SECTION I
CLIMATE
I have already referred to the extreme heat which we experienced along the Athabaska River and at Fort Chippewyan, and that this hot wave extended beyond the Arctic Circle was testified to by Indians who suffered the loss of some of their dogs from this cause, on crossing the portage between the Bell River and Fort McPherson. Of course this was exceptional and lasted only a few days, but nevertheless, there is no question that for a couple of months in midsummer the aggregate amount of heat which is imparted by the sun’s rays interrupted only for a few hours out of the twenty-four, and shining through a wonderfully clear atmosphere goes far to counter-balance what is lost by their refraction owing to the obliquity of their course in reaching the earth. The law of compensation here makes heroic efforts to assert its claim, and though it fails in giving to those regions an equality of heat, it does succeed to the last fraction in bestowing on every portion of the globe an equality of light, the great luminary gives to the Esquimaux exactly as much sunlight during the entire year as the dweller on the far off Amazon or the Nile. There is as much truth as poetry in the lines of the old song: “For taking the year all round my dear, There isn’t more night than day.”
We found it difficult when we got below the last obstruction to navigation, and began to make rapid progress to the north, to accustom ourselves to the changed conditions and to seek rest at the old accustomed hours, and frequently while waiting for the darkness, the midnight hour was passed and the northern dawn was upon us before we realised that the evening and morning twilight were not separated by any perceptible intervening darkness. The wonderful beauty of the tropical dawn has been told by every traveller in the equatorial regions, but in these regions only a few minutes elapses from the time it begins till the sun asserts its supremacy and dispels the brilliant colouring. In the sub-Arctic regions there is no such haste. When the glittering rays no longer reach us we can watch their reflection in the clear ethereal spaces above during the whole of that period we call night. But I have dwelt, perhaps, too long and too frequently on this subject, and my only apology is that this portion of time was to me always a recompense for any of the labours or hardships of the previous day, and one is apt to be garrulous over what has afforded him pleasure.
Copyright Ernest Brown
ESQUIMAUX IN THEIR KAYAKS
It was difficult on those exceedingly hot days of midsummer to realise that in a few months’ time the ice king would reign supreme over all the land. But this is a country of extremes, and even in some of the hottest days when the wind would turn suddenly to the north and angry clouds would arise from the horizon and spread across the heavens obscuring the sun from view, one could form a faint idea of what would happen a few months later.
After entering the Mackenzie we noticed the constant dropping of earth from the banks causing a dull splash in the water. This was caused by the melting of the frozen earth along the shore of the stream. In some cases the action of the water had worn deep caverns into the perpendicular clay banks. When these caverns had become so large as to remove the support of the superincumbent mass, an earth slide of considerable magnitude would occur. In the greater part of this whole country frost is found at varying depths during the whole year, and of course the distance below the surface decreases as we go north. On our journey across from McPherson to Bell River we found it a little less than a foot to perpetual frost.
Some one has suggested the building of a line of railway between the Peel and Bell Rivers. All I would say of this visionary enterprise is that a solid ice foundation for the roadbed will certainly be found without much excavation. Bearing on this subject a well authenticated story is told. Some years ago an agent of the Hudson Bay Company died at Fort McPherson, and, being a man of some importance a deep grave was excavated for his remains out of the frozen earth. Some time after stories were told of strange appearances around this grave. As the years went by one after another of the inhabitants of the place imagined that he saw something uncanny around the resting place of the former master of the post. Finally, it became the settled belief of the community, that the lonely grave had frequent visits from unearthly beings. This went so far as to menace the existence of the post, and the company at length concluded either to move it to another locality or to remove the cause of the trouble to another resting place. It was finally decided that it would be better to take the remains up to Fort Simpson and inter them in the churchyard there where no uncanny visitor would dare to approach.
The winter season was chosen for the removal. An escort of natives with a team of dogs hitched to a toboggan was engaged for the work. After considerable difficulty the frozen earth was removed and the rude coffin taken up when the occupant was found just as he had been when placed there some twenty years before, in a perfect state of preservation. The grave had been made below the perpetual frost line and an eternity of years would under such conditions have failed to render literally applicable the words “Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.”