The Arctic Prairies Part 16

"Sure enough, the morning dawned with a wind and we got away after the regular sullen grumbling. About 10.20 the usual gla.s.sy calm set in and Weeso asked me for a piece of paper and a pencil. He wrote something in Chipewyan on the sheet I gave, then returned the pencil and resumed his pilotic stare at the horizon, for his post was at the rudder. At length he rolled the paper into a ball, and when I seemed not observing dropped it behind him overboard.

"'What is the meaning of that, Billy?' I whispered.

"'He's sending a prayer to Jesus for wind.' Half an hour afterward a strong head-wind sprang up, and Weeso was severely criticised for not specifying clearly what was wanted.

"There could be no question now about the propriety of landing.

Old Weeso took all the Indians off to a rock, where, bareheaded and in line, they kneeled facing the east, and for half an hour he led them in prayer, making often the sign of the cross. The headwind died away as they came to the boat and again we resumed the weary rowing, a labour which all were supposed to share, but it did not need an expert to see that Beaulieu, Snuff, and Terchon merely dipped their oars and let them drift a while; the real rowing of that c.u.mbrous old failure of a sailboat was done by Billy Lout.i.t and Yum Freesay."

CHAPTER XXV

CROSSING THE LAKE--ITS NATURAL HISTORY

All day long here, as on the Nyarling, I busied myself with compa.s.s and sketch-book, making the field notes, sketches, and compa.s.s surveys from which my various maps were compiled; and Preble let no chance go by of noting the changing bird and plant life that told us we quit the Canadian fauna at Stony Island and now were in the Hudsonian zone.

This is the belt of dwindling trees, the last or northmost zone of the forest, and the spruce trees showed everywhere that they were living a life-long battle, growing and seeding, but dwarfed by frost and hards.h.i.+ps. But sweet are the uses of adversity, and the stunted sprucelings were beautified, not uglified, by their troubles.

I never before realised that a whole country could be such a series of charming little j.a.panese gardens, with tiny trees, tiny flowers, tiny fruits, and gorgeous oriental rugs upon the earth and rocks between.

I photographed one group of trees to ill.u.s.trate their dainty elfish dwarfishness, but realising that no one could guess the height without a scale, I took a second of the same with a small Indian sitting next it.

Weeso is a kind old soul; so far as I could see he took no part in the various seditions, but he was not an inspiring guide. One afternoon he did something that made a final wreck of my confidence.

A thunderstorm was rumbling in the far east. Black clouds began travelling toward us; with a line of dark and troubled waters below, the faint breeze changed around and became a squall. Weeso looked scared and beckoned to Freesay, who came and took the helm. Nothing happened.

We were now running along the north sh.o.r.e of Et-then, where are to be seen the wonderful 1,200-foot cliffs described and figured by Captain George Back in 1834. They are glorious ramparts, wonderful in size and in colour, marvellous in their geological display.

Flying, and evidently nesting among the dizzy towers, were a few Barn-swallows and Phoebe-birds.

This cliff is repeated on Oot-sing-gree-ay, the next island, but there it is not on the water's edge. It gives a wonderful echo which the Indians (not to mention myself) played with, in childish fas.h.i.+on.

On Sunday, 21 July, we made a new record, 6 meals and 20 miles.

On July 22 we made only 7 meals and 11 miles and camped in the narrows Tal-thel-lay. These are a quarter of a mile wide and have a strong current running westerly. This is the place which Back says is a famous fis.h.i.+ng ground and never freezes over, even in the hardest winters. Here, as at all points, I noted the Indian names, not only because they were appropriate, but in hopes of serving the next traveller. I found an unexpected difficulty in writing them down, viz.: no matter how I p.r.o.nounced them, old Weeso and Freesay, my informants, would say, "Yes, that is right." This, I learned, was out of politeness; no matter how you misp.r.o.nounce their words it is good form to say, "That's it; now you have it exactly."

The Indians were anxious to put out a net overnight here, as they could count on getting a few Whitefish; so we camped at 5.15. It is difficult to convey to an outsider the charm of the word "whitefish."

Any northerner will tell you that it is the only fish that is perfect human food, the only food that man or dog never wearies of, the only lake food that conveys no disorder no matter how long or freely it is used. It is so delicious and nouris.h.i.+ng that there is no fish in the world that can even come second to it. It is as far superior in all food qualities to the finest Salmon or Trout as a first-prize, gold-medalled, nut-fed thoroughbred Suss.e.x bacon-hog is to the roughest, toughest, boniest old razor-backed land-pike that ever ranged the woods of Arkansas.

That night the net yielded 3 Whitefish and 3 Trout. The latter, being 4 to 8 pounds each, would have been reckoned great prizes in any other country, but now all attention was on the Whitefish.

They certainly were radiantly white, celestial in color; their backs were a dull frosted silver, with here and there a small electric lamp behind the scales to make its jewels sparkle. The lamps alternated with opals increased on the side; the bellies were of a blazing mother-of-pearl. It would be hard to imagine a less imaginative name than "white" fish for such a s.h.i.+ning, burning opalescence. Indian names are usually descriptive, but their name for this is simply "The Fish." All others are mere dilutes and cheap imitations, but the Coregonus is at all times and par excellence "The Fish."

Nevertheless, in looking at it I could not help feeling that this is the fat swine, or the beef Durham of its kind. The head, gills, fins, tail, vital organs and bones all were reduced to a minimum and the meat parts enlarged and solidified, as though they were the product of ages of careful breeding by man to produce a perfect food fish, a breeding that has been crowned with the crown of absolute success.

The Indians know, for the best of reasons, the just value of every native food. When Rabbits abound they live on them but do not prosper; they call it "starving on rabbits." When Caribou meat is plenty they eat it, but crave flour. When Moose is at hand they eat it, and are strong. When Jack-fish, Sucker, Conies, and Trout are there, they take them as a variant; but on Whitefish, as on Moose, they can live with out loathing, and be strong. The Indian who has his scaffold hung with Whitefish when winter comes, is accounted rich.

"And what," says the pessimist, "is the fly in all this precious ointment?" Alasl It is not a game fish; it will not take bait, spoon, or fly, and its finest properties vanish in a few hours after capture.

The Whitefish served in the marble palaces of other lands is as mere dish-water to champagne, when compared with the three times purified and ten times intensified dazzling silver Coregonus as it is landed on the bleak sh.o.r.es of those far-away icy lakes. So I could not say 'No' to the Indian boys when they wanted to wait here, the last point at which they could be sure of a catch.

That night (22d July) five canoes and two York boats of Indians landed at the narrows. These were Dogribs of Chief Vital's band; all told they numbered about thirty men, women, and children; with them were twenty-odd dogs, which immediately began to make trouble.

When one is in Texas the topic of conversation is, "How are the cattle?" in the Klondike, "How is your claim panning out?" and in New York, "How are you getting on with your novel?" On Great Slave Lake you say, "Where are the Caribou?" The Indians could not tell; they had seen none for weeks, but there was still much ice in the east end of the lake which kept them from investigating. They had plenty of dried Caribou meat but were out of tea and tobacco. I had come prepared for this sort of situation, and soon we had a fine stock of dried venison.

These were the Indians whose abandoned dogs made so much trouble for us in the days that followed.

At 4 P. M. of 23d of July we were stopped by a long narrow floe of broken ice. Without consulting me the crew made for the sh.o.r.e.

It seemed they were full of fears: "What if they should get caught in that floe, and drift around for days? What if a wind should arise (it had been gla.s.sy calm for a week)? What if they could', not get back?" etc., etc.

Preble and I climbed a hill for a view. The floe was but half a mile wide, very loose, with frequent lanes.

"Preble, is there any reason why we should not push through this floe using poles to move the cakes?"

"None whatever."

On descending, however, I found the boys preparing to camp for "a couple of days," while the ice melted or drifted away somewhere.

So I said, "You get right into this boat now and push off; we can easily work our way through." They made no reply, simply looked sulkier than ever, and proceeded to start a fire for meal No. 5.

"Weeso," I said, "get into your place and tell your men to follow."

The old man looked worried and did nothing, He wanted to do right, but he was in awe of his crew.

Then did I remember how John MacDonald settled the rebellion on the river.

"Get in there," I said to Preble and Billy. "Come on, Weeso." We four jumped into the boat and proceeded to push off with all the supplies.

Authorities differ as to the time it took for the crew to make up their minds. Two seconds and eleven seconds are perhaps the extremes of estimate. They came jumping aboard as fast as they could.

We attacked the floe, each with a lodge-pole; that is, Billy and Preble did in the bow, while Freesay and I did at the rear; and in thirty-five minutes we had pushed through and were sailing the open sea.

The next day we had the same scene repeated with less intensity, in this case because Freesay sided with me. What would I not give to have had a crew of white men. A couple of stout Norwegian sailors would have done far better than this whole outfit of reds.

When we stopped for supper No. 1 a tiny thimbleful of down on two pink matches ran past, and at once the mother, a Peetweet, came running in distress to save her young. The brave Beaulieu fearlessly seized a big stick and ran to kill the little one. I shouted out, "Stop that," in tones that implied that I owned the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, but could not have saved the downling had it not leaped into the water and dived out of sight. It came up two feet away and swam to a rock of safety, where it bobbed its latter end toward its adversaries and the open sea in turn.

I never before knew that they could dive.

About eight o'clock we began to look for a good place to camp and make meal No. 6. But the islands where usually we found refuge from the dogs were without wood, and the sh.o.r.es were too rugged and steep or had no dry timber, so we kept going on. After trying one or two places the Indians said it was only a mile to Indian Mountain River (Der-sheth Tessy), where was a camp of their friends.

I was always glad of a reason for pus.h.i.+ng on, so away we went. My crew seized their rifles and fired to let their village know we were coming. The camp came quickly into view, and volley after volley was fired and returned.

These Indians are extremely poor and the shots cost 5 and 6 cents each. So this demonstration totalled up about $2.00.

As we drew near the village of lodges the populace lined up on sh.o.r.e, and then our boys whispered, "Some white men." What a peculiar thrill it gave me! I had seen nothing but Indians along the route so far and expected nothing else. But here were some of my own people, folk with whom I could talk. They proved to be my American friend from Smith Landing, he whose hand I had lanced, and his companion, a young Englishman, who was here with him prospecting for gold and copper. "I'm all right now," he said, and, held up the hand with my mark on it, and our greeting was that of white men meeting among strangers in a far foreign land.

As soon as we were ash.o.r.e a number of Indians came to offer meat for tobacco. They seemed a lot of tobacco-maniacs. "Tzel-twee" at any price they must have. Food they could do without for a long time, but life without smoke was intolerable; and they offered their whole dried product of two Caribou, concentrated, nouris.h.i.+ng food enough to last a family many days, in exchange for half a pound of nasty stinking, poisonous tobacco.

Two weeks hence, they say, these hills will be alive with Caribou; alas! for them, it proved a wholly erroneous forecast.