The Long Labrador Trail

by Dillon Wallace

CHAPTER XXIII

BACK TO NORTHWEST RIVER

We had now reached an English-speaking country; that is, a section where every one talked understandable English, though at the same time nearly every one was conversant with the Eskimo language.

All down the coast we had been fortunate in securing dogs and drivers with little trouble through the intervention of the missionaries; but at Makkovik dogs were scarce, and it seemed for a time as though we were stranded here, but finally, with missionary Townley’s aid I engaged an old Eskimo named Martin Tuktusini to go with us to Rigolet. When I looked at Martin’s dogs, however, I saw at once that they were not equal to the journey, unaided. Neither had I much faith in Martin, for he was an old man who had nearly reached the end of his usefulness.

A day was lost in vainly looking around for additional dogs, and then Mr. Townley generously loaned us his team and driver to help us on to Big Bight, fifteen miles away, where he thought we might get dogs to supplement Martin’s.

At Big Bight we found a miserable hut, where the people were indescribably poor and dirty. A team was engaged after some delay to carry us to Tishialuk, thirty miles farther on our journey, which place we reached the following day at eleven o’clock.

There is a single hovel at Tishialuk, occupied by two brothers—­John and Sam Cove—­and their sister. Their only food was flour, and a limited quantity of that. Even tea and molasses, usually found amongst the “livyeres” (live-heres) of the coast, were lacking. Sam was only too glad of the opportunity to earn a few dollars, and was engaged with his team to join forces with Martin as far as Rigolet.

There are two routes from Tishialuk to Rigolet. One is the “Big Neck” route over the hills, and much shorter than the other, which is known as the outside route, though it also crosses a wide neck of land inside of Cape Harrison, ending at Pottle’s Bay on Hamilton Inlet. It was my intention to take the Big Neck trail, but Martin strenuously opposed it on the ground that it passed over high hills, was much more difficult, and the probabilities of getting lost should a storm occur were much greater by that route than by the other. His objections prevailed, and upon the afternoon of the day after our arrival Sam was ready, and in a gale of wind we ran down on the ice to Tom Bromfield’s cabin at Tilt Cove, that we might be ready to make an early start for Pottle’s Bay the following morning, as the whole day would be needed to cross the neck of land to Pottle’s Bay and the neatest shelter beyond.

Tom is a prosperous and ambitious hunter, and is fairly well-to-do as it goes on the Labrador. His one-room cabin was very comfortable, and he treated us to unwonted luxuries, such as butter, marmalade, and sugar for our tea.

During the evening he displayed to me the skin of a large wolf which he had killed a few days before, and told us the story of the killing.

“I were away, sir,” related he, “wi’ th’ dogs, savin’ one which I leaves to home, ‘tendin’ my fox traps. The woman (meaning his wife) were alone wi’ the young ones. In the evenin’ (afternoon) her hears a fightin’ of dogs outside, an’ thinkin’ one of the team was broke loose an’ run home, she starts to go out to beat the beasts an’ put a stop to the fightin’. But lookin’ out first before she goes, what does she see but the wolf that owned that skin, and right handy to the door he were, too. He were a big divil, as you sees, sir. She were scared. Her tries to take down the rifle—­the one as is there on the pegs, sir. The wolf and the dog be now fightin’ agin’ the door, and she thinks they’s handy to breakin’ in, and it makes her a bit shaky in the hands, and she makes a slip and the rifle he goes off bang! makin’ that hole there marrin’ the timber above the windy. Then the wolf he goes off too; he be scared at the shootin’. When I comes home she tells me, and I lays fur the beast. ’Twere the next day and I were in the house when I hears the dogs fightin’ and I peers out the windy, and there I sees the wolf fightin’ wi’ the dogs, quite handy by the house. Well, sir, I just gits the rifle down and goes out, and when the dogs sees me they runs and leaves the wolf, and I up and knocks he over wi’ a bullet, and there’s his skin, worth a good four dollars, for he be an extra fine one, sir.”

We sat up late that night listening to Tom’s stories.

The next morning was leaden gray, and promised snow. With the hope of reaching Pottle’s Bay before dark we started forward early, and at one o’clock in the afternoon were in the soft snow of the spruce-covered neck. Traveling was very bad and progress so slow that darkness found us still amongst the scrubby firs. Martin and I walked ahead of the dogs, making a path and cutting away the growth where it was too thick to permit the passage of the teams.

Martin was guiding us by so circuitous a path that finally I began to suspect he had lost his way, and, calling a halt, suggested that we had better make a shelter and stop until daylight, particularly as the snow was now falling. When you are lost in the bush it is a good rule to stop where you are until you make certain of your course. Martin in this instance, however, seemed very positive that we were going in the right direction, though off the usual trail, and he said that in another hour or so we would certainly come out and find the salt-water ice of Hamilton Inlet. So after an argument I agreed to proceed and trust in his assurances.

Easton, who was driving the rear team, was completely tired out with the exertion of steering the komatik through the brush and untangling the dogs, which seemed to take a delight in spreading out and getting their traces fast around the numerous small trees, and I went to the rear to relieve him for a time from the exhausting work.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when we at length came upon the ice of a brook which Martin admitted he had never seen before and confessed that he was completely lost. I ordered a halt at once until daylight. We drank some cold water, ate some hard-tack and then stretched our sleeping bags upon the snow and, all of us weary, lay down to let the drift cover us while we slept.

At dawn we were up, and with a bit of jerked venison in my hand to serve for breakfast, I left the others to lash the load on the komatiks and follow me and started on ahead. I had walked but half a mile when I came upon the rough hummocks of the Inlet ice. Before noon we found shelter from the now heavily driving snowstorm in a livyere’s hut and here remained until the following morning.

Just beyond this point, in crossing a neck of land, we came upon a small hut and, as is usual on the Labrador, stopped for a moment. The people of the coast always expect travelers to stop and have a cup of tea with them, and feel that they have been slighted if this is not done. Here I found a widow named Newell, whom I knew, and her two or three small children. It was a miserable hut, without even the ordinary comforts of the poorer coast cabins, only one side of the earthen floor partially covered with rough boards, and the people destitute of food. Mrs. Newell told me that the other livyeres were giving her what little they had to eat, and had saved them during the winter from actual starvation. I had some hardtack and tea in my “grub bag,” and these I left with her.

Two days later we pulled in at Rigolet and were greeted by my friend Fraser. It was almost like getting home again, for now I was on old, familiar ground. A good budget of letters that had come during the previous summer awaited us and how eagerly we read them! This was the first communication we had received from our home folks since the previous June and it was now February twenty-first.

We rested with Fraser until the twenty-third, and then with Mark Pallesser, a Groswater Bay Eskimo, turned in to Northwest River where Stanton, upon coming from the interior, had remained to wait for our return that he might join us for the balance of the journey out. The going was fearful and snowshoeing in the heavy snow tiresome. It required two days to reach Mulligan, where we spent the night with skipper Tom Blake, one of my good old friends, and at Tom’s we feasted on the first fresh venison we had had since leaving the Ungava district. In the whole distance from Whale River not a caribou had been killed during the winter by any one, while in the previous winter a single hunter at Davis Inlet shot in one day a hundred and fifty, and only ceased then because he had no more ammunition. Tom had killed three or four, and south of this point I learned of a hunter now and then getting one.

Northwest River was reached on Monday, February twenty-sixth, and we took Cotter by complete surprise, for he had not expected us for another month.

The day after our arrival Stanton came to the Post from a cabin three miles above, where he had been living alone, and he was delighted to see us.

The lumbermen at Muddy Lake, twenty miles away, heard of our arrival and sent down a special messenger with a large addition to the mail which I was carrying out and which had been growing steadily in bulk with its accumulations at every station.

This is the stormiest season of the year in Labrador, and weather conditions were such that it was not until March sixth that we were permitted to resume our journey homeward.