"Yes, it seems to me it was some name like that. 'Je ne sais pas.'"
Reader, take a map of North America, a large one, and mark off the vast area bounded by the Saskatchewan, the Rockies, the Hudson Bay, and the Arctic circle, and realise that in this region, as large as continental Europe outside of Russia and Spain, one simple, earnest man, inspired by the love of Him who alone is perfect love, invented and popularised a method of writing that in a few years—in less than a generation, indeed—has turned the whole native population from ignorant illiterates to a people who are proud to read and write their own language. This, I take it, is one of the greatest feats of a civiliser. The world has not yet heard, much less comprehended, the magnitude of the achievement; when it does there will be no name on the Canadian roll of fame that will stand higher or be blazoned more brightly than that of James Evans the missionary.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE DOGS OF FORT RESOLUTION
It sounds like the opening of an epic poem but it is not.
The Chipewyan calender is divided in two seasons—dog season and canoe season. What the horse is to the Arab, what the Reindeer is to the Lap and the Yak to the Thibetan, the dog is to the Chipewyan for at least one-half of the year, until it is displaced by the canoe.
During dog season the canoes are piled away somewhat carelessly or guarded only from the sun. During canoe season the dogs are treated atrociously. Let us remember, first, that these are dogs in every doggy sense, the worshipping servants of man, asking nothing but a poor living in return for abject love and tireless service, as well as the relinquishment of all family ties and natural life. In winter, because they cannot serve without good food, they are well fed on fish that is hung on scaffolds in the fall in time to be frozen before wholly spoiled. The journeys they will make and the devoted service they render at this time is none too strongly set forth in Butler's "Cerf Vola" and London's "Call of the Wild." It is, indeed, the dog alone that makes life possible during the white half-year of the boreal calender. One cannot be many days in the north without hearing tales of dog prowess, devotion, and heroism. A typical incident was related as follows by Thomas Anderson:
Over thirty years ago, Chief Factor George McTavish and his driver, Jack Harvey, were travelling from East Main to Rupert's House (65 miles) in a blizzard so thick and fierce that they could scarcely see the leading dog. He was a splendid, vigorous creature, but all at once he lay down and refused to go. The driver struck him, but the factor reproved the man, as this dog had never needed the whip. The driver then went ahead and found open water only a few feet from the dogs, though out of sight. After that they gave the leader free rein, surrendered themselves to his guidance, and in spite of the blinding blizzard they struck the flagpole of Rupert's between 11 and 12 that night, only a little behind time.
Many of the wild Wolf traits still remain with them. They commonly pair; they bury surplus food; the mothers disgorge food for the young; they rally to defend one of their own clan against a stranger; and they punish failure with death.
A thousand incidents might be adduced to show that in the north there is little possibility of winter travel without dogs and little possibility of life without winter travel.