Norway House—Adventure with a bear—Indian feast—The portage brigade—The clerks’ house—Catching a buffalo—Goldeye fishing—Rasping a rock.
Norway House, as we have before mentioned, is built upon the shores of Playgreen Lake, close to Jack River, and distant about twenty miles from Lake Winnipeg. At its right-hand corner rises a huge abrupt rock, from whose summit, where stands a flagstaff, a fine view of Playgreen Lake and the surrounding country is obtained. On this rock a number of people were assembled to witness our arrival, and among them Mr Russ, who sauntered down to the wharf to meet us as we stepped ashore.
A few days after my arrival, the Council “resolved” that I should winter at Norway House; so next day, in accordance with the resolution of that august assembly, I took up my quarters in the clerks’ room, and took possession of the books and papers.
It is an author’s privilege, I believe, to jump from place to place and annihilate time at pleasure. I avail myself of it to pass over the autumn—during which I hunted, fished, and paddled in canoes to the Indian village at Rossville a hundred times—and jump at once into the middle of winter.
Norway House no longer boasts the bustle and excitement of the summer season. No boats arrive, no groups of ladies and gentlemen assemble on the rocks to gaze at the sparkling waters. A placid stillness reigns around, except in the immediate vicinity of the fort, where a few axe-men chop the winter firewood, or start with trains of dog-sledges for the lakes, to bring home loads of white-fish and venison. Mr Russ is reading the “Penny Cyclopaedia” in the Hall (as the winter mess-room is called), and I am writing in the dingy little office in the shade, which looks pigstyish in appearance without, but is warm and snug within. Alongside of me sits Mr Cumming, a tall, bald-headed, sweet-tempered man of forty-five, who has spent the greater part of his life among the bears and Indians of Hudson Bay, and is now on a Christmas visit at Norway House. He has just arrived from his post a few hundred miles off, whence he walked on snowshoes, and is now engaged in taking off his moccasins and blanket socks, which he spreads out carefully below the stove to dry.
We do not continue long, however, at our different occupations. Mr Evans, the Wesleyan missionary, is to give a feast to the Indians at Rossville, and afterwards to examine the little children who attend the village school. To this feast we are invited; so in the afternoon Mr Cumming and I put on our moose-skin coats and snow-shoes, and set off for the village, about two miles distant from the fort.
By the way Mr Cumming related an adventure he had had while travelling through the country; and as it may serve to show the dangers sometimes encountered by those who wander through the wilds of North America, I will give it here in his own words.
Mr Cumming’s Adventure with a Bear.
“It was about the beginning of winter,” said he, “that I set off on snow-shoes, accompanied by an Indian, to a small lake to fetch fish caught in the autumn, and which then lay frozen in a little house built of logs, to protect them for winter use. The lake was about ten miles off; and as the road was pretty level and not much covered with underwood, we took a train of dogs with us, and set off before daybreak, intending to return again before dark; and as the day was clear and cold, we went cheerily along without interruption, except an occasional fall when a branch caught our snow-shoes, or a stoppage to clear the traces when the dogs got entangled among the trees. We had proceeded about six miles, and the first grey streaks of day lit up the eastern horizon, when the Indian who walked in advance paused, and appeared to examine some footprints in the snow. After a few minutes of close observation he rose, and said that a bear had passed not long before, and could not be far off, and asked permission to follow it. I told him he might do so, and said I would drive the dogs in his track, as the bear had gone in the direction of the fish-house. The Indian threw his gun over his shoulder, and was soon lost in the forest. For a quarter of an hour I plodded on behind the dogs, now urging them along, as they flagged and panted in the deep snow, and occasionally listening for a shot from my Indian’s gun. At last he fired, and almost immediately after fired again; for you must know that some Indians can load so fast that two shots from their single barrel sound almost like the discharge in succession of the two shots from a double-barrelled gun. Shortly after, I heard another shot; and then, as all became silent, I concluded he had killed the bear, and that I should soon find him cutting it up. Just as I thought this, a fierce growl alarmed me; so, seizing a pistol which I always carried with me, I hastened forward. As I came nearer, I heard a man’s voice mingled with the growls of a bear; and upon arriving at the foot of a small mound, my Indian’s voice, apostrophising death, became distinctly audible. ‘Come, Death!’ said he, in a contemptuous tone; ‘you have got me at last, but the Indian does not fear you!’ A loud angry growl from the bear, as he saw me rushing up the hill, stopped him; and the unfortunate man turned his eyes upon me with an imploring look. He was lying on his back, while the bear (a black one) stood over him, holding one of his arms in its mouth. In rushing up the mound I unfortunately stumbled, and filled my pistol with snow; so that when the bear left the Indian and rushed towards me it missed fire, and I had only left me the poor, almost hopeless, chance, of stunning the savage animal with a blow of the butt-end. Just as he was rearing on his hind legs, my eye fell upon the Indian’s axe, which fortunately lay at my feet; and seizing it, I brought it down with all my strength on the bear’s head, just at the moment that he fell upon me, and we rolled down the hill together. Upon recovering myself, I found that the blow of the axe had killed him instantly, and that I was uninjured. Not so the Indian: the whole calf of his left leg was bitten off, and his body lacerated dreadfully in various places. He was quite sensible, however, though very faint, and spoke to me when I stooped to examine his wounds. In a short time I had tied them up; and placing him on the sledge with part of the bear’s carcass, which I intended to dine upon, we returned immediately to the fort. The poor Indian got better slowly, but he never recovered the perfect use of his leg, and now hobbles about the fort, cutting firewood, or paddling about the lake in search of ducks and geese in his bark canoe.”
Mr Cumming concluded his story just as we arrived at the little bay, at the edge of which the Indian village of Rossville is built. From the spot where we stood the body of the village did not appear to much advantage; but the parsonage and church, which stood on a small mound, their white walls in strong contrast to the background of dark trees, had a fine picturesque effect. There were about twenty houses in the village, inhabited entirely by Indians, most of whom were young and middle-aged men. They spend their time in farming during the summer, and are successful in raising potatoes and a few other vegetables for their own use. In winter they go into the woods to hunt fur-bearing animals, and also deer; but they never remain long absent from their homes. Mr Evans resided among them, and taught them and their children writing and arithmetic, besides instructing them in the principles of Christianity. They often assembled in the school-house for prayer and sacred music, and attended divine service regularly in the church every Sunday. Mr Evans, who was a good musician, had taught them to sing in parts; and it has a wonderfully pleasing effect upon a stranger to hear these dingy sons and daughters of the wilderness raising their melodious voices in harmony in praise of the Christian’s God.
Upon our arrival at the village, we were ushered into Mr Evans’ neat cottage, from the windows of which is a fine view of Playgreen Lake, studded with small islands, stretching out to the horizon on the right, and a boundless wilderness of trees on the left. Here were collected the ladies and gentlemen of Norway House, and a number of indescribable personages, apparently engaged in mystic preparations for the approaching feast. It was with something like awe that I entered the schoolroom, and beheld two long rows of tables covered with puddings, pies, tarts, stews, hashes, and vegetables of all shapes, sizes, and descriptions, smoking thereon. I feared for the Indians, although they can stand a great deal in the way of repletion; moderation being, of course, out of the question, with such abundance of good things placed before them. A large shell was sounded after the manner of a bugle, and all the Indians of the village walked into the room and seated themselves, the women on one side of the long tables, and the men on the other. Mr Evans stood at the head, and asked a blessing; and then commenced a work of demolition, the like of which has not been seen since the foundation of the world! The pies had strong crusts, but the knives were stronger; the paste was hard and the interior tough, but Indian teeth were harder and Indian jaws tougher; the dishes were gigantic, but the stomachs were capacious, so that ere long numerous skeletons and empty dishes alone graced the board. One old woman, of a dark-brown complexion, with glittering black eyes and awfully long teeth, set up in the wholesale line, and demolished the viands so rapidly, that those who sat beside her, fearing a dearth in the land, began to look angry. Fortunately, however, she gave in suddenly, while in the middle of a venison pasty, and reclining languidly backward, with a sweetly contented expression of countenance, while her breath came thickly through her half-opened mouth, she gently fell asleep—and thereby, much to her chagrin, lost the tea and cakes which were served out soon afterwards by way of dessert. When the seniors had finished, the juveniles were admitted en masse, and they soon cleared away the remnants of the dinner.
The dress of the Indians upon this occasion was generally blue cloth capotes with hoods, scarlet or blue cloth leggins, quill-worked moccasins, and no caps. Some of them were dressed very funnily; and one or two of the oldest appeared in blue surtouts, which were very ill made, and much too large for the wearers. The ladies had short gowns without plaits, cloth leggins of various colours highly ornamented with beads, cotton handkerchiefs on their necks, and sometimes also on their heads. The boys and girls were just their seniors in miniature.
After the youngsters had finished dinner, the schoolroom was cleared by the guests; benches were ranged along the entire room, excepting the upper end, where a table, with two large candlesticks at either end, served as a stage for the young actors. When all was arranged, the elder Indians seated themselves on the benches, while the boys and girls ranged themselves along the wall behind the table. Mr Evans then began by causing a little boy about four years old to recite a long comical piece of prose in English. Having been well drilled for weeks beforehand, he did it in the most laughable style. Then came forward four little girls, who kept up an animated philosophical discussion as to the difference of the days in the moon and on the earth. Then a bigger boy made a long speech in the Seauteaux language, at which the Indians laughed immensely, and with which the white people present (who did not understand a word of it) appeared to be greatly delighted, and laughed loudly too. Then the whole of the little band, upon a sign being given by Mr Evans, burst at once into a really beautiful hymn, which was quite unexpected, and consequently all the more gratifying. This concluded the examination, if I may so call it; and after a short prayer the Indians departed to their homes, highly delighted with their entertainment. Such was the Christmas feast at Rossville, and many a laugh it afforded us that night as we returned home across the frozen lake by the pale moonlight.
Norway House is perhaps one of the best posts in the Indian country. The climate is dry and salubrious; and although (like nearly all the other parts of the country) extremely cold in winter, it is very different from the damp, chilling cold of that season in Great Britain. The country around is swampy and rocky, and covered with dense forests. Many of the Company’s posts are but ill provided with the necessaries of life, and entirely destitute of luxuries. Norway house, however, is favoured in this respect. We always had fresh meat of some kind or other; sometimes beef, mutton, or venison, and occasionally buffalo meat, was sent us from the Swan River district. Of tea, sugar, butter, and bread we had more than enough; and besides the produce of our garden in the way of vegetables, the river and lake contributed white-fish, sturgeon, and pike, or jack-fish, in abundance. The pike is not a delicate fish, and the sturgeon is extremely coarse, but the white-fish is the most delicate and delicious I ever ate. I am not aware of their existence in any part of the Old World, but the North American lakes abound with them. It is generally the size of a good salmon trout, of a bright silvery colour, and tastes a little like salmon. Many hundreds of fur-traders live almost entirely on white-fish, particularly at those far northern posts where flour, sugar, and tea cannot be had in great quantities, and where deer are scarce. At these posts the Indians are sometimes reduced to cannibalism, and the Company’s people have, on more than one occasion, been obliged to eat their beaver-skins! The beaver-skin is thick and oily, so that, when the fur is burned off, and the skin well boiled, it makes a kind of soup that will at least keep one alive. Starvation is quite common among the Indians of those distant regions; and the scraped rocks, divested of their covering of tripe-de-roche (which resembles dried-up seaweed), have a sad meaning and melancholy appearance to the traveller who journeys through the wilds and solitudes of Rupert’s Land.
Norway House is also an agreeable and interesting place, from its being in a manner the gate to the only route to Hudson Bay, so that during the spring and summer months all the brigades of boats and canoes from every part of the northern department must necessarily pass it on their way to York Factory with furs: and as they all return in the autumn, and some of the gentlemen leave their wives and families for a few weeks till they return to the interior, it is at this sunny season of the year quite gay and bustling; and the clerks’ house, in which I lived, was often filled with a strange and noisy collection of human beings, who rested here a while ere they started for the shores of Hudson Bay, for the distant region of Mackenzie River, or the still more distant land of Oregon.
During winter our principal amusement was white-partridge shooting. This bird is a species of ptarmigan, and is pure white, with the exception of the tips of the wings and tail. They were very numerous during the winter, and formed an agreeable dish at our mess-table. I also enjoyed a little skating at the beginning of the winter; but the falling snow soon put an end to this amusement.
Spring, beautiful spring! returned again to cheer us in our solitude, and to open into life the waters and streams of Hudson Bay. Great will be the difference between the reader’s idea of that season in that place and the reality. Spring, with its fresh green leaves and opening flowers, its emerald fields and shady groves, filled with sounds of melody! No, reader; that is not the spring we depict: not quite so beautiful, though far more prized by those who spend a monotonous winter of more than six months in solitude. The sun shines brightly in a cloudless sky, lighting up the pure white fields and plains with dazzling brilliancy. The gushing waters of a thousand rills, formed by the melting snow, break sweetly on the ear, like the well-remembered voice of a long-absent friend. The whistling wings of wild-fowl, as they ever and anon desert the pools of water now open in the lake and hurry over the forest-trees, accord well with the shrill cry of the yellow-leg and curlew, and with the general wildness of the scene; while the reviving frogs chirrup gladly in the swamps to see the breaking up of winter and welcome back the spring. This is the spring I write of; and to have a correct idea of the beauties and the sweetness of this spring, you must first spend a winter in Hudson Bay.
As I said, then, spring returned. The ice melted, floated off, and vanished. Jack River flowed gently on its way, as if it had never gone to sleep; and the lake rolled and tumbled on its shores, as if to congratulate them on the happy change. Soon the boats began to arrive. First came the “Portage Brigade,” in charge of L’Esperance. There were seven or eight boats; and ere long as many fires burned on the green beside the fort, with a merry, careless band of wild-looking Canadian and half-breed voyageurs round each. And a more picturesque set of fellows I never saw. They were all dressed out in new light-blue capotes and corduroy trousers, which they tied at the knee with beadwork garters. Moose-skin moccasins cased their feet, and their brawny, sunburned necks were bare. A scarlet belt encircled the waist of each; and while some wore hats with gaudy feathers, others had their heads adorned with caps and bonnets, surrounded with gold and silver tinsel hat-cords. A few, however, despising coats, travelled in blue and white striped shirts, and trusted to their thickly-matted hair to guard them from the rain and sun. They were truly a wild yet handsome set of men; and no one, when gazing on their happy faces as they lay or stood in careless attitudes round the fires, puffing clouds of smoke from their ever-burning pipes, would have believed that these men had left their wives and families but the week before, to start on a five months’ voyage of the most harassing description, fraught with the dangers of the boiling cataracts and foaming rapids of the interior.
They stopped at Norway House on their way, to receive the outfit of goods for the Indian trade of Athabasca (one of the interior districts); and were then to start for Portage la Loche, a place where the whole cargoes are carried on the men’s sh............