The Buffalo Hills.--A fatal Quarrel.--The exiled Beavers.--
“At-tal-loo” deplores his wives.--A Cree Interior.--An
attractive Camp.--I camp alone.--Cerf-vola without a
Supper.--The Recreants return.--Dunvegan.--A Wolf-hunt.
A long distance, destitute of fort or post, had now to be passed. For
fully 300 miles above Vermilion, no sign of life but the wild man and
his prey (the former scant enough) are to be found along the shores of
the Peace River.
The old fort known as Dunvegan lies twelve long winter days’ travel to
the south-west, and to reach it even in that time requires sustained
and arduous exertion.
For 200 miles above Vermilion the course of the Peace River is
north-west; it winds in long, serpentine curves between banks which
gradually become more lofty as the traveller ascends the stream. To cut
the long curve to the south by an overland portage now became our work;
and for three days we followed a trail through mingled prairie and
forest-land, all lying deep in snow. Four trains of dogs now formed our
line. An Ojibbeway, named “White Bear,” led the advance, and the trains
took in turn the work of breaking the road after him.
Mal de Raquette had at last proved more than a match for me, and
walking had become impossible; but the trains returning to Dunvegan
were lightly loaded, and as the officer at Vermilion had arranged that
the various dogs should take their turn in hauling my cariole, I had a
fresh train each day, and thus Cerf-vola and his company obtained a two
days’ respite from their toil.
The old dog was as game as when I had first started, but the temporary
change of masters necessitated by our new arrangements seemed to puzzle
him not a little; and many a time his head would turn round to steal a
furtive look at the new driver, who, “filled with strange oaths,” now
ran behind his cariole. Our trail led towards the foot of the Buffalo
Hills. I was now in the country of the Beaver Indians, a branch of the
great Chipewyan race, a tribe once numerous on the river which bears
its present name of Peace from the stubborn resistance offered by them
to the all-conquering Crees--a resistance which induced that warlike
tribe to make peace on the banks of the river, and to leave at rest
the beaver-hunters of the Unchagah.
Since that time, though far removed from the white settler, lying
remote from the faintest echo of civilization, this tribe of Beaver
Indians has steadily decreased; and to-day, in the whole length of
900 miles from beyond the mountains to the Lake Athabasca, scarce 200
families lie scattered over the high prairies and undulating forest
belts of the Peace River. Now they live in peace with all men, but
once it was a different matter; the Crees were not their only enemies,
their Chipewyan cousins warred upon them; and once upon a time a fierce
commotion raged amongst their own tribe.
One day a young chief shot his arrow through a dog belonging to
another brave. The brave revenged the death of his dog, and instantly
a hundred bows were drawn. Ere night had fallen some eighty warriors
lay dead around the camp, the pine woods rang with the lamentations of
the women, the tribe had lost its bravest men. There was a temporary
truce--the friends of the chief whose arrow had killed the dog yet
numbered some sixty people--it was agreed that they should separate
from the tribe and seek their fortune in the vast wilderness lying to
the south.
In the night they commenced their march; sullenly their brethren saw
them depart never to return. They went their way by the shores of the
Lesser Slave Lake, towards the great plains which were said to lie far
southward by the banks of the swift-rolling Saskatchewan.
The tribe of Beavers never saw again this exiled band, but a hundred
years later a Beaver Indian, who followed the fortunes of a white
fur-hunter, found himself in one of the forts of the Saskatchewan.
Strange Indians were camped around the palisades, they were portions
of the great Blackfeet tribe whose hunting-grounds lay south of the
Saskatchewan; among them were a few braves who, when they conversed
together, spoke a language different from the other Blackfeet; in this
language the Beaver Indian recognized his own tongue.
The fortunes of the exiled branch were then traced, they had reached
the great plains, the Blackfeet had protected them, and they had joined
the tribe as allies in war against Crees or Assineboines. To-day the
Surcees still speak the guttural language of the Chipewyan. Notorious
among the wild horse-raiders of the prairies, they outdo even the
Blackfeet in audacious plundering; and although the parent stock on the
Peace River are quiet and harmless, the offshoot race has long been a
terror over the prairies of the south. No men in this land of hunters
hunt better than the Beavers. It is not uncommon for a single Indian
to render from his winter trapping 200 marten skins, and not less than
20,000 beavers are annually killed by the tribe on the waters of the
Peace River.
On the morning of the third day after leaving Vermilion we fell in
with a band of Beavers. Five wigwams stood pitched upon a pretty
rising knoll, backed by pine woods, which skirted the banks of the
stream, upon the channel of which the lodges of the animal beaver rose
cone-like above the snow.
When we reached the camp, “At-tal-loo,” the chief, came forth. A
stranger was a rare sight; and “At-tal-loo” was bound to make a speech;
three of his warriors, half a dozen children, and a few women filled up
the background. Leaning upon a long single-barrelled gun “At-tal-loo”
began.
The mayor and corporation of that thriving borough of Porkingham could
not have been more solicitous to interrupt a royal progress to the
north, than was this Beaver Indian anxious to address the traveller;
but there was this difference between them, whereas Mayor Tomkins had
chiefly in view the excellent opportunity of hearing his own voice,
utterly unmindful of what a horrid bore he was making himself to
his sovereign, “At-tal-loo” had in view more practical results: his
frequent iteration of the word “tea,” in his guttural harangue, told at
once the story of his wants:--
“This winter had been a severe one; death had struck heavily into the
tribe; in these three wigwams six women had died. It was true each
brave still had three or four wives left, but moose were plenty, and a
man with six helpmates could be rich in dry meat and moose leather. Tea
was the pressing want. Without tea the meat of the moose was insipid;
without tea and tobacco the loss of even the fifth or sixth rib became
a serious affair.”
I endeavoured to find out the cause of this mortality among the poor
hunters, and it was not far to seek. Constitutions enfeebled by close
intermarriage, and by the hardships attending upon wild life in these
northern regions, were fast wearing out. At the present rate of
mortality the tribe of the Beavers will soon be extinct, and with them
will have disappeared the best and the simplest of the nomad tribes of
the north.
“At-tal-loo” was made happy with tea and tobacco, and we went our way.
Another doughty chief, named “Twa-poos,” probably also regarded tea
as the elixir of life, and the true source of happiness; but as my
servitor still continued to regard my stock of the luxury as a very
excellent medium for the accumulation of stray marten skins for his
own benefit, it was perhaps as well that I should only know “Twa-poos”
through the channel of hearsay.
On the morning of the 25th of March we emerged from the tortuous
little Buffalo River upon the majestic channel of the Peace. Its banks
were now deeply furrowed beneath the prairie level, its broad surface
rolled away to the south-west, 500 yards from shore to shore. The
afternoon came forth bright and warm; from a high ridge on the left
shore a far-stretching view lay rolled before us--the Eagle Hills, the
glistening river, the wide expanse of dark forest and white prairie;
and above, a sky which had caught the hue and touch of spring, while
winter still stood intrenched on plain and river.
Late that evening we reached the hut of a Cree Indian. A snow-storm
closed the twilight, and all sought shelter in the house: it was eight
feet by twelve, in superficial size, yet nineteen persons lay down to
rest in it, a Cree and his wife, an Assineboine and his wife, eight or
ten children, and any number of Swampy, Ojibbeway, and half-breeds.
Whenever the creaky door opened, a dozen dogs found ingress, and dodged
under and over the men, women, and children in hopeless confusion.
The Assineboine squaw seemed to devote all her energies to the
expulsion of the intruders; the infants rolled over the puppy dogs, the
puppy dogs scrambled over the infants, and outside in the snow and on
the low roof Cerf-vola and his friends did battle with a host of Indian
dogs. So the night passed away. Next morning there was no track. We
waded deep in the snow, and made but slow progress. Things had reached
a climax with my crew; they had apparently made up their minds to make
a long, slow journey. They wanted to camp at any Indian lodge they
saw, to start late and to camp early, to eat, smoke, and talk, to do
everything in fact but travel.
I was still nearly 150 miles from Dunvegan, and as much more from
that mountain range whose defiles I hoped to reach ere the ice road
on which I travelled had turned to a rushing stream. Already the sun
shone strong in the early afternoon, and the surface snow grew moist
under his warm rays, and here were my men ready to seek any excuse for
loitering on the way.
About noon one day we reached a camp of Crees on the south shore of
the river. Moose-meat was getting scarce, so I asked my yellow rascal
to procure some tit-bits from the camp in exchange for tea. The whole
party at once vanished into the tents, while I remained with the dogs
upon the river. Presently my friend reappeared; he “could only get a
rib-piece or a tough leg.” “Then don’t take them,” I said. I saw the
rascal was at his old work, so taking some tea and tobacco, I went up
myself to the tents; meantime the men, women, and children had all come
out to the shore. I held up the tea and pointed to the moose-meat;
in an instant the scene changed--briskets, tongues, and moose-noses
were brought out, and I could have loaded my dogs with tit-bits had
I wished; still I pretended to find another motive for my henchman’s
conduct. “See,” I said to him, “I make a better trader with Indians
than you do. They would only give you the tough bits; I can get noses
enough to load my dogs with.”
But the camp possessed an attraction still more enticing; early that
morning I had observed the Indians and half-breeds arraying themselves
in their gayest trappings. The half-breed usually in dressing himself
devotes the largest share of attention to the decoration of his legs;
beads, buckles, and embroidered ribbons flutter from his leggings, and
his garters are resplendent with coloured worsted or porcupine-quill
work.
These items of finery had all been donned this morning in camp, the
long hair had been carefully smeared with bear’s fat, and then I had
not long to wait for an explanation of all this adornment. In one of
the three Cree tents there dwelt two good-looking squaws; we entered
this tent, the mats were unrolled, the fire replenished, and the squaws
set to work to cook a moose nose and tongue for my dinner. Dinner over,
the difficulty began; the quarters were excellent in the estimation of
my men. It would be the wildest insanity to think of quitting such a
paradise of love and food under at least a twenty-four hours’ delay.
So they suddenly announced their intention of “bideing a wee.” I
endeavoured to expostulate, I spoke of the lateness of the season, the
distance I had yet to travel, the necessity of bringing to Dunvegan the
train of dogs destined for that post at the earliest period; all was of
no avail. Their snow-shoes were broken and they must wait. Very good;
put my four dogs into harness, and I will go on alone. So the dogs were
put in harness, and taking with me my most lootable effects, I set out
alone into the wilderness.
It still wanted some four hours of sunset when I left the Indian lodges
on the south shore, and held my way along the far-reaching river.
My poor old dog, after a few glances back to see why he should be
alone, settled himself to work, and despite a lameness, the result
of long travel, he led the advance so gamely that when night fell some
dozen miles lay between us and the Cree lodges.
[Illustration: ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.]
At the foot of a high ridge whose summit still caught the glow from the
low-set sun, while the river valley grew dark in the twilight, I turned
the dogs towards the south shore, and looked about for a camping-place.
The lower bank sloped down to the ice abruptly, but dogs going to camp
will drag a load up, over, or through anything, and the prospect of
rest above is even a greater incentive to exertion than the fluent
imprecations of the half-breed below. So by dint of hauling we reached
the top, and then I made my camp in a pine-clump on the brink. When
the dogs had been unharnessed, and the snow dug away, the pine brush
laid upon the ground, and the wood cut, when the fire was made, the
kettle filled with snow and boiled, the dogs fed with a good hearty
meal of dry moose meat, and my own hunger satisfied; then, it was time
to think, while the fire lit up the pine stems, and the last glint of
daylight gleamed in the western sky. A jagged pine-top laid its black
cone against what had been the sunset. An owl from the opposite shore
sounded at intervals his lonely call; now and again a passing breeze
bent the fir trees until they whispered forth that mournful song which
seems to echo from the abyss of the past.
The fir-tree is the oldest of the trees of the earth, and its look
and its voice tell the story of its age. If it were possible to have
left my worthless half-breeds altogether and to traverse the solitudes
alone, how gladly would I have done so!
I felt at last at home. The great silent river, the lofty ridge
darkening against the twilight, yon star burning like a beacon above
the precipice--all _these_ were friends, and midst them one could rest
in peace.
And now, as I run back in thought along that winter journey, and see
again the many camp-fires glimmering through the waste of wilderness,
there comes not to my memory a calmer scene than that which closed
around my lonely fire by the distant Unchagah. I was there almost in
the centre of the vast wilderness of North America, around, stretched
in silence, that mystery we term Nature, that thing which we see in
pictures, in landscapes, in memory; which we hear in the voice of
wind-swept forests and the long sob of seas against ocean rocks. This
mother, ever present, ever mysterious, sometimes terrible, often
tender--always beautiful--stood there with nought to come between us
save loneliness and twilight. I awoke with the dawn. Soft snow was
falling on river and ridge, and the opposite shore lay hid in mist and
gloom. A breakfast, which consists of pemmican, tea, and biscuit, takes
but a short time to prepare or to discuss, and by sunrise I was on the
river.
Until mid-day I held on, but before that time the sun glowed brightly
on the dazzling surface of the snow; and the dogs panted as they hauled
their loads, biting frequent mouthfuls of the soft snow through which
they toiled.
About noon I camped on the south shore. I had still two meals for
myself, but none remained for the dogs; the men had, however, assured
me that they would not fail to make an early start, and I determined to
await their coming in this camp. The day passed and night closed again,
but no figure darkened the long stretch of river, and my poor dogs went
supperless to sleep. Cerf-vola, it is true, had some scraps of sweet
pemmican, but they were mere drops in the ocean of his appetite. The
hauling-dog of the North is a queer animal about food; when it is there
he likes to have it, but when it isn’t there, like his Indian master,
he can do without it.
About supper-hour he looks wistfully at his master, and seeing no sign
of pemmican-chopping or dry meat-slicing, he rolls himself up into a
ball and goes quietly to sleep in his snow bed.
Again the night came softly down, the grey owl hooted his lonely cry,
the breeze stirred the forest tops, and the pine-tree murmured softly
and low, singing its song of the past to the melody of its myriad
years. At such times the mind of the wanderer sings its own song too.
It is the song of home; and as memory rings the cadence, time and
distance disappear, and the old land brightens forth amidst the embers
of the forest-fire.
These islands which we call “home” are far away; afar off we idealize
them, in the forest depths we dream bright visions of their firesides
of welcome; in the snow-sheeted lake, and the icy stretch of river, and
the motionless muskeg, how sweetly sound the notes of brook and bird;
how brightly rise the glimpses of summer eves when the white mists
float over the scented meadows, and the corn-craik sounds from his lair
in the meadow-sweet!
It is there, away in the east, far off, where the moon is rising above
the forked pines, or the upcoming stars edge the ice piles on the dim
eastern shores of yon sheeted lake. Far away, a speck amidst the waves
of distance, bright, happy, and peaceful; holding out its welcome, and
following with its anxious thoughts the wanderer who sails away over
the ocean, and roams the expanses of the earth.
Well, some fine day we come back again; the great steamship touches the
long idealized shore. Gods, how the scene changes! We feel bursting
with joy to see it all again, to say, “Oh! how glad I am to see you
all!”
We say it with our eyes to the young lady behind the refreshment
buffet at the railroad station. Alas! she mistakes our exuberance for
impertinence, and endeavours to annihilate us with a glance, enough to
freeze even her high-spirited sherry. We pass the bobby on his beat
with a smile of recognition, but that ferocious functionary, not a
whit softened, regards us as a “party” likely to afford him transient
employment in the matter of “running in.” The railway porter alone
seems to enter into our feelings of joy, but alas! it is only with a
view to that donation with which we are sure to present him. We have
enlisted his sympathies as her Majesty enlists her recruits, by the aid
of a shilling. Ere an hour has passed, the vision seen so frequently
through the mist of weary miles has vanished, and we have taken our
place in the vast humming crowd of England’s hive, to wish ourselves
back into the dreamy solitudes again.
I had been asleep some hours, and midnight had come, when the sound of
voices roused me, and my recreant band approached the dying camp-fire.
They had at length torn themselves away from the abode of bliss and
moose meat, but either the memory of its vanished pleasures, or a stray
feeling of shame, kept them still sullen and morose. They, however,
announced their readiness to go on at once, as the crust upon the snow
was now hard. I rose from my robe, gave the dogs a late supper, and
once more we set out.
Daylight found us still upon the track; the men seemed disposed to make
amends for former dilatoriness, the ice-crust was hard, and the dogs
went well. When the sun had become warm enough to soften the surface we
camped, had supper, and lay down to sleep for the day.
With sunset came the hour of starting, and thus turning night into
day, breakfasting at sunset, dining at midnight, supping at sunrise,
travelling all night, and sleeping all day, we held our way up the
Unchagah. Three nights of travel passed, and the morning of the 1st
of April broke upon the silent river. We had travelled well; full one
hundred miles of these lonely, lofty shores had vanished behind us in
the grey dusky light of twilight, night, and early morning.
As the dawn broke in the east, and gradually grew into a broader band
of light, the huge ramparts of the lofty shores wore strange,
unearthly aspects. Six hundred feet above the ice, wind and sun had
already swept the snow, and the bare hill-tops rose to view, free, at
last, from winter’s covering.
[Illustration: NIGHT INTO DAY.]
Lower down full many a rugged ridge, and steep, scarped precipice, held
its clinging growth of pine and poplar, or showed gigantic slides, upon
whose gravelly surface the loosened stones rolled with sullen echo,
into the river chasm beneath. Between these huge walls lay the river,
broadly curving from the west, motionless and soundless, as we swept
with rapid stride over its sleeping waters.
Sometimes in the early morning, upon these steep ridges, the moose
would emerge from his covert, and look down on the passing dog trains,
his huge, ungainly head outstretched to
“Sniff the tainted gale,”
his great ears lying forward to catch the faint jingle of our
dog-bells. Nearly all else seemed to sleep in endless slumber, for,
alone of summer denizens, the owl, the moose, the wolf, and the raven
keep winter watch over the wilderness of the Peace River.
At daybreak, on the 1st of April, we were at the mouth of the Smoking
River. This stream enters the Peace River from the south-west. It has
its source but a couple of days’ journey north of the Athabasca River,
at the spot where that river emerges from the Rocky Mountains. And it
drains the beautiful region of varied prairie and forest-land, which
lies at the base of the mountains between the Peace and Athabasca
rivers.
The men made a long march this day. Inspired by the offer of a
gratuity, if they could make the fort by night-time, and anxious,
perhaps, to atone for past shortcomings, they made up a train of five
strong dogs.
Setting out with this train at eight o’clock in the morning, three of
them held the pace so gamely that when evening closed we were in sight
of the lofty ridge which overhangs at the north shore, the fort of
Dunvegan.
As the twilight closed over the broad river we were steering between
two huge walls of sandstone rock, which towered up 700 feet above the
shore.
The yellow light of the sunset still glowed in the west, lighting up
the broad chasm through which the river flowed, and throwing many a
weird shadow along the basaltic precipice. Right in our onward track
stood a large dusky wolf. He watched us until we approached within 200
yards of him, then turning he held his course up the centre of the
river. My five dogs caught sight of him, and in an instant they
gave chase. The surface of the snow was now hard frozen, and urged by
the strength of so many dogs the cariole flew along over the slippery
surface.
[Illustration: THE WOLF-CHASE.]
The driver was soon far behind. The wolf kept the centre of the river,
and the cariole bounded from snow pack to snow pack, or shot along the
level ice; while the dusky twilight filled the deep chasm with its
spectral light. But this wild chase was not long to last. The wolf
sought refuge amidst the rocky shore, and the dogs turned along the
trail again.
Two hours later a few lights glimmered through the darkness, beneath
the black shadow of an immense hill. The unusual sound of rushing water
broke strangely on the ear after such a lapse of silence. But the hill
streams had already broken their icy barriers, and their waters were
even now hastening to the great river (still chained with the gyves of
winter), to aid its hidden current in the work of deliverance.
Here and there deep pools of water lay on the surface of the ice,
through which the dogs waded, breast deep, and the cariole floated
like a boat. Thus, alternately wading and sliding, we drew near the
glimmering lights.
We had reached Dunvegan! If the men and dogs slept well that night it
was little wonder. With the intermission only necessary for food, we
had travelled incessantly during four-and-twenty hours. Yet was it the
same that night at Dunvegan as it had been elsewhere at various times.
Outside the dogs might rest as they pleased, but within, in the huts,
Swampy and Half-breed and Ojibbeway danced and fiddled, laughed and
capered until the small hours of the morning.