Wa-sa-Kejic came over to the post early one October, and said his boy had cut his foot, and that he had no one to steer his canoe on a proposed beaver hunt. Now nice, fat beaver, just before the ice takes, is one of the tidbits that come to the trader's table, and having spare time just then I volunteered to accompany him, knowing I would get a share of the game.
As we made our way over the several small portages between the large lake on which the post is built and the one in which he had located the beaver, he told me there were two lodges on the lake to which we were making our way.
We pitched our tent on the last portage, so as not to make a fire near the beaver. Beavers have very poor eyesight, but very acute hearing and smell, and once they are frightened the sport for that night at all events is finished.
We had something to eat and then started for the lake, leaving our tent and things ready to return to after dark. Smoking and talking are forbidden when one is in a beaver lake; care also must be taken that the paddle does not rasp the side of the canoe.
The beavers had built an immense dam across the discharge of the lake, and left a small cut in the middle for the overflow to pass. Here Wa-sa-Kejic placed a No. 4 Newhouse trap in about 4 in. of water. On a twig 9 in. high and set back about a foot from the trap he placed a small piece of castorum. The smell of this attracts a beaver. Then he lengthened the trap chain with three strands of No. 9 twine, tying it to a stout pole, which he planted very, very securely in deep water, out from the dam.
The beaver, when he finds himself caught, springs backward into the deep water and dives to the bottom; here he struggled to get away until shortness of breath compels him to rise to the surface, and this is repeated until the weight of the trap is too much for his exhausted condition, and he died at the bottom, from whence he is hauled up by the hunter when next visiting his traps.
After placing the trap on the dam Wa-sa-Kejic opened another ready for setting, tied the poles, and had everything ready; then giving me implicit injunctions not to make the least noise, told me to steer the canoe quietly to the lodge, which was fixed in a small bay out in the lake. When we reached the beaver's house, he carefully placed the trap in the same depth of water as he had done the previous one, with this difference, that he omitted the castorum, because, as he told me afterward, the beavers went on top of the house every night, the young ones to slide down into the water, and the old ones to do any necessary plastering.
Another trap was set at the next house, and from there we paddled the canoe a considerable distance from the beaver works, and figuratively rested on our oars until sundown.
We were now going to try still-shooting them. Before night sets in about sundown each fine evening in the fall the beavers leave their lodge, first, to eat the young willows along the shore, and after satisfying their hunger to patch the dam, plaster their houses and cut young trees to store up for their next winter's food!
They come to the surface on leaving the lodge, and unless something frightens them swim on the surface in and out along the borders of the lake until they see a favorable spot to go ashore; and here they set to nibbling the bark of young birch or popular, and if the hunter is careful he may be shot at close range.
As I said before, talking while hunting beaver is forbidden; and the hunter conveys his wishes to the steersman by signs, thus: To draw his attention he oscillates the canoe slightly; to move the canoe ahead the motion of paddling made by throwing the opening hand inboard; to alter the course of the canoe is done by signing with the hand either to the right or to the left, as desired; to stop the canoe's headway when getting too close to the game is done by gentle downward patting of the hand, etc.
Being already versed in this dumb language, we shoved away and took up a position near the lodge, but to the leeward of it, and waited. The sun having already gone down behind the forest, on the other side of the lake, we had not long to wait until a beaver broke water and swam away in a direction from us. Wa-sa-Kejic shook his head, as much as to say, "We will go after that fellow later on." The first was followed quickly by a second, a third and a fourth! Then, after waiting for fully fifteen minutes and no other appearing, Wa-sa-Kejic made signs to go ahead; this we did slowly, without taking the sharp-bladed paddle from the water.
Presently we heard a noise as if a pig were supping up from a trough. This was one of the beavers crunching up young twigs in the water. The canoe was edged slowly toward the land, with Wa-sa-Kejic on the alert, both dogheads full-cocked and ready for action. Presently the downward motion of the hand was given, the gun brought deliberately up to the shoulder, and the next instant the explosion, followed almost as one shot by the second barrel! A thick smoke hung between us and the shore, but we could hear kicking and splashing of the water; that told the shot was true. The beaver had ceased to struggle by the time we reached the shore. "But for what was the other shot?" I asked Wa-sa-Kejic.
"For that," he answered, pointing to another beaver stone, dead on the bank; and then he laughed, for there was no necessity of keeping quiet any longer, for the shots had frightened any other beaver in the vicinity.
"We may as well go to camp now," continued Wa-sa-Kejic, "and we will see our traps in the morning."
From the fact of our having come ashore late, and perhaps more because of the hearty supper we made off of roast beaver, we did not awake until the sun was high. We immediately partook of a hasty breakfast of tea Gallette and pork and went to see the traps.
"Fortunate?" Well, yes! We found one in each trap; and returned during the afternoon to the post. The Indian gave me the meat of two beavers for myself.
He left his traps set to visit at some future time, because there were several animals yet in the lake. Describing the mode of killing beaver would not be complete unless we explained that of "trenching." This method of killing them is largely practiced by the Indians after the lakes and rivers are frozen over. I cannot do better than to describe a small lake that Wa-sa-Kejic and I went to trench in December. This beaver lodge I had found the very last day of open water, for that night the wind turned round north and froze up everything! As it was close to the post, and I had found it, I simply made a bargain with Wa-sa-Kejic to do the trenching for a pound of tea. In those days tea was tea in the remote interior, and meant many a cheering cup to the Indian.
Wa-sa-Kejic whistled his dogs after him when we left camp in the morning. The lake lay in the hollow of a mountain of considerable height, and could be compared to an inch of water in the bottom of a teacup. Before we were half down the precipitous sides we saw the dogs nosing around the shore, scenting for the beavers in their "washes" or breathing holes. Wa-sa-Kejic, when he cast his eye around the small body of water, said, "This is an easy lake, and the beaver will soon all be dead."
He now produced an ordinary socket chisel of 1 1/2 in. point, and in a few minutes had this handled with a young tamarak about 6 ft. long. We each carried an axe, and the first order I got was to cut some dry sticks that stood at the discharge, each stick to be about 4 ft. long. These, as fast as cut, the Indian drove across the creek, after he had cut a trench in the thin ice from shore to shore. This was to prevent the beaver from going down the creek.
The next thing was to break open the lodge from the top. This was done to scare the beavers out into the lake and make them resort to the washes. The beaver washes have their entrances under water, and go up sometimes a considerable distance from the shore, terminating generally under the roots of a tree. The beavers flee from wash to wash, as the hunter finds them out, and as each wash is discovered by the dogs (which scent the beavers through the frozen surface) the hunter stakes up the entrance to prevent them from returning.
Beaver washes vary in number according to the formation of the lake, from two to three up to twenty. The practiced eye of the hunter tells him at once if the lake has few or many. And this is why Wa-sa-Kejic said we would soon kill the beaver. At last the three dogs remained pointing and listening about 12 ft from the shore under a spruce of considerable size. The Indian set to work to stake up the entrance, which he did as fast as I could furnish the sticks.
On the shore of this barricade he cleared away the ice and snow, making an opening about the size of a barrel head, and then he paused, and pointing to the water, said, "See that! That's the beaver breathing!" This was shown by the water's surface gently rising and falling.
He now took off his coat, and baring his right arm up to the shoulder he gave me the ice chisel and told me to pierce the ground where the dogs were pointing. I had hardly given a blow or two before I saw Wa-sa-Kejic stoop over the hole and plunge his naked arm into the water. Instantly it was withdrawn, and a big fat beaver, securely seized by the tail, was struggling in his grasp. A blow of his axe on the spine finished him in quick order, and this was repeated from time to time as I continued to enlarge the hole where the beavers were huddled together under the roots.
We got six out of this wash, and two out of another, which constituted all that were in the lake. Two each made a very good load for us going home, and the next day I sent a man with a flat sled to bring home the remaining four.
The three principal modes of killing beavers are by shooting, trapping, trenching.
As a haunt and home of the muskrat, I venture to say that Cumberland, on the Saskatchewan, is the banner producing post on this continent. For miles and miles about this trading place there are immense grassy marshes, cut up and intersected by waterways and lagoons in every direction. From a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand musquash skins was the usual returns from the post a few years ago. Three times during the year the hunters made their harvest, first in October, when the little animals were busy making their funny little cone mud houses and cutting bunches of long grass for their winter's food.
At that time the Indian would set his bunch of No. 1 steel traps before sundown and then lay off in his canoe at a short distance from the shore in some pond and shoot at those swimming past until it became too dusk to fire. Then he would make to some place to dry ground, haul up his canoe, make a fire and have his supper. When his after-meal pipe was finished he would silently shove his canoe into the water and make his first visit. When setting his traps he would take the precaution to place on the end of the pole that the chain was fastened to, a piece of paper, a bunch of grass or a piece of birch bark. This enabled him to find his traps in the dark, as the sign would show on the sky line as he paddled slowly along sitting low down in his canoe. The looking at his traps and resetting of them would take him an hour or two, then he would come back to his fire place, throw the rats he had caught in a pile, replenish the fire and stretch out for another smoke. About ten o'clock he would make another visit and on his return make a lasting fire, roll himself in his Hudson's Bay blanket and sleep till morning.
Often two visits were made in the morning, one just at the screech of day, and the last one after he had had his breakfast. Traps were taken up at this first visit to be set in some other locality that afternoon, and the hunter would paddle away for his lodge, where he would sleep all the forenoon while his wife and children were skinning and stretching the pelts. The next and every night would be spent in the same way until the ice took, and then another mode of sport I wish to describe would take place.
Ice in one night on these shallow waters was sufficiently strong to support the weight of one man. Armed with a long barbed spear a couple of feet in length, lashed to a stout pole, a bag on his back to put the rats in, and sometimes followed by a boy at a distance, the Indian, with his bright steel skates firmly buckled on, would glide down and in and out these skate lanes looking for rat houses. Practice and experience taught him to get over the ice in the least noisy way. Instead of striking out one foot after the other, he skated as the people of Holland do by a motion of the hips. It is not a graceful way, but it is easy on the skater of long distances on new glare ice. Sliding, as it were, down to one of the mud cones with spear firmly grasped, he would drive it down into the center, and very rarely missed transfixing one and at times two of the highly perfumed little animals.
The interior of a rat house is a saucer-like hollow in the center, just a little above the level of the water. From the edge of this there may be three or four slideways into deep water. At the least alarm the rats tumble down these in a minute and only return when all danger is past. When the inhabitants of a single house number eight, ten or twelve and they huddle together for warmth, they are often one on top of another, and thus the spear passes thru two at one thrust. The yet unfrozen mud is torn away and the spear with the rats lifted out, dispatched and placed in the bag, and the hunter bears down to another house and so on thru the day. When the bag becomes too heavy it is emptied out on the ice and the hunt continued. Towards night the Indian retraces his road and picks up the piles he left earlier in the day. His leather bag is converted into a sled, the ends of his long waisted sash are tied to the bag, and with the loop over his shoulder he strikes out a road straight for his camp, well pleased with his day's sport and himself. Knowledge of the architecture of the musquash's house (for they are all modeled in the same way) enables a bush man to know just where the little family are huddled.
There is yet another way numbers are killed just after the ice takes, and before the mud houses become too hard frozen; that is to skate down on them shot gun in hand and fire right into the cone of mud. The effect is not known till the earth is pulled away. The shot being fired at such close range there is, not unfrequently, three or four dead rats. One can not help to moralize how cruel it is for man to destroy at a moment the labors of long nights of these industrious little animals, and cause the remaining one to patch up the break at a season when it can never be as good and warm as when the work is done during open weather.
The hunter therefore sets his traps, so as to keep them employed, but he kills the greater number with his gun. A very small charge of powder and shot is required, and if the hunter keeps perfectly quiet in his canoe, and is below the wind, he can call the rat to within ten feet of his gun. I have pushed by canoe out from the shore of a small lake and called, just about sundown, and have counted no fewer than six rats coming from as many different directions. One waits till they get so close that they sheer off, and then fire sideways at the head.
Snaring is the principal way in which the lynxes are killed by the North American Indians. After a heavy fall of snow, however, if an Indian crosses a fresh lynx track, he immediately gives chase, even if he has only his belt axe.
The hunter only follows very fresh tracks, and in a short time comes up with the big cat. As soon as the animal knows it is pursued, it either climbs a tree or crouches under some thick shrub. If the hunter finds it up a tree, he sets to work at once to cut down the tree (that is if he has no gun). As soon as the tree totters he makes his way in the direction which it is to fall. The lynx clings to the tree until near the ground, and then springs clear. While he is floundering in the snow, the Indian bravely runs in and knocks him with his axe. Of course, if he has his gun, he simply shoots the cat and it tumbles dead to the foot of the tree. The feat of running down a lynx and shooting him with a bow and arrow is what all Indian youths aim to accomplish; they are then considered hunters.
Lynxes are always found in greatest numbers where their natural food supply is most plentiful. They feed usually on rabbits and partridges, and these are to be found in young growth of such trees as pitch pine, birch and poplar.
The Indian also, when he is dependent on rabbits, lives on the border of such a country, and has long lines of snares which he visits two or three times a week. Along this snare road at certain distances he has his lynx snares, which are nothing different from those set for rabbits, except being much larger. Yes, there is another difference: Instead of the snare being tied to a tossing pole, it is simply tied to a stout birch stick, 3 or 4 feet long by about 2 inches in diameter. The extreme ends of this are lodged on two forked sticks, and the snare hanging down in the middle is then set, tied to small dry twigs on each side to keep it in position.
At the back of the snare, at about 2 or 3 feet, the head and stuffed skin of a rabbit is fixed under some brush. The skin is filled with moss, or pine brush, and is fixed so as to look as much as possible like a live rabbit in its form. The head being to the skin gives it the natural shape and smell, and the lynx, walking leisurely along the snowshoe track, notices the game and makes a spring for it through the snare. In his headlong bound he carries snare and cross stick along with him, and as soon as he feels the cord tightening about his neck he not infrequently becomes his own executioner by getting his forefeet on the stick and pulling backwards as hard as he can. The more he struggles, the madder he gets, and pulls the harder to free himself, but this is, on the contrary, only making matters worse. The loop of the noose gets matted into the soft, thick hair of the throat, and there is no "slack" after that; in a few moments the great cat is dead.
Sometimes the lynx carries the cross stick in his mouth and climbs a tree. This is invariably the last tree he ever climbs, because once up the tree he lets the stick drop and it hangs down, generally on the opposite side of the limb from that on which the lynx is. As the cat goes down the tree on one side, the cross stick goes up toward the limb on the other and gets fixed in the crotch. As soon as the cord tightens about his neck he tries the harder to get down, and is consequently hanging himself.
Lynxes are very stupid. They will even put their foot into an open and exposed steel trap; and the better-off Indians often use small No. 1 traps instead of snares. This, however is only done latterly, and by the very well-off Indians. As a rule Indians only have traps for beaver, otter, fox and bear.
Lynxes are very rarely seen in summer, keeping close to the thickest bush. In any case, the skin is then of no value, and they are far from being "a thing of beauty," with nothing but a bare skin.
In the prime state they are largely used on the continent as linings, and each skin is worth about $4.
There are three kinds or qualities of martens recognized by the trappers.
First. — The pine marten that is found in the country covered by soft woods, such as pine, spruce, white fir and birch. This is the most numerous and consequently the skins are of least value. They are of yellowish brown color on the back and orange on the throat, changing down to pale yellow or white on the belly.
Second. — The rock marten; this is found in a country with stunted growth of spruce timber, a very mountainous district, the chief features of which are great crevices and boulders. Some of the skins of this variety are of great beauty, being dark on back, and throat and sides of gray or stone color.
The third kind, which is the scarcest, and consequently of most value, is the marten found in the black spruce country, or swamps of northern Labrador. The fur of this variety is of a deep brown color throughout the pelt, and at times the tips of the hairs on the rump are silver gray or golden brown. The latter are very rare, and such skins have been sold in the London fur market for £5 a piece! They are also much larger than the other kinds, the skins of the male often being from 24 to 30 inches long, exclusive of the tail.
The proper and most successful time for hunting is in the latter days of November and the whole month of December. They are hunted again in March, but by that time the sun has bleached out the color of the hair, which causes a depreciation in value.
As a business, trapping is the only mode of killing martens. They are rarely seen to be shot at, as they pass the days in thickets or hollow stumps, only emerging after nightfall to hunt their food, which consists of mice, birds, young partridges, etc.
Wooden traps are made in the well-known "figure-of-four" shape, and are set either on stumps or on the snow, flattened down with the snowshoes, and the trap built thereon.
It is considered a very good day's work in December for a trapper to construct, bait and set up twenty-five such traps. A real marten hunter (nothing to do with my name) camps each night at the end of his day's work until he has from 150 to 200 traps set! He generally visits them once in ten days or a fortnight, and if the catch averages one marten to ten traps it is considered very fair.
It takes the hunter two full days to rebait, clean out and freshen up such a line. When small steel traps are used instead of the deadfall, the hunter can cover more ground in a day and do better work than by making all wood traps. The steel traps are much more fortunate than the wood ones. In the "figure-of-four" traps, before the animal is caught it must seize the bait with its teeth and pull strong enough to set off the trap, whereas with the steel trap the mere fact of his coming to the doorway to smell insures his putting his foot in it, and in a moment up hangs Mr. Marten or Mr. Mink, as the case may be!
Of course the steel traps have this disadvantage — they are weighty; that is, when you have fifty and over on your back, but the man who follows trapping as a business can very easily overcome this difficulty by placing catches of traps at different places by canoe near where he proposes to have his line in the winter; and he can then branch off now and again for a new supply as he is setting up his trap road.
This leaving the main road at right angles once in a while might even be a source of profit to the trapper, for he might come across a bear den or a beaver lodge, or fall on deer tracks, and if he succeeded in killing a deer some of the sinewy parts would come in to bait his traps.
The taking of the skins of these little animals is very simple. The knife is used only about the head; once back of the ears the skin is drawn steadily until the tail is reached, the core of which is drawn out, either by a split stick or by the stiff thumb nail of the trapper. The skin is then dried on flat (three) splints, and when dried sufficiently to prevent it spoiling is tied up with others to the number of ten in each bundle, and are thus taken to the trader or fur dealer.
The first purchaser from the trapper generally buys them at an average price, but he sells them to the manufacturer selected; that is, getting a high price for the dark and a low price for the yellow or pale.
The fox as a rule is a most wily animal, and numerous are the stories of his cunning toward the Indian hunter with his steel traps.
Starvation makes them catch in deadfalls, but they must be very starved indeed before they pull a piece of frozen bait and have a weight fall on their back. The skins of foxes killed during starvation are never so valuable, as the hair then lacks the rich gloss. When small game is plenty, such as rabbits and partridges, and foxes are few, the skins are of a deep richness not seen under other circumstances.
There are several different and distinct colors of foxes of the north country. They are all of the same family, with the single exception of the white or arctic fox. These, apart from their difference of color, differ very much in their characteristics. They are not cunning; on the contrary, they are positively stupid. They will readily catch in deadfalls, and will walk into an open, uncovered steel trap in daylight! Again the flesh of the arctic fox is eaten as readily as that of the hare or white partridge; all other foxes are carrion; even a starving Indian would give them the go-by.
Of the other or true fox we have many colors and shades of color, and I give them in their cash value rotation, beginning with the black or pole fox; First, black or pole; second, black silver; third, silver gray; fourth, black cross; fifth, dark cross; sixth, ordinary cross; seventh, light cross; eighth, dark blue (i. e., lead color); ninth, light blue; tenth, bright red; eleventh, light red; twelfth, arctic white; thirteenth, pale red.
Number thirteen is the poorest quantity of the fox family, and is worth less than the arctic white fox.
January is the best month for trapping. First, because the fur is then at its primest, and second, food is harder to get and the fox consequently more likely to enter a trap.
Of course, any number of traps will catch a fox, but not every trap will hold him. There is such a thing as the trap being too large and strong, as well as too small and weak! When too large and strong it catches too high up the leg, and being too strong it breaks the bone at the same time; and then in cold weather it's only a question of a few minutes for the frozen skin and muscles of the leg to be twisted off and Master Fox runs away on three legs, ever after to be too cunning to be caught in a trap. On the other hand, if the trap is too small and weak it catches the fox by the toes, and he either pulls his foot clear at once or the toes, becoming frozen and insensible to feeling, are twisted off; and this, if anything, is a harder fox to circumvent than the one with half a leg.
The proper trap to use is a Newhouse No. 2. When properly set it catches just above all the fingers, as it were, or where the paw or foot would correspond with the thick part of the hand. There is a good, solid hold of muscles, sinews, etc. There, once the jaws are fixed, they hold the fox to the death.
Fox hunters are very particular to keep everything connected with the trapping away from the house or camp, even wearing an outside pair of moccasins, which are peeled off and hung up with the snowshoes.
The hunter generally places his trap or traps on some bare point jutting out into the lake, or some narrows, or near a clump of willows at the edge of barren grounds, or any other place his judgment tells him a fox is likely to pass. The fewer signs the better; therefore instead of the chain being tied to a picket, a stick 4 or 5 ft. long is slipped through the ring on the chain up to the middle. Here it is securely fastened, so that it won't slip either way. A trench the length of the stick is cut down in the snow with the head of the axe, and the pole laid therein about a foot beneath the surface. Snow is then piled in and the whole packed hard.
The trap is now opened, and the snow packed down with the back of the man's mitt, large enough to lay the trap and spring therein. The trap is now open and about 2 in. lower than the surrounding snow. The hunter now begins carefully to lay fine flat balsam bows or clusters of needles from the palate out to the jaws until the whole is covered; then very gently he either dusts light snow over this until it has the same appearance as the rest or he takes up two large pieces of frozen snow and rubs them together over the trap until all is covered.
Chopped up frozen meat or fish, a supply of which the trapper is provided with, is now sprinkled or thrown about, beginning 15 or 20 ft. off and gradually getting more plentiful as the trap is neared.
With a brush broom the hunter dusts his snowshoe tracks full as he recedes from the trap until he is off 30 or 40 ft.; after that no further precaution is necessary for an ordinary fox. But for an extraordinary one I could relate a hundred different ways of setting traps and bait to overreach the wily old fellow; but in most cases it is time wasted, the fox eating the bait and turning the traps over night after night, much to the vexation of the hunter.
It is a pretty sight to see a black or silver gray fox jumping in a trap on the pure white snow. I went one time with Wa-sa-Kejic to see his traps in the barren grounds back of the post. I was following in his snowshoe tracks steadily, and we were just topping a small swell in the country, here and there clumps of black willows. All at once he stopped so suddenly in his tracks that I fell up against him.
"There," he said, "look at that!" My eye followed his finger, and there, jumping and struggling to get away, was a large black fox!
"Let me shoot him," I exclaimed, drawing my gun cover as I spoke.
"Oh, no," he replied, "we will only do that if he pulls himself clear of the trap." And with that he drew his belt axe and walked with a steady step down on the fox. The closer he got the more the fox struggled, but he was well and freshly caught, and the trap held him fast.
Wa-sa-Kejic gave him a tap on the nose with the helve of the axe, which had the effect of stunning him. The Indian then seized him with his left hand by the throat, and with his right hand felt for his heart; this he drew gradually down toward the stomach until the heart strings gave way; there was a quiver, and the fox was thrown down on the snow limp and dead.
What a pleased look the Indian wore as he stood there, evidently oblivious to my presence for the moment, as he gazed down on the most valuable skin it was possible for him to trap. What a number of necessaries and luxuries this would procure for his family. He would get from the factor at the post $80 for that one single skin! What a number of any other skins it would take to amount to that sum!
With steel or wooden traps is the only systematical way of hunting these animals. They are, of course, hunted for their pelts in the north country of Canada, and not for sport, as in Scotland. A few are shot, but these are met with by chance.
November is when the Indian sets his traps for otters. They have then their full winter coats on; and it is just before the small lakes and rivers set fast.
Their resort is generally in some chain of small lakes with creeks connecting the chain, and their home, if they can find one, is an empty beaver lodge. They prefer such a place, as after the ice is taken in fishing along shore, they carry the fish into one of the "washes," where they can breathe and eat with safety and comfort.
The otter is a great enemy of the beaver, but never willingly courts an encounter; yet, every time they meet, there is a terrible battle. I remember years ago coming out on a small lake about sundown, and seeing a great commotion on the surface of the water a few hundred yards out, jumped into my canoe and quietly paddled out. As I drew near, I noticed two black objects engaged in a deadly conflict. Although they must have observed the canoe, they paid no attention, but continued the fight, sometimes disappearing beneath the surface, fast to each other, for a full minute.
When within gunshot, I made out the combatants to be an otter and a beaver, and could have despatched the two with one shot, only I could plainly see they were both very much exhausted, and I wished to see which would gain the day.
The end was nearer than I expected. Once more they disappeared beneath the waters, each maintaining the same deadly grip of the other's neck; a few moments later the beaver floated to the surface on its back, dead. I looked about for the otter, and saw him swimming toward the shore, bleeding profusely from many wounds and evidently hurt to the death. I followed, however, with my gun full cocked, ready if need be to shoot him; but the beaver's long, sharp, spade-like teeth had done their work well, for the otter all at once rose half out of the water, pawed about for a minute in a blind way, turned over on his side, gave one convulsive quiver, and he also was dead.
A No. 3 Newhouse trap is generally used. In fact, this number is called throughout the country "otter trap." These traps are set at the overflow of beaver dams and otter slideways during the open water and at little portages used by water rats crossing from one bend of a small river to another. No bait is used; the trap is set in about 4 inches of water with a picket out in deep water to tie the chain to and a small piece of castorum on a forked stick.
The odor of the beaver castor has a very alluring effect on most all animals, and is greatly used by the hunter.
Traps for otters are set in the following way, under the ice: A place is selected in some small creek, connecting two lakes, where signs of otters are found. These signs are noticeable at the discharge of the lake, where the lake ice thins off into open water, for the ice is so thin that the otter readily breaks a hole to come out on the ice to eat the fish. The otter is a fish-eating animal, and is very expert in catching them.
Their slideways are generally made on some moss-covered, rocky promontory, jutting out into a lake. Here they will climb up one side and slide down the other for hours at a time.
Otters, when taken young, are readily tamed and become great pets.
Another way of setting traps in winter is under the ice in some creek where otters are known to resort. The ice is cut away from the bank, outward, for about 3 feet long by 1 foot or so wide. Each side of this cut is staked with dry sticks, driven into the mud or sandy bottom. The trap is set between the stakes at the outer end, in about 4 inches of water at least; that is, the water may be deeper than that, but two cross sticks are so placed that the otter in entering must go under the sticks and thus gets caught. The picket to secure the trap chain to is out from the trap, as in open-water time.
To induce him to enter, a small whitefish or trout is placed on a forked stick near the shore, and is so fixed that it appears to be alive and swimming. As soon as the trap is struck, the otter jumps backward into deep water, and for want of air is soon dead.
In Canada and the United States, the killing of the little animal known under the several names of water rat, musquash and muskrat is so well understood by the average frontier boy that any information I can give would be perhaps a repetition.
Still there is one way that the Indian practices which is certainly not known to the whites, and is at a certain time very successful. That is spearing them on the ice; and another mode in which the Indians are very successful in the fall is digging them out, or "trenching" them, in the same way they do the beaver, only with much less labor, as it is done before the ponds and creeks freeze up. I will describe the latter way first, seeing it comes before that of spearing.
The resort of musquash (always where they are in numbers) is along grassy rivers, creeks, or ponds; for they store up large quantities of the long, flat grass for winter use, as the beaver does with young birch and poplar. The Indian paddling along the shores of such places has his eyes fixed on the bottom of the water; presently he perceives the entrance to one of the rat burrows; he stops his canoe and gazes fixedly on the opening, which is always about a foot under water. At last he sees the water ebb and flow in and out of the hole. This is a sure sign that the "wash" is occupied at that very moment by one or more rats.
He at once, either with his axe or the blade of his sharp maple paddle, chops down the mud bank until he has an embankment or dam. This is to prevent the musquash from running out to deep water. When all is ready, either his wife or the boy who is steering the canoe is sent ashore to prod about the honey-combed bank with the handle of his paddle. The little animals thus disturbed and thoroughly frightened make a rush for the outlet, deep water and safety, but (there is always a "but") the Indian, with his upraised paddle, has his eye steadily fixed on the water back of his dam, and as fast as one makes its appearance the sharp edge of the paddle is brought down on its head or back, and it is thrown into the canoe, quivering in its death agony. From two to eight or nine are not infrequently taken from one hole. When the last one is killed, the Indian moves his canoe on until he finds another colony, and the same process is gone over again, and he returns to his camp with his canoe filled with musquash. I have in the fall received from one Indian as many as 2,000 skins, large and small.
Musquash breed twice in the summer, and bring forth at each litter from six to eight. In the fall the large ones fetch the hunters ten cents, and the kits, or small ones, five cents.
The spearing of the musquash is done in this wise: The rats throw up little mud-cone lodges, or houses, out from the shore, in about a foot of water. They are not unlike beaver lodges. The inside is hollow and the entrance is under water. In this resort the rats sit, huddled together, during most of the severe winter weather. The hunter, therefore, as soon as the ice will bear his weight, slides up to the rat houses, armed with a sharp, barbed, steel spear, about a foot long, let into the end of a small tamarac handle. This handle is generally about 8 feet long. Arriving close to the lodge, he poises the spear in mid-air for a moment and drives it down through the lodge with all his might. If he pierced a rat, he feels it wriggling on the spear, and keeps it fast there until he has torn away the mud and grass. He then seizes it by the tail and draws it with a jerk from the spear and knocks it on the ice, which finishes Mr. Rat. At times, when there are a number of musquash in the same lodge at the same time, the spear often passes through two, or even three, at one stroke. This is great sport where the lodges are numerous.
Musquash killed under the ice are worth two or three cents each more than in the fall, and the hunter makes frequently two to four dollars a day while it lasts.
The flesh of musquash killed under the ice is highly esteemed by the Indians. It has then its winter fat on, and is free from the objectionable odor which prevails in the spring.
The skins of the large ones, when dressed, make strong and durable lining for cloaks, coats, etc., and are made up into caps also. The "kit skins" are used in large numbers in the manufacture of kid gloves. The Hudson Bay Company exports annually about 3,000,000 skins.
Of all the lucky hunters I ever knew I accord the bun to Na-ta-way. He was one of the engaged servants at the post in Canada, and whenever he put on his snowshoes and sailed forth from the gates, some creature or bird would cross his path or vision. To do this and come within reasonable distance of Na-ta-way's small bore, muzzle-loading rifle was sure and speedy death to the unfortunate beast or bird.
I could never understand why he chose to be a servant in the Company in preference to being free to roam the lakes, rivers and forests, because had he elected to follow the occupation of a trapper and hunter he could not have failed to make double the money. Other Indians had traps set all around and quite near the post and yet Na-ta-way would kill as much as the average one, with only a poor half day off and his day on Sunday.
I never saw his equal for quickness in setting deadfalls or rabbit snares. However, this partakes more of a biography than what I set out to relate, and yet it is an indispensable digression to enable the reader to believe the wonderful and remarkable success this man had one day when he was given leave from daylight to night. There was a weighty reason for this extra freedom from duty for the fact was the post people were short of meat. The month was April and our frozen supply nearly used up.
Na-ta-way knew of a single moose yard, or more properly speaking, a yard with a single moose as occupant. To kill a lone moose on the crust does not require the combined efforts of two or more persons, therefore Na-ta-way was told to go and kill the moose and skin and quarter the animal, which considering the distance to go and come, amounted to a very good day's work. But Na-ta-way besides doing this and doing it well, accomplished much more.
Coming down from the moose mountain to get better walking, he crossed the fresh tracks of a large bear. This was nuts to our man. He immediately turned aside and followed up the trail, ramming down one of his little pea bullets as he went. The heat of the morning sun had softened the crust of the night and Mr. Bruin was making headway with difficulty. In fact, Na-ta-way had not gone over half a mile when he sighted the bear and was very soon close up to him.
The bear had two kind of ideas. One was to climb a tree and the second to run away, neither of which was carried into effect, for a bullet stopped the cowardly act of running, and a second one in the ear stilled him forever. The skin and the paws were all the hunter carried away. The meat would be got when the men came for the moose.
Na-ta-way was very soon swinging on down the mountain and struck a creek which emptied into one of a chain of lakes, that in turn drained into the big Ka-kee-bon-ga lake upon which the post was situated. Following down this creek he noticed ahead of him a mink, working his way up along the shore, noseing every hole as he came. Nothing was too big or too small for Na-ta-way. Poor little mink!
When he got abreast of the man on the ice, stood on its hind legs to get a better view of the strange object, but at that instant its sight became blurred, for it tumbled over dead. It was so full of life, energy and curiosity a few moments ago, was now being carried on the Indian's back, shoved into the folds of the bear skin.
But then, if we moralize, a man is walking with elastic step along a street when Presto! the heart stops, and he is being carried feet foremost by some three or four horror-struck pedestrians.
The hour was then high noon, snow soft and walking bad. Na-ta-way had covered several miles and done much since he had left his bed that morning. His inner man began to crave for food, the conditions were favorable, wood water and a sunny bank. What could be more alluring to a weary man? A bright fire was soon burning with the ever welcome tea kettle hanging in the blaze, the hunter on his knees in front waiting for it to boil.
Another digression right here. I never saw a man make tea, but after chucking in an ample quantity of the precious leaves from China, would throw in another pinch, either to make sure of there being a proper strength in the brew or for good luck. Be the reason what it may, they all do it. I do it myself.
Continuing on his march after his mid-day lunch, Na-ta-way came to a small lake. What is it that causes him to stop and cast his eyes about? The lake is full banks and therefore at that season must contain beaver. Yes, there stood the lodge on the opposite side and a well understood mark leading from the open water in front up into the bush. The beaver had come out the day before.
What Indian, or white man for that matter, can resist the chance offered to eat beaver meat? Na-ta-way looked at the Indians' clock, the sun, with a satisfied expression and his mind was made up; he would wait the coming ashore to feed. A comfortable spot was selected within gun shot of the place of debarkation. Here he tramped a hole in soft snow and strewed some balsam branches on the bottom upon which he crouched and waited.
There was no uncertainty as in the song the girl sang, "He cometh not," for he had hardly taken up his position before out struggled a young beaver and passed up the path leading to the young growth of trees. But Na-ta-way knew better than to fire at this one. No, the beaver passed on and up, giving grunts of anticipation. Number two came ashore and ambled inland without being molested. Now, however, Na-ta-way was all alertness. With his rifle cocked and his belt axe handy in front he waited the advent of another emblem of Canada. In a few minutes out he came to join his brothers or sisters who were already feasting on young sappy trees.
The crack of the rifle echoed far and near in the clear, mild atmosphere, but before it died away, the Indian stood over the shot beaver and barred the path against the frightened returning ones. The first coming down the hill he shot. The whole slaughter was well planned and carried out.
Three young beaver make a pretty solid lump on a man's back, but a hunter may leave moose meat and bear's meat in the bush to a chance wolf, but beaver, no! hardly! even if he has to make double trips. Na-ta-way had carried heavy weights slung by a portage strap across his forehead from childhood and could well support and carry what he now had.
I well remember that night when he entered our kitchen and let slide off his back that mixture of beaver, mink and bear skin. In fourteen hours he had walked about ten miles and killed: 1 moose, 1 mink, 1 bear and 3 beaver. Verily this was luck or success.