Jack the Young Canoeman: An Eastern Boy's Voyage in a Chinook Canoe

by George Bird Grinnell

Near camp there were a few trees, and noticeable among them a tall dead spruce, in which was a huge eagle's nest. From the time of their arrival until dark one of the eagles was coming and going, bringing food to the whistling young, whose voices were plainly heard and whose movements were sometimes seen. No feature of this coast was more interesting or more surprising to Jack than the abundance of the eagles. They were seen everywhere and at all times. Sometimes during the morning fifteen or twenty of the great birds were passed, and half a dozen of their nests.

Jack talked with Fannin about their abundance.

"Of course they're plenty," said Fannin, "and there's no reason why they shouldn't be. You see they're absolutely without enemies; no one ever thinks of injuring them, and none die except from old age or accident. They breed undisturbed, and there is, as you have seen, an unending supply of food. Why shouldn't they increase? I can fancy that a time might come when the eagles would be so abundant here as to be a pest. Though, just what harm they could do, it is hard to say. I hate an eagle, myself, and would be glad to destroy them all if I could; but then, I have a special reason for it."

That night, as they were sitting about the fire, Jack asked Fannin what his reason was for disliking the eagles; and after a little hesitation Fannin told him a story.

"It was back in the sixties," he said; "and I had joined the rush to Cassiar, and my partner and myself had struck a prospect late in the summer. It looked well, and we held on until too late. The snow came, and fell heavily, and we made up our minds that we would have to winter there, yet we had practically nothing to eat. We had built a cabin, but it was not fitted up for winter, and there was no stock of provisions. The question was, what should we do? If we started to go back to our own cabin, two hundred miles away, where our main supplies were stored, we could probably get there on short commons. On the other hand, this would mean wintering away from our prospect, doing no work on it through the winter, and wasting some weeks of time in spring to get back to it. On the other hand, if one of us stayed in the cabin with what provisions we had, and the other went back and got a fresh supply, we could winter by the prospect, work on it during the winter, and be on hand in the spring to push the summer work. This seemed the best thing for us to do. Then came the question: 'Who should go for the grub?' We were both willing to go. There was no special choice between going and staying. The man who stayed behind would have a pretty lonesome time of it, but would have enough to occupy him. The man who went would have a lonely time, too, but he would be travelling constantly and working hard. We could not make up our minds which should go, and finally we drew lots for it, and it fell to me to go. I took my snowshoes and toboggan and some grub, and started. As I would be gone some weeks, most of the food must be left with my partner, and I could depend in some sort on my rifle. I should have no time to hunt, but there was always some likelihood of running on game.

"I started early one morning, and that afternoon it began to snow, and it kept on snowing for four days. I travelled slowly, for the ground was covered deep with a light, fluffy snow, on which snowshoes were not much good; and it was hard to haul the toboggan. Moreover, the ground being hidden, I could not choose my way, and two or three times I got among rocks and timber, and broke one of my snowshoes. That meant a halt to mend it—a further delay. It was soon evident that I was going to run short of food. I kept going as fast as I could, and kept a good lookout for game, but saw nothing, in fact, not even a track.

"About the tenth day out I saw one of these eagles roosting on a tree in the trail ahead of me; and, without seeming to notice it, I pressed on, thinking that before long I would be near enough to kill it, and that would give me so much more food. Before I came within reach, however, it left its perch and soared into the air. But instead of flying away, it merely wheeled high over the valley; and at night, when I went into camp, it alighted in a tree not far off, and sat watching me. This continued for days, and all the time my grub allowance was growing smaller. I cut myself down first to half rations and then to quarter rations. I was beginning to grow weak, and still had a long distance to go before reaching our cabin. Two or three times when the eagle had flown near me I had shot at it on the wing, hoping to kill it; but with no result except to call forth the whistling cry, which some writer has described as a 'maniac laugh.'

"What with my hunger, my weakness, and my loneliness, it got so after a while that that eagle got on my nerves. I began to think that it was following me; just watching and waiting for me to get weak, and stumble, and fall, and freeze to death; and that then it would have a good meal off me. I began to think it was an evil spirit. Every day I saw it, every day I looked for a chance to kill it, and every day it swung over me in broad circles and laughed at my misery.