Читать книгу Arctic Trader--the account of twenty years with the Hudson's Bay Company - Philip Henry Godsell - Страница 13

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One bright morning I reclined upon a seat in the center of my canoe and watched my winter home gradually sink from sight upon the rapidly dimming horizon as the paddles swished through the sparkling waters. Following, but at a more leisurely pace, came thirty or so bright yellow bark canoes loaded with their motley crews, dogs and bundles of dried fish. As the sun shone warmly on the painted paddles, flashing now on one side and now on the other, and upon the gayly attired bucks and squaws, it lighted up a picture of indescribable primitive beauty which even the penetrating odor of fish could not dispel.

Hour after hour we toiled in the almost tropical heat of those late June days; paddling, wading and stumbling through slimy gripping moss, packing the canoes and baggage from one creek to another, around roaring rapids or other obstructions in the river. When we reached God’s Lake on the fifth day and saw before us the shimmering island dotted water and felt the cooling breeze even the Indians grunted their appreciation.

Converting a blanket into a sail we careened over the waves in a state of great elation, free at last of mosquitoes and the pungent, stifling heat of the spruce woods. As we neared the post we saw, to our surprise, a large field of ice jammed between the islands and the shore. Then, while we were turning the canoe to paddle around it, a long lean wolf came loping out from an island, proceeded casually towards the bank and disappeared into the bush. We landed in a little bay, pulled up our canoe and followed a narrow trail, carrying our packs upon our backs. In a short while we entered the picketed enclosure of the fort and were shaking hands with Alex Swain and a crowd of God’s Lake Indians who had gathered around us as quickly as a lot of mosquitoes in their anxiety to hear the latest gossip of the backwoods.

Once again I occupied the little room I had used the winter before. This time, instead of stoking up the stoves to keep out the bitter cold, smudges had to be made to drive out the voracious mosquitoes, while at night it was necessary to sleep within the protecting curtains of a mosquito bar outside of which the insects kept up a droning hum all night.

All the God’s Lake Indians were encamped around the post in their picturesque wigwams and the place was now a hive of activity. York boats were being caulked and prepared for the journey to Norway House; furs were being baled and marked; Indians hired to man the fur brigade and rations prepared for the forthcoming voyage. Alex Swain, the personification of importance, stalked around bellowing out orders in Cree. Being partly Indian himself he understood the natives thoroughly and, like other Hudson’s Bay men of his time, although he worshiped the Deity, the Company was actually his God.

A few days later Carl arrived, accompanied by my dusky friends from Pepekwatooce. The moment the canoes were sighted the red flag was unfurled in the breeze, then Alex Swain appeared resplendent in check suit, dress shirt, a flaming red tie and fancy moccasins. A large V-shaped patch of white drill had been inserted into the back seam of his pants to accommodate his increasing girth. This triangle, which extended about four inches below the back of his coat, the tight-fitting trousers which emphasized his knock-knees, together with the rest of his costume, presented a picture for merriment, and Carl and I were convulsed with quiet mirth at his unique appearance and proud and arrogant gestures. When we reached my room Carl, who was still in a state bordering on asphyxiation from suppressed laughter, pointed at the clothes line. It extended the full length of the square inside the fort and from it innumerable white dress shirts danced a jig in the afternoon breeze.

“See those,” chuckled my companion, “they all belong to old Alex and are just hung up to impress the Indians with the vast extent of his wardrobe. He prides himself on having sixty-three dress shirts, one of which he wears on special occasions. The rest are just for show.”

I realized later that Parker’s words were true. On every important occasion the clothes line was always full.

Next day Carl and Alex Swain left with the fur brigade and I bid them good-by. As they departed I remained in solitary state, the sole white man in this wilderness and monarch of all I surveyed.

Having little to do after the York boats had left, and no one with whom I could talk English, I decided to try and master the Cree language. Whenever the opportunity presented itself I would round up some old Indian, take him to the store, point out various articles and have him give me the names for them in Cree. I soon had quite a vocabulary and one day proudly demonstrated my familiarity with the language before some of the ladies of the wigwams who were paying court to Mrs. Swain. The effect was the reverse of what I had anticipated for, instead of being spell-bound with my eloquence, they at first seemed amazed and shocked then, looking at each other, they made the walls reverberate with uncontrollable howls and shrieks of laughter. Then to my chagrin I discovered the duplicity of my teachers. Instead of giving me the Cree equivalent for the articles I had shown them they had, with a perverted sense of humor, furnished me with words having a vastly different meaning.

Mr. Swain had evidently left with his squaw strict instructions regarding the economical management of the household during his absence. Three times a week, with the regularity of clockwork, boiled whitefish, bannock and tea made their appearance upon the table. One morning even the sugar failed to show up. When I notified Mrs. Swain of this omission she crawled on hands and knees over to the bedroom and unlocked a massive iron-bound trunk. From within she extracted a pair of old Alex’s woolen drawers. Untying a knot at the knee she proceeded, after the manner of a conjurer, to shake out lumps of sugar upon the floor. Recovering from my astonishment I placed the sugar in the bowl and, having by this time overcome my fastidiousness, I dropped a couple of lumps in my tea, disregarding the mixed odor of camphor and lavender. I found later that this unique method of conserving food supplies dated back to the days when the lady had occupied a wigwam.

One day a canoe arrived from Pepekwatooce and to my surprise Helen Trout, our native housekeeper, bearing a broad smile upon her face, handed me a little square of birch-bark tied with a moccasin string.

“Cagwan oma? (What’s this?),” I asked her.

“It’s a letter from your sweetheart at Pepekwatooce,” replied the girl with a knowing grin.

Glancing at the bark I noticed the following superscription written in the Cree syllabic alphabet:

ᐱ ᐱᐠ ᐗ ᒍ ᓯ ᐅ ᑭ ᒣ ᓯ ᐢ

meaning “Pepekwatooce Okemasis,” or, in English, “The Young Master of Pepekwatooce.”

Wonderingly I opened the missive. Within was a sheet of fine inner bark from the birch tree and upon it was a letter written in the queer syllabic characters. With the ready aid of the giggling Helen we deciphered my Indian love letter. It commenced in the orthodox Cree manner: “Kar-sag-i-hi-tan O-ke-masis,” (To the Young Master whom I love), but immediately trailed off into far less romantic and more practical lines. My “girl friend,” it seemed, was hungry and desired that by return of the canoemen I would send her some sugar, sow-belly, flour, beads, and baking powder along with other equally unromantic objects as demonstrating my affection and regard.

When Alex Swain finally returned and informed me that I was to accompany the second fur brigade to Norway House my delight knew no bounds. Once again I was going to see and talk with old friends. For a while, at least, I would bid good-by to the eternal whitefish and bannock. What a change it was going to be to get amongst English speaking people again! Immediately I set about gathering together the few things I would require for the journey.

To the accompaniment of vociferous shouting and gun-firing ashore the boats got under way three days later, being accompanied to the first fire by almost a hundred bark canoes filled with laughing squaws and squalling infants. And these backwoods beauties certainly raised havoc with the rations when dinner was prepared!

At the end of God’s Lake is a mosquito-ridden portage, three miles in length, called the Mossy Portage, over which the boats had to be hauled and the equipment carried on the backs of the Indians. It took nearly two hours to get everything across, then, loading up our canoe once more, we paddled for about a mile and camped in an open spot where we would have the benefit of what breeze there was to keep away the mosquitoes. A few hours later the boatmen arrived, sweating and bloody from mosquito bites, but thoroughly good-humored as long as there was lots of grub.

The head guide, Peter Watt, then gave out the rations, each Indian receiving a strip of salt pork, a tin mugful of flour, some tea and sugar, and in a few minutes all were busy kneading the flour into dough, flattening this in a pan, then propping it before a fire of glowing red coals to cook into bannock. In a very short time the meal was consumed and every one rolled into their blankets upon beds of spruce boughs, with their feet towards the fire.

About four in the morning we were awakened by the guide’s stentorian cries of “Won-is-kark! Won-is-kark!” (Wake up! Wake up!) Rolling out we prepared and ate our breakfast, while above our heads the branches of the pine trees were hung with bejeweled drops of dew which scintillated and threw out a thousand glittering rays in the early morning sun. Then we loaded up and were on our way once again.

It turned out to be a sweltering hot August day, and the poor middlemen who did the rowing, having to rise to a standing posture with each stroke of the enormous oars, then throw their entire weight upon them, time after time for hours at a stretch, certainly earned the four or five meals which they partook of every day. Notwithstanding, every once in a while some of the young bucks would challenge the other boat to a race, then with riotous yells and whoops they would go right to it while the boats would simply surge through the water for a hundred yards or so until the ebullition of feeling had subsided.

These York boats, which were modeled very much after the style of the old Norse galleys, were introduced by Governor Simpson in 1826, and replaced the large bark “North canoes” in use before that. The larger ones were about forty feet long and ten feet wide, with stem and sternposts sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees to enable them to be easily pushed off any obstruction they might run onto in the rapids. These craft would carry 110 “pieces,” as the ninety-pound bales or packages were called, though the smaller boats, used on the shallower streams, carried only eighty.

The crew of the larger boats comprised a steersman, eight middlemen, or rowers, and a bowsman whose duty it was to fend the boat off any rocks or obstructions in the rapids with the long pole with which he was usually armed. The head guide would be one of the senior and more experienced steersmen and have charge of the entire brigade, the steersmen of the other boats answering to his orders.

By lake and river, up tumultuous roaring rapids and across long and difficult portages, we continued on our way until, at last, we reached Robinson Portage, only a hundred miles or so from Norway House. We found that the Norway House brigades had already left our freight on the other side of the two-mile portage and it would have to be carried across on the backs of our trippers before it could be loaded into the York boats. All next day the Indians sweated in the heat, hitting a dog-trot with two or three hundred-pound loads slung upon their backs from the leathern portage-straps which carried most of the weight upon the forehead. Usually the freight was dumped a third of the way across and taken over in three successive stages, which proved to be easier on the men.

Not until I had loaded the boats and seen them start out on their return journey did I turn to cross the portage. Then my two Crees carried over the canoe which we launched and loaded at the other side and set out once again, using our blanket for a sail. Two days later, scanning the sparkling white flecked waters of Playgreen Lake, I beheld with mingled feelings the whitewashed buildings and shingled roofs of Norway House almost hidden amongst the towering granite rocks.

Hardly had I stepped ashore ere I was surrounded by the grinning faces of my erstwhile companions; Roddy Ross, Bob Anderson, good-natured Donald Flett and a host of others, all anxious to hear how I had fared during my banishment to “Penitentiary Post”—Pepekwatooce, though all agreed that I had apparently not suffered from my exile. Breaking away I hurried up to the Big House to shake hands with Charlie Sinclair and his wife. It was good to hear my native tongue and to talk freely in English once again; neither was I at all disappointed when I heard that old Donald McTavish was away, having left for York Factory to meet the annual ship.

Mrs. Sinclair was rather disconsolate and lonely for she was undergoing one of those hardships and deprivations which fall to the lot of every Hudson’s Bay man’s wife. Her son, Moray, had reached the age when his education had to be considered so he had gone outside to school. Now she was watching her little daughter, Ramona, rapidly growing up; dreading the day when she would be separated from this child also. I told her of my experiences at Pepekwatooce; of the peculiar action of the rice and evaporated apples when I had turned my hand to cooking, and of the internal economy of the Alex Swain household until she became almost speechless from laughter and the tears coursed down her cheeks.

The next few days were a round of rollicking fun and laughter, of anecdotes and stories as dusk descended upon the Bachelors’ Hall; of evening bathing parties at Sandy Beach nearby or on the rocky islands in the lake.

After the discomforts and spartan fare of outpost life Norway House with its clean whitewashed buildings, orderly atmosphere, its beds with white linen upon them, and more especially the sumptuous fare provided by Miss McLean, the cook: potatoes, roast beef, fresh cream and milk, none of which I had seen for the greater part of a year, seemed like Paradise.

Mr. Sinclair told me that soon after open water two white men had arrived very unostentatiously, stating that they were mining men, and had hired canoes and Indians to take them to the Bay. Their names were Thervenet and Mallet, and from the first he had been suspicious that they were really scouting for some trading company. Not so, however, Mr. McTavish who was quite disarmed by their friendly manner and gave them all the help he could. So impressed and friendly did he become that the usually hard-boiled Scotsman had actually opened the books of the York Factory District to display with pride the excellent showing the posts had made under his administration. When they departed from Fort Churchill they had left a man behind who was to board at the post during the winter just to observe conditions thereabouts. Such was the rumor we heard.

When Mr. McTavish returned to Norway House and discovered that these two men were actually prominent representatives of the Revillon Frères Company, who were organizing to challenge the Company’s supremacy in the North, his indignation and humiliation knew no bounds; especially when he thought of the man at Fort Churchill and realized how neatly a spy had been planted right in the midst of one of the Company’s most profitable “preserves,” the secrets of which had always been guarded with most jealous care.^[1]

[1]

A couple of years later Revillon Frères did send out a ship the “Adventure” with a big cargo of trading goods, to open up the trade of Hudson Bay in opposition to the Company. The ship was wrecked in Hudson Straits; while they opened posts in many parts of the North, they never again attempted to do so in Keewatin District.