Читать книгу Life is an Adventure - R. J. Manion - Страница 5

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But I have gone somewhat ahead of my story, and must retrace my steps a few years, for the men who have been briefly mentioned came into my ken during my later teen years. The early childhood years, during which the town was still but a rambling collection of settlers’ homes—only one degree from the wilderness itself—deserve mention. The village had been an old Hudson Bay trading post, indeed an old stone fort still stood, but a few years later we foolishly let it be removed to make way for a railway yard. This we called “progress!” As at this portal a river, coming from the westward, met the broad surface of the lake, some of those old and picturesque fur-traders made it, in their eighteenth century voyages, a resting-place on their way toward the setting sun; La Vérendrye wintered near here about 1738 on the journey on which his sons reached the foothills of the Rockies. Only two miles away was an Indian village with its accompanying mission and school, presided over by those civilizers and Christianizers, the Jesuit Fathers.

It may have been because of this conjunction of circumstances—added to the reading of Indian stories—that I have always considered the most romantic pages of Canadian history to be those dealing with our early years of exploration, in which those daring and fascinating Frenchmen, Marquette, Joliette, LaSalle, DuLhut, La Vérendrye and others, explored this continent from the Atlantic to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and from the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. To travel in birch-bark canoes into the remote fastnesses of a new world, occupied only by savage Indians and wild game; to see opening out before their eyes day after day, lakes, rivers and woodlands upon which white men had never before looked; to face unhesitatingly attacks of Indian bands who were more cruel and cunning than wild animals; this must have made their adventurous life romantic beyond the dreams of the most visionary. The story of their glorious exploits has been fascinatingly told by Parkman, and here and there throughout Canada monuments have been raised to their heroic self-sacrifice.

Following these Frenchmen were some no less adventurous spirits of the English-speaking nationalities, such as Henry Hudson, who gave his name to the Hudson River in New York State and to the great bay which extends down toward the centre of Canada from the Arctic regions, as well as Mackenzie and Fraser and Thompson, who left their names upon our mighty rivers of the far Northwest. The entrancing story of the lives of these men fired my youthful imagination, and attracted me as no other historical studies ever have. In their exploits Canada has a romantic history, too often neglected by us in our boasting of the “achievements” of our “young country,” and too much overshadowed by the tales of kings and queens, their loves and their hates, their wars and their conquests. In accepting gratefully as our inheritance the inspiring history of the homelands of our forefathers, of the growth of British parliamentary institutions and British liberties, accompanied by the glorious literature of England, Ireland and Scotland, we should not forget the early, picturesque and significant story of Canada’s own development.

In that development the practical visionaries who built a railway across the continent, and the hardy men and women who accompanied that construction, had in their veins the same adventurous blood as the earlier pioneers of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, who cut their homes from the bushlands, amidst dangers and hardships that to-day we know not of—and with a spirit which seems to have diminished. The tales of these rough men and rougher manners have indeed a heroic side; they lived and loved and struggled in their crude villages and towns, and yet were torch-bearers of a new civilization. In these early childhood days I saw much of the rough, hard life of those men and women, watching the while our Canadian West go speedily forward in population and prosperity.

In the town in which we had settled, the life was quite typical of that in other remote outposts which were springing up across the continent. It was a rough life, of much privation and hardship, but it gave a training and a knowledge of men which have served me well in the years since then.

Life in winter in a town such as this was far removed from the life of to-day, in which the moving picture, the radio, bridge and the dance have, even in the outlying portions of the country, come into being. In those early days none of these was known except the occasional barn-dance, enjoyed to the tune of a local fiddle and the cry of some “caller-off,” who was a necessary feature—those “square dances” which were so unlike the clinging, affectionate dances of to-day’s society ballrooms.

Swing that girl, that pretty little girl,

The prettiest girl in the ballroom!

How that cry and others akin to it float back to my ears from those days when as a youngster I stood in a group along the wall, or peered in through the window at the hoeing-down which took place on those occasions! Beyond that, and perhaps a school concert put on by the pupils once a year, amusements were few and far between. Yet the people were, in all probability, as happy and contented as they are in our modern surroundings. Indeed, they may have been happier, for they demanded less, and did not expect that a paternal Government would take care of all their needs—as seems to be the case to-day on all sides. They had the independent spirit of an earlier and truer Canadianism, through which they faced hardship and trial with a gallantry and confidence all too rare now, when even those on relief expect luxuries unknown to the pioneers.

The Indian band in our neighbourhood was, I presume, much like Indian bands elsewhere in Canada. In character they are a good deal like grown-up children, whose ambitions rarely extend beyond the needs of the present moment. So much is this the case that the expression, “He lives like an Indian,” (taking no precautions for the future), is quite appropriate. As a class, Indians seem to lack the vitality to resist either the sicknesses or sins of the white race. As a medical man later in life I observed what so many have observed—that when a white man’s disease of any severe kind invades the Indian tribes, it frequently almost obliterates them. Measles, for example, when it breaks out among their children, so often leads to pneumonia and later perhaps to tuberculosis that the death rate is very much heavier than among the white race. Tuberculosis itself has been a brown plague as well as a white plague, having been much more fatal to the Indians than to the whites.

Regarding morals, it always appeared to me that some of the full-blooded Indians were rather unmoral than immoral; they did not seem to recognize right from wrong. As a result of this, the lowest class of traveller coming into the port did a great deal of damage among them, assisted by “fire-water.” Due to the excitable character of the Redskin, it has been recognized since the early days of Canada that the effect of whiskey upon the savage is very much greater than upon his white brother, and as a result there are laws against the giving or selling of whiskey to the Indians. These laws, however, did not prevent the lower type of whites from supplying the Indians with something for which they had a passion, partly, no doubt, because it was forbidden.

Nevertheless, there were among them many who resisted this temptation and were worthy citizens. There comes back to my memory one of these for whom we, even as young boys, had the utmost respect at all times. Ambrose Cirette was a handsome, dignified man with a proud carriage and a really distinguished air, and he spoke English almost perfectly. Some years before my arrival as a child in this section he had discovered a gold mine in the neighbourhood which he had sold to some Americans for fifty thousand dollars. The stories told of his use of the money were understandable in view of the unthrifty habits of Indians. It was said, for example, that he had rented a private car in which he had gone to Chicago, and there, instead of hiring a cab he would purchase one from the driver, then in a grandiose manner give it back to him as a gift. He veritably threw his money around “like a drunken Indian.” The stories of his foolish spending while the money lasted were mostly of this type, but, in spite of these tales, he always gave the impression of being “a gentleman of the old school.” Never, in all the years I knew him, did he do anything that any gentleman should not do; and years later, having gone back to my own section to practise the profession of medicine, I had the opportunity of checking up some of the stories. The village by that time (in 1906) had become a progressive little city of about ten thousand people, and occasionally some of the Indians known by me as a child called in their old companion at shinny to act as a medicine man. On one of these occasions I saw my old friend Ambrose on the road, and, as the distance was six or seven miles to the Indian Mission, invited him to drive with me. After discussing general matters for a few moments, my curiosity got the better of me on this first occasion on which one felt the right to speak to him on a basis of equality.

“Ambrose, tell me the story of that gold mine which you discovered, and of which we used to hear so much in my childhood here.”

He confirmed the discovery and the amount mentioned.

“Tell me what you did with the money. You know the stories that go about as to how you spent it.”

“Well, Doctor,” he said, “some of those stories of course are true, but they tell only the foolish things of me. They do not tell you, for example, that I had a little niece whom I put in the Indian School at the Soo, whose education I paid for, and who is to-day a school-teacher among my people. They do not tell you of some Indian boys whom I not only educated, but to whom I gave a little start in life; and of course they do exaggerate very much the tales of my foolish spending of thousands of dollars. However,” he added, “I did spend the money, a good deal of it uselessly and unwisely, but a good deal of it I also spent wisely and generously.”

Knowing that the old man had nothing but a little cabin at the Indian Mission to live in, and existed somewhat precariously, I asked him whether he had any regrets as to the squandering of the money.

“Not a regret in the world,” he replied. “I got the money easy; I spent it easy. I did a few things that were useful, and I squandered the rest; but I have been entirely happy without it, and I desire nothing in the world that I do not possess.”

He said this proudly, as an Indian chief might declare his faith, and one must admire his philosophy. Two or three years later, when old Ambrose died, there was genuine regret among all the people who had known him and respected him for so many years.

Of course there were not many like Ambrose, but here and there among them were admirable characters. One whom we called “Old Ogema” was another for whom most of us felt real friendship, and in whom we had great confidence. Like so many white men, Old Ogema was anxious to discover a gold mine, and was always confident that he could walk to the end of the rainbow and bring back a pot of gold. As the country in that neighbourhood was rocky and as many of the out-croppings in this portion of the pre-Cambrian shield showed “free” gold, some of us gladly “grub-staked” Ogema on many occasions. By “grub-staking,” one means giving prospectors sufficient money to buy their supplies, implements, and food (the latter being described as the “grub”), in return for which the prospectors spend some months in the woods, and, if they discover anything that might become a mine, they share with the contributors to the pool in its ownership. Old Ogema brought us samples at various times, but none of his prospects ever turned out of any great value. In this he was no less unfortunate than most of the white prospectors. I have been taking part in these pools now for nearly thirty years, and on only one occasion was a valuable mine discovered. But Ogema kept the habit of searching for the rainbow’s end, and at the same time retained the confidence of his white fellow-Canadians, until he, too, passed on to the Happy Hunting Grounds to which Ambrose had recently preceded him.

The common greeting between us boys and any of the Indians whom we met was, “Bon joo nitchee,” which we had been told by some of the Indians meant, “Good-day, friend.” The “Bon joo” was a modification of “Bon jour,” though I have no idea where the “nitchee” comes from. It may be a Chippewa word.

One of the interesting and happy results of the fact that Indians inhabited Canada before we did, is that we have wisely chosen Indian names for many of our rivers, lakes and mountains, some of which names are both musical and appropriate. “Kaministiquia” was the name of the river in which we had our swimming hole. At first a little difficult to pronounce, it really is more musical than many of our English names. Other Indian names in the neighbourhood were: “Nipigon,” “Kakabeka,” “Shabaqua,” “Mokomon”; and other sections of Canada have “Toronto,” “Niagara,” “Chippewa,” “Okanagan,” “Capilano,” and many others as sweet.

The Indian tribe in our section lived to a large extent by fishing, trapping, hunting and berry-picking, with occasional financial assistance earned by odd jobs such as piloting or guiding white men on canoe trips, on which they were most valuable additions to the party. Rather an interesting fact is that in almost every activity in which the Indians took part, the white men ultimately surpassed them. The birch-bark canoe itself has been bettered by the wooden canoe of the white manufacturer. In athletics such as paddling, swimming, lacrosse-playing (originally an Indian game), running, or jumping, our white boys usually surpassed the Indians. There were exceptions, but they were very rare. Tom Longboat, the great long-distance runner, was one of the exceptions. Even in daring out onto Lake Superior in canoes or skiffs we took chances that the Indian would not face, though this may have been more from ignorant recklessness than courage on our part.