By Canoe and Dog Train Among The Cree and Salteaux Indians

by Egerton Ryerson Young

Once, when crossing Lake Winnipeg, to visit some wild Indians, whom we found on our arrival in the midst of the hideous ceremonies of a dog feast, I got caught in a terrible storm. My men had gone on ahead with all the dogs, to have dinner ready in the camp on the distant shore, leaving me miles behind, tramping along on snow-shoes. Down from the north, with terrific fury, came the gale. I tramped on as rapidly as possible, until I got bewildered. Then I took off one of my snow-shoes, and, fastening it in a hole cut in the ice, I got ready to tramp in a small circle around it to keep from freezing to death, when fortunately I heard the welcome whooping of my Indians, who, seeing my danger, had quickly turned round, and risking their own lives for mine, for they could have reached the woods and shelter, aided by the dogs, had fortunately reached me. There we stopped for hours, until the blizzard had spent its fury, and then on we went.

I had a remarkable experience in a blizzard, which I will more fully describe, as our escape was under Providence so much indebted to my wonderful dog Jack.

I had started on one of my long winter trips to visit the few little bands of Indians who were struggling for an existence on the Eastern coast of Lake Winnipeg, and who were always glad to welcome the Missionary, and to hear from him of the love of the Great Spirit, and of His Son Jesus Christ. Their country is very wild and rough, very different from the beautiful prairie regions of the North-West. To keep down expenses, which in those Northern Missions are very heavy, I had started out on this long trip with only this young Indian lad as my companion. But as he was good and true, I thought we could succeed, since I had been several years in the country, and had faced many a wintry storm, and slept many nights in the snow.

We had with us two splendid trains of dogs. My leader was a lively, cunning Esquimaux dog, as white as snow. His name was Koona, which is the Indian word for “snow”; and he was well named. The other three dogs of my train were my favourites from Ontario. Two of them were gifts from Senator Sanford, of Hamilton; the other was kindly sent to me by Dr Mark, of Ottawa. The other train, driven by Alec, was composed of some sagacious St. Bernards obtained for me by the kindness of Mr Ferrier, of Montreal. The largest and most enduring of the eight was Jack from Hamilton, whose place was second in my train, and who is to be the hero of this adventure.

We had left our camp-fire in the woods early in the morning, and, turning our faces towards the north, had hoped that ere the shadows of night had fallen around us, at least sixty miles of the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg would have been travelled over. For a time we were able to push on very rapidly, keeping the distant points of headlands well in view for our guidance. Lake Winnipeg is very much indented with bays, and in travelling we do not follow the coast line, but strike directly across these bays from point to point. Some of them run back for many miles into the land, and several of them are from ten to thirty miles wide. The dogs get so accustomed to these long trips and to their work, that they require no guide to run on ahead, but will, with wonderful intelligence, push on from point to point with great exactness.

On and on we had travelled for hours; the cold was very great, but we could easily jump off from our dog-sleds and run until we felt the glow and warmth of such vigorous exercise. After a while, we noticed that the strong wind which had arisen was filling the air with fine dry snow, and making travelling very difficult and unpleasant. Soon it increased to a gale, and we found ourselves in a real North-West blizzard on stormy Lake Winnipeg, many miles from shore.

Perhaps our wisest plan would have been, at the commencement of the storm, to have turned sharply to the east, and got into the shelter of the forest as quickly as possible. But the bay we were crossing was a very deep one, and the headland before us seemed as near as the other end of the bay; and so we thought it best to run the risk and push on. That we might not get separated from each other, I fastened what we call the tail rope of my sled to the collar of the head dog of Alec’s train.

After Alec and I had travelled on for several hours, no sign of any land appearing, we began to think that the fickle blizzard was playing us one of its tricks, and that we had wandered far out into the lake. We stopped our dogs out there in the blinding, bewildering storm.

“Alec!” I shouted, “I am afraid we are lost.”