THE SLEDGE JOURNEY BEGUN
Tighter and tighter grew the grip of winter. Rarely the temperature rose above twenty-five degrees below zero, even at midday, and oftener it crept well down into the thirties. The air was filled with rime, which clung to everything, and the sun, only venturing now a little way above the southern horizon, shone cold and cheerless, weakly penetrating the ever-present frost veil. The tide, still defying the shackles of the mighty power that had bound all the rest of the world, surged up and down, piling ponderous ice cakes in mountainous heaps along the river banks. Occasionally an Eskimo or two would suddenly appear out of the snow fields, remain for a day perhaps, and then as suddenly disappear into the bleak wastes whence he had come.
Slowly the days dragged along. We occupied the short hours of light in reading old newspapers and magazines, or walking out over the hills, and in the evenings called upon the Post officers or entertained them in our cabin, where Mathewson often came to smoke his after-supper pipe and relate to us stories of his forty-odd years’ service as a fur trader in the northern wilderness.
One bitter cold morning, long before the first light of day began to filter through the rimy atmosphere, we heard the crunch of feet pass our door, and a komatik slipped by. It was Dr. Milne, away to George River and the coast on his tour of Post inspection, and our little group of white men was one less in number.
Silence of the North
We envied him his early leaving. We could not ourselves start for home until after New Year’s, for there were no dogs to be had for love or money until the Eskimos came in from their hunting camps to spend the holidays. Everything, however, was made ready for that longed-for time. Through the kindness of Thévenet, who put his Post folk to work for us, the deerskins I had brought from Whale River were dressed and made up into sleeping bags and skin clothing, and other neces-saries were got ready for the long dog journey out.
Christmas eve came finally, and with it komatik loads of Eskimos, who roused the place from its repose into comparative wakefulness. The newcomers called upon us in twos or threes, never troubling to knock before they entered our cabin, looked us and our things over with much interest, a proceeding which occupied usually a full half hour, then went away, sometimes to bring back newly arriving friends, to introduce them. A multitude of dogs skulked around by day and made night hideous with howling and fighting, and it was hardly safe to walk abroad without a stick, of which they have a wholesome fear, as, like their progenitors, the wolves, they are great cowards and will rarely attack a man when he has any visible means of defense at hand.
Christmas afternoon was given over to shooting matches, and the evening to dancing. We spent the day with Thévenet. Mathewson was not in position to entertain, as the Indian woman that presided in his kitchen partook so freely of liquor of her own manufacture that she became hilariously drunk early in the morning, and for the peace of the household and safety of the dishes, which she playfully shied at whoever came within reach, she was ejected, and Mathewson prepared his own meals. At Thévenet’s, however, everything went smoothly, and the sumptuous meal of baked whitefish, venison, with canned vegetables, plum pudding, cheese and coffee—delicacies held in reserve for the occasion—made us forget the bleak wilderness and ice-bound land in which we were.
It seemed for a time even now as though we should not be able to secure dogs and drivers. No one knew the way to Ramah, and on no account would one of these Eskimos undertake even a part of the journey without permission from the Hudson’s Bay Company. As a last resort Thévenet promised me his dogs and driver to take us at least as far as George River, but finally Emuk arrived and an arrangement was made with him to carry us from Whale River to George River, and two other Eskimos agreed to go with us to Whale River. The great problem that confronted me now was how to get over the one hundred and sixty miles of barrens from George River to Ramah, and it was necessary to arrange for this before leaving Fort Chimo, as dogs to the eastward were even scarcer than here. Mathewson finally solved it for me with his promise to instruct Ford at George River to put his team and drivers at my disposal. Thus, after much bickering, our relays were arranged as far as the Moravian mission station at Ramah, and I trusted in Providence and the coast Eskimos to see us on from there. The third of January was fixed as the day of our departure.
Our going in winter was an event. It gave the Post folk an opportunity to send out a winter mail, which I volunteered to carry to Quebec.
Straggling bands of Indians, hauling fur-laden toboggans, began to arrive during the week, and the bartering in the stores was brisk, and to me exceedingly interesting. Money at Fort Chimo is unknown. Values are reckoned in “skins”—that is, a “skin” is the unit of value. There is no token of exchange to represent this unit, however, and if a hunter brings in more pelts than sufficient to pay for his purchases, the trader simply gives him credit on his books for the balance due, to be drawn upon at some future time. As a matter of fact, the hunter is almost invariably in debt to the store. A “skin” will buy a pint of molasses, a quarter pound of tea or a quarter pound of black stick tobacco. A white arctic fox pelt is valued at seven skins, a blue fox pelt at twelve, and a black or silver fox at eighty to ninety skins. South of Hamilton Inlet, where competition is keen with the fur traders, they pay in cash six dollars for white, eight dollars for blue (which, by the way, are very scarce there) and not infrequently as high as three hundred and fifty dollars or even more for black and silver fox pelts. The cost of maintaining posts at Fort Chimo, however, is somewhat greater than at these southern points.
Here at Ungava the Eskimos’ hunt is confined almost wholly to foxes, polar bears, an occasional wolf and wolverine, and, of course, during the season, seals, walrus, and white whales. An average hunter will trap from sixty to seventy foxes in a season, though one or two exceptional ones I knew have captured as many as two hundred. The Indians, who penetrate far into the interior, bring out marten, mink and otter principally, with a few foxes, an occasional beaver, black bear, lynx and some wolf and wolverine skins. There is a story of a very large and ferocious brown bear that tradition says inhabits the barrens to the eastward toward George River. Mr. Peter McKenzie told me that many years ago, when he was stationed at Fort Chimo, the Indians brought him one of the skins of this animal, and Ford at George River said that, some twenty years since, he saw a piece of one of the skins. Both agreed that the hair was very long, light brown in color, silver tipped and of a decidedly different species from either the polar or black bear. This is the only definite information as to it that I was able to gather. The Indians speak of it with dread, and insist that it is still to be found, though none of them can say positively that he has seen one in a decade. I am inclined to believe that the brown bear, so far as Labrador is concerned, has been exterminated.
New Year’s is the great day at Fort Chimo. All morning there were shooting matches and foot races, and in the afternoon football games in progress, in which the Eskimo men and women alike joined. The Indians, who were recovering from an all-night drunk on their vile beer, and a revel in the “Queen’s” cabin, condescended to take part in the shooting matches, but held majestically aloof from the other games. Some of them came into the French store in the evening to squat around the room and watch the dancing while they puffed in silence on their pipes and drank tea when it was passed. That was their only show of interest in the festivities. Early on the morning of the second they all disappeared. But these were only a fragment of those that visit the Post in summer. It is then that they have their powwow.
At last the day of our departure arrived, with a dull leaden sky and that penetrating cold that eats to one’s very marrow. Thévenet and Belfleur came early and brought us a box of cigars to ease the tedium of the long evenings in the snow houses. All the little colony of white men were on hand to see us off, and I believe were genuinely sorry to have us go, for we had become a part of the little coterie and our coming had made a break in the lives of these lonely exiles. Men brought together under such conditions become very much attached to each other in a short time. “It’s going to be lonesome now,” said Stewart. “I’m sorry you have to leave us. May God speed you on your way, and carry you through your long journey in safety.”
Finally our baggage was lashed on the komatik; the dogs, leaping and straining at their traces, howled their eagerness to be gone; we shook hands warmly with everybody, even the Eskimos, who came forward won-dering at what seemed to them our stupendous undertaking, the komatik was “broken” loose, and we were away at a gallop.
Traveling was good, and the nine dogs made such excellent time that we had to ride in level places or we could not have kept pace with them. When there was a hill to climb we pushed on the komatik or hauled with the dogs on the long bridle to help them along. When we had a descent to make, the drag—a hoop of walrus hide—was thrown over the front end of one of the komatik runners at the top, and if the place was steep the Eskimos, one on either side of the komatik, would cling on with their arms and brace their feet into the snow ahead, doing their utmost to hold back and reduce the momentum of the heavy sledge. To the uninitiated they would appear to be in imminent danger of having their legs broken, for the speed down some of the grades when the crust was hard and icy was terrific. When descending the gentler slopes we all rode, depending upon the drag alone to keep our speed within reason. This coasting down hill was always an exciting experi-ence, and where the going was rough it was not easy to keep a seat on the narrow komatik. Occasionally the komatik would turn over. When we saw this was likely to happen we discreetly dropped off, a feat that demanded agility and practice to be performed successfully and gracefully.
It was a relief beyond measure to feel that we were at length, after seven long months, actually headed toward home and civilization. Words cannot express the feeling of exhilaration that comes to one at such a time.
We did not have to go so far up Whale River to find a crossing as on our trip to Fort Chimo, and reached the eastern side before dark. Sometimes the ice hills are piled so high here by the tide that it takes a day or even two to cut a komatik path through them and cross the river, but fortunately we had very little cutting to do. Not long after dark we coasted down the hill above the Post, and the cheerful lights of Edmunds’ cabin were at hand.
Here we had to wait two days for Emuk, and in the interim Mrs. Edmunds and Mary went carefully over our clothes, sewed sealskin legs to deerskin moccasins, made more duffel socks, and with kind solicitation put all our things into the best of shape and gave us extra moccasins and mittens. “It is well to have plenty of everything before you start,” said Mrs. Edmunds, “for if the huskies are hunting deer the women will do no sewing on sealskin, and if they’re hunting seals they’ll not touch a needle to your deerskins, though you are freezing.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Oh, some of their heathen beliefs,” she answered. “They think it would bring bad luck to the hunters. They believe all kinds of foolishness.”
Emuk had never been so far away as George River, and Sam Ford was to be our pilot to that point, and to return with Emuk. The Eskimos do not consider it safe for a man to travel alone with dogs, and they never do it when there is the least probability that they will have to remain out over night. Two men are always required to build a snow igloo, which is one reason for this. It was therefore necessary for me at each point, when employing the Eskimo driver for a new stage of our journey, also to engage a companion for him, that he might have company when returning home.
Our coming to Whale River two months before had made a welcome innovation in the even tenor of the cheerless, lonely existence of our good friends at the Post—an event in their confined life, and they were really sorry to part from us.
“It will be a long time before any one comes to see us again—a long time,” said Mrs. Edmunds, sadly adding: “I suppose no one will ever come again.”
When we said our farewells the women cried. In their Godspeed the note of friendship rang true and honest and sincere. These people had proved themselves in a hundred ways. In civilization, where the selfish instinct governs so generally, there are too many Judases. On the frontier, in spite of the rough exterior of the people, you find real men and women. That is one reason why I like the North so well.
We left Whale River on Saturday, the sixth of January, with one hundred and twenty miles of barrens to cross before reaching George River Post, the nearest human habitation to the eastward. Our fresh team of nine dogs was in splendid trim and worked well, but a three or four inch covering of light snow upon the harder under crust made the going hard and wearisome for the animals. The frost flakes that filled the air covered everything. Clinging to the eyelashes and faces of the men it gave them a ghostly appearance, our skin clothing was white with it, long icicles weighted our beards, and the sharp atmosphere made it necessary to grasp one’s nose frequently to make certain that the member was not freezing.
When we stopped for the night our snow house which Emuk and Sam soon had ready seemed really cheerful. Our halt was made purposely near a cluster of small spruce where enough firewood was found to cook our supper of boiled venison, hard-tack and tea, water being procured by melting ice. Spruce boughs were scattered upon the igloo floor and deerskins spread over these.
After everything was made snug, and whatever the dogs might eat or destroy put safely out of their reach, the animals were unharnessed and fed the one meal that was allowed them each day after their work was done. Feeding the dogs was always an interesting function. While one man cut the frozen food into chunks, the rest of us armed with cudgels beat back the animals. When the word was given we stepped to one side to avoid the onrush as they came upon the food, which was bolted with little or no chewing. They will eat anything that is fed them—seal meat, deer’s meat, fish, or even old hides. There was always a fight or two to settle after the feeding and then the dogs made holes for themselves in the snow and lay down for the drift to cover them.
The dogs fed, we crawled with our hot supper into the igloo, put a block of snow against the entrance and stopped the chinks around it with loose snow. Then the kettle covers were lifted and the place was filled at once with steam so thick that one could hardly see his elbow neighbor. By the time the meal was eaten the temperature had risen to such a point that the place was quite warm and comfortable—so warm that the snow in the top of the igloo was soft enough to pack but not quite soft enough to drip water. Then we smoked some of Thévenet’s cigars and blessed him for his thoughtfulness in providing them.
Usually our snow igloos allowed each man from eighteen to twenty inches space in which to lie down, and just room enough to stretch his legs well. With our sleeping bags they were entirely comfortable, no matter what the weather outside. The snow is porous enough to admit of air circulation, but even a gale of wind without would not affect the temperature within. It is claimed by the natives that when the wind blows, a snow house is warmer than in a period of still cold. I could see no difference. A new snow igloo is, however, more comfortable than one that has been used, for newly cut snow blocks are more porous. In one that has been used there is always a crust of ice on the interior which prevents a proper circulation of air.
On the second day we passed the shack where Easton and I had held our five-day fast, and shortly after came out upon the plains—a wide stretch of flat, treeless country where no hills rise as guiding landmarks for the voyageur. This was beyond the zone of Emuk’s wanderings, and Sam went several miles astray in his calculations, which, in view of the character of the country, was not to be wondered at, piloting as he did without a compass. However, we were soon set right and passed again into the rolling barrens, with ever higher hills with each eastern mile we traveled.
At two o’clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, January ninth, we dropped over the bank upon the ice of George River just above the Post, and at three o’clock were under Mr. Ford’s hospitable roof again.
Here we had to encounter another vexatious delay of a week. Ford’s dogs had been working hard and were in no condition to travel and not an Eskimo team was there within reach of the Post that could be had. There was nothing to do but wait for Ford’s team to rest and get into condition before taking them upon the trying journey across the barren grounds that lay between us and the Atlantic.
CROSSING THE BARRENS
On Tuesday morning, January sixteenth, we swung out upon the river ice with a powerful team of twelve dogs. Will Ford and an Eskimo named Etuksoak, called by the Post folk “Peter,” for short, were our drivers.
The dogs began the day with a misunderstanding amongst themselves, and stopped to fight it out. When they were finally beaten into docility one of them, apparently the outcast of the pack, was limping on three legs and leaving a trail of blood behind him. Every team has its bully, and sometimes its outcast. The bully is master of them all. He fights his way to his position of supremacy, and holds it by punishing upon the slightest provocation, real or fancied, any encroachment upon his autocratic prerogatives. Likewise he dis-ciplines the pack when he thinks they need it or when he feels like it, and he is always the ringleader in mischief. When there is an outcast he is a doomed dog. The others harass and fight him at every opportunity. They are pitiless. They do not associate with him, and sooner or later a morning will come when they are noticed licking their chops contentedly, as dogs do when they have had a good meal— and after that no more is seen of the outcast. The bully is not always, or, in fact, often the leader in harness. The dog that the driver finds most intelligent in following a trail and in answering his commands is chosen for this important position, regardless of his fighting prowess.
This morning as we started the weather was perfect—thirty-odd degrees below zero and a bright sun that made the hoar frost sparkle like flakes of silver. For ten miles our course lay down the river to a point just below the “Narrows.” Then we left the ice and hit the overland trail in an almost due northerly direction. It was a rough country and there was much pulling and hauling and pushing to be done crossing the hills. Before noon the wind began to rise, and by the time we stopped to prepare our snow igloo for the night a northwest gale had developed and the air was filled with drifting snow.
Early in the afternoon I began to have cramps in the calves of my legs, and finally it seemed to me that the muscles were tied into knots. Sharp, intense pains in the groin made it torture to lift in feet above the level of the snow, and I was never more thankful for rest in my life than when that day’s work was finished. Easton confessed to me that he had an attack similar to my own. This was the result of our inactivity at Fort Chimo. We were suffering with what among the Canadian voyageurs is known asmal de roquette. There was nothing to do but endure it without complaint, for there is no relief until in time it gradually passes away of its own accord.
This first night from George River was spent upon the shores of a lake which, hidden by drifted snow, appeared to be about two miles wide and seven or eight miles long. It lay amongst low, barren hills, where a few small bunches of gnarled black spruce relieved the otherwise unbroken field of white.
The following morning it was snowing and drifting, and as the day grew the storm increased. An hour’s traveling carried us to the Koroksoak River—River of the Great Gulch—which flows from the northeast, following the lower Torngaek mountains and emptying into Ungava Bay near the mouth of the George. The Koroksoak is apparently a shallow stream, with a width of from fifty to two hundred yards. Its bed forms the chief part of the komatik route to Nachvak, and therefore our route. For several miles the banks are low and sandy, but farther up the sand disappears and the hills crowd close upon the river. The gales that sweep down the valley with every storm had blown away the snow and drifted the bank sand in a layer over the river ice. This made the going exceedingly hard and ground the mud from the komatik runners.
The snowstorm, directly in our teeth, increased in force with every mile we traveled, and with the continued cramps and pains in my legs it seemed to me that the misery of it all was about as refined and complete as it could be. It may be imagined, therefore, the relief I felt when at noon Will and Peter stopped the komatik with the announcement that we must camp, as further progress could not be made against the blinding snow and head wind.
Advantage was taken of the daylight hours to mend the komatik mud. This was done by mixing caribou moss with water, applying the mixture to the mud where most needed, and permitting it to freeze, which it did instantly. Then the surface was planed smooth with a little jack plane carried for the purpose.
That night the storm blew itself out, and before daylight, after a breakfast of coffee and hard-tack, we were off. The half day’s rest had done wonders for me, and the pains in my legs were not nearly so severe as on the previous day.
January and February see the lowest temperatures of the Labrador winter. Now the cold was bitter, rasping—so intensely cold was the atmosphere that it was almost stifling as it entered the lungs. The vapor from our nostrils froze in masses of ice upon our beards. The dogs, straining in the harness, were white with hoar frost, and our deerskin clothing was also thickly coated with it. For long weeks these were to be the prevailing conditions in our homeward march.
Dark and ominous were the spruce-lined river banks on either side that morning as we toiled onward, and grim and repellent indeed were the rocky hills outlined against the sky beyond. Everything seemed frozen stiff and dead except ourselves. No sound broke the absolute silence save the crunch, crunch, crunch of our feet, the squeak of the komatik runners complaining as they slid reluctantly over the snow, and the “oo-isht-oo-isht, oksuit, oksuit” of the drivers, constantly urging the dogs to greater effort. Shimmering frost flakes, suspended in the air like a veil of thinnest gauze, half hid the sun when very timidly he raised his head above the southeastern horizon, as though afraid to venture into the domain of the indomitable ice king who had wrested the world from his last summer’s power and ruled it now so absolutely.
With every mile the spruce on the river banks became thinner and thinner, and the hills grew higher and higher, until finally there was scarcely a stick to be seen and the lower eminences had given way to lofty mountains which raised their jagged, irregular peaks from two to four thousand feet in solemn and majestic grandeur above our heads. The gray basaltic rocks at their base shut in the tortuous river bed, and we knew now why the Koroksoak was called the “River of the Great Gulch.” These were the mighty Torngaeks, which farther north attain an altitude above the sea of full seven thousand feet. We passed the place where Torngak dwells in his mountain cavern and sends forth his decrees to the spirits of Storm and Starvation and Death to do destruction, or restrains them, at his will.
The Hills Grew Higher and Higher
In the forenoon of the third day after leaving George River we stopped to lash a few sticks on top of our komatik load. “No more wood,” said Will. “This’ll have to see us through to Nachvak.” That afternoon we turned out of the Koroksoak River into a pass leading to the northward, and that night’s igloo was at the headwaters of a stream that they said ran into Nachvak Bay.
We Turned Into a Pass Leading to the Northwest
The upper part of this new gulch was strewn with bowlders, and much hard work and ingenuity were necessary the following morning to get the komatik through them at all. Farther down the stream widened. Here the wind had swept the snow clear of the ice, and it was as smooth as a piece of glass, broken only by an occasional bowlder sticking above the surface. A heavy wind blew in our backs and carried the komatik before it at a terrific pace, with the dogs racing to keep out of the way. Sometimes we were carried sidewise, sometimes stern first, but seldom right end foremost. Lively work was necessary to prevent being wrecked upon the rocks, and occasionally we did turn over, when a bowlder was struck side on.
There were several steep down grades. Before descending one of the first of these a line was attached to the rear end of the komatik and Will asked Easton to hang on to it and hold back, to keep the komatik straight. There was no foothold for him, however, on the smooth surface of the ice, and Easton found that he could not hold back as directed. The momentum was considerable, and he was afraid to let go for fear of losing his balance on the slippery ice, and so, wild-eyed and erect, he slid along, clinging for dear life to the line. Pretty soon he managed to attain a sitting posture, and with his legs spread before him, but still holding desperately on, he skimmed along after the komatik. The next and last evolution was a “belly-gutter” position. This became too strenuous for him, however, and the line was jerked out of his hands. I was afraid he might have been injured on a rock, but my anxiety was soon relieved when I saw him running along the shore to overtake the komatik where it had been stopped to wait for him below.
This gulch was exceedingly narrow, with mountains, lofty, rugged and grand rising directly from the stream’s bank, some of them attaining an altitude of five thousand feet or more. At one point they squeezed the brook through a pass only ten feet in width, with perpendicular walls towering high above our heads on either side. This place is known to the Hudson’s Bay Company people as “The Porch.”
In the afternoon Peter caught his foot in a crevice, and the komatik jammed him with such force that he narrowly escaped a broken leg and was crippled for the rest of the journey. Early in the afternoon we were on salt water ice, and at two o’clock sighted Nachvak Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and at half past four were hospitably welcomed by Mrs. Ford, the wife of George Ford, the agent.
Nachvak Post of the Hudson's Bay Company
This was Saturday, January twentieth. Since the previous Tuesday morning we had had no fire to warm ourselves by and had been living chiefly on hard-tack, and the comfort and luxury of the Post sitting room, with the hot supper of arctic hare that came in due course, were appreciated. Mr. Ford had gone south with Dr. Milne to Davis Inlet Post and was not expected back for a week, but Mrs. Ford and her son Solomon Ford, who was in charge during his father’s absence, did everything possible for our comfort.
The injury to Peter’s leg made it out of the question for him to go on with us, and we therefore found it necessary to engage another team to carry us to Ramah, the first of the Moravian missionary stations on our route of travel, and this required a day’s delay at Nachvak, as no Eskimos could be seen that night. The Fords offered us every assistance in securing drivers, and went to much trouble on our behalf. Solomon personally took it upon himself to find dogs and drivers for us, and through his kindness arrangements were made with two Eskimos, Taikrauk and Nikartok by name, who agreed to furnish a team of ten dogs and be on hand early on Monday morning. I considered myself fortunate in securing so large a team, for the seal hunt had been bad the previous fall and the Eskimos had therefore fallen short of dog food and had killed a good many of their dogs. I should not have been so ready with my self-congratulation had I seen the dogs that we were to have.
The Moravian Mission at Ramah
Nachvak is the most God-forsaken place for a trading post that I have ever seen. Wherever you look bare rocks and towering mountains stare you in the face; nowhere is there a tree or shrub of any kind to relieve the rock-bound desolation, and every bit of fuel has to be brought in during the summer by steamer. They have coal, but even the wood to kindle the coal is imported. The Eskimos necessarily use stone lamps in which seal oil is burned to heat their igloos. The Fords have lived here for a quarter of a century, but now the Company is abandoning the Post as unprofitable and they are to be transferred to some other quarter.
“God knows how lonely it is sometimes,” Mrs. Ford said to me, “and how glad I’ll be if we go where there’s some one besides just greasy heathen Eskimos to see.”
The Moravian mission at Killenek, a station three days’ travel to the northward, on Cape Chidley, has deflected some of the former trade from Nachvak and the Ramah station more of it, until but twenty-seven Eskimos now remain at Nachvak.
Early on Monday morning not only our two Eskimos appeared, but the entire Eskimo population, even the women with babies in their hoods, to see us off. The ten-dog team that I had congratulated myself so proudly upon securing proved to be the most miserable aggregation of dogskin and bones I had ever seen, and in so horribly emaciated a condition that had there been any possible way of doing without them I should have declined to permit them to haul our komatik. However I had no choice, as no other dogs were to be had, and at six o’clock— more than two hours before daybreak—we said farewell to good Mrs. Ford and her family and started forward with our caravan of followers.
We took what is known as the “outside” route, turning right out toward the mouth of the bay. By this route it is fully forty miles to Ramah. By a short cut overland, which is not so level, the distance is only about thirty miles, but our Eskimos chose the level course, as it is doubtful whether their excuses for dogs could have hauled the komatik over the hills on the short cut. An hour after our start we passed a collection of snow igloos, and all our following, after shaking hands and repeating, “Okusi,” left us—all but one man, Korganuk by name, who decided to honor us with his society to Ramah; so we had three Eskimos instead of the more than sufficient two.
Though the traveling was fairly good the poor starved dogs crawled along so slowly that with a jog trot we easily kept in advance of them, and not even the extreme cruelty of the heathen drivers, who beat them sometimes unmercifully, could induce them to do better. I remonstrated with the human brutes on several occasions, but they pretended not to understand me, smiling blandly in return, and making unintelligible responses in Eskimo.
Before dawn the sky clouded, and by the time we reached the end of the bay and turned southward across the neck, toward noon, it began to snow heavily. This capped the climax of our troubles and I questioned whether our team would ever reach our destination with this added impediment of soft, new snow to plow through.
From the first the snow fell thick and fast. Then the wind rose, and with every moment grew in velocity. I soon realized that we were caught under the worst possible conditions in the throes of a Labrador winter storm—the kind of storm that has cost so many native travelers on that bleak coast their lives.
We were now on the ice again beyond the neck. Perpendicular, clifflike walls shut us off from retreat to the land and there was not a possibility of shelter anywhere. Previous snows had found no lodgment into banks, and an igloo could not be built. Our throats were parched with thirst, but there was no water to drink and nowhere a stick of wood with which to build a fire to melt snow. The dogs were lying down in harness and crying with distress, and the Eskimos had continually to kick them into renewed efforts. On we trudged, on and endlessly on. We were still far from our goal.
All of us, even the Eskimos, were utterly weary. Finally frequent stops were necessary to rest the poor toiling brutes, and we were glad to take advantage of each opportunity to throw ourselves at full length on the snow-covered ice for a moment’s repose. Sometimes we would walk ahead of the komatik and lie down until it overtook us, frequently falling asleep in the brief interim. Now and again an Eskimo would look into my face and repeat, “Oksunae” (be strong), and I would encourage him in the same way.
Darkness fell thick and black. No signs of land were visible—nothing but the whirling, driving, pitiless snow around us and the ice under our feet. Sometimes one of us would stumble on a hummock and fall, then rise again to resume the mechanical plodding. I wondered sometimes whether we were not going right out to sea and how long it would be before we should drop into open water and be swallowed up. My faculties were too benumbed to care much, and it was just a calculation in which I had no particular but only a passive interest.
Plodding Southward Over Endless Snow
The thirst of the snow fields is most agonizing, and can only be likened to the thirst of the desert. The snow around you is tantalizing, for to eat it does not quench the thirst in the slightest; it aggravates it. If I ever longed for water it was then.
Hour after hour passed and the night seemed interminable. But somehow we kept going, and the poor crying brutes kept going. All misery has its ending, however, and ours ended when I least looked for it. Un-expectedly the dogs’ pitiful cries changed to gleeful howls and they visibly increased their efforts. Then Korganuk put his face close to mine and said: “Ramah! Ramah!” and quite suddenly we stopped before the big mission house at Ramah.
ON THE ATLANTIC ICE
The dogs had stopped within a dozen feet of the building, but it was barely distinguishable through the thick clouds of smothering snow which the wind, risen to a terrific gale, swirled around us as it swept down in staggering gusts from the invisible hills above. A light filtered dimly through one of the frost-encrusted windows, and I tapped loudly upon the glass.
At first there was no response, but after repeated rappings some one moved within, and in a moment the door opened and a voice called to us, “Come, come out of the snow. It is a nasty night.” Without further preliminaries we stepped into the shelter of the broad, com-fortable hall. Holding a candle above his head, and peering at us through the dim light that it cast, was a short, stockily built, bearded man in his shirt sleeves and wearing hairy sealskin trousers and boots. To him I introduced myself and Easton, and he, in turn, told us that he was the Reverend Paul Schmidt, the missionary in charge of the station.
Mr. Schmidt’s astonishment at our unexpected appearance at midnight and in such a storm was only equaled by his hospitable welcome. His broken English sounded sweet indeed, inviting us to throw off our snow-covered garments. He ushered us to a neat room on the floor above, struck a match to a stove already charged with kindling wood and coal, and in five minutes after our entrance we were listening to the music of a crackling fire and warming our chilled selves by its increasing heat.
Our host was most solicitous for our every comfort. He hurried in and out, and by the time we were thoroughly warmed told us supper was ready and asked us to his living room below, where Mrs. Schmidt had spread the table for a hot meal. Each mission house has a common kitchen and a common dining room, and besides having the use of these the separate families are each provided with a private living room and a sleeping room.
It is not pleasant to be routed out of bed in the middle of the night, but these good missionaries assured us that it was really a pleasure to them, and treated us like old friends whom they were overjoyed to see. “Well, well,” said Mr. Schmidt, again and again, “it is very good for you to come. I am very glad that you came tonight, for now we shall have company, and you shall stay with us until the weather is fine again for traveling, and we will talk English together, which is a pleasure for me, for I have almost forgotten my English, with no one to talk it to.”
It was after two o’clock when we went to bed, and I verily believe that Mr. Schmidt would have talked all night had it not been for our hard day’s work and evident need of rest.
When we arose in the morning the storm was still blowing with unabated fury. We had breakfast with Mr. Schmidt in his private apartment and were later introduced to Mr. Karl Filsehke, the storekeeper, and his wife, who, like the Schmidts, were most hospitable and kind. At all of the Moravian missions, with the exception of Killinek “down to Chidley,” and Makkovik, the farthest station “up south,” there is, besides the missionary, who devotes himself more particularly to the spiritual needs of his people, a storekeeper who looks after their material welfare and assists in conducting the meetings.
In Labrador these missions are largely, though by no means wholly, self-supporting. Furs and blubber are taken from the Eskimos in exchange for goods, and the proflts resulting from their sale in Europe are applied toward the expense of maintaining the stations. They own a small steamer, which brings the supplies from London every summer and takes away the year’s accumulation of fur and oil. Since the first permanent establishment was erected at Nain, over one hundred and fifty years ago, they have followed this trade.
During the day I visited the store and blubber house, where Eskimo men and women were engaged in cutting seal blubber into small slices and pounding these with heavy wooden mallets. The pounded blubber is placed in zinc vats, and, when the summer comes, exposed in the vats to the sun’s heat, which renders out a fine white oil. This oil is put into casks and shipped to the trade.
In the depth of winter seal hunting is impossible, and during that season the Eskimo families gather in huts, or igloosoaks, at the mission stations. There are sixty-nine of these people connected with the Ramah station and I visited them all with Mr. Schmidt. Their huts were heated with stone lamps and seal oil, for the country is bare of wood. The fuel for the mission house is brought from the South by the steamer.
The Eskimos at Ramah and at the stations south are all supposed to be Christians, but naturally they still retain many of the traditional beliefs and superstitions of their people. They will not live in a house where a death has occurred, believing that the spirit of the departed will haunt the place. If the building is worth it, they take it down and set it up again somewhere else.
Not long ago the wife of one of the Eskimos was taken seriously ill, and became delirious. Her husband and his neighbors, deciding that she was possessed of an evil spirit, tied her down and left her, until finally she died, uncared for and alone, from cold and lack of nourishment. This occurred at a distance from the station, and the missionaries did not learn of it until the woman was dead and beyond their aid. They are most kind in their ministrations to the sick and needy.
Once Dr. Grenfell visited Ramah and exhibited to the astonished Eskimos some stereopticon views—photographs that he had taken there in a previous year. It so happened that one of the pictures was that of an old woman who had died since the photograph was made, and when it appeared upon the screen terror struck the hearts of the simple-minded people. They believed it was her spirit returned to earth, and for a long time afterward imagined that they saw it floating about at night, visiting the woman’s old haunts.
The daily routine of the mission station is most methodical. At seven o’clock in the morning a bell calls the servants to their duties; at nine o’clock it rings again, granting a half hour’s rest; at a quarter to twelve a third ringing sends them to dinner; they return at one o’clock to work until dark. Every night at five o’clock the bell summons them to religious service in the chapel, where worship is conducted in Eskimo by either the missionary or the storekeeper. The women sit on one side, the men on the other, and are always in their seats before the last tone of the bell dies out. I used to enjoy these services exceedingly—watching the eager, expectant faces of the people as they heard the lesson taught, and their hearty singing of the hymns in Eskimo made the evening hour a most interesting one to me.
It is a busy life the missionary leads. From morning until night he is kept constantly at work, and in the night his rest is often broken by calls to minister to the sick. He is the father of his flock, and his people never hesitate to call for his help and advice; to him all their troubles and disagreements are referred for a wise adjustment.
I am free to say that previous to meeting them upon their field of labor I looked upon the work of these missionaries with indifference, if not disfavor, for I had been led to believe that they were accomplishing little or nothing. But now I have seen, and I know of what incalculable value the services are that they are rendering to the poor, benighted people of this coast.
They practically renounce the world and their home ties to spend their lives, until they are too old for further service or their health breaks down, in their Heaven-inspired calling, surrounded by people of a different race and language, in the most barren, God-cursed land in the world.
When their children reach the age of seven years they must send them to the church school at home to be educated. Very often parent and child never meet again. This is, as many of them told me, the greatest sacrifice they are called upon to make, but they realize that it is for the best good of the child and their work, and they do not murmur. What heroes and heroines these men and women are! Onemustadmire and honor them.
There were some little ones here at Ramah who used to climb upon my knees and call me “Uncle,” and kiss me good morning and good night, and I learned to love them. My recollections of these days at Ramah are pleasant ones.
Philippus Inglavina and Ludwig Alasua, two Eskimos, were engaged to hold themselves in readiness with their team of twelve dogs for a bright and early start for Hebron on the first clear morning. On the fourth morning after our arrival they announced that the weather was sufficiently clear for them to find their way over the hills. Mrs. Schmidt and Mrs. Filsehke filled an earthen jug with hot coffee and wrapped it, with some sandwiches, in a bearskin to keep from freezing for a few hours; sufficient wood to boil the kettle that night and the next morning was lashed with our baggage on the komatik; the Eskimos each received the daily ration of a plug of tobacco and a box of matches, which they demand when traveling, and then we said good-by and started. The komatik was loaded with Eskimos, and the rest of the native population trailed after us on foot. It is the custom on the coast for the people to accompany a komatik starting on a journey for some distance from the station.
The wind, which had died nearly out in the night, was rising again. It was directly in our teeth and shifting the loose snow unpleasantly. We had not gone far when one of the trailing Eskimos came running after us and shouting to our driver to stop. We halted, and when he overtook us he called the attention of Philippus to a high mountain known as Attanuek (the King), whose peak was nearly hidden by drifting snow. A consultation decided them that it would be dangerous to attempt the passes that day, and to our chagrin the Eskimos turned the dogs back to the station.
The next morning Attanuek’s head was clear, the wind was light, the atmosphere bitter cold, and we were off in good season. We soon reached “Lamson’s Hill,” rising three thousand feet across our path, and shortly after daylight began the wearisome ascent, helping the dogs haul the komatik up steep places and wallowing through deep snow banks. Before noon one of our dogs gave out, and we had to cut him loose. An hour later we met George Ford on his way home to Nachvak from Davis Inlet, and some Eskimos with a team from the Hebron Mission, and from this latter team we borrowed a dog to take the place of the one that we had lost. Ford told us that his leader had gone mad that morning and he had been compelled to shoot it. He also in-formed me that wolves had followed him all the way from Okak to Hebron, mingling with his dogs at night, but at Hebron had left his trail.
At three o’clock we reached the summit of Lamson’s Hill and began the perilous descent, where only the most expert maneuvering on the part of the Eskimos saved our komatik from being smashed. In many places we had to let the sledge down over steep places, after first removing the dogs, and it was a good while after dark when we reached the bottom. Then, after working the komatik over a mile of rough bowlders from which the wind had swept the snow, we at length came upon the sea ice of Saglak Bay, and at eight o’clock drew up at an igloosoak on an island several miles from the mainland.
This igloosoak was practically an underground dwelling, and the entrance was through a snow tunnel. From a single seal-gut window a dim light shone, but there was no other sign of human life. I groped my way into the tunnel, bent half double, stepping upon and stumbling over numerous dogs that blocked the way, and at the farther end bumped into a door. Upon pushing this open I found myself in a room perhaps twelve by fourteen feet in size. Three stone lamps shed a gloomy half light over the place, and revealed a low bunk, covered with sealskins, extending along two sides of the room, upon which nine Eskimos—men, women and children—were lying. A half inch of soft slush covered the floor. The whole place was reeking in filth, infested with vermin, and the stench was sickening.
The people arose and welcomed us as Eskimos always do, most cordially. Our two drivers, who followed me with the wood we had brought, made a fire in a small sheet-iron tent stove kept in the shack by the missionaries for their use when traveling, and on it we placed our kettle full of ice for tea, and our sandwiches to thaw, for they were frozen as hard as bullets. One of the old women was half dead with consumption, and constantly spitting, and when we saw her turning our sandwiches on the stove our appetite appreciably diminished.
At Ramah I had purchased some dried caplin for dog food for the night. The caplin is a small fish, about the size of a smelt or a little larger, and is caught in the neighborhood of Hamilton Inlet and south. They are brought north by the missionaries to use for dog food when traveling in the winter, as they are more easily packed on the komatik than seal meat. The Eskimos are exceedingly fond of these dried fish, and they appealed to our men as too great a delicacy to waste upon the dogs. Therefore when feeding time came, seal blubber, of which there was an abundant supply in the igloo, fell to the lot of the animals, while our drivers and hosts appropriated the caplin to themselves. The bag of fish was placed in the center, with a dish of raw seal fat alongside, with the men, women and children surrounding it, and they were still banqueting upon the fish and fat when I, weary with traveling, fell asleep in my bag.
It was not yet dark the next evening when we came in sight of the Eskimo village at the Hebron mission, and the whole population of one hundred and eighty people and two hundred dogs, the former shouting, the latter howling, turned out to greet us. Several of the young men, fleeter of foot than the others, ran out on the ice, and when they had come near enough to see who we were, turned and ran back again ahead of our dogs, shouting “Kablunot! Kablunot!” (outlanders), and so, in the midst of pandemonium, we drew into the station, and received from the missionaries a most cordial welcome.
Here I was fortunate in securing for the next eighty miles of our journey an Eskimo with an exceptionally fine team of fourteen dogs. This new driver—Cornelius was his name—made my heart glad by consenting to travel without an attendant. I was pleased at this be-cause experience had taught me that each additional man meant just so much slower progress.
No time was lost at Hebron, for the weather was fine, and early morning found us on our way. At Napartok we reached the “first wood,” and the sight of a grove of green spruce tops above the snow seemed almost like a glimpse of home.
It was dreary, tiresome work, this daily plodding southward over the endless snow, sometimes upon the wide ice field, sometimes crossing necks of land with tedious ascents and dangerous descents of hills, making no halt while daylight lasted, save to clear the dogs’ entangled traces and snatch a piece of hard-tack for a cheerless luncheon.
Okak, two days’ travel south of Hebron, with a population of three hundred and twenty-nine, is the largest Eskimo village in Labrador and an important station of the Moravian missionaries. Besides the chapel, living apartments and store of the mission a neat, well-organized little hospital has just been opened by them and placed in charge of Dr. S. Hutton, an English physician. Young, capable and with every prospect of success at home, he and his charming wife have resigned all to come to the dreary Labrador and give their lives and efforts to the uplifting of this bit of benighted humanity.
We were entertained by the doctor and Mrs. Hutton and found them most delightful people. The only other member of the hospital corps was Miss S. Francis, a young woman who has prepared herself as a trained nurse to give her life to the service. I had an opportunity to visit with Dr. Hutton several of the Eskimo dwellings, and was struck by their cleanliness and the great advance toward civilization these people have made over their northern kinsmen. We had now reached a section where timber grows, and some of the houses were quite pretentious for the frontier—well furnished, of two or three rooms, and far superior to many of the homes of the outer coast breeds to the south. This, of course, is the visible result of the century of Moravian labors. Here I engaged, with the aid of the missionaries, Paulus Avalar and Boas Anton with twelve dogs to go with us to Nain, and after one day at Okak our march was resumed.
It is a hundred miles from Okak to Nain and on the way the Kiglapait Mountain must be crossed, as the Atlantic ice outside is liable to be shattered at any time should an easterly gale blow, and there is no possible retreat and no opportunity to escape should one be caught upon it at such a time, as perpendicular cliffs rise sheer from the sea ice here.
We had not reached the summit of the Kiglapait when night drove us into camp in a snow igloo. The Eskimos here are losing the art of snow-house building, and this one was very poorly constructed, and, with a temperature of thirty or forty degrees below zero, very cold and uncomfortable.
When we turned into our sleeping bags Paulus, who could talk a few words of English, remarked to me: “Clouds say big snow maybe. Here very bad. No dog feed. We go early,” and pointing to my watch face indicated that we should start at midnight. At eleven o’clock I heard him and Boas get up and go out. Half an hour later they came back with a kettle of hot tea and we had breakfast. Then the two Eskimos, by candlelight read aloud in their language a form of worship and sang a hymn. All along the coast between Hebron and Makkovik I found morning and evening worship and grace before and after meals a regular institution with the Eskimos, whose religious training is carefully looked after by the Moravians.
By midnight our komatik was packed. “Ooisht! ooisht!” started the dogs forward as the first feathery flakes of the threatened storm fell lazily down. Not a breath of wind was stirring and no sound broke the ominous silence of the night save the crunch of our feet on the snow and the voice of the driver urging on the dogs.
Boas went ahead, leading the team on the trail. Presently he halted and shouted back that he could not make out the landmarks in the now thickening snow. Then we circled about until an old track was found and went on again. Time and again this maneuver was repeated. The snow now began to fall heavily and the wind rose.
No further sign of the track could be discovered and short halts were made while Paulus examined my compass to get his bearings.
Finally the summit of the Kiglapait was reached, and the descent was more rapid. At one place on a sharp down grade the dogs started on a run and we jumped upon the komatik to ride. Moving at a rapid pace the team, dimly visible ahead, suddenly disappeared. Paulus rolled off the komatik to avoid going over the ledge ahead, but the rest of us had no time to jump, and a moment later the bottom fell out of our track and we felt ourselves dropping through space. It was a fall of only fifteen feet, but in the night it seemed a hundred. Fortunately we landed on soft snow and no harm was done, but we had a good shaking up.
The storm grew in force with the coming of daylight. Forging on through the driving snow we reached the ocean ice early in the forenoon and at four o’clock in the afternoon the shelter of an Eskimo hut.
The storm was so severe the next morning our Eskimos said to venture out in it would probably mean to get lost, but before noon the wind so far abated that we started.
The snow fell thickly all day, the wind began to rise again, and a little after four o’clock the real force of the gale struck us in one continued, terrific sweep, and the snow blew so thick that we nearly smothered. The temperature was thirty degrees below zero. We could not see the length of the komatik. We did not dare let go of it, for had we separated ourselves a half dozen yards we should certainly have been lost.
Somehow the instincts of drivers and dogs, guided by the hand of a good Providence, led us to the mission house at Nain, which we reached at five o’clock and were overwhelmed by the kindness of the Moravians. This is the Moravian headquarters in Labrador, and the Bishop, Right Reverend A. Martin, with his aids, is in charge.