SECTION ICLIMATE

I havealready referred to the extreme heat which we experienced along the Athabaska River and at Fort Chippewyan, and that this hot wave extended beyond the Arctic Circle was testified to by Indians who suffered the loss of some of their dogs from this cause, on crossing the portage between the Bell River and Fort McPherson. Of course this was exceptional and lasted only a few days, but nevertheless, there is no question that for a couple of months in midsummer the aggregate amount of heat which is imparted by the sun’s rays interrupted only for a few hours out of the twenty-four, and shining through a wonderfully clear atmosphere goes far to counter-balance what is lost by their refraction owing to the obliquity of their course in reaching the earth. The law of compensation here makes heroic efforts to assert its claim, and though it failsin giving to those regions an equality of heat, it does succeed to the last fraction in bestowing on every portion of the globe an equality of light, the great luminary gives to the Esquimaux exactly as much sunlight during the entire year as the dweller on the far off Amazon or the Nile. There is as much truth as poetry in the lines of the old song: “For taking the year all round my dear, There isn’t more night than day.”

We found it difficult when we got below the last obstruction to navigation, and began to make rapid progress to the north, to accustom ourselves to the changed conditions and to seek rest at the old accustomed hours, and frequently while waiting for the darkness, the midnight hour was passed and the northern dawn was upon us before we realised that the evening and morning twilight were not separated by any perceptible intervening darkness. The wonderful beauty of the tropical dawn has been told by every traveller in the equatorial regions, but in these regions only a few minutes elapses from the time it begins till the sun asserts its supremacy and dispels the brilliant colouring. In the sub-Arctic regions there is nosuch haste. When the glittering rays no longer reach us we can watch their reflection in the clear ethereal spaces above during the whole of that period we call night. But I have dwelt, perhaps, too long and too frequently on this subject, and my only apology is that this portion of time was to me always a recompense for any of the labours or hardships of the previous day, and one is apt to be garrulous over what has afforded him pleasure.

ESQUIMAUX IN THEIR KAYAKS

It was difficult on those exceedingly hot days of midsummer to realise that in a few months’ time the ice king would reign supreme over all the land. But this is a country of extremes, and even in some of the hottest days when the wind would turn suddenly to the north and angry clouds would arise from the horizon and spread across the heavens obscuring the sun from view, one could form a faint idea of what would happen a few months later.

After entering the Mackenzie we noticed the constant dropping of earth from the banks causing a dull splash in the water. This was caused by the melting of the frozen earth along the shore of the stream. Insome cases the action of the water had worn deep caverns into the perpendicular clay banks. When these caverns had become so large as to remove the support of the superincumbent mass, an earth slide of considerable magnitude would occur. In the greater part of this whole country frost is found at varying depths during the whole year, and of course the distance below the surface decreases as we go north. On our journey across from McPherson to Bell River we found it a little less than a foot to perpetual frost.

Some one has suggested the building of a line of railway between the Peel and Bell Rivers. All I would say of this visionary enterprise is that a solid ice foundation for the roadbed will certainly be found without much excavation. Bearing on this subject a well authenticated story is told. Some years ago an agent of the Hudson Bay Company died at Fort McPherson, and, being a man of some importance a deep grave was excavated for his remains out of the frozen earth. Some time after stories were told of strange appearances around this grave. As the years went by one afteranother of the inhabitants of the place imagined that he saw something uncanny around the resting place of the former master of the post. Finally, it became the settled belief of the community, that the lonely grave had frequent visits from unearthly beings. This went so far as to menace the existence of the post, and the company at length concluded either to move it to another locality or to remove the cause of the trouble to another resting place. It was finally decided that it would be better to take the remains up to Fort Simpson and inter them in the churchyard there where no uncanny visitor would dare to approach.

The winter season was chosen for the removal. An escort of natives with a team of dogs hitched to a toboggan was engaged for the work. After considerable difficulty the frozen earth was removed and the rude coffin taken up when the occupant was found just as he had been when placed there some twenty years before, in a perfect state of preservation. The grave had been made below the perpetual frost line and an eternity of years wouldunder such conditions have failed to render literally applicable the words “Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.”

The winter previous to my visit, viz., that of 1905–6 was a particularly cold one. The thermometer went as low as sixty-eight degrees below zero, Fahrenheit, and added to this there was a great deal of wind, but, not having had an opportunity of experiencing a winter in those latitudes, I shall leave to others the task of describing it.

In Captain McClintock’s narrative “The Voyage of theFoxin Arctic Seas” there is found incidentally a most graphic word picture of an Arctic winter night. It will be remembered that Captain McClintock commanded the expedition sent out by Lady Franklin in 1857, in search of her husband, Sir John Franklin. The author makes no attempt at anything more than giving the occurrences as they took place from day to day, as recorded in his diary, but one paragraph headed “Burial in the Pack” is given in words that paint the scene in colours that remain in the mind of the reader, and I shall quote a couple of extracts which read as follows:

December 4, 1857.—“I have just returned on board from the performance of the most solemn duty a commander can be called upon to fulfil. A funeral at sea is always peculiarly impressive; but this evening as we gathered around the sad remains of poor Scott, reposing under a Union Jack, and read the burial service by the light of lanterns, the effect could not fail to awaken serious emotions.

The greater part of the church service was read on board, under shelter of the housing; the body was then placed upon a sledge, and drawn by the messmates of the deceased to a distance from the ship, where a hole through the ice had been cut; it was then ‘committed to the deep,’ and the service completed. What a scene it was; I shall never forget it. TheLonely Fox, almost buried in snow, completely isolated from the habitable world, her colours half-mast with the bell mournfully tolling; our little procession slowly marching over the rough surface of the frozen deep, guided by lanterns and direction posts amid the dreary darkness of an Arctic winter; the deathlike stillness around, the intense cold,and the threatening aspect of a murky overcast sky; and all this heightened by one of those strange lunar phenomena which are but seldom seen even here, a complete halo encircling the moon, through which passed a horizontal band of pale light that encompassed the heavens; above the moon appeared the segments of two other halos, and there were also mock moons or para-selenæ to the number of six. The misty atmosphere lent a very ghastly hue to this singular display, which lasted for rather more than an hour.

Scarcely had the burial service been completed, when our poor dogs, discovering that the ship was deserted, set up a most dismal unearthly moaning, continuing it until we returned on board. Coming to us from a distance across the ice, at such a solemn moment, this most strange and mournful sound was both startling and impressive.”

Again on the eleventh he says: “Position 74 degrees, 31 N 68·21 W. Calm, clear weather, pleasant for exercise, but steadily cold; thermometer varies between twenty and thirty degrees below zero. At noonthe blush of dawn tints the southern horizon, to the north the sky remains inky blue, whilst overhead it is bright and clear, the stars shining, and the pole star near the zenith very distinct. Although there is a light north wind, thin mackerel clouds are passing from south to north and the temperature has risen ten degrees.”

What a contrast to this a few months’ time will bring when the king of the universe has again appeared in constant view, dispelling all the darkness and bringing warmth in his rays. Then the wild fowl will come up in myriads from the south to build their nests and rear their young in rivers, creeks and pools in this boreal land. Then too, the Esquimaux will lay aside the snow sled for the kaiak. The tent will take the place of the iglo and his period of real enjoyment will have begun.

These are, no doubt, the conditions that appeal to him as ideal and which no other latitude could afford, and so it is that he prefers his home to that of any other.

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