PROVISIONS FOR THE WILDERNESS.
All over the Hudson's Bay territory, in making trips, be it in winter
or summer, there is a scale of provisions upon which a safe result
can be assured. For each person of the party, per diem, the following
is allowed, and that is multiplied by the supposed number of days
that the trip is likely to last. Moreover, for each seven days
calculated on, an extra full day's ration is thrown in, this is for
safety in case of some unlooked for accident.
Provisions per man, per day: 2 pounds of flour (or 1 1/2 pounds of
sea biscuits), 1 pound of fat mess pork, 2 ounces of sugar, 1/2 ounce
of tea, 2 ounces of peas (or same of barley), 1/2 ounce of carbonate
of soda, and 1/2 ounce of salt.
The peas or barley are intended to be cooked during the night's
encampment with any game the route may have produced through the day.
With such rations I have traveled with large and small parties,
sometimes with Indians only, and at others with Indian and Canadian
voyagers mixed; have penetrated the wildest parts of two provinces,
in canoes and on snowshoes, and was never short a meal. I admit that
with the wasteful and improvident character of the Indians, the
leader of the party must use due care and watchfulness over his
outfit and see it is not wrongly used.
Take, for instance, the provisions for a party of seven men for
fifteen days, the weight aggregates 347 pounds, and is of formidable
bulk; and when the necessary camping paraphernalia, tents, blankets,
kettles and frying pans, are piled on the beach alongside the
eatables, the sight is something appalling, and the crew is apt to
think what an unnecessary quantity of provisions; but before the
journey is over we hear nothing about there being too much grub. Long
hours, hard work and the keen, bracing atmosphere gives the men
appetites that fairly astonish even themselves.
If a party is to return on the outgoing trail, and after being off a
few days finds it is using within the scale of provisions, it is very
easy to _cache_ a portion for the home journey with a certainty of
finding it "after many days," that is, if properly secured. If in the
depth of winter, and there is a likelihood of wolves or wolverines
coming that way, a good and safe way is to cut a hole in the ice some
distance from the shore on some big lake, cutting almost through to
the water. In this trench put what is required to be left behind,
filling up with the chopped ice, tramp this well down, then pour
several kettles of water on top. This freezes at once, making it as
difficult to gnaw or scratch into as would be the side of an
ironclad. I have come on such a _cache_ after an absence of three
weeks to find the droppings of wolves and foxes about, but the
contents untouched. One could not help smiling on seeing these signs,
imagining the profound thinking the animals must have exerted in
trying to figure out a plan to reach the toothsome stuff under that
hard, glazed surface.
At other seasons of the year a good _cache_ is made by cutting and
peeling a long live tamarac pole. Place this balanced over a strong
crutch, tie what is to be left secure to the small end, over which
place a birch bark covering to keep off the rain (or failing the
proper place or season for getting bark, a very good protection is
made with a thatch of balsam boughs placed symmetrically as shingles)
and tying all in place, tip up the small end, weighting down the butt
with heavy logs or stones; and possess your mind in peace.
Two of the best auxiliaries to a short supply of provisions that a
party can take on any trip in the wilds of Ontario or Quebec, are
gill-net and snaring wire. As food producers, I place these before a
gun. Most of the interior lakes contain fish of some sort, and a
successful haul one night can be smoke dried to last several days
without spoiling, even in hot weather. So long as they are done up in
a secure manner in birch bark to keep out blue flies, the greatest
danger of their going bad is prevented.
Another very good way to preserve and utilize fish, is to scorch a
small portion of flour (about one-third the quantity) and mix with
pounded up, smoke dried fish, previously cleaned of bones. This makes
a light and sustaining pemmican, easily warmed up in a frying-pan,
and if a little fat can be added in the warming process, one can work
on it as well as on a meat diet.
Admitting that there are years of plenty and years of scarcity with
rabbits, there must be a dearth indeed when one or two cannot be
snared in some creek bottom near the night's camp. A gun on the other
hand may be only an incumbrance on a long journey. A chance shot may
well repay the person carrying it, but very frequently a gun is quite
useless.
We crossed the country some years ago between St. Maurice and Lake
St. John. It was at the very best time of the year to see game, being
in the month of May, when every living thing is full of life and
moving about. The trip took us seven days going; coming back by
another route we gained one day. On the whole of that journey through
bush, lakes and rivers we only fired two cartridges, whereas our
small gill-net gave us splendid fish each camping place.
Another trip I remember, this time in the winter, accompanying the
men who carried the winter despatches between Pic River and
Michipecoten, a distance of 120 miles each way. I was prevailed upon
to take a rifle, as the route went over a very high mountain where
deer (caribou) were seen every year by the men. Well, I suppose they
told the truth; but I carried that gun 240 miles without firing a
shot. No, as a possible help to stave off starvation, commend me to a
net and snare in preference to a gun.
In my younger days in the Hudson's Bay Company's service I put in
many years in what we call the Moose Belt in Quebec--that is, from
the St. Maurice River on the east to Lake Nipissing on the west from
the Kepewa on the south to near the height of land on the north. All
inside these boundaries was teeming with moose. They were killed in
the most wanton manner by Algonquin Indians and the lumbermen, in
many instances only the hide being taken, and the meat left. Our own
Indians, who lived year in and year out in the country, never wasted
a particle of meat. If they killed more than the family could consume
during the winter months, before the warm days of April set in, it
was carefully collected, cut in strips and smoke dried for summer
use. While attending to the curing of the meat, the thrifty squaw
dressed the hides. These were cut up and made into moccasins and
traded at our store during their stay about the post in summer. An
ordinary sized hide would cut up into about twenty-two pairs of shoes
(without tops) and commanded $1.50 per pair, we selling them for the
same price in cash to lumber concerns, making our profit on the goods
bartered.
The young Indian the year prior to getting married always exerted
himself to show how many moose he could kill. This was their boast
and pride to show they were good providers of food. The Indian nature
to kill would manifest itself at this time, and the numbers killed by
some of the young slips is hardly to be credited. Older men with
families never killed for the sake of killing.
I knew a young Indian personally whose mother had been left a widow
with a large family. He was the eldest of the children, and that
summer began to strut about the post in fine clothes and mix with the
men of the tribe. This is one of the traits that shows itself before
matrimony is contemplated. The killing of many moose was sure to
follow these signs. That young boy actually killed to his own gun
ninety moose. Averaging the butchered meat of each moose at the low
estimate of 600 pounds, we have a gross weight of 54,000 pounds of
good, wholesome food.
This section of country was in those days, I venture to say, the
richest in game on the continent of America. Every little creek or
lake had its beaver lodge, and even on the main routes of travel one
would see beaver swimming two or three times in the course of a day's
paddle.
At the posts we lived on fish, game and potatoes. Our allowance of
flour was only 100 pounds for each man for the twelve months, and we
used to spin this out by eating only a pancake or so on Sundays and a
pudding on Christmas.
The choice bits of the moose--the tongue and muzzle--the Indians
brought us in quantities, the trade price of each being half a "made
beaver," equal to a supposed sum of fifty cents. This was paid in
goods, and would be further reduced by 100 per cent, our advance for
transport and profit.
One cannot but look back with regret to those days and think such
slaughter was murder.