THE WILDERNESS PRIMEVAL
The passage of the channel leading into Richmond Gulf was accomplished
without adventure, and within the gulf the power boat took a
northeasterly direction, passing several small islands. Many wild
ducks, gulls and other water fowl and birds flew about the islands,
hovered over the water or rested upon the waves.
Presently Kuglutuk turned the boat into the mouth of a river, and
ascending the stream for a little distance, against a strong current,
made a landing near the foot of a rushing, tumultuous rapid.
“Tom,” declared Remington, when they were ashore, “I’m as hungry as
seven bears. Fry some bacon and make some coffee, won’t you, before
you pitch the tents?”
“Aye, aye, sir. We’ll put on a fire an’ have un ready in a jiffy. Dan,
b’y, bring up the things from the boat.”
“Come fellows, we’ll get our rods up while Tom’s getting dinner,”
suggested Remington. “I’m aching to try my luck.”
“Which of these rods shall I use?” asked Paul. “I never used a rod in
my life, and I guess you’ll have to show me.”
“Try this one,” selecting a good weight steel fly rod. “That’s got
strength, and if you strike a big one you’re not so likely to break it
as that lighter one. You’ll be able to handle the lighter one after
some practice.”
In the meantime Tom cut a pole about eight feet in length, sharpened
the butt, which he jabbed firmly into the earth, inclined it at an
angle over a fire which Kuglutuk had kindled with moss and dead
sticks, and in such a position that the upper end of the stick came
directly over the blaze. On this he hung a kettle of water. Then he
sliced bacon. In ten minutes the water had boiled, coffee was made,
the kettle removed from the stick, placed close to the fire on the
ground, and the bacon sizzling in the pan.
“Oh, cracky!” said Paul, sniffing the air, “that’s the best thing I
ever smelled.”
“Doesn’t it smell bully!” exclaimed Remington. “I thought I’d have
time to make a cast or two before Tom was ready for us, but he’s been
too quick for me.”
“Now,” said Remington, when they were through eating, “we’ll see if
there are any hungry fish in that pool.”
Paul looked on while the older sportsmen made one or two casts. Then
he attempted it, at first very clumsily, but gradually improving. He
was not very enthusiastic, however.
“I don’t see any fun in this,” he said finally.
“Keep at it, and you’ll learn,” encouraged Remington.
At that moment “whiz-z-z” and Ainsworth’s reel fairly hummed, with
forty yards of line run out before he could check it--a flash of
spray--a great silver bar in the air! The leap was full two feet!
Splash! It doubled, demanded more line, fought as only a salmon can
fight, the supple steel rod bent and curved, but the angler, his face
tense with excitement, held his advantage.
“Good! Bully!” shouted Remington with each play. “Look out! That’s the
way! Easy! That’s it!”
Again and again the fish fought for the head of the rapid, but at
length, conquered, it was drawn in, and with Remington’s assistance
landed--a fine big salmon.
“That was great!” exclaimed Paul. “Guess there is some fun in it after
all.”
“Fun! Just strike one, and you’ll say it’s the best ever!” Ainsworth
was justly proud.
A few minutes later, “Whiz-z-z” again, and “Whiz-z-z!” Two silver
flashes! Two fountains of spray! Two mighty splashes! Paul and
Remington had each hooked a salmon at nearly the same instant! And
then there was fun! Ainsworth could hardly contain himself as he
watched the play, shouting directions and cautions to one and the
other. There was danger of getting their lines tangled when both fish
darted up stream at once, or made dives for the bank at the same time,
in efforts to free themselves. Finally Paul’s fish rushed in upon him,
gained slack line, shook loose the hook and was free.
Paul could have cried with disappointment and vexation.
“Just my luck!” he exclaimed, as he saw Remington land a fine salmon.
“Oh, no, don’t get discouraged. You did mighty well for the first
time,” encouraged Remington.
“I notice you landed yours, all right,” said Paul pettishly.
“But I may lose the next one. The uncertainty of whether you’ll land
them or not after you’ve hooked them is half the fun.”
“I can’t see that----”
“Whiz-z-z”--away went his line again before he could finish. For half
an hour, directed by Remington, he played the fish, and was at length
rewarded with as fine a salmon as Ainsworth’s--considerably larger
than Remington’s.
“What fun! Oh, but it’s great!” he exclaimed as, all a-tremble with
excitement, he examined his catch.
“They’re here all right, and they’re taking flies. We’ve got all the
fish Tom can take care of today, and we’ve had a week’s fun in two
hours. What do you fellows say to climbing that barren hill?”
suggested Remington. “I’m anxious to see what the country is like
behind those cliffs.”
Paul was loath to go. The sport had set his blood a-tingling with
excitement and he would much have preferred to remain behind and fish,
but Ainsworth agreed with Remington, and his sense of courtesy to his
host bade him join them.
“We’ll stretch our lines to dry before we go, Paul. Never put your
line up wet or it will rot, and some day you’ll lose a fine fish,”
advised Remington, who had noticed Paul lean his rod against a tree.
Their lines stretched, they wandered up the defile down which the
river plunged in its mad impatience to reach the sea. Here they were
in a dark forest of stunted spruce, but very quickly, as they began
the ascent of the hill, trees gave way to straggling brush, and brush
at length to bare rocks.
“There’s a view for you,” said Remington when the summit was reached.
“Magnificent!” exclaimed Ainsworth.
“Pretty rough country.”
“But grand! Stupendously grand!”
To the west, a shimmering vista, lay Hudson Bay; to the east, to the
north, to the south, stretched a tumbled, boundless mass of rocky
ridges, interspersed with starved forests of spruce. Here and there a
lake sparkled in the distance. Below them the river, a twisting,
winding thread of silver, coursed down to the sea.
The sensations that had come to Paul in Hudson Strait when he first
beheld the distant wilderness and the sailless sea, thrilled him
again--first fear and shrinking, then an inward, inexplicable sense of
power and freedom.
“And no one lives there,” he said, more to himself than to his
companions.
“No one but Indians,” said Remington. “Eskimos on the coast. They all
live as close to nature as man can live, and they fight that
wilderness pretty constantly for existence. It’s a land of the
survival of the fittest.”
Later, on other occasions during their stay in Richmond Gulf, Paul
visited the barren hill. He would steal away alone, and for an hour
at a time sit upon its rocky summit, and revel in the rugged beauties
of the landscape. Here he felt a something well up within him, a
desire to _do_ something--an indescribable longing he could not
define.
The lure and the power of the wilderness were exerting their
influence. This was the world just as God had made it, untouched by
the hand of man. Rugged mountains, patches of green forests, sparkling
lakes, the distant sea, the blue sky, and silence. There were no brick
walls to limit the vision, no tall chimneys belching out smudges of
black smoke to defile the atmosphere, no rushing crowd to distract.
Nowhere does one get so close to God as in the wilderness. The
wilderness is the temple of pure thoughts, of high ambitions. Here
man’s soul expands as nowhere else on earth.
When the three returned to camp they found the tents set up and
everything snug and in order. A fragrant and cozy seat of spruce
boughs had been arranged by Dan and Kuglutuk before a roaring log
fire, and, by no means the least attractive of the preparations, a
delicious supper of salmon awaited them, which they attacked with a
will, for the exercise had given them an unusual appetite.
“I never ate such fish before,” Paul declared, between mouthfuls.
When supper was finished the two men lighted cigars, and chatted,
while Paul reclined upon the boughs and gazed into the blaze.
Presently Tom and Dan joined them, and Dan, producing his harmonica,
began to play a soft, low air, while Tom cut some tobacco from a plug,
rolled it between the palms of his hands, stuffed it into a pipe,
lighted it with a brand from the fire and handing the plug to Kuglutuk
who followed his example, contentedly settled back to smoke and enjoy
the warmth, for the evening was chilly.
“Them was fine salmon you gets this evenin’,” Tom remarked.
“Yes,” said Remington, “fine ones, and I hope we’ll have more
tomorrow.”
“Dandies!” broke in Paul, “and dandy fun landing them!”
“Yes, ’tis rare sport landin’ un. And does you like troutin’?”
“Yes, to be sure. We expected to get trout here,” answered Remington.
“Th’ husky’s tellin’ me they’s plenty to be had a bit up the streams,
sir, and big uns--wonderful big uns, by his tell, sir.”
“We’ll have to try them tomorrow.”
“Where did you learn to speak Eskimo, Tom?” asked Ainsworth.
“Where’d I learn un, sir? I never learned un. I allus knew un. I were
born, sir, on the Labrador. My mother were a woman of Zoar, sir, an’ a
half-breed. They talks mostly husky thereabouts. The first words she
ever says to me, sir, was husky, an’ when I were a wee lad she talks
all her baby talk to me in husky.”
“But your father was a white man?”
“Oh, aye, sir, he were from Conception Bay. He were down on the
Labrador fishin’, an’ he meets my mother, an’ likes she, an’ th’
missionary marries un. Then he stays at Zoar an’ traps in winter, an’
there I were born, sir.”
“Are your parents still living, then?”
“Oh, no, sir. They both dies when I were a bit of a lad, sir--seven
year old or thereabouts. ’Twere in winter, an’ my father is out to his
traps. My mother expects him home in th’ evenin’, an’ when it gets
dark an’ he never comes she’s much worried, for he’s always before
comin’ when he’s promisin’, sir. He were a wonderful true man t’ keep
his word, sir, even t’ wallopin’ me when I does things he’s denied me
to do, an’ is deservin’ th’ wallopin’.
“Well, as th’ evenin’ gets on an’ he’s not comin’, my mother cries a
bit an’ says somethin’s been befallin’ he, sir, out in the bush, an’
when she rouses me from sleep before the break of day th’ next
mornin’, she’s in a wonderful bad state worryin’. She tells me she’s
goin’ t’ look for he, an’ I’m t’ watch th’ baby.
“She goes, sir, an’ she don’t come back that day or that night or th’
next day. Snow comes fallin’ thick an’ th’ weather grows dreadful
nasty. Th’ baby cries most o’ th’ time, an’ I carries un some. I knows
th’ baby’s hungry, but I has no way t’ feed un. After awhile it stops
cryin’ when I lays un on th’ bed.
“That were a wonderful cold night, sir. When mornin’ comes th’ baby’s
still quiet, an’ I says to myself, ‘I’ll let un sleep.’
“Th’ bread’s all gone, an’ I only has a bit of salt fish t’ eat, an’
th’ fire I puts on in th’ stove burns slow. But th’ snow’s stopped in
th’ night.
“Th’ baby don’t cry no more, but I does, for I don’t know why my
father an’ mother don’t come, an’ I’m cryin’ when I hears dogs
outside. I wipes away th’ tears quick, for I’m wantin’ no one t’ catch
me cryin’.
“Then in comes th’ Moravian missionary from Nain, a wonderful kind
man. He asks where my mother is. I tells he how my mother goes away to
look for my father an’ never comes back, an’ th’ hard time I has. That
th’ baby were hungry, but she’s sleepin’ now.
“He goes an’ looks at un, an’ then very quiet he covers un over with
th’ blanket, an’ puttin’ his hand on my head an’ lookin’ in my eyes,
he says: ‘Is you brave, lad? We all has troubles, lad, an’ you must
be brave to meet yours.’
“Then he calls old Muklutuk, his driver, to bring in some grub. They
puts on a good fire, an’ gives me a plenty t’ eat, an’ goes away
sayin’ they’ll be back by night.
“When they comes back the missionary holds me up to him, and he says,
very kind: ‘Lad, I’m goin’ to take you to a new home, for your father
and mother has been called away to heaven by th’ Lord. He’ll be
needin’ ’em there, an’ they can’t come back t’ you, but th’ Lord wants
me t’ take you with me.’
“I were wonderful lonesome when he says that, at not seein’ mother an’
father again, but I holds back th’ tears, for mother has often been
tellin’ me that some day th’ Lord might be callin’ she or father away
t’ live in heaven, an’ not t’ cry or feel bad about un, for ’t would
be right, as everything th’ Lord done were right.
“Well, th’ missionary takes me on his komatik t’ th’ station where he
lives, an’ th’ women there cries over me an’ makes a wonderful lot o’
me, an’ every one there is wonderful kind.”
“What had happened to your father and mother?” asked Ainsworth, after
a pause.
“I were comin’ t’ that. He’d been meetin’ with an accident, his gun
goin’ off an’ shootin’ his foot off. She finds him in th’ snow, an’
tries t’ carry him home, but ’t were too much for she, an’ when it
comes on t’ snow again she sticks to him, an’ they both freezes t’
death. Leastwise that’s what th’ missionary thinks, for he finds un
froze stone dead. Mother has her arms around father, holdin’ he close
to her bosom, as though tryin’ to keep he warm.
“So you sees, sir, how I come t’ speak th’ Eskimo lingo. My mother
were a half-breed of th’ Labrador.”
“The baby?” asked Paul, much moved by the story. “What became of
that?”
“The baby were dead for a long while ere th’ missionary comes.”
Tom rose and threw some fresh wood on the fire, cut some fresh tobacco
from his plug, refilled his pipe, and sat down again.
“But you live in Newfoundland now, Tom?” Remington asked.
“Oh, aye, sir. My father’s brother comes down t’ the Labrador fishing
the next summer, and takes me home with he. I’d like wonderful well
for you t’ meet my woman, and my little lad and lass, sir. There’s no
likelier lad and lass on the coast, sir. They’re wonderful likely,
sir.”
Dan resumed his soft music on the harmonica. Twilight gave way to
darkness. Beyond the campfire’s circle of light the forest lay black.
Below them the rapid roared. In the North the aurora flashed up its
gorgeous glory.
“Well,” said Remington at length, rising, “I reckon it’s time to turn
in for we want to be out early and make the most of our time.”
His warm sleeping bag seemed very cozy to Paul when he crawled into
it, this first night he had ever spent in camp, the perfume of his
spruce bough bed very sweet, and quickly he fell into deep and restful
slumber, to be suddenly awakened by the sharp report of a rifle.