Oowikapun, or, How the Gospel reached the Nelson River Indians

by Egerton Ryerson Young

As he studied them more and more, the more importunate and anxious he became to have the missionary of this station go and visit his people, and thus prepare the way for their own missionary when he should come to live among them.

Oowikapun’s anxiety for light, and his intense interest in everything that pertained to the progress of the people, and, above all, his resolve to succeed in getting the missionary, created a great deal of interest among the villagers. With their usual open-hearted hospitality, they invited him to their comfortable homes, and from many of them he learned much to help him along in the good way.

So marvellously had Christianity lifted up and benefited the people that Oowikapun with his simple forest ways, at times felt keenly his ignorance as he contrasted his crude life with what he now witnessed.

A genuine civilisation following Christianity had come to many of these once degraded tribes, and now comfortable homes and large and happy family circles are to be found where not a generation ago all was dark and degraded, and the sweet word “home” was utterly unknown.

The conversion of some of these Indians was very remarkable, and the recital of how they had come out of the darkness into the light was most helpful to him.

When there is a disposition to surrender we are easily conquered, and such was the condition of mind in which was the missionary to whom Oowikapun had come with his earnest appeals. The decision to go was no sooner reached than the preparation began to be made for the long journey, which would occupy at least a month. Four dog-trains had to be taken. A train consists of four dogs harnessed up in tandem style. The sleds are about ten feet long and sixteen inches wide. They are made of two oak boards, and are similar in construction, but much stronger than the sleds used on toboggan slides.

There are various breeds of dogs used in that country, but the most common are the Eskimos. They are strong and hardy, and when well trained are capital fellows for their work; but beyond that they are incorrigible thieves and unmitigated nuisances.

Other breeds have been introduced into the country, such as the Saint Bernard and the Newfoundlands. These have all the good qualities of the Eskimos, and are happily free from their blemishes. Some few Scottish stag-hounds, and other dogs of the hound varieties, have been brought in by Hudson Bay officers and others; but while they make very swift trains, they can only be used for short trips, as they are too tender to stand the bitter cold and exposure, or the long and difficult journeys, often of many days’ duration, through the wild and desolate regions.

The various articles for the long journey were speedily gathered together and the sleds carefully packed. Preparing for such a journey is a very different thing from getting ready for a trip in a civilised land. Here the missionary and his Indian companions were going about three hundred miles into the wilderness, where they would not see a house or any kind of human habitation from the time they left their homes until they reached their destination. They would not see the least vestige of a road.

They would make their own trail on snow-shoes all that distance, except when on the frozen lakes and rivers, where snow-shoes would be exchanged for skates by some, while the others only used their moccasins. Every night, when the toilsome day’s travel was over, they would have to sleep in the snow in their own bed, which they carried with them. Their meals they would cook at camp fires, which they would build when required, as they hurried along. So we can easily see that a variety of things would have to be packed on the dog-sleds. Let us watch the old, experienced guide and the dog drivers as they attend to this work.