VARIED DUTIES--CHRISTIANITY MUST PRECEDE CIVILISATION--ILLUSTRATIONS--
EXPERIMENTAL FARMING--PLOUGHING WITH DOGS--ABUNDANCE OF FISH--VISITS
FROM FAR-OFF INDIANS--SOME COME TO DISTURB--MANY SINCERE INQUIRERS AFTER
THE TRUTH--"WHERE IS THE MISSIONARY?"--BEREN'S RIVER MISSION BEGUN--
TIMOTHY BEAR--PERILS ON THE ICE.
Very diversified were our duties among these Indians. Not only were
there those that in all places are associated with ministerial or
pastoral work, but there were also many others, peculiar to this kind of
missionary toil. Following closely on the acceptance of the spiritual
blessings of the Gospel came the desire for temporal progress and
development. Christianity must ever precede a real and genuine
civilisation. To reverse this order of proceedings has always resulted
in humiliating failure among the North American Indians.
Sir Francis Bond Head, one of the early Governors of Canada, took a
great interest in the Indians. He zealously endeavoured to improve
them, and honestly worked for their advancement. He gathered together a
large number of them at one of their settlements, and held a great
council with them. Oxen were killed, and flour and tea and tobacco were
provided in large quantities. The Indians feasted and smoked, and
listened attentively to this great man who represented the Queen, and
who, having also supplied them with food for the great feast, was worthy
of all attention.
The Governor told them that the great object of his coming to see them,
and thus feasting them, was to show his kindness to them, and interest
in their welfare. Then, with much emphasis he told them how the game
was disappearing, and the fish also would soon not be so plentiful, and,
unless they settled down and cultivated the soil, they would suffer from
hunger, and perhaps starve to death. He got them to promise that they
would begin this new way of life. As they were feeling very comfortable
while feasting on his bounties, they were in the humour of promising
everything he desired. Very much delighted at their docility, he said
he would send them axes to clear more of their land, and oxen and
ploughs to prepare it for seed; and when all was ready he would send
them seed grain. Great were their rejoicings at these words, and with
stately ceremony the council broke up.
In a few days along came the ploughs, oxen, and axes. It was in the
pleasant springtime, but instead of going to work and ploughing up what
land there was cleared in their village, and beginning with their axes
to get more ready, they held a council among themselves. These were
their conclusions: "These axes are bright and shine like glass. If we
use them to cut down trees, they will lose their fine appearance. Let
us keep them as ornaments. These oxen now are fat and good. If we
fasten them up to these heavy ploughs, and make them drag them through
the ground, they will soon get poor and not fit for food. Let us make a
great feast." So they killed the oxen, and invited all of the
surrounding Indians to join them, and as long as a piece of meat was
left the pots were kept boiling.
Thus ended, just as many other efforts of the kind have ended, this
effort to civilise the Indians before Christianising them.
We found that almost in proportion to the genuineness of the Indian's
acceptance of the Gospel was his desire to improve his temporal
circumstances. Of course there were some places where the Indians could
not cultivate the land. We were four hundred miles north of the fertile
prairies of the great western part of the Dominion of Canada, where
perhaps a hundred millions of people will yet find happy times. From
these wondrously fertile regions my Nelson River Indians were at least
six hundred miles north. As hunters and fishermen these men, and those
at Oxford Mission, and indeed nearly all in those high latitudes, must
live. But where there was land to cultivate the Indians had their
gardens and little fields.
I carried out with me four potatoes. I did not get them in the ground
until the 6th of August. Yet in the short season left I succeeded in
raising a few little ones. These I carefully packed in cotton wool and
kept safe from the frost. The next year I got from them a pailful. The
yield the third year was six bushels, and the fourth year one hundred
and twenty-five bushels; and before I left the Indians were raising
thousands of bushels from those four potatoes. They had had some
before, but there had been some neglect, and they had run out.
One summer I carried out, in a little open boat from Red River, a good
Scotch iron beam plough. The next winter, when I came in to the
District Meeting, I bought a bag of wheat containing two bushels and a
half; and I got also thirty-two iron harrow teeth. I dragged these
things, with many others, including quite an assortment of garden seeds,
on my dog-trains, all the way to Norway House. I harnessed eight dogs
to my plough, and ploughed up my little fields; and, after making a
harrow, I harrowed in my wheat with the dogs. The first year I had
thirty bushels of beautiful wheat. This I cut with a sickle, and then
thrashed it with a flail. Mrs Young sewed several sheets together, and
one day, when there was a steady, gentle breeze blowing, we winnowed the
chaff from the wheat in the wind. There were no mills within hundreds
of miles of us; so we merely cracked the wheat in a hand coffee-mill,
and used some of it for porridge, and gave the rest to the Indians, who
made use of it in their soups.
Thus we laboured with them and for them, and were more and more
encouraged, as the years rolled on, at seeing how resolved they were to
improve their temporal circumstances, which at the best were not to be
envied.
The principal article of food was fish. The nets were in the water from
the time the ice disappeared in May until it returned in October; and
often were holes cut in the ice, and nets placed under it, for this
staple article of food.
The great fall fisheries were times of activity and anxiety, as the
winter's supply of food depended very much upon the numbers caught. So
steady and severe is the frost at Norway House, and at all the Missions
north of it, that the fish caught in October and the early part of
November, keep frozen solid until April. The principal fish is the
white fish, although many other varieties abound.
Each Indian family endeavoured to secure from three to five thousand
fish, each fall, for the winter's supply. For my own family use, and
more especially for my numerous dogs, which were required for my long
winter trips to the out Mission appointments, I used to endeavour to
secure not less than ten thousand fish. It is fortunate that those
lakes and rivers so abound in splendid varieties of fish. If it were
not so, the Indians could not exist. But, providentially,--
"The teeming sea supplies
The food the niggard soil denies."
Deer of several varieties abound, and also other animals, the flesh of
which furnishes nutritious food. But all supplies of food thus obtained
are insignificant in comparison with the fish, which the Indians are
able to obtain except in the severest weather.
As with the natives, so it was with the Missionaries; the principal
article of food upon their tables was fish. During the first Riel
Rebellion, when all communication with the interior was cut off, and our
supplies could not as usual be sent out to us from Red River, my good
wife and I lived on fish twenty-one times a week, for nearly six months.
Of course there were times when we had on the table, in addition to the
fish, a cooked rabbit, or it may be a piece of venison or bear's meat.
However, the great "stand-by," as they say out in that land, was the
fish.
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Every summer hundreds of Indians from other places visited us. Some
came in their small canoes, and others with the Brigades, which in those
days travelled vast distances with their loads of rich furs, which were
sent down to York Factory on the Hudson Bay, to be shipped thence to
England. Sometimes they remained several weeks between the trading post
and the Mission. Very frequent were the conversations we had with these
wandering red men about the Great Spirit and the Great Book.
Some, full of mischief, and at times unfortunately full of rum, used to
come to annoy and disturb us. One summer a band of Athabasca Indians so
attacked our Mission House that for three days and nights we were as in
a state of siege. Unfortunately for us our own loyal able-bodied Indian
men were all away as trip men, and the few at the Mission village were
powerless to help. Our lives were in jeopardy, and they came very near
burning down the premises.
Shortly after these Athabasca Indians had left us I saw a large boatload
of men coming across the lake towards our village. Imagining them to be
some of these same disturbers, I hastily rallied all the old men I
could, and went down to the shore, to keep them, if possible, from
landing. Very agreeable indeed was my surprise to find that they were a
band of earnest seekers after the Great Light, who had come a long
distance to see and talk with me. Gladly did I lead them to the Mission
House, and until midnight I endeavoured to preach to them Jesus. They
came a distance of over three hundred miles; but in that far-off
district had met in their wanderings some of our Christian Indians from
Norway House, who, always carrying their Bibles with them, had, by
reading to them and praying with them, under the good Spirit's
influence, implanted in their hearts longing desires after the great
salvation. They were literally hungering and thirsting after salvation.
Before they left for their homes, they were all baptized. Their
importunate request to me on leaving was the same as that of many
others:
"Do come and visit us in our own land, and tell us and our families more
of these blessed truths."
From God's Lake, which is sixty miles from Oxford Lake, a deputation of
eleven Indians came to see me. They had travelled the whole distance of
two hundred and sixty miles in order that they might hear the Gospel,
and get from me a supply of Bibles, Hymn-books, and Catechisms. One of
them had been baptized and taught years ago by the Reverend H.
Brooking. His life and teachings had made the others eager for this
blessed way, and so he brought these hungry sheep in the wilderness that
long distance that they might have the truth explained to them more
perfectly, and be baptised. As it had been with the others who came
from a different direction, so it was with these. Their earnest, oft-
repeated entreaty was, "Come and visit us and ours in our far-away
homes."
A few weeks after, another boatload of men called to have a talk with
me. They seated themselves on the grass in front of the Mission House,
and at first acted as though they expected me to begin the conversation.
I found out very soon that they were Saulteaux, and had come from
Beren's River, about a hundred and fifty miles away. After a few words
as to their health and families had passed between us, an old man, who
seemed to be the spokesman of the party, said, "Well, Ayumeaookemou"
("praying master," the Missionary's name), "do you remember your words
of three summers ago?"
"What were my words of three summers ago?" I asked.
"Why," he replied, "your words were that you would write to the Keche-
ayumeaookemou" (the great praying masters, the Missionary Secretaries)
"for a Missionary for us."
When I first passed through their country, they with tears in their eyes
had begged for a Missionary. I had been much moved by their appeals,
and had written to the Mission House about them and for them, but all in
vain. None had come to labour among them.
For my answer to this old man's words I translated a copy of my letter,
which had been published, and in which I had strongly urged their claims
for a Missionary. They all listened attentively to the end, and then
the old man sprang up and said, "We all thank you for sending that word,
but _where is the Missionary_?" I was lost for an answer, for I felt
that I was being asked by this hungering soul the most important
question that can be heard by the Christian Church, to whom God has
committed the great work of the world's evangelisation.
"WHERE IS THE MISSIONARY?" The question thrilled me, and I went down
before it like the reed before the storm. I could only weep and say,
"Lord, have mercy upon me and on the apathetic Christian world."
That was the hardest question a human being ever asked me. To tell him
of a want of men, or a lack of money, to carry the glad tidings of
salvation to him and his people, would only have filled his mind with
doubts as to the genuineness of the religion enjoyed by a people so
numerous and rich as he knew the whites were. So I tried to give them
some idea of the world's population, and the vast number yet unconverted
to Christianity. I told him the Churches were at work in many places
and among many nations, but that many years would pass away before all
the world would be supplied with Missionaries.
"How many winters will pass by before that time comes?" he asked.
"A great many, I fear," was my answer.
He put his hands through his long hair, once as black as a raven's wing,
but now becoming silvered, and replied: "These white hairs show that I
have lived many winters, and am getting old. My countrymen at Red River
on the south of us, and here at Norway House on the north of us, have
Missionaries, and churches, and schools; and we have none. I do not
wish to die until we have a church and a school."
The story of this old man's appeal woke up the good people of the
Churches, and something was soon done for these Indians. I visited them
twice a year by canoe and dog-train, and found them anxious for
religious instruction and progress.
At first I sent to live among them my faithful interpreter, Timothy
Bear. He worked faithfully and did good service. He was not a strong
man physically, and could not stand much exposure. To live in, he had
my large leather tent, which was made of the prepared skins of the
buffalo. One night a great tornado swept over the country, and
Timothy's tent was carried away, and then the drenching rains fell upon
him and his. A severe cold resulted, and when word reached me several
weeks after at Norway House, it was that my trusted friend was
hopelessly ill, but was still endeavouring to keep at his duties.
So great was my anxiety to go and comfort him that I started out with my
dog-trains so soon after the winter set in that that trip very nearly
proved to be my last. The greater part of that journey was performed
upon Lake Winnipeg. Very frequently on the northern end of that lake
the ice, which there forms first, is broken up by the fierce winds from
the southern end, which, being three hundred miles further south,
remains open several days longer. I had with me two Indians,--one was
an old experienced man, named William Cochran; the other a splendid
specimen of physical manhood, named Felix.
When we reached Lake Winnipeg, as far as we could judge by the
appearance of the ice, it must have formed three times, and then have
been broken up by the storms. The broken masses were piled up in
picturesque ridges along the shore, or frozen together in vast fields
extending for many miles. Over these rough ice-fields, where great
pieces of ice, from five to twenty feet high, were thrown at every
angle, and then frozen solid, we travelled for two days. Both men and
dogs suffered a great deal from falls and bruises. Our feet at times
were bruised and bleeding. Just about daybreak, on our third day, as we
pushed out from our camp in the woods where we had passed the night,
when we had got a considerable distance from the shore, Felix was
delighted to find smooth ice. He was guiding at the time. He put on
his skates and bounded off quickly, and was soon followed by the dogs,
who seemed as delighted as he that the rough ice had all been passed,
and now there was a possibility of getting on with speed and comfort.
Just as I was congratulating myself on the fact of our having reached
good ice, and that now there was a prospect of soon reaching my sick
Indian brother, a cry of terror came from William, the experienced
Indian who was driving our provision sled behind mine.
"This ice is bad, and we are sinking," he shouted.
Thinking the best way for me was to stop I checked my dogs, and at once
began to sink.
"Keep moving, but make for the shore," was the instant cry of the man
behind.
I shouted to my splendid, well-trained dogs, and they at once responded
to the command given, and bounded towards the shore. Fortunately the
ice was strong enough to hold the dogs up, although under the sled it
bent and cracked, and in some places broke through.
Very grateful were we when we got back to the rough strong ice near the
shore. In quiet tones we spoke a few words of congratulation to each
other, and lifted up our hearts in gratitude to our great Preserver, and
then hurried on. If we had broken in, we could have received no earthly
aid, as there was not even a wigwam within a day's journey of us.
That night at the camp-fire I overheard William saying to Felix, "I am
ashamed of ourselves for not having taken better care of our
Missionary."
We found Timothy very sick indeed. We ministered to his comfort, and
had it then in our power so to arrange that, while the work should not
suffer, he could have rest and quiet. His success had been very marked,
and the old Saulteaux rejoiced that he and the rest of them were to be
neglected no longer. He had made such diligent progress himself in
spiritual things that I gladly baptized him and his household.
There were times when our supplies ran very short, and hunger and
suffering had to be endured. During the first Riel Rebellion, when we
were cut off from access to the outside world, we were entirely
dependent upon our nets and guns for a long time. Our artist has tried
to tell a story in three pictures.
At the breakfast table we had nothing to eat but the hind-quarter of a
wild cat. It was very tough and tasteless; and while we were trying to
make our breakfast from it, Mrs Young said, "My dear, unless you shoot
something for dinner, I am afraid there will be none."
So I took down my rifle, and tied on my snow-shoes, and started off
looking for game. See Picture I. Pictures II and III tell the rest of
the story.