Winter, with its snow and its ice; winter, with its sharp winds and
white drifts; winter, with its various characteristic occupations and
employments, is past, and it is spring now.
The sun no longer glitters on fields of white; the wood-man's axe is no
longer heard hacking the oaken billets, to keep alive the roaring fires.
That inexpressibly cheerful sound the merry chime of sleigh-bells, that
tells more of winter than all other sounds together, is no longer heard
on the bosom of Red River; for the sleighs are thrown aside as useless--
lumber-carts and gigs have supplanted them. The old Canadian, who used
to drive the ox with its water-barrel to the ice-hole for his daily
supply, has substituted a small cart with wheels for the old sleigh that
used to glide so smoothly over the snow, and grit so sharply on it in
the more than usually frosty mornings in the days gone by. The trees
have lost their white patches, and the clump of willows, that used to
look like islands in the prairie, have disappeared, as the carpeting
that gave them prominence has dissolved. The aspect of everything in
the isolated settlement has changed. The winter is gone, and spring--
bright, beautiful, hilarious spring--has come again.
By those who have never known an arctic winter, the delights of an
arctic spring can never, we fear, be fully appreciated or understood.
Contrast is one of its strongest elements; indeed, we might say, _the_
element which gives to all the others peculiar zest. Life in the arctic
regions is like one of Turner's pictures, in which the lights are
strong, the shadows deep, and the _tout ensemble_ hazy and romantic. So
cold and prolonged is the winter, that the first mild breath of spring
breaks on the senses like a zephyr from the plains of paradise.
Everything bursts suddenly into vigorous life, after the long death-like
sleep of Nature, as little children burst into the romping gaieties of a
new day after the deep repose of a long and tranquil night. The snow
melts, the ice breaks up, and rushes in broken masses, heaving and
tossing in the rising flood, that grind and whirl them into the ocean,
or into those great fresh-water lakes that vie with ocean itself in
magnitude and grandeur. The buds come out and the leaves appear,
clothing all nature with a bright, refreshing green, which derives
additional brilliancy from sundry patches of snow that fill the deep
creeks and hollows everywhere, and form ephemeral fountains whose waters
continue to supply a thousand rills for many a long day, until the
fierce glare of the summer sun prevails at last and melts them all away.
Red River flows on now to mix its long-pent-up waters with Lake
Winnipeg. Boats are seen rowing about upon its waters, as the settlers
travel from place to place; and wooden canoes, made of the hollowed-out
trunks of large trees, shoot across from shore to shore--these canoes
being a substitute for bridges, of which there are none, although the
settlement lies on both sides of the river. Birds have now entered upon
the scene, their wild cries and ceaseless flight adding to it a cheerful
activity. Ground squirrels pop up out of their holes to bask their
round, fat, beautifully-striped little bodies in the sun, or to gaze in
admiration at the farmer, as he urges a pair of _very_ slow-going oxen,
that drag the plough at a pace which induces one to believe that the
wide field _may_ possibly be ploughed up by the end of next year. Frogs
whistle in the marshy ground so loudly that men new to the country
believe they are being regaled by the songs of millions of birds. There
is no mistake about their _whistle_. It is not merely _like_ a whistle,
but it _is_ a whistle, shrill and continuous; and as the swamps swarm
with these creatures, the song never ceases for a moment, although each
individual frog creates only one little gush of music, composed of half
a dozen trills, and then stops a moment for breath before commencing the
second bar. Bull-frogs, too, though not so numerous, help to vary the
sound by croaking vociferously, as if they understood the value of bass,
and were glad of having an opportunity to join in the universal hum of
life and joy which rises everywhere, from the river and the swamp, the
forest and the prairie, to welcome back the spring.
Such was the state of things in Red River one beautiful morning in
April, when a band of voyageurs lounged in scattered groups about the
front gate of Fort Garry. They were as fine a set of picturesque, manly
fellows as one could desire to see. Their mode of life rendered them
healthy, hardy, and good-humoured, with a strong dash of recklessness--
perhaps too much of it--in some of the younger men. Being descended,
generally, from French-Canadian sires and Indian mothers, they united
some of the good and not a few of the bad qualities of both, mentally as
well as physically--combining the light, gay-hearted spirit and full,
muscular frame of the Canadian with the fierce passions and active
habits of the Indian. And this wildness of disposition was not a little
fostered by the nature of their usual occupations. They were employed
during a great part of the year in navigating the Hudson's Bay Company's
boats, laden with furs and goods, through the labyrinth of rivers and
lakes that stud and intersect the whole continent, or they were engaged
in pursuit of the bisons, [these animals are always called buffaloes by
American hunters and fur-traders] which roam the prairies in vast herds.
They were dressed in the costume of the country: most of them wore
light-blue cloth capotes, girded tightly round them by scarlet or
crimson worsted belts. Some of them had blue, and others scarlet, cloth
leggings, ornamented more or less with stained porcupine quills,
coloured silk, or variegated beads; while some might be seen clad in the
leathern coats of winter-deer-skin dressed like chamois leather, fringed
all round with little tails, and ornamented much in the same way as
those already described. The heavy winter moccasins and duffel socks,
which gave to their feet the appearance of being afflicted with gout,
were now replaced by moccasins of a lighter and more elegant character,
having no socks below, and fitting tightly to the feet like gloves.
Some wore hats similar to those made of silk or beaver which are worn by
ourselves in Britain, but so bedizened with scarlet cock-tail feathers,
and silver cords and tassels, as to leave the original form of the
head-dress a matter of great uncertainty. These hats, however, are only
used on high occasions, and chiefly by the fops. Most of the men wore
coarse blue cloth caps with peaks, and not a few discarded head-pieces
altogether, under the impression, apparently, that nature had supplied a
covering which was in itself sufficient. These costumes varied not only
in character but in quality, according to the circumstances of the
wearer; some being highly ornamental and mended--evincing the felicity
of the owner in the possession of a good wife--while others were soiled
and torn, or but slightly ornamented. The voyageurs were collected, as
we have said, in groups. Here stood a dozen of the youngest--
consequently the most noisy and showily dressed--laughing loudly,
gesticulating violently, and bragging tremendously. Near to them were
collected a number of sterner spirits--men of middle age, with all the
energy, and muscle, and bone of youth, but without its swaggering
hilarity; men whose powers and nerves had been tried over and over again
amid the stirring scenes of a voyageur's life; men whose heads were
cool, and eyes sharp, and hands ready and powerful, in the mad whirl of
boiling rapids, in the sudden attack of wild beast and hostile man, or
in the unexpected approach of any danger; men who, having been well
tried, needed not to boast, and who, having carried off triumphantly
their respective brides many years ago, needed not to decorate their
persons with the absurd finery that characterised their younger
brethren. They were comparatively few in number, but they composed a
sterling band, of which every man was a hero. Among them were those who
occupied the high positions of bowman and steersman, and when we tell
the reader that on these two men frequently hangs the safety of a boat,
with all its crew and lading, it will be easily understood how needful
it is that they should be men of iron nerve and strength of mind.
Boat-travelling in those regions is conducted in a way that would
astonish most people who dwell in the civilised quarters of the globe.
The country being intersected in all directions by great lakes and
rivers, these have been adopted as the most convenient highways along
which to convey the supplies and bring back the furs from outposts.
Rivers in America, however, as in other parts of the world, are
distinguished by sudden ebullitions and turbulent points of character,
in the shape of rapids, falls, and cataracts, up and down which neither
men nor boats can by any possibility go with impunity; consequently, on
arriving at such obstructions, the cargoes are carried overland to
navigable water above or below the falls (as the case may be), then the
boats are dragged over and launched, again reloaded, and the travellers
proceed. This operation is called "making a portage;" and as these
portages vary from twelve yards to twelve miles in length, it may be
readily conceived that a voyageur's life is not an easy one by any
means.
This, however, is only one of his difficulties. Rapids occur which are
not so dangerous as to make a "portage" necessary, but are sufficiently
turbulent to render the descent of them perilous. In such cases, the
boats, being lightened of part of their cargo, are ran down, and
frequently they descend with full cargoes and crews. It is then that
the whole management of each boat devolves upon its bowman and
steersman. The rest of the crew, or _middlemen_ as they are called,
merely sit still and look on, or give a stroke with their oars if
required; while the steersman, with powerful sweeps of his heavy oar,
directs the flying boat as it bounds from surge to surge like a thing of
life; and the bowman stands erect in front to assist in directing his
comrade at the stern, having a strong and long pole in his hands, with
which, ever and anon, he violently forces the boat's head away from
sunken rocks, against which it might otherwise strike and be stove in,
capsized, or seriously damaged.
Besides the groups already enumerated, there were one or two others,
composed of grave, elderly men, whose wrinkled brows, grey hairs, and
slow, quiet step showed that the strength of their days was past;
although their upright figures and warm, brown complexions gave promise
of their living to see many summers still. These were the principal
steersmen and old guides--men of renown, to whom the others bowed as
oracles or looked up to as fathers; men whose youth and manhood had been
spent in roaming the trackless wilderness, and who were, therefore,
eminently qualified to guide brigades through the length and breadth of
the land; men whose power of threading their way among the perplexing
intricacies of the forest had become a second nature, a kind of
instinct, that was as sure of attaining its end as the instinct of the
feathered tribes, which brings the swallow, after a long absence, with
unerring certainty back to its former haunts again in spring.