<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2></div>
<div class="blockquot inhead short">
<p>A <em>tale</em> of warfare.—Dog-sleds.—A missing link.—The North
Sea.—“Winterers.”—Samuel Hearne.</p>
</div>
<p class="in0"><span class="firstword">During</span> the three months which had elapsed since
his arrival at the Forks, Cerf-vola had led an idle
life; he had led his train occasionally to Fort à la
Corne, or hauled a light sled along the ice of the
frozen rivers, but these were only desultory trips,
and his days had usually passed in peace and
plenty.</p>
<p>Perhaps I am wrong in saying peace, for the
introduction of several strange dogs had occasioned
much warfare, and although he had invariably
managed to come off victorious, victory
was not obtained without some loss. I have
before remarked that he possessed a very large
bushy tail. In time of war this appendage was
carried prominently over his back, something after
the manner of the plumes upon casque of knight
in olden times, or the more modern helmet of
dragoon in the era of the Peninsular War.</p>
<p>One day, while he was engaged in a desperate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
struggle with a bumptious new-comer, a large ill-conditioned
mongrel which had already been vanquished,
seeing his victor fully occupied, deemed it
an auspicious moment for revenge, and springing
upon the bushy tail proceeded to attack it with
might and main. The unusual noise brought me
to the door in time to separate the combatants
while yet the tail was intact, but so unlooked for
had been the assault that it was found upon
examination to be considerably injured. With
the aid of a needle and thread it was repaired as
best we could, Cerf-vola apparently understanding
what the surgical operation meant, for although
he indulged in plenty of uproar at every stitch no
attempt at biting was made by him. He was now
however sound in body and in tail, and he tugged
away at his load in blissful ignorance that 1500
miles of labour lay before him.</p>
<p>I know not if my readers are acquainted with
the manner in which dogs are used as draught
animals in the great fur regions of the north. A
dog sled is simply two thin oak or birch-wood
boards lashed together with deer-skin thongs:
turned up in front like a Norwegian snow shoe, it
runs when light over hard snow or ice with great
ease; its length is about nine feet, its breadth
sixteen inches. Along its outer edges runs a
leather lashing, through the loops of which a long<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
leather line is passed, to hold in its place whatever
may be placed upon it. From the front, close to
the turned portion, the traces for draught are
attached. The dogs, usually four in number,
stand in tandem fashion, one before the other, the
best dog generally being placed in front, as “foregoer,”
the next best in rear as “steer-dog.” It
is the business of the foregoer to keep the track,
however faint it may be on lake or river. The
steer-dog guides the sled, and prevents it from
striking or catching in tree or root. An ordinary
load for four dogs weighs from 2 to 400 lbs.; laden
with 200 lbs. dogs will travel on anything like a
good track, or on hard snow, about thirty or
thirty-five miles in each day. In deep or soft
snow the pace is of necessity slow, and twenty to
twenty-five miles will form a fair day’s work.</p>
<p>If any one should ask what length of time dogs
will thus travel day after day, I refer them to the
following chapters, wherein the fortunes of Cerf-vola
and his brethren, starting out to-day on a
long journey, are duly set forth.</p>
<p>Some few miles west of the mission station
called Prince Albert I parted from my friend
Captain M——, who thus far had accompanied me.
He was to return to Red River and Canada, <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">viá</i>
Cumberland and the lakes; I to hold my way
across the frozen continent to the Pacific. For<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
many months each day would place a double day’s
distance between us, but we still looked forward
to another meeting, even though between us and
that prospect there lay the breadth of all the
savage continent.</p>
<p>A couple of days later I reached the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s fort of Carlton, the great rendezvous
of the winter packets between north and
south. From north and west several of the
leading agents of the fur company had assembled
at Carlton to await the coming of the packet
bearing news from the outer world. From Fort
Simpson on the far Mackenzie, from Fort Chipewyan
on the lonely lake Athabasca, from Edmonton
on the Upper Saskatchewan, from Isle à la
Crosse, dogs had drawn the masters of these
remote establishments to the central station on
the middle Saskatchewan. But they waited in
vain for the arrival of the packet; with singular
punctuality had their various trains arrived within
a few days of each other from starting-points 2000
miles apart; yet after a few days’ detention these
officers felt anxious to set out once more on their
journey, and many a time the hill-side on which
the packet must first appear was scanned by
watchers, and all the boasted second sight and
conjuring power of haggard squaw and medicine
man was set at work to discover the whereabouts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
of the “missing link” between the realms of civilization
and savagery. To me the delay, except for
the exigencies of time and distance, was not
irksome. I was in the society of gentlemen
whose lives had been passed in all portions of the
great north, on the frozen shores of Hudson’s
Bay, in the mountain fastnesses of the Chipewyan
range, or midst the savage solitudes that lie where,
in long, low-lying capes, and ice-piled promontories,
the shore of America stretches out to meet
the waves of the Northern Ocean.</p>
<p>There was one present who in the past seven
months had travelled by horse and canoe, boat and
dog train, full 4000 miles; and another, destined
to be my close companion during many weeks,
whose matchless determination and power of
endurance had carried him in a single winter from
the Lower Mackenzie River to the banks of the
Mississippi.</p>
<p>Here, while we await the winter packet, let me
sketch with hasty and imperfect touch the lives of
those who, as the “winterers” of the great Company
of Adventurers trading into Hudson’s Bay,
have made their homes in the wilderness.</p>
<p>Two hundred and sixty-two years ago, a French adventurer
under the banner of Samuel de Champlain
wintered with an Indian tribe on the shores of the
Upper Ottawa. In the ensuing spring he returned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
to Montreal, recounted his adventures, and became
the hero of an hour. Beyond the country of the
Ottawas he described a vast region, and from the
uttermost sources of the Ottawa a large river ran
towards the north until it ended in the North Sea.
He had been there he said, and on the shore lay
the ribs of an English vessel wrecked, and the
skeletons of English sailors who had been drowned
or murdered. His story was a false one, and ere
a year had passed he confessed his duplicity; he
had not been near the North Sea, nor had he seen
aught that he described.</p>
<p>Yet was there even more than a germ of truth
in his tale of wreck and disaster, for just one year
earlier in this same North Sea, a brave English
sailor had been set adrift in an open boat, with
half a dozen faithful seamen; and of all the dark
mysteries of the merciless ocean, no mystery lies
wrapt in deeper shadow than that which hangs
over the fate of Hudson.</p>
<p>But the seventeenth century was not an age
when wreck or ruin could daunt the spirit of discovery.
Here in this lonely North Sea, the palm
of adventure belonged not to France alone. Spain
might overrun the rich regions of the tropics,
Richelieu (prototype of the great German chancellor
of to-day) might plant the <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">fleur-de-lis</i> along
the mighty St. Lawrence, but the north—the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
frozen north—must be the land of English enterprise
and English daring. The years that followed
the casting away of the fearless Hudson saw
strange vessels coasting the misty shores of that
weird sea; at first, to seek through its bergs and
ice floes, its dreary cloud-wrapt fiords and inlets,
a passage to the land where ceaseless sunshine
glinted on the spice-scented shores of fabulous
Cathay; and later on, to trade with the savages
who clad themselves in skins, which the fairest
favourites of Whitehall or the Louvre (by a strange
extreme wherein savagery joined hands with civilization)
would be proud to wrap round their snowy
shoulders.</p>
<p>Prosecuted at first by desultory and chance
adventurers, this trade in furs soon took definite
form and became a branch of commerce. On
the lonely sea-shores wooden buildings rose
along the estuaries of rivers flowing from an unknown
land. These were honoured by the title of
fort or factory, and then the ships sailed back to
England ere the autumn ice had closed upon the
waters; while behind in Rupert’s Fort, York
Factory, Churchill, or Albany (names which tell
the political history of their day), stayed the agents,
or “winterers,” whose work it was to face for a
long season of hardship, famine, and disease, a
climate so rigorous that not unfrequently, when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
the returning vessel rose upon the distant sea
line, scarce half the eyes that had seen her vanish
were there to watch her return. And they had
other foes to contend with. Over the height
of land, away by the great lakes, and along the
forest shores of the St. Lawrence, the adventurers
of another nation had long been busy at the
mingled work of conquest and traffic. The rival
Sultans of France and England could, midst the
more pressing cares of their respective harems,
find time occasionally to scribble “Henri” or
“Charles” at the foot of a parchment scroll which
gave a continent to a company; it little mattered
whether Spaniard, Frenchman, or Briton had first
bestowed the gift, the rival claimants might fight
for the possession as they pleased. The geography
of this New World was uncertain, and where Florida
ended or Canada began was not matter of much
consequence. But the great cardinal, like the
great chancellor, was not likely to err in the
matter of boundaries. “If there should be any
doubt about the parts, we can take the whole,”
was probably as good a maxim then as now; and
accordingly we find at one sweep the whole northern
continent, from Florida to the Arctic Circle, handed
over to a company of which the priest-soldier was
the moving spirit.</p>
<p>Thus began the long strife between France and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
England in North America,—a strife which only
ended under the walls of Quebec. The story of
their bravery, their endurance, their constancy,
their heroism, has been woven into deathless
history by a master-hand.<SPAN name="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</SPAN> To France belongs
the glory of the Great West—not the less her
glory because the sun has set for ever upon her
empire. Nothing remains to her. Promontory
or lonely isle, name of sea-washed cape, or silent
lake, half mistily tells of her former dominion.
In the deep recesses of some north-western lake
or river-reach the echoes still waken to the notes
of some old French <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">chanson</i>, as the half Indian
<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">voyageur</i>, ignorant of all save the sound, dips his
glistening paddle to the cadence of his song.
But of all that Cartier and Champlain, De Monts,
La Salle, Marquette, Frontenac, and Montcalm
lived and died for—nothing more remains.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="fnanchor">1</SPAN> Francis Parkman.</p>
</div>
<p>Poor France! In the New World and in the Old
history owes thee much. Yet in both hast thou
paid the full measure of thy people’s wrong.</p>
<p>But to return. The seventeenth century had
not closed ere the sea of Hudson became the
theatre of strife, the wooden palisades of the
factories were battered or burnt down; and one
fine day in August, 1697, a loud cannonade<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
boomed over the sullen waters, and before the
long summer twilight had closed, the “Hampshire,”
with her fifty-two guns on high poop or
lofty forecastle, lay deep beneath the icy sea, her
consorts the Frenchman’s prize. Nor had she
gone down before a foe more powerful, but to the
single frigate of Le Moyne d’Iberville, a child of
Old and New France, the boldest rover that e’er
went forth upon the Northern Seas. Some fifteen
years later France resigned her claim to these
sterile shores. Blenheim, Ramilies, Oudenarde,
and Malplaquet had given to England the sole
possession of the frozen north.</p>
<p>And now for nigh seventy years the English
Company pursued unmolested its trade along the
coast. A strong fort, not of wood and lath and
stockade, but of hard English brick and native
granite hewn by English hands, rose near the
estuary of the Churchill River. To this fort the
natives came annually along the English river
bearing skins gathered far inland, along the shores
of the Lake of the Hills, and the borders of the
great river of the north.</p>
<p>With these natives wandered back an Englishman
named Samuel Hearne; he reached the
Lake Athabasca, and on all sides he heard of
large rivers, some coming from south and west,
others flowing to the remotest north. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
wandered on from tribe to tribe, reacted a great
lake, descended a great river to the north, and
saw at last the Arctic Sea.</p>
<p>Slowly did the Fur Company establish itself in
the interior. It was easier to let the natives bring
down the rich furs to the coast than to seek them
in these friendless regions. But at last a subtle
rival appeared on the scene; the story of the
North-West Fur Company has often been told,
and in another place we have painted the effects
of that conflict; here it is enough to say that
when in 1822 the north-west became merged into
the older corporation, posts or forts had been
scattered throughout the entire continent, and
that henceforth from Oregon to Ungava, from
Mingan to the Mackenzie, the countless tribes
knew but one lord and master, the Company of
Adventurers from England trading into Hudson’s
Bay.</p>
<p>What in the meantime was the work of those
wintering agents whose homes were made in the
wilderness? God knows their lives were hard.
They came generally from the remote isles or
highlands of Scotland, they left home young, and
the mind tires when it thinks upon the remoteness
of many of their fur stations. Dreary and
monotonous beyond words was their home life,
and hardship was its rule. To travel on foot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
1000 miles in winter’s darkest time, to live upon
the coarsest food, to see nought of bread or sugar
for long months, to lie down at night under the
freezing branches, to feel cold such as Englishmen
in England cannot even comprehend, often
to starve, always to dwell in exile from the great
world. Such was the routine of their lives. The
names of these northern posts tell the story of
their toil. “Resolution,” “Providence,” “Good
Hope,” “Enterprise,” “Reliance,” “Confidence;”
such were the titles given to these little
forts on the distant Mackenzie, or the desolate
shores of the great Slave Lake. Who can tell
what memories of early days in the far away
Scottish isles, or Highland glen, must have
come to these men as the tempest swept
the stunted pine-forest, and wrack and drift
hurled across the frozen lake—when the dawn
and the dusk, separated by only a few hours’ daylight,
closed into the long, dark night. Perchance
the savage scene was lost in a dreamy
vision of some lonely Scottish loch, some Druid
mound in far away Lewis, some vista of a fireside,
when storm howled and waves ran high upon the
beach of Stornoway.</p>
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<div id="toclink_95" class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span></p>
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