CROSSING THE BARRENS
On Tuesday morning, January sixteenth, we swung out upon the river ice
with a powerful team of twelve dogs. Will Ford and an Eskimo named
Etuksoak, called by the Post folk "Peter," for short, were our drivers.
The dogs began the day with a misunderstanding amongst themselves, and
stopped to fight it out. When they were finally beaten into docility
one of them, apparently the outcast of the pack, was limping on three
legs and leaving a trail of blood behind him. Every team has its
bully, and sometimes its outcast. The bully is master of them all. He
fights his way to his position of supremacy, and holds it by punishing
upon the slightest provocation, real or fancied, any encroachment upon
his autocratic prerogatives. Likewise he disciplines the pack when he
thinks they need it or when he feels like it, and he is always the
ringleader in mischief. When there is an outcast he is a doomed dog.
The others harass and fight him at every opportunity. They are
pitiless. They do not associate with him, and sooner or later a
morning will come when they are noticed licking their chops
contentedly, as dogs do when they have had a good meal--and after that
no more is seen of the outcast. The bully is not always, or, in fact,
often the leader in harness. The dog that the driver finds most
intelligent in following a trail and in answering his commands is
chosen for this important position, regardless of his fighting prowess.
This morning as we started the weather was perfect--thirty-odd degrees
below zero and a bright sun that made the hoar frost sparkle like
flakes of silver. For ten miles our course lay down the river to a
point just below the "Narrows." Then we left the ice and hit the
overland trail in an almost due northerly direction. It was a rough
country and there was much pulling and hauling and pushing to be done
crossing the hills. Before noon the wind began to rise, and by the
time we stopped to prepare our snow igloo for the night a northwest
gale had developed and the air was filled with drifting snow.
Early in the afternoon I began to have cramps in the calves of my legs,
and finally it seemed to me that the muscles were tied into knots.
Sharp, intense pains in the groin made it torture to lift in feet above
the level of the snow, and I was never more thankful for rest in my
life than when that day's work was finished. Easton confessed to me
that he had an attack similar to my own. This was the result of our
inactivity at Fort Chimo. We were suffering with what among the
Canadian voyageurs is known as _mal de roquette_. There was nothing to
do but endure it without complaint, for there is no relief until in
time it gradually passes away of its own accord.
This first night from George River was spent upon the shores of a lake
which, hidden by drifted snow, appeared to be about two miles wide and
seven or eight miles long. It lay amongst low, barren hills, where a
few small bunches of gnarled black spruce relieved the otherwise
unbroken field of white.
The following morning it was snowing and drifting, and as the day grew
the storm increased. An hour's traveling carried us to the Koroksoak
River--River of the Great Gulch--which flows from the northeast,
following the lower Torngaek mountains and emptying into Ungava Bay
near the mouth of the George. The Koroksoak is apparently a shallow
stream, with a width of from fifty to two hundred yards. Its bed forms
the chief part of the komatik route to Nachvak, and therefore our
route. For several miles the banks are low and sandy, but farther up
the sand disappears and the hills crowd close upon the river. The
gales that sweep down the valley with every storm had blown away the
snow and drifted the bank sand in a layer over the river ice. This
made the going exceedingly hard and ground the mud from the komatik
runners.
The snowstorm, directly in our teeth, increased in force with every
mile we traveled, and with the continued cramps and pains in my legs it
seemed to me that the misery of it all was about as refined and
complete as it could be. It may be imagined, therefore, the relief I
felt when at noon Will and Peter stopped the komatik with the
announcement that we must camp, as further progress could not be made
against the blinding snow and head wind.
Advantage was taken of the daylight hours to mend the komatik mud. This
was done by mixing caribou moss with water, applying the mixture to the
mud where most needed, and permitting it to freeze, which it did
instantly. Then the surface was planed smooth with a little jack plane
carried for the purpose.
That night the storm blew itself out, and before daylight, after a
breakfast of coffee and hard-tack, we were off. The half day's rest
had done wonders for me, and the pains in my legs were not nearly so
severe as on the previous day.
January and February see the lowest temperatures of the Labrador
winter. Now the cold was bitter, rasping--so intensely cold was the
atmosphere that it was almost stifling as it entered the lungs. The
vapor from our nostrils froze in masses of ice upon our beards. The
dogs, straining in the harness, were white with hoar frost, and our
deerskin clothing was also thickly coated with it. For long weeks
these were to be the prevailing conditions in our homeward march.
Dark and ominous were the spruce-lined river banks on either side that
morning as we toiled onward, and grim and repellent indeed were the
rocky hills outlined against the sky beyond. Everything seemed frozen
stiff and dead except ourselves. No sound broke the absolute silence
save the crunch, crunch, crunch of our feet, the squeak of the komatik
runners complaining as they slid reluctantly over the snow, and the
"oo-isht-oo-isht, oksuit, oksuit" of the drivers, constantly urging the
dogs to greater effort. Shimmering frost flakes, suspended in the air
like a veil of thinnest gauze, half hid the sun when very timidly he
raised his head above the southeastern horizon, as though afraid to
venture into the domain of the indomitable ice king who had wrested the
world from his last summer's power and ruled it now so absolutely.
With every mile the spruce on the river banks became thinner and
thinner, and the hills grew higher and higher, until finally there was
scarcely a stick to be seen and the lower eminences had given way to
lofty mountains which raised their jagged, irregular peaks from two to
four thousand feet in solemn and majestic grandeur above our heads. The
gray basaltic rocks at their base shut in the tortuous river bed, and
we knew now why the Koroksoak was called the "River of the Great
Gulch." These were the mighty Torngaeks, which farther north attain an
altitude above the sea of full seven thousand feet. We passed the
place where Torngak dwells in his mountain cavern and sends forth his
decrees to the spirits of Storm and Starvation and Death to do
destruction, or restrains them, at his will.
In the forenoon of the third day after leaving George River we stopped
to lash a few sticks on top of our komatik load. "No more wood," said
Will. "This'll have to see us through to Nachvak." That afternoon we
turned out of the Koroksoak River into a pass leading to the northward,
and that night's igloo was at the headwaters of a stream that they said
ran into Nachvak Bay.
The upper part of this new gulch was strewn with bowlders, and much
hard work and ingenuity were necessary the following morning to get the
komatik through them at all. Farther down the stream widened. Here the
wind had swept the snow clear of the ice, and it was as smooth as a
piece of glass, broken only by an occasional bowlder sticking above the
surface. A heavy wind blew in our backs and carried the komatik before
it at a terrific pace, with the dogs racing to keep out of the way.
Sometimes we were carried sidewise, sometimes stern first, but seldom
right end foremost. Lively work was necessary to prevent being wrecked
upon the rocks, and occasionally we did turn over, when a bowlder was
struck side on.
There were several steep down grades. Before descending one of the
first of these a line was attached to the rear end of the komatik and
Will asked Easton to hang on to it and hold back, to keep the komatik
straight. There was no foothold for him, however, on the smooth
surface of the ice, and Easton found that he could not hold back as
directed. The momentum was considerable, and he was afraid to let go
for fear of losing his balance on the slippery ice, and so, wild-eyed
and erect, he slid along, clinging for dear life to the line. Pretty
soon he managed to attain a sitting posture, and with his legs spread
before him, but still holding desperately on, he skimmed along after
the komatik. The next and last evolution was a "belly-gutter"
position. This became too strenuous for him, however, and the line was
jerked out of his hands. I was afraid he might have been injured on a
rock, but my anxiety was soon relieved when I saw him running along the
shore to overtake the komatik where it had been stopped to wait for him
below.
This gulch was exceedingly narrow, with mountains, lofty, rugged and
grand rising directly from the stream's bank, some of them attaining an
altitude of five thousand feet or more. At one point they squeezed the
brook through a pass only ten feet in width, with perpendicular walls
towering high above our heads on either side. This place is known to
the Hudson's Bay Company people as "The Porch."
In the afternoon Peter caught his foot in a crevice, and the komatik
jammed him with such force that he narrowly escaped a broken leg and
was crippled for the rest of the journey. Early in the afternoon we
were on salt water ice, and at two o'clock sighted Nachvak Post of the
Hudson's Bay Company, and at half past four were hospitably welcomed by
Mrs. Ford, the wife of George Ford, the agent.
This was Saturday, January twentieth. Since the previous Tuesday
morning we had had no fire to warm ourselves by and had been living
chiefly on hard-tack, and the comfort and luxury of the Post sitting
room, with the hot supper of arctic hare that came in due course, were
appreciated. Mr. Ford had gone south with Dr. Milne to Davis Inlet
Post and was not expected back for a week, but Mrs. Ford and her son
Solomon Ford, who was in charge during his father's absence, did
everything possible for our comfort.
The injury to Peter's leg made it out of the question for him to go on
with us, and we therefore found it necessary to engage another team to
carry us to Ramah, the first of the Moravian missionary stations on our
route of travel, and this required a day's delay at Nachvak, as no
Eskimos could be seen that night. The Fords offered us every
assistance in securing drivers, and went to much trouble on our behalf.
Solomon personally took it upon himself to find dogs and drivers for
us, and through his kindness arrangements were made with two Eskimos,
Taikrauk and Nikartok by name, who agreed to furnish a team of ten dogs
and be on hand early on Monday morning. I considered myself fortunate
in securing so large a team, for the seal hunt had been bad the
previous fall and the Eskimos had therefore fallen short of dog food
and had killed a good many of their dogs. I should not have been so
ready with my self-congratulation had I seen the dogs that we were to
have.
Nachvak is the most God-forsaken place for a trading post that I have
ever seen. Wherever you look bare rocks and towering mountains stare
you in the face; nowhere is there a tree or shrub of any kind to
relieve the rock-bound desolation, and every bit of fuel has to be
brought in during the summer by steamer. They have coal, but even the
wood to kindle the coal is imported. The Eskimos necessarily use stone
lamps in which seal oil is burned to heat their igloos. The Fords have
lived here for a quarter of a century, but now the Company is
abandoning the Post as unprofitable and they are to be transferred to
some other quarter.
"God knows how lonely it is sometimes," Mrs. Ford said to me, "and how
glad I'll be if we go where there's some one besides just greasy
heathen Eskimos to see."
The Moravian mission at Killenek, a station three days' travel to the
northward, on Cape Chidley, has deflected some of the former trade from
Nachvak and the Ramah station more of it, until but twenty-seven
Eskimos now remain at Nachvak.
Early on Monday morning not only our two Eskimos appeared, but the
entire Eskimo population, even the women with babies in their hoods, to
see us off. The ten-dog team that I had congratulated myself so
proudly upon securing proved to be the most miserable aggregation of
dogskin and bones I had ever seen, and in so horribly emaciated a
condition that had there been any possible way of doing without them I
should have declined to permit them to haul our komatik. However I had
no choice, as no other dogs were to be had, and at six o'clock--more
than two hours before daybreak--we said farewell to good Mrs. Ford and
her family and started forward with our caravan of followers.
We took what is known as the "outside" route, turning right out toward
the mouth of the bay. By this route it is fully forty miles to Ramah.
By a short cut overland, which is not so level, the distance is only
about thirty miles, but our Eskimos chose the level course, as it is
doubtful whether their excuses for dogs could have hauled the komatik
over the hills on the short cut. An hour after our start we passed a
collection of snow igloos, and all our following, after shaking hands
and repeating, "Okusi," left us--all but one man, Korganuk by name, who
decided to honor us with his society to Ramah; so we had three Eskimos
instead of the more than sufficient two.
Though the traveling was fairly good the poor starved dogs crawled
along so slowly that with a jog trot we easily kept in advance of them,
and not even the extreme cruelty of the heathen drivers, who beat them
sometimes unmercifully, could induce them to do better. I remonstrated
with the human brutes on several occasions, but they pretended not to
understand me, smiling blandly in return, and making unintelligible
responses in Eskimo.
Before dawn the sky clouded, and by the time we reached the end of the
bay and turned southward across the neck, toward noon, it began to snow
heavily. This capped the climax of our troubles and I questioned
whether our team would ever reach our destination with this added
impediment of soft, new snow to plow through.
From the first the snow fell thick and fast. Then the wind rose, and
with every moment grew in velocity. I soon realized that we were
caught under the worst possible conditions in the throes of a Labrador
winter storm--the kind of storm that has cost so many native travelers
on that bleak coast their lives.
We were now on the ice again beyond the neck. Perpendicular, clifflike
walls shut us off from retreat to the land and there was not a
possibility of shelter anywhere. Previous snows had found no lodgment
into banks, and an igloo could not be built. Our throats were parched
with thirst, but there was no water to drink and nowhere a stick of
wood with which to build a fire to melt snow. The dogs were lying down
in harness and crying with distress, and the Eskimos had continually to
kick them into renewed efforts. On we trudged, on and endlessly on.
We were still far from our goal.
All of us, even the Eskimos, were utterly weary. Finally frequent
stops were necessary to rest the poor toiling brutes, and we were glad
to take advantage of each opportunity to throw ourselves at full length
on the snow-covered ice for a moment's repose. Sometimes we would walk
ahead of the komatik and lie down until it overtook us, frequently
falling asleep in the brief interim. Now and again an Eskimo would
look into my face and repeat, "Oksunae" (be strong), and I would
encourage him in the same way.
Darkness fell thick and black. No signs of land were visible--nothing
but the whirling, driving, pitiless snow around us and the ice under
our feet. Sometimes one of us would stumble on a hummock and fall,
then rise again to resume the mechanical plodding. I wondered
sometimes whether we were not going right out to sea and how long it
would be before we should drop into open water and be swallowed up. My
faculties were too benumbed to care much, and it was just a calculation
in which I had no particular but only a passive interest.
The thirst of the snow fields is most agonizing, and can only be
likened to the thirst of the desert. The snow around you is
tantalizing, for to eat it does not quench the thirst in the slightest;
it aggravates it. If I ever longed for water it was then.
Hour after hour passed and the night seemed interminable. But somehow
we kept going, and the poor crying brutes kept going. All misery has
its ending, however, and ours ended when I least looked for it.
Unexpectedly the dogs' pitiful cries changed to gleeful howls and they
visibly increased their efforts. Then Korganuk put his face close to
mine and said: "Ramah! Ramah!" and quite suddenly we stopped before
the big mission house at Ramah.