A RACE WITH WINTER
If you wish to cross the Rocky Mountains to-day westward to the Pacific
coast, there are the cars of the Canadian-Pacific Railway, in which you
can travel in luxurious comfort and ease. As the train winds its way up
to the summit, and crosses the Great Divide, and then creeps down, down
the western slope, wonders without number are presented to view. Majestic
snow-capped mountains surround you on every side; streams rush, leaping
and foaming, like white threads far below, as the train hangs from some
dizzy height, crawling around a jagged precipice. As you look down, and
then shrink back, at the wild scene below, you marvel at the skill of
the engineers who could build a railroad in such a place. Then your mind
turns to the men who first penetrated these wilds, and who were forced to
cross the mountains before the railroad was built. What hardships they
endured, what perils, and how many lives were lost in the undertaking!
Hundreds of miles farther north Bishop Bompas performed this task
years before the railroad was built, and at a season of the year when
travelling over the mountains was very difficult.
While Bishop Bompas was carrying on his steady work along the great
inland streams, a storm was brewing in an active mission centre on the
Pacific coast. Mr. Duncan, who had been sent out by the Church Missionary
Society, was working among the Indians at Metlakahtla with good results.
Bishop Hills, of Columbia Diocese, several times visited the settlement
and baptized a large number of converts. But Mr. Duncan objected to the
Indian Christians being prepared for Confirmation, thinking they would
make a fetish of it. Time and time again the Church Missionary Society
sent out ordained men to Metlakahtla, but Mr. Duncan would not listen to
them, and remained most headstrong in his views. Matters thus reached a
climax. Bishop Hills well knew if he visited Metlakahtla it would only
add fuel to the flames, as Mr. Duncan, for certain reasons, had taken
a dislike to him. He therefore acted a wise part, and wrote to Bishop
Bompas asking him to go to Metlakahtla as arbitrator.
It was late in the season ere the letter reached the Bishop, but without
delay he prepared for the trip. At any season it was a great undertaking,
but at that time of the year the difficulty was very much increased.
In a direct line the journey was a long one, but to reach the coast
the distance was lengthened by a circuitous route over rivers, lakes,
portages, and mountain summits.
Then winter was upon them.
“All the latter part of September,” wrote the Bishop, “the frost and snow
had been more severe than I had ever known it before at the same season,
so the winter had decidedly the first start in our race.”
It was a cold, frosty day, that 8th of October, 1877, when the Bishop
left Dunvegan in a stout canoe, with several Indians, on his long
race to the coast against stern Winter. For five days they moved up
the river, contending with drifting ice, which met them coming out of
“tributary streams,” and on the 13th Fort St. John’s was reached, where
they “were kindly entertained for the Sunday by the officer in charge”
of the Hudson’s Bay post. From this point they left winter “behind for
a fortnight, and were fairly ahead in the race.” But every day they
expected to be overtaken by their competitor, and arose from their
“couches anxiously every morning, foreboding signs of ice or snow.”
Rocky Mountain House was reached on the 17th, where a large band of
Indians was found assembled. The Bishop lost no opportunity of speaking
a word to the natives wherever he met them, and the seed thus sown bore
much fruit in after years. For the first time he found no sickness in the
camps, which fact he attributed “to their unusually liberal use of soap
and water, as compared with the tribes farther north.”
Ahead of them was the Peace River Canyon, and, after making a land
portage of twelve miles to overcome this dangerous spot, they again
proceeded by canoe. But the work was becoming harder all the time. The
current was very swift, and the canoe had to be poled all the way. In
trying to ascend the Parle Pas Rapids, the current was so “strong that
their canoe turned on them, and was swept down the stream, but, being a
large one, descended safely.”
“Most of the time that we were passing through the gorge of the Rocky
Mountains the weather was foggy, but when the mist cleared we saw the
bold crags and hilly heights closely overhanging the river in snowy
grandeur. The mountain terraces and picturesque scenery on this route
have been described by Canadian explorers.”
“On the very morning that we left Parsnip River,” wrote the Bishop, “the
ice began again to drift thickly to meet us, and had we been only a few
hours later, we might have been inconvenienced by it, showing us that
stern Winter was still on our track.”
For eleven days the Bishop and his men poled their craft against the
stream, and, with many dangers passed, reached McLeod’s Lake Fort on
October 29. Here they were hospitably received by Mr. McKenzie, the
officer in charge, and an opportunity was given to see the Indians who
were at the fort. A rest of two days was made here, and then they
started across the lake. This was a difficult task, as the ice was
beginning to stretch from shore to shore, and they had to force their way
as best they could around the corner of the solid mass.
From Lake McLeod a long portage of eighty miles was made over frozen
ground to the beautiful sheet of water known as Stuart Lake, on the
shore of which the officer at Fort St. James gave them a hearty welcome.
Here the Bishop was on historic ground. Seventy-one years before those
famous explorers, Simon Fraser and John Stuart, discovered the lake
which took the name of the latter. Fort St. James, which was erected
on its banks “long before Victoria and New Westminster had been called
into existence,” was the regular capital of British Columbia, “where a
representative of our own race ruled over reds and whites.”
A stay of four days was made at this place, during which time heavy
snowstorms raged over the land, and ice began to form in the lake,
which threatened to bar further progress. This body of water, which
is about fifty miles in length, had to be traversed, and the Indians
refused to make the long journey at that season and in such weather.
During the delay the Bishop was invited to hold Divine service at the
fort on Sunday. Never before had the place “been visited by a Protestant
missionary, the Roman Catholics only having laboured in the region, and
Mr. Hamilton, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s chief officer there, brought up
a family of ten children without having, for more than twenty years, any
opportunity of seeing a Protestant minister.”
After much difficulty the Indians were persuaded to go forward, and,
leaving Fort St. James on November 7, started out upon their perilous
journey. Safely crossing Lake Stuart, they made a portage of seven miles
and a half to Lake Babine. This is a body of water eighty-seven miles
long and from one-half to five or six miles wide. The canoes here were
poor affairs, owing to the lack of large cedar-trees, from which such
crafts are made on the Pacific coast. They were common dug-outs, formed
from the cotton-wood trees—small, narrow, slab-sided, and as a rule much
warped and out of shape.
This was all the Bishop could obtain to make the voyage, but he was used
to anything, even a raft, so, launching the frail craft, they again
started forward. When they had gone part of the way a furious snowstorm
swept down upon them, blotting out the landscape, while the white-capped
waves threatened every instant to engulf them. Creeping along the
lee-side of the lake, they pressed steadily on, for the Bishop must reach
the coast before the winter locked everything tight. After days of hard
paddling and battling with wind and waves, their hearts were gladdened by
the sight of Fort Babine. The Indians here, who, by the way, were Roman
Catholics, were naturally suspicious of a Church of England missionary.
“However,” remarked the Bishop, “they treated us well.”
These Indians were called “Babines” from the custom they had of wearing
a wooden lip-piece on the lower lip. In 1812, when Harmon, the explorer,
first pushed his way into this region, they were wild and war-like,
brandishing their weapons in a threatening manner as the explorer drew
near. Then they numbered about 2,000. Now they have dwindled to 250 since
the arrival of the whites—a sad comment upon the influence of so-called
civilized people. Their principal business was salmon-fishing in the fine
lake which stretched away to the south-east.
From Fort Babine they started on the land-trail over the mountains to
Skeena Forks. This was a difficult undertaking, and winter overtook them
once again. Beginning the portage, the snow was several inches deep, and
as they ascended the mountain it deepened continually, till they were
forced to dig out their camps, “to sleep in a foot and a half of snow,
and without snow-shoes the walking was heavy. We were invading Winter’s
own domain,” continued the Bishop, “and it was little wonder if he was
severe with us.”
As they descended the western slope the next morning, the snow diminished
rapidly, and they “camped at night in the grass without a vestige of
snow remaining, and only saw stern Winter frowning down from the heights
behind.”
On reaching the Skeena Forks they were given a hearty welcome by Mr.
Hankin, a trader who lived here, who informed the Bishop that, till the
previous year, the Skeena River had never been known to continue open
so late, being generally frozen the first week in November, and now it
was the 17th. The next day the descent of the Skeena was begun by canoe
in fear and trembling, lest the ice might “drift down from behind.” And
the race began in earnest, for a heavy snowstorm swept over the land,
and Winter once more made a last effort to block them. But through the
tempest sped the determined missionary, through rapids and canyons, over
bars, whirling eddies, and dangers without number. At last, to his joy,
he found that, on nearing the coast, the mild breezes of the Pacific were
too much for grim Winter, and he steadily retreated, leaving the little
party unscathed.
At Port Essington, the little town at the mouth of the Skeena, Mr.
Morrison, the missionary in charge, one day, November 23, saw a stranger
approaching in a canoe. His clothes were torn and ragged, his face
bronzed from wind and sun, while his long, uncombed beard swept his
breast. So travel-worn was the man that Mr. Morrison mistook him for
a miner as he disembarked. “Well,” said he, “what success have you
had?” The Bishop replied that he had been fairly successful, evidently
relishing the joke. Just then Mr. Morrison saw the remains of the
episcopal apron, and, remembering that he had heard that a Bishop was
expected at Metlakahtla from inland, exclaimed: “Perhaps you are the
Bishop who I heard was expected?” “Yes,” was the reply, “I am all that is
left of him.”
After spending one night with Mr. Morrison, the Bishop proceeded
twenty-five miles by canoe along the coast northward to Metlakahtla,
which he reached on the 24th, “this being the tenth canoe,” he remarks,
“that we sat in since leaving Dunvegan.”
The venerable Archdeacon Collison, of the Diocese of Caledonia, wrote
from Kincolith Naas Mission of the visit of Bishop Bompas to the Pacific
coast:
“He remained at Metlakahtla that winter, where he succeeded in confirming
a large number of candidates. By the first steamer in spring he came over
to me on Queen Charlotte’s Island, at Massett. I had a little bedroom
specially prepared for him in the new mission-house, but he preferred
lying down on the floor, as he said he was not accustomed to sleeping
in rooms. He was about to lie down just across the doorway, when I
begged him to take another position, as he might be disturbed by someone
entering late or early.
“I returned with him to the mainland on the steamer. We went together
to the Naas River by canoe—a voyage of some fifty miles—to Kincolith.
The owner of the canoe, who was a chief, was steering, and I was seated
near him towards the stern, whilst the Bishop was seated forward. As the
Bishop raised his arms in paddling, in which we were all engaged, it
revealed a long tear in the side of his shirt. Suddenly the chief asked
me in a low tone, in Tsimshean: ‘Why is the chief’s shirt so torn?’ I
replied: ‘He has been a long time travelling through the forest.’ He
was dressed very roughly, and wore a pair of moccasins. When we reached
Kincolith, he purchased a coarse pair of brogans in the little Indian
store there. He was in the habit of sitting, after the others had
finished their meal, eating a small piece of dry yeast-powder bread,
baked by Mrs. Tomlinson or one of her Indian girl boarders, and he would
exclaim: ‘How sweet this bread is to my taste after roughing it so long
on the trails!’ He informed us of the privations both missionaries and
Indians had endured owing to scarcity of food during certain seasons,
on more than one occasion having had to boil and eat the skins of the
animals that had been caught in the hunt for their furs. I ventured
to suggest to him that this might be avoided if they could only grow
potatoes and pit them securely. We had taught our Indians to do this.
The Bishop feared they would not mature in his diocese, but promised to
remember it. Afterwards I was informed he had introduced the potato with
success.
“The Rev. R. Tomlinson and I accompanied the Bishop when he started
to return to the head of canoe navigation on the Naas River, and some
distance on the trail. We had a prayer-meeting at the point where we
separated in the forest, in which we joined in prayer for needful
blessings—the Bishop for us and God’s work in our hands, and we for him
in his journey and labours for the Lord. He gave away his great-coat
and a pot to the Indians, and started on the second stage of his return
journey accompanied by one young Indian.”
While on the coast it was but natural that the Bishop’s thoughts should
wander to his native land.
“From the Pacific coast,” he wrote, “a few weeks would have taken me to
England or any part of the civilized world; but I preferred to return
north without even visiting the haunts of civilization (except so far as
the Indians are cultivated at our missions), on the ground that such a
visit renders the mind unsettled or disinclined for a life in the wilds.”
Brave soldier of the Cross, how willing he was to sacrifice anything for
the Master’s cause! Leaving the coast, he started in the spring up the
Skeena River, and once again plunged into the wilderness among his dusky
flock.