Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.Constant progress—Woman’s sad condition in paganism—Illustrations—Wondrous changes produced by Christianity—Illustrations—New Year’s Day Christian Festival—The aged and feeble ones first remembered—Closing Thanksgiving services.We found ourselves in a Christian village surrounded by paganism. The contrast between the two classes was very evident.Our Christians, as fast as they were able to build, were living in comfortable houses, and earnestly endeavouring to lift themselves up in the social circle. Their personal appearance was better, and cleanliness was accepted as next to godliness. On the Sabbaths they were well dressed, and presented such a respectable and devout appearance in the sanctuary as to win the admiration of all who visited us. The great majority of those who made a profession of faith lived honest, sober, and consistent lives, and thus showed the genuineness of the change wrought in them by the glorious Gospel of the Son of God.One of the most delightful and tangible evidences of the thoroughness and genuineness of the change was seen in the improvement in the family life. Such a thing as genuine home life, with mutual love and sympathy existing among the different members of the family, was unknown in their pagan state. The men, and even boys, considered it a sign of courage and manliness to despise and shamefully treat their mothers, wives, or sisters. Christianity changed all this; and we were constant witnesses of the genuineness of the change wrought in the hearts and lives of this people by the preaching of the Gospel, by seeing how woman was uplifted from her degraded position to her true place in the household.My heart was often pained at what I saw among some of the wild savage bands around us. When, by canoe in summer, or dog-train in winter, I have visited these wild men, I have seen the proud, lazy hunter come stalking into the camp with his gun on his shoulder, and in loud, imperative tones shout out to his poor wife, who was busily engaged in cutting wood, “Get up there, you dog, my squaw, and go back on my tracks in the woods, and bring in the deer I have shot; and hurry, for I want my food!” To quicken her steps, although she was hurrying as rapidly as possible, a stick was thrown at her, which fortunately she was able to dodge.Seizing the long carrying strap, which is a piece of leather several feet in length, and wide at the middle, where it rests against the forehead when in use, she rapidly glides away on the trail made by her husband’s snow-shoes, it may be for miles, to the spot where lies the deer he has shot. Fastening one end of the strap to the haunches of the deer, and the other around its neck, after a good deal of effort and ingenuity, she succeeds at length in getting the animal, which may weigh from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds, upon her back, supported by the strap across her forehead. Panting with fatigue, she comes in with her heavy burden, and as she throws it down she is met with a sharp stern command from the lips of the despot called her husband, who has thought it beneath his dignity to carry in the deer himself, but who imagines it to be a sign of his being a great brave thus to treat his wife. The gun was enough for him to carry. Without giving the poor tired creature a moment’s rest, he shouts out again for her to hurry up and be quick; he is hungry, and wants his dinner.The poor woman, although almost exhausted, knows full well, by the bitter experiences of the past, that to delay an instant would bring upon herself severe punishment, and so she quickly seizes the scalping knife and deftly skins the animal, and fills a pot with the savoury venison, which is soon boiled and placed before his highness. While he, and the men and boys whom he may choose to invite to eat with him, are rapidly devouring the venison, the poor woman has her first moments of rest. She goes and seats herself down where women and girls and dogs are congregated, and there women and dogs struggle for the half-picked bones which the men, with derisive laughter, throw among them!This was one of the sad aspects of paganism which I often had to witness as I travelled among those bands that had not, up to that time, accepted the Gospel. When these poor women get old and feeble, very sad and deplorable is their condition. When able to toil and slave, they are tolerated as necessary evils. When aged and weak, they are shamefully neglected, and, often, put out of existence.One of the missionaries, on visiting a pagan band, preached from those blessed words of the Saviour: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In his sermon he spoke about life’s toils and burdens, and how all men had to work and labour. The men of the congregation were very angry at him; and at an indignation meeting which they held, they said, “Let him go to the squaws with that kind of talk. They have to carry all the heavy burdens, and do the hard work. Such stuff as that is not for us men, but for the women.” So they were offended at him.At a small Indian settlement on the north-eastern shores of Lake Winnipeg lived a chief by the name of Moo-koo-woo-soo, who deliberately strangled his mother, and then burnt her body to ashes. When questioned about the horrid deed, he coolly and heartlessly said that as she had become too old to snare rabbits or catch fish, he was not going to be bothered with keeping her, and so he deliberately put her to death. Such instances could be multiplied many times. Truly “the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”In delightful contrast to these sad sights among the degraded savages around us, were the kindly ways and happy homes of our converted Indians. Among them a woman occupied her true position, and was well and lovingly treated. The aged and infirm, who but for the Gospel would have been dealt with as Moo-koo-woo-soo dealt with his mother, had the warmest place in the little home and the daintiest morsel on the table. I have seen the sexton of the church throw wide open the door of the sanctuary, that two stalwart young men might easily enter, carrying in their arms their invalid mother, who had expressed a desire to come to the house of God. Tenderly they supported her until the service ended, and then they lovingly carried her home again. But for the Gospel’s blessed influences on their haughty natures they would have died ere doing such a thing for a woman, even though she were their own mother.Life for the women was not now all slavery. They had their happy hours, and knew well how to enjoy them. Nothing, however, seemed so to delight them as to be gliding about in the glorious summer time in their light canoes. And sometimes, combining pleasure with profit, many a duck was shot by these young Indian maidens.This changed feeling towards the aged and afflicted ones we have seen manifested in a very expressive and blessed way at the great annual New Year’s Feast. It was customary for the Indians, long before they became Christians, to have a great feast at the beginning of the New Year. In the old times, the principal article of food at these horrid feasts was dogs, the eating of which was accompanied by many revolting ceremonies. The missionaries, instead of abolishing the feast, turned it into a religious festival. I carried out the methods of my worthy predecessors at Norway House, and so we had a feast every New Year’s Day.The Crees call this day “Ooche-me-gou Kesigow,” which literally means “the kissing day,” as on this day the men claim the right to kiss every woman they meet; and, strange to say, every woman expects to be kissed. It used to amuse me very much to see thirty or forty Indians, dressed up in their finest apparel, come quietly marching into the Mission House, and gravely kiss Mrs Young on her cheek. When I used to rally her over this strange phase of unexpected missionary experience, she would laughingly retort, “O, you need not laugh at me. See that crowd of women out there in the yard, expecting you to go out and kiss them!” It was surprising how much work thatday kept me shut in my study; or if that expedient would not avail, I used to select a dear old sweet-faced, white-haired grandma, the mother of the chief, and say, “Now I am going to kiss grandma; and as I kiss her you must all consider yourselves kissed.” This institution is more ancient among them than shaking hands, about which they knew nothing until it was introduced by the whites.For weeks before New Year’s Day great preparations were made for the feast. A council would be called, and the men would have recorded what they were willing to give towards it. Some, who were good deer-hunters, promised venison. Others promised so many beavers. Perhaps there were those who knew where bears had made their winter dens, and they agreed to go and kill them for the feast. Others, who were good fur-hunters, stated their willingness to exchange some of the furs they would catch for flour and tea and sugar at the trading post.Thus the business went on, until enough was promised, with the liberal supplies given by the Hudson’s Bay Company’s officials and the missionary, to make the affair a great success. An outbuilding of the Mission, called “the fish house,” was the place where all these various things, as they were obtained, were stored. Months were sometimes consumed in collecting the meat. But Jack Frost is a good preservative, and so nothing spoiled. A few days before the feast, Mrs Young would select several of the Indian women, and under her superintendency the various supplies would be cooked. Very clever were these willing helpers; and in a short time a quantity of food would be piled up, sufficient for all, although it is well known that Indians have good appetites.When the great day arrived, the men quickly removed the seats out of the church, and there put up long tables. Great boilers of tea were made ready, and every preparation was completed for a good time. But, before a mouthful was eaten by any of the eight hundred or thousand persons present, the chief used to ask me for a pencil and a piece of writing paper; and then, standing up on a box or bench, he would shout out, “How many of our people are aged, or sick, or afflicted, and cannot be with us to-day!” As one name after another was mentioned,he rapidly wrote them down. Then he read over the list, and said, “Let us not forget any one.” Somebody shouted out, “There is an old woman ten miles up the river towards the old Fort.” Somebody else said, “Have you the name of that boy who was accidentally shot in the leg?” Their names were both put down. Then somebody says, “There are two or three left behind in the tent of the pagans, while the rest have come to the feast.” “Let us feed those who have come, and send something with our kind greetings to the others,” is the unanimous response.When it was certain that none had been overlooked, request was made to me for all the old newspapers and packing paper I could give them, and soon loving hands were busily engaged in cutting off large pieces of different kinds of meat and arranging them with the large flat cakes in generous bundles. To these were added little packages of tea and sugar. In this way as many large bundles—each containing an assortment of everything at the feast—would be made up as there were names on the paper. Then the chief would call in, from where the young men were busily engaged in playing football, as many of the fleet runners as there were bundles, and giving each his load, would indicate the person to whom he was to give it, and also would add, “Give them our New Year’s greetings and sympathy, and tell them we are sorry they cannot be with us to-day.”Very delightful were these sights to us. Such things paid us a thousandfold for our hardships and sufferings. Here, before a mouthful was eaten by the healthy and vigorous ones, large generous bundles, that would last for days, were sent off to the aged and infirm or wounded ones, who in all probability, but for the blessed influences of the Gospel, if not quickly and cruelly put out of existence, would have been allowed to linger on in neglect and wretchedness.Even the young runners seemed to consider that it was an honour to be permitted to carry these bundles, with the loving messages, to the distant homes or wigwams where the afflicted ones were. It was quite amusing to watch them tighten up their belts and dash off like deers. Some of them had several miles to go; but what cared they on this glad day?According to seniority the tables were filled, and the feast began as soon as the “Grace before Meat” had been sung. Mrs Young had her own long table, and to it she invited not only the Hudson’s Bay Company’s people, but as many of the aged and worthy from among the poor Indians as we wished specially to honour. Sometimes we filled one table with wild pagans who had come in from some distant forest home, attracted by the reports of the coming great feast. Through their stomachs we sometimes reached their hearts, and won them to Christ.Thus for hours the feast continued, until all had been supplied. None were neglected, and everybody was happy. Then with a glad heart they sang:“Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow.”When all the guests were satisfied, what was left was carried off by the needy ones, among whom it was generously divided; the tables were quickly taken down by the men, and the church was speedily swept clean by some active women. The seats and pews were replaced, and every arrangement was made for the great annual New Year’s Meeting. The church was lit up; and when the audience had gathered, a chairman was appointed, and, after singing and prayer, speeches were made by several of the Indians.Many pleasant and many sensible things were said. Some of the sober-minded ones reviewed the year just gone, with all its blessings and mercies, and expressed the hope that the one on which they had entered would be crowned with blessings. Some of the speeches referred to Treaty matters with the Government, and others were in reference to their huntings and fisheries. Some were bright and witty, and were received with laughter and applause. Others were of a serious, religious character, and were equally welcome, and touched responsive hearts. With pleasure I noticed that in them all the most frequent word was “Na-nas-koomoo-win-ah,” which means “Thanksgiving,” and for this my heart rejoiced. Thus ended, with the Doxology and Benediction, these happy days, in which we saw so many evidences that the preaching of the Gospel had not been in vain.

We found ourselves in a Christian village surrounded by paganism. The contrast between the two classes was very evident.

Our Christians, as fast as they were able to build, were living in comfortable houses, and earnestly endeavouring to lift themselves up in the social circle. Their personal appearance was better, and cleanliness was accepted as next to godliness. On the Sabbaths they were well dressed, and presented such a respectable and devout appearance in the sanctuary as to win the admiration of all who visited us. The great majority of those who made a profession of faith lived honest, sober, and consistent lives, and thus showed the genuineness of the change wrought in them by the glorious Gospel of the Son of God.

One of the most delightful and tangible evidences of the thoroughness and genuineness of the change was seen in the improvement in the family life. Such a thing as genuine home life, with mutual love and sympathy existing among the different members of the family, was unknown in their pagan state. The men, and even boys, considered it a sign of courage and manliness to despise and shamefully treat their mothers, wives, or sisters. Christianity changed all this; and we were constant witnesses of the genuineness of the change wrought in the hearts and lives of this people by the preaching of the Gospel, by seeing how woman was uplifted from her degraded position to her true place in the household.

My heart was often pained at what I saw among some of the wild savage bands around us. When, by canoe in summer, or dog-train in winter, I have visited these wild men, I have seen the proud, lazy hunter come stalking into the camp with his gun on his shoulder, and in loud, imperative tones shout out to his poor wife, who was busily engaged in cutting wood, “Get up there, you dog, my squaw, and go back on my tracks in the woods, and bring in the deer I have shot; and hurry, for I want my food!” To quicken her steps, although she was hurrying as rapidly as possible, a stick was thrown at her, which fortunately she was able to dodge.

Seizing the long carrying strap, which is a piece of leather several feet in length, and wide at the middle, where it rests against the forehead when in use, she rapidly glides away on the trail made by her husband’s snow-shoes, it may be for miles, to the spot where lies the deer he has shot. Fastening one end of the strap to the haunches of the deer, and the other around its neck, after a good deal of effort and ingenuity, she succeeds at length in getting the animal, which may weigh from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds, upon her back, supported by the strap across her forehead. Panting with fatigue, she comes in with her heavy burden, and as she throws it down she is met with a sharp stern command from the lips of the despot called her husband, who has thought it beneath his dignity to carry in the deer himself, but who imagines it to be a sign of his being a great brave thus to treat his wife. The gun was enough for him to carry. Without giving the poor tired creature a moment’s rest, he shouts out again for her to hurry up and be quick; he is hungry, and wants his dinner.

The poor woman, although almost exhausted, knows full well, by the bitter experiences of the past, that to delay an instant would bring upon herself severe punishment, and so she quickly seizes the scalping knife and deftly skins the animal, and fills a pot with the savoury venison, which is soon boiled and placed before his highness. While he, and the men and boys whom he may choose to invite to eat with him, are rapidly devouring the venison, the poor woman has her first moments of rest. She goes and seats herself down where women and girls and dogs are congregated, and there women and dogs struggle for the half-picked bones which the men, with derisive laughter, throw among them!

This was one of the sad aspects of paganism which I often had to witness as I travelled among those bands that had not, up to that time, accepted the Gospel. When these poor women get old and feeble, very sad and deplorable is their condition. When able to toil and slave, they are tolerated as necessary evils. When aged and weak, they are shamefully neglected, and, often, put out of existence.

One of the missionaries, on visiting a pagan band, preached from those blessed words of the Saviour: “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In his sermon he spoke about life’s toils and burdens, and how all men had to work and labour. The men of the congregation were very angry at him; and at an indignation meeting which they held, they said, “Let him go to the squaws with that kind of talk. They have to carry all the heavy burdens, and do the hard work. Such stuff as that is not for us men, but for the women.” So they were offended at him.

At a small Indian settlement on the north-eastern shores of Lake Winnipeg lived a chief by the name of Moo-koo-woo-soo, who deliberately strangled his mother, and then burnt her body to ashes. When questioned about the horrid deed, he coolly and heartlessly said that as she had become too old to snare rabbits or catch fish, he was not going to be bothered with keeping her, and so he deliberately put her to death. Such instances could be multiplied many times. Truly “the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

In delightful contrast to these sad sights among the degraded savages around us, were the kindly ways and happy homes of our converted Indians. Among them a woman occupied her true position, and was well and lovingly treated. The aged and infirm, who but for the Gospel would have been dealt with as Moo-koo-woo-soo dealt with his mother, had the warmest place in the little home and the daintiest morsel on the table. I have seen the sexton of the church throw wide open the door of the sanctuary, that two stalwart young men might easily enter, carrying in their arms their invalid mother, who had expressed a desire to come to the house of God. Tenderly they supported her until the service ended, and then they lovingly carried her home again. But for the Gospel’s blessed influences on their haughty natures they would have died ere doing such a thing for a woman, even though she were their own mother.

Life for the women was not now all slavery. They had their happy hours, and knew well how to enjoy them. Nothing, however, seemed so to delight them as to be gliding about in the glorious summer time in their light canoes. And sometimes, combining pleasure with profit, many a duck was shot by these young Indian maidens.

This changed feeling towards the aged and afflicted ones we have seen manifested in a very expressive and blessed way at the great annual New Year’s Feast. It was customary for the Indians, long before they became Christians, to have a great feast at the beginning of the New Year. In the old times, the principal article of food at these horrid feasts was dogs, the eating of which was accompanied by many revolting ceremonies. The missionaries, instead of abolishing the feast, turned it into a religious festival. I carried out the methods of my worthy predecessors at Norway House, and so we had a feast every New Year’s Day.

The Crees call this day “Ooche-me-gou Kesigow,” which literally means “the kissing day,” as on this day the men claim the right to kiss every woman they meet; and, strange to say, every woman expects to be kissed. It used to amuse me very much to see thirty or forty Indians, dressed up in their finest apparel, come quietly marching into the Mission House, and gravely kiss Mrs Young on her cheek. When I used to rally her over this strange phase of unexpected missionary experience, she would laughingly retort, “O, you need not laugh at me. See that crowd of women out there in the yard, expecting you to go out and kiss them!” It was surprising how much work thatday kept me shut in my study; or if that expedient would not avail, I used to select a dear old sweet-faced, white-haired grandma, the mother of the chief, and say, “Now I am going to kiss grandma; and as I kiss her you must all consider yourselves kissed.” This institution is more ancient among them than shaking hands, about which they knew nothing until it was introduced by the whites.

For weeks before New Year’s Day great preparations were made for the feast. A council would be called, and the men would have recorded what they were willing to give towards it. Some, who were good deer-hunters, promised venison. Others promised so many beavers. Perhaps there were those who knew where bears had made their winter dens, and they agreed to go and kill them for the feast. Others, who were good fur-hunters, stated their willingness to exchange some of the furs they would catch for flour and tea and sugar at the trading post.

Thus the business went on, until enough was promised, with the liberal supplies given by the Hudson’s Bay Company’s officials and the missionary, to make the affair a great success. An outbuilding of the Mission, called “the fish house,” was the place where all these various things, as they were obtained, were stored. Months were sometimes consumed in collecting the meat. But Jack Frost is a good preservative, and so nothing spoiled. A few days before the feast, Mrs Young would select several of the Indian women, and under her superintendency the various supplies would be cooked. Very clever were these willing helpers; and in a short time a quantity of food would be piled up, sufficient for all, although it is well known that Indians have good appetites.

When the great day arrived, the men quickly removed the seats out of the church, and there put up long tables. Great boilers of tea were made ready, and every preparation was completed for a good time. But, before a mouthful was eaten by any of the eight hundred or thousand persons present, the chief used to ask me for a pencil and a piece of writing paper; and then, standing up on a box or bench, he would shout out, “How many of our people are aged, or sick, or afflicted, and cannot be with us to-day!” As one name after another was mentioned,he rapidly wrote them down. Then he read over the list, and said, “Let us not forget any one.” Somebody shouted out, “There is an old woman ten miles up the river towards the old Fort.” Somebody else said, “Have you the name of that boy who was accidentally shot in the leg?” Their names were both put down. Then somebody says, “There are two or three left behind in the tent of the pagans, while the rest have come to the feast.” “Let us feed those who have come, and send something with our kind greetings to the others,” is the unanimous response.

When it was certain that none had been overlooked, request was made to me for all the old newspapers and packing paper I could give them, and soon loving hands were busily engaged in cutting off large pieces of different kinds of meat and arranging them with the large flat cakes in generous bundles. To these were added little packages of tea and sugar. In this way as many large bundles—each containing an assortment of everything at the feast—would be made up as there were names on the paper. Then the chief would call in, from where the young men were busily engaged in playing football, as many of the fleet runners as there were bundles, and giving each his load, would indicate the person to whom he was to give it, and also would add, “Give them our New Year’s greetings and sympathy, and tell them we are sorry they cannot be with us to-day.”

Very delightful were these sights to us. Such things paid us a thousandfold for our hardships and sufferings. Here, before a mouthful was eaten by the healthy and vigorous ones, large generous bundles, that would last for days, were sent off to the aged and infirm or wounded ones, who in all probability, but for the blessed influences of the Gospel, if not quickly and cruelly put out of existence, would have been allowed to linger on in neglect and wretchedness.

Even the young runners seemed to consider that it was an honour to be permitted to carry these bundles, with the loving messages, to the distant homes or wigwams where the afflicted ones were. It was quite amusing to watch them tighten up their belts and dash off like deers. Some of them had several miles to go; but what cared they on this glad day?

According to seniority the tables were filled, and the feast began as soon as the “Grace before Meat” had been sung. Mrs Young had her own long table, and to it she invited not only the Hudson’s Bay Company’s people, but as many of the aged and worthy from among the poor Indians as we wished specially to honour. Sometimes we filled one table with wild pagans who had come in from some distant forest home, attracted by the reports of the coming great feast. Through their stomachs we sometimes reached their hearts, and won them to Christ.

Thus for hours the feast continued, until all had been supplied. None were neglected, and everybody was happy. Then with a glad heart they sang:

“Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow.”

“Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow.”

When all the guests were satisfied, what was left was carried off by the needy ones, among whom it was generously divided; the tables were quickly taken down by the men, and the church was speedily swept clean by some active women. The seats and pews were replaced, and every arrangement was made for the great annual New Year’s Meeting. The church was lit up; and when the audience had gathered, a chairman was appointed, and, after singing and prayer, speeches were made by several of the Indians.

Many pleasant and many sensible things were said. Some of the sober-minded ones reviewed the year just gone, with all its blessings and mercies, and expressed the hope that the one on which they had entered would be crowned with blessings. Some of the speeches referred to Treaty matters with the Government, and others were in reference to their huntings and fisheries. Some were bright and witty, and were received with laughter and applause. Others were of a serious, religious character, and were equally welcome, and touched responsive hearts. With pleasure I noticed that in them all the most frequent word was “Na-nas-koomoo-win-ah,” which means “Thanksgiving,” and for this my heart rejoiced. Thus ended, with the Doxology and Benediction, these happy days, in which we saw so many evidences that the preaching of the Gospel had not been in vain.

Chapter Five.Oxford House mission—Visited by canoe—Description of this useful craft-Indian skill—Oxford Lake—Dr Taylor—Edward Papanekis—Still on the trail by birch canoe—Narrow escape from being crushed by the ice—On stormy Lake Winnipeg—Pioneering farther north—Successes—“Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us”—Christ accepted in the place of idols.I had received instructions from the Missionary Secretaries to visit Oxford Mission as soon as possible, and to do all I could for its upbuilding. This Mission had had a good measure of success in years gone by. A church and Mission house had been built at Jackson’s Bay, and many of the Indians had been converted. But the village was too far from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Post, where the Indians traded, and where naturally they gathered. For several years the work had been left in charge of a native teacher. The people regretted the absence of an ordained Missionary, and the place suffered accordingly. Making all the arrangements I could for the successful prosecution of the work in my absence, I left Norway House in a small canoe, manned by two of my Christian Indians, one of whom was my interpreter. With this wonderful little boat I was now to make my first intimate acquaintance. For this wild land of broad lakes and rapid rivers and winding creeks, the birch-bark canoe is the boat of all others most admirably fitted. It is to the Indian denizen here what the horse is to his more warlike red brother on the great prairies, or what the camel is to those who live and wander amidst Arabian deserts. The canoe is absolutely essential to these natives in this land, where there are no other roads than the intricate devious water routes. It is the frailest of all boats, yet it can be loaded down to the water’s edge, and, under the skilful guidance of these Indians, who are unquestionably the finest canoe men in the world, it can be made to respond to the sweep of their paddles, so that it seems almost instinct with life and reason. What they can do in it, and with it, appeared to me at times perfectly marvellous. Yet when we remember that for about five months of every year some of the hunters almost live in it, this may not seem so very wonderful. It carries them by day, and in it, or under it, they often sleep by night. At the many portages which have to be made in this land, where the rivers are so full of falls and rapids, one man can easily carry it on his head to the smooth water beyond. In it we have travelled thousands of miles, while going from place to place with the blessed tidings of salvation to these wandering bands scattered over my immense Circuit. Down the wild rapids we have rushed for miles together, and then out into great Winnipeg, or other lakes, so far from shore that the distant headlands were scarce visible. Foam-crested waves have often seemed as though about to overwhelm us, and treacherous gales to swamp us, yet my faithful, well-trained canoe men were always equal to every emergency, and by the accuracy of their judgment, and the quickness of their movements, appeared ever to do exactly the right thing at the right moment. As the result, I came at length to feel as much at home in a canoe as anywhere else, and with God’s blessing was permitted to make many long trips to those who could not be reached in any other way, except by dog-trains in winter.Good canoe-makers are not many, and so really good canoes are always in demand.Frail and light as this Indian craft may be, there is a great deal of skill and ingenuity required in its construction.Great care is requisite in taking the bark from the tree. A long incision is first made longitudinally in the trunk of the tree. Then, from this cut, the Indian begins, and with his keen knife gradually peels off the whole of the bark, as high up as his incision went, in one large piece or sheet. And even now thathe has safely got it off the tree, the greatest care is necessary in handling it, as it will split or crack very easily. Cedar is preferred for the woodwork, and when it can possibly be obtained, is always used. But in the section of the country where I lived, as we were north of the cedar limit, the canoe-makers used pieces of the spruce tree, split very thin, as the best substitute for cedar that our country afforded.All the sewing of the pieces of birch bark together, and the fastening of the whole to the outer frame, is done with the long slender roots of the balsam or larch trees, which are soaked and rubbed until they are as flexible as narrow strips of leather. When all the sewing is done, the many narrow limber pieces of spruce are crowded into their places, giving the whole canoe its requisite proportions and strength. Then the seams and weak spots are well covered over with melted pitch, which the Indians obtain from the spruce and balsam trees.Great care is taken to make the canoe watertight. To accomplish this, the boat is often swung between trees and filled with water. Every place where the slightest leak is discovered is marked, and, when the canoe is emptied, is carefully attended to.Canoes vary in style and size. Each tribe using them has its own patterns, and it was to me an ever interesting sight, to observe how admirably suited to the character of the lakes and rivers were the canoes of each tribe or district.The finest and largest canoes were those formerly made by the Lake Superior Indians. Living on the shores of that great inland sea, they required canoes of great size and strength. These “great north canoes,” as they were called, could easily carry from a dozen to a score of paddlers, with a cargo of a couple of tons of goods. In the old days of the rival fur-traders, these great canoes played a very prominent part. Before steam or even large sailing vessels had penetrated into those northern lakes, these canoes were extensively used, loaded with the rich furs of those wild forests, they used to come down into the Ottawa, and thence on down that great stream, often even as far as to Montreal.Sir George Simpson, the energetic but despotic and unprincipledgovernor of the Hudson’s Bay Company for many years, used to travel in one of these birch canoes all the way from Montreal up the Ottawa on through Lake Nipissing into Georgian Bay; from thence into Lake Superior, on to Thunder Bay. From this place, with indomitable pluck, he pushed on back into the interior, through the Lake of the Woods, down the tortuous river Winnipeg into the lake of the same name. Along the whole length of this lake he annually travelled, in spite of its treacherous storms and annoying head winds, to preside over the Council and attend to the business of the wealthiest fur-trading company that ever existed, over which he watched with eagle eye, and in every department of which his distinct personality was felt. His famous Iroquois crew are still talked about, and marvellous are the stories in circulation about many a northern camp fire of their endurance and skill.How rapid the changes which are taking place in this world of ours! It seems almost incredible, in these days of mighty steamships going almost everywhere on our great waters, to think that there are hundreds of people still living who distinctly remember when the annual trips of a great governor were made from Montreal to Winnipeg in a birch-bark Canoe, manned by Indians.Of this light Indian craft Longfellow wrote:—“Give me of your bark, O Birch tree!Of your yellow bark, O Birch tree!Growing by the rushing river,Tall and stately in the valley!I a light canoe will build me,Build a swift canoe for sailing.“Thus the Birch canoe was buildedIn the valley, by the river,In the bosom of the forest;All its mystery and its magic,All the brightness of the birch tree,All the toughness of the cedar,All the larch trees supple sinews;And it floated on the riverLike a yellow leaf in autumn,Like a yellow water-lily.”We left for Oxford Mission on the 8th of September. The distance is over two hundred miles, through the wildest country imaginable. We did not see a house—with the exception of those built by the beavers—from the time we left our Mission home until we reached our destination. We paddled through a bewildering variety of picturesque lakes, rivers, and creeks. When no storms or fierce head-winds impeded us, we were able to make fifty or sixty miles a day. When night overtook us, we camped on the shore. Sometimes it was very pleasant and romantic. At other times, when storms raged and we were drenched with the rain so thoroughly that for days we had not a dry stitch upon us, it was not quite so agreeable.We generally began our day’s journey very early in the morning, if the weather was at all favourable, and paddled on as rapidly as possible, since we knew not when head-winds might arise and stop our progress. The Oxford route is a very diversified one. There are lakes, large and small, across which we had to paddle. In some of them, when the wind was favourable, our Indians improvised a sail out of one of our blankets. Lashing it to a couple of oars, they lifted it up in the favouring wind, and thus very rapidly did we speed on our way.At times we were in broad beautiful rivers, and then paddling along in little narrow creeks amidst the reeds and rushes. We passed over, or, as they say in that country, “made” nine portages around picturesque falls or rapids. In these portages one of the Indians carried the canoe on his head. The other made a great load of the bedding and provisions, all of which he carried on his back. My load consisted of the two guns, ammunition, two kettles, the bag containing my changes of raiment, and a package of books for the Indians we were to visit. How the Indians could run so quickly through the portages was to me a marvel. Often the path was but a narrow ledge of rock against the side of the great granite cliff. At other times it was through the quaking bog or treacherous muskeg. To them it seemed to make no difference. On they went with their heavy loads at that swinging Indian stride which soon left me far behind. On some of my canoe trips the portages were several miles long, andthrough regions so wild that there was nothing to indicate to me the right direction. When we were making them, I used to follow on as long as I knew I was in the right way. When I lost the trail, I at once stopped and patiently waited until one of my faithful men, having carried his load safely to the end, would come back for me. Quickly picking up my load, he would hurry off, and even then, unencumbered as I was, it was often as much as I could do to keep up with him.Oxford Lake is one of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes I ever saw. It is between twenty and thirty miles long and several miles wide. It is studded with islands of every imaginable variety. Its waters are almost as transparent as the clear, fresh air above it. When no breath ripples its surface, one can look down into its crystal depths and see, many feet below, the great fish quietly moving about.To visit the Indians who fish in its waters, and hunt upon its shores, I once brought one of our Missionary Secretaries, the eloquent Reverend Lachlin Taylor, DD. The trip down had not been one of the most pleasant. The rains had drenched him, and the mosquitoes had plagued him with such persistency, that he loudly bemoaned his lot in being found in a country that was cursed with such abominable animals.One night I heard him muttering between his efforts to get them out of his tent, where he declared they were attacking him in battalions:—“They throng the air, and darken heaven,And curse this Western land.”However, when we reached Oxford Lake, the mosquitoes left us for a time. The sun came out in splendour, and we had some days of rarest beauty. The good doctor regained his spirits, and laughed when I rallied him on some of his strong expressions about the country, and told him that I hoped, as the result of his experience, he, as all Missionary Secretaries ought, would have a good deal of sympathy for the Missionaries who live in such regions for years together.We camped for the night on one of the most picturesque points. We had two canoes, and to man them four Indians from our Norway House Mission. As the doctor was an enthusiastic fisherman, he decided that we must stop there during the forenoon, while he tried his hand. His first haul was a splendid pike over two feet long. Great was his excitement as his success was assured. Eloquence poured from him; we were flooded with it. The Indians looked on in amazement while he talked of the beauties of the lake and islands, of the water and the sky.“Wait a moment, doctor,” I said. “I can add to the wild beauty of the place something that will please your artistic eye.”I requested two fine-looking Indians to launch one of the canoes, and to quietly paddle out to the edge of an island which abruptly rose from the deep, clear waters before us, the top of which had on it a number of splendid spruce and balsams, massed together in natural beauty. I directed the men to drop over the side of the canoe a long fishing line, and then, posing them in striking attitudes in harmony with the place, I asked them to keep perfectly still until every ripple made by their canoe had died away.I confess I was entranced by the loveliness of the sight. The reflections of the canoe and men, and of the islands and rocks, were as vivid as the actual realities. So clear and transparent was the water, that where it and the air met there seemed but a narrow thread between the two elements. Not a breath of air stirred, not a ripple moved. It was one of those sights which come to us but seldom in a lifetime, where everything is in perfect unison, and God gives us glimpses of what this world, His footstool, must have been before sin entered.“Doctor,” I said quietly, for my heart was full of the Doxology, “tell me what you think of that vision.”Standing up, with a great rock beneath his feet, in a voice of suppressed emotion he began. Quietly at first he spoke, but soon he was carried away with his own eloquence:—“I know well the lochs of my own beloved Scotland, for in many of them I have rowed and fished. I have visited all the famed lakes of Ireland, and have rowed on those in the Lake counties of England. I have travelled far and oft on our greatAmerican lakes, and have seen Tahoe, in all its crystal beauty. I have rowed on the Bosphorus, and travelled in a felucca on the Nile. I have lingered in the gondola on the canals of Venice, and have traced Rob Roy’s canoe in the Sea of Galilee, and on the old historic Jordan. I have seen, in my wanderings in many lands, places of rarest beauty, but the equal of this mine eyes have never gazed upon.”Never after did I see the lake as we saw it that day.On it we have had to battle against fierce storms, where the angry waves seemed determined to engulf us. Once, in speeding along as well as we could from island to island, keeping in the lee as much as possible, we ran upon a sharp rock and stove a hole in our canoe. We had to use our paddles desperately to reach the shore, and when we had done so, we found our canoe half-full of water, in which our bedding and food were soaked. We hurriedly built a fire, melted some pitch, and mended our canoe, and hurried on.On this lake, which can give us such pictures of wondrous beauty, I have encountered some of the greatest gales and tempests against which I have ever had to contend, even in this land of storms and blizzards. Then in winter, upon its frozen surface it used to seem to me that the Frost King held high carnival. Terrible were the sufferings of both dogs and men on some of those trips. One winter, in spite of all the wraps I could put around me, making it possible for me to run—for riding was out of the question, so intense was the cold—every part of my face exposed to the pitiless blast was frozen. My nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and even lips, were badly frozen, and for days after I suffered. Cuffy, the best of my Newfoundland dogs, had all of her feet frozen, and even Jack’s were sore for many a day after. My loyal Indians suffered also, and we all declared Oxford Lake to be a cold place in winter, and its storms worse than the summer mosquitoes.The Indians of Oxford Lake were among the finest in all the great North-West. It was ever a joy to meet them as I used to do once in summer by canoe trip, and then again in winter by dog-train. God blessed my visits to them. The old members were cheered and comforted as the Gospel was preached to them, and the Sacraments administered. Some pagans were induced to renounce their old lives, and the cause of religion was more and more established. The Reverend Mr Brooking, and, later, the studious and devoted Reverend Orrin German, did blessed service in that lonely Mission. At the present time the Reverend Edward Papanekis is the acceptable Missionary there.Long years ago I found Edward a careless, sinful young man. Once he rushed into the Mission house under the influence of liquor, and threatened to strike me. But the blessed truth reached his heart, and it was my joy to see him a humble suppliant at the Cross. His heart’s desire was realised. God has blessedly led him on, and now he is faithfully preaching that same blessed Gospel to his countrymen at Oxford Mission.In responding to the many Macedonian cries my Circuit kept so enlarging that I had to be “in journeyings often.” My canoes were sometimes launched in spring, ere the great floating ice-fields had disappeared, and through tortuous open channels we carefully paddled our way, often exposed to great danger.On one of these early trips we came to a place where for many miles the moving ice fields stretched out before us. One narrow channel of open water only was before us. Anxious to get on, we dashed into it, and rapidly paddled ourselves along. I had two experienced Indians, and so had no fear, but expected some novel adventures—and had them with interest.Our hopes were that the wind would widen the channel, and thus let us into open water. But, to our disappointment, when we had got along a mile or so in this narrow open space, we found the ice was quietly but surely closing in upon us. As it was from four to six feet thick, and of vast extent, there was power enough in it to crush a good-sized ship; so it seemed that our frail birch-bark canoe would have but a poor chance.I saw there was a reasonable possibility that when the crash came we could spring on to the floating ice. But what should we do then? was the question, with canoe destroyed and us on floating ice far from land.However, as my Indians kept perfectly cool, I said nothing, but paddled away and watched for the development of events. Nearer and nearer came the ice; soon our channel was not fifty feet wide. Already behind us the floes had met, and we could hear the ice grinding and breaking as the enormous masses met in opposite directions. Now it was only about twenty feet from side to side. Still the men paddled on, and I kept paddling in unison with them. When the ice was so close that we could easily touch it on either side with our paddles, one of the Indians quietly said, “Missionary, will you please give me your paddle?” I quickly handed it to him, when he immediately thrust it with his own into the water, holding down the ends of them so low horizontally under the canoe that the blade end was out of water on the other side of the boat. The other Indian held his paddle in the same position, although from the other side of the canoe. Almost immediately after the ice crowded in upon us. But as the points of the paddles were higher than the ice, of course they rested upon it for an instant. This was what my cool-headed, clever men wanted. They had a fulcrum for their paddles, and so they pulled carefully on the handle ends of them, and, the canoe sliding up as the ice closed in and met with a crash under us, we found ourselves seated in it on the top of the ice. The craft, although only a frail birch-bark canoe, was not in the least injured.As we quickly sprang out of our canoe, and carried it away from where the ice had met and was being ground into pieces by the momentum with which it met, I could not but express my admiration to my men at the clever feat.After some exciting work we reached the shore, and there patiently waited until the wind and sun cleared away the ice, and we could venture on. My plan was to spend at least a week in each Indian village or encampment, preaching three times a day, and either holding school with the children, or by personal entreaty beseeching men and women to be reconciled to God. When returning from the visit, which was a very successful one, we had to experience some of the inconveniences of travelling in such a frail bark as a birch canoe on such a stormy lake as Winnipeg.The weather had been very unsettled, and so we had cautiously paddled from point to point. We had dinner at what the Indians call Montreal Point, and then started for the long crossing to Old Norway House Point, as it was then called. It is a very long open traverse, and as lowering clouds threatened us we pulled on as rapidly as our three paddles could propel us. When out a few miles from land the storm broke upon us, the wind rose rapidly, and soon we were riding over great white-crested billows. My men were very skilful, and we had no fear; but the most skilful management was necessary to safely ride the waves, which soon in size were rivalling those of the ocean. A canoe is a peculiar craft, and requires an experienced hand in these great storms.We were getting on all right, and were successfully climbing the big waves in quick succession, alert and watchful that no sudden erratic move should catch us off our guard and overturn us. At length we met a wave of unusual height, and succeeded in climbing up into its foaming crest all right. Then down its side our little craft shot with the apparent velocity of a sled down a toboggan slide. When we reached the bottom of this trough of the sea, our canoe slapped so violently upon the water that the birch bark on the bottom split from side to side. Of course the water rushed in upon us with uncomfortable rapidity. The more we paddled the worse the water entered, as the exertion strained the boat and opened the rent. Quickly folding up a blanket, I carefully placed it over the long rent, and kneeled down upon it to keep it in place. The man in the front of the canoe put down his paddle, and, taking up the kettle, baled as rapidly as he could, while the Indian in the stern, and myself in the middle, plied our paddles for dear life. We turned towards the Spider Islands, which were over a mile away, and by vigorous work succeeded in reaching one of them, although our canoe was half full of water. Then could we enter into David’s words, as for life we struggled, and our little craft was tossed on the cross sea in our efforts to reach a place of safety: “They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses.”We paddled up as far as we could on a smooth granite rock that came out gradually in the water. Then out we sprang, and strong hands dragged our little canoe up beyond the reach of the waves. We hastily pulled out our dripping blankets and soaked food and other things, and then, overturning the canoe, emptied it of water; and as we saw the large break in the bottom, we realised as we had not before the danger we had been in, and the providential escape which had been ours. So, with glad hearts, we said, “We do ‘praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men.’”We quickly built a fire, and melted some pitch, a quantity of which is always carried ready for such emergencies. The long rent was covered over with a piece of cloth well saturated in the boiling pitch, a quantity more was poured over, and the whole was carefully smoothed out over the weak place. Soon it cooled and hardened, and the work was done. We ate a little food, and then launched our frail craft and pushed on. No serious accidents again troubled us, and we ended this long canoe trip, as we had done many others, thankful that we had such blessed opportunities to go to the remote places as heralds of the Cross, and doubly thankful when we were safe at home again.On one of my canoe trips, when looking after pagan bands in the remote Nelson River District, I had some singular experiences, and learned some important lessons about the craving of the pagan heart after God.We had been journeying on for ten or twelve days when one night we camped on the shore of a lake-like river. While my men were busily employed in gathering wood and cooking the supper, I wandered off and ascended to the top of a well wooded hill which I saw in the distance. Very great indeed was my surprise, when I reached the top, to find myself in the presence of the most startling evidences of a degraded paganism.The hill had once been densely covered with trees, but about every third one had been cut down, and the stumps, which had been left from four to ten feet high, had been carved into rude representations of the human form. Scattered around were thedog-ovens, which were nothing but holes dug in the ground and lined with stones, in which at certain seasons, as part of their religious ceremonies, some of their favourite dogs—white ones were always preferred—were roasted, and then devoured by the excited crowd. Here and there were the tents of the old conjurers and medicine men, who, combining some knowledge of disease and medicine with a great deal of superstitious abominations, held despotic sway over the people. The power of these old conjurers over the deluded Indians was very great. They were generally lazy old fellows, but succeeded nevertheless in getting the best that was going, as they held other Indians in such terror of their power, that gifts in the shape of fish and game were constantly flowing in upon them. They have the secret art among themselves of concocting some poisons so deadly that a little put in the food of a person who has excited their displeasure will cause death almost as soon as a dose of strychnine. They have other poisons which, while not immediately causing death to the unfortunate victims, yet so affect and disfigure them that, until death releases them, their sufferings are intense and their appearance frightful.Here on this hill top were all these sad evidences of the degraded condition of the people. I wandered around and examined the idols, most of which had in front of them, and in some instances on their flat heads, offerings of tobacco, food, red cotton, and other things. My heart was sad at these evidences of such degrading idolatry, and I was deeply impressed with my need of wisdom and aid from on high, so that when I met the people who here worshipped these idols I might so preach Christ and Him crucified that they would be constrained to accept Him as their all-sufficient Saviour.While there I lingered, and mused, and prayed, the shadows of the night fell on me, and I was shrouded in gloom. Then the full moon rose up in the East, and as her silvery beams shone through the trees and lit up these grotesque idols, the scene presented a strange weird appearance. My faithful Indians, becoming alarmed at my long absence—for the country was infested by wild animals—were on the search for me, when I returned to the camp fire. We ate our evening meal, sang a hymn, and bowed in prayer. Then we wrapped ourselves up in our blankets, and lay down on the granite rocks to rest. Although our bed was hard and there was no roof above us, we slept sweetly, for the day had been one of hard work and strange adventure.After paddling about forty miles the next day we reached the Indians of that section of the country, and remained several weeks among them. With the exception of the old conjurers, they all received me very cordially. These old conjurers had the same feelings toward me as those who made silver shrines for Diana of Ephesus had toward the first preachers of Christianity in their city. They trembled for their occupation. They well knew that if I succeeded in inducing the people to become Christians their occupation would be gone, and they would have to settle down to work for their own living, like other people, or starve. I visited them as I did the rest of the encampment, but they had enmity in their hearts toward me. Of all their efforts to injure or destroy me of course I knew not. That their threats were many I well understood; but He Who had said, “Lo, I am with you alway,” mercifully watched over me and shielded me from their evil deeds. My two Indian attendants also watched as well as prayed, with a vigilance that seemed untiring. Very pleasant, indeed, are my memories of my faithful Indian comrades on those long journeys. Their loyalty and devotion could not be excelled. Everything that they could do for my safety and happiness was cheerfully done.We held three religious services every day, and between these services taught the people to read in the Syllabic characters. One day, in conversing with an old fine-looking Indian, I said to him, “What is your religion? If you have any clear idea of a religion, tell me in what you believe.”His answer was; “We believe in a good Spirit and in a bad spirit.”“Why, then,” I said, “do you not worship the good Spirit? I came through your sacred grounds, and I saw where you had cut down some trees. Part you had used as fuel with which to cook your bear or deer meat; out of the rest you had made an idol, which you worship. How is one part more sacred than the other? Why do you make and worship idols?”I can never forget his answer, or the impressive and almost passionate way in which the old man replied:—“Missionary, the Indian’s mind is dark, and he cannot grasp the unseen. He hears the great Spirit’s voice in the thunder and storms. He sees the evidences of His existence all around, but neither he nor his fathers have ever seen the great Spirit, or any one who has; and so he does not know what He looks like. But man is the highest creature that he knows of, and so he makes his idols like a man, and calls it his ‘Manito.’ We only worship them because we do not know what the great Spirit looks like, but these we can understand.”Suddenly there flashed into my mind the request of Philip to the Lord Jesus: “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;” and the wonderful answer: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”I opened my Indian Bible at that wonderful chapter of disinterested love, the fourteenth of John, and preached unto them Jesus, in His two natures, Divine and human. While emphasising the redemptive work of the Son of God, I referred to His various offices and purposes of love and compassion, His willingness to meet us and to save us from perplexity and doubt, as well as from sin. I spoke about Him as our elder Brother, so intimately allied to us, and still retaining His human form as He pleads for us at the throne of God. I dwelt upon these delightful truths, and showed how Christ’s love had so brought him to us, that with the eye of faith we could see Him, and in Him all of God for which our hearts craved. “Whom having not seen, we love; in Whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”For many days I needed no other themes. They listened attentively, and the holy Spirit applied these truths to their hearts and consciences so effectively that they gladly received them. A few more visits effectually settled them in the truth. They have cut down their idols, filled up the dog-ovens, torn away the conjurers’ tents, cleared the forest, and banished every vestige of the old life. And there, at what is called “the Meeting of the Three Rivers,” on that very spot where idols were worshipped amidst horrid orgies, and where the yells, rattles, and drums of the old conjurers and medicine men were heard continuously for days and nights, there is now a little church, where these same Indians, transformed by the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, are “clothed and in their right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.”My visits to Nelson River so impressed me with the fact of the necessity of some zealous missionary going down there and living among the people, that, in response to appeals made, the Reverend John Semmens, whose heart God had filled with missionary zeal, and who had come out to assist me at Norway House, nobly resolved to undertake the work. He was admirably fitted for the arduous and responsible task. But no language of mine can describe what he had to suffer. His record is on high. The Master has it all, and He will reward. Great were his successes, and signal his triumphs.At that place, where I found the stumps carved into idols, which Brother Semmens has so graphically described, the church, mainly through his instrumentality and personal efforts, has been erected. In the last letter which I have received from that land, the writer says: “The Indians now all profess themselves to be Christians. Scores of them by their lives and testimonies assure us of the blessed consciousness that the Lord Jesus is indeed their own loving Saviour. Every conjuring drum has ceased. All vestiges of the old heathenish life are gone, we believe for ever.”“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.”Grandly has this prophecy been fulfilled, and dwarfs into insignificance all the sufferings and hardships endured in the pioneer work which I had in beginning this Mission. With a glad heart I rejoice that “unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

I had received instructions from the Missionary Secretaries to visit Oxford Mission as soon as possible, and to do all I could for its upbuilding. This Mission had had a good measure of success in years gone by. A church and Mission house had been built at Jackson’s Bay, and many of the Indians had been converted. But the village was too far from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Post, where the Indians traded, and where naturally they gathered. For several years the work had been left in charge of a native teacher. The people regretted the absence of an ordained Missionary, and the place suffered accordingly. Making all the arrangements I could for the successful prosecution of the work in my absence, I left Norway House in a small canoe, manned by two of my Christian Indians, one of whom was my interpreter. With this wonderful little boat I was now to make my first intimate acquaintance. For this wild land of broad lakes and rapid rivers and winding creeks, the birch-bark canoe is the boat of all others most admirably fitted. It is to the Indian denizen here what the horse is to his more warlike red brother on the great prairies, or what the camel is to those who live and wander amidst Arabian deserts. The canoe is absolutely essential to these natives in this land, where there are no other roads than the intricate devious water routes. It is the frailest of all boats, yet it can be loaded down to the water’s edge, and, under the skilful guidance of these Indians, who are unquestionably the finest canoe men in the world, it can be made to respond to the sweep of their paddles, so that it seems almost instinct with life and reason. What they can do in it, and with it, appeared to me at times perfectly marvellous. Yet when we remember that for about five months of every year some of the hunters almost live in it, this may not seem so very wonderful. It carries them by day, and in it, or under it, they often sleep by night. At the many portages which have to be made in this land, where the rivers are so full of falls and rapids, one man can easily carry it on his head to the smooth water beyond. In it we have travelled thousands of miles, while going from place to place with the blessed tidings of salvation to these wandering bands scattered over my immense Circuit. Down the wild rapids we have rushed for miles together, and then out into great Winnipeg, or other lakes, so far from shore that the distant headlands were scarce visible. Foam-crested waves have often seemed as though about to overwhelm us, and treacherous gales to swamp us, yet my faithful, well-trained canoe men were always equal to every emergency, and by the accuracy of their judgment, and the quickness of their movements, appeared ever to do exactly the right thing at the right moment. As the result, I came at length to feel as much at home in a canoe as anywhere else, and with God’s blessing was permitted to make many long trips to those who could not be reached in any other way, except by dog-trains in winter.

Good canoe-makers are not many, and so really good canoes are always in demand.

Frail and light as this Indian craft may be, there is a great deal of skill and ingenuity required in its construction.

Great care is requisite in taking the bark from the tree. A long incision is first made longitudinally in the trunk of the tree. Then, from this cut, the Indian begins, and with his keen knife gradually peels off the whole of the bark, as high up as his incision went, in one large piece or sheet. And even now thathe has safely got it off the tree, the greatest care is necessary in handling it, as it will split or crack very easily. Cedar is preferred for the woodwork, and when it can possibly be obtained, is always used. But in the section of the country where I lived, as we were north of the cedar limit, the canoe-makers used pieces of the spruce tree, split very thin, as the best substitute for cedar that our country afforded.

All the sewing of the pieces of birch bark together, and the fastening of the whole to the outer frame, is done with the long slender roots of the balsam or larch trees, which are soaked and rubbed until they are as flexible as narrow strips of leather. When all the sewing is done, the many narrow limber pieces of spruce are crowded into their places, giving the whole canoe its requisite proportions and strength. Then the seams and weak spots are well covered over with melted pitch, which the Indians obtain from the spruce and balsam trees.

Great care is taken to make the canoe watertight. To accomplish this, the boat is often swung between trees and filled with water. Every place where the slightest leak is discovered is marked, and, when the canoe is emptied, is carefully attended to.

Canoes vary in style and size. Each tribe using them has its own patterns, and it was to me an ever interesting sight, to observe how admirably suited to the character of the lakes and rivers were the canoes of each tribe or district.

The finest and largest canoes were those formerly made by the Lake Superior Indians. Living on the shores of that great inland sea, they required canoes of great size and strength. These “great north canoes,” as they were called, could easily carry from a dozen to a score of paddlers, with a cargo of a couple of tons of goods. In the old days of the rival fur-traders, these great canoes played a very prominent part. Before steam or even large sailing vessels had penetrated into those northern lakes, these canoes were extensively used, loaded with the rich furs of those wild forests, they used to come down into the Ottawa, and thence on down that great stream, often even as far as to Montreal.

Sir George Simpson, the energetic but despotic and unprincipledgovernor of the Hudson’s Bay Company for many years, used to travel in one of these birch canoes all the way from Montreal up the Ottawa on through Lake Nipissing into Georgian Bay; from thence into Lake Superior, on to Thunder Bay. From this place, with indomitable pluck, he pushed on back into the interior, through the Lake of the Woods, down the tortuous river Winnipeg into the lake of the same name. Along the whole length of this lake he annually travelled, in spite of its treacherous storms and annoying head winds, to preside over the Council and attend to the business of the wealthiest fur-trading company that ever existed, over which he watched with eagle eye, and in every department of which his distinct personality was felt. His famous Iroquois crew are still talked about, and marvellous are the stories in circulation about many a northern camp fire of their endurance and skill.

How rapid the changes which are taking place in this world of ours! It seems almost incredible, in these days of mighty steamships going almost everywhere on our great waters, to think that there are hundreds of people still living who distinctly remember when the annual trips of a great governor were made from Montreal to Winnipeg in a birch-bark Canoe, manned by Indians.

Of this light Indian craft Longfellow wrote:—

“Give me of your bark, O Birch tree!Of your yellow bark, O Birch tree!Growing by the rushing river,Tall and stately in the valley!I a light canoe will build me,Build a swift canoe for sailing.“Thus the Birch canoe was buildedIn the valley, by the river,In the bosom of the forest;All its mystery and its magic,All the brightness of the birch tree,All the toughness of the cedar,All the larch trees supple sinews;And it floated on the riverLike a yellow leaf in autumn,Like a yellow water-lily.”

“Give me of your bark, O Birch tree!Of your yellow bark, O Birch tree!Growing by the rushing river,Tall and stately in the valley!I a light canoe will build me,Build a swift canoe for sailing.“Thus the Birch canoe was buildedIn the valley, by the river,In the bosom of the forest;All its mystery and its magic,All the brightness of the birch tree,All the toughness of the cedar,All the larch trees supple sinews;And it floated on the riverLike a yellow leaf in autumn,Like a yellow water-lily.”

We left for Oxford Mission on the 8th of September. The distance is over two hundred miles, through the wildest country imaginable. We did not see a house—with the exception of those built by the beavers—from the time we left our Mission home until we reached our destination. We paddled through a bewildering variety of picturesque lakes, rivers, and creeks. When no storms or fierce head-winds impeded us, we were able to make fifty or sixty miles a day. When night overtook us, we camped on the shore. Sometimes it was very pleasant and romantic. At other times, when storms raged and we were drenched with the rain so thoroughly that for days we had not a dry stitch upon us, it was not quite so agreeable.

We generally began our day’s journey very early in the morning, if the weather was at all favourable, and paddled on as rapidly as possible, since we knew not when head-winds might arise and stop our progress. The Oxford route is a very diversified one. There are lakes, large and small, across which we had to paddle. In some of them, when the wind was favourable, our Indians improvised a sail out of one of our blankets. Lashing it to a couple of oars, they lifted it up in the favouring wind, and thus very rapidly did we speed on our way.

At times we were in broad beautiful rivers, and then paddling along in little narrow creeks amidst the reeds and rushes. We passed over, or, as they say in that country, “made” nine portages around picturesque falls or rapids. In these portages one of the Indians carried the canoe on his head. The other made a great load of the bedding and provisions, all of which he carried on his back. My load consisted of the two guns, ammunition, two kettles, the bag containing my changes of raiment, and a package of books for the Indians we were to visit. How the Indians could run so quickly through the portages was to me a marvel. Often the path was but a narrow ledge of rock against the side of the great granite cliff. At other times it was through the quaking bog or treacherous muskeg. To them it seemed to make no difference. On they went with their heavy loads at that swinging Indian stride which soon left me far behind. On some of my canoe trips the portages were several miles long, andthrough regions so wild that there was nothing to indicate to me the right direction. When we were making them, I used to follow on as long as I knew I was in the right way. When I lost the trail, I at once stopped and patiently waited until one of my faithful men, having carried his load safely to the end, would come back for me. Quickly picking up my load, he would hurry off, and even then, unencumbered as I was, it was often as much as I could do to keep up with him.

Oxford Lake is one of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes I ever saw. It is between twenty and thirty miles long and several miles wide. It is studded with islands of every imaginable variety. Its waters are almost as transparent as the clear, fresh air above it. When no breath ripples its surface, one can look down into its crystal depths and see, many feet below, the great fish quietly moving about.

To visit the Indians who fish in its waters, and hunt upon its shores, I once brought one of our Missionary Secretaries, the eloquent Reverend Lachlin Taylor, DD. The trip down had not been one of the most pleasant. The rains had drenched him, and the mosquitoes had plagued him with such persistency, that he loudly bemoaned his lot in being found in a country that was cursed with such abominable animals.

One night I heard him muttering between his efforts to get them out of his tent, where he declared they were attacking him in battalions:—

“They throng the air, and darken heaven,And curse this Western land.”

“They throng the air, and darken heaven,And curse this Western land.”

However, when we reached Oxford Lake, the mosquitoes left us for a time. The sun came out in splendour, and we had some days of rarest beauty. The good doctor regained his spirits, and laughed when I rallied him on some of his strong expressions about the country, and told him that I hoped, as the result of his experience, he, as all Missionary Secretaries ought, would have a good deal of sympathy for the Missionaries who live in such regions for years together.

We camped for the night on one of the most picturesque points. We had two canoes, and to man them four Indians from our Norway House Mission. As the doctor was an enthusiastic fisherman, he decided that we must stop there during the forenoon, while he tried his hand. His first haul was a splendid pike over two feet long. Great was his excitement as his success was assured. Eloquence poured from him; we were flooded with it. The Indians looked on in amazement while he talked of the beauties of the lake and islands, of the water and the sky.

“Wait a moment, doctor,” I said. “I can add to the wild beauty of the place something that will please your artistic eye.”

I requested two fine-looking Indians to launch one of the canoes, and to quietly paddle out to the edge of an island which abruptly rose from the deep, clear waters before us, the top of which had on it a number of splendid spruce and balsams, massed together in natural beauty. I directed the men to drop over the side of the canoe a long fishing line, and then, posing them in striking attitudes in harmony with the place, I asked them to keep perfectly still until every ripple made by their canoe had died away.

I confess I was entranced by the loveliness of the sight. The reflections of the canoe and men, and of the islands and rocks, were as vivid as the actual realities. So clear and transparent was the water, that where it and the air met there seemed but a narrow thread between the two elements. Not a breath of air stirred, not a ripple moved. It was one of those sights which come to us but seldom in a lifetime, where everything is in perfect unison, and God gives us glimpses of what this world, His footstool, must have been before sin entered.

“Doctor,” I said quietly, for my heart was full of the Doxology, “tell me what you think of that vision.”

Standing up, with a great rock beneath his feet, in a voice of suppressed emotion he began. Quietly at first he spoke, but soon he was carried away with his own eloquence:—

“I know well the lochs of my own beloved Scotland, for in many of them I have rowed and fished. I have visited all the famed lakes of Ireland, and have rowed on those in the Lake counties of England. I have travelled far and oft on our greatAmerican lakes, and have seen Tahoe, in all its crystal beauty. I have rowed on the Bosphorus, and travelled in a felucca on the Nile. I have lingered in the gondola on the canals of Venice, and have traced Rob Roy’s canoe in the Sea of Galilee, and on the old historic Jordan. I have seen, in my wanderings in many lands, places of rarest beauty, but the equal of this mine eyes have never gazed upon.”

Never after did I see the lake as we saw it that day.

On it we have had to battle against fierce storms, where the angry waves seemed determined to engulf us. Once, in speeding along as well as we could from island to island, keeping in the lee as much as possible, we ran upon a sharp rock and stove a hole in our canoe. We had to use our paddles desperately to reach the shore, and when we had done so, we found our canoe half-full of water, in which our bedding and food were soaked. We hurriedly built a fire, melted some pitch, and mended our canoe, and hurried on.

On this lake, which can give us such pictures of wondrous beauty, I have encountered some of the greatest gales and tempests against which I have ever had to contend, even in this land of storms and blizzards. Then in winter, upon its frozen surface it used to seem to me that the Frost King held high carnival. Terrible were the sufferings of both dogs and men on some of those trips. One winter, in spite of all the wraps I could put around me, making it possible for me to run—for riding was out of the question, so intense was the cold—every part of my face exposed to the pitiless blast was frozen. My nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and even lips, were badly frozen, and for days after I suffered. Cuffy, the best of my Newfoundland dogs, had all of her feet frozen, and even Jack’s were sore for many a day after. My loyal Indians suffered also, and we all declared Oxford Lake to be a cold place in winter, and its storms worse than the summer mosquitoes.

The Indians of Oxford Lake were among the finest in all the great North-West. It was ever a joy to meet them as I used to do once in summer by canoe trip, and then again in winter by dog-train. God blessed my visits to them. The old members were cheered and comforted as the Gospel was preached to them, and the Sacraments administered. Some pagans were induced to renounce their old lives, and the cause of religion was more and more established. The Reverend Mr Brooking, and, later, the studious and devoted Reverend Orrin German, did blessed service in that lonely Mission. At the present time the Reverend Edward Papanekis is the acceptable Missionary there.

Long years ago I found Edward a careless, sinful young man. Once he rushed into the Mission house under the influence of liquor, and threatened to strike me. But the blessed truth reached his heart, and it was my joy to see him a humble suppliant at the Cross. His heart’s desire was realised. God has blessedly led him on, and now he is faithfully preaching that same blessed Gospel to his countrymen at Oxford Mission.

In responding to the many Macedonian cries my Circuit kept so enlarging that I had to be “in journeyings often.” My canoes were sometimes launched in spring, ere the great floating ice-fields had disappeared, and through tortuous open channels we carefully paddled our way, often exposed to great danger.

On one of these early trips we came to a place where for many miles the moving ice fields stretched out before us. One narrow channel of open water only was before us. Anxious to get on, we dashed into it, and rapidly paddled ourselves along. I had two experienced Indians, and so had no fear, but expected some novel adventures—and had them with interest.

Our hopes were that the wind would widen the channel, and thus let us into open water. But, to our disappointment, when we had got along a mile or so in this narrow open space, we found the ice was quietly but surely closing in upon us. As it was from four to six feet thick, and of vast extent, there was power enough in it to crush a good-sized ship; so it seemed that our frail birch-bark canoe would have but a poor chance.

I saw there was a reasonable possibility that when the crash came we could spring on to the floating ice. But what should we do then? was the question, with canoe destroyed and us on floating ice far from land.

However, as my Indians kept perfectly cool, I said nothing, but paddled away and watched for the development of events. Nearer and nearer came the ice; soon our channel was not fifty feet wide. Already behind us the floes had met, and we could hear the ice grinding and breaking as the enormous masses met in opposite directions. Now it was only about twenty feet from side to side. Still the men paddled on, and I kept paddling in unison with them. When the ice was so close that we could easily touch it on either side with our paddles, one of the Indians quietly said, “Missionary, will you please give me your paddle?” I quickly handed it to him, when he immediately thrust it with his own into the water, holding down the ends of them so low horizontally under the canoe that the blade end was out of water on the other side of the boat. The other Indian held his paddle in the same position, although from the other side of the canoe. Almost immediately after the ice crowded in upon us. But as the points of the paddles were higher than the ice, of course they rested upon it for an instant. This was what my cool-headed, clever men wanted. They had a fulcrum for their paddles, and so they pulled carefully on the handle ends of them, and, the canoe sliding up as the ice closed in and met with a crash under us, we found ourselves seated in it on the top of the ice. The craft, although only a frail birch-bark canoe, was not in the least injured.

As we quickly sprang out of our canoe, and carried it away from where the ice had met and was being ground into pieces by the momentum with which it met, I could not but express my admiration to my men at the clever feat.

After some exciting work we reached the shore, and there patiently waited until the wind and sun cleared away the ice, and we could venture on. My plan was to spend at least a week in each Indian village or encampment, preaching three times a day, and either holding school with the children, or by personal entreaty beseeching men and women to be reconciled to God. When returning from the visit, which was a very successful one, we had to experience some of the inconveniences of travelling in such a frail bark as a birch canoe on such a stormy lake as Winnipeg.

The weather had been very unsettled, and so we had cautiously paddled from point to point. We had dinner at what the Indians call Montreal Point, and then started for the long crossing to Old Norway House Point, as it was then called. It is a very long open traverse, and as lowering clouds threatened us we pulled on as rapidly as our three paddles could propel us. When out a few miles from land the storm broke upon us, the wind rose rapidly, and soon we were riding over great white-crested billows. My men were very skilful, and we had no fear; but the most skilful management was necessary to safely ride the waves, which soon in size were rivalling those of the ocean. A canoe is a peculiar craft, and requires an experienced hand in these great storms.

We were getting on all right, and were successfully climbing the big waves in quick succession, alert and watchful that no sudden erratic move should catch us off our guard and overturn us. At length we met a wave of unusual height, and succeeded in climbing up into its foaming crest all right. Then down its side our little craft shot with the apparent velocity of a sled down a toboggan slide. When we reached the bottom of this trough of the sea, our canoe slapped so violently upon the water that the birch bark on the bottom split from side to side. Of course the water rushed in upon us with uncomfortable rapidity. The more we paddled the worse the water entered, as the exertion strained the boat and opened the rent. Quickly folding up a blanket, I carefully placed it over the long rent, and kneeled down upon it to keep it in place. The man in the front of the canoe put down his paddle, and, taking up the kettle, baled as rapidly as he could, while the Indian in the stern, and myself in the middle, plied our paddles for dear life. We turned towards the Spider Islands, which were over a mile away, and by vigorous work succeeded in reaching one of them, although our canoe was half full of water. Then could we enter into David’s words, as for life we struggled, and our little craft was tossed on the cross sea in our efforts to reach a place of safety: “They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses.”

We paddled up as far as we could on a smooth granite rock that came out gradually in the water. Then out we sprang, and strong hands dragged our little canoe up beyond the reach of the waves. We hastily pulled out our dripping blankets and soaked food and other things, and then, overturning the canoe, emptied it of water; and as we saw the large break in the bottom, we realised as we had not before the danger we had been in, and the providential escape which had been ours. So, with glad hearts, we said, “We do ‘praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men.’”

We quickly built a fire, and melted some pitch, a quantity of which is always carried ready for such emergencies. The long rent was covered over with a piece of cloth well saturated in the boiling pitch, a quantity more was poured over, and the whole was carefully smoothed out over the weak place. Soon it cooled and hardened, and the work was done. We ate a little food, and then launched our frail craft and pushed on. No serious accidents again troubled us, and we ended this long canoe trip, as we had done many others, thankful that we had such blessed opportunities to go to the remote places as heralds of the Cross, and doubly thankful when we were safe at home again.

On one of my canoe trips, when looking after pagan bands in the remote Nelson River District, I had some singular experiences, and learned some important lessons about the craving of the pagan heart after God.

We had been journeying on for ten or twelve days when one night we camped on the shore of a lake-like river. While my men were busily employed in gathering wood and cooking the supper, I wandered off and ascended to the top of a well wooded hill which I saw in the distance. Very great indeed was my surprise, when I reached the top, to find myself in the presence of the most startling evidences of a degraded paganism.

The hill had once been densely covered with trees, but about every third one had been cut down, and the stumps, which had been left from four to ten feet high, had been carved into rude representations of the human form. Scattered around were thedog-ovens, which were nothing but holes dug in the ground and lined with stones, in which at certain seasons, as part of their religious ceremonies, some of their favourite dogs—white ones were always preferred—were roasted, and then devoured by the excited crowd. Here and there were the tents of the old conjurers and medicine men, who, combining some knowledge of disease and medicine with a great deal of superstitious abominations, held despotic sway over the people. The power of these old conjurers over the deluded Indians was very great. They were generally lazy old fellows, but succeeded nevertheless in getting the best that was going, as they held other Indians in such terror of their power, that gifts in the shape of fish and game were constantly flowing in upon them. They have the secret art among themselves of concocting some poisons so deadly that a little put in the food of a person who has excited their displeasure will cause death almost as soon as a dose of strychnine. They have other poisons which, while not immediately causing death to the unfortunate victims, yet so affect and disfigure them that, until death releases them, their sufferings are intense and their appearance frightful.

Here on this hill top were all these sad evidences of the degraded condition of the people. I wandered around and examined the idols, most of which had in front of them, and in some instances on their flat heads, offerings of tobacco, food, red cotton, and other things. My heart was sad at these evidences of such degrading idolatry, and I was deeply impressed with my need of wisdom and aid from on high, so that when I met the people who here worshipped these idols I might so preach Christ and Him crucified that they would be constrained to accept Him as their all-sufficient Saviour.

While there I lingered, and mused, and prayed, the shadows of the night fell on me, and I was shrouded in gloom. Then the full moon rose up in the East, and as her silvery beams shone through the trees and lit up these grotesque idols, the scene presented a strange weird appearance. My faithful Indians, becoming alarmed at my long absence—for the country was infested by wild animals—were on the search for me, when I returned to the camp fire. We ate our evening meal, sang a hymn, and bowed in prayer. Then we wrapped ourselves up in our blankets, and lay down on the granite rocks to rest. Although our bed was hard and there was no roof above us, we slept sweetly, for the day had been one of hard work and strange adventure.

After paddling about forty miles the next day we reached the Indians of that section of the country, and remained several weeks among them. With the exception of the old conjurers, they all received me very cordially. These old conjurers had the same feelings toward me as those who made silver shrines for Diana of Ephesus had toward the first preachers of Christianity in their city. They trembled for their occupation. They well knew that if I succeeded in inducing the people to become Christians their occupation would be gone, and they would have to settle down to work for their own living, like other people, or starve. I visited them as I did the rest of the encampment, but they had enmity in their hearts toward me. Of all their efforts to injure or destroy me of course I knew not. That their threats were many I well understood; but He Who had said, “Lo, I am with you alway,” mercifully watched over me and shielded me from their evil deeds. My two Indian attendants also watched as well as prayed, with a vigilance that seemed untiring. Very pleasant, indeed, are my memories of my faithful Indian comrades on those long journeys. Their loyalty and devotion could not be excelled. Everything that they could do for my safety and happiness was cheerfully done.

We held three religious services every day, and between these services taught the people to read in the Syllabic characters. One day, in conversing with an old fine-looking Indian, I said to him, “What is your religion? If you have any clear idea of a religion, tell me in what you believe.”

His answer was; “We believe in a good Spirit and in a bad spirit.”

“Why, then,” I said, “do you not worship the good Spirit? I came through your sacred grounds, and I saw where you had cut down some trees. Part you had used as fuel with which to cook your bear or deer meat; out of the rest you had made an idol, which you worship. How is one part more sacred than the other? Why do you make and worship idols?”

I can never forget his answer, or the impressive and almost passionate way in which the old man replied:—

“Missionary, the Indian’s mind is dark, and he cannot grasp the unseen. He hears the great Spirit’s voice in the thunder and storms. He sees the evidences of His existence all around, but neither he nor his fathers have ever seen the great Spirit, or any one who has; and so he does not know what He looks like. But man is the highest creature that he knows of, and so he makes his idols like a man, and calls it his ‘Manito.’ We only worship them because we do not know what the great Spirit looks like, but these we can understand.”

Suddenly there flashed into my mind the request of Philip to the Lord Jesus: “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us;” and the wonderful answer: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”

I opened my Indian Bible at that wonderful chapter of disinterested love, the fourteenth of John, and preached unto them Jesus, in His two natures, Divine and human. While emphasising the redemptive work of the Son of God, I referred to His various offices and purposes of love and compassion, His willingness to meet us and to save us from perplexity and doubt, as well as from sin. I spoke about Him as our elder Brother, so intimately allied to us, and still retaining His human form as He pleads for us at the throne of God. I dwelt upon these delightful truths, and showed how Christ’s love had so brought him to us, that with the eye of faith we could see Him, and in Him all of God for which our hearts craved. “Whom having not seen, we love; in Whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

For many days I needed no other themes. They listened attentively, and the holy Spirit applied these truths to their hearts and consciences so effectively that they gladly received them. A few more visits effectually settled them in the truth. They have cut down their idols, filled up the dog-ovens, torn away the conjurers’ tents, cleared the forest, and banished every vestige of the old life. And there, at what is called “the Meeting of the Three Rivers,” on that very spot where idols were worshipped amidst horrid orgies, and where the yells, rattles, and drums of the old conjurers and medicine men were heard continuously for days and nights, there is now a little church, where these same Indians, transformed by the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, are “clothed and in their right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.”

My visits to Nelson River so impressed me with the fact of the necessity of some zealous missionary going down there and living among the people, that, in response to appeals made, the Reverend John Semmens, whose heart God had filled with missionary zeal, and who had come out to assist me at Norway House, nobly resolved to undertake the work. He was admirably fitted for the arduous and responsible task. But no language of mine can describe what he had to suffer. His record is on high. The Master has it all, and He will reward. Great were his successes, and signal his triumphs.

At that place, where I found the stumps carved into idols, which Brother Semmens has so graphically described, the church, mainly through his instrumentality and personal efforts, has been erected. In the last letter which I have received from that land, the writer says: “The Indians now all profess themselves to be Christians. Scores of them by their lives and testimonies assure us of the blessed consciousness that the Lord Jesus is indeed their own loving Saviour. Every conjuring drum has ceased. All vestiges of the old heathenish life are gone, we believe for ever.”

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.”

Grandly has this prophecy been fulfilled, and dwarfs into insignificance all the sufferings and hardships endured in the pioneer work which I had in beginning this Mission. With a glad heart I rejoice that “unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

Chapter Six.The wild north land—The two methods of travel, by canoe and dog-train—The native dogs—St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs—The dog sleds—The guide—The dog drivers—The long journeys—Night travelling—Wondrous visions of the night.So destitute are these wild north lands of roads that there are really no distinct words in the languages of these northern tribes to represent land vehicles. In translating such words as “waggon” or “chariot” into the Cree language, a word similar to that for “dog-sled” had to be used.No surveyor, up to the years about which I am writing, had visited those regions, and there were literally no roads as understood in civilised lands.So numerous are the lakes and rivers that roads are unnecessary to the Indian in the summer time. With his light birch canoe he can go almost everywhere he desires. If obstructions block up his passage, all he has to do is to put his little canoe on his head, and a short run will take him across the portage, or around the cataracts or falls, or over the height of land to some other lake or stream, where he quickly embarks and continues his journey.All summer travelling is done along the water routes. Naturally the various trading posts and Indian villages or encampments are located on the edges of the lakes or rivers, or very near them, so as to be most conveniently reached in this way. So short are the summers that there are only about five months of open water to be depended upon in these high latitudes. During the other seven months the dog sled is the only conveyance for purposes of travelling. So rough and wild is the country that we know of no vehicle that could take its place, and no animals that could do the work of the dogs.As the years of toil rolled on, my Mission field or Circuit so enlarged that it extended irregularly north and south over five hundred miles, with a width in some places of over three hundred. In summer I travelled over it in a birch canoe, and in winter with my dog-trains.At first it seemed very novel, and almost like child’s play, to be dragged along by dogs, and there was almost a feeling of rebellion against what seemed such frivolous work. But we soon found out that we had travelled in worse conveyances and with poorer steeds than in a good dog sled, when whirled along by a train of first-class dogs.The dogs generally used are of the Esquimaux breed, although in many places they have become so mixed up with other varieties as to be almost unrecognisable. The pure Esquimaux sled dogs are well-built, compact animals, weighing from eighty to a hundred and twenty pounds. They are of various colours, and have a close, warm, furry coat of hair. They have sharp-pointed ears and very bushy, curly tails. They are the most notorious thieves. I never could completely break an Esquimaux dog of this propensity. It seemed ingrained in their very natures. I have purchased young puppies of this breed from the natives, have fed them well, and have faithfully endeavoured to bring them up in the way in which they ought to go, but I never could get them to stay there. Steal they would, and did, whenever they had an opportunity.This serious defect may have been the result of the constant and unremitting neglect with which Indians generally treat their dogs. They are fond of them in a way, and are unwilling to part with them, except at a good price; yet, except when working them, they very seldom feed them. The dogs are generally left to steal their living, and some of them become very clever at it, as more than once I found to my sorrow. When the fisheries are successful, or many deer have been killed, the dogs, like theirowners, are fat and flourishing. When food is scarce, the dogs’ allowance is the first cut off. We could always tell at a glance, when a band of wild, wandering pagan Indians came in to visit our village from their distant hunting grounds, how they had prospered. If they and their dogs were fat and good-natured, they had had abundance of food. If, while the people looked fairly well, the dogs were thin and wolfish, we knew they had fared but moderately. If the dogs were all gone and the people looked gaunt and famine-stricken, we knew they had had hard times, and, as a last resort, had eaten their poor dogs to keep themselves alive.Some of the Indians who make a pretence to feed their dogs in winter never think of doing so in summer. The result is that, as they have to steal, hunt, or starve, they become adepts in one or the other. Everything that is eatable, and many things apparently uneatable, are devoured by them. They fairly howled with delight when they found access to such things as old leather moccasins, dog harness, whips, fur caps, mitts, and similar things. They greedily devoured all they could, and then most cunningly buried the rest. Many of them go off in summer-time on long fishing excursions. I once, when away on a canoe trip, met a pack of them up a great river over a hundred miles from their home. When we first saw them at a long distance, we mistook them for wolves, and began to prepare for battle. The quick eyes of my Indian canoe men soon saw what they were, and putting down our guns, we spent a little time in watching them. To my great surprise I found out that they were fishing on their own account. This was something new to me, and so I watched them with much interest.On the side of the river on which they were was a shallow, reedy marsh, where the water was from a few inches to a foot in depth. In these shallow waters, at certain seasons of the year, different varieties of fish are to be found. The principal is the Jack fish, or pike, some of which are over three feet long. As they crowd along in these shallows, often with their back fins out of the water, they are observed by the dogs, who quietly wade out, often to a distance of many yards, and seize them with such a grip that, in spite of their struggles, they are carried in triumph to the shore, and there speedily devoured. Sometimes the dogs will remain away for weeks together on these fishing excursions, and will return in much better condition than when they left.During the winter of the first Riel Rebellion, when all our supplies had been cut off, my good wife and I got tired of dining twenty-one times a week on fish diet, varied only by a pot of boiled musk rats, or a roast hind-quarter of a wild cat. To improve our bill of fare, the next summer, when I went into the Red River Settlement, I bought a sheep, which I carefully took out with me in a little open boat. I succeeded in getting it safely home, and put it in a yard that had a heavy stockade fence twelve feet high around it. In some way the dogs got in and devoured my sheep.The next summer, I took out a couple of pigs, and put them into a little log stable with a two-inch spruce plank door. To my great disgust, one night the dogs ate a hole through the door and devoured my pigs.There seemed to be a good deal of the wolf in their nature. Many of them never manifested much affection for their masters, and never could be fully depended upon. Still I always found that even with Esquimaux dogs patience and kindness went farther than anything else in teaching them to know what was required of them, and in inducing them to accept the situation. Some of them are naturally lazy, and some of them are incorrigible shirks; and so there is in dog-driving a capital opportunity for the exercise of the cardinal virtue of patience.As my Mission increased in size, and new appointments were taken up, I found I should have to be on the move nearly all the winter if those who longed for the Word of Life were to be visited. Do the best I could, there were some bands so remote that I could only visit them twice a year. In summer I went by canoe, and in winter by dog-train. After a few wretched experiences with native dogs, where I suffered most intensely, as much on account of their inferior powers as anything else, I began to think of the many splendid St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs I had seen in civilised lands, doing nothing in return for the care and affection lavished upon them. These thoughts, which came to me while far from home, were promptly followed by action as soon as that terrible trip was ended, in which every part of my face exposed to the intense cold had been frozen, even to my eyebrows and lips.Missionary Secretaries were amused at the requisition for dogs, and had their laugh at what they called “my unique request,” and wrote me to that effect. Thanks, however, to the kindness of such men as the Honourable Mr Sanford, of Hamilton, the Honourable Mr Ferrier, of Montreal, and other friends, I had in my possession some splendid dogs before the next season opened, and then the work went on with increasing interest and satisfaction. With splendid, well-trained dogs, I could so shorten the time of the three hundred miles’ trip, that, instead of shivering seven or eight nights in a hole dug in the snow, we could reduce the number to four or five.Those who have experienced the sufferings and hardships of camping out in the forest with the temperature ranging from thirty to sixty degrees below zero, will agree that to escape two or three nights of it meant a good deal.I found by years of experience that the St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs had all the good qualities, and none of the defects, of the Esquimaux. By kindness and firmness they were easily broken in, and then a whip was only an ornamental appendage of the driver’s picturesque costume. Of these splendid dogs I often had in my possession, counting old and young, as many as twenty at a time. The largest and best of them all was Jack, a noble St. Bernard. He was black as jet, and stood over thirty-three inches high at his fore shoulder. When in good working trim, he weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds. He had no equal in all that northern land. Several times he saved my life, as we shall see further on. No whip ever ruffled his glossy coat; no danger ever deterred him from his work, when he with his marvellous intelligence once got to know what was expected of him. No blizzard storm, no matter how fickle and changeful, could lead him off from the desired camping place, even if the courage of other dogs failed them, and even though the guides gave up in despair.The distance we could travel with dogs depended of course very much on the character of the trail or route. On the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg, when no blinding gales opposed us, and our dogs were good and loads not too heavy, we have made from seventy to ninety miles a day. One winter I accomplished the journey from Fort Garry to Norway House in five days and a half—a distance of nearly four hundred miles. When we were toiling along in the dense forests, where the snow lay deep and the obstructions were many, and the country was broken with hills and ravines, we often did not make more than a third of that distance, and then suffered much more than when we had made much greater journeys under more favourable auspices.The dog sleds are made of two oak or birch boards, about twelve feet long, eight or nine inches wide, and from half an inch to an inch thick. These two boards are fastened securely together, edge to edge, by crossbars. Then one of the ends is planed down thin, and so thoroughly steamed or soaked in hot water that it can easily be bent or curved up to form what is called the head of the sled. It is then planed smooth, and fitted out with side loops. The front ones are those to which the traces of the dogs are attached, and the others along the sides are used to fasten the load securely. When finished, allowing two or three feet for the curled-up head, a good dog sled is nine or ten feet long, and from sixteen to eighteen inches wide.Sometimes they are fitted with parchment sides and a comfortable back. Then they are called carioles. When the dogs were strong enough, or the trail was a well beaten one, or we were travelling on the great frozen lakes, I was able to ride the greater part of the time. Then it was not unpleasant or toilsome work. But as many of my winter trails led me through the primeval forests, where the snow was often very deep, and the hills were steep, and the fallen trees many, and the standing ones thickly clustered together, on such journeys there was but little riding. One had to strap on his snow shoes, and help hisfaithful Indians to tramp down the deep snow in the trail, that the poor dogs might drag the heavily loaded sleds along.Four dogs constitute a train. They are harnessed in tandem style, as all this vast country north of the fertile prairies is a region of forests. The Esquimaux style of giving each dog a separate trace, thus letting them spread out in a fan-like form, would never do in this land of trees and dense under-bush.The harness, which is made of moose skin, is often decorated with ribbons and little musical bells. Singular as it may appear, the dogs were very fond of the bells, and always seemed to travel better and be in greater spirits when they could dash along in unison with their tinkling. Some dogs could not be more severely punished than by taking the bells off their harness.The head dog of the train is called “the leader.” Upon him depends a great deal of the comfort and success, and at times the safety, of the whole party. A really good leader is a very valuable animal. Some of them are so intelligent that they do not require a guide to run ahead of them, except in the most dense and unbeaten forest trails. I had a long-legged white dog, of mixed breed, that ever seemed to consider a guide a nuisance, when once he had got into his big head an idea of what I wanted him to do. Outside of his harness Old Voyager, as we called him, was a morose, sullen, unsociable brute. So hard to approach was he that generally a rope about sixty feet long, with one end fastened around his neck, trailed out behind him. When we wanted to catch him, we generally had to start off in the opposite direction from him, for he was as cunning as a fox, and ever objected to being caught. In zigzag ways we moved about until he was thrown off his guard, and then by-and-by it was possible to come near enough to get hold of the long rope and haul him in. When once the collar was on his neck, and he had taken his place at the head of the party, he was the unrivalled leader. No matter how many trains might happen to be travelling together, no one thought of taking first place while Old Voyager was at hand.Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with deep, wide bays. The headlands are from five to thirty miles apart. When dog-travelling on that great lake in winter, the general plan is to travel from headland to headland. When leaving one where perhaps we had slept or dined, all we had to do was to turn Old Voyager’s head in the right direction, and show him the distant point to which we wished to go; and although it might be many miles away, a surveyor’s line could not be much straighter than the trail our sleds would make under his unerring guidance.I have gone into these details about this mode of travelling, because there is so little known about it in the outside world. Doubtless it will soon become a thing of the past, as the Indians are settling down in their Reservations, and, each tribe or band having a resident Missionary, these long, toilsome journeys will not be essential.The companions of my long trips were the far-famed Indian runners of the north. The principal one of our party was called “the guide.” To him was committed the responsibility of leading us by the quickest and safest route to the band of Indians we wished to visit with the good news of a Saviour’s love. His place was in front of the dogs, unless the way happened to lead us for a time over frozen lakes or well-beaten trails, where the dogs were able to go on alone, cheered by the voice of their drivers behind. When the trail was of this description, the guide generally strode along in company with one of the drivers.As the greater part of my work was in the wild forest regions, there were many trips when the guide was always at the front. Marvellously gifted were some of these men. The reader must bear in mind the fact that there were no roads or vestiges of a path. Often the whole distance we wished to go was through the dense unbroken forest. The snow, some winters, was from two to four feet deep. Often the trees were clustered so closely together that it was at times difficult to find them standing far enough apart to get our sleds, narrow as they were, between them. In many places the under-brush was so dense that it was laborious work to force our way through it. Yet the guide on his large snowshoes was expected to push on through all obstructions, and open the way where it was possible for the dog-sleds to follow. His chief work was to mark out the trail, along which the rest of us travelled as rapidly as our loaded sleds, or wearied limbs, and often bleeding feet, would allow.Wonderfully clever and active were these guides in this difficult and trying work. To them it made but little difference whether the sun shone brightly, or clouds obscured the sky. On and on they pushed without hesitancy or delay. There were times when the sun’s rays were reflected with such splendour from the snowy wastes, that our eyes became so affected by the glare, that it was impossible to travel by sunlight. The black eyes of the Indians seemed very susceptible to this disease, which they call “snow blindness.” It is very painful, as I know by sad experience. The sensation is like that of having red-hot sand thrown on the eyeballs. Often my faithful dog-drivers used to suffer so from it that, stoical as they naturally are, I have known them to groan and almost cry out like children in the camp.Once, in travelling near Oxford Lake, we came across a couple of Indians who were stone-blind from this disease. Fortunately they had been able to reach the woods and make a camp and get some food ready ere total blindness came upon them. We went out of our course to guide them to their friends.To guard against the attack of this disease, which seldom occurs except in the months of March and April, when the increasing brightness of the sun, in those lengthening days, makes its rays so powerful, we often travelled only during the night-time, and rested in the sheltered camps during the hours of sunshine. On some of our long trips we have travelled eight nights continuously in this way. We generally left our camp about sundown. At midnight we groped about as well as we could, aided by the light of the stars or the brilliant auroras, and found some dry wood and birch bark, with which we made a fire and cooked a midnight dinner. Then on we went until the morning light came. Then a regular camp was prepared, and breakfast cooked and eaten, and the dogs were fed, instead of at night. Prayers said, and ourselves wrapped up in our blankets and robes, we slept until the hours of brilliant sunshine were over, when on we went.It always seemed to me that the work of the guides would be much more difficult at night than during the daytime. They, however, did not think so. With unerring accuracy they pushed on. It made no matter to them whether the stars shone out in all the beauty and brilliancy of the Arctic sky, or whether clouds arose and obscured them all. On the guide pushed through tangled underwood or dense gloomy forest, where there were not to be seen, for days, or rather nights, together, any other tracks than those made by the wild beasts of the forest.Sometimes the wondrous auroras blazed out, flashing and scintillating with a splendour indescribable. At times the whole heavens seemed aglow with their fickle, inconstant beauty, and then various portions of the sky were illumined in succession by their ever-changing bars, or columns of coloured light. Man’s mightiest pyrotechnic displays dwarfed into insignificance in the presence of these celestial visions. For hours at a time have I been entranced amidst their glories. So bewildering were they at times to me that I have lost all ideas of location, and knew not which was north or south.But to the experienced guide, although, like many of the Indians, he had a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, so intent was he on his duties that these changing auroras made no difference, and caused him no bewilderment in his work. This, to me, was often a matter of surprise. They are very susceptible in their natures, and their souls are full of poetry, as many of their expressive and beautiful names indicate. To them, in their pagan state, those scintillating bars of coloured light were the spirits of their forefathers, rank after rank, rushing out to battle. Yet, while on our long trips I have had Indians as guides who became intensely interested in these wondrous visions of the night, I never knew them to lose the trail or become confused as to the proper route.Very pleasant are my memories of different guides and dog-drivers. With very few exceptions they served me loyally and well. Most of them were devoted Christian men. With me they rejoiced to go on these long journeys to their countrymen who were still groping in the darkness, but most of them longing for the light. Many of them were capable of giving exhortations or addresses; and if not able to do this, they could, Paul-like, tell the story of their conversion, and how they had found the Saviour.My heart warms to those faithful men, my companions in many a storm, my bed-fellows in many a cold wintry camp. Memory brings up many incidents where they risked their lives for me, and where, when food was about exhausted, and the possibilities of obtaining additional supplies for days were very poor, they quietly and unostentatiously put themselves on quarter rations, for days together, that their beloved missionary might not starve.Some of them have finished their course. Up the shining trail, following the unerring Guide, they have gone beyond the auroras and beyond the stars right to the throne of God.

So destitute are these wild north lands of roads that there are really no distinct words in the languages of these northern tribes to represent land vehicles. In translating such words as “waggon” or “chariot” into the Cree language, a word similar to that for “dog-sled” had to be used.

No surveyor, up to the years about which I am writing, had visited those regions, and there were literally no roads as understood in civilised lands.

So numerous are the lakes and rivers that roads are unnecessary to the Indian in the summer time. With his light birch canoe he can go almost everywhere he desires. If obstructions block up his passage, all he has to do is to put his little canoe on his head, and a short run will take him across the portage, or around the cataracts or falls, or over the height of land to some other lake or stream, where he quickly embarks and continues his journey.

All summer travelling is done along the water routes. Naturally the various trading posts and Indian villages or encampments are located on the edges of the lakes or rivers, or very near them, so as to be most conveniently reached in this way. So short are the summers that there are only about five months of open water to be depended upon in these high latitudes. During the other seven months the dog sled is the only conveyance for purposes of travelling. So rough and wild is the country that we know of no vehicle that could take its place, and no animals that could do the work of the dogs.

As the years of toil rolled on, my Mission field or Circuit so enlarged that it extended irregularly north and south over five hundred miles, with a width in some places of over three hundred. In summer I travelled over it in a birch canoe, and in winter with my dog-trains.

At first it seemed very novel, and almost like child’s play, to be dragged along by dogs, and there was almost a feeling of rebellion against what seemed such frivolous work. But we soon found out that we had travelled in worse conveyances and with poorer steeds than in a good dog sled, when whirled along by a train of first-class dogs.

The dogs generally used are of the Esquimaux breed, although in many places they have become so mixed up with other varieties as to be almost unrecognisable. The pure Esquimaux sled dogs are well-built, compact animals, weighing from eighty to a hundred and twenty pounds. They are of various colours, and have a close, warm, furry coat of hair. They have sharp-pointed ears and very bushy, curly tails. They are the most notorious thieves. I never could completely break an Esquimaux dog of this propensity. It seemed ingrained in their very natures. I have purchased young puppies of this breed from the natives, have fed them well, and have faithfully endeavoured to bring them up in the way in which they ought to go, but I never could get them to stay there. Steal they would, and did, whenever they had an opportunity.

This serious defect may have been the result of the constant and unremitting neglect with which Indians generally treat their dogs. They are fond of them in a way, and are unwilling to part with them, except at a good price; yet, except when working them, they very seldom feed them. The dogs are generally left to steal their living, and some of them become very clever at it, as more than once I found to my sorrow. When the fisheries are successful, or many deer have been killed, the dogs, like theirowners, are fat and flourishing. When food is scarce, the dogs’ allowance is the first cut off. We could always tell at a glance, when a band of wild, wandering pagan Indians came in to visit our village from their distant hunting grounds, how they had prospered. If they and their dogs were fat and good-natured, they had had abundance of food. If, while the people looked fairly well, the dogs were thin and wolfish, we knew they had fared but moderately. If the dogs were all gone and the people looked gaunt and famine-stricken, we knew they had had hard times, and, as a last resort, had eaten their poor dogs to keep themselves alive.

Some of the Indians who make a pretence to feed their dogs in winter never think of doing so in summer. The result is that, as they have to steal, hunt, or starve, they become adepts in one or the other. Everything that is eatable, and many things apparently uneatable, are devoured by them. They fairly howled with delight when they found access to such things as old leather moccasins, dog harness, whips, fur caps, mitts, and similar things. They greedily devoured all they could, and then most cunningly buried the rest. Many of them go off in summer-time on long fishing excursions. I once, when away on a canoe trip, met a pack of them up a great river over a hundred miles from their home. When we first saw them at a long distance, we mistook them for wolves, and began to prepare for battle. The quick eyes of my Indian canoe men soon saw what they were, and putting down our guns, we spent a little time in watching them. To my great surprise I found out that they were fishing on their own account. This was something new to me, and so I watched them with much interest.

On the side of the river on which they were was a shallow, reedy marsh, where the water was from a few inches to a foot in depth. In these shallow waters, at certain seasons of the year, different varieties of fish are to be found. The principal is the Jack fish, or pike, some of which are over three feet long. As they crowd along in these shallows, often with their back fins out of the water, they are observed by the dogs, who quietly wade out, often to a distance of many yards, and seize them with such a grip that, in spite of their struggles, they are carried in triumph to the shore, and there speedily devoured. Sometimes the dogs will remain away for weeks together on these fishing excursions, and will return in much better condition than when they left.

During the winter of the first Riel Rebellion, when all our supplies had been cut off, my good wife and I got tired of dining twenty-one times a week on fish diet, varied only by a pot of boiled musk rats, or a roast hind-quarter of a wild cat. To improve our bill of fare, the next summer, when I went into the Red River Settlement, I bought a sheep, which I carefully took out with me in a little open boat. I succeeded in getting it safely home, and put it in a yard that had a heavy stockade fence twelve feet high around it. In some way the dogs got in and devoured my sheep.

The next summer, I took out a couple of pigs, and put them into a little log stable with a two-inch spruce plank door. To my great disgust, one night the dogs ate a hole through the door and devoured my pigs.

There seemed to be a good deal of the wolf in their nature. Many of them never manifested much affection for their masters, and never could be fully depended upon. Still I always found that even with Esquimaux dogs patience and kindness went farther than anything else in teaching them to know what was required of them, and in inducing them to accept the situation. Some of them are naturally lazy, and some of them are incorrigible shirks; and so there is in dog-driving a capital opportunity for the exercise of the cardinal virtue of patience.

As my Mission increased in size, and new appointments were taken up, I found I should have to be on the move nearly all the winter if those who longed for the Word of Life were to be visited. Do the best I could, there were some bands so remote that I could only visit them twice a year. In summer I went by canoe, and in winter by dog-train. After a few wretched experiences with native dogs, where I suffered most intensely, as much on account of their inferior powers as anything else, I began to think of the many splendid St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs I had seen in civilised lands, doing nothing in return for the care and affection lavished upon them. These thoughts, which came to me while far from home, were promptly followed by action as soon as that terrible trip was ended, in which every part of my face exposed to the intense cold had been frozen, even to my eyebrows and lips.

Missionary Secretaries were amused at the requisition for dogs, and had their laugh at what they called “my unique request,” and wrote me to that effect. Thanks, however, to the kindness of such men as the Honourable Mr Sanford, of Hamilton, the Honourable Mr Ferrier, of Montreal, and other friends, I had in my possession some splendid dogs before the next season opened, and then the work went on with increasing interest and satisfaction. With splendid, well-trained dogs, I could so shorten the time of the three hundred miles’ trip, that, instead of shivering seven or eight nights in a hole dug in the snow, we could reduce the number to four or five.

Those who have experienced the sufferings and hardships of camping out in the forest with the temperature ranging from thirty to sixty degrees below zero, will agree that to escape two or three nights of it meant a good deal.

I found by years of experience that the St. Bernard and Newfoundland dogs had all the good qualities, and none of the defects, of the Esquimaux. By kindness and firmness they were easily broken in, and then a whip was only an ornamental appendage of the driver’s picturesque costume. Of these splendid dogs I often had in my possession, counting old and young, as many as twenty at a time. The largest and best of them all was Jack, a noble St. Bernard. He was black as jet, and stood over thirty-three inches high at his fore shoulder. When in good working trim, he weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds. He had no equal in all that northern land. Several times he saved my life, as we shall see further on. No whip ever ruffled his glossy coat; no danger ever deterred him from his work, when he with his marvellous intelligence once got to know what was expected of him. No blizzard storm, no matter how fickle and changeful, could lead him off from the desired camping place, even if the courage of other dogs failed them, and even though the guides gave up in despair.

The distance we could travel with dogs depended of course very much on the character of the trail or route. On the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg, when no blinding gales opposed us, and our dogs were good and loads not too heavy, we have made from seventy to ninety miles a day. One winter I accomplished the journey from Fort Garry to Norway House in five days and a half—a distance of nearly four hundred miles. When we were toiling along in the dense forests, where the snow lay deep and the obstructions were many, and the country was broken with hills and ravines, we often did not make more than a third of that distance, and then suffered much more than when we had made much greater journeys under more favourable auspices.

The dog sleds are made of two oak or birch boards, about twelve feet long, eight or nine inches wide, and from half an inch to an inch thick. These two boards are fastened securely together, edge to edge, by crossbars. Then one of the ends is planed down thin, and so thoroughly steamed or soaked in hot water that it can easily be bent or curved up to form what is called the head of the sled. It is then planed smooth, and fitted out with side loops. The front ones are those to which the traces of the dogs are attached, and the others along the sides are used to fasten the load securely. When finished, allowing two or three feet for the curled-up head, a good dog sled is nine or ten feet long, and from sixteen to eighteen inches wide.

Sometimes they are fitted with parchment sides and a comfortable back. Then they are called carioles. When the dogs were strong enough, or the trail was a well beaten one, or we were travelling on the great frozen lakes, I was able to ride the greater part of the time. Then it was not unpleasant or toilsome work. But as many of my winter trails led me through the primeval forests, where the snow was often very deep, and the hills were steep, and the fallen trees many, and the standing ones thickly clustered together, on such journeys there was but little riding. One had to strap on his snow shoes, and help hisfaithful Indians to tramp down the deep snow in the trail, that the poor dogs might drag the heavily loaded sleds along.

Four dogs constitute a train. They are harnessed in tandem style, as all this vast country north of the fertile prairies is a region of forests. The Esquimaux style of giving each dog a separate trace, thus letting them spread out in a fan-like form, would never do in this land of trees and dense under-bush.

The harness, which is made of moose skin, is often decorated with ribbons and little musical bells. Singular as it may appear, the dogs were very fond of the bells, and always seemed to travel better and be in greater spirits when they could dash along in unison with their tinkling. Some dogs could not be more severely punished than by taking the bells off their harness.

The head dog of the train is called “the leader.” Upon him depends a great deal of the comfort and success, and at times the safety, of the whole party. A really good leader is a very valuable animal. Some of them are so intelligent that they do not require a guide to run ahead of them, except in the most dense and unbeaten forest trails. I had a long-legged white dog, of mixed breed, that ever seemed to consider a guide a nuisance, when once he had got into his big head an idea of what I wanted him to do. Outside of his harness Old Voyager, as we called him, was a morose, sullen, unsociable brute. So hard to approach was he that generally a rope about sixty feet long, with one end fastened around his neck, trailed out behind him. When we wanted to catch him, we generally had to start off in the opposite direction from him, for he was as cunning as a fox, and ever objected to being caught. In zigzag ways we moved about until he was thrown off his guard, and then by-and-by it was possible to come near enough to get hold of the long rope and haul him in. When once the collar was on his neck, and he had taken his place at the head of the party, he was the unrivalled leader. No matter how many trains might happen to be travelling together, no one thought of taking first place while Old Voyager was at hand.

Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with deep, wide bays. The headlands are from five to thirty miles apart. When dog-travelling on that great lake in winter, the general plan is to travel from headland to headland. When leaving one where perhaps we had slept or dined, all we had to do was to turn Old Voyager’s head in the right direction, and show him the distant point to which we wished to go; and although it might be many miles away, a surveyor’s line could not be much straighter than the trail our sleds would make under his unerring guidance.

I have gone into these details about this mode of travelling, because there is so little known about it in the outside world. Doubtless it will soon become a thing of the past, as the Indians are settling down in their Reservations, and, each tribe or band having a resident Missionary, these long, toilsome journeys will not be essential.

The companions of my long trips were the far-famed Indian runners of the north. The principal one of our party was called “the guide.” To him was committed the responsibility of leading us by the quickest and safest route to the band of Indians we wished to visit with the good news of a Saviour’s love. His place was in front of the dogs, unless the way happened to lead us for a time over frozen lakes or well-beaten trails, where the dogs were able to go on alone, cheered by the voice of their drivers behind. When the trail was of this description, the guide generally strode along in company with one of the drivers.

As the greater part of my work was in the wild forest regions, there were many trips when the guide was always at the front. Marvellously gifted were some of these men. The reader must bear in mind the fact that there were no roads or vestiges of a path. Often the whole distance we wished to go was through the dense unbroken forest. The snow, some winters, was from two to four feet deep. Often the trees were clustered so closely together that it was at times difficult to find them standing far enough apart to get our sleds, narrow as they were, between them. In many places the under-brush was so dense that it was laborious work to force our way through it. Yet the guide on his large snowshoes was expected to push on through all obstructions, and open the way where it was possible for the dog-sleds to follow. His chief work was to mark out the trail, along which the rest of us travelled as rapidly as our loaded sleds, or wearied limbs, and often bleeding feet, would allow.

Wonderfully clever and active were these guides in this difficult and trying work. To them it made but little difference whether the sun shone brightly, or clouds obscured the sky. On and on they pushed without hesitancy or delay. There were times when the sun’s rays were reflected with such splendour from the snowy wastes, that our eyes became so affected by the glare, that it was impossible to travel by sunlight. The black eyes of the Indians seemed very susceptible to this disease, which they call “snow blindness.” It is very painful, as I know by sad experience. The sensation is like that of having red-hot sand thrown on the eyeballs. Often my faithful dog-drivers used to suffer so from it that, stoical as they naturally are, I have known them to groan and almost cry out like children in the camp.

Once, in travelling near Oxford Lake, we came across a couple of Indians who were stone-blind from this disease. Fortunately they had been able to reach the woods and make a camp and get some food ready ere total blindness came upon them. We went out of our course to guide them to their friends.

To guard against the attack of this disease, which seldom occurs except in the months of March and April, when the increasing brightness of the sun, in those lengthening days, makes its rays so powerful, we often travelled only during the night-time, and rested in the sheltered camps during the hours of sunshine. On some of our long trips we have travelled eight nights continuously in this way. We generally left our camp about sundown. At midnight we groped about as well as we could, aided by the light of the stars or the brilliant auroras, and found some dry wood and birch bark, with which we made a fire and cooked a midnight dinner. Then on we went until the morning light came. Then a regular camp was prepared, and breakfast cooked and eaten, and the dogs were fed, instead of at night. Prayers said, and ourselves wrapped up in our blankets and robes, we slept until the hours of brilliant sunshine were over, when on we went.

It always seemed to me that the work of the guides would be much more difficult at night than during the daytime. They, however, did not think so. With unerring accuracy they pushed on. It made no matter to them whether the stars shone out in all the beauty and brilliancy of the Arctic sky, or whether clouds arose and obscured them all. On the guide pushed through tangled underwood or dense gloomy forest, where there were not to be seen, for days, or rather nights, together, any other tracks than those made by the wild beasts of the forest.

Sometimes the wondrous auroras blazed out, flashing and scintillating with a splendour indescribable. At times the whole heavens seemed aglow with their fickle, inconstant beauty, and then various portions of the sky were illumined in succession by their ever-changing bars, or columns of coloured light. Man’s mightiest pyrotechnic displays dwarfed into insignificance in the presence of these celestial visions. For hours at a time have I been entranced amidst their glories. So bewildering were they at times to me that I have lost all ideas of location, and knew not which was north or south.

But to the experienced guide, although, like many of the Indians, he had a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, so intent was he on his duties that these changing auroras made no difference, and caused him no bewilderment in his work. This, to me, was often a matter of surprise. They are very susceptible in their natures, and their souls are full of poetry, as many of their expressive and beautiful names indicate. To them, in their pagan state, those scintillating bars of coloured light were the spirits of their forefathers, rank after rank, rushing out to battle. Yet, while on our long trips I have had Indians as guides who became intensely interested in these wondrous visions of the night, I never knew them to lose the trail or become confused as to the proper route.

Very pleasant are my memories of different guides and dog-drivers. With very few exceptions they served me loyally and well. Most of them were devoted Christian men. With me they rejoiced to go on these long journeys to their countrymen who were still groping in the darkness, but most of them longing for the light. Many of them were capable of giving exhortations or addresses; and if not able to do this, they could, Paul-like, tell the story of their conversion, and how they had found the Saviour.

My heart warms to those faithful men, my companions in many a storm, my bed-fellows in many a cold wintry camp. Memory brings up many incidents where they risked their lives for me, and where, when food was about exhausted, and the possibilities of obtaining additional supplies for days were very poor, they quietly and unostentatiously put themselves on quarter rations, for days together, that their beloved missionary might not starve.

Some of them have finished their course. Up the shining trail, following the unerring Guide, they have gone beyond the auroras and beyond the stars right to the throne of God.

Back to IndexNext