Spring and the voyageurs.
Winter, with its snow and its ice: winter, with its sharp winds and
white drifts; winter, with its various characteristic occupations and
employments, is past, and it is spring now.
The sun no longer glitters on fields of white; the woodman’s axe is no
longer heard hacking the oaken billets, to keep alive the roaring
fires. That inexpressibly cheerful sound the merry chime of
sleigh-bells, that tells more of winter than all other sounds together,
is no longer heard on the bosom of Red River; for the sleighs are
thrown aside as useless lumber—carts and gigs have supplanted them. The
old Canadian, who used to drive the ox with its water-barrel to the
ice-hole for his daily supply, has substituted a small cart with wheels
for the old sleigh that used to glide so smoothly over the snow, and
_grit_ so sharply on it in the more than usually frosty mornings in the
days gone by. The trees have lost their white patches, and the clumps
of willows, that used to look like islands in the prairie, have
disappeared, as the carpeting that gave them prominence has dissolved.
The aspect of everything in the isolated settlement has changed. The
winter is gone, and spring—bright, beautiful, hilarious spring—has come
again.
By those who have never known an arctic winter, the delights of an
arctic spring can never, we fear, be fully appreciated or understood.
Contrast is one of its strongest elements; indeed, we might say, _the_
element which gives to all the others peculiar zest. Life in the arctic
regions is like one of Turner’s pictures, in which the lights are
strong, the shadows deep, and the _tout ensemble_ hazy and romantic. So
cold and prolonged is the winter, that the first mild breath of spring
breaks on the senses like a zephyr from the plains of Paradise.
Everything bursts suddenly into vigorous life, after the long,
death-like sleep of Nature; as little children burst into the romping
gaieties of a new day, after the deep repose of a long and tranquil
night. The snow melts, the ice breaks up, and rushes in broken masses,
heaving and tossing in the rising floods, that grind and whirl them
into the ocean, or into those great fresh-water lakes that vie with
ocean itself in magnitude and grandeur. The buds come out and the
leaves appear, clothing all nature with a bright refreshing green,
which derives additional brilliancy from sundry patches of snow, that
fill the deep creeks and hollows everywhere, and form ephemeral
fountains whose waters continue to supply a thousand rills for many a
long day, until the fierce glare of the summer sun prevails at last and
melts them all away.
Red River flows on now to mix its long-pent-up waters with Lake
Winnipeg. Boats are seen rowing about upon its waters, as the settlers
travel from place to place; and wooden canoes, made of the hollowed-out
trunks of large trees, shoot across from shore to shore—these canoes
being a substitute for bridges, of which there are none, although the
settlement lies on both sides of the river. Birds have now entered upon
the scene, their wild cries and ceaseless flight adding to it a
cheerful activity. Ground squirrels pop up out of their holes to bask
their round, fat, beautifully-striped little bodies in the sun, or to
gaze in admiration at the farmer, as he urges a pair of _very_
slow-going oxen, that drag the plough at a pace which induces one to
believe that the wide field _may_ possibly be ploughed up by the end of
next year. Frogs whistle in the marshy grounds so loudly that men new
to the country believe they are being regaled by the songs of millions
of birds. There is no mistake about their _whistle_. It is not merely
_like_ a whistle, but it _is_ a whistle, shrill and continuous; and as
the swamps swarm with these creatures, the song never ceases for a
moment, although each individual frog creates only _one_ little gush of
music, composed of half-a-dozen trills, and then stops a moment for
breath before commencing the second bar. Bull-frogs, too, though not so
numerous, help to vary the sound by croaking vociferously, as if they
understood the value of bass, and were glad of having an opportunity to
join in the universal hum of life and joy which rises everywhere, from
the river and the swamp, the forest and the prairie, to welcome back
the spring.
Such was the state of things in Red River one beautiful morning in
April, when a band of voyageurs lounged in scattered groups about the
front gate of Fort Garry. They were as fine a set of picturesque, manly
fellows as one could desire to see. Their mode of life rendered them
healthy, hardy, arid good-humoured, with a strong dash of
recklessness—perhaps too much of it—in some of the younger men. Being
descended, generally, from French-Canadian sires and Indian mothers,
they united some of the good and not a few of the bad qualities of
both, mentally as well as physically—combining the light, gay-hearted
spirit and full, muscular frame of the Canadian with the fierce
passions and active habits of the Indian. And this wildness of
disposition was not a little fostered by the nature of their usual
occupations. They were employed during a great part of the year in
navigating the Hudson’s Bay Company’s boats, laden with furs and goods,
through the labyrinth of rivers and lakes that stud and intersect the
whole continent, or they were engaged in pursuit of the bisons,[2]
which roam the prairies in vast herds.
[2] These animals are always called buffaloes by American hunters and
fur-traders.
They were dressed in the costume of the country: most of them wore
light-blue cloth capotes, girded tightly round them’, by scarlet or
crimson worsted belts. Some of them had blue and others scarlet cloth
leggings, ornamented more or less with stained porcupine quills,
coloured silk, or variegated beads; while some might be seen clad in
the leathern coats of winter—deer-skin dressed like chamois leather,
fringed all round with little tails, and ornamented much in the same
way as those already described. The heavy winter moccasins and duffel
socks, which gave to their feet the appearance of being afflicted with
gout, were now replaced by moccasins of a lighter and more elegant
character, having no socks below, and fitting tightly to the feet like
gloves. Some wore hats similar to those made of silk or beaver which
are worn by ourselves in Britain, but so bedizened with scarlet
cock-tail feathers, and silver cords and tassels, as to leave the
original form of the head-dress a matter of great uncertainty. These
hats, however, are only used on high occasions, and chiefly by the
fops. Most of the men wore coarse blue cloth caps with peaks, and not a
few discarded head-pieces altogether, under the impression, apparently,
that nature had supplied a covering which was in itself sufficient.
These costumes varied not only in character but in quality, according
to the circumstances of the wearer; some being highly ornamental and
mended—evincing the felicity of the owner in the possession of a good
wife—while others were soiled and torn, or but slightly ornamented. The
voyageurs were collected, as we have said, in groups. Here stood a
dozen of the youngest—consequently the most noisy and showily
dressed—laughing loudly, gesticulating violently, and bragging
tremendously. Near to them were collected a number of sterner
spirits—men of middle age, with all the energy, and muscle, and bone of
youth, but without its swaggering hilarity; men whose powers and nerves
had been tried over and over again amid the stirring scenes of a
voyageur’s life; men whose heads were cool, and eyes sharp, and hands
ready and powerful, in the mad whirl of boiling rapids, in the sudden
attack of wild beast and hostile man, or in the unexpected approach of
any danger; men who, having been well tried, needed not to boast, and
who, having carried off triumphantly their respective brides many years
ago, needed not to decorate their persons with the absurd finery that
characterised their younger brethren. They were comparatively few in
number, but they composed a sterling band, of which every man was a
hero. Among them were those who occupied the high positions of bowman
and steersman, and when we tell the reader that on these two men
frequently hangs the safety of a boat, with all its crew and lading, it
will be easily understood how needful it is that they should be men of
iron nerve and strength of mind.
Boat-travelling in those regions is conducted in a way that would
astonish most people who dwell in the civilised quarters of the globe.
The country being intersected in all directions by great lakes and
rivers, these have been adopted as the most convenient highways along
which to convey the supplies and bring back the furs from outposts.
Rivers in America, however, as in other parts of the world, are
distinguished by sudden ebullitions and turbulent points of character,
in the shape of rapids, falls, and cataracts, up and down which neither
men nor boats can by any possibility go with impunity; consequently, on
arriving at such obstructions, the cargoes are carried overland to
navigable water above or below the falls (as the case may be), then the
boats are dragged over and launched, again reloaded, and the travellers
proceed. This operation is called “making a portage;” and as these
portages vary from twelve yards to twelve miles in length, it may be
readily conceived that a voyageur’s life is not an easy one by any
means.
This, however, is only one of his difficulties. Rapids occur which are
not so dangerous as to make a “portage” necessary, but are sufficiently
turbulent to render the descent of them perilous. In such cases, the
boats, being lightened of part of their cargo, are _run_ down, and
frequently they descend with full cargoes and crews. It is then that
the whole management of each boat devolves upon its bowman and
steersman. The rest of the crew, or _middlemen_ as they are called,
merely sit still and look on, or give a stroke with their oars if
required; while the steersman, with powerful sweeps of his heavy oar,
directs the flying boat as it bounds from surge to surge like a thing
of life; and the bowman stands erect in front to assist in directing
his comrade at the stern, having a strong and long pole in his hands,
with which, ever and anon, he violently forces the boat’s head away
from sunken rocks, against which it might otherwise strike and be stove
in, capsized, or seriously damaged.
Besides the groups already enumerated, there were one or two others,
composed of grave, elderly men, whose wrinkled brows, gray hairs, and
slow, quiet step, showed that the strength of their days was past;
although their upright figures and warm brown complexions gave promise
of their living to see many summers still. These were the principal
steersmen and old guides—men of renown, to whom the others bowed as
oracles or looked up to as fathers; men whose youth and manhood had
been spent in roaming the trackless wilderness, and who were,
therefore, eminently qualified to guide brigades through the length and
breadth of the land; men whose power of threading their way among the
perplexing intricacies of the forest had become a second nature, a kind
of instinct, that was as sure of attaining its end as the instinct of
the feathered tribes, which brings the swallow, after a long absence,
with unerring certainty back to its former haunts again in spring.