“I can’t believe it!” said Rob. “Why, look, the weather is perfectly fine, and there isn’t any ice to be seen. On the other hand, there are plenty of mosquitoes. What’s more, just back at Fort Good Hope we have seen that they can raise things in their gardens. I would never have believed these things about this northern country if I had not seen them myself.”
Through the soft, mild light of the sub-Arctic morning the great steamboat churned on her north-bound way. At ten o’clock they passed an Indian village which they were told was called Chicago—no doubt named by some of the Klondikers who were practically cast away here twenty years earlier. John put it down on his map under that name, as indeed it is charted in all the authentic maps of that upper region. They were told that a good number of Indians come here to make their winter hunt.
An uneventful day, during which the boat logged a great many miles in her steady progress, was passed, until at ten o’clock they tied up at the next to the last of the Hudson’s Bay posts on the Mackenzie River, known as Arctic Red River, located at sixty-seven degrees and thirty minutes north latitude.
“Oh, look, look, fellows!” exclaimed John, as they pulled into the landing here. “Now we’re beginning to get some real stuff! I feel as though we were pretty near to the end of the world. Look yonder!”
He pointed to where, along the beach at the foot of the bluff, there lay two encampments of natives.
“Look at the difference in the boats!” exclaimed John, running to the side of the boat. “There are whale-boats with sails, something like those we saw out on the Alaska coast. What are they, Uncle Dick?”
“Those are Eskimos, my young friend,” said their leader, “and what you see there are indeed whale-boats. The Huskies come up the river this far to trade with the other Indians, and with the white men at this post. This is about as far as they come. They get their boats in trade from the whale-ships somewhere along the Arctic. As John says, this is really a curious and interesting scene that you see.
“Over yonder, I think, are the Loucheux. I don’t think they are as strong and able a class of savages as the Huskies. At least, that’s what the traders tell me.”
“Well, they’ve got wall tents, anyway,” said Jesse, who was fixing his field-glasses on the encampments. “Where did they get them? From the traders, I suppose. My, but they look ragged and poor! I shouldn’t wonder if they were about starved.”
By this time the boat was coming to her landing, and the boys hurried ashore to see what they could find in this curious and interesting encampment.