're all as dry as wooden gods,
we're so dry that we're brittle--we'd break if you hit us." "Well, I'm
hurrying; I'm as much in a rush as any of you; I'm so warped the hoops
are falling off."
It doesn't take long to polish off the permits proper (or improper). By
morning all this liquor, imported for "medicinal purposes," is gone.
Whoever in Chipewyan is thoughtless enough to get ill during the next
twelve months must fall back on the medicine-chest of the English
Mission or of the Grey Nuns. Anything strong will do for the creation of
joyousness during the remaining three hundred and sixty-four days of the
year--Jamaica ginger, lavender-water, flavouring extracts.
Next morning the bon vivants of Chipewyan are down to essences of lemon,
vanilla, and ginger, which have been specially imported as stimulating
beverages. We ask if they are any good. "Good? I should say so, and one
bottle just makes a drink. Can I offer" (politely) "to exhilarate you
ladies with vanilla?" The most jovial of the celebrants tells of his
early imbibition of red ink. "I used to get a gallon of red ink with my
outfit every year, and it gives you the good feel, but when this new
Commissioner comes in he writes, 'I don't see how you can use a gallon
of red ink at your post in one year,' and I writes back, 'What we don't
use we abuse,' and next year he writes to me, 'It's the abuse we
complain of,' and, with regretful reminiscence, "I got no more red ink."
The substitution of red tape for the carmine fluid that inebriates is an
innovation not appreciated.
The old records fascinate us. We spend every spare moment before the
coming of the treaty party in transcribing choice bits from them. There
were drinks and drinkers in these old days.
"_1830, Friday 1st. January_. All hands came as is customary to wish us
the compliments of the season, and they were treated with cakes each, a
pipe, and two feet tobacco. In the evening they have the use of the hall
to dance, and are regaled with a beverage."
"_1830, April 30. Poitras_, a Chipewyan half-breed, arrived, and
delivered 81 made beavers in prime furs, though he says he has been
sickly all winter. I therefore presented him with a complete clothing
and a Feather."
"_1830, May 16th_. One of our Indians having been in company with
Indians from Isle a la Crosse got married to one of their young women,
consequently has followed the father-in-law and taken his hunt away from
us."
"_1830, August 13th_. One Indian, _The Rat_, passed us on the Portage,
he was treated with a dram for 'Old Acquaintance' sake."
On New Year's Eve the old chronicler drops into verse. In tall thin
letters in faded ink we read,
"If New Year's Eve the wind blow south,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk, and fish in the sea;
If north, much storms and cold will be;
If east, the trees will bear much fruit;
If northeast, flee it man and beast."
"_1831, January 1_. The thermometer this morning was 29 below cypher."
_1831, May 22_. They bring intelligence that _Mousi-toosese-capo_ is at
their tent, having lately joined them, without his family of two women
and two children, who perished during the winter. From his frequent
prevarication when questioned by the other Crees, they suspect he has
murdered and eaten them."
"_1831, May 30th._ The fellow has got too large a family for a Fort
Hunter, he cannot feed them with unlimited Indulgence and supply us at
the same time." [Would Mr. Roosevelt second this?]
"_1831, June 19th_. Two Chipewyans came from the Long Point informing us
that _Big Head's_ son is dead, that _Big Head_ has thrown away his
property in consequence of the loss of his boy, and that he told them to
beg a shirt and tobacco. The shirt, of course, I did not send, the
scoundrel is not worthy of it. I merely sent him six inches of tobacco
with reluctance. That cursed family is a perfect pest to the place, and
it is my humble opinion that the hand of Providence sends them the
present calamity for their ill deeds."[!]
"_1834, November 27th._ A party of the Isle à la Crosse Indians with old
_Nulooh_ and _Gauche_ cast up. They have not come in this direction for
the sake of running about, some of their relations is dead, and in their
own words they are travelling on strange lands to kill grief, not an
unusual custom among the Northern Indians."
"_1865, October 23rd_. We were surprised yesterday at the arrival of a
Protestant missionary, a Mr. Bompas from England; he came in a canoe
from the Portage with Sylvestre and _Vadnoit_."
"_1866, January 1st_. The whole Establishment breakfasted in the Hall
and in the evening a Ball came off with great eclat. Two marriages also
to-day, Francis Villebrun to Marie Cyre, and Baptiste St. Cyre, Jr., to
Justine McKay--so that all things considered the New Year was ushered
in with a tremendous row! Verily, times are improving in the North."
"_1866, January 2nd_. The men are rather seedy to-day after their
tremendous kick-up of yesterday."
"_1840, January 25th._ The object of sending _Lafleur_ to the Little
Island is that he may procure a kind of willow that the Canadians call
'Courmier,' the bark of which scraped and boiled in water has healing
qualities which they think will be of great service for Hassel's
complaint. Confidence in anything is half the cure."[!]
"_1840, February 1st_. Hassel is still without much appearance for the
better, and at his earnest request was bled."
"_1841, December 31st_. The men from the Fishery made their appearance
as usual at this time, and as usual, too, the best we had (which
by-the-by is not great as will be seen by this journal) was served out
to them. The other men had the time to themselves to prepare for the
holiday of to-morrow, for the _Jour de Tan_ is the greatest day of the
Canadians in these distant Northern posts. To finish things properly
there is still wanting the famous aqua vitae, which we are sorry to
state is not in our means to furnish. Adieu the year one thousand eight
hundred and forty-one!"
"_1842, February 13th_. The Rev. Mr. Evans proposing to take his
departure to-morrow for Isle a la Crosse edified us with a farewell
service, several of the women and children were baptized, and Flett and
Hassel were married to their wives."
From the records we compile this Chipewyan calendar:--
March 17th, House-flies. April 8th, Grey goose seen. April 11th,
Catkins. April 12th, Barking crows. April 19th, Blackbirds and
mosquitoes. April 21st, Plover, two hawks, and a butterfly. April 22nd,
Gulls, white waveys, robins. April 28th, White cranes. April 30th,
Frogs, most of snow gone. May 2nd, Dark butterfly, four purple crocuses.
May 4th, Frogs noisy, bumble bees. May 5th, Nearly clear of ice. May
8th, Water from Peace River flowing into lake. An Eagle. May 10th, Sand
martins. Ice drifting in channel in front of fort. May 20th, Swans
passing north. May 21st, Trees bursting into leaf. July 11th,
Strawberries and raspberries. August 18th, Cranes passing south. October
11th, Small birds passing south. October 12th, First ptarmigan seen
about the fort. October 24th, Lake in front closed up this morning.