Winter Adventures of Three Boys in the Great Lone Land

by Egerton Ryerson Young

“Let us make an ice boat,” said Frank. Although he had never seen one, yet he had eagerly read much about them, and at the sight of the frozen lake was wild to set about the manufacture of one of these dainty craft, that he might enjoy the exhilarating sport he had so long anticipated.

“Capital suggestions are all of these,” said Mr Ross. “Still, as the ice is not yet twenty-four hours old, and therefore not very safe for skating, and the snow has not yet fallen in sufficient quantity upon the hills to make them smooth enough for tobogganing, and the carpenter will require some time to make an ice boat, and we will have six good months of winter in which to enjoy these and other sports, my suggestion is that we get ready to-day to start, as soon as the ice will be safe, for the island fisheries and bring home the dogs.”

“The dogs! the dogs! yes, hurrah for the dogs!” cried all the boys in unison.

So everything was for the moment forgotten, or postponed, in their eager anticipation to become intimately acquainted with the dogs about which they had heard so much. During the summer months the dogs were away to a distant island, where they were cared for by Kinesasis, a careful old Indian, who with a few nets easily caught all the fish they required for food. This island was quite out of the route of travel, and so our young friends had seen but little of Mr Ross’s dogs, about which many interesting stories had been told them. Now at the prospect of soon seeing them they were greatly delighted.

Although so much can be done with dogs in winter in those high latitudes, there is practically no use for them in summer. It is true that some enterprising missionaries had used them for ploughing up their little potato fields and gardens, and yet it was slow work and not long continued. But through the long winter the dog is practically the only draft animal that can be utilised by the inhabitants of those regions. From the far-off forest the wood for fuel is dragged home by the dogs. The frozen fish, which are caught and piled up on stages beyond the reach of wolves or other wild beasts, are drawn home to the villages from the distant fisheries by the well-trained dogs.

When a Christian decides to exchange his old wigwam for a house, all the squared timber and logs required in its construction are dragged, if not floated by water in the summer time, it may be several miles, by the dogs. Christian hunters use them to drag home the moose and reindeer or other heavy game they may shoot. Formerly their wives and mothers had to do this heavy work, but now Christianity has relegated this and many other heavy duties to the dogs.

However, the greatest and most arduous work to which the dogs are put is that of drawing the canoles and dog-sleds of travellers and tourists or fur traders for long distances through various parts of that great northern land. Without the dogs, travelling in that country would be practically impossible in the winter months. So full of lakes and rivers is the country that it is possible to go almost anywhere in a birch canoe in summer by making occasional portages. But when the severe cold freezes up those water stretches and the snow lies thick, and there is not the least vestige of a road or trail, then the value and sagacity of the dogs are seen and the power and endurance of the guides and drivers are put to the severest test.

Mr Ross still prided himself on his splendid dogs. In his younger days he had the reputation of being one of the most active and energetic of the young officers in the service of the Hudson Bay Company. His father, who was for many years one of the chief factors in the Company’s service, was proud of his son’s endurance and skill, as well as of his tact and ability in managing strange Indians and thus opening up new trading posts among them. So constantly employed had he been in thus advancing the interests of this fur-trading corporation that some winters he travelled thousands of miles with his own dog-train and guides. In his wanderings he had met with some strange adventures, and had passed through some trying ordeals. Later on we may hear from his own lips the recital of some of these stirring events.

Now, however, that he had retired from active service he had left these long and dangerous journeys to be taken by younger men. Still, the love for the dogs was so ingrained within him, and he had so much work for them to do, that he was the possessor of some very valuable trains, which every winter did his work and gave him as much pleasure as ever a man derived from the possession of a fine carriage and a splendid span of horses.

Knowing well the habits of the old Indian who had charge of his dogs, Mr Ross said to the boys: