long. The bishop read his services to-night by the natural
light of the window. With the bishop's consent we made a
flash-light picture of this scene in the church. Then there
was Holy Communion. The services were not done when the
whistle of the boat blew and everybody had to run to get on
board. The captain scolded the bishop for being so late!
This is a funny country, I think.
"This closes a week which has been quite full of events, I
think. Jesse and John very happy. The pictures around us
seem more savage. We are getting into the Far North of which
we have read so much. It is fine!"
IX
UNDER THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
Of the motley assemblages which thronged the capacity of the steamer
_Mackenzie River_ our three young companions were usually the first to
arise in the morning. Morning, however, had come by this time to be a
relative term, for the steady progress into the northern latitudes had
now brought them almost under the Midnight Sun, so that there was but
a brief period of darkness at any hour of the night. On the morning of
July 6th they stood conversing on the fore deck, looking down the vast
river as it passed between its bold and broken shores.
"Well," said Rob to the others, "here we are, not quite forty days out
from our start, and we have come more than sixteen hundred miles
already! We're beginning to add now to our daily mileage, traveling
this way day and night."
"Well, even at this rate," rejoined John, "I am not sure that I see
how we will get out of this northern country inside of our three
months' schedule. If we don't, we'll have to pass the winter, won't
we?"
Jesse looked a little bit gloomy at this idea. To tell the truth, he,
the youngest of the party, was at times just a little homesick. The
country through which they passed seemed so stupendous, so awesome, as
almost to oppress the spirits of those not used to it.
"Cheer up! Jess," said Rob, clapping him on the shoulder. "There will
be something happening now before long. We're almost up to the Arctic
Circle, and to-day, if I'm not mistaken, we run into the best scenery
on the Mackenzie River, what they call the Ramparts. The captain was
telling me about it yesterday."
They did not, however, reach this portion of their voyage until very
late in the evening, when they arrived at the head of that long and
gentle bit of water called the Sans Sault Rapids. The river here was
about a mile wide, but offered no bad chutes. The captain told them
that it only took eight minutes to run through, but that the time
coming up with the steamboat usually had averaged one and
three-quarter hours.
The strange, luminous twilight of the sub-Artic day continued until
midnight. It was, indeed, after eleven o'clock when the steamer struck
that narrow shut-in of the Mackenzie River where the great flood,
compressed between high and rocky shores, runs steadily and deep for a
very considerable distance. Above the actual beginning of the narrower
channel lay a great, deep pool, many hundreds of yards wide, while at
the right hand of its lower extremity sprang up a bald white rock face
of limestone.
So sharp was the bend of the great river here that at the turn it
seemed as though the river itself had come to an end or had dropped
out of sight. The walls on the left seemed perhaps a trifle higher,
ranging in height from one hundred to a hundred and eighty feet, the
crest in places broken into crenelated turrets.
"Well," said Rob, "this is the celebrated run of the Ramparts. I must
confess I am disappointed. I think the Yukon beats this in a great
many places. They may tip this off as a big attraction for tourists,
but it's too far to come for the show, in my estimation."
John, busy charting the channel on his map, nodded his head in
affirmation. "How wide do you think it is here, Rob?" he asked, and
Rob was obliged to ask some of the boat officials as to that. They
told him that the river was from three hundred to five hundred yards
wide at this place, and that there were two great bends in the six
miles of the run between the shut-in walls.
"How far is it to the Arctic Circle, Uncle Dick?" demanded Jesse of
their leader when finally he came on deck after finishing his work in
his state-room.
The latter rubbed his chin for a time before he could reply. "Well,"
said he, "I don't know just where it is, but it's somewhere on ahead
of Fort Good Hope, and we'll strike Fort Good Hope now just beyond the
foot of the Ramparts. We'll say that some time in the night we'll pass
the Circle."
"Hurrah for that!" exclaimed Rob, and the other boys also became
excited.
"What does the Circle look like?" asked Jesse, with much interest.
"Well," replied his uncle, "I don't think it looks like anything in
particular. But I think we'll feel the bump when we run over it in the
night. I can assure you of that. Also I can assure you that, once you
get above it, at the end of our northern journey, you'll see a country
different from any you have seen. You hardly realize, no doubt, the
great extent of this tremendous run from the Rockies to the sea."
Meantime the boat had been continuing its progress steadily. It
required about forty-five minutes to complete the run of the bolder
part of the shores known as the Ramparts. Once below, there was to be
seen, even in the faint midnight light, the scattered buildings of
that far-northern post known as Good Hope.
The boys, with all the rest of the passengers, went ashore here and
prowled about the curious old place, examining with much interest the
mission school, the church, and the garden. Rob was able to make a
picture of the interior of the church, putting his camera on a pile of
hymn-books and making a long-time exposure.
The post trader told him later something of the history of this
curious building which for some time had stood here upon the utmost
borders of civilization.
"You see all the decorations and frescoes of the church, just like
those in a cathedral of the Old World," said he. "It was all done by a
young priest known as Brother Antel, now gone to his rest. The church
was built thirty years ago by Bishop Clute, of Little Slave Lake, who
brought up Brother Antel from that lower mission. The altar is
considered an astonishing thing to be found here, almost directly
under the Arctic Circle."
They all stood with their hats off in this curious and interesting
structure of the Far North, hardly being able to realize that they
were now so far beyond the land where such things ordinarily are seen.
"The decorations are fine and the frescoes splendid," said Jesse to
John, as they passed outside the door, "but I don't see why Father
Antel has the angels playing on the mandolin. I didn't know they had
mandolins that long ago."
"Never mind about that, Jesse," said Rob, reprovingly. "You mustn't
make light of anything of the kind. You must remember that these
Slavie Indians, who are the only people who come here for services,
are most impressed by pictures which they can see and understand. I
suppose it's all right. At any rate, it's an astonishing thing to find
such a church away up here, even if it had angels listening to an H.
B. phonograph."
The boat remained at Good Hope all too short a time to suit them,
because all our young travelers were anxious to go to the top of a
certain hill, from which it was said they could have a view of the
Midnight Sun, which had disappeared behind the ridge of the hills
back of the fort itself. Indeed, one of the crew ascended this
eminence, and claimed that he had made a photograph of the Midnight
Sun. Certainly, all of the boys were able to testify that it was still
light at four o'clock in the morning, for they had remained up that
late, eagerly prowling around through the curious and interesting
scenes of the far-northern trading-post.
So wearied were they by their long experience afoot on the previous
day that on the morning of July 7th they slept a little later than
usual, although their total hours of rest were no more than two or
three. Uncle Dick was before them on the deck this time, and
reproached them very much when they appeared.
"Well, young men," said he, "did you feel any heavy jar, or hear a
dull, sickening thud, some time about half an hour or an hour ago?"
"You don't mean that we've passed the Circle, do you, Uncle Dick?"
queried John.
"We certainly have. I don't know just where it was. It's seven-thirty
o'clock now, and somewhere between here and Fort Good Hope we crossed
the Arctic Circle!"
"I can't believe it!" said Rob. "Why, look, the weather is perfectly
fine, and there isn't any ice to be seen. On the other hand, there are
plenty of mosquitoes. What's more, just back at Fort Good Hope we have
seen that they can raise things in their gardens. I would never have
believed these things about this northern country if I had not seen
them myself."
Through the soft, mild light of the sub-Arctic morning the great
steamboat churned on her north-bound way. At ten o'clock they passed
an Indian village which they were told was called Chicago--no doubt
named by some of the Klondikers who were practically cast away here
twenty years earlier. John put it down on his map under that name, as
indeed it is charted in all the authentic maps of that upper region.
They were told that a good number of Indians come here to make their
winter hunt.
An uneventful day, during which the boat logged a great many miles in
her steady progress, was passed, until at ten o'clock they tied up at
the next to the last of the Hudson's Bay posts on the Mackenzie River,
known as Arctic Red River, located at sixty-seven degrees and thirty
minutes north latitude.
"Oh, look, look, fellows!" exclaimed John, as they pulled into the
landing here. "Now we're beginning to get some real stuff! I feel as
though we were pretty near to the end of the world. Look yonder!"
He pointed to where, along the beach at the foot of the bluff, there
lay two encampments of natives.
"Look at the difference in the boats!" exclaimed John, running to the
side of the boat. "There are whale-boats with sails, something like
those we saw out on the Alaska coast. What are they, Uncle Dick?"
"Those are Eskimos, my young friend," said their leader, "and what you
see there are indeed whale-boats. The Huskies come up the river this
far to trade with the other Indians, and with the white men at this
post. This is about as far as they come. They get their boats in trade
from the whale-ships somewhere along the Arctic. As John says, this is
really a curious and interesting scene that you see.
"Over yonder, I think, are the Loucheux. I don't think they are as
strong and able a class of savages as the Huskies. At least, that's
what the traders tell me."
"Well, they've got wall tents, anyway," said Jesse, who was fixing his
field-glasses on the encampments. "Where did they get them? From the
traders, I suppose. My, but they look ragged and poor! I shouldn't
wonder if they were about starved."
By this time the boat was coming to her landing, and the boys hurried
ashore to see what they could find in this curious and interesting
encampment.
There were two trading-posts at Arctic Red River--the Hudson's Bay
Company post, and that of an independent trading company, both on top
of the high bluff and reached by a stairway which ran part way up the
face.
Some of the tribesmen from the encampment now hurried down to meet the
boat--tall and stalwart Eskimos in fur-trimmed costumes which the boys
examined with the greatest of interest and excitement, feeling as they
did that now indeed they were coming into the actual North of which
they had read many years before.
"Uncle Dick is right," said Rob. "These Eskimos are bigger and
stronger than any of the Indians we have seen. I don't think the women
are so bad-looking, either, although the children look awfully dirty."
"It's like Alaska, isn't it?" said John. "Look at the parkies they
wear, even here in the summer-time. That's just like the way Alaska
Indians and white men dress in the winter-time."
"Well," said Jesse, "maybe that's the only clothes they've got. I'll
warrant you they have on their best, because this is the great annual
holiday for them, when the Company boat comes in."
Rob looked at his watch. "Twelve o'clock!" said he. "I can't tell
whether the sun is up yet or not, because it is so cloudy. Anyhow, we
can say that we are now under the Midnight Sun, can't we?--because
here we are right among the Eskimos."
Uncle Dick joined them after a while, laughing. "Talk about traders!"
said he. "No Jew and no Arab in the world would be safe here among
these Huskies! They are the stiffest traders I ever saw in my life.
You can't get them to shade their prices the least bit on earth.
"These boats," he continued, "are crammed full of white-fox skins and
all sorts of stuff--beaver, marten, and mink--and some mighty good fur
at that. But those people haven't seen any white men's goods for at
least a year, and yet they act as if they hadn't an intention in the
world of parting with their furs. Look here," he continued, holding
out his hand.
The boys bent over curiously to see what he had.
"Stone things," said John. "What are they?"
"What they call 'labrets,'" said his uncle, taking up one of the
little articles. "They make them out of stone, don't you see?--with a
groove in the middle. If you will look close at some of these Eskimo
women, or even men, you will find that they have a hole through their
lower lip, and some of them wear this little 'labret.' Here also are
some made out of walrus ivory."
"Well, now I know what it was I saw that tall Husky had in his face
awhile ago," said John. "Something was sticking through his lower lip,
and I know now it was the glass stopper of a bottle of Worcester
sauce."
Uncle Dick laughed. "Correct!" said he. "I saw the same fellow, and,
now that you mention it, I gave him three dollars for that glass
stopper from the bottle! I don't suppose any one will believe the
story, but it's true.
"If you get a chance to trade any of these Huskies out of one of their
pipes, do it, boys," said he, "especially if you can get one of the
old bluestone pipe bowls. Pay as much as five dollars for it--which
would be ten 'skins' up here. I don't suppose you could find one for a
hundred dollars anywhere in the museums of our country, for they are
very rare. I have my eye on one, and I hope before we get out of this
northern country to close a trade for it, but the old fellow is mighty
stiff."
"You say that five dollars is ten 'skins' up here, Uncle Dick,"
commented Rob. "At Fort Smith and Fort Simpson a 'skin' was only
thirty cents--three to the dollar."
"That custom varies at the different posts," was Uncle Dick's reply.
"Of course you understand that a 'skin' is not a skin at all, but
simply a unit of value. Sometimes a trader will give an Indian a
bowlful of bullets representing the total value in 'skins' of the fur
which he has brought in. Each one of those bullets will be a 'skin.'
The Indian doesn't know anything about dollars or cents, and indeed
very little of value at all. You have to show him everything in an
objective way. So when the Indian wants to trade for white men's
goods, he asks for his particular bowl of bullets--which, child-like,
he has left with the trader himself. The traders are, however, honest.
They never cheat the Indian, in that way at least. So the trader hands
down the bowl of bullets. The Indian sees what he wants on the shelves
behind the counter, and the trader holds up as many fingers as the
value is in 'skins.' The Indian picks out that many bullets from his
bowl and hands them to the trader, and the trader hands him his
goods.
"You can see, therefore, that the Indian's bowlful of bullets in this
country would not buy him as much fur as he would have gotten farther
down the river. At the same time, this is farther north, and the
freight charges are necessarily high. Perhaps there is just a little
in the fact that competition of the independents is not as keen here
as it is farther to the south!
"But whatever be the price of a 'skin,'" Uncle Dick went on, somewhat
ruefully, "these Huskies take it out of us cheechackos when we come
in. We passed the last of the Slavies at Fort Good Hope. Now we are
among the Loucheux. But these Huskies run over the Loucheux as if they
were not there."
There was plenty of time given to the passengers at this landing to
visit the boats and encampments of the natives, so that our young
investigators were able to obtain considerable information about the
methods of the country.
They went aboard one whale-boat and discovered that its owner, a
stalwart Husky, had brought in a hundred marten and a hundred mink,
and half as many white-foxes and lynx. He explained that he was going
to buy another whale-boat of the Hudson's Bay Company, and that he had
to pay yet seventy marten, besides all this other fur, in order to get
his boat, which would be delivered to him next year. The boys figured
that he was paying about twenty-five hundred dollars for an ordinary
whale-boat, perhaps thirty years old, and, inquiring as to the cost of
such a boat along the coast, found that it rarely was more than about
three or four hundred dollars new!
"Well," said Rob, "I can begin to see how there's money in this fur
business, after all. A sack of flour brings twenty-five dollars here.
A cup of flour sells for one 'skin,' or fifty cents. These people,
Huskies and all, know the value of matches, and they jolly well have
to pay for them. I've been figuring, and I find out that the traders
make about five thousand per cent. profit on the matches they sell in
the northern country. Everything else is in proportion."
Uncle Dick grinned at them as they bent over their books or notes.
"Well," he said, "you remind me of the methods of old Whiteman, a
trader out in the western country where I used to live. People used to
kick on what he charged for needles and thread, and he always pointed
out to them that the freight in that western country was very heavy
indeed. I suppose that's the answer of the Hudson's Bay Company to the
high cost of living among the Eskimos."
"How much farther north are we going, Uncle Dick?" asked Rob,
suddenly. "I mean, how soon do we leave the steamboat?"
"Quicker than you will like," said he. "This is the next to the last
stop that we'll make. On ahead eighty miles is good old Fort
McPherson, on the Peel River, and that is as far as we go. From this
time on you can make the memorandum on your photographs and your notes
in your diary that you are working under the Midnight Sun and north of
the Arctic Circle!"
"I didn't think we would ever be here!" said John, drawing a long
breath. "My, hasn't it been easy, and hasn't it been quick? I can
hardly realize that we have got this far away from home in so little a
while."
"Yes," said Rob, "when we were back there loafing around on the
portages and in some of the more important stops I began to think we
were going to be stranded up here in the winter-time. Well, maybe
we'll get through yet, Uncle Dick. What do you think?"
"Maybe so," replied Uncle Dick. "And now, if you've got your pictures
all fixed up, I think you'd better turn in. You've got to remember
that you sleep by the clock up here, and not by the sun."
X
FARTHEST NORTH
"Look!" cried Rob to his two companions as they stood on the far deck
of the steamboat. "Look yonder!"
He was pointing on ahead through the low-hanging mist and drizzling
rain which had marked the last few hours of their last day of
steamboat travel.
"What is it?" demanded Jesse, also crowding toward the bow.
"I know. It's the Rockies!" cried John. "Uncle Dick told me that those
mountains were the most northerly spur of the Rocky Mountains. It's
where they go farthest north. So, fellows, we've been somewhere,
haven't we? Uncle Dick was right--this is the greatest trip we've had,
as sure as you're born."
"But look yonder on ahead," resumed Jesse. "What river is that we're
turning into now?"
The booming whistle of the great steamer had called his attention to
the fact that they were now altering their course. The _Mackenzie
River_ was entering the narrow mouth of a swift stream against which
it took all their power to make any headway at all.
Along the banks of this river the trees seemed to be growing taller
and stronger, whether willows or spruces that lined the banks, and the
shores themselves were bolder.
"Call Uncle Dick," said Rob. "He's writing in his room. He knows all
about this, I expect."
So they called Uncle Dick and asked him about the new river.
"Yes," said he, "this is the Peel River. It comes down out of the
Rockies, as you see. You are now pretty near to the upper end of the
whole entire Rocky Mountain system. We are going to cross the most
northerly part of the Rockies, and the lowest pass--it is only about a
thousand feet above sea-level, and only about a hundred miles south of
the Arctic Sea itself.
"This river here, the Peel," he continued, "no doubt offered the old
traders a better building-site for a post than the big river would
have done below the mouth. The Mackenzie wanders on down for a hundred
miles through its delta. Of course the natives trap all through this
country for a hundred miles or more, but they tell me the site of
Fort McPherson is a favorite one with them, and they all know it.
Pretty soon we'll be there."
It was about 3.15 of that same day, according to Rob's diary, when at
last the steamboat, after gallantly bucking the stiff current of the
Peel River for some hours, pulled in at the foot of a high bank at the
summit of which there was located the most northerly of all the
Hudson's Bay posts, and the one with least competition to-day--old
Fort McPherson of venerable history.
On the narrow beach at the foot of the hill lay an encampment of
Eskimos, their huts rudely built of hides, pieces of wall tents, and
canvas stretched over tepee-like frames. Several of their whale-boats,
well rigged and well cared for, lay moored to the bank. All along the
beach prowled the gaunt dogs which belonged to the Eskimos, and yet
other young dogs were tied to stakes so that they might not escape.
These stalwart savages, twenty or thirty of them, came now and joined
the motley throng which crowded down to the boat landing. Here might
be seen the grizzled old post trader who had been here for forty
years, and near to him the red uniforms of a pair of Mounted
Policemen who were waiting for this boat to take them back to
civilization. A few others of the mounted force, one or two
nondescripts, and a scattered and respectful fringe of Loucheux
Indians who held back at the rear went to make up the strange throng
who greeted the last and only boat of the year.
It was a great event for these far-northern dwellers when the steamer
came. A great event it was, too, for these young adventurers who had
gone north with the brigade, who now had seen that brigade dwindle and
scatter over more than fifteen hundred miles of unknown country; and
who now saw the remnant of the brigade proper, one steamboat and a
scow, come to anchor here at the farthest north of the fur trade of
this continent!
The boys were quickly on shore, running around with their cameras
among the savages. They found the Huskies, as they always were called,
a much more imposing tribe than any of the Indians they had seen. The
men were taller and more robust, more fearless and self-respecting,
even arrogant in their deportment. The women were a strapping lot.
Some of them wore the blue line tattoo on the lower lip, showing them
to be married women; others, young girls not uncomely to look upon.
All were clad in the fur garments of the North, even though it now
was summer-time, the date of their arrival being July 8th. Over the
fur garments most of them wore a dirty cotton covering, supposedly to
keep their fur garments clean. The women usually slipped their arms
out of the sleeves of their loose, chemise-like jackets, so that with
their double coverings it was sometimes difficult to tell where they
kept their hands.
To the surprise of the boys, the Eskimos insisted on receiving money
or presents of some kind before they would allow themselves to be
photographed. They were willing to trade, but, as their Uncle Dick had
warned them, they proved to be most avaricious traders. A "labret" of
ivory or even of wood they valued at four or five dollars--or asked so
much as that at first. A bone-handled drill, made of a piece of seal
rib with a nail for a point to the drill, was priced accordingly. A
pair of mukluks, or native seal boots, was difficult to find at all,
while as for the furs with which their boats were crowded they
professed indifference whether or not any one purchased them.