THE CHURCH AT FORT GEORGE
‘When the Pecks had left, an influenza cold attacked almost everyone at Moose, persistently clinging to the sufferers; but is it any wonder that we have colds here, when sometimes there is a difference of over fifty degrees between the temperature of the morning and evening? In the morning we may be almost roasting: before evening the wind may have suddenly chopped round to the north, and, sweeping over the frozen bay, may render fires and warm coats desirable, if not necessary.’
CHAPTER XVIII
CHURCHILL AND MATAWAKUMMA
In 1886 the bishop wrote with much thankfulness of the location of the Rev. J. Lofthouse at Churchill—‘the last house in the world,’ as he called it, for there is no other between it and the North Pole. Churchill boasts, however, of quite a little colony of English and half-caste Chipwyans, Eskimo, and Crees. The Chipwyans are difficult to trade with, and apt to avoid a station for years if their demands are not complied with. They are cruel to their wives and their dogs, and are terrible thieves, but they stand in great fear of the Eskimo. The Eskimo of Churchill are not so bloodthirsty as their brethren in the west, who come in with their faces marked with red ochre, to indicate that they have committed a murder during the winter, a mark in which they glory, for in their opinion there is more honour in killing a human being than in killing a walrus or white bear.
