CHAPTER XV
TRYING TIMES
The summer of 1884 was again a sickly one; a severe influenza cold attacked almost everyone. The bishop had accomplished two visitation tours, when a cry of distress came from Albany. The sickness was there; many in the prime of life were dying. Archdeacon Vincent was himself ill. The bishop went. Morning, noon and night he was by the bedside of the sufferers, or making up medicines for them, till at length a change took place; and after a stay of four or five weeks he was able to return to Moose, taking with him Mr. Vincent and his eldest daughter.
It was September, and he was at once plunged in a whirl of business, for the battered old ship had come again, and it had brought so many fine packages of eatables and necessaries that every spare foot of the mission premises was filled with them.
The ship was again nearly a month behind her time. For a thousand miles she had contended with ice, and had been very severely handled. After she had sailed on her return voyage the various autumn works were rapidly proceeded with: garden produce was taken up; the cattle and byres were made snug and taut; and for house and school 120 cords of wood were cut. Then the Indians, who had spent three or four months at the station, began to disperse, to shoot the geese and ducks so plentiful at that season, and to hunt the fur-bearing animals, which had by this time donned their valuable winter coats.
All are anxious to get to their winter quarters whilst the river is available for the canoes. They assemble for a last Sunday service at the station; family after family come to receive the bishop’s parting words of counsel and advice; then the farewell is spoken. ‘Farewell,’ they say; ‘we will not forget.’ The last shake of the hand is given, and they go to their homes in the wilderness, not to return until the spring, unless some adverse or untoward circumstance compels them to come in.
Winter came. It set in severely, and much earlier than usual, preventing the fall fishery, much depended upon for the supply of winter food. All the more thankful was the bishop for the founding of the Moose store.
In January he wrote: ‘It is a very great relief to know that the food is here. As to the store being put up, that must bide its time. Every person has as much as he can do, myself included. Just now wood and fire take precedence of everything else. Day after day chopping and hauling are going on, while the disappearance of our immense piles of wood tells pretty plainly of the difficulty we have in keeping up the necessary warmth in our houses.’
The past year had been a very chequered one, outwardly full of trouble, bad seasons, unprecedented storms, fatal epidemics, cases of starvation, much to discourage and depress. Yet the bishop could write thankfully that he had been enabled to labour so continuously in this inclement and isolated land, he and his faithful band of assistants having visited nearly the whole of the great diocese in the course of the year. Everywhere the Gospel was received with readiness. ‘We have now no active opposition,’ he says; ‘indeed, there are very few persons in the diocese, except those in the far north, who have not been baptized, by far the greater part into our own beloved Church. For those on the north-western part of the bay a man admirably adapted for the work has been appointed in the person of the Rev. J. Lofthouse, who longs, with God’s blessing, to gather into Christ’s fold the Eskimo of that region, as the Rev. E. J. Peck has done on the eastern side of the bay.
‘For the present winter Mr. Lofthouse is at York Factory, in the place of Mr. Winter, who is in England on account of his wife’s health; but I expect them back in the summer, when Mr. Lofthouse will go to his more northern home.’