The Winnipeg River--The Ojibbeway's House--Rushing a Rapid--A Camp--No
Tidings of the Coming Man--Hope in Danger--Rat Portage--A far-fetched
Islington--"Like Pemmican".
WE entered the mouth of the Winnipeg River at midday and paddled up to
Fort Alexander, which stands about a mile from the river's entrance. Here
I made my final preparations for the ascent of the Winnipeg, getting a
fresh canoe better adapted for forcing the rapids, and at five o'clock in
the evening started on my journey Up the river. Eight miles above the
fort the roar of a great fall of water sounded through the twilight. In
surge and spray and foaming torrent the enormous volume of the Winnipeg
was making its last grand leap on its way to mingle its waters with the
lake. On the flat surface of an enormous rock which stood well out into
the boiling water we made our fire and our camp.
The pine-trees which gave the fall its name stood round us, dark and
solemn, waving their long arms to and fro in the gusty winds that swept
the valley. It was a wild picture. The pine-trees standing in inky
blackness the rushing water, white with foam-above, the rifted
thunder-clouds. Soon the lightning began to flash and the voice of the
thunder to sound above the roar of the cataract. My Indians made me a
rough shelter with cross-poles and a sail-cloth, and, huddling themselves
together under the upturned canoe, we slept regardless of the storm.
I was ninety miles from Fort Garry, and as yet no tidings of the
Expedition.
A man may journey very far through the lone spaces of the earth without
meeting with another Winnipeg River. In it nature has contrived to place
her two great units of earth and water in strange and wild combinations.
To say that the Winnipeg River has an immense volume of water, that it
descends 360 feet in a distance of 160 miles, that it is full of eddies
and whirlpools, of every variation of waterfall from chutes to cataracts,
that it expands into lonely pine edged lakes and far-reaching
island-studded bays, that its bed is cumbered with immense wave-polished
rocks, that its vast solitudes are silent and its cascades ceaselessly
active--to say all this is but to tell in bare items of fact the
narrative of its beauty. For the Winnipeg by the multiplicity of its
perils and the ever-changing beauty of its character, defies the
description of civilized men as it defies the puny efforts of civilized
travel. It seems part of the savage-fitted alone for him and for his
ways, useless to carry the burden of man's labour, but useful to shelter
the wild things of wood and water which dwell in its waves and along its
shores. And the red man who steers his little birch-bark canoe through
the foaming rapids of the Winnipeg, how well he knows its various ways!
To him it seems to possess life and instinct, he speaks of it as one
would of a high-mettled charger which will do any thing if he be rightly
handled. It gives him his test of superiority, his proof of courage. To
shoot the Otter Falls or the Rapids of the Barriere, to carry his canoe
down the whirling eddies of Portage-de-l'Isle, to lift her from the rush
of water at the Seven Portages, or launch her by the edge of the
whirlpool below the Chute-à-Jocko, all this is to be a brave and a
skilful Indian, for the man who can do all this must possess a power in
the sweep of his paddle, a quickness of glance, and a quiet consciousness
of skill, not to be found except after generations of practice. For
hundreds of years the Indian has lived amidst these rapids; they have
been the playthings of his boyhood, the realities of his life, the
instinctive habit of his old age. What the horse is to the Arab, what the
dog is to the Esquimaux, what the camel is to those who journey across
Arabian deserts, so is the canoe to the Ojibbeway. Yonder wooded shore
yields him from first to last the materials-he requires for its
construction: cedar for the slender ribs, birch-bark to cover them,
juniper to stitch together the separate pieces, red pine to give resin
for the seams and crevices. By the lake or river shore, close to his
wigwam, the boat is built;
"And the forest life is in it All its mystery and its magic, All the
tightness of the birch-tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the
larch's supple sinews. And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in
autumn, Like a yellow water-lily."
It is not a boat, it is a house; it can be carried long distances over
land from lake to lake. It is frail beyond words, yet you can load it
down to the water's edge; it carries the Indian by day, it shelters him
by night; in it he will steer boldly out into a vast lake where land is
unseen, or paddle through mud and swamp or reedy shallows; sitting in
it, he gathers his harvest of wild rice and catches his fish or shoots
his game; it will dash down a foaming rapid, brave a fiercely-rushing
torrent, or lie like a sea-bird on the placid water.
For six months the canoe is the home of the Ojibbeway. While the trees
are green, while the waters dance and sparkle, while the wild rice bends
its graceful head in the lake and the wild duck dwells amidst the
rush-covered mere, the Ojibbeway's home is the birch-bark canoe. When the
winter comes and the lake and rivers harden beneath the icy breath of the
north wind, the canoe is put carefully away; covered with branches and
with snow, it lies through the long dreary winter until the wild swan and
the wavy, passing northward to the polar seas, call it again from its
long icy sleep.
Such is the life of the canoe, and such the river along which it rushes
like an arrow.
The days that now commenced to pass were filled from dawn to dark with
moments of keenest enjoyment, every thing was new and strange, and each
hour brought with it some fresh surprise of Indian skill or Indian
scenery.
The sun would be just tipping the western shores with his first rays when
the canoe would be lifted from its ledge of rock and laid gently on the
water; then the blankets and kettles, the provisions and the guns would
be placed in it, and four Indians would take their seats, while one
remained on the shore to steady the bark upon the water and keep its
sides from contact with the rock; then when I had taken my place in the
centre, the outside man would spring gently in, and we would glide away
from the rocky resting-place. To tell the mere work of each day is no
difficult matter: start at five o'clock a.m., halt for breakfast at seven
o'clock, off again at eight, halt at one o'clock for dinner, away at two
o'clock, paddle until sunset at 7:30; that was the work of each day. But
how shall I attempt to fill in the details of scene and circumstance
between these rough outlines of time and toil, for almost at every hour
of the long summer day the great Winnipeg revealed some new phase of
beauty and of peril, some changing scene of lonely grandeur? I have
already stated that the river in its course from the Lake of the Woods to
Lake Winnipeg, 160 miles, makes a descent of 360 feet. This descent is
effected not by a continuous decline, but by a series of terraces at
various distances from each other; in other words, the river forms
innumerable lakes and wide expanding reaches bound together by rapids and
perpendicular falls of varying altitude, thus when the voyageur has
lifted his canoe from the foot of the Silver Falls and launched it again
above the head of that rapid, he will have surmounted two-and-twenty feet
of the ascent; again, the dreaded Seven Portages will give him a total
rise of sixty feet in a distance of three miles. (How cold does the bare
narration of these facts appear beside their actual realization in a
small canoe manned by Indians!) Let us see if we can picture one of these
many scenes. There sounds ahead a roar of falling water, and we see, upon
rounding some pine-clad island or ledge of rock, a tumbling mass of foam
and spray studded with projecting rocks and flanked by dark wooded
shores; above we can see nothing, but below the waters, maddened by their
wild rush amidst the rocks, surge and leap in angry whirlpools. It is as
wild a scene of crag and wood and water as the eye can gaze upon, but we
look upon it not for its beauty, because there is no time for that, but
because it is an enemy that must be conquered. Now mark how these Indians
steal upon this enemy before he is aware of it. The immense volume of
water, escaping from the eddies and whirlpools at the foot of the fall,
rushes on in a majestic sweep into calmer water; this rush produces
along the shores of the river a counter or back-current which flows up
sometimes close to the foot of the fall, along this back-water the canoe
is carefully steered, being often not six feet from the opposing rush in
the central river, but the back-current in turn ends in a whirlpool, and
the canoe, if it followed this back-current, would inevitably end in the
same place; for a minute there is no paddling, the bow paddle and the
steersman alone keeping the boat in her proper direction as she drifts
rapidly up the current. Amongst the crew not a word is spoken, but every
man knows what he has to do and will be ready when the moment comes; and
now the moment has come, for on one side there foams along a mad surge of
water, and on the other the angry whirlpool twists and turns in smooth
green hollowing curves round an axis of air, whirling round it with a
strength that would snap our birch bark into fragments and suck us down
into great depths below. All that can be gained by the back-current has
been gained, and now it is time to quit it; but where? for there is often
only the choice of the whirlpool or the central river. Just on the very
edge of the eddy there is one loud shout given by the bow paddle, and the
canoe shoots full into the centre of the boiling flood, driven by the
united strength of the entire crew--the men work for their very lives,
and the boat breasts across the river with her head turned full toward
the falls; the waters foam and dash about her, the waves leap high over
the gunwale, the Indians shout as they dip their paddles like lightning
into the foam, and the stranger to such a scene holds his breath amidst
this war of man against nature. Ha! the struggle is useless, they cannot
force her against such a torrent, we are close to the rocks and the foam;
but see, she is driven down by the current in spite of those wild fast
strokes. The dead strength of such a rushing flood must prevail. Yes, it
is true, the canoe has been driven back; but behold, almost in a second
the whole thing is done-we float suddenly beneath a little rocky isle on
the foot of the cataract. We have crossed the river in the face of the
fall, and the portage landing is over this rock, while three yards out on
either side the torrent foams its headlong course. Of the skill necessary
to perform such things it is useless to speak. A single false stroke, and
the whole thing would have failed; driven headlong down the torrent,
another attempt would have to be made to gain this rock-protected spot,
but now we lie secure here; spray all around us, for the rush of the
river is on either side and you can touch it with an outstretched paddle.
The Indians rest on their paddles and laugh; their long hair has escaped
from its-fastening through their exertion, and they retie it while they
rest. One is already standing upon the wet slippery rock holding the
canoe in its place, then the others get out. The freight is carried up
piece by piece and deposited on the flat surface some ten feet above;
that done, the canoe is lifted out very gently, for a single blow against
this hard granite boulder would shiver and splinter the frail birch-bark
covering; they raise her very carefully up the steep face of the cliff
and rest again on the top. What a view there is from this coigne of
vantage! We are on the lip of the fall, on each side it makes its plunge,
and below we mark at leisure the torrent we have just braved; above, it
is smooth water, and away ahead we see the foam of another rapid. The
rock on which we stand has been worn smooth by the washing of the water
during countless ages, and from a cleft or fissure there springs a
pine-tree or a rustling aspen. We have crossed the Petit Roches, and our
course is onward still.
Through many scenes like this we held our way during the last days of
July. The weather was beautiful; now and then a thunder-storm would roll
along during the night, but the morning sun rising clear and bright would
almost tempt one to believe that it had been a dream, if the pools of
water in the hollows of the rocks and the dampness of blanket or
oil-cloth had not proved the sun a humbug. Our general distance each day
would be about thirty-two miles, with an average of six portages. At
sunset we made our camp on some rocky isle or shelving shore, one or two
cut wood, another got the cooking things ready, a fourth gummed the seams
of the canoe, a fifth cut shavings from a dry stick for the fire--for
myself, I generally took a plunge in the cool delicious water--and soon
the supper hissed in the pans, the kettle steamed from its suspending
stick, and the evening meal was eaten with appetites such as only the
voyageur can understand.
Then when the shadows of the night had fallen around and all was silent,
save the river's tide against the rocks, we would stretch our blankets on
the springy moss of the crag and lie down to sleep with only the stars
for a roof.
Happy, happy days were these--days the memory of which goes very far into
the future, growing brighter as we journey farther away from them, for
the scenes through which our course was laid were such as speak in
whispers, only when we have left them--the whispers of the pine-tree, the
music of running water, the stillness of great lonely lakes.
On the evening of the fifth day from leaving Fort Alexander we reached
the foot of the Rat Portage, the twenty-seventh, and last, upon the
Winnipeg River; above this portage stretched the Lake of the Woods, which
here poured its waters through a deep rock-bound gorge with tremendous
force. During the five days we had only encountered two solitary Indians;
they knew nothing whatever about the Expedition, and, after a short
parley and a present of tea and flour, we pushed on. About midday on the
fourth day we halted at the Mission of the White Dog, a spot which some
more than heathen missionary had named Islington in a moment of virtuous
cockneyism. What could have tempted him to commit this act of desecration
it is needless to ask.
Islington on the Winnipeg! O religious Gilpin, hadst thou fallen a prey
to savage Cannibalism, not even Sidney Smith's farewell aspiration would
have saved the savage who devoured you, you must have killed him.
The Mission of the White Dog had been the scene of Thomas Hope's most
brilliant triumphs in the role of schoolmaster, and the youthful
Ojibbeways of the place had formerly belonged to the band of hope. For
some days past Thomas had been labouring under depression, his power of
devouring pemmican had, it is true, remained unimpaired, but in one or
two trying moments of toil, in rapids and portages, he had been found
miserably wanting; he had, in fact, shown many indications of utter
uselessness; he had also begun to entertain gloomy apprehensions of what
the French would do to him when they caught him on the Lake of the Woods,
and although he endeavoured frequently to prove that under certain
circumstances the French would have no chance whatever against him, yet,
as these circumstances were from the nature of things never likely to
occur, necessitating, in the first instance, a presumption that Thomas
would show fight, he failed to convince not only his hearers, but
himself, that he was not in a very bad way. At the White Dog Mission he
was, so to speak, on his own hearth, and was doubtless desirous of
showing me that his claims to the rank of interpreter were well founded.
No tidings whatever had reached the few huts of the Indians at the White
Dog; the women and children, who now formed the sole inhabitants, went
but little out of the neighbourhood, and the men had been away for many
days in the forest, hunting and fishing. Thus, through the whole course
of the Winnipeg, from lake to lake, I could glean no tale or tidings of
the great Ogima or of his myriad warriors. It was quite dark when we
reached, on the evening of the 30th July, the northern edge of the Lake
of the Woods and paddled across its placid waters to the Hudson Bay
Company's post at the Rat Portage. An arrival of a canoe with six
strangers is no ordinary event at one of these remote posts which the
great fur company have built at long intervals over their immense
territory. Out came the denizens of a few Indian lodges, out came the
people of the fort and the clerk in charge of it. My first question was
about the Expedition, but here, as elsewhere, no tidings had been heard
of it. Other tidings were however forthcoming which struck terror into
the heart of Hope. Suspicious canoes had been seen for-some days past
amongst the many islands of the lake; strange men had come to the fort at
night, and strange fires had been seen on the islands-the French were out
on the lake. The officer in charge of the post was absent at the time of
my visit, but I had met him at Fort Alexander, and he had anticipated my
wants in a letter which I myself carried to his son. I now determined to
strain every effort to cross with rapidity the Lake of the Woods and
ascend the Rainy River to the next post of the Company, Fort Francis,
distant from Rat Portage about 1400 miles, for there I felt sure that I
must learn tidings of the Expedition and bring my long solitary journey
to a close. But the Lake of the Woods is an immense sheet of water lying
1000 feet above the sea level, and subject to violent gales which lash
its bosom into angry billows. To be detained upon some island,
storm-bound amidst the lake, %would never have answered, so I ordered a
large keeled boat to be got ready by midday it only required a few
trifling repairs of sail and oars, but a great feast had to be gone
through in which my pemmican and flour were destined to play a very
prominent part. As the word pemmican is one which may figure frequently
in these pages, a few words explanatory of it may be useful. Pemmican,
the favourite food of the Indian and the half-breed voyageur, can be made
from the flesh of any animal, but it is nearly altogether composed of
buffalo meat; the meat is first cut into slices, then dried either by
fire or in the sun, and then pounded or beaten out into a thick flaky
substance; in this state it is put into a large bag made from the hide of
the animal, the dry pulp being soldered down into a hard solid mass by
melted fat being poured over it-the quantity of fat is nearly half the
total weight, forty pounds of fat going to fifty pounds of "beat meat;"
the best pemmican generally has added to it ten pounds of berries and
sugar, the whole composition forming the most solid description of food
that man can make. If any person should feel inclined to ask, "What does
pemmicau taste like?" I can only reply, "Like pemmican," there is
nothing else in the world that bears to it the slightest resemblance.
-Can I say any thing that Will give the reader an idea of its sufficing
quality? Yes, I think I can. A dog that will eat from four to six pounds
of raw fish a day when sleighing, will only devour two pounds: of
pemmican, if he be fed upon that food; yet I have seen Indians and
half-breeds eat four pounds of it in a single day-but this is
anticipating. Pemmican can be prepared in many ways, and it is not easy
to decide which method is the least objectionable. There is rubeiboo and
richot, and pemmican plain and pemmican raw, this last method being the
one most in vogue amongst voyageurs; but the richot, to me, seemed the
best; mixed with a little flour and fried in a pan, pemmican in this form
can be eaten, provided the appetite be sharp and there is nothing else to
be had--this last consideration is, however, of importance.