THROUGH THE LAKES OF THE UPPER GEORGE
How little I had dreamed when setting out on my journey that it
would prove beautiful and of such compelling interest as I had
found it. I had not thought of interest--except that of getting
the work done--nor of beauty. How could Labrador be beautiful?
Weariness and hardship I had looked for, and weariness I had found
often and anxiety, which was not yet past in spite of what had been
achieved; but of hardship there had been none. Flies and
mosquitoes made it uncomfortable sometimes but not to the extent of
hardship. And how beautiful it had been, with a strange, wild
beauty, the remembrance of which buries itself silently in the deep
parts of one's being. In the beginning there had been no response
to it in my heart, but gradually in its silent way it had won, and
now was like the strength-giving presence of an understanding
friend. The long miles which separated me from the world did not
make me feel far away--just far enough to be nice--and many times I
found myself wishing I need never have to go back again. But the
work could not all be done here.
Half the distance across the peninsula had been passed, and now on
August 11th we were beginning the descent of the George River.
Would the Labrador skies continue to smile kindly upon me? It
would be almost if not quite a three hundred mile journey to
Ungava, and it might be more. Could we make the post by the last
week in August? The men appeared confident; but for me the days
which followed held anxious hours, and the nights sleepless ones as
I tried to make my decision whether in case it should become
evident we could not reach Ungava in time, I should turn back,
leaving the work uncompleted, or push on, accepting the consequent
long winter journey back across Labrador, or round the coast, and
the responsibility of providing for my four guides for perhaps a
full year. At least the sun shone on the beginning of the journey,
and about nine o'clock, the last pack having gone forward, I set
off down the portage below Lake Hubbard, a prayer in my heart that
the journey might be swift.
The prayer seemed doomed to remain unanswered at first. Before
noon of that day the sun was hidden, and for nearly a week we did
not again see his face. Violent storms of wind and rain and snow
made progress difficult or impossible, and on August 16th we were
camped only thirty miles from the Height of Land.
The upper river proved a succession of lake expansions of varying
sizes, their waters dropping from one to the other down shallow
rapids. At the Height of Land, and for some miles beyond, the
country is flat and boggy, and sparsely wooded with tamarack and
spruce, many of the tall, slender tops of the former being bent
completely over by the storms. The spruce was small and scant,
increasing in size and quantity as we descended from the highest
levels, but nowhere on the northern slope attaining the size
reached in the valley of the Nascaupee.
Gradually low, barren ridges began to appear, their white mossy
sides marked by caribou trails which formed a network over the
country we were passing through, and all were freshly cut with hoof
marks. Every day there were herds or single deer to be seen along
the way, and at a number of points we passed long piles of whitened
antlers. Other game too, ducks, geese, and ptarmigan had become
plentiful since we entered the caribou country, and now and then a
few were taken to vary the monotony of the diet of dried caribou
meat. Loons were about us at all hours, and I grew to love their
weird call as much almost as the Indians do.
We travelled too fast to fish, and it was stormy, but the
indications were that in places at least fish were abundant. When
we ran down to the little lake, on which our camp of August 12th
was pitched, hundreds of fish played at its surface, keeping the
water in constant commotion. They were in no wise disturbed by our
presence and would turn leisurely over within two feet of the
canoe. I ran out my troll as we paddled down the lake--but not a
nibble did I get. The men said they were white fish.
Every day we expected to see or hear something of the wolves which
are said to attend the movements of the caribou; but no sign of
them appeared, save the one track found at the point on Lake
Michikamats.
Signs of the Indians became more numerous, and on a point near the
head of Cabot Lake we found a camp but lately deserted, and left,
evidently, with the idea of return in the near future. The Indians
had been there all through the spring, and we found a strongly
built cache which the men thought probably contained furs, but
which we did not, of course, disturb. It was about ten feet long
and six feet wide at the base, and built in the form of an A, with
the trunks of trees from five to six inches in diameter set up
close together and chinked with moss and boughs.
There were many of the uncovered wigwams standing about, one a
large oblong with three fireplaces in it. Lying near the wigwams
were old clothes of a quite civilised fashion, pots, kettles, a
wooden tub, paint-cans and brushes, paddles, a wooden shovel,
broken bones, piles of hair from the deer skins they had dressed,
and a skin stretcher. Some steel traps hung in a tree near, and
several iron pounders for breaking bones. On a stage, under two
deer-skins, were a little rifle, a shot gun, and a piece of dried
deer's meat. A long string of the bills of birds taken during the
spring, hung on a tree near the water, and besides each of the
various wigwams, in the line of them which stretched along the
south shore of the point, a whitened bone was set up on a long pole
for luck.
The river gradually increased in volume, and all previous
excitement of work in the swift water seemed to grow insignificant
when my long course in running rapids began. Perhaps it was
because the experience was new, and I did not know what to expect;
but as the little canoe careered wildly down the slope from one
lake to the next with, in the beginning, many a scrape on the rocks
of the river bed, my nervous system contracted steadily till, at
the foot where we slipped out into smooth water again, it felt as
if dipped into an astringent.
A few miles below Cabot Lake the river is joined by what we judged
to be its southeast branch, almost equal to the middle river in
size. This branch, together with a chain of smaller lakes east of
Lake Michikamau, once formed the Indian inland route from the
Nascaupee River to the George used at times of the year when Lake
Michikamau was likely to be impassable on account of the storms.
It had been regularly travelled in the old days when the Indians of
the interior traded at Northwest River post; but since the
diversion of their trade to the St. Lawrence it had fallen into
disuse.
There was much talk of our prospective meeting with the Nascaupees
which I did not understand; and it was not until the evening of
August 14th, as I sat after supper at the camp fire, that I became
conscious of the real concern with which the men were looking
forward to the event.
For two precious days we had been unable to move on account of the
storms. The rain had fallen steadily all day, changing to snow
towards evening, and now, though the downpour had ceased, the black
clouds still fled rolling and tossing over head before the gale,
which roared through the spruce forest, and sent the smoke of the
big camp fire whirling now this way, now that, as it found its way
into our sheltered nook.
George and Joe were telling amusing stories of their boyhood
experiences at Rupert's House, the pranks they played on their
teacher, their fights, football, and other games, and while they
talked I bestowed some special care upon my revolver. Job sat
smoking his pipe, listening with a merry light in his gleaming,
black eyes, and Gilbert lounged on the opposite side of the fire
with open-mouthed boyish attention.
The talk drifted to stories of the Indians, tributary to Rupert's
House, and the practical jokes perpetrated on them while camped
about the post to which they brought each spring from the far
interior their winter's catch of furs. There were stories of
Hannah Bay massacre, and the retribution which followed swift and
certain; and of their own trips inland, and the hospitality of the
Indians. The talk ended with an anxious "If it were only the
Hudson Bay Indians we were coming to, there would be no doubt about
the welcome we should get."
Turning to me, George remarked, "You are giving that revolver a
fine rubbing up to-night."
"Yes," I replied, laughing a little: "I am getting ready for the
Nascaupees."
"They would not shoot you," he said gravely. "It would be us they
would kill if they took the notion. Whatever their conjurer tells
them to do, they will do."
"No," asserted Gilbert, who boasted some traditional knowledge of
the Nascaupees, "they would not kill you, Mrs. Hubbard. It would
be to keep you at their camp that they would kill us."
I had been laughing at George a little, but Gilbert's startling
announcement induced a sudden sobriety. As I glanced from one to
the other, the faces of the men were all unwontedly serious. There
was a whirl of thoughts for a moment, and then I asked, "What do
you think I shall be doing while they are killing you? You do not
need to suppose that because I will not kill rabbits, or ptarmigan,
or caribou, I should have any objection to killing a Nascaupee
Indian if it were necessary."
Nevertheless the meeting with the Indians had for me assumed a new
and more serious aspect, and, remembering their agony of fear lest
some harm befall me ere we reached civilisation again, I realised
how the situation seemed to the men. When I went to my tent, it
was to lie very wide awake, turning over in my mind plans of battle
in case the red men proved aggressive.
The following morning the weather was still bad but we attempted to
go forward. Soon a snow squall drove us to the shelter of the
woods. When it had passed we were again on the water; but rain
came on and a gale of wind drove it into our faces, till they
burned as if hot water instead of cold were pelting them. We could
make no headway, and so put ashore on the right bank of the river
to wait for calmer weather. Camp was made on a tiny moss-covered
ridge of rock back of the stretch of swamp along the shore, and
soon a roaring fire sent out its welcome warmth to the wet and
shivering wayfarers crouching near it in the shelter of the spruce.
How cold it was! And how slowly we were getting on!
The river widened here, and on the left bank, at short intervals
broad trails with fresh cut tracks led down to its edge, and along
the shore a wide band of white caribou hair clung to the bank four
feet above the river, where it had been left by the receding water.
So we knew that the caribou had been in possession of the region
since shedding their winter coats.
We had been sitting by the fire only a little while when Job, who,
after his usual manner had disappeared, called to us in a low,
eager voice from one hundred feet away. He said only one word--
"Joe"--but we all knew what it meant and there was a rush in the
direction in which he had again disappeared. A herd of fifteen
caribou were swimming across from the opposite shore straight to
the little bay above our landing. Under cover of the woods and
willows we stole down quite close to the water and waited until
they came almost to shore. Then springing from our hiding places
we shouted at them. The beautiful, frightened creatures turned and
went bounding back through the shallow water, splashing it into
clouds of spray, till they sank into the deeper tide and only heads
and stubs of tails could be seen as they swam back to the other
shore. They were nearly all young ones, some of them little fawns.
All day long, at short intervals, companies of them were seen
crossing, some one way, some another. Towards evening two herds
passed the camp at the same time, one to the east of us but a short
distance away, and the other along the foot of the ridge on the
west, not fifty feet from our camp.
On Wednesday, against the strong northwest wind, we succeeded in
making six and a half miles, passing the mouth of the southwest
branch of the Upper George River; and when at 3 P.M. we reached the
head of Long Lake it was too rough to venture on, and we had to go
into camp.
I felt rather desperate that night, and sick with disappointment.
One week of precious time was gone, it was the 16th of the month,
and we were only thirty miles, perhaps a little more, from the
Height of Land. How was it possible to reach the post in time for
the ship now?
"We will get you there about two days before the ship arrives,"
George insisted.
"When we get down below the lakes we can make forty miles a day if
the weather is good," said Joe.
But I was not reassured. When we should get down below the lakes
we could travel fast perhaps; but the last one, Indian House Lake,
where the old Hudson's Bay Company post had been, was still far,
far north of us, and no one knew what lay between. Perhaps there
was a bare possibility that we might make the journey in ten days;
but I knew I could not count on it. Had I a right to undertake the
return journey with its perils? I was not sure.
My tent was sweet that night with the fragrance of its carpet of
balsam boughs, and a big bunch of twin flowers, which grew in
profusion there; but it was late before I slept. Perhaps two hours
after I awoke to find a big moon peering into my face through the
open front of my tent.
I was startled at first, and instinctively reached for my revolver,
not knowing what it was; but when full consciousness had returned,
whether it was the effect of the moon or not, the question had
somehow been settled. I knew I should go on to Ungava whatever the
consequences might be.