Canadian Crusoes: A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains

by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill

As the evenings lengthened, the boys employed themselves with carving wooden platters: knives and forks and spoons they fashioned out of the larger bones of the deer, which they often found bleaching in the sun and wind, where they had been left by their enemies the wolves; baskets too they made, and birch dishes, which they could now finish so well, that they held water, or any liquid; but their great want was some vessel that would bear the heat of the fire. The tin pot was so small that it could be made little use of in the cooking way. Catharine had made an attempt at making tea, on a small scale, of the leaves of the sweet fern,—a graceful woody fern, with a fine aromatic scent like nutmegs; this plant is highly esteemed among the Canadians as a beverage, and also as a remedy against the ague; it grows in great abundance on dry sandy lands and wastes, by waysides.

“If we could but make some sort of earthen pot that would stand the heat of the fire,” said Louis, “we could get on nicely with cooking.” But nothing like the sort of clay used by potters had been seen, and they were obliged to give up that thought, and content themselves with roasting or broiling their food. Louis, however, who was fond of contrivances, made an oven, by hollowing out a place near the hearth, and lining it with stones, filling up the intervals with wood ashes and such clay as they could find, beaten into a smooth mortar. Such cement answered very well, and the oven was heated by filling it with hot embers; these were removed when it was sufficiently heated, and the meat or roots placed within, the oven being covered over with a flat stone previously heated before the fire, and covered with live coals. This sort of oven had often been described by old Jacob, as one in common use among some of the Indian tribes in the lower province, in which they cook small animals, and make excellent meat of them; they could bake bread also in this oven, if they had had flour to use. [FN: This primitive oven is much like what voyagers have described as in use among the natives of many of the South Sea islands.]

Since the finishing of the house and furnishing it, the young people were more reconciled to their lonely life, and even entertained decided home feelings for their little log cabin. They never ceased, it is true, to talk of their parents, and brothers, and sisters, and wonder if all were well, and whether they still hoped for their return, and to recall all their happy days spent in the home which they now feared they were destined never again to behold. About the same time they lost the anxious hope of meeting some one from home in search of them at every turn when they went out. Nevertheless they were becoming each day more cheerful and more active. Ardently attached to each other, they seemed bound together by a yet more sacred tie of brotherhood. They were now all the world to one another, and no cloud of disunion came to mar their happiness. Hector’s habitual gravity and caution were tempered by Louis’s lively vivacity and ardour of temper, and they both loved Catharine, and strove to smoothe, as much as possible, the hard life to which she was exposed, by the most affectionate consideration for her comfort, and she in return endeavoured to repay them by cheerfully enduring all privations, and making light of all their trials, and taking a lively interest in all their plans and contrivances.

Louis had gone out to fish at the lake one autumn morning. During his absence, a sudden squall of wind came on, accompanied with heavy rain. As he stayed longer than usual, Hector began to feel uneasy, lest some accident had befallen him, knowing his adventurous spirit, and that he had for some days previous been busy constructing a raft of cedar logs, which he had fastened together with wooden pins. This raft he had nearly finished, and was even talking of adventuring over to the nearest island to explore it, and see what game, and roots, and fruits it afforded.

Bidding Catharine stay quietly within-doors till his return, Hector ran off, not without some misgivings of evil having befallen his rash cousin, which fears he carefully concealed from his sister, as he did not wish to make her needlessly anxious. When he reached the shore, his mind was somewhat relieved by seeing the raft on the beach, just as it had been left the night before, but neither Louis nor the axe was to be seen, nor the fishing-rod and line.

“Perhaps,” thought he, “Louis has gone further down to the mouth of the little creek, in the flat east of this, where we caught our last fish: or maybe he has gone up to the old place at Pine-tree Point.”

While he yet stood hesitating within himself which way to turn, he heard steps as of some one running, and perceived his cousin hurrying through the bushes in the direction of the shanty. It was evident by his disordered air, and the hurried glances that he cast over his shoulder from time to time, that something unusual had occurred to disturb him.

“Halloo! Louis, is it bear, wolf, or catamount that is on your trail?” cried Hector, almost amused by the speed with which his cousin hurried onward. “Why, Louis, whither away?”

Louis now turned and held up his hand, as if to enjoin silence, till Hector came up to him.

“Why, man, what ails you? what makes you run as if you were hunted down by a pack of wolves?”