The Arctic Prairies : a Canoe-Journey of 2,000 Miles in Search of the Caribou; / Being the Account of a Voyage to the Region North of Aylemer Lake

by Ernest Thompson Seton

CHAPTER VIII

THOMAS ANDERSON

We were now back at Smith Landing, and fired with a desire to make another Buffalo expedition on which we should have ampler time and cover more than a mere corner of the range. We aimed, indeed, to strike straight into the heart of the Buffalo country. The same trouble about guides arose. In this case it was less acute, because Sousi's account had inspired considerably more respect. Still it meant days of delay which, however, I aimed to make profitable by investigations near at hand.

After all, the most interesting of creatures is the two-legged one with the loose and changeable skin, and there was a goodly colony of the kind to choose from. Most prominent of them all was Thomas Anderson, the genial Hudson's Bay Company officer in charge of the Mackenzie River District. His headquarters are at Fort Smith, 16 miles down the river, but his present abode was Smith Landing, where all goods are landed for overland transport to avoid the long and dangerous navigation on the next 16 miles of the broad stream. Like most of his official brethren, he is a Scotchman; he was born in Nairn, Scotland, in 1848. At 19 he came to the north-west in service of the company, and his long and adventurous life, as he climbed to his present responsible position, may be thus skeletonised:

He spent six months at Fort Temiscamingue, 1 year at Grand Lac, 3 years at Kakabonga, 5 years at Hunter's Lodge, Chippeway, 10 years at Abitibi, 3 years at Dunvegan, Peace River, 1 year at Lesser Slave Lake, 2 months at Savanne, Fort William, 10 years at Nipigon House, 3 years at Isle a la Crosse, 4 years on the Mackenzie River, chiefly at Fort Simpson, 6 months at Fort Smith.

Which tells little to the ears of the big world, but if we say that he spent 5 years in Berlin, then was moved for 3 years to Gibraltar, 2 years to various posts on the Rhine, whence he went for 4 years to St. Petersburg; thence to relieve the officer in charge of Constantinople, and made several flying visits to Bombay and Pekin, we shall have some idea of his travels, for all were afoot, on dogsled, or by canoe.

What wonderful opportunities he had to learn new facts about the wood folk—man and beast—and how little he knew the value of the glimpses that he got! I made it my business to gather all I could of his memories, so far as they dwelt with the things of my world, and offer now a resume of his more interesting observations on hunter and hunted of the North. [Since these notes were made, Thomas Anderson has "crossed the long portage.">[

The following are among the interesting animal notes:

Cougar. Ogushen, the Indian trapper at Lac des Quinze, found tracks of a large cat at that place in the fall of 1879 (?). He saw them all winter on South Bay of that Lake. One day he came on the place where it had killed a Caribou. When he came back about March he saw it. It came toward him. It was evidently a cat longer than a Lynx and it had a very long tail, which swayed from side to side as it walked. He shot it dead, but feared to go near it believing it to be a Wendigo. It had a very bad smell. Anderson took it to be a Puma. It was unknown to the Indian. Ogushen was a first-class hunter and Anderson firmly believes he was telling the truth. Lac des Quinze is 15 miles north of Lake Temiscamingue.

Seals. In old days, he says, small seals were found in Lake Ashkeek. This is 50 miles north-east from Temiscamingue. It empties into Kippewa River, which empties into Temiscamingue. He never saw one, but the Indians of the vicinity told of it as a thing which commonly happened 50 or 60 years ago. Ashkeek is Ojibwa for seal. It is supposed that they wintered in the open water about the Rapids.

White Foxes, he says, were often taken at Cree Lake. Indeed one or two were captured each year. Cree Lake is 190 miles south-east of Fort Chipewyan. They are also taken at Fort Chipewyan from time to time. One was taken at Fondulac, east end of Lake Athabaska, and was traded at Smith Landing in 1906. They are found regularly at Fondulac, the east end of Great Slave Lake, each year.

In the winter of 1885-6 he was to be in charge of Nipigon House, but got orders beforehand to visit the posts on Albany River. He set out from Fort William on Lake Superior on his 1,200-mile trip through the snow with an Indian whose name was Joe Eskimo, from Manitoulin Island, 400 miles away. At Nipigon House he got another guide, but this one was in bad shape, spitting blood. After three days' travel the guide said: "I will go to the end if it kills me, because I have promised, unless I can get you a better guide. At Wayabimika (Lake Savanne) is an old man named Omeegi; he knows the road better than I do." When they got there, Omeegi, although very old and half-blind, was willing to go on condition that they should not walk too fast. Then they started for Osnaburgh House on Lake St. Joseph, 150 miles away. The old man led off well, evidently knew the way, but sometimes would stop, cover his eyes with his hands, look at the ground and then at the sky, and turn on a sharp angle. He proved a fine guide and brought the expedition there in good time.

Next winter at Wayabimika (where Charley de la Ronde [Count de la Ronde.] was in charge, but was leaving on a trip of 10 days) Omeegi came in and asked for a present—"a new shirt and a pair of pants." This is the usual outfit for a corpse. He explained that he was to die before Charley came back; that he would die "when the sun rose at that island" (a week ahead). He got the clothes, though every one laughed at him. A week later he put on the new garments and said: "To-day I die when the sun is over that island!" He went out, looking at the sun from time to time, placidly smoking. When the sun got to the right place he came in, lay down by the fire, and in a few minutes was dead.

We buried him in the ground, to his brother's great indignation when he heard of it. He said: "You white men live on things that come out of the ground, and are buried in the ground, and properly, but we Indians live on things that run above ground, and want to take our last sleep in the trees."

Another case of Indian clairvoyance ran thus: About 1879, when Anderson was at Abitibi, the winter packet used to leave Montreal, January 2, each year, and arrive at Abitibi January 19. This year it did not come. The men were much bothered as all plans were upset. After waiting about two weeks, some of the Indians and half-breeds advised Anderson to consult the conjuring woman, Mash-kou-tay Ish-quay (Prairie woman) a Flathead from Stuart Lake, B. C. He went and paid her some tobacco. She drummed and conjured all night. She came in the morning and told him: "The packet is at the foot of a rapid now, where there is open water; the snow is deep and the travelling heavy, but it will be here to-morrow when the sun is at that point."

Sure enough, it all fell out as she had told. This woman married a Hudson's Bay man named MacDonald, and he brought her to Lachine, where she bore him 3 sons; then he died of small-pox, and Sir George Simpson gave orders that she should be sent up to Abitibi and there pensioned for as long as she lived. She was about 75 at the time of the incident. She many times gave evidence of clairvoyant power. The priest said he "knew about it, and that she was helped by the devil."

A gruesome picture of Indian life is given in the following incident.

One winter, 40 or 50 years ago, a band of Algonquin Indians at Wayabimika all starved to death except one squaw and her baby; she fled from the camp, carrying the child, thinking to find friends and help at Nipigon House. She got as far as a small lake near Deer Lake, and there discovered a cache, probably in a tree. This contained one small bone fish-hook. She rigged up a line, but had no bait. The wailing of the baby spurred her to action. No bait, but she had a knife; a strip of flesh was quickly cut from her own leg, a hole made through the ice, and a fine jack-fish was the food that was sent to this devoted mother. She divided it with the child, saving only enough for bait. She stayed there living on fish until spring, then safely rejoined her people.

The boy grew up to be a strong man, but was cruel to his mother, leaving her finally to die of starvation. Anderson knew the woman; she showed him the sear where she cut the bait.

A piece of yet, more ancient history was supplied him in Northern
Ontario, and related to me thus:

Anderson was going to Kakabonga in June, 1879, and camped one night on the east side of Birch Lake on the Ottawa, about 50 miles north-east of Grand Lake Post.

He and his outfit of two canoes met Pah-pah-tay, chief of the Grand Lake Indians, travelling with his family. He called Anderson's attention to the shape of the point which had one good landing-place, a little sandy bay, and told him the story he heard from his people of a battle that was fought there with the Iroquois long, long ago.

Four or five Iroquois war-canoes, filled with warriors, came to this place on a foray for scalps. Their canoes were drawn up on the beach at night. They lighted fires and had a war-dance. Three Grand Lake Algonquins, forefathers of Pah-pah-tay, saw the dance from, hiding. They cached their canoe, one of them took a sharp flint—"we had no knives or axes then"—swam across to the canoes, and cut a great hole in the bottom of each.

The three then posted themselves at three different points in the bushes, and began whooping in as many different ways as possible. The Iroquois, thinking it a great war-party, rushed to their canoes and pushed off quickly. When they were in deep water the canoes sank and, as the warriors swam back ashore, the Algonquins killed them one by one, saving alive only one, whom they maltreated, and then let go with a supply of food, as a messenger to his people, and to carry the warning that this would be the fate of every Iroquois that entered the Algonquin country.