‘New Year’s Day was over. A few days more passed, and then on the morning of January 5 the sledge and dogs—now thirteen—were once more on the ice. We started. The cold was terrible, thirty-five degrees below zero, and a strong wind blowing. Six hours afterwards we were in our tent, making a fire, over which a kettle of good coffee was soon boiling. The next day, and still the next day, the wind was equally strong, the temperature nearly as low, and the atmosphere filled with fine particles of snow. The third day was our last out, and at three o’clock in the afternoon I was once more in my old quarters. I found all well, and at once fell into the old routine of work.’
CHAPTER XVII
THE PACKET MONTH
‘February is the most interesting month of the year to us; it is the “Packet Month,” the month in which we have our one communication with the outer world during the dreary months of our long winter. On the third day of the month, 1886, we had two arrivals—Mr. Broughton and Mr. Vincent, the agents from Rupert’s House and Albany—each bringing the “packet” of his respective district. The news was generally good, but from the smallest post of all—English River—came the saddest possible. Three children of the only resident there, the whole of whom were in robust health in the autumn, were cut off by diphtheria in the course of eleven days, in the beginning of winter.
AN INDIAN TRAVELLING ON SNOW-SHOES
‘On the 5th, a little after breakfast, the “packeters” were espied crossing the river, in snow-shoes. Directly they arrived their precious load was transferred to the Hudson’s Bay Company offices; there hammers and chisels, seized by willing hands, soon knocked the covers from the boxes, and the work of distribution commenced. All my letters are thrown upon the table; the eye travels along them somewhat nervously, brightening as this and that well-known hand is seen, looking with sad inquiry at such as are black-edged, and disappointedly anxious if those expected most are not forthcoming. The receiving of letters is good; the answering of them, when they are many in number, is great drudgery. Telephones have not come our way yet, and the nearest telegraph office is about four hundred miles distant.
‘On the 7th the break-up of our party commenced. Mr. Broughton started for Albany. In the evening the packet was closed, and the next morning the “packeters” once more turned their faces southwards, and set out on their three hundred miles’ tramp to Abbitibbe; thence the packet will be forwarded to Temiscamingue and Matawa, and twelve days more will take it to England.’