The Project Gutenberg eBook ofCanadian WildsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Canadian WildsAuthor: Martin HunterRelease date: October 30, 2010 [eBook #34173]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Linda M. Everhart, Blairstown, Missouri*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CANADIAN WILDS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Canadian WildsAuthor: Martin HunterRelease date: October 30, 2010 [eBook #34173]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Linda M. Everhart, Blairstown, Missouri
Title: Canadian Wilds
Author: Martin Hunter
Author: Martin Hunter
Release date: October 30, 2010 [eBook #34173]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Linda M. Everhart, Blairstown, Missouri
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CANADIAN WILDS ***
I. The Hudson's Bay Company
II. The Free Trader
III. Outfitting Indians
IV. Trackers of the North
V. Provisions for the Wilderness
VI. Forts and Posts
VII. About Indians
VIII. Wholesome Foods
IX. Officers' Allowance
X. Inland Packs
XI. Indian Mode of Hunting Beaver
XII. Indian Mode of Hunting Lynx and Marten
XIII. Indian Mode of Hunting Foxes
XIV. Indian Mode of Hunting Otter and Musquash
XV. Remarkable Success
XVI. Things to Avoid
XVII. Anticosti and Its Furs
XVIII. Chiselling and Shooting Beaver
XIX. The "Indian Devil"
XX. A Tame Seal
XXI. The Care of Blistered Feet
XXII. Deer Sickness
XXIII. A Case of Nerve
XXIV. Amphibious Combats
XXV. Art of Pulling Hearts
XXVI. Dark Furs
XXVII. Indians Are Poor Shots
XXVIII. A Bear in the Water
XXIX. Voracious Pike
XXX. The Brass-Eyed Duck
XXXI. Good Wages Trapping
XXXII. A Pard Necessary
XXXIII. An Heroic Adventure
XXXIV. Wild Oxen
XXXV. Long Lake Indians
XXXVI. Den Bears
XXXVII. The Mishaps of Ralson
By the courtesy of Forest and Stream and Hunter-Trader-Trapper these articles are republished in book form by the author.
I have been induced to bring them out a second time under one cover by the frequent requests of my fellow bushmen who were kind enough to criticise them favorably when they first appeared in the magazine.
In this preamble I think it proper and possibly interesting to the reader to have a short synopsis of my career.
I entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1863 as a clerk and retired in 1903 a commissioned officer of twenty years' standing.
The modes of Trapping and Hunting were learned directly by personal participation in the chase with the Indians and the other stories heard first hand from the red man.
My service in the employ of the Great Fur Company extended from Labrador in the East to Fort William on Lake Superior in the West and from the valley of the St. Lawrence in the South to the headwaters of its feeders in the North.
By canoes and snowshoes I have traveled on the principal large rivers flowing south from the height of land, among them I may mention the Moisee, Bersimis, St. Maurice, Ottawa, Michipocoten, Pic and Nepigon.
I have hunted, trapped and traded with the Montagnais, Algonquins and Ojibways, the three largest tribes that inhabit the country mentioned in the foregoing boundaries and therefore the reader can place implicit reliance in what is herein set forth. Giving a synopsis of the history of The Hudson's Bay Company, its Forts and Posts and the Indians they traded with as well as other incidents of the Canadian wilds.
Respectfully,
MARTIN HUNTER.
The Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated in the year 1670 and received its charter from Charles the Second, making it today the longest united company that ever existed in the world.
In 1867 when the different provinces of old Canada were brought under the Dominion Confederation, the Company ceded its exclusive rights, as per its charter, to the government of Canada, making this vast territory over which the Company had held sway for nearly two hundred years, free for hunters, trappers and traders.
Prince Rupert, of England, was associated with the first body of "Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay," for such were they designated in the charter and the charter gave them the right to trade on all rivers and their tributaries flowing into Hudson's Bay.
They established their first forts or factories at the mouths of the principal rivers that fall into the bay on the east, south and west shores, such as East Main, Rupert's, Moose, Albany, Churchill and a few intermediate small outposts along the seashore. They endeavored to draw the interior Indians down to the coast to trade but after a few years they found that the long journey to the factories took up so much of the Indian's time and left them, after their return to their hunting grounds, so exhausted from their strenuous exertions in negotiating the turbulent and swift flowing waters, that the company's management decided to stretch out and establish trading places up the different rivers.
This small beginning of a post or two up each river was gradually continued ever further south, ever further west, as the requirements of the fur trade necessitated, there the company pushed in and followed their own flag, a blood red ground with H. B. C. in white block letters in the center.
This flag is known from Labrador to the Pacific and from the St. Lawrence river to the Arctic regions. Several would-be wits have given these mysterious letters odd meanings. Among several I call to memory, "Here Before Christ," "Hungry Belly Company" and "Here Before Columbus."
Two ships visited the Bay each summer bringing supplies for the next winter and taking back to England the furs and oil collected during the past season. The coming of these ships, one to York Factory and the other to Moose Factory, was the event of the year as they brought the only mail the "Winterers" received from friends and relatives in far away Old England.
Navigating the Bay was done pretty much by the rule of "Thumb." Notwithstanding its being one of the most dangerous bodies of water in America it is wonderful (now that the Bay is fairly well charted and shows up most of the dangerous reefs and shoals) how few accidents these old navigators had in taking their ships in and out of the Bay.
Much depended on those same ships reaching their destination. Starvation would confront the officers and servants in the country and the want of the returns in England during those early days of the venture would have been a serious setback to their credit. While the ships were in the roadstead unloading and loading it was an anxious time to the captain and the officer ashore for as the work had to be done by lighters (the ship lying three miles from the land) there was always the danger of a strong wind springing up. In such events the boats scurried ashore while the ship slipped her cable and put to sea till fair weather.
In parting with their charter to the Canadian Government the company reserved certain acreages about each and every one of their forts and posts besides two sections in each township from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains and from the international boundary line to the northern edge of the Fertile Belt. These reserves of land sold to the incoming settlers as the country is filling up is a great source of revenue to the share holders and are becoming more and more valuable each succeeding year.
Where most of the old prairie posts stood in the old days, the company now have "Sale Shops" for the whites and at these places they are successfully meeting competition, by the superiority and cheapness of the goods they supply.
In old Canada the fur trade had always been the principal commerce of the country and after the French regime several Scotch merchants of Montreal prosecuted it with more vigor than heretofore. This they did under the name of "The Northwest Company." Their agents and "Couriers des Bois" were ever pushing westward and had posts strung from Ottawa to the Rocky Mountains and all the pelts from that immense country were brought yearly to the headquarters in Montreal.
The Hudson's Bay Company after having inhabited all the territory that they could rightly claim under their charter, began to oppose the Northwest Company in the country they had in a way discovered. The Hudson's Bay Company after getting out of the Bay found the Northwest Company's people trading on the Red, Assiniboine and Saskatchewan, all rivers that they could claim by right of their charter seeing they all drained into Hudson's Bay and then began one of the keenest and most bloody commercial warfares in history.
Might was right and wherever furs were found the strongest party, for the time being, took them. Retaliation was the unwritten law of the country and what was this week a Hudson's Bay post was next week occupied by a party of Northwesters or vice versa. There is hardly a place in what is now the peaceful and law abiding Manitoba and the western provinces but what, if it could tell the tale, had witnessed at some time in its early history sanguinary conflicts between the two powerful and rival companies.
Things got to such a pass that the heads of the two fur parties in London and Montreal saw that something had to be done to stay this loss of lives and goods. Arrangements were therefore made that the majority of the stockholders of both companies should meet in London. This convention had its first meeting on the 19th of May, 1821, and several other assemblies of the two factions took place before all the points at issue were mutually agreed upon.
By wide mindedness and a liberal amount of give and take between the two contending parties a full understanding was agreed on. One of the points upon which a strong objection was made was the sinking of one of the identities, but this knotty point was eventually settled. A coalition of the two companies was formed under the title of "The Hudson's Bay Company," the first official year of the joined parties dating first of June, 1821, and the first governor, Mr. George Simpson, afterwards "Sir George."
Mr. Simpson was knighted by Queen Victoria for having traveled from Montreal to London by land with the exception of crossing Behring Strait and the English Channel by boat.
Sir George Simpson held the position of Governor of the fur trade of the Hudson's Bay Company for very many years and was followed by Governors Dallas, McTavish, Graham and Sir Donald A. Smith (now Lord Strathcona) after the latter's term of office the title of this position was altered to "The Commissioner." The first gentleman to hold the management under this new title was Mr. Wriggley, who after serving two terms of four years each, retired and was succeeded by Mr. C. C. Chipman who is still in office and brings us down to the present day.
There has always been a Governor and committee in London where the real headquarters has ever been, while the Commissioner's head place in Canada is situated in Winnipeg.
The whole of the Great Company's collection of furs is shipped to England and sold by auction three times a year, in January, March and October. Buyers from all over Europe attend these sales.
The origin of the term "Free Trader" dates back considerably over three-quarters of a century and was first used as a distinction by the Hudson's Bay Company between their own traders, who traded directly from their posts and others who in most cases had been formerly in their employ, but had turned "Free Traders." Men with a small outfit, who roamed amongst the Indians on their hunting grounds and bartered necessary articles that the hunters were generally short of.
The outfit mostly consisted of tobacco, powder, ball, flints, possibly one or two nor' west guns, white, blue and red strands for the men's leggings, sky blue second cloth for the squaw's skirts, flannel of several bright colors, mole skin for trousers, a few H. B. cloth capots, fancy worsted sashes, beads, ribbons, knives, scissors, fire steels, etc. Some of the foregoing articles may not be considered necessary requirements, but to the Indian of those days they were so looked upon and a "Free Trader" coming to an Indian's camp who had the furs, a trade, much to the trader's profit was generally done.
In those away back days the Free Trader was always outfitted by the "Great Company." He endured all the labor, hardships and privation of following the Indians to their far off hunting grounds and of a necessity charged high for his goods. Being a former servant of the company he got his outfit at a reduced price from what the Indians were charged at the posts. The barter tariffs at each of the posts was made out in two columns, i. e., Indian Tariff and Free Man's Tariff. Say, for example, a pound of English tobacco was bartered to the Indian at the posts for one dollar a pound, the Free Trader would get it in his outfit for 75 cents, and when he bartered it to some hunter, probably hundreds of miles off, he would charge one and half to two dollars for the same pound of tobacco.
I mention, to illustrate the amount in dollars and cents, but the currency of those days all over the northwest and interior was the "Made Beaver." As a round amount the M. B. was equivalent to 50 cents of our money of today. At all the posts on Hudson's Bay the company had in coinage of their own, made of brass of four amounts; an eight, quarter, half and whole Beaver. The goods were charged for at so many or parts of Made Beaver and the furs likewise valued at the same currency.
Like most uneducated men who have to remember dates, people and places, these Free Traders had wonderful memories. One who had been away on his venture for eight or ten months could on opening his packs, tho there might be two or three hundred skins in his collection, if so requested, tell from what particular Indian he received any skin picked out at haphazard.
Observation and remembrance entered into every phase of their lives as it does into that of the pure Indian. Their very lives at times depended on their faculties and one might say all their bumps were bumps of locality and these highly developed all the way back from childhood.
Of their nationality they were mostly French Canadians or French half breeds, and as a rule went on their trading expeditions accompanied by their Indian wives and children. Time was of no object and as they traveled they trapped and hunted as they went. Their very living and subsistence depended on their guns and nets. Loaded as they were with goods to trade and their necessary belongings they could not take imported provisions. After their hardships of several months, after the breaking up of the lakes and rivers, they once more found themselves at the post from whence they received their outfit.
From the factor down to the old pensioners, the people of the fort went down to welcome the new arrivals. Their advent was heralded by the firing of guns on rounding the point at which they first came in view of the post. On landing a general handshaking was gone thru by the two parties, the factor mentally estimating the probable contents of the rich packs.
The men, engaged servants, of the post, carried up to the house the peltries, while the Free Traders followed the factor to the trade shops where a plug of tobacco for the men and sugar for the women were given out by the clerks and with a generous tot of rum in which to cement their continued friendship, the Free Trader took his departure to put up his tepee and get his family and belongings under cover.
Later on the servants brought him pork, lard, flour and tea enough for him and his family for supper and breakfast. No accounts were gone into on the day of arrival. The next morning, however, the Trader repaired to the store with the factor and his clerk, the latter carrying his ledger and day blotter. The pads being unlaced the different kinds of skins were placed in separate piles and then classified according to value. The sum total being arrived at the amount of his outfit and supplies being deducted he was given a "bon" on the trade shops for his credit balance.
Shortly after the Free Trader and his wife would be seen in the shop decking themselves out with finery, bright and gay colored clothes and fixings were the first consideration. After if there still remained a credit, luxuries in the eating way were indulged and that night a feast given by the Free Traders to the employes and hangers on at the post.
Yes, they were a jolly, childlike race of men and as improvident as an Indian for the requirements of tomorrow. I have described the Free Trader of the past, and now I propose to describe the Free Trader of today, and as he has been for the last two decades.
The building of the Canadian Pacific transcontinental road brought in its trail a class of very undesirable men. All rules have exceptions. I must therefore be just and not condemn all, but the majority of them were toughs and whiskey peddlers. They were the forerunners of the Free Traders of the present day, from Mattawa in the east to the shores of the Pacific on the west. They would start from some town back east with a keg of the strong alcohol, a few cheap gilt watches, some fancy ribbons, colored shawls and imitation meerschaum pipes, and if they found their bundles would bear a little more weight, they generally put in a little more "whiskey." They could almost always "dead-head" their way up the line on a construction train. Any place where they saw a few camps of Indians or half-breeds they dropped off with their stock in trade.
Such Indians as they found along the line were not hunters but they could act as guides to the Free Trader, and for a gaudy shawl or a few bottles of whiskey he could generally enlist one of them in his service. With an old canoe (furnished by the Indian) some flour, pork, tea and sugar, they could push their way up some river to a favorable point known by the Indian, and wait the canoes of trappers coming down on their way to one of the Hudson Bay posts at the mouth of the rivers.
The route of the railway cutting the large navigable rivers at right angles, at some parts of the line, as much as a couple of hundred miles inland of our posts gave the Free Traders a great advantage as they could intercept the Indians coming down from the height of land. Even to those Indians who had never tasted liquor the very word "fire-water" had a charm and an allurement not to be resisted. Probably the whiskey trader could keep the Indians camped at the place they first met for two or three days. Once he had got them to take the second glass he could name his own price for the vile liquor and put his own valuation on their furs.
I have heard of an Indian giving an otter skin for a bottle of whiskey. The skin was worth $15 and the whiskey possibly thirty cents. I knew positively of a trapper who gave a new overcoat worth $6 for a second glass of whiskey and when this took effect on his brain, for a third glass he gave a heavy Hudson Bay blanket that had cost him $8. The trader seeing he had nothing else worth depriving him of turned him out of doors on a bitter February morning.
Since these men have overrun the country the Hudson Bay Company has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to protect the Indians against themselves. The laws of the Dominion are stringent enough as they are set down in the blue book of the Indian Department, but they are very seldom enforced. The difficulty is to get sufficient evidence to secure judgment or committal of the offender.
The Hudson Bay Company seeing the giving of liquor to Indians abased and impoverished him, abolished it by a law passed in committee in 1853. They saw that selling liquor to an Indian put him so much short of necessary articles to make a proper hunt, it weakened his constitution, laid the seeds of disease, and from a business point of view, was bad policy.
To make their posts perfectly free from liquor, the very yearly allowance to their officers, clerks and servants was discontinued and each employe was given the equivalent as a cash bonus at the end of each year. I must say a white man or two amongst a drunken band of Indians ran considerable risk; several have paid for their greed of gain with their lives. Amongst the Indians many lives have been sacrificed thru the liquor curse, shooting, stabbing and drowning being the principal results of their fatal debauches.
It is a most pitiful sight for one to travel on the C. P. U. line and see at the stations along the interior the ragged bodies and emaciated features of the Indians who hang about the stations. These are some of the good hunters of twenty-five years ago and their descendants. Back in those days an Indian's advances were only limited by his demands on the company. He took only what, under ordinary luck, he could pay for.
To-day hardly one of them can get trust for a dollar. They pass their summer hanging about the stations, the women doing a little fishing to keep body and soul together, and when the cold of winter drives them to the shelter of the forests, they have nothing necessary to prosecute a hunt even if they had the strength and energy to work. If one of their children or wives is lucky enough to trap an animal, the noble head of the family tramps off to the nearest Free Trader and barters it for tobacco and whiskey.
Coming back to the Free Traders I must mention the exception to the general run of them. In different parts of our territory organized parties of twos or fours have tried to oppose the company by trading in a straight way, that is, giving the Indian good, strong clothing and good provisions in exchange for his furs, but with very few exceptions the life of these small companies has been shortlived and I only know of one or two who made money by this trading.
The rock upon which they invariably come to grief is giving credit to Indians. A plausible story in the spring as to why they cannot pay is generally accepted by the Free Trader and a second outfit given the next autumn with the idea of enabling them to pay at the close of another hunting season. The Trader being called upon to pay up his supplies in either Montreal, Toronto or Winnipeg causes a sudden stoppage to their adventures and the field is open for some other party to go and have, most likely, the same disastrous ending.
No, I say it with unbiased mind that the opening up of the country to outsiders was a sorry day for the Indians. While they were dealt with exclusively by the Hudson Bay Company, they had the care and guidance of a parent, but the progress of settlement cannot be stayed and the end of the Indian is inevitable, and, like the buffalo, they will in a very few years be of the past.
The Great Company, who for two and a quarter centuries has been identified with the fur trade, is rapidly becoming a company of shopkeepers in the new towns and villages of the west. With the disappearance of the Indian will go the last of the class of men who caused his undoing, "The Free Trader."
In these days of keen opposition it is only at the remote inland posts that we can supply the Indians with system; that is, as to amount of debt and a fixed time for sending them to the hunting grounds.
Taking Long Lake Post, north of Lake Superior, as a sample to illustrate our manner in rigging out hunters, I will say we appoint the 15th of September as the first day of supplies. On that day, early in the morning, the chief and his wife are called into the store, all others are excluded; this is done for two reasons — first, the Indian himself does not like the others to know what they take, or the amount of their debt; and, secondly, we find that when others, who are only onlookers are in the shop, they distract the attention of the Indian, who is taking the outfit and delay us in our work. The first thing done after the door is closed and locked is to talk over the pros and cons with the Indian as to where he is going to hunt, and his prospects, and from this an amount agreed upon as to the extent of his new debt.
This settled, we suggest that, first of all, necessary articles should be marked down; these we mention one by one and he replies if he has such already, good enough for another year, or if we are to mark down the article. The first essention, of course, is ammunition; so many pounds of shot and powder and so many boxes of percussion caps. Next on the list of his wants would be an axe, or axes, an ice chisel, steel traps, twine for a fish net, a few fish hooks, two or three mill-saw files (to sharpen his ice-chisel and axes) matches, a couple of bottles of pain-killer and the same of castor oil, and some thread and needles, (glovers and round).
Then comes the imported provisions. To an ordinary family of a man, his wife and two or three children, he will take 200 pounds flour, 50 pounds compound lard, 10 pounds tea, the same of tobacco, 2-pound cart of soda, 25 pounds sugar, another perhaps 12 or 15 pounds pork. This latter must be pure fat, meatless and boneless.
When we get this far in his supplies, a pause is called and he asks us to add up how much the foregoing comes to. Say this amounts to $100 and the amount agreed upon is $200, he thus understands he has $100 yet to get, or as much as whatever the balance may be. Then he begins over again by taking heavy Hudson's Bay blankets; these we keep in all sizes from one to cover an infant up to what we call four point, this latter is large enough for a double bed and big enough for the man and woman to tuck themselves comfortably in. Of blankets he may take two or three.
The next on the list is heavy strouds, blue for the woman and white for the man's leggings; following this will be a warm cloth skirt for his wife and enough Estoffe du pays for his pants a pair of ready made mole skin pants for ice walking during the excessive cold of January and February, several yards of English flannel, colors according to their taste; we keep in stock, white, crimson, yellow, sky blue, navy, and bright green; this is for underwear for the family, two pairs of heavy wool socks for the man and two pairs long wool for his wife. A half dozen red, spotted handkerchiefs, these are put to several usages, such as tying up the hair, as a muffler about the neck, tying up their little belongings and many other usages apart from what a white man would apply a handkerchief.
Several yards also are taken of a strong cotton for dress use, or outside skirts; this is imported by us direct and goes under the name of "Stripped Yarmouth Druggets." It is very durable and stands the rough wear and tear of the bush. Should his proposed hunting grounds be remote from a deer country he would take dressed leather for mits and moccasins, parchment deerskin for his snow shoes. Snow shoes, of course, each one of his family must have, and supplying himself with this leather, makes quite a hole in the amount of his debt.
Here again another addition of figures is made; perhaps a few dollars yet remain to complete the agreed upon sum. He and his wife, on the floor of the shop, handle each article they have received, and think their hardest to remember some forgotten necessary article that may have escaped their memory. We also, from long use to the Indian's requirements, come to their assistance and sometimes suggest something quite overlooked, but very necessary.
A further adding up is now made; they have positively all they require for the winter months, and yet a few dollars remain to make up the amount, and then the Indian's weakness shows itself and he says: "Oh! well give sugar and lard for the remainder." Then he and his wife make all the purchases up into one or two blankets; an order on the provision store is given him and his account is made up and given him in the following manner.
Pa-pa-nios, dr. to Hudson's Bay Co.Long Lake Post.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSept. 15, 1895$200.00 M. H.
They don't generally understand figures, but they all understand that X stands for 10. As the Indian kills his furs, he adds them to his pack in saits often, at the same time scoring out one of the crosses on his debt slip. After all has been cancelled, he then hunts a few more skins to cover any misvaluation on his part, or to have something extra to barter for finery.
After the chief leaves the shop another man and wife are called in according to their standing in the band, and thus it goes on till we reach the last one. Six to eight families are about all we can get thru in a day, as there is so much time wasted in talk.
If we begin on the Monday, we generally see the grand departure take place on the following Saturday. We only import the best of everything and the Indian buying from our stores is assured of the purest provisions and the strongest and most durable goods. This is no boast for where we have no opposition the Indians and our interests are identical, and the company's agent at such posts has the Indians' welfare at heart.
On the frontier we are obliged by other buyers and circumstances over which we have no control to take common out of season skins. As the Indians find sale for skins of any kind, they hunt actually ten months out of the twelve. At our interior posts, where our word is law, we appoint the 25th of October to begin hunting and the 25th of May to finish; except for bears, and these they are allowed to hunt up to the 10th of June. What a sad sight it is for an officer coming from some interior district to a frontier post, where he left well-clothed contented Indians to find those swindled by the unprincipled traders, in rags, drunken and the seeds of consumption marked in their faces.
What appears marvelous and positively uncanny to a town person is simple to a bushman.
Years of continuous observation develops the bump of locality, every object has a place and meaning to a trapper; his eye is ever on the alert, and what his eye sees is photographed on the brain and remains there for future reference at any time he may require it.
This bump of locality is highly developed in all Indians and whites who have passed many years in the bush. Without the faculty of remembering objects a bushman could not find his way through the dense forests.
Providing the trapper has once passed from one place to another, he is pretty sure to find his way through the second time, even if years should have elapsed between the trips. Every object from start to finish is an index finger pointing out the right path. A sloping path, a leaning tree, a moss-covered rock, a slight elevation in land, a cut in the hills, the water in a creek, an odd-looking stone, a blasted tree — all help as guides as the observant trapper makes his way through a pathless forest.
Of course, this tax on the memory is not required of trappers about a settled part of the country, but I am telling of what is absolutely necessary for the safety of one's life in the faraway wilds of the North, where to lose one's self might possibly mean death.
I followed an Indian guide once over a trail of 280 miles, whereon we snowshoed over mountains, through dense bush, down rivers and over lakes. To test my powers of a retentive memory, the following winter, when dispatches again had to be taken to headquarters, I asked the Indian to allow me to act as guide, he following.
On that long journey of ten or twelve days, always walking and continually thinking out the road, I was in doubt only once. We were standing on the ice; a tongue of land stood out toward us; a bay on either side. The portage leaving the lake was at the bottom of one of these bays, but which? The Indian had halted almost on the tails of my snowshoes, and enjoyed my hesitation, but said nothing. To be assured of no mistake, I had to pass over the whole of last winter's trip in my mind's eye up to the point on which we stood. Once the retrospect caught up with us, there was no further trouble. Our route was down the left-hand bay.
When the Indian saw me start in that direction, he said: "A-a-ke-pu-ka-tan" ("Yes, yes, you are able").
The most difficult proposition to tackle is a black spruce swamp. The trees are mostly of a uniform size and height, the surface of the snow is perfectly level, and at times our route lies miles through such a country, and should there be a dull leaden sky or a gentle snow falling, there is nothing for the guide to depend on but his ability to walk straight.
It has been written time and again that the tendency when there are no land marks is to walk in a circle.
By constant practice, those who are brought up in the wilds acquire the ability to walk in a straight line. They begin by beating a trail from point to point on some long stretch of ice, and in the bush, where any tree or obstruction bars the way they make up for any deviation from the straight course by a give-and-take process, so that the general line of march is straight.
During forty years in the country, I never knew an Indian or white bushman to carry a compass. Apart from a black spruce swamp, it would be no use whatever.
In going from one place to another, the contour of the country has to be considered, and very frequently the "longest way round is the shortest way home." A ridge of mountains might lay between the place of starting and the objective point, and by making a detour round the spur of same, one would easier reach his destination, rather than to climb up one side and down the other.
On the first day after my arrival in London (the only time I ever crossed the water) a gentleman took me out to see some of the sights. He lived on the Surrey side, and took me direct, or, I should say crooked, into the city across the Thames. After walking me around several blocks and zigzagging considerably about, he came to a sudden stop at a corner. "Now," he said, "Hunter, suppose I was to disappear all at once, do you think you could find your way back to Elm Tree Lodge? I have always heard that you bushmen can find your way anywhere."
Now, although there was no necessity for it, my years of schooling had caused me to observe every conspicuous object, and every turn we had made since leaving his residence; and therefore I replied, with the utmost confidence, "Why, to return to your house from here is as simple as falling off a log."
Looking at me with the greatest incredulity, he said, "If you can find your way back unaided I will pay for the best hat in London."
"Well, my dear sir, my number is 7, and I want it soft felt and dark bottle green. Now follow me, and you can get the hat in the morning."
Without going into details, suffice it to say, I conducted him to his own door, and a more perplexed man was not in London; so much so, he had to call in his wife, his mother-in-law and his next door neighbor to tell them of my achievement.
At last I had to cut short his flow of words by saying my guiding him home was a most simple thing. It was merely the result of observing as I went along, and running the objects backward as I came to the house.
"If I was to tell you as a fact, my dear sir, that a bushman sees the track of some wild animal in the snow, he can tell you not only the name of the animal, but if it was male or female, within an hour of the time the tracks were made, if it was calm or blowing and the direction of the wind at that time and many other minor things, you would think this wonderful. Yet, as wonderful as this may appear, and hardly to be credited, an Indian boy of ten or twelve can read this page from nature as easy as one of us can read a page of print."
When the cold nights of the latter end of October had set in and the leaves were crisp underfoot, I decided to go and set up a line of marten traps through a stretch of green timber, between two large lakes. The distance was considered about eight miles.
I took an Indian youth as companion, for it is lonely work setting trap in the deep gloom of the forest alone. Our blankets, axes, two days' provisions, a square of cotton that we call a canopy, to keep off the wind, and my rifle, made up our necessary equipment, with a few baits to start work upon.
During the summer I had got an Indian to leave an old canoe on the shore of the big lake where we expected to come out; this would save our coming back on our tracks, as we could return by the canoe route, which was considerably longer, but much easier.
We worked away all the day we left the post, and when camping time came we found a pretty, sheltered place, the back of a large, flat-sided boulder. Ten feet in front of this lay a large fallen pine tree, against which we built our fire. Then we cut a lot of pitch pine dry wood in short lengths and split, ready to replenish the fire from time to time during the autumn night.
It is cheerful when one wakes during the night to have a bright blaze in a few moments.
The boy had worked pretty hard all day, and, after eating to repletion, rolled himself in his blanket and fell asleep. With me it was different. I lay back half-reclining, half-sitting, enjoying the congenial heat and wondering what luck we would have from the traps when we made our first visit. My rifle lay alongside of me on the balsam brush, with the muzzle pointing toward the fire, and, unconsciously my hand grasped the stock and my fore finger toyed with the trigger. I mention all these details to show how easy what followed came to pass.
The sparks had all gone out of the wood and only a bright glow remained, enough, however, to light up the trunk of the pine log and a considerable distance each side of the fireplace. All at once I heard the crushing of dried leaves and the breaking of twigs, at some little distance off in the forest. The sounds were evidently made by some large animal, and I soon realized it was coming slowly with steady steps toward the camp.
My first thought was to chuck on some fresh fuel to scare whatever it was away; but the next moment I decided to keep quiet and await developments.
With my thumb I drew back the hammer of the rifle and waited. I kept my eyes steadfast in the direction whence the sounds came, and in a minute (it appeared an hour to me) I saw the head and forequarters of an immense black bear, which stood gazing down on the camp from behind the fallen tree.
To raise my rifle and sight it point blank at Bruin's chest was the work of an instant. Crash went the bullet, true to the mark, and the bear fell backward, making the woods echo with its death roars.
The boy sprang to his feet in a stupid, bewildered way, asking what was the matter. I did not take time to answer him, being occupied in getting a fresh shell into the barrel, for one never knows when a bear is really dead. The safest way is to have your gun ready and stand off at a reasonable distance and wait until he kicks himself stiff. In this case, however, it was soon over with its bearship, for the bullet had gone right through the heart.
The joy of the Indian boy knew no bounds when he saw the result of the shot, for he saw many gorges ahead of him.
I had always been led to believe that smoke, or the blaze from a camp-fire, would keep away the denizens of the Canadian forests, and when I told this bear adventure to old hunters they simply listened and gave a polite smile.
In this instance it must have been a case of inordinate curiosity, accounted for in a manner from the fact of its being a female bear.