The labour of getting the boats up these rivers is amazingly great: their crews encamp on the banks every night; and they generally land also to cook their meals, except when they are compelled to subsist on pemmican, a sort of dried, husky compound, composed of pounded venison and deer’s fat mixed together. This species of food is extremely nutritious: it requires no cooking, and is sometimes rendered more palatable by the addition of berries.
There are many kinds of wood growing on the banks of the rivers, and indeed the whole of the interior near the sea is covered with it: but in the country about Lake Winnepeg there are very few trees, and the inhabitants are therefore compelled to use the dung of the buffalo for fuel. Both buffaloes and horses abound in the open country. The woods on the coast are principally composed of dwarf poplars, larches, and all the varieties of the pine species.
Having thus described the communication by water between Lake Winnepeg and York Factory, I shall conclude with a statement of the respective distances.
| Miles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distance from York Factory to the top of | Hayes’ River | 50 |
| Thence to the upper end of | Steel River | 35 |
| To | Rock Portage | 35 |
| To | Swampy Lake | 35 |
| Length of | Ditto | 9 |
| Length of | Jack River | 9 |
| Knee Lake | 60 | |
| Trout River | 12 | |
| Holey Lake | 30 | |
| To | White-fall | 45 |
| Painted Stone | 15 | |
| Along the Echemamis to | Hairy Lake | 35 |
| Length of | Ditto | 4 |
| Play-green Lake | 35 |
It must be allowed, that the above is a mere rough statement of an old trader, who had been accustomed to traversing the route for nearly twenty years.
Nelson River is a much more noble stream than Hayes’ River, with respect to its navigation, extending about twenty miles from the sea; but from thenceforward it becomes so full of obstructions, from portages, falls, and rapids, that the Company have been compelled to establish their factory upon, and give a decided preference to, Hayes’ River, although they have an establishment or two for trade on the former. The Nelson River takes its rise, according to McKenzie, in the Stony Mountains; and empties itself into Hudson’s Bay, at the same place as Hayes’ River. It is only divided from the latter, at the mouth, by a very low cape, called Point of Marsh, upon which an exceeding high wooden beacon has been erected by the Company, to enable their ships to distinguish the mouth of the river. The continual washing of the waters on either side of the Point of Marsh has enabled the sea to encroach a great deal on the land, and thereby created many dangerous shoals in the mouths of the rivers: the navigation has, by these means, been rendered extremely contracted and difficult. The breaking up of the rivers in the spring tends also, in a great measure, to increase these evils: for, in the first place, the ice being driven towards the sea with an amazing velocity, it carries every thing forcibly away, and causes a general ruin upon the banks, by cutting down large bodies of earth, and hurling trees and rocks from their places. In the second place, it frequently happens that immense stones lying at the bottom of the rivers become fixed into the ice during the winter, and the freshes, in the spring, consequently bear them away towards the sea; but the ice not being able to sustain their ponderous weight for any length of time, it naturally occurs, that those masses become disengaged, and are deposited at the mouths of the rivers, where they not only incommode the passages, but likewise injure the ships’ cables by their friction.
On the second day after our coming, an Indian Chief arrived at the factory from Lake Winnepeg, and some of our officers brought him on board. He staid with us two days; and as he was the Chief of one of those tribes who still maintain a great part of their primeval manners, untainted by European civilization, a full description of him may not be thought unentertaining.
This man had been brought from Lord Selkirk’s colony, at Red River, to York Factory, by Captain McDonald, the chief of the colony. As far as I could collect, his tribe are properly called the Sotees, or people who go up and down the falls of rivers. But they have been styled Bongees by the British, from their being addicted to mendacity; and as they are always crying out “Bongee!” which, in their tongue, signifies “a little,” perhaps, too, the colonists may have thought the appellation peculiarly adapted to the Sotees, as they are but a weak tribe in point of numbers.
The Chief in question was about five feet eight inches high, and, to all appearance, about thirty years of age. It seems that he had some claims to the territory on which Lord Selkirk’s colony now stands; but he had sold his birth-right “for a mess of pottage.” Therefore, to keep him in good humour with the infant establishment, he had been brought down on a visit to York Factory, where it was intended that he should receive an accumulation of honours. A coat of coarse blue cloth, tawdrily ornamented with tarnished lace, and adorned with shoulder-knots; a round hat, with a red ostrich feather in front; a very coarse white shirt, with frill and ruffles; a pair of red stockings, yellow garters, and black shoes, were presented to him immediately upon his arrival. If we add to all this finery, his native ornaments, such as a neck-band of wampum or bead-work[34], a long string of beads suspended by his hair from each temple, and a number of large metal links of the coarsest workmanship, dangling from either ear, his appearance will naturally be imagined to have bordered upon the grotesque. His thighs were entirely naked, as he could not be prevailed upon to fetter them with breeches; and the cartilage of his nose had been perforated.
He appeared a very intelligent man, and was highly delighted with every thing he saw on board the ship. He was not particularly pleased with any of our musical instruments, except the drum. A sky-rocket struck him quite dumb with astonishment; and he afterwards observed to a person who understood his language, “That the Water-Governors[35] must be very powerful, who could thus force the stars to fall from the sky.” Like most Indians, he was a great egotist, and the general tenor of his conversation ran upon his dignity. He observed that he was a Governor, like ourselves; and when the snow became deep on the ground, his tribe were going out, under his command, to make war upon the Swee Tribe; and that after quitting his own territory, he expected to meet his enemy in eight days. He exulted that he had already killed two of the Swee nation with his own hand; and he gave us to understand, that his own tribe always made war on horseback. We presented him with a cutlass, at which he was delighted, waving it above his head, and boasting what wonders he should be able to perform by its assistance. Upon the whole, he was rather a swaggerer; but, perhaps, this was a little excusable; because, according to the character given of him by those Europeans who had heard of his fame, he had acquired an amazing influence amongst many savage tribes, by his courage and wisdom. Indeed, his remaining two days with us, perfectly easy and contented, is a proof that he possessed a good share of the former quality; particularly as we were all utter strangers to him, and he had neither seen the sea nor a ship before in his life: nor did he appear to be at all deficient in the more tender susceptibilities of nature. He had two wives, four sons, and six daughters; and when I presented him with a few spangles and beads, he gave me to understand, that those trifles would be received with great pleasure by his children, on his return to his native country. It surprised us much to observe with what a degree of exactness he copied all our methods of eating, drinking, &c. As we desired to hear him sing, we took advantage of his imitative powers to make him comprehend our wishes: accordingly, the person who sat next to him began first, and the song went regularly round the table, until it reached the Bongee Chief; when, instantly taking the hint, he rose up, and prefaced his ditty with a long speech, which we of course did not comprehend; but, by his gestures, we could perceive that it was evidently intended as an explanation of the subject on which he was about to sing. Then he suddenly struck off into an air that gave us a much higher opinion of the strength than the harmony of his voice. The subject, we could perceive, was an appeal to the Deity (Manito), to protect the ship from all dangers, in her voyage across the waters. We had many other songs from him during the evening: and on a special application, we were favoured with a specimen of the war-whoop, a most discordant howl, produced by striking the hand quick against the mouth, and shouting at the same time. But the most farcical scene of all was the business of getting him into a bed. The purser of the ship undertook the difficult task of chambermaid; but our Indian Chief disencumbered himself of all his finery in a twinkling; and having reduced himself to a state of nature, he rolled head foremost into the bed, placing his feet upon the pillow: this produced great vexation in the mind of his Abigail, who the next night succeeded, with much difficulty, in causing his Indian Highness to lie down like a Christian.