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

<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2></div> <div class="blockquot inhead long"> The wild animals of the Peace River.—Indian method of hunting the moose.—Twa-poos.—The beaver.—The bear.—Bear’s butter.—A bear’s hug and how it ended.—Fort St. John.—The river awakes.—A rose without a thorn.—Nigger Dan.—A threatening letter.—I issue a Judicial Memorandum.—Its effect is all that could be desired.—Working up the Peace River. </div> Three animals have made their homes on the shores of the Peace River and its tributaries. They are the bear, the moose, and the beaver. All are valuable to the Indian for their flesh, fur, or skin; all come to as great perfection here as in any part of the American continent. The first and last named go to sleep in the long winter months, but the moose still roams the woods and willow banks, feeding with his flesh the forts and the Indians along the entire river. About 100 full-grown moose had been consumed during the winter months at the four posts we have lately passed, in fresh meat alone. He is a huge animal; his carcase will weigh from three to six hundred207 pounds; yet an ordinary half-breed will devour him in little more than a month. Between four and five hundred moose are annually eaten at the forts of the Peace River; four times that number are consumed by the Indians, but the range of the animal is vast, the hunters are comparatively few, and to-day there are probably as many moose in Peace River as there were fifty years ago. Athabasca trades to-day the skins of nearly 2000 moose in a single year. Few animals are more unshapely than this giant deer. His neck slopes down from the shoulder, ending in a head as large as a horse—a head which ends in a nose curled like a camel’s—a nose delicious to the taste, but hideous to the eye. The ears are of enormous length. Yet, ugly as are the nose and ears of the moose, they are his chief means of protection against his enemy, and in that great ungainly head there lurks a brain of marvellous cunning. It is through nose and ears that this cunning brain is duly prompted to escape danger. No man save the Indian, or the half-Indian, can hunt the moose with chance of success. I am aware that a host of Englishmen and Canadians will exclaim against this, but nevertheless it is perfectly true. Hunting the moose in summer and winter is one thing—killing him in a208 snow-yard, or running him down in deep snow is another. The two methods are as widely different as killing a salmon which another man has hooked for you is different from rising, hooking, playing, and gaffing one yourself. To hunt the moose requires years of study. Here is the little game which his instinct teaches him. When the early morning has come, he begins to think of lying down for the day. He has been feeding on the grey and golden willow-tops as he walked leisurely along. His track is marked in the snow or soft clay; he carefully retraces his footsteps, and, breaking off suddenly to the leeward side, lies down a gunshot from his feeding-track. He knows he must get the wind of any one following his trail. In the morning “Twa-poos,” or the Three Thumbs, sets forth to look for a moose; he hits the trail and follows it; every now and again he examines the broken willow-tops or the hoof-marks, when experience tells him that the moose has been feeding here during the early night. Twa-poos quits the trail, bending away in a deep circle to leeward; stealthily he returns to the trail, and as stealthily bends away again from it. He makes as it were the semicircles of the letter B, supposing the perpendicular line to indicate the trail of the moose; at each return to it he209 examines attentively the willows, and judges his proximity to the game. At last he is so near that he knows for an absolute certainty that the moose is lying in a thicket a little distance ahead. Now comes the moment of caution. He divests himself of every article of clothing which might cause the slightest noise in the forest; even his moccassins are laid aside; and then, on a pointed toe which a ballet-girl might envy, he goes forward for the last stalk. Every bush is now scrutinized, every thicket examined. See! he stops all at once! You who follow him look, and look in vain; you can see nothing. He laughs to himself, and points to yon willow covert. No, there is nothing there. He noiselessly cocks his gun. You look again and again, but can see nothing; then Twa-poos suddenly stretches out his hand and breaks a little dry twig from an overhanging branch. In an instant, right in front, thirty or forty yards away, an immense dark-haired animal rises up from the willows. He gives one look in your direction, and that look is his last. Twa-poos has fired, and the moose is either dead in his thicket or within a few hundred yards of it. One word now about this sense of hearing possessed by the moose. The most favourable day for hunting is in wild windy weather, when210 the dry branches of the forest crack in the gale. Nevertheless, Indians have assured me that, on such days, when they have sighted a moose, they have broken a dry stick; and although many branches were waving and cracking in the woods, the animal started at the sound—distinguishing it from the natural noises of the forest. But although the moose are still as numerous on Peace River as they were in days far removed from the present, there is another animal which has almost wholly disappeared. The giant form of the wood-buffalo no longer darkens the steep lofty shores. When first Mackenzie beheld the long reaches of the river, the “gentle lawns” which alternated with “abrupt precipices” were “enlivened” by vast herds of buffaloes. This was in 1793. Thirty-three years later, Sir George Simpson also ascended the river with his matchless Iroquois crew. Yet no buffalo darkened the lofty shores. What destroyed them in that short interval? The answer is not difficult to seek—deep snow. The buffalo grazes on the grass, the moose browses on the tall willows. During one winter of exceptionally deep snow, eighty buffaloes were killed in a single day in the vicinity of Dunvegan. The Indians ran them into the snowdrifts, and then despatched them with knives. 211 It is still a matter of dispute whether the wood-buffalo is the same species as his namesake of the southern plains; but it is generally believed by the Indians that he is of a kindred race. He is nevertheless larger, darker, and wilder; and although the northern land, in which he is still found, abounds in open prairies and small plains, he nevertheless seeks in preference the thickest woods. Whether he be of the plain race or not, one thing is certain—his habits vary much from his southern cousin. The range of the wood-buffalo is much farther north than is generally believed. There are scattered herds even now on the banks of the Liard River as far as sixty-one degrees of north latitude. The earth had never elsewhere such an accumulation of animal life as this northern continent must have exhibited some five or six centuries ago, when, from the Great Slave Lake to the Gulf of Florida, millions upon millions of bisons roamed the wilderness. Have we said enough of animals, or can we spare a few words to the bears and the beavers? Of all the animals which the New World gave to man the beaver was the most extraordinary. His cunning surpassed that of the fox; his skill was greater than that of the honey-bee; his patience was more enduring than the spider’s; his labour212 could turn the waters of a mighty river, and change the face of an entire country. He could cut down forests, and build bridges; he dwelt in a house with rooms, a common hall and a neat doorway in it. He could fell a forest tree in any direction he pleased, or carry it on his back when his sharp teeth had lopped its branches. He worked in companies, with a master beaver at the head of each—companies from whose ranks an idle or a lazy beaver was ignominiously expelled. He dwelt along the shores of quiet lakes, or by the margins of rushing streams, and silent majestic rivers, far in the heart of the solitude. But there came a time when men deemed his soft, dark skin a fitting covering for their heads; and wild men hunted him out in his lonely home. They trapped him from Texas to the Great Bear Lake; they hunted him in the wildest recesses of the Rocky Mountains; rival companies went in pursuit of him. In endeavouring to cover the heads of others, hundreds of trappers lost their own head-covering; the beaver brought many a white man’s scalp to the red man’s lodge-pole; and many a red man’s life went out with the beaver’s. In the West he became well-nigh extinct, in the nearer North he became scarce; yet here in Peace River he held his own against all comers. Nigh 30,000 beavers die annually213 along its shores, and when spring opens its waters the night is ever broken by the dull plunge of countless beavers in the pools and eddies of the great river. Along the lofty shores of the Peace River the Saskootum berry grows in vast quantities. In August its fruit is ripe, and the bears come forth to enjoy it; black, brown, and grizzly, stalk along the shores and hill-sides browsing on this luscious berry. On such food Bruin grows fat and unwieldy; he becomes “sleek-headed” and “sleeps of nights,” thus falling an easy prey to his hunter. While he was alive he loved the “poire” berries, and now when he is dead the red man continues the connexion, and his daintiest morsel is the bear’s fat and Saskootum berries mixed with powdered moose-meat. It is the dessert of a Peace River feast; the fat, white as cream, is eaten in large quantities, and although at first a little of it suffices, yet after a while one learns to like it, and the dried Saskootum and “bear’s butter” becomes a luxury. But fat or lean, the grizzly bear is a formidable antagonist. Few Indians will follow him alone to his lair; his strength is enormous, he can kill and carry a buffalo-bull; were he as active as he is strong it is probable that he would214 stand as the most dangerous animal on the earth. But his movements are comparatively slow, and his huge form is upraised upon its hind legs before he grapples his adversary. Woe to that adversary should those great fore-paws ever encircle him. Once only have I known a man live to tell the tale of that embrace: his story was a queer one. He had been attacked from behind, he had only time to fire his gun into the bear’s chest when the monster grasped him. The Indian never lost his power of thought; he plunged his left arm into the brute’s throat, and caught firm hold of the tongue; with his right hand he drove his hunting-knife into ribs and side; his arm and hand were mangled, his sides were gashed and torn, but the grizzly lay dead before him. The fort of St. John, on the Upper Peace River, is a very tumble-down old place; it stands on the south shore of the river, some thirty feet above high-water level; close behind its ruined buildings the ridges rise 1000 feet, steep and pine-clad; on the opposite shore bare grassy hills lift their thicket-fringed faces nearly to the same elevation; the river, in fact, runs at the bottom of a very large V-shaped trough 900 feet below the prairie-plateau. Between the base of the hill and the bank of the river lies a tract of wooded and sheltered land, from whose groves of birch, poplar,215 and pines the loud “drumming” of innumerable partridges now gave token of the coming spring. Yes, we had travelled into the spring—our steps and these never-tiring dogs had carried us farther and quicker than time. It was only the second week in April, and already the earth began to soften; the forest smelt of last year’s leaves and of this year’s buds; the rills spoke, and the wild duck winged along the river channels. During the whole of the second week of April the days were soft and warm; rain fell in occasional showers; at daybreak my thermometer showed only 3° or 4° of frost, and in the afternoon stood at 50° to 60° in the shade. From the 15th to the 20th the river, which had hitherto held aloof from all advances of the spring, began to show many symptoms of yielding to her soft entreaties. Big tears rose at times upon his iron face and flowed down his frosted cheeks; his great heart seemed to swell within him, and ominous groans broke from his long-silent bosom. At night he recovered himself a little, and looked grim and rigid in the early morning; but, at last, spring, and shower, and sun, and stream were too much for him—all his children were already awake, and prattling, and purling, and pulling at him, and shaking him to open his long-closed eyelids, to look once more at the blue and golden summer.216 It was the 20th of April. But the rose of spring had its thorn too (what rose has not?), and with bud, and sun, and shower came the first mosquito on this same 20th of April. He was a feeble insect, and hummed around in a mournful sort of manner, not at all in keeping with the glowing prospect before him. He had a whole long summer of stinging in prospective; “the winter of his discontent” was over, and yet there was nothing hilarious in his hum. I have made a slight error in repeating the old saying, that “no rose is without its thorn,” for there is just one—it is the primrose. But there were other thorns than mosquitoes in store for the denizens of this isolated spot, called St. John’s, in the wilderness. On the north shore of the river, directly facing the tumble-down fort, a new log-house was in course of erection by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Work moves slowly in the North, and this log-house lay long unfinished. One fine day a canoe came floating down the lonely river; it held a solitary negro—pioneer, cook, trapper, vagrant, idler, or squatter, as chance suited him. This time the black paddler determined to squat by the half-finished log-house of the Company. Four years earlier he had dwelt for a season on this same spot. There were dark rumours afloat about him; he had killed his man it was averred;217 nay, he had repeated the pastime, and killed two men. He had robbed several mining shanties, and had to shift his residence more than once beyond the mountains on account of his mode of life. Altogether Nigger Dan, as he was called, bore an indifferent reputation among the solitary white man and his half-breed helpers at the post of St. John’s. By the Indians he was regarded as something between a beaver and an American bear, and, had his head been tradeable as a matter of fur, I believe they would have trapped him to a certainty. But despite the hostile feelings of the entire community, Nigger Dan held stout possession of his shanty, and claimed, in addition to his hut, all the land adjoining it, as well as the Hudson’s Bay Fort in course of erection. From his lair he issued manifestoes of a very violent nature. He planted stakes in the ground along the river-bank, upon which he painted in red ochre hieroglyphics of a menacing character. At night he could be heard across the silent river indulging in loud and uncalled-for curses, and at times he varied this employment by reciting portions of the Bible in a pitch of voice and accent peculiar to gentlemen of colour. On the 12th of April, four days after my arrival at St. John’s, my young host was the recipient of the following ultimatum. I copy it verbatim:— 218 <div class="blockquot"> April 12. Kenedy I hear by Worne you that Com and Gett your persnol property if eny you have Got of my prmeeis In 24 hours And then keep away from me because I shal Not betrubbld Nor trod on only by her most Noble Majesty Government (Sgd) D. T. Williams. </div> On the back appeared,— <div class="blockquot"> I have wated longe A-day for an ancer from that Notis you toer Down and now It is my turn to tore down —— —— </div> Although the spirit of loyalty which breathed through the latter portion of this document was most admirable, it is nevertheless matter for regret that Dan’s views of the subject of “persnol property” were not those of a law-abiding citizen; unfortunately for me, both the Hudson’s Bay claimant and the negro occupant appealed to me in support of their rival rights. What was to be done? It is true that by virtue of a commission conferred upon me some years earlier I had been elevated to the lofty title of justice of the peace for Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territories, my brother justices consisting, I believe, of two Hudson Bay officials and three half-breed buffalo runners, whose collective wisdom was deemed amply sufficient to dispense justice over something like two million219 square miles. Nevertheless, it occurred to me that this matter of disputed ownership was one outside even the wide limits of my jurisdiction. To admit such want of jurisdiction would never have answered. “Rupert’s Land and the North-West” carried with them a sense of vast indefinite power, that if it were once shaken by an admission of non-competency, two million square miles, containing a population of one twenty-fourth of a wild man to each square mile, might have instantly become a prey to chaotic crime. Feeling the inutility of my lofty office to deal with the matters in question, I decided upon adopting a middle course, one which I have every reason to believe upheld the full majesty of the law in the eyes of the eight representatives of the Canadian, African, and American races of man, now assembled around me. I therefore issued a document which ran thus:— <div class="blockquot"> Judicial Memorandum. Various circumstances having occurred in the neighbourhood of the Hudson’s Bay Fort, known as St. John’s, on the Peace River, of a nature to lead to the assumption that a breach of the peace is liable to arise out of the question of disputed ownership, in a plot of land on the north shore of the river, on which the Hudson’s Bay Company have erected buildings to serve as their future place of business, and on which it is asserted one Daniel Williams, a person of colour, formerly lived, this is to notify all persons concerned in this question, that no belief of ownership, no former or present220 possession, will be held in any way to excuse or palliate the slightest infringement of the law, or to sanction any act of violence being committed, or to occasion any threats being made use of by any of the said parties which might lead to a breach of the peace. Executed by me, as Justice of the Peace for Rupert’s Land and the North-West, this 22nd day of April, 1873. Signed, &c., &c. </div> I claim for this memorandum or manifesto some slight degree of praise. It bears, I think, a striking analogy to diplomatic documents, for which of late years the British Government has been conspicuous in times of grave foreign complications; but in one important respect my judicial memorandum was very much more successful than any of the political papers upon which it was framed; for whereas they had been received by the respective belligerents to whom they had been addressed in a manner not at all flattering to our national dignity, my very lucid statement that, diplomatically speaking, two and two made four, had a marked impression on the minds of my audience. On the one hand, I clearly pointed out that murder, arson, and robbery were not singly or collectively in unison with the true interpretation of British law; and on the other, I carefully abstained from giving any indication of what would result from the infringement of that law in the persons of any of the belligerents. 221 I have reason to believe that the negro Bismarck was deeply impressed by the general tenour of the document; and that a lengthened perusal of the word “executed,” in the last sentence, carried with it a sense of profound strangulation under which he long laboured. And now it was time to think of moving again towards the setting sun. Many months of travel had carried me across the great plateau of the North to this spot, where from the pine-clad plain arose the white ridges of the Rocky Mountains. Before me lay a land of alps, a realm of mountain peaks and gloomy cañons, where in countless valleys, unseen by the eye of man, this great Peace River had its distant source. In snow that lasts the live-long year these mountain summits rest; but their sides early feel the influence of the summer sun, and from the thousand valleys crystal streams rush forth to swell the majestic current of the great river, and to send it foaming in mighty volume to the distant Athabasca. At such a time it is glorious work for the voyageur to launch his cotton-wood canoe on the rushing water and glance down the broad bosom of the river. His paddle lies idle in the water, or is used only to steer the swift-flying craft; and when evening darkens over the lofty shores, he222 lights his camp-fire full half a hundred miles from his starting-point of the morning. But if it be idle, easy work to run down the river at its summer level, what arduous toil it is to ascend it during the same season! Bit by bit, little by little, the upward way must be won; with paddle, with pole, with line dragged along shore and pulled round tree-stump or projecting boulder; until evening finds the toiler often not three river reaches from his starting-point. When the river finally breaks up, and the ice has all passed away, there is a short period when the waters stand at a low level; the sun is not yet strong enough to melt the snow quickly, and the frosts at night are still sharp in the mountain valleys. The river then stands ten feet below its level of mid-June; this period is a short one, and not an hour must be lost by the voyageur who would gain the benefit of the low water in the earlier days of May. Seventy miles higher up the Peace River stands a solitary house called Hudson’s Hope. It marks the spot where the river first emerges from the cañon of the Rocky Mountains, and enters the plain country. A trail, passable for horses, leads along the north shore of the river to this last trading-post of the Hudson’s Bay Company on the verge of the mountains. Along this trail I now determined to223 continue my journey, so as to gain the west side of the Great Cañon before the ice had left the river, and thus reap the advantage of the low water in ascending still farther into the mountains. It is no easy matter to place an exact picture of the topography of a country before a reader: we must, however, endeavour to do so. Some fifty miles west of St. John, the Peace River issues from the cañon through which it passes the outer range of the Rocky Mountains. No boat, canoe, or craft of any kind has ever run the gauntlet of this huge chasm; for five-and-thirty miles it lies deep sunken through the mountains; while from its depths there ever rises the hoarse roar of the angry waters as they dash furiously against their rocky prison. A trail of ten miles leads across this portage, and at the western end of this trail the river is reached close to where it makes its first plunge into the rock-hewn chasm. At this point the traveller stands within the outer range of the mountains, and he has before him a broad river, stretching far into a region of lofty peaks, a river with strong but even current, flowing between banks 200 to 300 yards apart. Around great mountains lift up their heads dazzling with the glare of snow, 10,000 feet above the water which carries his frail canoe. It was through this pass that I now proposed224 to journey westward towards the country which lies between the Pacific Ocean, Alaska, and the multitudinous mountains of Central British Columbia, a land but little known; a vast alpine region, where, amidst lakes and mountains nature reigns in loneliness and cloud. <hr /> <div id="toclink_225" class="chapter"> 225 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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