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Wild North Land, The Story of a Winter Journey with Dogs across Northern North America

<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</h2></div> <div class="blockquot inhead medium"> The Untiring over-estimates his powers.—He is not particular as to the nature of his dinner.—Toil and temper.—Farewell to the Ominica.—Germansen.—The mining camp.—Celebrities. </div> In the struggle which it was our daily work to wage with Nature, whose dead weight seemed to be bent on holding us back, the wear and tear of the things of life had been considerable. Clothes we will say nothing of—it is their function to go—but our rough life had told heavily against less perishable articles. My aneroid was useless; my watch and revolver slept somewhere beneath the Peace River; ammunition was reduced to a few rounds, to be used only upon state occasions; but to make up for every loss, and to counterbalance each misfortune, Cerf-vola had passed in safety through rapid, wreck, and cañon. On several occasions he had had narrow escapes. A fixed idea pervaded his mind that he was a good hunting-dog; it was an utterly erroneous impression upon his part, but he still clung to it with the tenacity I have not unfrequently seen evinced by295 certain sporting individuals who fancy themselves sportsmen; and as the impression sometimes leads its human holders into strange situations, so also was Cerf-vola betrayed into dangers by this unfortunate belief in his sporting propensities. A very keen sense of smell enabled him to detect the presence of bird or beast on shore or forest, but absence from the canoe usually obliged him to swim the swollen river—a feat which resulted in his being carried down sometimes out of sight on the impetuous torrent. He swam slowly, but strongly, and his bushy tail seemed incapable of submersion, remaining always upon the surface of the water. But about this time an event occurred which by every rule of science should have proved fatal to him. One evening, it was the 16th of May, our larder being low, we camped early at the mouth of a river called the Ozalinca. Beaver were plentiful, fish were numerous; and while I went in quest of the former with my gun, Jacques got ready a few large cod-hooks, with bait and line. I pushed my way up the Ozalinca, and soon reached a beaver-dam. Stealing cautiously to the edge, I saw one old veteran busily engaged in the performance of his evening swim; every now and again he disappeared beneath the crystal water, rising again to the surface to look around him296 with evident satisfaction; presently a younger beaver appeared, and began to nibble some green willows beneath the water. They were a little too far to afford a certain shot, so I waited, watching the antics of this strangest denizen of American rivers. All at once the old veteran caught sight of me; his tail flogged loudly on the water, and down he went out of sight. I waited a long time, but he never reappeared, and I was obliged to content myself with a couple of ducks ere night closed over the pond. When I reached the camp on the Ominica River my three companions wore long faces: the cause was soon told. Jacques had baited his hooks with moose-meat; in an evil moment he had laid one of these upon the shore ere casting it into the water; Cerf-vola had swallowed bait, hook, and line in a single mouthful; the hook was no mere salmon-hook, but one fully two inches in length, and of proportionate thickness—a full-sized cod-hook. I turned to the dog; he lay close to my outspread buffalo robe, watching the preparation of supper; he looked as unmoved as though he had recently swallowed a bit of pemmican. One might have fancied from his self-satisfied appearance that large fish-hooks had ever formed a favourite article of food with him. I gave him the greater portion of my supper, and297 he went to sleep as usual at my head. I have merely to add that from that day to this he has been in most excellent health. I can only attribute this fact to the quantity of fish he had consumed in his career; a moderate computation would allow him many thousand white fish and pike in the course of his life; and as he only made one mouthful of a large white fish, the addition of a fish-hook in the matter was of no consequence. Passing the mouths of the Mesalinca and the Ozalinca—two wild, swollen torrents flowing through a labyrinth of mountain peaks from the north-west—we entered, on the third day after leaving the cañon, the great central snowy range of North-British Columbia. The Ominica was here only a slant of water, 100 yards in breadth; it poured down a raging flood with a velocity difficult to picture. We worked slowly on, now holding by the bushes that hung out from the forest shore, now passing ropes around rocks and tree-stumps, and dragging, poling, pushing, as best we could. The unusual toil brought out the worst characteristics of my crew. Kalder worked like a horse with a savage temper, and was in a chronic state of laying violent hands upon the English miner, who, poor fellow, worked his best, but failed to satisfy the expectations of the more athletic Indian. It was298 no easy matter to keep the peace between them, and once, midway in a rapid, my Indian leaped past me in the canoe, seized the unoffending miner, and hurled him to the bottom of the boat. This was too much. I caught hold of a paddle and quickly informed my red servitor that if he did not instantly loosen his hold, my paddle would descend upon his hot-tempered head; he cooled a little, and we resumed our upward way. But for all this Kalder was a splendid fellow. In toil, in difficulty, in danger, alone he was worth two ordinary men; and in camp no better wild man lived to cut, to carry, or to cook; to pitch a tent, or portage a load—no, not from Yukon to wild Hudson’s Bay. On the night of the 19th of May we reached the mouth of the Wolverine Creek, and camped at last by quiet water. We were worn and tired from continuous toil. The ice-cold water in which we so frequently waded, and which made the pole-handles like lumps of ice to the touch, had begun to tell on hands and joints. Nevertheless, when at night the fire dried our dripping clothes and warmed us again, the plate of pemmican and cup of tea were relished, and we slept that sleep which is only known when the pine-trees rock the tired wanderer into forgetfulness. 299 The last rapid was passed, and now before us lay a broad and gentle current, lying in long serpentine bends amid lofty mountains. So, on the morning of the 20th, we paddled up towards the mining camp with easy strokes. Around us lay misty mountains, showing coldly through cloud-rift and billowy vapour. The high altitude, to which by such incessant labour we had worked our way, was plainly visible in the backward vegetation. We were nearing the snow-line once more, but still the sheltered valleys were bursting forth into green, and spring was piercing the inmost fastness of these far-north hills. And now I parted with the Ominica. It lay before us, far stretching to the westward, amid cloud-capped cliffs and snowy peaks; known to the gold-seeker for seventy miles yet higher and deeper into the land of mountains, and found there to be still a large, strong river, flowing from an unknown west. And yet it is but one of that score of rivers which, 2500 miles from these mountains, seek the Arctic Sea, through the mighty gateway of the Mackenzie. Late on the evening of the 20th of May I reached the mining camp of Germansen, three miles south of the Ominica River. A queer place was this mining camp of Germansen, the most300 northern and remote of all the mines on the American continent. Deep in the bottom of a valley, from whose steep sides the forest had been cleared or burned off, stood some dozen or twenty well-built wooden houses; a few figures moved in the dreary valley, ditches and drains ran along the hill-sides, and here and there men were at work with pick and shovel in the varied toil of gold-mining. The history of Germansen Creek had been the history of a thousand other creeks on the western continent. A roving miner had struck the glittering pebbles; the news had spread. From Montana, from Idaho, from California, Oregon, and Cariboo, men had flocked to this new find in the far north. In 1871, 1200 miners had forced their way through almost incredible hardships to the new field; provisions reached a fabulous price; flour and pork sold at six and seven shillings a pound! The innumerable sharks that prey upon the miner flocked in to reap the harvest; some struck the golden dust, but the majority lost everything, and for about the twentieth time in their lives became “dead broke;” little was known of the severity of the season, and many protracted the time of their departure for more southern winter quarters. Suddenly, on their return march, the winter broke; horses and mules perished miserably along301 the forest trail. At length the Frazer River was reached, a few canoes were obtained, but the ice was fast filling in the river. The men crowded into the canoes till they were filled to the edge; three wretched miners could find no room; they were left on the shore to their fate; their comrades pushed away. Two or three days later the three castaways were found frozen stiff on the inhospitable shore. The next summer saw fewer miners at the Camp, and this summer saw fewer still; but if to-morrow another strike were to be made 500 miles to the north of this remote Camp, hundreds would rush to it, caring little whether their bones were left to mark the long forest trail. The miner has ever got his dream of an El Dorado fresh and sanguine. No disaster, no repeated failure will discourage him. His golden paradise is always “away up” in some half-inaccessible spot in a wilderness of mountains. Nothing daunts him in this wild search of his. Mountains, rivers, cañons are the enemies he is constantly wrestling with. Nature has locked her treasures of gold and silver in deep mountain caverns, as though she would keep them from the daring men who strive to rob her. But she cannot save them. When one sees this wonderful labour, this delving into the bowels of rock and shingle, this turning302 and twisting of river channel, and sluicing and dredging and blasting, going on in these strange out-of-the-way places, the thought occurs, if but the tenth part of this toil were expended by these men in the ordinary avocations of life, they would all be rich or comfortable. The miner cannot settle down—at least for a long time—the life has a strange fascination for him; he will tell you that for one haul he has drawn twenty blanks; he will tell you that he has lost more money in one night at “faro,” or “poker,” than would suffice to have kept him decently for five years; he will tell you that he has frequently to put two dollars into the ground in order to dig one dollar out of it, and yet he cannot give up the wild, free life. He is emphatically a queer genius; and no matter what his country, his characteristics are the same. It would be impossible to discipline him, yet I think that, were he amenable to even a semblance of restraint and command, 40,000 miners might conquer a continent. His knowledge of words is peculiar; he has a thousand phrases of his own which it would be needless to follow him into. “Don’t prevaricate, sir!” thundered a British Columbian judge to a witness from the mines, “don’t prevaricate, sir!” “Can’t help it, judge,” answered the miner. “Ever since I got a kick in the mouth from a303 mule that knocked my teeth out, I prevaricate a good deal.” In the bottom of the valley, between the wooden houses and the rushing creek of Germansen, I pitched my tent for a short time, and in the course of a few days had the honour of becoming acquainted, either personally or by reputation, with Doe English, Dancing Bill, Black Jack, Dirty-faced Pete, Ned Walsh, Rufus Sylvester, and several others among the leading “boys” of the northern mining country. I found them men who under the rough garb of mountain miners had a large and varied experience in wild life and adventure—generous, free-hearted fellows too, who in the race for gold had not thrown off as dead weight, half as much of human kindness as many of their brothers, who, on a more civilized course, start for the same race too. <hr /> <div id="toclink_304" class="chapter"> 304 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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