The Long Labrador Trail

by Dillon Wallace

CHAPTER XVIII

THE INDIANS OF THE NORTH

Fort Chmio is situated upon the east bank of the Koksoak River and about twenty-five miles from its mouth, where the river is nearly a mile and a half wide. There are two trading posts here; one, that of the Hudson’s Bay Company, consisting of a dozen or so buildings, which include dwelling and storehouses and native cabins; the other that of Revellion Brothers, the great fur house of Paris, colloquially referred to as “the French Company,” which stands just above and ad-joining the station of the Hudson’s Bay Company. This latter Post was erected in the year 1903, and has nearly as many buildings as the older establishment. We used to refer to them respectively as “London” and “Paris.”

The history of Fort Chimo extends back to the year 1811, when Kmoch and Kohlmeister, two of the Moravian Brethren of the Okak Mission on the Atlantic coast, in the course of their efforts for the conversion of the Eskimos to Christianity cruised into Ungava Bay, discovered the George River, which they named in honor of King George the Third, and then proceeded to the Koksoak, which they ascended to the point of the present settlement. The natives received them well. They erected a beacon on a hill, tarried but a few days and then turned back to Okak. Upon their return they gave glowing accounts of their reception by the natives and the great possibilities for profitable trade, but they did not deem it advisable themselves to extend their labors to that field.

In the course of time this report drifted to England and to the ears of the officials of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who were attracted by it, and in 1827 Dr. Mendry, an officer of the Company at Moose Factory, with a party of white men and Indian guides crossed the peninsula from Richmond Gulf, through Clearwater Lake to the head waters of the Larch River, a tributary of the Koksoak, thence descended the Larch and Koksoak to the place where the Moravians had erected the beacon, and on a low terrace, just across the river from the beacon, established the original Fort Chimo. The difficulties of navigation and the consequent uncertainty and expense of keeping the Post supplied with provisions and articles of trade were such, however, that after a brief trial Ungava was abandoned.

The opportunities for lucrative trade here were not forgotten by the Company, and in the year 1837 Factor John McLean was detailed to re-establish Fort Chimo. This he did, and a year later built the first Post at George River. During the succeeding winter he crossed the interior with dogs to Northwest River. Upon their return journey McLean and his party ate their dogs and barely escaped perishing from starvation; one of his Indians, who was sent ahead, reaching Fort Chimo and bringing succor when McLean and the others, through extreme weakness, were unable to proceed farther. In the following summer McLean built the fort on Indian House Lake, and the other one that has been mentioned, on a large lake to the westward—­Lake Eraldson he called it—­presumably the source of Whale River. Later he succeeded in crossing to Northwest River by canoe, ascending the George River and descending the Atlantic slope of the plateau by way of the Grand River. His object was to establish a regular line of communication between Fort Chimo and Northwest River, with interior posts along the route. The natural obstacles which the country presented finally forced the abandonment of this plan as impracticable, and the two interior posts were closed after a brief trial. This was before the days of steam navigation, and with sailing vessels it was only possible to reach these isolated northern stations in Ungava Bay with supplies once every two years. Even these infrequent visits were so fraught with danger and uncertainty that finally, in 1855, Fort Chimo and George River were again abandoned as unprofitable. In 1866, however, the building of the Company’s steamship Labrador made yearly visits possible, and in that year another attack was made upon the Ungava district and Fort Chimo was rebuilt, George River Post re-established, and a little later the small station at Whale River was erected. With the improved facilities for transportation the trade with Indians and Eskimos, and the salmon and white whale fisheries carried on by the Posts, now proved most profitable, and the Company has since and is still reaping the reward of its persistence.

Dr. Milne, as has been stated, was not a permanent resident of the Post. Regularly stationed here, besides Mathewson, there is a young clerk, a cooper, a carpenter, and a handy man, all Scotchmen, and a comparatively new arrival, Rev. Samuel M. Stewart, a missionary of the Church Mission Society of England. Of Mr. Stewart, who did much to relieve the monotony of our several weeks’ sojourn at Fort Chimo, and his remarkable self-sacrifice and work, I shall have something to say later.

The day after our arrival we took occasion to pay our respects to Monsieur D. Thévenet, the officer in charge of the “French Post.” Our reception was most cordial. M. Thévenet is a gentleman by birth. He was at one time an officer in the French cavalry, but his love of adventure and active temperament rebelled against the inactivity of garrison duty and he resigned his commission in the army, came to Canada, and joined the Northwest mounted police in the hope of obtaining a detail in the Klondike. In this he was disappointed, and the outbreak of the South African war offering a new field of adventure he quit the police, enlisted in the Canadian Mounted Rifles, and served in the field throughout the war. After his return to Canada and discharge from the army, he took service with Revellion Brothers.

M. Thévenet invited us to dine with him that very evening, and we were not slow to accept his hospitality. His bright conversation, pleasing personality and unstinted hospitality offered a delightful evening and we were not disappointed. This and many other pleasant evenings spent in his society during our stay at Fort Chimo were some of the most enjoyable of our trip.

Here an agreeable surprise awaited me. When we sat down to dinner Thévenet called in his new half-breed French-Indian interpreter, and who should he prove to be but Belfleur, one of the dog drivers who in April, 1904, accompanied me from Northwest River to Rigolet, when I began that anxious journey over the ice with Hubbard’s body. He was apparently as well pleased at the meeting as I. Belfleur and a half-breed Scotch-Eskimo named Saunders are employed as Indian and Eskimo interpreters at the French Post, and are the only ones of M. Thévenet’s people with whom he can converse. Belfleur speaks French and broken English, and Saunders English, besides their native languages.

None of the people of Ungava, with the exception of two or three, speaks any but his mother tongue, and they have no ambition, apparently, to extend their linguistic acquirements. It is, indeed, a lonely life for the trader, who but once a year, when his ship arrives, has any communication with the great world which he has left behind him. No white woman is here with her softening influence, no physician or surgeon to treat the sick and injured, and never until the advent of Mr. Stewart any permanent missionary.

The natives that remain at Fort Chimo all the year are three or four families of Eskimos, a few old or crippled Indians, and some half-breed Indians and Eskimos, who do chores around the Posts and lead an uncertain existence. The half-breed Indian children are taken care of at the “Indian house,” a log structure presided over by the “Queen” of Ungava, a very corpulent old Nascaupee woman, who lives by the labor of others and draws tribute from trading Indians who make the Indian house their rendezvous when they visit the Post. She is and always has been very kind, and a sort of mother, to the little waifs that nearly every trader or white servant has left behind him, when the Company’s orders transferred him to some other Post and he abandoned his temporary wife forever.

The Indians of the Ungava district are chiefly Nascaupees, with occasionally a few Crees from the West. “Nenenot” they call themselves, which means perfect, true men. “Nascaupee” means false or untrue men and is a word of opprobrium applied to them by the Mountaineers in the early days, because of their failure to keep a compact to join forces with the latter at the time of the wars for supremacy between the Indians and Eskimos. Nascaupee is the name by which they are known now, outside of their own lodges, and the one which we shall use in referring to them. In like manner I have chosen to use the English Mountaineer, rather than the French Montagnais, in speaking of the southern Indians. North of the Straits of Belle Isle the French word is never heard, and if you were to refer to these Indians as “Montagnais” to the Labrador natives it is doubtful whether you would be understood.

Both Mountaineers and Nascaupees are of Cree origin, and belong to the great Algonquin family. Their language is similar, with only the variation of dialect that might be expected with the different environments. The Nascaupees have one peculiarity of speech, however, which is decidedly their own. In conversation their voice is raised to a high pitch, or assumes a whining, petulant tone. An outsider might believe them to be quarreling and highly excited, when in fact they are on the best of terms and discussing some ordinary subject in a most matter of fact way.

In personal appearance the Nascaupees are taller and more angular than their southern brothers, but the high cheek bones, the color and general features are the same. They are capable of enduring the severest cold. In summer cloth clothing obtained in barter at the Posts is, worn, but in winter deerskin garments are usual. The coat has the hair inside, and the outside of the finely dressed, chamoislike skin is decorated with various designs in color, in startling combinations of blue, red and yellow, painted on with dyes obtained at the Post or manufactured by themselves from fish roe and mineral products. When the garment has a hood it is sometimes the skin of a wolf’s head, with the ears standing and hair outside, giving the wearer a startling and ferocious appearance. Tight-fitting deerskin or red cloth leggings decorated with beads, and deerskin moccasins complete the costume.

Some beadwork trimming is made by the women, but they do little in the way of needlework embroidery, and the results of their attempts in this direction are very indifferent. This applies to the full-blood Nascaupees. I have seen some fairly good specimens of moccasin embroidery done by the half-breed women at the Post, and by the Mountaineer women in the South.

The Nascaupees are not nearly so clean nor so prosperous as the Mountaineers, and, coming very little in contact with the whites, live now practically as their forefathers lived for untold generations before them—­just as they lived, in fact, before the white men came. They are perhaps the most primitive Indians on the North American continent to-day.

The Mountaineers, on the other hand, see much more, particularly during the summer months, of the whites and half-breeds of the coast. Most of those who spend their summers on the St. Lawrence, west of St. Augustine, have more or less white blood in their veins through consorting with the traders and settlers. With but two or three exceptions the Mountaineers of the Atlantic coast, Groswater Bay, and at St. Augustine and the eastward, are pure, uncontaminated Indians.

The line of territorial division between the Nascaupee and Mountaineer Indians’ hunting grounds is pretty closely drawn. The divide north of Lake Michikamau is the southern and the George River the eastern boun-dary of the Nascaupee territory, and to the south and to the east of these boundaries, lie the hunting grounds of the Mountaineers.

These latter, south of the height of land, as has been stated, are practically all under the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, and are most devout in the observance of their religious obligations. While it is true that their faith is leavened to some extent by the superstitions that their ancestors have handed down to them, yet even in the long months of the winter hunting season they never forget the teachings of their father confessor.

The Nascaupees are heathens. About the year 1877 or 1878 Father Père Lacasse crossed overland from Northwest River, apparently by the Grand River route, to Fort Chimo, in an attempt to carry the work of the mission into that field. The Nascaupees, however, did not take kindly to the new religion, and unfortunately during the priest’s stay among them, which was brief, the hunting was bad. This was attributed to the missionary’s presence, and the sachems were kept busy for a time dispelling the evil charm. No one was converted. Let us hope that Mr. Stewart, who is there to stay, and is an earnest, persistent worker, will reach the savage confidence and conscience, though his opportunity with the Indians is small, for these Nascaupees tarry but a very brief time each year within his reach. With open water in the summer they come to the Fort with the pelts of their winter catch. These are exchanged for arms, ammunition, knives, clothing, tea and tobacco, chiefly. Then, after a short rest they disappear again into the fastnesses of the wilderness above, to fish the interior lakes and hunt the forests, and no more is seen of them until the following summer, excepting only a few of the younger men who usually emerge from the silent, snow-bound land during Christmas week to barter skins for such necessaries as they are in urgent need of, and to get drunk on a sort of beer, a concoction of hops, molasses and unknown ingredients, that the Post dwellers make and the “Queen” dispenses during the holiday festivals.

Reindeer, together with ptarmigans (Arctic grouse) and fish, form their chief food supply, with tea always when they can get it. All of these northern Indiana are passionately fond of tea, and drink unbelievable quantities of it. Little flour is used. The deer are erratic in their movements and can never be depended upon with any degree of certainty, and should the Indians fail in their hunt they are placed face to face with starvation, as was the case in the winter of 1892 and 1893, when full half of the people perished from lack of food.

Formerly the migrating herds pretty regularly crossed the Koksoak very near and just above the Post in their passage to the eastward in the early autumn, but for several years now only small bands have been seen here, the Indians meeting the deer usually some forty or fifty miles farther up the river. When the animals swim the river they bunch close together; Indian canoe men head them off and turn them up-stream, others attacking the helpless animals with spears. An agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company told me that he had seen nearly four hundred animals slaughtered in this manner in a few hours. When bands of caribou are met in winter they are driven into deep snow banks, and, unable to help themselves, are speared at will.

Of course when the killing is a large one the flesh of all the animals cannot be preserved, and frequently only the tongues are used. Of late years, however, owing to the growing scarcity of reindeer, it is said the Indians have learned to be a little less wasteful than for-merly, and to restrict their kill more nearly to their needs, though during the winter I was there hundreds were slaughtered for tongues and sinew alone. Large quantities of the venison are dried and stored up against a season of paucity. Pemmican, which was formerly so largely used by our western Indians, is occasionally though not generally made by those of Labrador. When deer are killed some bone, usually a shoulder blade, is hung in a tree as an offering to the Manitou, that he may not interfere with future hunts, and drive the animals away.

The Indian religion is not one of worship, but one of fear and superstition. They are constanly in dread of imaginary spirits that haunt the wilderness and drive away the game or bring sickness or other disaster upon them. The conjurer is employed to work his charms to keep off the evil ones. They evidently have some sort of indefinite belief in a future existence, and hunting implements and other offerings are left with the dead, who, where the conditions will permit, are buried in the ground.

Sometimes the very old people are abandoned and left to die of starvation unattended. Be it said to the honor of the trading companies that they do their utmost to prevent this when it is possible, and offer the old and decrepit a haven at the Post, where they are fed and cared for.

The marriage relation is held very lightly and continence and chastity are not in their sight virtues. A child born to an unmarried woman is no impediment to her marriage. If it is a male child it is, in fact, an advantage. Love does not enter into the Indian’s marriage relationship. It is a mating for convenience. Gifts are made to the girl’s father or nearest male relative, and she is turned over, whether she will or no, to the would-be husband. There is no ceremony. A hunter has as many wives as he is physically able to control and take care of—­one, two or even three. Sometimes it happens that they combine against him and he receives at their hands what is doubtless well-merited chastisement.

The men are the hunters, the women the slaves. No one finds fault with this, not even the women, for it is an Indian custom immemorial for the woman to do all the hard, physical work.

The Mountaineer Indians that we met on the George River, and one Indian who visited Fort Chimo while we were there, are the only ones of the Labrador that I have ever seen drive dogs. This Fort Chimo Indian, unlike the other hunters of his people, has spent much time at the Post, and mingled much with the white traders and the Eskimos, and, for an Indian, entertains very progressive and broad views. He was, with the exception of a humpbacked post attaché who had an Eskimo wife, the only Indian I met that would not be insulted when one addressed him in Eskimo, for the Indians and Eskimos carry on no social intercourse and the Indians rather despise the Eskimos. The Indian referred to, however, has learned something of the Eskimo language, and also a little English—­English that you cannot always understand, but must take for granted. He informed me, “Me three man—­Indian, husky (Eskimo), white man.” He was very proud of his accomplishments.

The Indian hauls his loads in winter on toboggans, which he manufactures himself with his ax and crooked knife—­the only woodworking tools he possesses. The crooked knives he makes, too, from old files, shaping and tempering them.

The snowshoe frames are made by the men, the babiche is cut and netted by the women, who display wonderful skill in this work. The Mountaineers make much finer netted snowshoes than the Nascaupees, and have great pride in the really beautiful, light snowshoes that they make. No finer ones are to be found anywhere than those made by the Groswater Bay Mountaineers. Three shapes are in vogue—­the beaver tail, the egg tail and the long tail. The beaver-tail snowshoes are much more difficult to make, and are seldom seen amongst the Nascaupees. With them the egg tail is the favorite.

The Ungava Indians never go to the open bay in their canoes. They have a superstition that it will bring them bad luck, for there they say the evil spirits dwell. Of all the Indians that visit Fort Chimo only two or three have ever ventured to look upon the waters of Ungava Bay, and these had their view from a hilltop at a safe distance.

It is safe to say that there is not a truthful Indian in Labrador. In fact it is considered an accomplishment to lie cheerfully and well. They are like the Crees of James Bay and the westward in this respect, and will lie most plausibly when it will serve their purpose better than truth, and I verily believe these Indians sometimes lie for the mere pleasure of it when it might be to their advantage to tell the truth.

One good and crowning characteristic these children of the Ungava wilderness possess—­that of honesty. They will not steal. You may have absolute confidence in them in this respect. And I may say, too, that they are most hospitable to the traveler, as our own experience with them exemplified. For their faults they must not be condemned. They live according to their lights, and their lights are those of the untutored savage who has never heard the gospel of Christianity and knows nothing of the civilization of the great world outside. Their life is one of constant struggle for bare existence, and it is truly wonderful how they survive at all in the bleak wastes which they inhabit.

NOTE.—­It must not be supposed that all of the statements made in this chapter with reference to the Indian, particularly the Nascaupees, are the result of my personal observations. During our brief stay at Ungava, much of this information was gleaned from the officers of the two trading companies, and from natives. In a number of instances they were verified by myself, but I have taken the liberty, when doubt or conflicting statements existed, of referring to the works of Mr. A. P. Low of the Canadian Geological Society and Mr. Lucien M. Turner of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, to set myself right.