Bears, large, black from $15.00 to $25.00Bears, small, black, from 6.00 to 12.00Beaver per lb. 3.50 to 4.50Fisher, from 6.00 to 10.00Fox, red, from 3.50 to 5.50Fox, cross, from 4.00 to 25.00Fox, silver, from 100.00 to 335.00Lynx, from 4.00 to 7.00Marten, from 10.00 to 20.00Minks, from 2.50 to 4.00Otters, land, from 15.00 to 22.00Wolverine, from 4.00 to 6.00
These are the principal furs we have on the Coast and will show what absurd prices were paid. We know that furs realized good prices at the last London sales, and some few, very few, bought were no doubt well worth these high prices.
The part where the most harm was done the trade was the anxiety of some of these buyers to get the furs at almost any price. Almost any kind of a marten would be paid $10 for. Such martens that the writer of this article has bought a few years ago for $1.25, a very choice marten, large, dark and well furred, one we will say out of two or three hundred, such a one as we ordinarily paid $7 for, has brought $18 to $20. Martens and otters especially, they seem to have gone perfectly crazy to get.
Two years ago a man, further down the Coast paid $720 for what I was told was a very ordinary Silver Fox. He went to Paris during the Exposition with the fox to sell. I never heard if he got his money back. Had he paid $150, he would have got the fox just the same for this was the price being paid along the Coast during that year.
The rivers are the highways of the Indians and the mouths of most of the big ones are the summer camping grounds. At these places are trading posts where they barter and sell their winter's catch, get new supplies for another year, and load their canoes again in September for another nine or ten months in the Far North Wilds.
When the reaction comes, as it must come, it will be pretty hard to convince the Indians that their martens are only worth $5 or $6. The bottom is bound to fall out, and many of these men, who are paying the present prices, must go to the wall. With unlimited money, any fool can buy skins. But it requires a judge and careful man to buy with discretion.
During a residence of many years among four different tribes of Indians, I found, with very few exceptions, they were poor shots, either with the gun or rifle.
When one considers that from young boyhood they have been in the habit of using a gun almost daily, and their very living depends, in great manner, on accurate shooting, their poor marksmanship is to be wondered at, nevertheless such is the case. A good wing shot is a rarity among the Indians.
The Montagnais of the Labrador and North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are no exception, and this in a country where most of the wild fowl are killed flying. It is admitted they kill wild geese and ducks while on their passage north and south, but this is only possible from the immense numbers of birds and a lavish expenditure of ammunition.
It is a common thing for an Indian getting his spring outfit to go among the islands to take from the trader one hundred pounds of shot, a keg of twenty-five pounds of powder and two thousand five hundred percussion caps (they use muzzleloaders). They always take about 20 per cent. more caps than are necessary to fire the powder, as they explain, to make up for what they drop.
The Indians are very partial to loon; but, as a rule, it is the most expensive food they eat. A great number alight on Lake Ka-ke-bon-ga on their way north in the spring. This happens about the time the Indians arrive at the Post to trade their winter catch of furs.
When a poor unfortunate loon would settle on the lake it was the signal for ten or twenty canoes to put off and shoot or drown him to death. Far more frequently, I fancy, the poor bird expired from want of air than weight of shot.
To watch these loon hunts from the gallery of our house was picturesque in the extreme, the canoes going, some in one direction as fast as the paddlers could drive them, and then all of a sudden the cry would ascend that the loon had broken water in quite the opposite place from where they were confident he would. Then in a moment, the canoes would be whirled about like tops, and off again in the new direction, possibly to again find they are at fault.
The wonder to me was there were no casualties, as almost incessant firing was kept up, with canoes going in several directions at once, and all on the save level; and when the loon would emerge, bang! would go several guns, regardless where pointed, in the excitement.
I call to memory one day in particular. At the call of "loon!" I took a seat on the gallery, with the fixed resolve to count how many shots would be fired, and this is the result of my tab.
Twelve canoes put off from the camps, four hours consumed in the killing, and ninety-six shots were fired.
This happened nearly forty years ago, when powder sold, at that inland post, at a dollar a pound; shot, thirty-three cents, and gun caps a half a cent each, so the reader can readily see that loon meat, under that way of hunting, was expensive.
We read of and are told about the great slaughter the Indians used to make among the buffalo in the good old days; but this success was not to be attributed to their good marksmanship, because they killed these noble beasts with their guns almost "boute touchant."
One thing about their mode of loading and firing might be interesting to readers of the present day, inasmuch as a generation has been born and has grown up since the last buffalo roamed the plains.
The Indians and half-breeds who went on these periodical round-ups were armed with and preferred the old nor-west muzzle-loading flint-lock. They could load and fire with such rapidity that one would almost fancy they carried a repeating gun. Suspended under their right arm by a deer thong, was a common cow's horn of powder, and in a pouch at their belt a handful or two of bullets.
As the horse galloped up to the herd, the Indian would pour a charge of powder into his left hand, transfer it into the barrel of the gun, give the butt a pound on the saddle, and out of his mouth drop on top a bullet. As the lead rolled down the barrel it carried in its wet state particles of powder that stuck on the sides, and settled on top of the powder charge. No rod or ramming was used.
The gun was carried muzzle up, resting on the hollow of left arm until such time as the Indian desired to fire. The quarry being so close no aim was required. On deflecting the barrel the trigger was pulled before the ball had time to roll clear of the powder.
The Indians saw that their buffalo guns had very large touch-holes, thereby assuring the pan being primed. When all the balls were fired a few others were chuked into the mouth, and merrily went the game.
No! The Indians are not good shots.
The bear has one trait especially that is most dangerous to the uneducated hunter, and that is when found swimming a lake or river he invariably goes in a straight line from where he left the shore. Any obstacle in the way he clambers over, be it a log, boat or canoe.
Should the place where he reaches the further shore be a high rocky bluff, he climbs this, rather than turn from his direct course. This may be pigheadedness or stupidity; be it as it may, he will not turn to a low-shelving beach a few yards at one side, but it never enters his head to take the easier landing.
I once saw a bear swimming across near the discharge of a lake. There was a string of booms hanging down stream near the other shore and at right angles to where he was heading. He simply clambered over the boom logs and took the water again on the other side, instead of trotting along the boom to the shore.
I was acquainted with an old Indian, who, knowing this trait of bears to land where they head for, did a deed of great nerve for a man of over sixty. He was visiting his fish net on the shore of a narrow lake, when he saw a large bear enter the water on the opposite side a little above, and head for the shore the old man was on. Old Pete had no gun, but he did not hesitate a moment, but caught up his hunting ax, and ran along shore to where the bear would land. The old man was plainly visible to the bear from the first, but Bruin kept on his direct course. Old Pete waded out from the shore nearly to his waist with ax unlifted, and waited. Everything depended on striking true, and at the proper and precise moment. He had the bear, it is true, at a disadvantage. Still, many a younger and stronger man would have declined the risk.
Pete was successful; he buried the ax clean into the skull the first blow.
Another instance I witnessed of a bear not turning aside for any obstacle: We were later than usual one evening on the water; my men were anxious to get to the portage before camping, and were tracking the canoe up the last mile at deep dusk. There were four men on the line ashore, and the bow and steersmen standing up in the canoe fending her off the rocks and shallows. My companion and I were sitting very quietly in the middle compartment of our large canoe; the men also were not in a talking mood, being tired and hungry. I was sitting on the side next the river and noticed a black object which at first I mistook for a stone, partly out of the water; but with a second, and more searching look, I made it out to be a bear coming straight toward the canoe.
I gave warning to the man in the bow, who stood a few feet in front of me, and he immediately gave a sharp tug on the tow line, which checked the men ashore. The bear by this time was about five or six yards from the canoe, and just opposite me. I saw that nothing would now stop him from climbing into and across the canoe. Before he could place his paw on the side of the bark the man in the bow made a savage lunge at him with his pike pole, but before he could give a second blow the bear was in on my side and out on the other, right across our legs. Our men of the tow had run back, the man in the stern being too far off to be of any use, had the presence of mind to throw an armful of paddles, which being of maple, made formidable weapons. When the bear got out on the shore side they rained blows upon blows with the sharp blades of the paddles upon his head and body as they could get a chance. The bow man sprang ashore and lent his assistance with his formidable pole, but marvelous as it may sound, the bear escaped into the bush in spite of all that his assailants could do to prevent him.
Long into the night about the dying embers of the camp-fire, I heard the men going over the whole scene and blaming one another for not having done something they ought to have done.
One other instance I will give of a bear's persistency to go straight in the water, and in this case it was fatal to two men.
Two newly married couples left the mouth of the Moisie for the interior. Their third day up stream brought them to a place where, off to one side in the bush about a mile back, was a noted lake for trout and whitefish. It was decided that they should portage one canoe, and with their blankets, net and cooking utensils go and pass the night on the lake shore. One gun was all the men took (a flintlock — for this was years ago). Shortly after arriving at the lake a bear was seen swimming from the other side, coming toward where the Indians were tying their net. The two young men jumped into the canoe and pushed out to meet him, which was a fatal mistake. The man in the bow waited till the bear was within a couple of yards off from the bow, and then pulled the trigger. The old gun flashed in the pan, but there was no report. The next instant the bear clambered over the head of the canoe and rolled the occupants into the water. The young brides of a few days ran screaming along shore, unable to render any assistance to their husbands, and actually witnessed both drown before their very eyes.
I remember the arrival of the two poor women back to the coast, and the relation of their pathetic story. To make the case much more remarkable, they were twins by birth, and twin widows by this tragedy.
A word of advice after the foregoing illustrations of the danger of getting in front of a swimming bear is hardly now necessary, but one cannot impress too forcibly the danger in attacking a bear by a frontal move. Always approach a bear in the water either on one side or from the rear. You can paddle up quite close to a bear in the direction he is swimming without the least particle of danger, and a more vital and telling spot to fire at cannot be got than the back and base of the skull.
Calling the pike the fresh water shark is a name well applied, for he is bold and anything that comes his way is food for his maw. It is a known fact to those who have studied its habits that he will eat frogs, young ducks, musquash, in fact, anything that happens to be in front of him, not even barring his own offspring. How destructive they are in a trout or whitefish lake is well known.
One of the lakes on which I was stationed years ago was said to have been, formerly, good for whitefish, but was now almost nude of this staple food of the dwellers at the post, brought about by the increasing number of pike.
As I was likely to be in charge, for a few years at least, I set to work to destroy these marauders. The lake is only a mile and a half long by a quarter broad. It discharges into a large river by a shallow creek, but, by this creek, no doubt, many pike were added to the number at each spawning time.
The creek took my attention first, and we staked it from side to side with pickets six feet high and planted them about two inches apart.
At the back or river side of this barrier we kept some old, almost useless, nets set continuously. They were doubled so that no small sized pike could pass. This was done during the low water in August.
My next move was to employ every boy, girl and old woman about the post trolling for pike. We supplied them with the trolls and lines and paid them a cent apiece for every pike over a foot long.
During this trolling process we kept some nets of large mesh, set purposely for the bigger ones. For days and weeks there must have been landed on an average a hundred a day, and yet they came.
As most of the pay was taken out in cheap "bullseyes" at a cent apiece, the real outlay in money was not considerable.
The following spring we inaugurated another system of warfare against the pests, and that was by paddling quietly around the bays and shooting them while they lay spawning and basking in the sun and shallow water.
Often three or four would be clustered together. A shot would not kill the whole, but it would stun them so we could finish them with the paddle.
One that was killed in this way measured thirty-nine inches long and weighed thirty-five pounds. A fish of this size was good eating, and therefore used at the post.
The small, slimy ones, however, were burned in numbers on a brush heap.
With such persistent and continued onslaught on our part, at the end of the first year their numbers were very noticeably decreased, and at the close of the following summer they were positively scarce, and a very welcome number of whitefish stocked our lake in their place.
I resided at that post for twelve years, and we were never in want of the finest fish for the post's consumption.
Before closing this sketch I must tell one anecdote about a pike, even if I lay myself open to be disbelieved by the reader. I am well aware that fish stories stand in bad repute and the veracity of the narrator doubted. The following is positively true and came under my notice:
Years before the foregoing part of my story happened I was stationed on the height of land north of Lake Superior, and one afternoon portaged my canoe over into a small chain of beaver lakes hunting for signs.
It was a "still, calm day," as some high-flown writer would put it.
A feather dropped would have fallen straight to the earth.
I was paddling very quietly out into the lake from the portage when I noticed something moving very gently on the surface a few yards ahead of the canoe. Getting closer I made this out to be the fin of some fish moving sluggishly. Pushing the canoe further in advance with noiseless knife strokes of the paddle, I got close enough to see it was a pike with a whitefish half protruding from its mouth and almost dead from suffocation.
This, I thought, is a rare occurrence for a person to witness, and gently reaching out my hand I inserted my thumb and finger into the eye sockets and lifted both into the canoe.
On getting ashore at the next portage I forced open the jaws of the pike, and the whitefish dropped from them. The half that had been inside the pike's mouth was quite decomposed, while the part out in the water was comparatively fresh.
In trying to swallow this fish, which was two-thirds the pike's own length, he had distended his jaws to the utmost, but they only opened enough to reach near the back fin, and here fixing his teeth in savage fury the biter had bitten more than he could eat. He was equally unable to disgorge himself as he was incapable of swallowing, and thus by his greediness he brought on his doom.
Noticing his stomach was in a distended shape caused me to rip it open with my knife, and out tumbled the remains of a smaller whitefish, almost quite digested, which had been swallowed whole and would have measured nearly a foot long.
It was gluttony and not hunger that caused him to reach an untimely end, a moral for greedy little boys.
The whistler, whistle-wing, great head, garrot or brass-eyed is one of the few ducks that, to my knowledge, builds its nest in trees.
The Indians, who are noted for giving appropriate names, call this duck "arrow duck," on account of its quick passage through the air. They fly very swiftly, and it is only an expert gunner that can bring them down in succession.
I once had the rare opportunity of watching the doings of a female brass-eyed from the building of the nest to the time she placed the young ones on the waters of the lake. To watch the industrious little builder was a most interesting pastime and afforded me much pleasure. The tree selected was not, as one would suppose, immediately on the shore, but a bit back in the thick growth. Properly speaking, the tree was a stump, although a strong live one grew rubbing sides with it. The stump was on the south side of the green one, and thus protected from the north, and was about twenty feet in height.
On examination shortly after the duck began to lay, I found that the concave top had been lined with dead leaves, hay, clay and small sticks. After this one peep in at the architecture and the couple of eggs therein, I refrained from approaching the stump again, but continued my observations from a distance.
When the duck took to steady setting I could just see her head and bill over the edge of the nest. Regularly each evening during the period of incubation she would fly out onto the lake to feed, drink and plume herself. These absences from her duty lasted from twenty minutes to half an hour.
When the young were hatched I kept a strict and steady watch on her movements for the thought occurred to me, "How would they get to the ground?" But, like a good many other things, this riddle of the forest was made clear to me one evening near sundown.
I sat motionless in my canoe a little to one side of the direction of the stump. The lake was as calm as oil, and in a little while, after taking up my position, out flew the mother in a slanting way to the water, and hanging from her bill was one of the young ducks. This she quickly deposited on the lake and flew back to the nest, and made trips to and fro, until she had brought the whole of her brood which numbered seven.
A hen is a proud mother even with one chick; well this was a transported one with seven. She swam through the midst of them, around them, away from them and toward them, exhibiting the utmost delight. Finally she led them in toward the shore, the shadows of the woods shutting them out from further observation. While daily visiting my nets about the lake, I often encountered the brood, or saw them at a short distance and they continued to interest me.
One day the number of ducklings appeared fewer than ought to be and on counting them I found there were only five. Next day this was reduced to four, and a few days after, when next I saw them, there remained only three. However, the mystery of their disappearance was made clear to me on that same day, for while trolling past the ducks' feeding grounds a big maskinonge struck the hooks savagely.
Being alone in the frail and small canoe I had the utmost difficulty to successfully play and kill him, but was amply paid, for on cleaning the big fish we found in its maw one of my young ducks.
Thus was their mysterious disappearance explained, this, or some other large fish, was accountable for the brood's diminution.
While on the subject of the brass-eye I would wish to set the reader right in regard to the whistling noise they make, that is the male. The author of "Wild Fowl and Their Habits" asserts that this noise is made by their short sharp wings cutting the air in rapid flight. Were this the case the female would make the same sound, but no one ever heard this whistling from a lone female or a number of females.
It is from the male we get this; not from the wings, however, but from a gristly sac attached at the end of the wind-pipe, much the shape of the bag of the bag-pipes. From this he emits several different kinds of sounds, as I have often listened to when approaching a flock on a calm moonlight night in the mating season.
Another erroneous assertion by the same author is that the flesh is rank, fishy and hard. The old ones are, more or less so, on their first arrival inland in the spring. At the sea, as a necessity, they live on fish, but a month after reaching inland waters, where they feed on marine plants and roots, the color of the flesh changes. It also becomes juicy and is as good eating as black duck or teal.
The young ones, when full fledged, just before migrating to the sea for the winter, are excellent.
The French-Canadians call this duck the diver and the half-breeds of Hudson Bay the pork duck.
All the tricks of hiding attributed to this duck by Netlje Blanchan, author of the book from which I have taken the several names under which the duck is known to American readers, are quite true, and also other devices not enumerated. For instance, when wounded I have known it to dive and come up within a few yards of my canoe with its head under a water-lily leaf and there remain, quite motionless, until I noticed the center elevation of this single leaf and fired at a venture with the result that I killed the duck.
On another occasion I noticed a wounded brass-eye making toward the shore in very shallow water. The formation of the banks was such that it was impossible for it to land and hide. Nevertheless, toward that shore it had dived, and never appeared above water. Pushing the canoe quietly along with my gun ready in the other hand, I scanned every inch as I went. Along the beach there was a solution of mud almost as light as the water. The duck had passed under this and came to the shore in about five inches of water showing nothing but its bill on the beach, the entire body being covered with mud, the exact counterpart of that about it.
Although my canoe was within six feet of the bird, it never moved, and it was only by the closest scrutiny that I detected its presence.
With a good silent dog playing in front of a blind these ducks in the early spring will come within short range, as will the black duck and gray goose. They have keen eyesight and will work in from a quarter of a mile to investigate the dog. The dog of best color to attract ducks is yellow or yellow and white. A pure white is better than a dark colored, which latter only appears to scare them away.
[This is an interesting contribution, for it brings up a number of points about which there has been more or less controversy in the past, and one at least which is new to us. That Mr. Hunter's duck brought her young to the water in her bill is interesting and agrees with statements made years ago inForest and Streamby Mr. George A. Boardman, who quoted a Canadian informant as stating that the old birds brought their young from the nests to the water, carrying them in their bills, but that to transport the young for a longer distance, the birds carried the young pressed to the body by the feet, a description which is not altogether clear.
Mr. Hunter declares that the whistling noise made by the brass-eye does not come from the wings and that this noise is never made by the female, in this his opinion differs from that of many other writers. In his belief the labyrinth — an enlargement of the wind-pipe found in the male of most ducks and but seldom in the female — explains the whistling sound so commonly heard when these birds fly near us.
Food notoriously gives flavor to the flesh of ducks as well as other animals. On the sea coast, where it feeds on fish and perhaps shell fish, the flesh of the brass-eye or golden-wing is notoriously bad, but like Mr. Hunter, other authors have declared that inland the bird is excellent eating.
The observation of the destruction of the brood by the maskinonge is worth recording. Pike, pickerel, maskinonge and snapping turtles are notorious enemies of young duck.]
I questioned a couple of hunters (brothers) this summer, as to the results of their hunting adventures of the past season, and as I wanted to find out their positive net gains, I got the following figures from them.
They are just fairly good trappers and their success is about what two industrious men could do who had a knowledge of trapping. Their work was in two spells. Three months in the fall and early winter and a month and a half in spring.
The provisions they took inland for the three months (ascending one of the North Shore rivers) was the following with costs given: 160 lbs. pork, $20.00; 20 lbs. butter, $3.00; 360 lbs. flour, $6.40; 6 lbs. tea, $2.10; 24 lbs. sugar, $1.20; 2 lbs. soda, 10 cts.; salt and pepper, 20 cts.; $33.00.
Their canoe was pretty well laden when they left the coast, inasmuch as besides the foregoing gross weight of provisions their outfit of tent, axes, pots, kettles, guns, tracking line, poling irons, four dozen No. 1 traps, half dozen No. 3 and a quarter dozen No. 5 bear had to be added to the load, bringing the total weight approximately up to seven hundred and fifty pounds.
Even when a canoe is loaded and, at times, overloaded, yet there are a number of incidentals that have to be taken along, things that weigh and are bulky, yet are not considered in the estimate. For illustration these men had yet to load a pair and a half of blankets, two pairs snowshoes, a bag of extra moccasins, socks, duffle, warm underclothes, extra trousers, coats, mits and a hundred and one other things which men penetrating the wilderness for several months may require.
In an expedition like this one must not think only of things necessary, but also things that may be required when a man is two or three hundred miles away from civilization and cuts his leg. He has no drug store to get plaster from. A full list of all a couple of prudent men have to take with them is quite interesting.
To resume, — these men left on the 10th of October and got back to the coast (on foot) the 12th of January, being absent almost exactly 3 months. They cached their traps, canoe and surplus things inland ready for the spring hunt.
After spending a fortnight with their families cutting wood and choring about their abodes they then went to work in the lumber camps for February and March. On April 15th they made a start for the interior once more, this time each hauling a flat sled loaded in equal weight with the following provisions: 80 lbs. pork, $10.00; 10 lbs. butter, $1.50; 180 lbs. flour, $3.20; 3 lbs. tea, $1.05; 12 lbs. sugar, 60 cts; 1 lb. soda, 5 cts.; salt and pepper, 10 cts; $16.50.
With their other things this made a dead weight of about one hundred and eighty pounds per sled. On mixed ice and bush walking at the season when the snow is crusted a man will average, with such a load, twenty-five or thirty miles a day.
There are many hunters that are quite superstitious about parting with a single skin until the hunting or trapping season is over and then the whole collection is sold 'en-blac.' Other hunters again will sell their fall hunts less a skin. This reserved skin may be only a musquash. They keep this, as they say, to draw other skins when next they go trapping. The men I am writing about had no necessity to sell in the winter, and therefore kept all till the spring. The commencement of June is still considered spring in the North country.
The total catch and the prices realized are as follows: 38 martens at $10, $380; 10 mink at $2.50, $25; 1 beaver, $7; 2 bears at $7, $14; 3 bears at $20, $60; 4 fishers at $7, $28; 1 otter, $15; 120 musquash at 15c, $18; amount $547.00.
By total hunt, $547.00; to provisions, $49.50; sundries, 70 cts; 2 men's net earnings for 135 days at $1.84 equals $496.80.
The amount per diem clear to each of the brothers may not appear to the reader as very remunerative, yet compared to working in the shanties they did much better. The wages for good axe men last winter were from eighteen to twenty dollars per month.
Compared with the same length of time working in the lumber camps the figures would stand thus: 4 1/2 months lumbering at average wages of $22 equals $99; 4 1/2 months trapping, $248.40. In favor of trapping, say in round figures $150.00.
I submit the foregoing to the readers of H-T-T, hoping it may prove interesting.
It is no doubt ancient history, still it may be interesting to the readers to know the large hunts made by some of our Indians in the latter '60's. Referring to a note book kept in those days I find the hunt of one particular Indian recorded. His name was A-ta-so-kan — the only help he had, a boy of twelve.
This family left the Post in August and only returned the following June. His hunting grounds were just across the heights of lands going towards Hudson's Bay, from the headwaters of the Ottawa River. Game of all description was very plentiful then; so much so that, providing an Indian had a few pounds of flour and lard to get away from the vicinity of the station, his guns nets and snares kept him in abundance. A-ta-so-kan, altho having several children besides the boy took only fifty pounds of flour, ten pounds of lard, one pound of tea, and ten pounds of tobacco. Goods, however, he supplied himself well with — such as many of various bright-colored flannels, yards of duffle, yards of H. B. strouds, both blue and white, and several pairs of H. B. wool blankets. These people were brought up on country produce: i. e., fish and flesh, therefore found it no hardship to be without flour, etc., — the white man's food. From that one man and his young boy I got at the end of the hunting season (first of June) the following furs:
Making altogether four of our eighty pound packs of furs. This, of course, was an exceptional hunt — still we had several other Indians who ran A-ta-so-kan a close second.
What a difference in the stretching and drying of that man's skins, compared with those we get on the frontier. Each skin, apart from the musquash, was as clean as note paper, all killed in season and all dried in the frost or shade. On the line of civilization there is such keen competition among the traders to get furs, that the hunters stretch and dry the skins in any way. Beaver, for instance, which is bought by the pound, is frequently weighted with syrup, and sand rubbed into the hair and paws, and considerable flesh left on, all tells when three or four dollars a pound is paid.
The Abanakis Indians about St. Francis Lake, St. Peter, are noted for their tricks of the trade, and when you get a blue-eyed Abanakis, look out to be cheated. I call to mind on the St. Maurice River, when stationed there, one of these gents brought furs to sell at our Post. Among the lot was a beaver skin. According to its size, if well dressed, it ought to have weighed a pound and a half, or three quarters at most. Judge of my surprise when I found it tipped the scales at two and half pounds. This was phenomenal and uncanny, and I remarked to the hunter, that we would leave the skins in the store until after dinner before closing the trade.
During the mid-day hour I slipped out and examined the skin critically, and found the rascal had flinched up layers of the inner skin or "cutem," and had inserted small sheets of tea-chest lead, after which he had pressed the skin down flat and dried it in this state. This was insult added to injury, because about a month previous he had begged the lead from me to make bullets with. Verily there are more tricks with horses and furs than meets the eye.
I say for safety, successful hunting, and division of the many necessary labors, when the hunting or trapping day is over, a proper partner is necessary. I am aware many old hunters have passed years quite alone in the solitude of the trackless forests and the valleys of the mountain ranges, but what a life! What risks they have run! Some may have led this life from choice or from greed to possess the whole proceeds of the trapping season; still it is a life no man should lead.
Sickness rarely overtakes a trapper; the outdoor life they practice is conducing to good health; continual exercise and fresh air engender a good appetite, but there is always the risk of accident, accident in many ways. The guns, the axe, the canoe, breaking through the ice, or even getting caught in one of his own traps; in fact by the last mentioned source of danger I have known two men to lose their lives in a most horrible way of torture and agony, and these men were not novices at the business; one was a middle-aged half-breed, born and brought up to trapping, and the other was an old Nova Scotian who had trapped and hunted for forty years and yet he died in a bear trap.
Man was not intended to live alone, and a trapper who passes the best part of his life far away from his fellow man becomes selfish, crabbed and morose. No matter how successful he may have been in his hunting years, when old age comes on, his last moments are generally passed alone in some miserable shanty, covered with dirty and musty old clothes and blankets, no one to pass him a drink of water or wipe the death sweat from his brow, or else some good person on the fringe of civilization, partly from charity or necessity, takes in the broken old hulk and keeps him until the end. A grave somewhere outside the fence is pointed out as where "Old Pierre," the trapper, is buried. I have several such resting places in my mind as I pen these lines.
No, I maintain a companion in hunting and trapping is a necessity in many ways. In selecting one they should be alike in only two points — age and honesty. If the head of the partnership is short, stout and of a phlegmatic nature, his chum ought to be say five feet ten inches high, weigh one hundred and fifty pounds, of a nervous energetic nature and cheerful. Two such men are most likely to get along well together.
Animals don't come to the camp door and ask to be skinned. On the contrary trapping, to do it right, is hard work and when the real day's work of tramping through swamps and over mountains setting traps is done there is yet much work for the cold, wet and hungry men to do at the camp; cutting and carrying the night's fire wood, cooking their supper, drying their clothes for the morrow, patching broken moccasins and skinning and stretching pelts they may have secured that day. With a good pard these labors are, of course, divided, and each cheerfully and silently takes his share.
There is nothing I have enumerated but what has to be done every night. A trapper returns to his camp, and if he has to make a new camp at the end of his trail so much more and harder is the work, and the poor old trapper without a companion must, of necessity, perform all these duties alone, the completion of which takes him far into the night. Brother trappers, I know whereof I write. I have tried both and I say for division of labor, for good comradeship and for positive safety select and join fortune with "A Good Pard."
To illustrate, I give one of my own experiences: I reached my camp once at dark in February, utterly tired out, wet by the melting snow on my clothes, and a fast that had not been broken at noon. There were a few burnt sticks in the fireplace (a lean to camp), these I raked together and started a blaze. With my excessive fatigue and the warmth of the fire, I fell asleep as I leaned for what I thought was a moment, against a stump in the camp. It was a dispensation of Providence that I ever awoke, but I did, far into that February night. On waking I realized in a moment the narrow escape that I had had. The great trees of the forest were cracking all about me with the intensity of the cold. My wet clothes were sticking to me as if of ice, but my brain was clear and I knew no time was to be lost in my self-preservation.
After tramping about and beating my body for some time to create circulation, I was rewarded by feeling my blood flow once more in a natural way. The last quarter of the moon shed what light it could over the tree tops and I strapped on my snowshoes and went to work at chopping wood to last till morning. A good cup of tea, some biscuit and pork and the then bright and cheerful fire made me my old self, but I received a lesson never to be forgotten.
When we had come to anchor in Trinity Bay and all the sails were safely stowed, the captain of our yacht proposed we should go ashore and see the celebrated Comeaufils.
Bob, my companion asked, "Celebrated for what?"
"Oh! for several things," replied the captain. "He is a most extraordinary man in his many acquirements and knowledge. Born and brought up on this coast, he has passed all his life here, with the exception of the three years his father was able to send him to school, but those three years he made use of to lay the foundation of a wonderful store of practical knowledge. His schooling, as I have said, was but the foundation; by reading and observation he has added to it in a marvelous way.
"From his early training and the life of every one on the coast, it would go without saying that he knows how to shoot, but he is more than a good shot, he is a 'deadly' shot. Anything he aims his gun at that is within shooting distance is dead. As a salmon fisher, no crack angler who visits these rivers can hope to compete with him.
"As a linguist he can speak, read and write in French, English, Latin and Indian; besides this, he can talk rapidly in the dumb alphabet. He holds the position of telegraph operator at Trinity, also of postmaster and fishery overseer, and besides, when anything goes wrong with the line for two hundred miles east or west, the department immediately wires him to go and fix them up.
"He has more than a fair knowledge of medicine for one who derived all his insight from reading alone. Last summer there was an epidemic of measles all along the coast, among both whites and Indians. Here, with a population of 150, two-thirds of whom were down Comeau, who attended them, did not lose one patient, while at Bersimis, where the department sent a full-fledged M. D., there were thirty-nine burials out of a population of 450.
"You may be sure the poor people all along the coast love him."
So the boat was lowered away, and the Captain, Bob and I were rowed ashore to see this paragon. From the outside look of the place I could see the man was one of good taste and orderly. The knock at the door was answered by Comeau himself. The Captain was personally acquainted with him and introduced us before we entered. I must say I was disappointed. One always is when he has pictured a person in his mind's eye and finds that in reality he is quite a different kind of person.
I had looked for Comeau to be a large man and a boisterous one from his position of superiority over others. On the contrary, I found him below the medium, a quiet, low-voiced man, reserved almost to shyness. I saw at once he was a great observer, one who would make deductions from specks invisible to ordinary people; or, in other words, he could put two and two together and dovetail them better than most men.
We were ushered into a large, clean, airy room, in the middle of which sat a very good looking lady in a roomy rocker, with a child on each knee. If Comeau himself is reserved and not inclined to talk, his wife can do enough for both. She excused herself for not rising when her husband introduced us. Nodding down at her babies, she said, "You see I am fixed." One could see she is a proud mother — they are twins; this she told us before we were well seated, and she further informed us that they were the only twins on the Labrador. So she is celebrated also.
When we got fairly settled in Comeau's den, the conversation naturally drifted into hunting and fishing. Bob made some inquiries about the pools on the Trinity. To make his explanations clear, Comeau pulled out a drawer of photographic views of the river. In rummaging these over, he cast aside a gold medal. "Excuse me," I said, reaching over and taking up the medal. On it I read engraved:
Upon my asking him to recount the circumstances, he blushed and looked quite confused, and said: "Oh! it was nothing worth speaking of, but I suppose people talked so much about it that they gave me that token. It was nothing more than any man would have done," and this was all we could get from him unless we had carried persistency to an ungentlemanly degree.
After having spent a very pleasant hour, we returned on board, and the Captain told us the story that the hero himself would not:
Two years before, one day in January Comeau arrived home from the back country to find that two men had that day while seal hunting off shore been driven off the coast toward the ice pack in the gulf. One of the men was Comeau's own brother-in-law, and the other a half-breed. In spite of the supplications of his wife and the persuasions of the other individuals of the place, Comeau set about preparations to follow them out to sea. He asked no one to accompany him.
The wind all the afternoon had been steadily off shore and was now moderately calm. He took with him some restoratives, provisions, a lantern, a couple of blankets, his rifle and ammunition and what else useful he could think of in his hurry. The ice pack was then about ten miles off the land, and he reasoned the men must be on the ice, if large and strong enough, or in among it if in small cakes, the latter being much more dangerous.
From Trinity to Matane in a direct line the distance is forty-five miles, and to push out in a frail, wooden canoe alone and the darkness coming on in the black gulf in mid-winter required a brave man with extraordinary nerve to dare it, and this Comeau did.
Three minutes after pushing out from the beach, canoe and man were swallowed up in the darkness. The next the people of Trinity heard of him was a telegraphic message on the second day after. It read: "Matane. All three alive. Joseph, hands frozen; Simon, both feet frozen badly."
This message was to his family, but the Matane people sent a much longer one to the government, giving the facts, describing the hardships these men had come through, and a special train was sent down with the best surgeon from Quebec. On the surgeon's arrival at Matane a consultation was held with the county practitioner, when it was decided that the man Joseph would have to lose two fingers on each hand and Simon both feet.
The amputation was successfully carried out next day, and shortly after, when Comeau saw both men well on to recovery, he started for his home, not, however, by the way he had come, but up to Quebec by the south shore and down the north shore from Quebec, a distance of nearly 700 miles. The last hundred he made on snowshoes.
The Captain told us that the description of this very venturesome trip he had heard from Comeau's own brother as the elder one had described it in the heart of his own family. He had reached the ice pack, to the best of his judgment, about fifteen miles from the land, and had remained on his oars and hallowed once or twice without receiving an answer. He suddenly bethought himself of the lantern. This he lit and lashed to the blade of one of his oars, and erected it aloft. Immediately a faint cry was heard to the eastward, and he lowered his light and pulled away in the direction whence the call appeared to come. After rowing for a short time the lantern was waved above again, and this time an answering shout came from close at hand.
The two poor fellows were some distance in the pack, and had got on the largest cake they could find. They were sitting there helpless, holding on each by one hand to the rough surface of the ice, and with the other to their canoe to keep it from being washed off.
By the aid of the lantern held aloft, Comeau saw there was a much larger cake of ice some distance further in the pack. To this they made their way with laborious trouble. Pushing one canoe as far ahead among the ice as possible, they would all three get into this, shove the other in advance in the same way, and so repeating the process till they reached the solid field. Once safely on this, for the meantime, secure place, food was partaken of and daylight waited for.
Soon, however, the intense cold began to make itself felt, and drowsiness was fast taking hold of the two men, and their great wish was to be left alone and allowed to sleep. This Comeau knew if indulged meant death, and it took all his efforts to keep them awake and moving about. Once while attending to the half-breed, his brother-in-law dropped down and was fast asleep in an instant. Comeau boxed him, kicked him, without having the desired effect of rousing him from his stupor. At last he bethought him of what an old Indian had done to him under somewhat similar circumstances. He caught the man's nose between the thumb and finger and tweaked it severely. This brought him to his feet and mad to fight.
Day was now breaking, and they could see the south shore at a computed distance of ten miles. Comeau also saw that the ice pack was drifting steadily east, and this, if they remained on the ice, would carry them past Cap Chat, the most northern point of the south coast, and this meant death to a certainty.
A rapid train of thought went through Comeau's brain. He decided that if saved they were to be, it must be by passing over that ten miles of moving, grinding ice. He forced some food on the others and gave each a small dram of spirits; how much rather would he have given them tea or coffee. But even if he had had it, water was wanting to make it. They abandoned the roll of blankets, which had been of no use to them, and started, using the canoes see-saw fashion as they had done the night before. They left the cake of ice upon which they had passed the night at 8 A. M. and only got ashore at the extreme point of Cap Chat at daylight next morning. At times they would come across narrow lanes of water, but these lanes always ran at right angles to the direction in which they were going. Several times, when stepping upon what was considered a strong piece of ice, one of the party would be immersed in the cold, cruel water, and be rescued with great trouble and danger to the others.
What a picture of heartfelt prayer offering it must have been, to have seen those men kneeling on the ice-bound shore, pouring out their thanks to the ever-watchful Almighty who had brought them safely through such dangers.
Bob, who had taken down the Captain's narrative in shorthand, gave me his notes, and I give the story of adventure and heroism to the public.
Comeau is well known by most of the members of the Forest and Stream clubs of New York and Montreal.