Читать книгу Arctic Trader--the account of twenty years with the Hudson's Bay Company - Philip Henry Godsell - Страница 9

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That night Chief Factor McTavish went into executive session with George Ray, and next morning I was informed that I would have to leave shortly for Norway House, four hundred miles inland, either by canoe or skiff.

Ogston, Purvis and Laing had already departed, somewhat regretfully I thought, for another winter of isolation at the distant trading posts of Fort Severn, Weenusk and Trout Lake, so the convivial gatherings within the Bachelors’ Hall had already become a thing of the past. Massie, it seemed, was to remain along with Harry Moir at York Factory.

Early in September I bade farewell to my companions and jumped into the skiff which was to take me on the next stage of my journey. Accompanying me were four Cree Indians. It was slow and tiresome work tracking the clumsy craft against the swift current of the Hayes river. Frequently we would be forced to jump, waist deep, into the icy waters in order to lighten the skiff and get it safely past some rocky obstruction while two of the Indians walked along the shore towing, or “tracking,” the boat with a long cod-line. As the river banks were usually precipitous these Indians had to scramble along, often high up, crawling along narrow ledges where there was scarcely room to pass, while at other times they were at the water’s edge, floundering knee-deep through slimy clay or fighting their way through closely-matted willows.

HUDSON’S BAY PAPER MONEY USED AT FORT GARRY, NOW WINNIPEG, BEFORE CONFEDERATION.

At night we picked a suitable place to camp, pulled up the boat and soon had a huge log fire blazing cheerily away, the ruddy glow painting the nearby foliage and trunks of the trees a deep red, while showers of sparks shot high up into the encircling gloom. The spare figures of the bronzed Crees with their black locks, as they squatted cross-legged, smoking, before the fire gave an atmosphere of unreality to the primeval environment, which was enhanced by the eerie hooting of a night owl or the shrill cry of a yellow-leg.

HUDSON’S BAY TRADE TOKENS (Godsell Collection).

Left to Right:	⅛	Made Beaver.
	¼	Made Beaver.
	½	Made Beaver.
	1	Made Beaver.

Day after day we pushed inland but never saw a living soul. We experienced one unfortunate mishap about ten days after leaving York Factory for the tracking line broke while the boat was being hauled up a rapid. Next second the craft had overturned, spilling everything into the boiling waters, while the two Crees who were aboard were swept over the falls into the foaming cauldron below. Fortunately the current cast them up on a sandspit where we rescued them. We repaired the craft to some extent, and later were fortunate in buying a birch-bark canoe and jerked moosemeat from the only Indians we met on the entire journey.

Then one bright morning we rounded a bend in the river and saw before us, atop of a high bank, the white buildings and flagpole of Oxford House. Ashton Alston hurried down to meet us, and I was greeted by a broad grin as I stepped from the canoe, unkempt, unshaven and very sunburned. With true northern hospitality Mr. Alston saw to it that I was immediately provided for, both internally and externally, and I felt more like myself as soon as I was cleaned up and attired in new raiment from head to foot.

While I was disposing of a roasted mallard duck he kept up a running fire of conversation. My experience, he assured me, was by no means unusual but part of the everyday routine of a Hudson’s Bay man. He added that he had once run short of food while on a winter journey to York Factory and had been forced to boil and eat his moccasins. The merry-eyed little Englishman was a typical product of the time and place. The Company could do no wrong; his whole life and soul was devoted to its service, and he exercised a despotic sway over all the aboriginal inhabitants of his vast forest domain. Fur, and more fur, for the Company was his one and only thought.

Although the Charter, granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company by King Charles II. in 1670, giving them almost omnipotent rights throughout the greater part of Canada, had no longer any force all these old traders appeared to think that they still owned the Indians and the North. The bitterness aroused in their breasts if a “free trader” ventured to defy the might of the “Gentlemen Adventurers” by attempting to trade on their own was almost inconceivable. Usually they did not last long.

Such was the foundation upon which the Hudson’s Bay Company’s greatness was built; a legacy they owed to the old North West Company. The feeling was irresistible and was imparted to every new employee who joined the organization, and, to a large extent, to the Indian hunters also. As most of the apprentice clerks entered the service at the impressionable age of sixteen or seventeen these influences had a marked effect in forming their future character and outlook upon life, and in some cases made them even unscrupulous in upholding the Company’s fancied rights.

After a few pleasant days with my hospitable host I departed, this time in a good Peterborough canoe with two Cree paddlers. Each night was vibrant with the cries of passing wild fowl and daily we bagged fat mallard ducks amongst the reeds, roasting them at night before an open camp-fire while the bannock was browning in the frying pan.

At length we reached the beautiful body of water known as Little Playgreen Lake, entered the deep gorge of the Nelson river and saw before us, in ideal tranquillity, Norway House, headquarters for Keewatin—Land of the North Wind. Proceeding to the large house in the center of the square of white painted buildings I entered the office and soon became acquainted with the various members of the staff. Charlie Sinclair, a handsome man of about forty who spoke Cree like a native, was in charge in the absence of Chief Factor McTavish. For nigh upon one hundred and seventy years his family had served the Company; carried trade to the ferocious Blackfeet; discovered the Sinclair Pass across the Rockies, and established the first posts at both Oxford House and Norway House. I was immediately introduced to Mrs. Sinclair whose subsequent kindness forms one of the most treasured recollections of my sojourn in the Northland.

A few days later the little steamer which ran to Warren’s Landing, at the head of Lake Winnipeg, returned bringing back Donald McTavish, and with him the pomp and circumstance of a bygone age.

As the long winter was fast approaching hasty preparations were now made to meet it. Daily squaws arrived with canoe loads of whitefish, strung ten on a stick, which they traded at the store, while the Indians were sent to put up fish at various neighboring lakes. In all, some thirty thousand whitefish were purchased and hung on stages to dry in the air or freeze, to be used for feeding the sleigh dogs. This was necessary as Norway House was an important post. Not only were dog-teams kept for tripping to the Indian camps for furs but others were employed in carrying the mail over the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg, while others from the far-off posts frequently arrived in the winter time and always needed fish for their return journey.

The staff at Norway House comprised Mr. Taylor, an old bearded Orkneyman who had grown gray in the service; Roddy Ross whose father, as Chief Factor, once exercised an almost despotic sway over the surrounding tribesmen. There was also Donald Flett, beau-ideal of all the dusky maidens, a wonderful runner and a dog-driver of renown, and Bob Anderson who shared with Donald and Roddy an intense liking for the products of John Barleycorn; a trio who never enjoyed themselves more than when smuggling in liquor from the Landing under the nose of the vigilant Sergeant Smith, who invariably searched any craft upon which any one of them happened to be traveling.

At Norway House we lived in a sort of semi-feudal state. At regular hours the bell rang and we paraded to the messroom. Here, with much pomp and ceremony, presided the bewhiskered Donald McTavish, and although we were literally in the back of the beyond, woe betide the person who appeared at table unshaven or without a white collar on. Once only I appeared with a spotted scarf knotted around my neck. Hardly was I seated ere I found myself transfixed by old Donald’s astonished and disapproving gaze. A string of expletives crackled off the old man’s tongue as he demanded to know whether I considered they were all barbarians in this country. He answered his own query by exclaiming that, being an Englishman I could, of course, not be expected to know any better, and I was forthwith ordered to proceed to my room and put a collar on.

Only Chief Factor McTavish’s intense indignation prevented Bob, Roddy Ross and Alex Budd giving vent to their suppressed amusement with guffaws of laughter. Having dealt with me in the interests of Northland etiquette, he picked up the carving knife, sliced a tempting morsel off the roast before him, conveyed it to his mouth with the carving fork, then went on carving dinner.

In the Bachelors’ Hall a few evenings later Donald Flett, Bob, Roddy Ross and Alex Budd, head dog-driver and tripper for the Company, a tall handsome man whose black hair fell in ringlets about his ears and forehead, were seated around the crackling stove when the subject of Mr. McTavish’s peculiarities was brought up. Roddy started to laugh.

“I’ll never forget the time he married John Mestatim and Mary Muchiskisin!” he chuckled.

I was anxious to hear the story and finally Roddy opened up.

“Mestatim had a big debt with the Company and refused to go out and hunt. He’d had trouble with his wife and left her. Now he was in love with Mary. Some said it was love medicine; it must have been gol-darned good stuff for the big Indian sure did have it bad! Well, finally he went to old Papanakis, the minister, and wanted to marry the Muchiskisin girl. Nothing doing! Then he went to Harry Fox. Still nothing doing! It was getting pretty late in the fall and still he wasn’t away to his hunting grounds but mooning around that Muchiskisin girl’s place all the time. And his debt was getting bigger and bigger as he was a first-class hunter and we were afraid to lose him. Finally he came to McTavish. By this time the old man was worried to death about the big debt and was just about ready to do anything to get John away to his hunting grounds. Anyway, Mestatim suggested that old Donald marry them. Of course, he had married lots of couples before, but then they were usually both single and there weren’t any missionaries around. ‘Sure,’ says McTavish in desperation, ‘you come down here tomorrow morning, then get to hell off to your hunting grounds.’ Next morning Mary and John turned up, decked out like a couple of Christmas trees, along with a bunch of friends. If they expected any fancy ceremony they were sure a disappointed pair. The old man just looked at them as though he didn’t know just what to do. ‘Here, Mary, sit over here!’ said McTavish as he pointed to one of those gray painted forms. So Mary sat there, her back as straight as a ramrod, with a coy look half covered with her shawl. ‘Now, John, sit here too. All right. Now hold her hand. Mary, do you love him? Yes, eh? John, do you love her? All right, now get to hell out of here, and here’s an order on the store for some flour and jam and sow-belly!”

“What happened?” I inquired.

“Lots,” replied my companion. “The mission got sore about it and took the matter up and old McTavish found himself in a devil of a fix, bringing these here new-fangled divorce ideas into the North. Not only that, John’s wife raised hell and said she wanted him back as the other girl had conjured, and put a spell, on him. Oh! yes, it finally worked out all right and blew over. Anyway, McTavish was satisfied, young Mestatim paid his debt!”

The following day I was working in the office when Mr. McTavish blew in.

“Hey, Flannagan!” he yelled, using a nickname he had recently applied to me. “I don’t suppose you can type. None of you damn Englishmen can do anything!”

I compromised by saying I could type a little but not much, whereupon he sat down, scribbled savagely away for a while then proudly handed me the paper, telling me to go ahead and type that. I looked and must have shown my surprise somewhat for the little man adopted a belligerent attitude, remarking as he did so: “Well! What the hell’s wrong with that?” The letter was addressed to the factor at Fort Churchill and it was very evident that he must have been in the old man’s bad books. It commenced: “Sir: Of all the damn fool nonsense the suggestions in your letter can’t be beat. I never did give you any credit for having any brains, and that dirty temper of yours is always raising hell. Once again....” Whew! It was a hot one.

As far as possible I transformed it into the more orthodox letter of commerce then, proud of my composition, took it back into the office for signature. I was not prepared for the explosion of wrath that followed. What the devil was this? This wasn’t his letter at all! If I thought that any damn fool Englishman could teach a Scotsman old enough to be his father how to write a simple letter then I was barking up the wrong gum tree. Just what he might have expected!

“Go back and do it again, and do it right!” he thundered. “And, by the way, write a letter at the same time to the Commissioner and tell him next time they send out any more apprentice clerks they must be from Scotland. No more Englishmen for me!”

One morning, while a bitter north wind tossed ragged plumes of white smoke from the chimneys of the Big House and the Bachelors’ Hall into a sky of burnished copper, wherein the sun-dogs gave promise of further cold to come, the interior of the fort presented a scene of unusual animation and excitement. For, drawn up before the store, were eighteen long, narrow toboggans, each harnessed to a team of rangy sleigh dogs. Alex Budd, Donald Flett and a dozen other drivers, all clad in fringed and decorated buckskin capotes, blue stroud leggings and fur caps, were scurrying here and there, frequently holding their gauntleted hands before their faces to avoid getting frost-bitten from the biting blast. For Keewatin, the dreaded north wind, plays no favorites but treats one and all alike, often searing the face as though with a hot iron.

Cases containing mirrors, colored cloth, beads, duffle, fishhooks, axes, copper kettles and whatnot; sacks of flour, kegs of tallow, and a heterogeneous collection of other trading goods, were being carried from the storehouses and lashed upon the sleds.

Meanwhile Alex Budd and Charlie Sinclair were rushing here and there shouting orders, pointing out defects in the harness, straightening out the dog collars as the huskies barked and leapt about in their traces, anxious to be off. Bells jangled as the dogs proudly tossed their massive heads and shook their beribboned standing-irons in the gusty breeze.

“Marche! Marche!” yelled Alex as he cracked his whip and gave the straining animals their heads. Like lightning they were off. Already the Indian foregoer had slid his moccasined feet into his snowshoe thongs and was headed for the gateway, his hood pulled close about his face. Whips cracked. Dogs barked and howled with delight or fear. Bells jangled loudly in the frosty air. Then to the vociferous accompaniment of a medley of yells from the Indian drivers: “Choc! Choc! Gee, muchistim! Marche! you ...,” the teams sped one by one through the gateway and soon were lost to sight. But for some time the barking of the huskies and the cries of the exasperated drivers in English, French and Cree echoed from the rocky gorge of the Nelson River. The first mail had left for Winnipeg, and the first trippers for the Indian camps. Soon fur, the wealth and life-blood of the Northland, would be flowing into the storehouses of the “Gentlemen Adventurers.”

Wrapped in rabbitskin robes within a gaudily painted carriole, drawn by six huge dogs, and driven by the buckskin clad Johnny Robertson, Chief Factor McTavish departed for the interior to inspect the far-off posts.

Meanwhile, amongst the primitive pagan Indians at an isolated trading post near Island Lake, events were taking place which were to have a far-reaching effect upon the North country and the residents of Norway House.