Читать книгу Arctic Trader--the account of twenty years with the Hudson's Bay Company - Philip Henry Godsell - Страница 11

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At Norway House time passed on fleeting wings. Each day brought some new interest as the Indians commenced to come in from their camps with furs to trade. Soon from the rafters in the fur loft great bundles of gorgeous furs were hanging; silver, cross and red foxes, sleek mink, glossy black otter, dark marten from the hills, grayish-white lynx skins with black tufts above their ears, beaver, large and small; black bear skins, wolves whose brushes almost swept the floor, coyotes and, in diminutive bundles, ermine in their hundreds such as grace the royal robes.

Then one day the dog-teams returned from Icelandic River with the mail. Hardly were the sacks opened and the contents poured upon the floor ere half the white population of the settlement—traders, priests, missionaries and Mounted Police, were all upon their knees. Each was nominally engaged in sorting the mail, which seemed to constitute grabbing their own letters and discarding all others into a rapidly mounting pile which represented the mail of those not present and was left for later inspection.

Each evening there was the usual gathering in the Bachelors’ Hall and inevitably the conversation turned sooner or later to the one subject of primary interest in the winter time, dogs! dogs! dogs!

NORWAY HOUSE, HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY’S HEADQUARTERS FOR KEEWATIN DISTRICT.

Although the poor sleigh dogs are discarded and neglected in the summer time when they are not needed, in the winter they assume a rôle of paramount importance as the one and only means of transportation in the Northland, and each tripper usually vied with the others to see who could produce the fastest dog-team in the land.

One day there was a sudden commotion outside the office, followed by the thud of a fast speeding toboggan striking the side of the building, the jingling of bells and the loud shouts of drivers. I ran outside. It was Mr. McTavish back from his five hundred mile inspection trip.

A few days before I had purchased a small mongrel dog from an Indian for the sum of two dollars in order to have company, being unacquainted with a regulation of the Company which forbade a clerk or servant owning a dog without the permission of his superior officer. The little animal was about a foot long, but what he lacked in size he certainly made up for in spirit. When at work in the daytime, and in order to keep my canine companion from being torn apart and devoured by the huskies, I kept him tied with a long piece of string to the leg of the table in my room within the Bachelors’ Hall. Sublimely unconscious of the sin I was committing I continued to keep my pet when Mr. McTavish returned from, his winter journey.

Next morning, and unbeknown to me, he decided to make a short tour of inspection around the fort, in the course of which he walked into my room.

This intrusion into our joint privacy was taken immediate exception to by my small pet, who bared his teeth and growled ferociously at him. Such ignorance and presumption could not for one moment be tolerated. It was an insult to his position and dignity so, mistaking the character of the little animal by his size, Mr. McTavish kicked him contemptuously. In a second Fido had him by the leg. The potentate of the Northland howled in anguish and called upon Magnus Budd, who was cleaning stove-pipes at the time, to eject the “dangerous animal” immediately, but, considering discretion the better part of valor, he beat a hasty retreat instead.

I was made aware of the fact that something had gone wrong by the manner in which Mr. McTavish burst into the store where I happened to be trading with some Indians. Red faced, and speechless with anger, he stuttered and spluttered for some time ere he made it clear to me that he had been bitten by a dog. I was, of course, most profuse in my expressions of sympathy, which seemed to goad him into an even more towering rage. Finally he blurted out that it was “that dangerous animal” I was harboring which was the cause of all the trouble. I was permitted ten minutes to dispose of my pet, or kill it, so I hurriedly arranged to give it to an Indian girl who happened to be in the store and promised to look after it.

For some time afterwards both myself and my dog were the heroes of the hour. Donald Flett, Charlie Sinclair and Roddy Ross were convulsed with laughter every time the matter was mentioned, but they did not fail to let drop some veiled allusions as to the probability of my banishment, at an early date, to an isolated and God-forsaken spot called Pepekwatooce, though sometimes rather knowingly referred to as “Penitentiary Post.”

ARRIVAL OF THE FACTORS AT BACHELOR’S HALL, NORWAY HOUSE, FOR CHRISTMAS.

As Christmas rapidly approached more and more Indians arrived daily to feast and make merry, according to custom during the holiday season, and from morning to night the store was full of dusky capoted hunters squatted cross-legged upon the floor, or seated upon the counters, making the place opaque with the smoke of kinni-kinnick from their pipes.

Here they discussed the price of furs, their good or evil luck at hunting, the speed of Alex Budd’s famous dogs, and the gossip which is just as prevalent in fur land as amongst the enlightened white race to the southward.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Sinclair, with the aid of old Betsy and Miss McLean, our cook, was giving the usual deft Christmassy touches to the mess room and bungalow by unearthing from hidden recesses colored paper decorations and streamers of bright colored tissue paper. Spruce boughs were brought in from the nearby woods by the half-breed servants, tied in festoons with bright ribbons, and soon the entire fort had a jolly and festive appearance.

Events never seem to happen singly in the Northland and on Christmas eve, while we were welcoming first one new arrival and then another, strange dog-teams came careening into the square, spraying the bystanders with snow, driven by swarthy unknown drivers wearing hairy Chipewyan deerskin coats. It turned out to be Inspector Pelletier of the North West Mounted Police who had just arrived from Fort Churchill after a journey across the almost unknown Barren Lands. Next, a gaudily painted carriole, hauled by five big hounds, dashed madly into the fort, while a pandemonium of yelping and barking came from the dog-yard. This time it was Henry McLeod, veteran trader from Cross Lake, reputed at one time to have been the fastest dog-driver in Keewatin—the Land of the North Wind. In quick succession followed my friend Ashton Alston from Oxford House, and “Big Bill” Campbell from the land of the pagan Saulteaux.

With the hospitality which ever characterized the Hudson’s Bay Company each was given accommodation of some kind, though all that was asked was a place to stretch one’s rabbit robe at night and a corner in which to store a dunnage bag containing clothes. Dogs were chained up in the yard and fed, and half-breed runners given rations and sent to the Indian house to camp.

Hardly were the traders gathered together within the Bachelor’s Hall when glass and bottle were passing freely from hand to hand. Loudly they talked, argued and reminisced, poked fun at each other, and extolled the virtues of their dogs. Of course, the Company also received its share of criticism, but woe betide the outsider, unconnected with the firm, who dared to say a word against it.

Outside, as night drew on, the stars shone like jewels in a setting of steel blue sapphire, while from the buildings within the fort, and the log cabins along the river, straight white spirals of smoke ascended from stove-pipes and chimneys into the frosty air above. Each time the door opened and a visitor arrived a billowing cloud of white frost preceded and almost obscured him from sight so intense was the cold without, and flowery patterns of white crystal covered the small window panes until they were coated all over with the frost.

From the nearby council chamber came the cries and whoops of excited Indians, the strains of the fiddle, the thud-thud of stamping moccasined feet going through the intricacies of the Red River Jig, and the cries of the Caller-off, while mingled with these noises was the incessant barking and snarling of strange sleigh dogs, aching to get at one another’s throats.

Up and down the length of the snow covered river young bucks were racing their gayly caparisoned dogs, with admiring dusky belles, gay in tartans and ribbons, wrapped warmly in their gaudily painted carrioles.

Inside the Bachelors’ Hall every one seemed to be talking at once and nobody doing any listening; it was fast becoming a riot.

Bill Campbell, his usual discretion thrown aside for the time being, was discussing the happenings at Sandy Lake that fall.

“Why, that’s nothing new,” remarked McLeod, bringing his fist down with a crash upon the table. “Just an old custom; goes back to the days when these tribes were all nomadic. Then they’d just fix ’em up with a nice warm camp, leave enough firewood and grub for a few days, and beat it to let them die whatever way they liked.”

Suddenly the door swung open and Sergeant Smith entered the hall, blinked for a minute to get the frost crystals out of his eyelashes, then turned to greet the traders.

“Hello there, Henry, getting pretty soft, eh? Had to get your son Louis to drive you in this year, eh? Oh! well, sixty miles in a day is pretty good hiking; too much for an old man to have to hoof it.”

“Old man be damned,” roared the incensed Scotsman rising to the bait immediately. “Why, I can knock any of my sons out with the gloves yet, and there’s not one of them under six feet, or weighs less’n a hundred and eighty pounds. Come on, Sergeant, let’s try a wrestling match and see who’s old,” belligerently suggested the wrathful McLeod as he staggered uncertainly to his feet.

Roars of good-natured laughter greeted the sally as the Sergeant turned, shook hands with Campbell and wished him a Merry Christmas with a twinkle in his eye.

“How’s everything going out at Island Lake, and Sandy Lake way? Not very much fur this winter, I believe; too cold for the animals to move around, eh?”

“Sure,” answered Campbell with a wink at McLeod, “they’re just as wise as the Mounted Police. Den up in the cold weather and come out when it’s warm.”

“As I was remarking when this long-legged limb of the law interrupted us,” continued McLeod with a hiccup, waving a glass in his hand and spilling the liquor over everybody near him, “that Sandy Lake affair’s nothing at all. Supposin’ they hadn’t killed that squaw she’d have died anyway. And anyhow, when they get that there Weetigo idea into their heads something’s bound to happen, can’t help it! Say, if the Sergeant wasn’t looking at me I could tell you a heap of cases, mostly amongst the Chipewyans,” he added as an afterthought, remembering his Cree wife at home.

“Here, have a drink, Sergeant; this’ll warm the cockles o’ your heart. No! you needn’t look at me like that, it’s real permit liquor; hic’, that young constable of yours, McNeill, canceled it himself and took a good big snort into the bargain too.”

The Sergeant complied and drew the back of his hand across his long drooping straw-colored mustache. At length the Mountie rose to depart, and after several unsuccessful efforts caught Campbell’s eye and motioned to him.

“I’d just like to see you for a few minutes and talk with you privately,” he suggested. “Which is your room?”

Together they entered. Ten minutes later the Sergeant emerged with a grim look around his mouth, bid us all goodnight, untied his dog-team and set out for the barracks, two miles away.

That night Sergeant, “Daisy,” Smith sat in his little log barracks at the Crooked Turn with a sheet of paper in front of him, addressed to the Commissioner of the Royal North West Mounted Police at Ottawa, and chewed the end of his pen in deep thought. In the saddle or on the trail the tall raw-boned policeman was quite at home, but writing reports was not in his line at all, and he despised the necessity for doing so.

Nevertheless, after deep travail, the letter was completed and the policeman sat back with one eye closed, the inevitable wisp of straw between his teeth, and surveyed the result with obvious satisfaction. Two days later the story of the medicine murder at Sandy Lake was speeding by dog-team over the snowy surface of Lake Winnipeg, en route to Ottawa.

Next day was spent in a round of visiting by red and white people alike, all attired in their best capotes, or decorated and fringed hunting coats of buckskin, belted with gaudy L’Assumption sashes at the waist, while their moccasins displayed the last word in the decorative art of the local half-breed girls and squaws.

Mugosay-keesigow, or Feast Day, is the name given by the Swampy Crees to the white man’s Christmas, and wherever one went it was a continual round of feasting, jollification and merrymaking. Both at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fort and at the Rossville Mission, two miles away, large copper kettles full of sweetened steaming tea, huge pails full of doughnuts, biscuits galore, and other comestibles were prepared in advance of the Red invasion as it literally became.

In almost every building large enough for the purpose, and more especially within the council house at the fort, fiddles were going all day long to the accompaniment of pounding feet, and the cries and whoops of the excited and perspiring dancers.

At eight o’clock there was to be a great dinner in the mess room for the staff and the élite of Norway House, and for days beforehand Mrs. Sinclair and Miss McLean, assisted by some pretty Scotch half-breed girls, had been making preparations for the feast. Having some ability with the brush I had been called upon to do my share, which consisted of painting little place-cards for the table.

As the shades of evening began to fall and Henry McLeod, Roddy Ross, Donald Flett, and others commenced to wander in from their merrymaking it seemed to me that the prospects for the big dinner were hardly of the best.

However, Constables Cashman and O’Neill, by means of cold towels and other devices known to the initiated, managed to bring some semblance of intelligence, and a knowledge of what it was all about, to the befuddled Bob Anderson and Roddy. This accomplished, and with Charlie Isbister supported between them on account of the fact that, though he was still able to smile in a sort of fixed way and to even mumble coherently at times, his legs refused to track or support his tall attenuated frame, they all proceeded towards the dining hall.

Donald McTavish, looking like a dark colored powder pigeon with his little stomach stuck out importantly in front of him, Charlie Sinclair, Mrs. Sinclair, and Inspector Pelletier were already assembled there when our delegation from the Bachelors’ Hall arrived, every one doing their unsuccessful best to look as though they had never seen a drink. Their legs being somewhat wobbly both Bob and Roddy made an unceremonious dash for the first chair at hand, regardless of the place cards and the fact that the others were still standing. Both, of course, selected the same chair with disastrous results, but having been parted they subsided in their seats muttering maledictions beneath their breath. Charlie Isbister was carefully deposited in the chair opposite his name, then with the same fixed grin still carved upon his wooden features, his head slipped forward as though it was not connected with his body until his chin came to rest upon his chest, whereupon he commenced to snore quite lustily.

Poor Mrs. Sinclair, to whom the success of the dinner meant so much, seemed dumfounded at the peculiar actions of her guests as she watched their queer antics in open mouthed astonishment, and seemed decidedly relieved when all were seated at the table. Noticing, however, the smiles upon the faces of Inspector Pelletier and Mr. McTavish, and catching the significance of the wink which Charlie gave her, she overcame her perturbation and endeavored to carry on as though it was quite the usual thing.

At this moment one of the maids arrived with a tray containing glasses of wine which were placed before each guest, her advent being greeted with exuberant appreciation. Mr. McTavish suggested an appropriate toast to the King and, with the exception of the sleeping Isbister, every one rose to the occasion. Then Alston insisted that he also had a toast. Slowly, and very carefully, rising to a standing position, grasping the tablecloth firmly in one hand in the hopes that it would keep him steady, he raised his glass, then while every one waited expectantly, he hiccuped once or twice, swayed a little and mumbled:

“Here’s to the girl with the high-heeled shoes

Who eats your dinners and drinks your booze,

And then goes home to her mother to snooze ...”

Unseen hands yanked Alston protestingly to his seat, leaving the rest of the toast unfinished, and the noise of laughter and conversation drowned out further words.

Meanwhile, Henry McLeod, having reached the stage where food was more desirable than frivolity, carefully rolled his entire steak, speared it with his fork, popped it into his mouth, and in a twinkling it had disappeared. This did not escape the attention of Alston.

“It’s a good thing for everybody you weren’t around when the Lord divided the seven loaves and fishes amongst the five thousand,” he grinned.

With a look of unutterable disgust McLeod glared across the table.

“H’m! Wonder you wouldn’t read your Bible once in a while, then you’d know that it was Jacob who fed the five thousand.”

There was a further difference of opinion as Bob Anderson thought that the honor went to Moses, and the controversy waxed heatedly until at last Mr. McTavish was appealed to, and McLeod grudgingly accepted his decision in favor of Mr. Alston’s views.

It was an excellent dinner, enlivened by a hundred amusing and extraordinary incidents, while the smart red serges of the police, the moccasined serving girls in bright tartan dresses and raven locks tied with bright ribbons, the bronzed and picturesque traders seated around the snowy tablecloth decorated with real flowers, created a picture which still lingers fondly in the memory.

For the rest of the week the jollification continued and little work was done. New Year’s day was almost a repetition of Christmas, and is known as Ocheemay keesigow, or Kissing Day, by the Crees. Every one visited again from place to place, the merry cries of “Happy New Year,” “Happy New Year,” ringing upon the frosty air as gayly caparisoned dog-teams dashed up and down the river.

Wherever I went I found that each member of the fair sex expected to be greeted with the customary New Year’s kiss. So far as the young and comely girls were concerned I was more than willing to enter into the spirit of the occasion but I felt less chivalrous in doing the honors upon some toothless and leather faced female veteran of eighty or ninety summers, and these I found were far more anxious to be kissed than the young girls.

Until far into the night the dancing and merrymaking continued, and it was not until the small hours of the morning that I entered the Bachelors’ Hall and went to bed.