EXPLANATION OF PLATE
A and C—Muski-moots, or bags used by the duck-hunter for his game. Made by Dog-Rib women, of babiche, or rawhide of the moose or caribou.
B—Velvet leggings richly embroidered in violet-coloured bead-work, made by Mrs. (Archdeacon) Macdonald, a full-blooded Loucheaux woman.
D—Wall-pocket of white deerskin embroidered in silk. Made by a Rabbit-Skin woman at Fort Good Hope under the Arctic Circle.
E—Wall-pocket ornamented with porcupine-quill work, made by a Yellow-Knife Indian woman at Fort Resolution on Great Slave Lake.
F—Fire-bag, or tobacco-pouch, made of two claws of the black bear. The work of a Beaver Indian woman at Vermilion-on-the-Peace.
G—Fire-bag of velvet ornamented with silk-work, made by Chipewyan woman at Fond du Lac, Lake Athabasca.
H—Velvet watch-bag embroidered in silk, made by Slavi Indian woman at Fort Providence, at the head of Mackenzie River.
I—Watch-pocket of smoked moose-skin, embroidered in silk-work, made by a Cree girl at Fort McMurray on the Athabasca.
J—Armlets ornamented in porcupine quills, made by a half-breed woman on the Liard River (a feeder of the Mackenzie).
K—Three hat bands—the first two ornamented with porcupine quills, and the last in silk embroidery—made by Chipewyan woman at Fond du Lac, Lake Athabasca.
L—Beautiful belt of porcupine work, made by a half-breed woman at Fort Nelson on the Liard (a feeder of the Mackenzie).
M—Armlets of porcupine-quill work, made by half-breed girl at Fort Chipewyan.
Mr. and Mrs. William Johnson, with generous courtesy, have made us their guests while we stay, and their refined home is a clear delight. Mr. Johnson is as clever a man as Mr. Wyllie, but in other lines. Without ever having seen an electric light, he learned by study and research more about electricity than nine men out of ten know who go through Electrical Training Schools. With the knowledge thus gained he constructed and put into working use an electric-light plant at Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie. Far up here on the map, too, the "Judge," as he is lovingly called, taught himself all about watches, and he is now Father Time for the whole Mackenzie District, regulating and mending every timepiece in the country. The corrected watches are carried to their owners by the next obliging person who passes the post, where the owner is notching off the days on a piece of stick while he waits. A watch, the works of which were extracted from three old ones and assembled within one case by this Burbank of Watchdom, found its way down to Chicago. The jeweller into whose hands it fell declared that among all his workmen there was not one who could have duplicated the job.
Chipewyan is a bird paradise; the whole woods are vocal to-day. In the autumn, wonderful hunts are made of the southward-flying cranes, geese, and waveys, thousands of these great birds being killed and salted and put in ice chambers for winter use. If the mosquitoes were not so bad we would spend hours in the woods here with "God's jocund little fowls." These sweet songsters seem to have left far behind them to the south all suspicion of bigger bipeds. We hear the note of the ruby-crowned kinglet (regulus calendula) which some one says sounds like "Chappie, chappie, jackfish." The American red-start comes to our very feet, the yellow warbler, the Tennessee warbler, the red-eyed vireo, and the magnolia warbler, which last, a young Cree tells us, is "High-Chief-of-all-the-small-birds." Rusty blackbirds are here with slate-coloured junco, and we see a pair of purple finches. We are fortunate in getting a picture of the nest of the Gambel sparrow and two of the nesting white-throated, sparrow. They are ferreted out for us by the sharp eyes of a girl who says her Cree name is "A-wandering-bolt-of-night-lightning!" At our feet blossom cinquefoil, immortelles, the dainty flowers of the bed-straw.
It has been a full day, and by the way the "permits" are opening up in the settlement when we come back, promises to be a full night. These men have waited a whole year for a drink, and now the lids can't come off quick enough. "Come, hurry up, Flynn, we're all as dry as wooden gods, we're so dry that we're brittle—we'd break if you hit us." "Well, I'm hurrying; I'm as much in a rush as any of you; I'm so warped the hoops are falling off."
It doesn't take long to polish off the permits proper (or improper). By morning all this liquor, imported for "medicinal purposes," is gone. Whoever in Chipewyan is thoughtless enough to get ill during the next twelve months must fall back on the medicine-chest of the English Mission or of the Grey Nuns. Anything strong will do for the creation of joyousness during the remaining three hundred and sixty-four days of the year—Jamaica ginger, lavender-water, flavouring extracts.
Next morning the bon vivants of Chipewyan are down to essences of lemon, vanilla, and ginger, which have been specially imported as stimulating beverages. We ask if they are any good. "Good? I should say so, and one bottle just makes a drink. Can I offer" (politely) "to exhilarate you ladies with vanilla?" The most jovial of the celebrants tells of his early imbibition of red ink. "I used to get a gallon of red ink with my outfit every year, and it gives you the good feel, but when this new Commissioner comes in he writes, 'I don't see how you can use a gallon of red ink at your post in one year,' and I writes back, 'What we don't use we abuse,' and next year he writes to me, 'It's the abuse we complain of,' and, with regretful reminiscence, "I got no more red ink." The substitution of red tape for the carmine fluid that inebriates is an innovation not appreciated.
The old records fascinate us. We spend every spare moment before the coming of the treaty party in transcribing choice bits from them. There were drinks and drinkers in these old days.
"1830, Friday 1st. January. All hands came as is customary to wish us the compliments of the season, and they were treated with cakes each, a pipe, and two feet tobacco. In the evening they have the use of the hall to dance, and are regaled with a beverage."
"1830, April 30. Poitras, a Chipewyan half-breed, arrived, and delivered 81 made beavers in prime furs, though he says he has been sickly all winter. I therefore presented him with a complete clothing and a Feather."
"1830, May 16th. One of our Indians having been in company with Indians from Isle a la Crosse got married to one of their young women, consequently has followed the father-in-law and taken his hunt away from us."