The Long Labrador Trail

by Dillon Wallace

CHAPTER IV

ON THE OLD INDIAN TRAIL

Next morning we scouted ahead and found that the trail led to a small lake some five and a half miles beyond our camp. For a mile or so the brush was pretty thick and the trail was difficult to follow, but beyond that it was comparatively well defined though exceedingly steep, the hill rising to an elevation of one thousand and fifty feet above the Nascaupee River in the first two miles. We had fifteen hundred pounds of outfit to carry upon our backs, and I realized that at first we should have to trail slowly and make several loads of it, for, with the exception of Pete, none of the men was in training. The work was totally different from anything to which they had been accustomed, and as I did not wish to break their spirits or their ardor, I instructed them to carry only such packs as they could walk under with perfect ease until they should become hardened to the work.

The weather had been cool and bracing, but as if to add to our difficulties the sun now boiled down, and the black flies—­“the devil’s angels” some one called them, came in thousands to feast upon the newcomers and make life miserable for us all. Duncan was as badly treated by them as any of us, although he belonged to the country, and I overheard him swearing at a lively gait soon after the little beasts began their attacks.

“Why, Duncan,” said I, “I didn’t know you swore.”

“I does, sir, sometimes—­when things makes me,” he replied.

“But it doesn’t help matters any to swear, does it?”

“No, sir, but” (swatting his face) “damn the flies—­it’s easin’ to the feelin’s to swear sometimes.”

On several occasions after this I heard Duncan “easin’ his feelin’s” in long and astounding bursts of profane eloquence, but he did try to moderate his language when I was within earshot. Once I asked him:

“Where in the world did you learn to swear like that, Duncan?”

“At the lumber camps, sir,” he replied.

In the year I had spent in Labrador I had never before heard a planter or native of Groswater Bay swear. But this explained it. The lumbermen from “civilization” were educating them.

At one o’clock on July first, half our outfit was portaged to the summit of the hill and we ate our dinner there in the broiling sun, for we were above the trees, which ended some distance below us. It was fearfully hot—­a dead, suffocating heat—­with not a breath of wind to relieve the stifling atmosphere, and some one asked what the temperature was.

“Eighty-seven in the shade, but no shade,” Richards remarked as he threw down his pack and consulted the thermometer where I had placed it under a low bush. “I’ll swear it’s a hundred and fifty in the sun.”

During dinner Pete pointed to the river far below us, saying, “Look! Indian canoe.” I could not make it out without my binoculars, but with their aid discerned a canoe on the river, containing a solitary paddler. None of us, excepting Pete, could see the canoe without the glasses, at which he was very proud and remarked: “No findin’ glass need me. See far, me. See long way off.”

On other occasions, afterward, I had reason to marvel at Pete’s clearness of vision.

It was John Ahsini in the canoe, as we discovered later when he joined us and helped Stanton up the hill with his last pack to our night camp on the summit. I invited John to eat supper with us and he accepted the invitation. He told us he was hunting “moshku” (bear) and was camped at the mouth of the Red River. He assured us that we would find no more hills like this one we were on, and, pointing to the northward, said, “Miam potagan” (good portage) and that we would find plenty “atuk” (caribou), “moshku” and “mashumekush” (trout). After supper I gave John some “stemmo,” and he disappeared down the trail to join his wife in their wigwam below.

We were all of us completely exhausted that night. Stanton was too tired to eat, and lay down upon the bare rocks to sleep. Pete stretched our tent wigwam fashion on some old Indian tepee poles, and, without troubling ourselves to break brush for a bed, we all soon joined Stanton in a dreamless slumber upon his rocky couch.

The night, like the day, was very warm, and when I aroused Pete at sunrise the next morning (July second) to get breakfast the mosquitoes were about our heads in clouds.

A magnificent panorama lay before us. Opposite, across the valley of the Nascaupee, a great hill held its snow-tipped head high in the heavens. Some four miles farther up to the northwest, the river itself, where it was choked with blocks of ice, made its appearance and threaded its way down to the southeast until it was finally lost in the spruce-covered valley. Beyond, bits of Grand Lake, like silver settings in the black surrounding forest, sparkled in the light of the rising sun. Away to the westward could be traced the rushing waters of the Red River making their course down through the sandy ridges that enclose its valley. To the northward lay a great undulating wilderness, the wilderness that we were to traverse. It was Sunday morning, and the holy stillness of the day engulfed our world.

When Pete had the fire going and the kettle singing I roused the boys and told them we would make this, our first Sunday in the bush, an easy one, and simply move our camp forward to a more hospitable and sheltered spot by a little brook a mile up the trail, and then be ready for the “tug of war” on Monday.

In accordance with this plan, after eating our breakfast we each carried a light pack to our new camping ground, and there pitched our tent by a tiny brook that trickled down through the rocks. While Stanton cooked dinner, Pete brought forward a second pack. After we had eaten, Richards suggested to Pete that they take the fish net ahead and set it in the little lake which was still some two and a half miles farther on the trail. They had just returned when a terrific thunderstorm broke upon us, and every moment we expected the tent to be carried away by the gale that accompanied the downpour of rain. It was then that Richards remembered that he had left his blankets to dry upon the tepee poles at the last camp. The rain ceased about five o’clock, and Duncan volunteered to return with Richards and help him recover his blankets, which they found far from dry.

Mosquitoes, it seemed to me, were never so numerous or vicious as after this thunderstorm. We had head nets that were a protection from them generally, but when we removed the nets to eat, the attacks of the insects were simply insufferable, so we had our supper in the tent. After our meal was finished and Pete had washed the dishes, I read aloud a chapter from the Bible—­a Sunday custom that was maintained throughout the trip—­and Stanton sang some hymns. Then we prevailed upon him to entertain us with other songs. He had an excellent tenor voice and a repertoire ranging from “The Holy City” to “My Brother Bob,” and these and some of the old Scotch ballads, which he sang well, were favorites that he was often afterward called upon to render as we gathered around our evening camp fire, smoking our pipes and drinking in the tonic fragrance of the great solemn forest around us after a day of hard portaging. These impromptu concerts, story telling, and reading aloud from two or three “vest pocket” classics that I carried, furnished our entertainment when we were not too tired to be amused.

The rain cleared the atmosphere, and Monday was cool and delightful, and, with the exception of two or three showers, a perfect day. Camp was moved and our entire outfit portaged to the first small lake. Our net, which Pete and Richards had set the day before, yielded us nothing, but with my rod I caught enough trout for a sumptuous supper.

The following morning (July fourth) Pete and I, who arose at half-past four, had just finished preparing breakfast of fried pork, flapjacks and coffee, and I had gone to the tent to call the others, when Pete came rushing after me in great excitement, exclaiming, “Caribou! Rifle quick!” He grabbed one of the 44’s and rushed away and soon we heard bang-bang-bang seven times from up the lake shore. It was not long before Pete returned with a very humble bearing and crestfallen countenance, and without a word leaned the rifle against a tree and resumed his culinary operations.

“Well, Pete,” said I, “how many caribou did you kill?”

“No caribou. Miss him,” he replied.

“But I heard seven shots. How did you miss so many times?” I asked.

“Miss him,” answered Pete. “I see caribou over there, close to water, run fast, try get lee side so he don’t smell me. Water in way. Go very careful, make no noise, but he smell me. He hold his head up like this. He sniff, then he start. He go through trees very quick. See him, me, just little when he runs through trees. Shoot seven times. Hit him once, not much. He runs off. No good follow. Not hurt much, maybe goes very far.”

“You had caribou fever, Pete,” suggested Richards.

“Yes,” said Easton, “caribou fever, sure thing.”

“I don’t believe you’d have hit him if he hadn’t winded you,” Stanton remarked. “The trouble with you, Pete, is you can’t shoot.”

“No caribou fever, me,” rejoined Pete, with righteous indignation at such a suggestion. “Kill plenty moose, kill red deer; never have moose fever, never have deer fever.” Then turning to me he asked, “You want caribou, Mr. Wallace?”

“Yes,” I answered, “I wish we could get some fresh meat, but we can wait a few days. We have enough to eat, and I don’t want to take time to hunt now.”

“Plenty signs. I get caribou any day you want him. Tell me when you want him, I kill him,” Pete answered me, ignoring the criticisms of the others as to his marksmanship and hunting prowess. All that day and all the next the men let no opportunity pass to guy Pete about his lost caribou, and on the whole he took the banter very good-naturedly, but once confided to me that “if those boys get up early, maybe they see caribou too and try how much they can do.”

After breakfast Pete and I paddled to the other end of the little lake to pick up the trail while the others broke camp. In a little while he located it, a well-defined path, and we walked across it half a mile to another and considerably larger lake in which was a small, round, moundlike, spruce-covered island so characteristic of the Labrador lakes.

On our way back to the first lake Pete called my attention to a fresh caribou track in the hard earth. It was scarcely distinguishable, and I had to look very closely to make it out. Then he showed me other signs that I could make nothing of at all—­a freshly turned pebble or broken twig. These, he said, were fresh deer signs. A caribou had passed toward the larger lake that very morning.

“If you want him, I get him,” said Pete. I could see he felt rather deeply his failure of the morning and that he was anxious to redeem himself. I wanted to give him the opportunity to do so, especially as the young men, unused to deprivations, were beginning to crave fresh meat as a relief from the salt pork. At the same time, however, I felt that the fish we were pretty certain to get from this time on would do very well for the present, and I did not care to take time to hunt until we were a little deeper into the country. Therefore I told him, “No, we will wait a day or two.”

Pete, as I soon discovered, had an insatiable passion for hunting, and could never let anything in the way of game pass him without qualms of regret. Sometimes, where a caribou trail ran off plain and clear in the moss, it was hard to keep from running after it. Nothing ever escaped his ear or eye. He had the trained senses and instincts of the Indian hunter. When I first saw him in New York he looked so youthful and evidently had so little confidence in himself, answering my question as to whether he could do this or that with an aggravating “I don’t know,” that I felt a keen sense of disappointment in him. But with every stage of our journey he had developed, and now was in his element. He was quite a different individual from the green Indian youth whom I had first seen walking timidly beside the railway conductor at the Grand Central Station in New York.

The portage between the lakes was an easy one and, as I have said, well defined, and we reached the farther shore of the second lake early in the afternoon. Here we found an old Indian camping ground covering several acres. It had evidently been at one time a general rendezvous of the Indians hunting in this section, as was indicated by the large number of wigwams that had been pitched here. That was a long while ago, however, for the old poles were so decayed that they fell into pieces when we attempted to pick them up.

There was no sign of a trail leading from the old camp ground, and I sent Pete and Richards to circle the bush and endeavor to locate one that I knew was somewhere about, while I fished and Stanton and Duncan prepared an early supper. A little later the two men returned, unsuccessful in their quest. They had seen two or three trails, any of which might be our trail. Of course but one of them could be the right one.

This report was both perplexing and annoying, for I did not wish to follow for several days a wrong route and then discover the error when much valuable time had been lost.

I therefore decided that we must be sure of our position before proceeding, and early the following morning dispatched Richards and Pete on a scouting expedition to a high hill some distance to the northeast that they might, from that view-point, note the general contour of the land and the location of any visible chain of lakes leading to the northwest through which the Indian trail might pass, and then endeavor to pick up the trail from one of these lakes, noting old camping grounds and other signs. As a precaution, in case they were detained over night each carried some tea and some erbswurst, a rifle, a cup at his belt and a compass. When Pete took the rifle he held it up meaningly and said, “Fresh meat to-night. Caribou,” and I could see that he was planning to make a hunt of it.

When they were gone, I took Easton with me and climbed another hill nearer camp, that I might get a panoramic view of the valley in which we were camped. From this vantage ground I could see, stretching off to the northward, a chain of three or four small lakes which, I concluded, though there was other water visible, undoubtedly marked our course. Far to the northwest was a group of rugged, barren, snow-capped mountains which were, perhaps, the “white hills,” behind which the Indians had told us lay Seal Lake. At our feet, sparkling in the sunlight, spread the lake upon whose shores our tent, a little white dot amongst the green trees, was pitched. A bit of smoke curled up from our camp fire, where I knew Stanton and Duncan were baking “squaw bread.”

We returned to camp to await the arrival and report of Richards and Pete, and occupied the afternoon in catching trout which, though more plentiful than in the first lake, were very small.

Toward evening, when a stiff breeze blew in from the lake and cleared the black flies and mosquitoes away. Easton took a canoe out, stripped, and sprang into the water, while I undressed on shore and was in the midst of a most refreshing bath when, suddenly, the wind died away and our tormentors came upon us in clouds. It was a scramble to get into our clothes again, but before I succeeded in hiding my nakedness from them, I was pretty severely wounded.

It was scarcely six o’clock when Richards and Pete walked into camp and proudly threw down some venison. Pete had kept his promise. On the lookout at every step for game, he had espied an old stag, and, together, he and Richards had stalked it, and it had received bullets from both their rifles. I shall not say to which hunter belonged the honor of killing the game. They were both very proud of it.

But best of all, they had found, to a certainty, the trail leading to one of the chain of little lakes which Easton and I had seen, and these lakes, they reported, took a course directly toward a larger lake, which they had glimpsed. I decided that this must be the lake of which the Indians at Northwest River had told us—­Lake Nipishish (Little Water). This was very gratifying intelligence, as Nipishish was said to be nearly half way to Seal Lake, from where we had begun our portage on the Nascaupee.

What a supper we had that night of fresh venison, and new “squaw bread,” hot from the pan!

In the morning we portaged our outfit two miles, and removed our camp to the second one of the series of lakes which Easton and I had seen from the hill, and the fourth lake after leaving the Nascaupee River. The morning was fearfully hot, and we floundered through marshes with heavy packs, bathed in perspiration, and fairly breathing flies and mosquitoes. Not a breath of air stirred, and the humidity and heat were awful. Stanton and Duncan remained to pitch the tent and bring up some of our stuff that had been left at the second lake, while Richards, Easton, Pete and I trudged three miles over the hills for the caribou meat which had been cached at the place where the animal was killed, Richards and Pete having brought with them only enough for two or three meals.

The country here was rough and broken, with many great bowlders scattered over the hilltops. When we reached the cache we were ravenously hungry, and built a fire and had a very satisfying luncheon of broiled venison steak and tea. We bad barely finished our meal when heavy black clouds overcast the sky, and the wind and rain broke upon us in the fury of a hurricane. With the coming of the storm the temperature dropped fully forty degrees in half as many minutes, and in our dripping wet garments we were soon chilled and miserable. We hastened to cut the venison up and put it into packs, and with each a load of it, started homeward. On the way I stopped with Pete to climb a peak that I might have a view of the surrounding country and see the large lake to the northward which he and Richards had reported the evening before. The atmosphere was sufficiently clear by this time for me to see it, and I was satisfied that it was undoubtedly Lake Nipishish, as no other large lake had been mentioned by the Indians.

We hastened down the mountain and made our way through rain-soaked bushes and trees that showered us with their load of water at every step, and when at last we reached camp and I threw down my pack, I was too weary to change my wet garments for dry ones, and was glad to lie down, drenched as I was, to sleep until supper was ready.

None of our venison must be wasted. All that we could not use within the next day or two must be “jerked,” that is, dried, to keep it from spoiling. To accomplish this we erected poles, like the poles of a wigwam, and suspended the meat from them, cut in thin strips, and in the center, between the poles, made a small, smoky fire to keep the greenbottle flies away, that they might not “blow” the venison, as well as to aid nature in the drying process.

All day on July seventh the rain poured down, a cold, northwest wind blew, and no progress was made in drying our meat. There was nothing to do but wait in the tent for the storm to clear.

When Pete went out to cook dinner I told him to make a little corn meal porridge and let it go at that, but what a surprise he had for us when, a little later, dripping wet and hands full of kettles, he pushed his way into the tent! A steaming venison potpie, broiled venison steaks, hot fried bread dough, stewed prunes for dessert and a kettle of hot tea! All experienced campers in the north woods are familiar with the fried bread dough. It is dough mixed as you would mix it for squaw bread, but not quite so stiff, pulled out to the size of your frying pan, very thin, and fried in swimming pork grease. In taste it resembles doughnuts. Hubbard used to call it “French toast.” Our young men had never eaten it before, and Richards, taking one of the cakes, asked Pete:

“What do you call this?”

“I don’t know,” answered Pete.

“Well,” said Richards, with a mouthful of it, “I call it darn good.”

“That’s what we call him then,” retorted Pete, “darn good.”

And so the cakes were christened “darn goods,” and always afterward we referred to them by that name.

The forest fire which I have mentioned as having swept this country to the shores of Grand Lake some thirty-odd years ago, had been particularly destructive in this portion of the valley where we were now encamped. The stark dead spruce trees, naked skeletons of the old forest, stood all about, and that evening, when I stepped outside for a look at the sky and weather, I was impressed with the dreariness of the scene. The wind blew in gusts, driving the rain in sheets over the face of the hills and through the spectral trees, finally dashing it in bucketfuls against our tent.

The next forenoon, however, the sky cleared, and in the afternoon Richards and I went ahead in one of the canoes to hunt the trail. We followed the north shore of the lake to its end, then portaged twenty yards across a narrow neck into another lake, and keeping near the north shore of this lake also, continued until we came upon a creek of considerable size running out of it and taking a southeasterly course. Where the creek left the lake there was an old Indian fishing camp. It was out of the question that our trail should follow the valley of this creek, for it led directly away from our goal. We, therefore, returned and explored a portion of the north shore of the lake, which was very bare, bowlder strewn, and devoid of vegetation for the most part—­even moss.

Once we came upon a snow bank in a hollow, and cooled ourselves by eating some of the snow. Our observations made it quite certain that the trail left the northern side of the second lake through a bowlder-strewn pass over the hills, though there were no visible signs of it, and we climbed one of the hills in the hope of seeing lakes beyond. There were none in sight. It was too late to continue our search that day and we reluctantly returned to camp. Our failure was rather discouraging because it meant a further loss of time, and I had hoped that our route, until we reached Nipishish at least, would lie straight and well defined before us.

Sunday was comfortably cool, with a good stiff breeze to drive away the flies. I dispatched Richards, with Pete and Easton to accompany him, to follow up our work of the evening before, and look into the pass through the hills, while I remained behind with Stanton and Duncan and kept the fire going under our venison.

I Had expected that Duncan, with his lifelong experience as a native trapper and hunter in the Labrador interior, would be of great assistance to us in locating the trail; but to my disappointment I discovered soon after our start that he was far from good even in following a trail when it was found, though he never got lost and could always find his way back, in a straight line, to any given point.

The boys returned toward evening and reported that beyond the hills, through the pass, lay a good-sized lake, and that some signs of a trail were found leading to it. This was what I had hoped for.

Our meat was now sufficiently dried to pack, and, anxious to be on the move again, I directed that on the morrow we should break camp and cross the hills to the lakes beyond.