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YOUNG ALASKANS
IN THE
FAR NORTH
BY
EMERSON HOUGH
_Author of_ "YOUNG ALASKANS
IN THE ROCKIES" ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
YOUNG ALASKANS IN THE FAR NORTH
Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
[Illustration: THE FIRST PORTAGE--SLAVE RIVER. "THE SCOWS WERE HAULED
UP THE STEEP BANK BY MEANS OF BLOCK AND TACKLE"]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE START FOR THE MIDNIGHT SUN 1
II. THE SCOWS 12
III. THE GREAT BRIGADE 32
IV. THE GRAND RAPIDS 51
V. WHITE-WATER DAYS 64
VI. ON THE STEAMBOAT 79
VII. THE WILD PORTAGE 89
VIII. ON THE MACKENZIE 112
IX. UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 132
X. FARTHEST NORTH 149
XI. THE MIDNIGHT SUN 164
XII. THE RAT PORTAGE 176
XIII. DOWN THE PORCUPINE 192
XIV. AT FORT YUKON 212
XV. THE FUR TRADE 222
XVI. DAWSON, THE GOLDEN CITY 231
XVII. WHAT UNCLE DICK THOUGHT 246
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE FIRST PORTAGE--SLAVE RIVER. "THE SCOWS
WERE HAULED UP THE STEEP BANK BY MEANS
OF BLOCK AND TACKLE" _Frontispiece_
AN ENCAMPMENT OF ESKIMOS ON THE BEACH AT
FORT MCPHERSON _Facing p._ 55
HUSKY FLEET--FORT MCPHERSON " 172
HUSKY DOG--RAMPART HOUSE " 206
YOUNG ALASKANS IN THE FAR NORTH
I
THE START FOR THE MIDNIGHT SUN
"Well, fellows," said Jesse Wilcox, the youngest of the three boys who
stood now at the ragged railway station of Athabasca Landing, where
they had just disembarked, "here we are once more. For my part, I'm
ready to start right now."
He spoke somewhat pompously for a youth no more than fifteen years of
age. John Hardy and Rob McIntyre, his two companions, somewhat older
than himself, laughed at him as he sat now on his pack-bag, which had
just been tossed off the baggage-car of the train that had brought
them hither.
"You might wait for Uncle Dick," said John. "He'd feel pretty bad if
we started off now for the Arctic Circle and didn't allow him to come
along!"
Rob, the older of the three, and the one to whom they were all in the
habit of looking up in their wilderness journeyings, smiled at them
both. He was not apt to talk very much in any case, and he seemed now
content in these new surroundings to sit and observe what lay about
him.
It was a straggling little settlement which they saw, with one long,
broken street running through the center. There was a church spire, to
be sure, and a square little wooden building in which some business
men had started a bank for the sake of the coming settlers now
beginning to pass through for the country along the Peace River. There
were one or two stores, as the average new-comer would have called
them, though each really was the post of one of the fur-trading
companies then occupying that country. Most prominent of these,
naturally, was the building of the ancient Hudson's Bay Company.
A rude hotel with a dirty bar full of carousing half-breeds and rowdy
new-comers lay just beyond the end of the uneven railroad tracks which
had been laid within the month. The surface of the low hills running
back from the Athabasca River was covered with a stunted growth of
aspens, scattered among which here and there stood the cabins or board
houses of the men who had moved here following the rush of the last
emigration to the North. There were a few tents and lodges of
half-breeds also scattered about.
"Well, Uncle Dick said we would be starting right away," argued Jesse,
a trifle crestfallen.
"Yes," said Rob, "but he told me we would be lucky if 'right away'
meant inside of a week. He said the breeds always powwow around and
drink for a few days before they start north with the brigade for a
long trip. That's a custom they have. They say the Hudson's Bay
Company has more customs than customers these days. Times are changing
for the fur trade even here.
"Where's your map, John?" he added; and John spread out on the
platform where they stood his own rude tracing of the upper country
which he had made by reference to the best government maps obtainable.
Their uncle Dick, engineer of this new railroad and other frontier
development enterprises, of course had a full supply of these maps,
but it pleased the boys better to think that they made their own
maps--as indeed they always had in such earlier trips as those across
the Rockies, down the Peace River, in the Kadiak Island country, or
along the headwaters of the Columbia, where, as has been told, they
had followed the trails of the wilderness in their adventures before
this time.
They all now bent over the great sheet of paper, some of which was
blank and marked "Unknown."
"Here we are, right here," said John, putting his finger on the map.
"Only, when this map was made there wasn't any railroad. They used to
come up from Edmonton a hundred miles across the prairies and muskeg
by wagon. A rotten bad journey, Uncle Dick said."
"Well, it couldn't have been much worse than the new railroad,"
grumbled Jesse. "It was awfully rough, and there wasn't any place to
eat."
"Oh, don't condemn the new railroad too much," said Rob. "You may be
glad to see it before you get back from this trip. It's going to be
the hardest one we ever had. Uncle Dick says this is the last great
wilderness of the world, and one less known than any other part of the
earth's surface. Look here! It's two thousand miles from here to the
top of the map, northwest, where the Mackenzie comes in. We've got to
get there if all goes well with us."
John was still tracing localities on the map with his forefinger.
"Right here is where we are now. If we went the other way, up the
Athabasca instead of down, then we would come out at the Peace River
Landing, beyond Little Slave Lake. That's where we came out when we
crossed the Rockies, down the Finlay and the Parsnip and the Peace.
I've got that course of ours all marked in red."
"But we go the other way," began Jesse, bending over his shoulder and
looking at the map now. "Here's the mouth of the Peace River, more
than four hundred miles north of here, in Athabasca Lake. Both these
two rivers, you might say, come together there. But look what a long
river it is if you call the Athabasca and the Mackenzie the same! And
look at the big lakes up there that we have read about. The Mackenzie
takes you right into that country."
"The Mackenzie! One of the very greatest rivers of the world," said
Rob. "I've always wanted to see it some time. And now we shall.
"I'd have liked to have been along with old Sir Alexander Mackenzie,
the old trader who first explored it," he added, thoughtfully.
"I forget just what time that was," said Jesse, hesitating and
scratching his head.
"It was in seventeen eighty-nine," said Rob, always accurate. "He was
only a young Scotchman then, and they didn't call him Sir Alexander at
all until a good while later--after he had made some of his great
discoveries. He put up the first post on Lake Athabasca--right here
where our river discharges--and he went from there to the mouth of the
Mackenzie River and back all in one season."
"How did they travel?" demanded John. "They must have had nothing
better than canoes."
"Nothing else," nodded Rob, "for they could have had nothing else.
They just had birch-bark canoes, too, not as good as white men take
into that country now. There were only six white men in the party,
with a few Indians. They left Athabasca Lake--here it is on the
map--on June third, and they got to the mouth of the great river in
forty days. That certainly must have been traveling pretty fast! It
was more than fifteen hundred miles--almost sixteen hundred. But they
got back to Athabasca Lake in one hundred and two days, covering over
three thousand miles down-stream and up-stream. Well, we've all
traveled enough in these strong rivers to know how hard it is to go
back up-stream, whether with the tracking-line or the paddle or the
sail. They did it."
"And now we're here to see what it was that they did," said Jesse,
looking with some respect at the ragged line on the map which marked
the strong course of the Mackenzie River toward the Arctic Sea.
"He must have been quite a man, old Alexander Mackenzie," John added.
"Yes," said Rob. "As you know, he came back to Athabasca and started
up the Peace River in seventeen ninety-three, and was the first man to
cross to the Pacific. We studied him over in there. But he went
up-stream there, and we came down. That's much easier. It will be
easier going down this river, too, which was his first great
exploration place.
"Now," he continued, "we'll be going down-stream, as I said, almost
two thousand miles to the mouth of that river. Uncle Dick says we'll
be comfortable as princes all the way. We'll have big scows to travel
in, with everything fixed up fine."
"Here," said Jesse, putting his finger on the map hesitatingly, "is
the place where it says 'rapids.' Must be over a hundred miles of it
on this river, or even more."
"That's right, Jess," commented John. "We can't dodge those rapids
yet. Uncle Dick says that the new railroad in the North may go to Fort
McMurray at the foot of this great system of the Athabasca rapids.
That would cut out a lot of hard work. If there were a railroad up
there, a fellow could go to the Arctics almost as easy as going to New
York."
"I'd rather go to the Midnight Sun now," said Rob. "There's some
trouble about it now, and there's some wilderness now between here and
there. It's no fun to do a thing when it's too easy. I wouldn't give a
cent to go to Fort McPherson, the last post north, by any railroad."
John was still poring over the map, which lay upon the rude boards of
the platform, and he shook his head now somewhat dubiously. "Look
where we'll have to go," he said, "and all in three months. We have to
get back for school next fall."
"Never doubt we can do it," said Rob, stoutly. "If we couldn't, Uncle
Dick would never try it. He's got it all figured out, you may be sure
of that, and he's made all his arrangements with the Hudson's Bay
Company. You forget they've been going up into this country for a
hundred years, and they know how long it takes and how hard it is.
They know all about how to outfit for it, too."
"The hardest place we'll have," said John, following his map with his
finger now almost to the upper edge, "is right here where we leave the
Mackenzie and start over toward the Yukon, just south of the Arctic
Ocean. That's a whizzer, all right! No railroad up in there, and I
guess there never will be. That's where so many of the Klondikers were
lost, my father told me--twenty years ago that was."
"They took a year for it," commented Rob, "and sometimes eighteen
months, to get across the mountains there. They built houses and
passed the winter, and so a great many of them got sick and died. But
twenty years ago is a long time nowadays. We can do easily what they
could hardly do at all. Uncle Dick has allowed us about three weeks to
cover that five hundred miles over the Rat Portage!"
"Well, surely if Sir Alexander Mackenzie could make that trip in
birch-bark canoes, over three thousand miles, with just a few men who
didn't know where they were going, we ought to be able to get through
now. That was a hundred and twenty-eight years ago, I figure it, and a
lot of things have happened since then." John spoke now with
considerable confidence.
"Well, Uncle Dick will take care of us," said Jesse, the youngest of
these adventurers.
"Yes, and we'll take care of ourselves all we can," added Rob. "Uncle
Dick tells me that the trouble with the Klondikers was that they
didn't know how to take care of themselves out of doors. A lot of them
were city people fresh to all kinds of wilderness work, and they
simply died because they didn't know how to do things. They were
tenderfeet when they started. A good many of them died before they got
through. Some of those who did get through are the prominent men of
Alaska to-day. But we're not tenderfeet. Are we, boys?"
"No, indeed," said Jesse, stoutly. "As I said, I'm ready to start."
And he again puffed out his chest with much show of bravery, although,
to be sure, the wild country in which he now found himself rather
worked on his imagination.
It had required all the persuasion of Uncle Dick, expert railway
engineer in wilderness countries, to persuade the parents of these
three boys to allow them to accompany him on this, his own first
exploration into the extreme North, under the Midnight Sun itself. He
had promised them--and something of a promise it was, too--to bring
the young travelers back safely to their home in Valdez, on the
Pacific Ocean, in three months from the time they left the head of the
railroad at Athabasca Landing.
"Well, now," said John, folding up his map and putting it back in his
pocket, "here comes Uncle Dick at last. I only hope that we won't have
to wait long, for it seems to me we'll have to hustle if we get
through on time--over five thousand miles it will be, and in less than
ninety days! I'll bet Sir Alexander Mackenzie himself couldn't have
beat that a hundred years ago."
II
THE SCOWS
"Well, well, young gentlemen," called out the tall and bronze-faced
man who now strode toward them across the railway platform, "did you
think I was never coming? I see that you are holding down your
luggage."
"Not a hard thing to do, was it, Uncle Dick?" said Jesse. "We haven't
got very much along."
"That all depends. Let me tell you, my young friends, on this trip
every fellow has to look out for himself the best he can. It's the
hardest travel you've ever had. You must keep your eye on your own
stuff all along."
"What do you mean--that we must be careful or some one will steal our
things?" demanded Jesse.
"No, there isn't so very much danger of theft--that is, from the
breeds or others along the way; they'll steal whisky, but nothing
else, usually. But it's a rough country, and there are many portages,
much changing of cargoes. Each chap must keep his eye on his own kit
all the time, and look out for himself the best way he can. That's the
lesson of this great North. It's the roughest country in the world. As
you know, there is an old saying among the fur-traders that no man has
ever whipped the North.
"I was thinking more especially about the dogs," he added, nodding
toward the luggage on which the boys were sitting.
"And what do you mean about the dogs, Uncle Dick?" asked Jesse.
"Well, those are the beggars that will steal you blind. They'll
eat anything they can swallow and some things they can't. I've had
them eat the heels off a pair of boots, and moccasins are like pie
for them. They would eat your hat if you left it lying--eat the
pack-straps off your bag. So don't leave anything lying around, and
remember that goes now, and all the way through the trip."
"Are there dogs all the way through?" asked John, curiously.
"Yes, we're in the dog country, and will be for five thousand miles
down one river and across and up the other. You'll not see a cow or a
sheep, and only two horses, in the next three months. North of
Smith's Landing, which is at the head of the Mackenzie River proper,
there never has been a horse, and I think there never will be one. The
dogs do all the hauling and all the packing--and they are always
hungry. That's what the fellows tell me who have been up there--the
whole country starves almost the year round, and the dogs worst of
all. I'm just telling you these things to be useful to you, because
we've got nothing along which we can afford to spare."
"When are we going to start, Uncle Dick?" demanded Jesse, once more,
somewhat mindful of the recent laughter of his companions at his
eagerness.
"Well, that's hard to say," replied his elder relative. "I'd like to
start to-morrow morning. It all depends on the stage of the water. If
a flood came down the Athabasca to-morrow you'd see pretty much every
breed in that saloon over there stop drinking and hurry to the scows."
"What's that got to do with it?" asked John.
"Well, when the river goes up the scows can run the Grand Rapids, down
below here, without unloading, or at least without unloading
everything. If the river is low so that the rocks stand out, the men
have to portage every pound of the brigade stuff. The Grand Rapids are
_bad_, let me tell you that! It is only within the last fifty years
that any one has ever tried to run them. I'll show you the man who
first went through--an old man now over seventy; but he was a young
chap when he first tried it. Well, he found that he could get through,
so he tried it over again. He and others have been guiding on those
rapids ever since. That cuts off the old Clearwater trail from here to
Fort McMurray, which used to be their old way of getting north.
"So now you see," he continued, "why these breeds like high water. It
means less work for them. It's hard work for them at best, but a breed
would rather risk his life than do any work he could escape. They know
there is danger--there is hardly a brigade goes north which brings
back all its men again.
"But come on now," he added. "It's almost time for supper. We'll go
fix up our camp for the night."
The boys, each stoutly picking up his own pack-bag, followed their
tall leader as he strode away. Their camp was far enough removed from
the noise of the hotel bar to leave them in quiet and undisturbed.
"My, but the mosquitoes are thick!" said Jesse, brushing at his face
with the broken bough which he had caught up. "I never saw them so
bad."
"Well, Jesse," said Uncle Dick, smiling, "just you wait. Before you
get back you'll say you never saw mosquitoes before in your life. The
traders tell me that they are worse the farther north you go. They say
it takes about two or three years for a new man to get used to them so
that he can sleep or work at his best--it's a sort of nervousness that
they stir up, though in time that wears off. I think also when they
keep on biting you you get immune to the poison, so that it doesn't
hurt so much."
"Don't they bite the half-breeds and Indians?" asked John.
"Certainly they bite them. You watch the breeds around a camp at
night. Every fellow will cover up his head with his blanket, so that
he can sleep or smother, as it happens. As for us, however, we've got
our black headnets and our long-sleeved gloves. Dope isn't much good.
No one cares much for mosquito dope in the Far North; you'll see more
of it in the States than you will in here, because they have learned
that it is more or less useless.
"Our big mosquito tent is just the same as the one we took down the
Columbia River with us--the one that the Indians cut the end out of
when we gave it to them! I've tried that tent all through Alaska in my
work, and everywhere in this part of the world, and it's the only
thing for mosquitoes. You crawl in through the little sleeve and tie
it after you get inside, and then kill the mosquitoes that have
followed you in. The windows allow you to get fresh air, and the floor
cloth sewed in keeps the mosquitoes from coming up from below. It's
the only protection in the world."
"But I saw a lot of little tents or bars down in the camp near the
river a little while ago," said Rob.
"Precisely. That's the other answer to the mosquito question--the
individual mosquito bar-tent. They are regularly made and sold in all
this northern country now, and mighty useful they are, too. As you
see, it's just a piece of canvas about six feet long and one breadth
wide, with mosquito bar sewed to the edges. You tie up each corner to
a tree or stick, and let the bar of cheese-cloth drop down around your
bed, which you make on the ground. When you lie down you tuck the edge
under your blankets, and there you are! If you don't roll about very
much you are fairly safe from mosquitoes. That, let me say, is the
typical individual remedy for mosquitoes in this country. Of course,
when we are out on railroad work, map-making and writing and the like,
we have to have something bigger and better than that. That sort of
little tent is only for the single night. No doubt we'll use them
ourselves, traveling along on the scows, because it is a good deal of
trouble to put up a big wall tent every night.
"The distances in this country are so big," he added, after a time,
explaining, "that every one travels in a hurry and spends no
unnecessary work in making camp. We'll have to learn to break camp in
ten minutes, and to make it in fifteen. I should say it would take us
about thirty minutes to make a landing, build a fire, cook a meal, and
get off again. There's no time to be wasted, don't you see?"
"I suppose Sir Alexander Mackenzie found that out himself when he
first went down this river," said Rob.
"I'll warrant you he did! And his lesson has stuck in the minds of all
these northern people to this day."
"Well, anyhow," commented Jesse, as one mosquito bit his hand, "I wish
they wouldn't bother me while I'm eating."
"Now if John had said that," said Uncle Dick, "it wouldn't be so
strange."
They all joined in his laughing at John, whose appetite made a
standing joke among them. But John only laughed with them and went on
with his supper. "There can't anybody bluff me out of a good meal,"
said he, "not even the mosquitoes."
"That's the idea," nodded his older adviser. "But really these insect
pests are the great drawback of this entire northern country. Perhaps
they will keep the settlers out as much as anything else. Fur-traders
and trappers and travelers like ourselves--they can't stop for them,
of course. We'll take our chances like Sir Alexander Mackenzie--eh,
boys?"
"I'm not afraid," said Jesse.
"Nor I," added John.
And indeed they finished their evening meal, which they cooked for
themselves, in fairly comfortable surroundings; and in their
mosquito-proof tent they passed an untroubled night, each in the
morning declaring that he had slept in perfect comfort.
"We'll leave the tents standing for a while," said Uncle Dick, "until
we know just when we are going to embark. The brigade may pull out any
day now. We'll have warning enough so that we can easily get ready.
But come on now and we'll go over to the boat-yard," he added. "It's
time we began to see about our own boat and to get our supplies ready
for shipping."
They followed him through the straggling town down to the edge of the
water-front, where the Athabasca, now somewhat turbulent in the high
waters of the spring, rolled rapidly by.
Here there was a rude sort of lumber-yard, to all appearance, with the
addition of a sort of rough shipyard. Chips and shavings and fragments
of boards lay all about. Here and there on trestles stood the gaunt
frames of what appeared to be rough flatboats, long, wide, and
shallow, constructed with no great art or care. There was no keel to
any one of these boats, and the ribs were flimsily put together.
"Well, I don't think much of these boats," grumbled John, as he passed
among them slowly.
"Don't be too rough with them," said Uncle Dick, laughingly. "Like
everything else up here, they may not be the best in the world, but
they do for their purpose. These scows are never intended to come
back, you must remember; all they have to do is to stand the trip
down, for a month or two. All the frame houses of the Far North are
made out of these scows; they break them up at the ends of the trips.
Our boat may be part of a church before it gets through.
"Come now, and I'll introduce you to old Adam McAdam, the builder and
pump-maker." He nodded toward an old man who was passing slowly here
and there among the rude craft. "This old chap is no doubt over
seventy-five years old, and he must have built hundreds of these boats
in his time. He makes the pumps, too, and a pump has to go with every
scow to keep it from sinking at first, before the seams get swelled
up."
The old man proved pleasant enough, and with a certain pride showed
them all about these rude craft of the fur trade. Each boat appeared
to be about fifty feet in length and nearly twenty in width, the
carrying capacity of each being about ten tons.
"Of course you know, my lads," said the old man, "a scow goes no
faster than the river runs. Here's the great oar--twenty feet it is in
length--made out of a young tree. The steersman uses that to
straighten her up betimes. But there's nothing to make the boat run
saving the current, do ye mind?"
"Well, that won't be so very fast," commented Rob, thinking of the
long distances that lay ahead.
"Oh, we're not confined to scows for much more than two hundred and
fifty miles," replied Uncle Dick. "At McMurray we get a steamer which
carries us down-stream to Smith's Landing. That's the big and bad
portage of the whole trip--that is to say, excepting the Rat Portage
of five hundred miles over the Yukon. But when we get below the
Smith's Landing portage we strike another Hudson's Bay Company steamer
that takes us fast enough, day and night, all the way to the Arctic
Circle. That's where we make our time, don't you see? These boats only
get us over the rapids.
"Of course," he explained, a little later, "a few of them go on down,
towed by the steamboats, because the steamboats are not big enough to
carry all the freight which must go north. There are only two
steamboats between us and the Arctic Circle now, barring one or two
little ones which are not of much account. The scows have to carry all
the supplies for the entire fur trade--trade goods, bacon, flour, and
everything."
"Who's that old gentleman coming along there, Uncle Dick?" demanded
Jesse, turning toward the end of the street.
"That's old Father Le Fevre," replied his uncle. "He's the purchasing
agent for all the many missions of the Catholic Church in the Far
North. Each year he comes in with ten or more scows, each carrying ten
tons of goods. He may go as far as Chippewyan, and then come back, or
he may go on to Great Slave. I understand there are two good Sisters
going even farther north this year. No one knows when they will come
back, of course; they'll be teachers up among the native schools.
"Well, now you see the transport system beyond the head of the rails
in the Athabasca and Mackenzie country," he continued, as, hands in
pocket, he passed along among the finished and unfinished craft which
still lay in the shipyard.
Outside, moored to stumps along the shore, floated a number of the
rude scows, some of which even now were partially laden. The leader of
the expedition pointed out to one of these.
"That's our boat yonder, young men," said he. "You'll see that she has
the distinction of a name. Most scows have only numbers on them, and
each post gets certain scows with certain numbers. But ours has a
name--the _Midnight Sun_. How do you like that?"
"That's fine, sir!" said Rob. "And we'll see to it that she doesn't
come to grief as long as we use her."
"Well, it will only be for a couple of hundred miles or so," said
Uncle Dick, "but I fancy there'll be nothing slow in that two hundred
miles."
"Where will we eat?" demanded John, with his usual regard for creature
comforts.
"That's easy," said Rob. "I know all about that. I saw two men loading
a cook-stove on one of the scows. They took it out of a canoe, and how
they did it without upsetting the canoe I can't tell, but they did it.
I suppose we'll cook as we go along."
"Precisely," nodded Uncle Dick. "The cook-boat is the only thing that
goes under steam. The cook builds his fire in the stove just as though
he were on shore. When he calls time for meals, the men from the other
boats take turns in putting out in canoes and going to the cook-boat
for meals. Sometimes a landing is made while they eat, and of course
they always tie up at night They have certain stages which they try to
make. The whole thing is all planned out on a pretty good system,
rough but effective, as you will see."
"Is he a pretty good cook?" asked John, somewhat demurring.
"Well, good enough for us, if he is good enough for the others,"
replied his uncle. "But I'll tell you what we might do once in a
while. They do say that the two good Sisters who go north with the
mission brigade know how to cook better than any half-breed. I've made
arrangements so that we can eat on their scow once in a while if we
like."
"What's that funny business on the end of our boat?" asked Jesse,
presently, pointing to a rude framework of bent poles which covered
the short deck at the stern of the boat.
"That's what they call a 'bower' up in this country," said Uncle Dick.
"They have some curious old English words in here, even yet. Now a
bower is simply a lot of poles, like an Indian wickiup, covering the
end of your boat, as you see. You can throw your blankets over it, if
you like, or green willows. It keeps the sun off. Since the Hudson's
Bay Company charges a pretty stiff price for taking any passenger
north, it tries to earn its money by building a bower for the select
few, such as we are."
"I don't think that we need any bower," said Rob, and all the other
boys shook their heads.
"A little sunshine won't hurt us," said Jesse, stoutly.
"But think of the style about it," laughed Uncle Dick, pleased to see
the hardiness of his young charges. "Well, we'll do as we like about
that. One thing, we've got to have a chance to see out, for I know you
will want to keep your eyes open every foot of the way."
"Well, I wish the breeds would hurry up and get the boats loaded,"
added Jesse, impatiently, after a while. "There's nothing doing here
worth while."
"Don't be too hard with the breeds," counseled Uncle Dick. "They're
like children, that's all. This is the best time of the year for them,
when the great fur brigade goes north. It couldn't go without them.
The fur trade in this country couldn't exist without the half-breeds
and the full-bloods; there's a half-dozen tribes on whom the revenues
of this great corporation depend absolutely.
"You'll see now the best water-men and the best trail-men in the
world. Look at these packages--a hundred pounds or better in each.
Every pound of all that stuff is to be portaged across the Smith's
Landing portage, and the Mountain Portage, and even at Grand Island,
just below here, if the water is low. They have to carry it up from
the scows to the steamboats, and from the steamboats to the shore.
Every pound is handled again and again. It's the half-breeds that do
that. They're as strong as horses and as patient as dogs; fine men
they are, so you must let them have their little fling after their old
ways; they don't know any better."
"How many of the fur posts are there in the North, Uncle Dick?" asked
Rob, curious always to be exact in all his information.
"Well, let's see," pondered Uncle Dick, holding up his fingers and
counting them off. "The first one above here is McMurray; that's one
of the treaty posts where the tribes are paid their annuities by the
Dominion government. It's two hundred and fifty-two miles from here,
and there's where we hit our first steamboat, as I told you.
"Then comes Chippewyan, on Athabasca Lake. It was founded by Sir
Alexander Mackenzie in seventeen eighty-eight, and from that time on
it has been one of the most important trading-posts of the North--in
fact, I believe it is the most important to-day, as it seems to be a
sort of center, right where a lot of rivers converge. That's four
hundred and thirty-seven miles from here. When you get that far in, my
buckos, you'll be able to say that you are away from the hated
pale-faces and fairly launched on your trip through the wildest
wilderness the world has to-day. It is a hundred miles on to Smith's
Landing--sixteen miles there of the fiercest water you ever saw in all
your lives. Wagon portage there, but sometimes the boats go through.
Fort Smith is at the other end of that portage.
"Next down is Fort Resolution, and that's seven hundred and forty-five
miles from here. Hay River is eight hundred and fifteen, and Fort
Providence nine hundred and five miles, and Fort Simpson, at the mouth
of the Liard River, is a thousand and eighty-five miles from here.
Getting along in the world pretty well then, eh?
"There are a few others as I recall them--Fort Wrigley, twelve hundred
and sixty-five miles from here, and Fort Norman, fourteen hundred and
thirty-seven miles. Now you come to Fort Good Hope, and that is right
under the Arctic Circle. It is sixteen hundred and nine miles from
here, where we are at the head of the railroads. If we are fast enough
in our journey we'll get our first sight of the Midnight Sun at Good
Hope, perhaps.
"The next post north of Good Hope is Arctic Red River, eighteen
hundred and nineteen miles; and of course you know that the last post
of the Hudson's Bay Company is Fort McPherson, on the Peel River, near
the mouth of the Mackenzie. That is rated as eighteen hundred and
nineteen miles by the government map-makers, who may or may not be
right; being an engineer myself, I'll say they must be right! In round
numbers we might as well call it two thousand miles.
"Well, that's your distance, young men, and here are the ships which
are to carry you part of the way."
"And when we get to Fort McPherson we're not half-way through, are we,
sir?" asked Rob.
"No, we're not, and if we were starting a hundred and twenty-eight
years earlier than we are, with Sir Alexander Mackenzie, we would have
to hustle to get back before the snows caught us. As it is, we'll hope
some time in July to start across the Rat Portage. That's five hundred
miles, just along the Arctic Circle, and in that five hundred miles we
go from Canadian into American territory--at Rampart House, on the
Porcupine River. Well, it's down-stream from there to the Yukon, and
then we hit our own boats--more of them, and faster and more
comfortable. I have no doubt, John, that you can get all you want to
eat on any one of a half-dozen good boats that ply on the Yukon to-day
from White Horse down to the mouth.
"Of course," he added, "this trip of ours is not quite as rough as it
would have been twenty years ago when the Klondike rush began. The
world has moved since then, as it always has moved and always will. I
suppose some time white men will live in a good deal of this country
which we now think impossible for a white man to inhabit. Little by
little, as they learn the ways of the Indians and half-breeds, they
will edge north, changing things as they go.
"But I don't want to talk about those times," he added, shrugging his
shoulders. "I'm for the wilderness as it is, and I'm glad that you
three boys and myself can see that country up there before it has
changed too much. Not that it is any country for a tenderfoot now.
You'll find it wild enough and rough enough. It has gone back since
the Klondike rush. In travel you'll see the old ways of the Hudson's
Bay Company, even although the independents have cut into their trade
a little bit. You'll see the Far North much as it was when Sir
Alexander first went down our river here.
"And as you go on I want you to study the old times, and the new times
as well. That's the way, boys, to learn things. As for me, I found out
long ago that the only way to learn about a country is not to look it
up on a map, but to tramp across it in your moccasins.
"So now," he concluded, as they four stood at the river's brink,
looking out at the long line of the scows swinging in the rapid
current of the Athabasca, "that's the first lesson. What do you think
of our boat, the _Midnight Sun_?"
"She's fine, sir!" said Rob, and the other boys, eagerly looking up
into the face of their tall and self-reliant leader, showed plainly
enough their enjoyment of the prospect and their confidence in their
ability to meet what might be on ahead.
III
THE GREAT BRIGADE
"Roll out! Roll out!" called the cheery voice of Uncle Dick on the
second morning of the stay at Athabasca Landing.
"Aye, aye, sir!" came three young voices in reply. The young
adventurers kicked off their blankets and one by one emerged through
the sleeve of the mosquito tent.
"What made you call us so early?" complained Jesse. "It's raining--it
began in the night--and it doesn't look as if it were going to stop."
"Well, that's the very good news we've been waiting for!" said Uncle
Dick. "It's been raining somewhere else as well as here. Look at the
river--muddy and rising! That means that things will begin to happen
in these diggings pretty soon now."
For experienced campers such as these to prepare breakfast in the
rain was no great task, and they hurriedly concluded their preliminary
packing. It was yet early in the day when they stood on the
river-bank, looking at the great fleet of scows of the north-bound fur
brigade as the boats now lay swinging in the stiffening current.
The river was indeed rising; the snow to the west was melting in the
rains of spring. Time now for the annual fur brigade to be off!
At the river front already there had gathered most of the motley
population of the place. Everything now was activity. Each man seemed
to know his work and to be busy about it. The Company manager had
general charge over the embarkation of the cargo, and certainly the
men under him were willing workers.
A long line of men passed over the narrow planks which lay between the
warehouses and across the muddy flats to the deep water where the
boats lay. Each man carried on his shoulders a load which would have
staggered the ordinary porter. All went at a sort of trot, so that the
cargo was being moved rapidly indeed. It was obvious that these
half-breeds, but now so lazy and roistering, were very able indeed
when it came to the matter of work, and easy to see that they were, as
Uncle Dick had said, the backbone of the fur trade of the North.
One after another a young half-breed would come hurrying down the
street, his hair close cut and his face well washed, wearing all the
finery for which he had been able to get credit, now that he had a
prospect of wages coming in erelong. The resident population joined
those idling about the warehouses and the boat-yard, for this was the
greatest event of the year for them, with one exception--that is, the
return of the much smaller brigade bearing the fur down from the
northern country. This would come in the fall. Now it was spring, and
the great fur brigade of the Company was starting north on its savage
annual journey.
Here and there among these were strange faces also to be of the
north-bound company now embarking. Good Father Le Fevre passed among
them all, speaking to this or that man of the half-breeds pleasantly,
they having each a greeting for him in turn. This was by no means his
first trip with the brigade, and hundreds of the natives knew him.
The boys stood wondering at the enormous loads which these men carried
from the warehouses out to the boats. Here a man might have on his
back a great slab of side-meat weighing more than a hundred and fifty
pounds, and on top of that a sack of flour or so. It was not unusual
to see a slight young chap carrying a load of two or three hundred
pounds, and some of the older and more powerful men engaged in a proud
sort of rivalry among themselves, shouldering and carrying out
literally enormous loads. It was said of one of these men that he once
had carried a cook-stove weighing five hundred pounds on his back from
the boat landing up the hill to one of the posts, a distance of many
hundred yards.
"Well, at this rate," said Rob, after a time, "it won't take long
before we'll be loaded and on our way. These men are simply wonders.
Aren't they?"
Uncle Dick nodded his quiet assent.
"Our boat's getting loaded, too," said Jesse, pointing to where the
_Midnight Sun_ stood swinging in the current. "Look at them fill her
up."
It was true; the factor in charge of the embarkation-work was checking
out the cargo for each boat. Each scow had its number, and that number
was credited to a certain fur-post along the great route to the mouth
of the Mackenzie River. The supplies intended for each boat,
therefore, went into the proper boats. All the cargo intended for
Uncle Dick's party was marked in black, "M. S.," in courtesy to the
name of this boat, the _Midnight Sun_, which carried no number at all.
"We'll not go as heavily loaded as some of the others," Uncle Dick
explained, "although it is only courteous that we should take all we
can, since transportation is so hard. We need only enough to take us
to the mouth of the river and over the Rat Portage to the Yukon. Of
course we'll forget all about our boat when we get below the rapids,
but they'll tow her down alongside the steamer.
"I have told you," he went on, "that this is a starving country. Now
you can see why. They can't possibly carry into that far-away region
as much stuff as they need to eat and to wear. The Company does the
best it can, and so do all these mission men do the best they can.
"Now you see how the brigade goes north--not in birch-bark canoes, but
in scows, to-day. The scow has even taken the place of the old York
boat. That was the boat which they formerly used on the Saskatchewan
and some of these rivers for their up-stream work. It's a good deal
like a Mackinaw boat. You'll see here, too, one or two scows with
blunt ends, such as they call the 'sturgeon' nose. They tow a little
easier than the square-ended scow. But these new square-facers are
the best things in the world for going down-stream with the current."
"Hadn't we better get our packs ready?" asked Rob, methodical as ever.
"Yes," replied their leader, "you ought to get the bed rolls made up
and the tent in its bag before very long. I don't think we'll be
started a great while before sundown, but we'll get ready.
"It's enough to get ready," he continued. "Don't carry your own stuff
down to the boats."
"Why not?" asked John, curiously. "We can do it easily enough."
"Well, you're in another sort of country now," said Uncle Dick to him,
quietly. "Follow customs of the country. You must remember that the
Hudson's Bay Company is a very old monopoly, and it has its own ways.
Always it treats the natives as though they were children and it was
the Great Father. A factor is a sort of king up here. He wouldn't
think of carrying a pound of his own luggage for anything in the
world. If he began that sort of thing the natives would not respect
him as their _bourgeois_."
"_Bourgeois?_ What does that mean?" asked John, again.
"Well, about the same as boss, I suppose. It's always necessary in
dealing with ignorant and savage peoples to take the attitude that you
are the boss, and that they are to do what you tell them. If you get
too familiar or lower yourself too much with primitive people, they
don't respect you, because they think you're afraid of them.
"Now, that has always been the custom of the Hudson's Bay Company in
this work. In the old days, when things were more autocratic, when a
factor went on a journey his people picked him up and carried him into
his boat, and when he went ashore they picked him up and carried him
out again. If anybody got wet or tired or hungry be sure it wasn't the
boss!
"You see, young gentlemen, while I don't want you, of all things in
the world, ever to be snobbish, I do want you to be observant. So just
take this advice from me, and let these men do your work right at the
start. They expect it, and they will treat you all the better--and of
course you will treat them well."
"Who is that old pirate standing over there by the boat landing?"
asked Jesse, presently, pointing to a tall, dark, and sinewy man with
full black beard, who seemed to have a certain authority among the
laborers.
"That's Cap. Shott. I've told you that he was the first man who ever
ran the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca River. His real name is Louis
Faisoneure. He's seventy-seven years old, but still he likes to go
down with the brigade, part way at least.
"The quiet young man just beyond him is his son, Francois. He is the
real captain--or commodore, as they call it--of the brigade, and has
been for several years. He'll be the steersman on our boat, so that in
one way you might say that the _Midnight Sun_, although not a Company
boat, will pretty much be the flag-ship of the brigade this year.
They're treating us as well as they know how, and I must say we'll
have no cause to complain."
"Cap. Shott," as they nicknamed him, did indeed have a piratical look,
as John had said. He stood more than six and a half feet in his
moccasins, and was straight as an arrow, with the waist of a boy. His
face was dark, his eyebrows very heavy and black, and his dark, full
beard, his scant trousers held up with a brilliant scarf, and his
generally ferocious appearance, gave him a peculiarly wild and
outlandish look, although personally he was gentle as a child.
"Well, Cap. Shott," said Uncle Dick, approaching him, "we start
to-day, eh?"
"Mebbe so, _oui_," replied the old man. "We load h'all the boats
bimeby now. Yes, pretty soon bimeby we start, mebbe so, _oui_."
"Well," said Uncle Dick, smiling, as he turned to the boys, "that's
about as definite as you can get anything. We'll start when we start!
Just get your stuff ready to be embarked and tell the manager where it
is. It will be on board all right."
"But what makes them start so late in the day?" demanded John, who was
of an investigative turn of mind. "I should think the morning was the
right time to start."
"Not so the great fur brigade," was his answer. "Nor was it the custom
in the great fur brigades which went out with pack-trains from the
Missouri in our own old days when there were buffalo and beaver. A
short start was made on the first day, usually toward evening. Then
when camp was made everything was overhauled, and if anything had been
left behind it was not too far to send back to get it. Nearly always
it was found that something had been overlooked.
"Now that's the way we'll do here, so they tell me. We'll run down the
river a few miles, each boat as it is loaded, and then we'll make a
landing. That will give each boat captain time to look over his stuff
and his men--and, what is more, it will give each man time to run in
across country and get a few last drinks. Some of them will come back
to be confessed by their priest. Some will want to send supplies to
their families who are left behind. On one excuse or another every man
of the brigade will be back here in town to-night if we should start!
Of course by to-morrow morning they'll be on hand again bright and
early and ready for the voyage. You see, there are customs up here
with which we have not been acquainted before."
It came out precisely as Uncle Dick had said. Very late in the
afternoon--late by the clock, though not so late by the sun, which at
this latitude sank very late in the west--there came a great shouting
and outcry, followed by firing of guns, much as though a battle were
in progress. Men, hurrying and crying excitedly as they ran, went
aboard the boats. One after another the mooring-ropes were cast off.
The poles and oars did their work, and slowly, piecemeal, but in a
vast aggregate, the great Mackenzie brigade was on its way!
The first boat of the fleet, as had been predicted, ran no more than
three or four miles before it pulled ashore at a landing-place which
seemed well known to all. Here the scows came in slowly and clumsily,
but without disorder and without damage, until the entire bank for a
half-mile was turned into a sort of shipyard of its own.
Here and there men were working the little wooden pumps, because for
the first day or two the scows were sure to leak.
The boys made their own camp that night aboard the boat. At each end
was a short deck, and that in the rear offered space for their blanket
beds. Rob undertook to sleep on top of the cargo under the edge of the
great tarpaulin which covered all. They had their little Yukon stove,
which accompanied them, and on the front deck, where a box of earth
had been provided, they set this up and did their own cooking, as they
preferred.
In the morning Father Le Fevre paddled over to them in a canoe from
his own scow.
"_Bon jour_, gentlemen!" said he. "I called to ask you if you would
not like to have breakfast with us. Sister Eloise is known for her
skill in cookery."
The leader of our little party accepted with great cheerfulness, so
that they all climbed into the canoe, and presently were alongside the
mission scow. All over the great fleet of scows everything now was
silent. Each boat had its watchman, but he alone, of all the crew,
had remained aboard.
"My poor children!" said Father Le Fevre, smiling as he looked about
him. "They indeed are like children. Presently they will come. Then we
shall see."
Our young travelers now became acquainted with yet others of the
north-bound party. Sister Eloise, stout and good-natured, proved
herself all that had been promised as a cook.