Three Boys in the Wild North Land

by Egerton Ryerson Young

So remote were some of those posts from the seaboard, and so difficult and slow were the methods of transporting the goods, that several years passed ere the fur secured from them reached the London markets, to which they were all consigned and where they were carried each year in the company’s ships.

Although the Prince Arthur was far from being a first-class passenger ship, yet she was a good, seaworthy vessel, with plenty of room for the few passengers who travelled by her each year. These were principally gentlemen of the Hudson Bay Company’s service and their friends, or missionaries going out or returning home.

Letters from influential friends secured for our three boys the considerate attention of the captain and the ship’s officers, and their own bright ways won the friendship of all the sailors on board. On the whole they had a glorious passage. Some fogs at times perplexed them, and a few enormous icebergs were so near that careful tacking was required, to prevent accidents. The boys were filled with admiration at these great mountains of ice; some of them seemed like great islands, while others more closely resembled glorious cathedrals built in marble and emerald. At times, as the western sun shone upon them, they seemed to take on in parts every colour of the rainbow. With intense interest were they watched as they slowly drifted beyond the southern horizon.

One of the most exciting incidents of the journey was a battle between a great whale and a couple of swordfish. The unwieldy monster seemed to be no match for his nimble antagonists. His sole weapon seemed to be his enormous tail; but vain were his efforts to strike his quicker enemies. As far as could be judged from the deck of the ship, the swordfish were masters of the situation, and the blood-stained waters seemed to indicate that the battle would soon be over.

In the southern part of Davis Strait they encountered great fields of floating ice on which were many herds of seals. The captain had the ship hove to and three boats lowered. In each one he permitted one of the boys to go with the sailors on this seal-hunting expedition. The seals, which are so very active in water, where they can swim with such grace and rapidity, are very helpless on land or ice, and so large numbers were killed by the sailors. While the boys were excited with the sport, they could not but feel sorry for the poor, helpless creatures as they looked at them out of their great eyes that seemed almost human. Some hundreds of skins were secured, much to the delight of the captain and crew, as the profit coming to them from their sale would be no inconsiderable item.

At the mouth of Hudson Strait the captain again had the ship hove to for a day or so to trade with a number of Esquimaux, who had come in their curious canoes, called kayaks, from along the coasts of Labrador. Their insatiable curiosity and peculiar fur clothing very much interested the boys. These Esquimaux were shrewd hands at a bargain, but their principal desire seemed to be to obtain implements of iron in exchange for their furs. They cared nothing for flour, rice, tea, coffee, or sugar. They knew no other food than meat and oil, and so craved no other things than those that could be utilised in improving their weapons. Guns were unknown among them, but they were very skillful in the use of the harpoon and the spear. When they are able to secure iron from the white man they make their harpoon heads, spears, and knives out of this metal, but when unable to secure it they manufacture their weapons out of the horns of the reindeer or the tusks of the walrus or narwhal.

They had among their other furs some splendid bear skins, and the boys were very much interested in hearing them tell through an interpreter how they, with their rude weapons, aided by their clever dogs, had been able to kill these fierce animals. All were very much delighted when told by these friendly Esquimaux how that with two well-trained dogs nipping at the hind legs of a great bear they could keep him turning round and round from one to the other and thus get him so wild and excited that in his efforts to catch hold of the nimble animals, which were able to keep out of his grasp, he did not notice the arrival of the hunters, who were able to approach so closely that they could easily kill him.

The ship crossed the great Hudson Bay, which is about six hundred miles in width, without any mishap, and safely dropped anchor in what the Hudson Bay officers call “the six fathom hole,” some distance out from the rude primitive wharf. The signal gun was fired, and soon a brigade of boats came out, and the work of unloading the cargo began.

Our boys, eager as they were to land, were sorry after all to leave their snug berths in the good ship, where they had had some very delightful times during the thirty days that had elapsed since they had left the docks in old England.

A few gifts were bestowed among their particular sailor friends, and then, with the “God bless you” from all; they entered a small boat rowed by Indians, and were soon on the land that skirts this great inland sea. Great indeed was the change which they saw between the populous cities of the home land and this quiet, lonely region upon whose shores they had now landed.