About the middle of February, 1890, little François, an Indian living at
the mouth of Buffalo River, arrived with the news that during a
hunting-trip he had made to the southward he had seen the tracks of a
band of wood buffalo and intended to go in pursuit of them after this
visit to the fort.
Mackinlay and myself both wanted an excuse to be in the woods again, and
the next day saw us plodding across the bay on snow-shoes to the
comfortable little shanty, under the high bluff, which forms the most
conspicuous landmark within sight of Fort Resolution. The establishment
was presided over by an old lady, formerly cook at one of the forts, and
kept with a cleanliness not always to be found in a white man's
dwelling. The following morning we started with two sleigh-loads of fish
for the dogs and provisions and blankets for ourselves. François brought
his wife and little girl, besides a rather crazy boy, given to epileptic
fits, but a good worker in the intervals between his attacks. We
followed the river for a mile or two, then turned into the woods on the
west bank, and, crossing a lake of some size, headed in a south-west
direction through the thick pine-forest, occasionally picking up a
marten from a line of traps set by little François, for we were
following the track that he had made on his last trip, or finding a
rabbit hung by the neck in one of his wife's snares; very cunning these
old women are in all things concerning the stomach, and if there are
many rabbit-tracks to be seen in the snow there is little danger of
going without supper.
On the second day we crossed a large prairie dotted with lakes, formerly
the home of many beavers, and still bearing evidence of their labours in
the long banks which served as dams and the huge mounds which were once
their houses. The beavers have all gone long ago, and the ladies who
wore the pretty fur-trimmed jackets in far-away England, and the
husbands who grumbled at their price, are gone too; but the beavers have
left the most impression on the face of the earth. Wonderful moulders of
geography they are; a stream dammed up in a level country forms a huge
lake where the forest stood, the trees fall as their roots rot in
standing water, and, if the dam be not attended to by the workers, a
fertile grass-covered prairie takes the place of the lake. From the
Liard River and Great Slave Lake, to the Peace River on the east side of
the Rocky Mountains, extends the greatest beaver country in the world.
It is known by Indian report alone, as no white man ever penetrates far
into the wilderness of pine-forest and morass; many streams head away
into the interior of this unknown land, but the white man has only seen
their mouths, as he passes up or down the main waterways of the North.
It is true that the Company's men have ascended Hay River, a large
stream falling into the Great Slave Lake, and by making an overland
portage, have dropped on the Peace River at Fort Vermillion; but they
have always made hurried voyages and have had no opportunity of
exploring much new ground.
Scattered over this huge extent of country are still a few bands of
buffalo. Sometimes they are heard of at Forts Smith and Vermillion,
sometimes at Fort St. John close up to the big mountains on Peace River,
and occasionally at Fort Nelson on the south branch of the Liard. It is
impossible to say anything about their numbers, as the country they
inhabit is so large, and the Indians, who are few in number, usually
keep to the same hunting-ground. These animals go by the name of wood
buffalo, and most people are of opinion that they are a distinct race
from the old prairie buffalo so numerous in bygone days; but I am
inclined to think that the very slight difference in appearance is
easily accounted for by climatic influences, variety of food, and the
better shelter of the woods. Here too the giant moose and the woodland
caribou have their home, and even in the short journey that I made into
this district the tracks in the snow told a tale of plenty. Many black
bears' skins are brought out every year, and towards the mountains the
formidable grizzly is often encountered by the fearful hunter. Nor are
the small fur-bearing animals wanting; foxes--red, cross, and a few
silver--seek their living on the prairie, while wolverines, fisher,
mink, marten, and lynx may be trapped in the woods, and a few otters
frequent the streams and lakes. In the summer ducks, geese, and many
other water-birds have their nests in the muskegs, and two or three
varieties of the tree grouse are always to be found. "The hunter's
Paradise!" says the sporting reader; "let us go and have a hunt there."
But now for the other side of the picture. In the summer it is
practically impossible to travel, as it is a swampy country not to be
crossed with horses, and the lakes are too far apart to be available as
a canoe-route, while the mosquitos are intolerable. Only when the snow
has fallen, and all water is held fast in the grip of winter, has one a
chance of exploring this Land of Promise with dogs, sleighs, and
snow-shoes; but, by this time, the summer life has all flown far away
southward, and, though I think one would be fairly safe in pushing on,
there is always a chance of coming across a large tract of gameless
country, and finding a difficulty in obtaining provisions.
After three days' good travel we reached the end of François' road, and
long before daylight on the following morning were away to try and find
the buffalo tracks. We had a long day's walk over a perfect
hunting-ground, crossing several open ridges with sufficient elevation
to give us a view of the surrounding country. Prairie and timber were
about in equal proportion, and the eye could follow the windings of a
large stream that falls into the Little Buffalo River close to the Fort
Smith portage; its water are strongly impregnated with sulphur, and do
not readily freeze; in fact this stream, although it has little current,
remains open during a considerable part of its course even in the
coldest weather. About noon we found the track that we had been looking
for, easily distinguishable from the many tracks of moose and woodland
caribou that we had crossed; little François made a capital approach,
and after a couple of hours' walk we sighted a band of eight buffalo
feeding in a small wood-surrounded swamp. There are few spots on the
American continent to-day where one can see buffalo in their wild state,
but the Indian gave us no time to watch them, and completely spoilt the
chance of clean shooting by letting off his gun too soon; we only wanted
to kill one, as we could not haul any more meat, and it is really a pity
to kill animals so nearly extinct as these. As it turned out there were
several snap-shots fired as they ran into the woods, and two tracks of
blood in the snow showed that we had done too much shooting, although it
was not till late in the second day that we secured a cow that had
travelled many miles before lying down.
By the way, it is as well when going for a hunting expedition in the
North to leave at home all the old-fashioned notions of
shooting-etiquette. If you see a man in a good position for a shot, run
up, jostle his elbow, and let your gun off; if an animal falls, swear
you killed it, and claim the back-fat and tongue no matter whether you
fired or not; never admit that you are not quite sure which animal you
shot at. It is only by strict attention to these rules that a white man
can get a fair division of plunder when shooting with half-breed
Indians.
The other buffalo, on whose track there was little blood, had not
separated from the band, although we followed it for a whole day, and,
as this was a sure sign of its having been only slightly wounded,
perhaps not much damage was done; a badly struck animal will always
leave its companions and lie down.
There was much rejoicing when late on the third night the result of our
hunt was hauled into our pleasant camp in a clump of thick pine-timber.
The little girl patted and played with the meat as an English child
would with a doll, and eventually dropped off to sleep with the raw
brisket for a pillow; while Pierre, the boy, after a huge feast was
seized with such a violent fit that for a long time I was afraid it
would prove his last. The others took no notice of him beyond putting
down a log to keep him from rolling in the fire, and in the morning he
seemed perfectly well and hungry as ever for buffalo-meat. With
heavily-laden sleighs we started back for the fort, but a wind-storm had
drifted up our track over the prairie, and the dogs had hard work to
drag their loads. In one of our steel traps were the remains of a cross
fox that a wolverine had eaten, and beyond a few more martens our
fur-hunting was unsuccessful. It took us four days to reach little
François' house at the mouth of the river, and another half-day to get
to the fort, where we found everything quiet, as usual in the monotony
of the long winter. February was nearly over, and the "moon of the big
wind" was doing its best to keep up its reputation. Day after day the
north wind howled over the lake, drifting the snow into a vast ridge on
the lee shore and making it no easy matter to find the trout-lines,
which had now to be set four or five miles out at sea, the fish moving
into deep water as the cold gets more intense and the ice thicker. The
thermometer hanging against the wall of the house ranged between _minus_
30 and _minus_ 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and this state of affairs
continued until I left the fort for another hunt with little François.
We spent three weeks happily enough in the woods, doing a little
trapping, and getting enough moose and caribou-meat to keep the dogs and
ourselves in good condition. Our course lay the same way as on the last
hunt, to take advantage of the road and visit the line of traps; but we
pushed further on till we came across the tracks of a party of Indians
hunting from Fort Smith. We saw no sign of buffalo, and as François'
wife damaged her leg rather badly we were obliged to haul her back on
the sleigh, and this accident put an end to our trip. Away far in the
forest beyond the influence of the great frozen lake we found the first
indications of the coming spring. By the end of the first week in April
the snow was falling under our snow-shoes in the middle of the day, and
the sun, which now had a long course to run, shone with considerable
power; the pine-trees threw out the delicious scent so suggestive of
Nature's awakening after her long snow-wrapped sleep, and a puff of warm
south wind, sighing through the poplars, whispered a message of hope
from a more favoured land. But winter made a final struggle, and it was
not till the 25th of April that the collapse came. Then the snow in the
woods around the fort melted away rapidly, and the bare ground showed in
patches. On May 1st water was standing in pools over the ice in the bay,
the snow had disappeared except in the drifts, a light rain was falling,
and the first goose was killed from the door of the master's house;
small bands of wildfowl were passing frequently, and cranes were calling
in the swamps to the southward; daylight lingered in the sky all night,
but there was always a sharp frost while the sun was down.
It was time to shake off our luxurious habits and push out again for the
North to take full advantage of the short summer of the Barren Ground.
The fort seemed to wake up with the spring, and there was bustle and
activity everywhere. The furs had to be spread out to dry before they
could be baled up; fish had to be thrown out of the provision-store as
they thawed, and the dogs were happy for once. There was talk of
ploughing and planting the potato-crop; Indians kept dropping in with
small bundles of fur, to trade for ammunition for the goose-hunt, which
would soon be in full swing; canoes were patched up and made tight in
readiness for the first open water. But there was a rumour that the
expedition to the Great Fish River would fall through, as no crew could
be found, and some discontented spirits had been trying to persuade the
Indians against going with us; the half-breeds were all full of excuses,
and for a time it looked bad for us. Mackinlay was of course keen enough
for the trip, and so was Murdo Mackay, the Scotch engaged servant; and
luckily David, an Esquimau boy from Peel's River, who had been left at
Fort Resolution for the winter to learn English from the Protestant
missionary there, was willing to come with us, and, although not a
first-rate traveller, might be very useful as interpreter if we fell in
with any of his countrymen. Moise Mandeville was more obstinate and had
the greatest horror of the expedition, but he finally agreed to come in
the capacity of steersman and as Montaignais' interpreter. We were still
without a guide. Zinto, despite his promises, had not put in an
appearance, and there was as yet no news of him. Meanwhile preparations
went on; dogs were got together, new snow-shoes provided for each member
of the party, and all available pounded meat and grease converted into
pemmican as the most portable form of provisions; four sacks of flour
were forwarded to Fond du Lac to await our arrival, and the women round
the fort were busy making moccasins for men and dogs, as the latter have
to be shod in spring-travelling, to prevent their feet being cut to
pieces on the rough needle-ice that appears after the snow has melted
off the lakes. We also took a light canvas lodge in place of the heavier
deer-skins, and found it a great saving in weight, especially after
rain; dressed deer-skins hold water like a sponge, and where firewood is
scarce are extremely hard to dry.
On May 4th Mr. Clark arrived from Fort Smith to take charge of
Resolution during Mackinlay's absence. The slushy state of the snow made
travelling hard, but the Fort Smith people had managed to bring us a
welcome supply of tea, tobacco, ammunition, and a few matches; none of
these necessary articles were to be had at Resolution, as the unusually
heavy fur-trade had left the store empty. We collected all the
touch-wood we could get hold of, and each took a flint and steel, while
Dr. Mackay sent us a burning-glass, a compass, and a watch from
Chipeweyan, besides half a dozen pair of spectacles to keep off
snow-blindness, from which an unprotected eye is sure to suffer. There
was also a small stock of axes, knives, and beads, presents for the
Esquimaux in case we fell in with them. Arrangements were made for the
fort boat to meet us at the old site of Lockhart's house, at the
north-east end of the Great Slave Lake, on August 1st, to bring us
across the lake, as I wished to start for the South in time to get back
to civilization before the rivers and lakes were set fast by the coming
winter.
The day after Mr. Clark's arrival a couple of Indians came in from Fond
du Lac. Zinto had not yet arrived there, but was expected any day; he
had no meat for us, and caribou were reported scarce on the road we
proposed taking; most of the Yellow Knives would be at Fond du Lac to
meet us if they found food enough for present use. Pierre Lockhart, an
Indian who had come to the fort, immediately engaged with us as guide to
the Great Fish River, saying that whatever the other men might do he
would be faithful to the end of the journey, even if we wanted him to go
to the sea-coast: needless to say he was the very first to desert on the
appearance of hard times.
It was a goodly procession that left Fort Resolution on the afternoon of
May 7th, for every sleigh was pressed into service to help us over the
bad ice that lay between the fort and the big river, and all the
goose-hunters had been waiting till we started to move their families to
the favourite feeding-grounds. Across the first bay there was fully a
foot of water, with a crust of ice caused by the last night's frost;
this top crust had to be broken, and the dogs waded up to their bellies,
with the sleighs floating behind them: bitterly cold for the feet and
hard to avoid a fall, which meant a thorough drenching in the icy water.
On reaching the delta and passing into the narrow channels at the mouth
of the big river the ice was much better, as the water had run off
through the cracks; the crossing of the main stream looked dangerous,
but, by carefully picking our way and sounding the ice with an axe, we
got across without accident and camped in a bunch of willows on the far
side. The fires were kept up late that night and much talking was done,
as to-morrow we had to say good-bye to our companions, and many
instructions were given to wives, mothers, and children with reference
to their good behaviour during our absence. The red glow of sunset
stayed in the sky till it mingled with the brightness of the coming day;
often a whirr of wings told of a flock of wildfowl passing overhead, and
a few geese that had arrived from the south kept up a continual
_honking_ as they searched for a patch of open water to alight on. But
the frost was sharp in the night, and on breaking camp at four o'clock
we found the crust of surface-ice in the next bay strong enough in most
places to bear our sleighs, which were now reduced to two in number and
much more heavily loaded than on the previous day. Sometimes a man would
break through, and, floundering on the bottom ice, would bruise his
shins and feet in a desperate manner, and we were all badly knocked
about when we put ashore at Tête Noire's House, five miles beyond the
Ile de Pierre, ready to take the big traverse on the following day. A
couple of hours out from the land brought us again to dry snow, as the
change of climate is very sudden after leaving the south shore of the
lake. Crossing the big traverse was ordinary winter travelling, although
the snow was soft in the strong sunshine; we made use of the frost at
night and generally rested during the heat of the day. Between the
islands snow-shoes were necessary, and, although spectacles were
constantly worn, some of the men began to show signs of snow-blindness;
occasionally we found a bare rock to camp on, but more generally made
the old winter form of encampment on the snow. It was not till the sixth
day after leaving the fort that we pulled into Fond du Lac, and found
nearly the whole tribe of Yellow Knives awaiting us with King Beaulieu
and his family at their head; there were five and twenty lodges, and in
every one we heard the old story of _Berula_ (no meat); they had tried
fishing without success, and hoped the white masters would give them a
little flour and pemmican. Why had they not pushed on to some of the
sure fisheries in the big lake when they found the caribou fail? They
wished to talk with us, they said, and so had stayed and starved at Fond
du Lac till we came. What did they want to speak to us about? Only this,
that an Indian's life is hard, and he has at all times need of a little
tea and tobacco to give him courage; they had heard we were taking much
tea and tobacco, besides other presents, to the Esquimaux. In vain did
we tell them that we had not enough for own use; there was no peace till
pipes were going in every lodge.
[Illustration: Dog-rib Powwow at Fort Resolution]
[Illustration: Group of Dog-rib Indians]
Zinto had not put up any meat for us. At one time he had killed a good
many caribou, but he had met with a band of Dog-Ribs from Fort Rae and
the two tribes had camped together; the chief of the Yellow Knives was
bound in honour to give a feast to his guests, and after the meat that
was meant for us had been used for this purpose they fell to gambling.
The unfortunate Zinto lost all his ammunition, so that he had no chance
to kill any more caribou, much as he would have liked to help the white
men in their undertaking.
The snow was lying deep in the woods and as yet no breath of spring had
visited Fond du Lac, although at Fort Resolution, not more than one
hundred miles to the south, the buds were by this time shooting on the
birch and willow trees, and the ground had been bare for two weeks; no
wildfowl had arrived, and the Indians were of opinion that such a late
spring had never been known, advising us strongly not to attempt to
force our way into the Barren Ground till there was some indication of
better weather. It seemed to us, though, that we should never be in a
better position to start than now, as any delay meant waste of
provisions, and we hoped to find caribou before we began to starve.
Several days we spent in talking to the Indians before we came to any
satisfactory conclusion, and we had the greatest trouble in persuading
any of them to come with us. Finally it was settled that Capot Blanc,
Saltatha, Syene, and Marlo, with their wives and families, should start
with us, and on reaching the head of the Great Fish River should wait
there and hunt while we made the descent of the stream. Capot Blanc
behaved very well at all the consultations, speaking up for the white
men whenever an opportunity offered, but the interpretation was
unsatisfactory; Moise refused this duty in the presence of the
Beaulieus, and the latter, so far as we could make out, used all their
influence with the Indians to damage our chances of making a successful
expedition. David, the Esquimau, rather complicated matters by falling
in love with King's daughter, but he made no objection to starting, and
soon forgot all about her in the excitement of the journey. On the last
evening that we spent at Fond du Lac a Dog-Rib arrived with his family
from the Barren Ground in a wretched state of starvation. He had come in
by the route that we proposed to take, and gave a very unsatisfactory
report of the country: the cold was still severe, and he had met with no
game since leaving the musk-ox a couple of weeks before; one of his
children had died of starvation and he was forced to bury her under the
snow at the Lac de Mort; the rest had barely escaped with life. Of
course we gave them enough flour and pemmican to take them to a
well-known fishery twenty miles on, but our provisions were going very
fast. Most of the Yellow Knives had already moved away to the fishery,
and the encampment was entirely deserted when we pulled down our lodges
on the morning of May 21st. Paul Beaulieu was to have caught us up to
show us some meat-_caches_ that he had made in the winter, and we had
engaged an Indian, Carquoss, to fish for his wife while he was away; but
we saw neither Paul nor his _caches_. Carquoss, however, joined us later
on, and explained that he had given up fishing because we had not left
him any tea and the other Indians had laughed at him.
A miserable-looking outfit we were as we plodded for two days along the
north shore of the lake, against a strong head-wind and driving
snowstorms. Seven trains of starving dogs hauled their loads in a
melancholy procession, and over twenty people walked in the narrow road
made by the passage of the sleighs; by far too large a party for any
rapid travelling, and badly handicapped by women and children. On the
third day we turned up the mountain, and followed the course of a stream
coming in on the north shore; we mounted by a series of frozen cascades,
many of them so steep that we were obliged to use ropes to help the
dogs, and towards evening camped at the far end of the first lake on the
plateau. This day's work was not got through without a good deal of
growling, as everybody was kept on short rations to make the most of our
provisions; three days' full allowance for human beings alone, to say
nothing of the thirty dogs, would have put an end to our supplies.
From this lake the country was level, and the women were quite able to
manage the dog-sleighs, while the men scoured the country on either side
of the track in search of caribou or ptarmigan. The birds were fairly
plentiful, but of course at this season were all paired, and there was
no chance of making a slaughter at a single shot, as one can do in the
fall of the year when the birds are in big packs; this shooting at
separate birds was a serious strain on our ammunition, but the ptarmigan
helped us out till we fell in with the caribou. It was almost a
certainty to find these birds in every bunch of pines, and they kept up
such a constant crowing round the camp at night that they had a poor
chance of escaping the hungry man's gun. After the snow has melted the
male bird gets pugnacious and runs up to meet the hunter, with his
feathers puffed out, offering a fair mark for a stone; but before this
happened we disdained ptarmigan, and would only kill the
fattest-looking caribou. We eked out a precarious existence in this
manner for a week, making short days' journeys, as the dogs could not
travel fast or far. Pierre Lockhart deserted one morning when breakfast
was particularly scanty, and taking his gun and blanket started back for
Fond du Lac; we were depending on him for guide, but it was rather a
relief when he went, as he was inclined to steal food, and had several
disgusting habits that made his absence from the lodge rather acceptable
than otherwise. Marlo's brother-in-law disappeared about the same time,
but we thought they had gone off together and did not trouble ourselves
further about them.
On the last day of May, acting on Capot Blanc's advice, we forked from
our canoe-route, and took a more easterly course, to fall on the chain
of lakes by which Anderson and Stewart had reached the Great Fish River.
We hoped to find caribou in this direction, and on the same day that we
made this change in our course the indefatigable Saltatha, having made a
much longer round than the rest of us, came into camp late at night with
a load of caribou-meat on his back; he had seen snow-shoe tracks to the
east, but falling in with the caribou had turned back to the camp
without following the tracks.
Sunday, June 1st, brought a distinct change in the weather; a mild
south-west wind was melting the snow rapidly, and several flocks of
geese and ducks passed to the north. A few geese were called up to the
camp and killed from the doors of the lodges; the Indians imitate to
perfection the cry of any bird, and at this time of year the geese are
easy to call, as they are always in search of open water, and seem not a
bit surprised to hear their friends calling to them from a group of
deer-skin lodges. In the morning we sent two men to bring in the rest of
Saltatha's meat, with orders to investigate the tracks, and see if there
was another encampment of Indians to the east, as none of the caribou
hunters had intended to leave the Great Slave Lake till the thaw came.
Our peaceful Sunday was greatly disturbed by a royal row in one of the
lodges, and we sent for Capot Blanc to ask him what the trouble was. The
old fellow was glad enough to get into our lodge away from the clamour,
and explained the cause of the disturbance in his even low-pitched
voice, so pleasantly contrasted with the Yellow Knife Billingsgate that
was being freely used outside. "It is the women," he said; "the wife of
Syene has called the wife of Saltatha by a bad name, because she would
not give her some meat; the wife of Saltatha has taken the wife of Syene
by the hair and beaten her in the face with a snow-shoe till her nose
bleeds very much; the men have tried to separate them, but that only
makes things worse. It is always like this in our camps when we starve.
If the men are alone they are quiet; but when there are women there is
no peace. Is it so also in your country?"
Late in the night the men who had gone to fetch the meat came back,
hauling on the sleigh Marlo's brother-in-law José, whom they had found
lying in the snow, without fire, in a bunch of dwarf pines; the
snow-shoe tracks were his, and but for the lucky chance of Saltatha's
killing the caribou in that direction he must have perished in a day or
two, as he was too weak to travel. He had left us to hunt ptarmigan, and
lost himself eight days ago, and, as we supposed he had deserted with
Pierre, we had taken no trouble to look for him. He was one of the
unlucky ones, believed to have seen "the Enemy" in his youth, and it
certainly says little for his wits that he was unable to follow the
tracks of such a large party. José had used up what little ammunition he
started with on the first day, and since then had eaten nothing; he was
without matches or touchwood to make fire, and as the weather had been
cold he must have suffered greatly. We fed him up to the best of our
ability, and he recovered rapidly when meat was abundant in the camp.