Early on the following morning we left camp with the light sleighs, and
at sunrise were close to the place where the second band had been
discovered. We were a long time in finding them, as the fog had settled
down again, but at last made out a band of sixty on a high ridge between
two small lakes in a very easy place to approach. Directly after we
sighted them Paul's sleigh, which was ahead, capsized over a rock, and
his rifle, which was lashed on the top of it, exploded with a loud
report. The bullet must have passed close to some of us, as on
examination the rifle appeared to be bearing right down the line, and it
was lucky that nobody was killed or crippled; a wounded man would have
had little chance of getting back to the woods alive. The musk-ox took
not the slightest notice of the report, although we were within a couple
of hundred yards of them, and we soon had eighteen rounded up, the main
body breaking away as they had done before. A sickening slaughter,
without the least pretence of sport to recommend it, now took place till
the last one was killed, and we were busy skinning till dark.
I took some of the best heads, but most of them were afterwards thrown
away by the Indians to lighten the load on the sleighs. The animals that
we killed in this band were of various ages, and it was interesting to
note the growth of the horns in different specimens. They begin in both
sexes with a plain straight shoot, exactly like the horns of a domestic
calf, and it is then impossible to tell the male from the female by the
head alone. In the second year they begin to broaden out, and the bull's
horns become much whiter and project straighter from the head than the
cow's, which are beginning already to show the downward bend. At the end
of the third year the cow's horns are fully developed, and I do not
think they grow much after that age; with the bulls, however, the horns
are only just beginning to spread out at the base, and it is not till
the sixth year that the solid boss extends right across the forehead,
the point of junction being marked by a slight crack into which the skin
has been squeezed during the growth of the horns. A curious fact is
noticeable in the horns of the young bulls before the boss has begun to
form; they are quite soft and porous at the base, and can easily be cut
with a knife; when once the boss has grown, the horn is as hard as a
rock. I made careful inquiries of the Indians on these points, and they
told me that, except in the case of very young or very old animals, they
could always tell the age of the musk-ox by a glance at their horns.
We had the greatest difficulty in finding our way back to the lodge, and
it was late before we turned in, everybody agreeing that we had done
enough, and ought to make our best way back to the timber before our
firewood was exhausted. The loads would be quite as heavy as they had
been coming out, for we now had the weight of robes and meat to make up
for the wood we had used. We had, roughly, three hundred and fifty miles
to travel to reach Fond du Lac, but intended to take the last part of
the journey easily after we fell in with the caribou. I should like to
have known our exact position on the map, and the distance from the
sea-coast at Bathurst Inlet, but of course had no chance of making even
an approximate calculation; the Indians had no local knowledge, as they
were entirely beyond any country they knew. Our only luxuries, tea and
tobacco, were now finished, and I found that the want of tobacco was the
most trying hardship on the whole trip: one pipeful as you roll up in
your blanket for the night imparts a certain amount of comfort, and
makes you take a more cheerful view of life; but when even this cannot
be obtained there is a perpetual craving for a smoke, and the best of
tempers is liable to suffer from the deprivation. After we had boiled
our last handful of tea-leaves three times over, Saltatha ate them with
great gusto, and in future we drank the water in which the meat was
boiled. I did not miss the tea nearly so much as the tobacco, and soon
began to like the hot greasy _bouillon_ well enough to struggle for my
full share.
We were late off next morning, and could not make a good day's journey,
as the snow was soft till we got on the large lake, and we were further
delayed in the evening by finding another band of musk-ox. The Indians
said they could carry half a dozen robes more, and insisted, against my
wishes, on killing this number; the consequence was that we had to camp
for the night, and the dogs were more overloaded than ever; they were
able, however, to eat to their hearts' content, and there was very
little left of the six musk-ox in the morning. Two long days' travel
took us back to the point on the Lac de Gras where we had seen the
willows above the snow, and as the dogs were showing signs of fatigue
and their feet were much cut about by the sharp snow-needles sticking
between their toes, we decided on taking a day's rest. We managed to
pull up enough small willows to keep a bit of a fire going most of the
day, and if we had had tobacco should all have enjoyed ourselves
immensely. It was a bright clear day, without wind and terribly cold. I
climbed to the top of a hill in the afternoon to see if I could make out
the west end of the lake, but an intervening hill made it impossible to
get a clear view, and I could form no idea of its length. On this day I
felt the top of my tongue cold in breathing, and my companions, who
were well accustomed to low temperatures, all remarked the extreme
severity of the cold.
It must have been about midnight when I heard Saltatha splitting wood,
and the well-known cry of _Ho lève, lève, il faut partir!_ Looking out
of my blanket I felt the snow falling in my face through a big hole that
the dogs had eaten in the lodge, and said that it was no use moving, as
we should never be able to find our way across the broad traverse that
lay ahead. I was laughed at as usual, and after a breakfast of boiled
meat we started out into the darkness. I soon saw there was little
chance of picking up the skin of the musk-ox that we had _cached_ in
September, as, although the intention was to follow the shore of the
lake till we came to the _cache_, we lost sight of land immediately with
absolutely nothing to guide us on our course. There was no wind, and
such a thick downfall of snow that matters did not improve much when the
blackness turned into grey with daylight.
I have often heard it stated that the gift of finding their way is given
to Indians under all conditions by a sort of instinct that the white man
does not possess, but I never saw children more hopelessly lost than
these men accustomed all their lives to Barren Ground travel. I have
seen it happen to half-breeds and Indians many times, and have come to
the conclusion that no man without a compass can keep his course in
falling snow, unless there is wind to guide him. It is always advisable
to put ashore at once, or, better still, not to leave your camp in the
morning, as then you know your point of departure on the first signs of
a break in the weather. On this occasion the usual thing happened; we
walked all day, changing our roadbreaker every hour or so, while the men
behind shouted contrary directions when they thought he was off his
course. Luckily we found land just at dark, and camped immediately. A
great discussion ensued as to our position, and opinions varied greatly
about the direction of the north star; but we could do nothing till the
weather improved, and even then, unless it grew very clear, or the sun
came out, we might not know which course to take, as landmarks are few
and far between. Fuel could not last more than three nights with the
strictest economy.
The wind rose in the evening, and the snow ceased falling, but began to
drift heavily. In the night there was a tremendous uproar. I was
awakened by hearing the universal Indian chant (_Hi hi he, Ho hi he_),
and much clapping of hands, while the dogs were howling dismally far out
on the ice, evidently thinking they were meant to hunt something, but
disappointed at not being able to find anything to tear to pieces. I
looked out to see what was going on, and found everybody sitting in the
snow shouting; Saltatha had discovered a single star, and the noise I
had heard was the applause supposed to bring out one of the principal
constellations, so that we might get an idea of our direction. The
heavens certainly did clear, and when daylight broke and the wind
moderated we made out our position easily enough. In fourteen hours'
walk we had come perhaps five miles straight, having made a huge circle
to the right and fallen on an island close to the shore that we had left
in the morning. There was still the whole width of the lake to cross,
but when we camped late in the portage between the two big lakes I
thought we had got out of the scrape very well. There was no apparent
reason why the snowstorm should have stopped, and a continuation of it
must have brought us serious trouble.
The next day was worse than ever. A gale from the south in our teeth and
drifting snow made it cruel work to face the storm; but we had to go, as
fuel was rapidly vanishing, and we had already burnt some of our
lodge-poles, and we hoped to reach a small wood-_cache_ that night. We
could find the way, as we had the wind to guide us; but the snow was
soft, and the dogs were hardly able now to drag the sleighs over the
rough hills; one of the poorest froze in harness and had to be
abandoned. Our blankets, which we usually wrapped round our head and
shoulders when facing the wind, now came in for dog-cloths, and
certainly saved some more of the dogs from being disabled by frost-bite;
but as the snow melted between their backs and the blankets, the latter
got wet and afterwards froze till they would stand like a board, and
were then a most uncomfortable form of bedding. The slow pace at which
we were forced to travel made it much worse, and we all found our faces
slightly frozen. At dark we camped nearly at the end of the portage,
although we did not know it till morning, and reluctantly cut up another
couple of lodge-poles for firewood, besides a small box in which I had
been carrying my journal and ammunition.
The wind lightened during the night, and backing into the east came fair
on Lake Mackay. We found our wood-_cache_ all right, and set out on the
sixty-mile walk that still lay between us and the first pine-timber. The
travelling on the lake was better than in the portage, and well on in
the night we put ashore on the island where we had stored our first meat
during the autumn musk-ox hunt. The dogs were too tired to go any
further without rest, or we should have pushed on all night. Our last
lodge-pole was burnt to cook a kettleful of meat for breakfast on
December 1st, and before daylight we were off, with no thought of
camping till we could make fire. The sun at this time only stayed above
the horizon for a couple of hours, and had sunk beneath the snow before
we made out far ahead the high ridge under which the first clump of
pines lay. We were badly scattered along the track, and some of the
dogs, and the men too for that matter, had great difficulty in keeping
up pace enough to make the blood circulate; it was six hours later, and
we were all pretty well used up, when we saw the little pines standing
out against the sky line.
What a glorious camp we had that night! The bright glare of two big
fires lit up the snow-laden branches of the dwarf pines till they
glittered like so many Christmas-trees; overhead the full moon shone
down on us, and every star glowed like a lamp hung in the sky; at times
the Northern Lights would flash out, but the brilliancy of the moon
seemed too strong for even this wondrous fire to rival. It was pleasant
to lie once again on the yielding pine-brush instead of the hard snow,
and to stretch our legs at full length as we could never stretch them in
the lodge; pleasant, too, to look back at the long struggle we had gone
through, and to contrast our present condition with that of the last
month. Our experiences had been hard and not without their share of
danger, and we could now congratulate ourselves on having brought our
hunt to a most satisfactory conclusion. I had fully succeeded in
carrying out the object of my expedition, and could look forward to a
period of ever-increasing comfort, culminating in the luxury of life at
a Hudson's Bay Fort within a few weeks. I had intended to winter at the
edge of the Barren Ground, but was forced to give up the idea, as I had
seen too much of the Beaulieus to care about living any longer with
them. The fact that meat was scarce again did not trouble me, as I was
by this time accustomed to empty larders and had fallen into the happy
Indian method of trusting that something would turn up; besides, we were
pretty sure to run across the caribou within the next few days. The want
of tobacco was the worst grievance that I had, but the prospect of
obtaining this was getting brighter after each day's travel.
Very late at night Saltatha turned up with a badly frozen nose and chin.
One of his dogs had given out and been abandoned, and he had been
pushing the sleigh for many hours; he had almost given up trying to
bring in his load when he saw the blaze of the fires far off and his
courage came back. The sun was up before anyone turned out, but the dogs
were better for the rest, and a short day took us into a big bunch of
pines on King Lake, within an easy day of a small meat _cache_ that I
had made while we were camped at the Lake of the Enemy. I had my doubts
about finding the place, as none of the others knew where it was, but
was lucky enough to hit it off; and we took out the meat of two caribou,
after breaking an axe to pieces in our endeavours to chop away the ice
which had formed between the rocks from the melting of the snow during a
warm spell in the beginning of October.
The same night we camped at the scaffold on which we had stored all the
dried meat that the women had made while we were away on the first
musk-ox hunt. King was to have taken most of it, leaving us sufficient
for a couple of days' supply, and a note in the syllabic characters
introduced into the North by the priests informed us that he had kept
his promise. There were plenty of signs that he had done so; but the
wolverines had been before us, and a few shreds of meat lying at the
foot of the stage told the story plainly enough. This was rather a
disappointment, and matters looked worse when we had travelled the whole
length of Lake Camsell at our best speed. Here again we expected to find
a _cache_, as some meat had been left when we killed the first caribou
in the autumn, but the wolverines had taken it. This is a common
incident in Northern travel, but never fails to draw forth hearty
execrations on the head of the hated _carcajou_.
There was much talk of abandoning loads and making a rush to reach the
caribou or a Yellow Knife encampment which was supposed to lie some
distance ahead of us; but I opposed this scheme strongly, and for once
managed to get my own way. The weather was fine, and we cared little for
the cold, as we could always make a fire in case of freezing. Without
eating much we pushed on rapidly for two days, crossing the Lac du
Rocher, the scene of our starvation in September, and finally on the
third morning found a band of caribou, of which we killed enough to
relieve all immediate anxiety. By this time we were among thick timber
and following closely our canoe-route of three months ago.
In the early hours of December 7th we came to a line of pine-brush
planted across a small lake, and soon afterwards fell on the tracks of
fresh snow-shoes; before daylight, at the end of a long portage over a
thickly wooded hill, we dropped into an encampment of a dozen lodges. It
turned to be Zinto's camp, and all my Indians found their wives and
families awaiting them here. There were great rejoicings over our
arrival, as we had been so long on the hunt that a good deal of anxiety
was felt for the safety of husbands and brothers. Zinto invited me into
his lodge, gave me a feast of pounded meat and grease, a cup of tea,
and, better still, a small plug of black tobacco; this seemed too good
to leave, and as we had travelled many hours in the night I decided to
spend the rest of the day here.
The camp was very prettily situated on a small flat a few feet above the
edge of a frozen lake; and when the sun rose over the hill, lighting up
the brown deer-skin lodges with their columns of blue smoke rising
straight up in the frosty air, the snow-laden pine-trees, and the
silver-barked birches, the whole scene seemed a realization of one of
Fenimore Cooper's descriptions of an Indian camp in winter.
Much talking had to be got through, and the story of our musk-ox hunt
was told many times over. I was the object of great interest, and was
closely questioned as to my experiences in the Barren Ground and the
contrast between life there and in my own country. After Zinto had
satisfied himself on these points he broached more abstruse subjects,
insisting on knowing my opinion with regard to the differences of the
Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths, and seeming pleased to hear that
he was by no means the first man who had found this point hard to fully
understand. Many other things there were about which he desired
information; but I am afraid some of my answers conveyed little meaning
to him, as I was myself rather hazy about many of the topics of
conversation, and had only Michel, who was the worst Frenchman of all,
for interpreter, Paul having gone off to see his wife who was camped a
few miles to the east. But when Zinto got on to trading he was quite at
home, and before leaving I had to give him an order for many
beaver-skins (the medium of trade in the North), to be paid at Fort
Resolution. He was very good in providing me with everything I wanted
for my journey, and gave me a new pair of snow-shoes and a sleigh,
besides lending a dog to replace one that had fallen lame; meat he was
short of, but he had heard that the Beaulieus had been killing caribou,
so that I was likely to find _caches_ by the way; a track was broken to
Fond du Lac, and we ought to get there easily in three days. Zinto
thought the Great Slave Lake would be entirely frozen over and fit to
travel on by this time, as lately the sky had been clear in the south;
when there is any open water a perpetual mist rises from it and lies
like a huge fog-bank over the lake.
A happy indolent life the Yellow Knives lead when the caribou are thick
on their pleasant hunting-ground round the shores of the Great Slave
Lake, and most of the hard times that they have to put up with are due
to their own improvidence. This is their great failing; they will not
look ahead or make preparation for the time when the caribou are scarce,
preferring to live from hand to mouth, and too lazy to bother their
heads about the future. They are rather a fine race of men, above the
average of the Canadian Indian, and, as they have had little chance of
mixing with the Whites, have maintained their characteristic manners
till this day; they are probably little changed since the time when the
Hudson's Bay Company first established a trading-post on the Big Lake a
hundred years ago. When the priests came into the country the Yellow
Knives readily embraced the Roman Catholic religion, and are very
particular in observing all the outward signs of that faith, but I doubt
if their profession of Christianity has done much to improve their
character. They are a curious mixture of good and bad, simplicity and
cunning; with no very great knowledge of common honesty, thoroughly
untrustworthy, and possessed with an insatiable greed for anything that
takes their fancy, but with no word in their language to express thanks
or gratitude. To a white man they are humility itself, looking upon him,
by their own account, as their father, and so considering him bound to
provide them with everything they want, even to his last pair of
trowsers or pipeful of tobacco; refuse them anything when you are
dependent upon their services on a journey, and they will leave you in
the woods; for their own part, if they have ammunition they are always
at home. In another way they are generous enough, and take great pride
in showing hospitality. Go into one of their lodges, and a blanket is
spread for you in the seat of honour farthest away from the flap that
does duty for a door; a meal is instantly provided, no matter if it
takes the last piece of meat in the camp, and the precious tea and
tobacco are offered you in lavish quantities. The Yellow Knives are a
timid, peaceable race, shrinking from bloodshed and deeds of violence,
and it is seldom that quarrels between the men got beyond wrestling and
hair-pulling. The women are, as a rule, not quite so hideous as the
squaws of the Blackfeet and Crees; they are lax in morals, and
accustomed to being treated more as slaves than wives in the civilized
interpretation of the word. They do all the hard work of the camp,
besides carrying the heaviest loads on the march; and in too many cases
are rewarded with the worst of the meat and the blows of an
over-exacting husband. Early marriages are fashionable, as a man is
useless without a wife to dry his meat and make moccasins for him. The
great object of a Yellow Knife beauty is to secure a good hunter for a
husband; the man who can shoot straight, and is known to be skilful in
approaching the caribou, is always a prize in the matrimonial market and
need have little fear of a refusal, especially as the husband is
supposed to hunt for his father-in-law after marriage, and the old man
will use all his influence to arrange the match. Superstition still
reigns supreme among these people; any mischance is put down to "bad
medicine," and reasons are always forthcoming to account for its
presence. There are several miracle-workers and foreseers of the future
in the tribe, who are said to perform very wonderful things, but I found
them extremely shy of showing off their accomplishments when I asked for
an exhibition. Like all other Indians who live the wild life that they
were intended to live, the Yellow Knives are dirty to the last degree.
They are careful about combing and greasing their hair, and are lavish
in the use of soap, if they can get it, for face and hands, but their
bodies are a sanctuary for the disgusting vermin that always infest
them; they seem to have no idea of getting rid of these objectionable
insects, but talk about its being a good or bad season for them in the
same way that they speak of mosquitos.
From every point of view, then, the Indian of the Great Slave Lake is
not a pleasant companion, nor a man to be relied upon in case of
emergency. Nobody has yet discovered the right way to manage him. His
mind runs on different principles from that of a white man, and till the
science of thought-reading is much more fully developed, the working of
his brain will always be a mystery to the fur-trader and traveller.
At sunrise the following morning I left Zinto's camp, with Michel and
Marlo, bound for Fond du Lac, all the other musk-ox hunters going back
to domestic happiness. The weather was still bright and cold, and the
days perceptibly longer as we travelled south. We were again short of
meat, as all the Indians were in the same plight, and although we saw a
band of caribou shortly after starting, we were unable to get a shot at
them. Towards evening we found a small _cache_ of meat hung in a tree,
and knowing that it must belong to some of the Beaulieus I had no
compunction in taking it. Here we left our canoe-route, and passing to
the westward of the Lac de Mort headed straight for the house at Fond du
Lac. The woods were well grown and signs of life abundant; the tracks of
wolves, wolverines, foxes, and an occasional marten, frequently crossed
the road, and ptarmigan were continually flying up under the leader's
feet. Here, too, I saw again my old friend the Whisky Jack, as he is
called throughout the North, a grey and white bird the size of a
thrush, with a most confiding disposition and an inordinate love of fat
meat; he sits on the nearest tree while the camp is being made, comes in
boldly, inspects the larder, and helps himself with very little fear of
man. If it is a starving camp he chortles in contempt and flies away,
having a very low opinion of people who travel without provisions; but
if meat be plentiful he spends the night there, and comes in for rich
pickings in the morning when the camp is struck. This bird is common
throughout the wilder parts of Canada, and has acquired many names in
different places; in the mountains of British Columbia he is the
Hudson's Bay bird or grease bird, and far away to the East the moose
bird, caribou bird, Rupert's bird, and camp-robber.
On the afternoon of the second day we met the Indian Etitchula, who had
left the fort with us in August and had been hanging on more or less to
our party ever since. He was on his way back to King Beaulieu's Camp,
two days' travel to the north-east, having made a trip to Fond du Lac to
make a raid on my tea and tobacco, and see if there was any news of us,
as King was greatly alarmed at our prolonged absence. We relieved him of
a little tea, but he had not been able to get any tobacco out of
François, who had roundly asserted that it all belonged to him; he also
gave us a couple of whitefish, which proved a very acceptable change
from our long course of straight meat. Late the same evening we made
our last camp on the high land close to the edge of the mountains within
five miles of the house; we could easily have got in that night, but I
much preferred a quiet camp under the stars to the company of the gang
of Beaulieus who were sure to be at Fond du Lac.
One word of caution against using the compressed tea imported by the
Hudson's Bay Company into the North as a substitute for tobacco; it is
very good to drink, but if you smoke it you pay the penalty by a most
painful irritation in the throat, which is made worse by breathing the
intensely cold air. We all tried it that night, and all swore never to
do so again, although I have often smoked the ordinary uncompressed tea
without disastrous results and with a certain amount of satisfaction.
We were off in good time on the morning of December 10th, and were soon
sitting on the sleighs, rushing down the steep incline, with frequent
spills from bumping against trees; this was the only piece of riding I
had during the whole five weeks' travel. The first signs of the _petit
jour_ were just showing as we pulled up at the house, and François
quickly produced the tobacco he had refused Etitchula. I think for a few
minutes they were really glad to see us back safe, but soon the old
complaints began. Times had been hard, although the women and children
all looked fat enough to belie this statement; José had been catching
whitefish, but had refused to give any to François; while the latter,
according to José, had been very mean in distribution of my effects,
eating flour every day himself but giving none away. They had gone
through nearly everything between them, and moreover did not seem the
least bit ashamed of their conduct. As my dogs were all used up, I
decided to leave them here, and made arrangements with François to bring
his own train on to the fort with me. It seemed that notwithstanding the
hard times he had sufficient meat and fish stored away for our trip, and
there were still a few pounds of flour left, so that we should live in
luxury all the way in.
I spent the day shooting a few ptarmigan, indulging in much tobacco, and
listening to the petitions of the various ill-used members of the
family. José was particularly amusing; he had been the most useless man
of the lot, never even venturing into the Barren Ground, but spending
most of his time at Fond du Lac, shooting away my ammunition and playing
havoc with tea and tobacco, besides robbing the _cache_ at the Lac du
Rocher. Now he was full of love for me, and gave me a list of things
that he wanted in addition to his wages, as a reward for all that he had
done and was ready to do for me. Among other items, he wanted my rifle
and hunting-glasses, and remarked that my Paradox gun, which had been
lying here all the time, would be very useful for him at the goose-hunt
in the following spring. Fortunately none of the Beaulieus know how to
put together a breech-loading gun, so the Paradox and its ammunition had
been left in peace to do me good service in the summer. I think the
Paradox is the most useful gun yet invented for purposes of exploration,
as it does away with the necessity of carrying a separate weapon for
shot and ball, and shoots very true with either; but there seems no
reason why the patent should not be applied to a 20-bore. For procuring
food in a really rough country, where a man has to carry his own
ammunition, the ball-cartridges for a 12-bore are needlessly heavy, and
the charge of shot is too great for the close range shooting which is
usually done on these occasions.