Читать книгу The Arctic Prairies : a Canoe-Journey of 2,000 Miles in Search of the Caribou - Ernest Thompson Seton - Страница 9

Sunday morning, 26th of May, there was something like a strike among the sixty half-breeds and Indians that composed the crews. They were strict Sabbatarians (when it suited them); they believed that they should do no work, but give up the day to gambling and drinking. Old John, the chief pilot, wished to take advantage of the fine flood on the changing river, and drift down at least to the head of the Boiler Rapids, twenty miles away, The breeds maintained, with many white swear words, for lack of strong talk in Indian, that they never yet knew Sunday work to end in anything but disaster, and they sullenly scattered among the trees, produced their cards, and proceeded to gamble away their property, next year's pay, clothes, families, anything, and otherwise show their respect for the Lord's Day and defiance of old John MacDonald. John made no reply to their arguments; he merely boarded the cook's boat, and pushed off into the swift stream with the cooks and all the grub. In five minutes the strikers were on the twelve big boats doing their best to live up to orders. John said nothing, and grinned at me only with his eyes.

The breeds took their defeat in good part after the first minute, and their commander rose higher in their respect.

At noon we camped above the Boiler Rapids. In the evening I climbed the 400- or 500-foot hill behind camp and sketched the canyon looking northward. The spring birds were now beginning to arrive, but were said to be a month late this year. The ground was everywhere marked with moose sign; prospects, were brightening.

The mania for killing that is seen in many white men is evidently a relic of savagery, for all of these Indians and half-breeds are full of it. Each carries a rifle, and every living thing that appears on the banks or on the water is fusilladed with Winchesters until it is dead or out of sight. This explains why we see so little from the scows. One should be at least a day ahead of them to meet with wild life on the river.

This morning two Bears appeared on the high bank—and there was the usual uproar and fusillading; so far as could be learned without any effect, except the expenditure of thirty or forty cartridges at five cents each.

On the 27th we came to the Cascade Rapids. The first or Little Cascade has about two feet fall, the second or Grand Cascade, a mile farther, is about a six foot sheer drop. These are considered very difficult to run, and the manner of doing it changes with every change in season or water level.

We therefore went through an important ceremony, always carried out in the same way. All 13 boats were beached, the 13 pilots went ahead on the bank to study the problem, they decided on the one safe place and manner, then returned, and each of the 13 boats was run over in 13 different places and manners. They always do this. You are supposed to have run the Cascades successfully if you cross them alive, but to have failed if you drown.. In this case all were successful.

Below the Cascades I had a sample of Indian gratitude that set me thinking. My success with John MacDonald and others had added the whole community to my medical practice, for those who were not sick thought they were. I cheerfully did my best for all, and was supposed to be persona grata. Just below the Cascade Rapids was a famous sucker pool, and after we had camped three Indians came, saying that the pool was full of suckers—would I lend them my canoe to get some?

Away they went, and from afar I was horrified to see them clubbing the fish with my beautiful thin-bladed maple paddles. They returned with a boat load of 3- and 4-pound Suckers (Catostomus) and 2 paddles broken. Each of their friends came and received one or two fine fish, for there were plenty. I, presumably part owner of the catch, since I owned the boat, selected one small one for myself, whereupon the Indian insolently demanded 25 cents for it; and these were the men I had been freely doctoring for two weeks! Not to speak of the loaned canoe and broken paddles! Then did I say a few things to all and sundry—stinging, biting things, ungainsayable and forcible things—and took possession of all the fish that were left, so the Indians slunk off in sullen silence.

Gratitude seems an unknown feeling among these folk; you may give presents and help and feed them all you like, the moment you want a slight favour of them they demand the uttermost cent. In attempting to analyse this I was confronted by the fact that among themselves they are kind and hospitable, and at length discovered that their attitude toward us is founded on the ideas that all white men are very rich, that the Indian has made them so by allowing them to come into this country, that the Indian is very poor because he never was properly compensated, and that therefore all he can get out of said white man is much less than the white man owes him.

As we rounded a point one day a Lynx appeared statuesque on a stranded cake of ice, a hundred yards off, and gazed at the approaching boats. True to their religion, the half-breeds seized their rifles, the bullets whistled harmlessly about the "Peeshoo"—whereupon he turned and walked calmly up the slope, stopping to look at each fresh volley, but finally waved his stumpy tail and walked unharmed over the ridge. Distance fifty yards.

On May 28 we reached Fort MacMurray.

Here I saw several interesting persons: Miss Christine Gordon, the postmaster; Joe Bird, a half-breed with all the advanced ideas of a progressive white man; and an American ex-patriot, G———, a tall, raw-boned Yank from Illinois. He was a typical American of the kind, that knows little of America and nothing of Europe; but shrewd and successful in spite of these limitations. In appearance he was not unlike Abraham Lincoln. He was a rabid American, and why he stayed here was a question.

He had had no detailed tidings from home for years, and I never saw a man more keen for the news. On the banks of the river we sat for an hour while he plied me with questions, which I answered so far as I could. He hung on my lips; he interrupted only when there seemed a halt in the stream; he revelled in, all the details of wrecks by rail and sea. Roosevelt and the trusts—insurance scandals—the South the burnings in the West—massacres—murders—horrors—risings—these were his special gloats, and yet he kept me going with "Yes—yes—and then?" or "Yes, by golly—that's the way we're a-doing it. Go on."

Then, after I had robbed New York of $100,000,000 a year, burnt 10 large towns and 45 small ones, wrecked 200 express trains, lynched 96 negroes in the South and murdered many men every night for 7 years in Chicago—he broke out:

"By golly, we are a-doing it. We are the people. We are a-moving things now; and I tell you I give the worst of them there European countries, the very worst of 'em, just 100 years to become Americanised."

Think of that, ye polished Frenchmen; ye refined, courteous Swedes; ye civilised Danes; you have 100 years to become truly Americanised!

All down the river route we came on relics of another class of wanderers—the Klondikers of 1898. Sometimes these were empty winter cabins; sometimes curious tools left at Hudson's Bay Posts, and in some cases expensive provisions; in all cases we heard weird tales of their madness.

There is, I am told, a shanty on the Mackenzie above Simpson, where four of them made a strange record. Cooped up for months in tight winter quarters, they soon quarrelled, and at length their partnership was dissolved. Each took the articles he had contributed, and those of common purchase they divided in four equal parts. The stove, the canoe, the lamp, the spade, were broken relentlessly and savagely into four parts—four piles of useless rubbish. The shanty was divided in four. One man had some candles of his own bringing. These he kept and carefully screened off his corner of the room so no chance rays might reach the others to comfort them; they spent the winter in darkness. None spoke to the other, and they parted, singly and silently, hatefully as ever, as soon as the springtime opened the way.