Across the sub-Arctics of Canada

by J. W. Tyrrell

The first articles essential to comfort were tubs and warm water. With travellers in the north, particularly during the winter season, the practice of performing daily ablutions is quite unheard of. This is not due to neglect, but is rather an enforced custom due to the painful effects produced by the application of ice-cold water to the skin. During the previous summer and autumn my brother and I adhered to the habit of daily washing our hands and face, until our skin became so cracked and sore that we were forced to discontinue.

Besides Dr. Milne and an old-time servant, Macpherson, Mr. Mowat, now temporarily absent, was the only other white resident in York. He had, only a few days before our arrival, been sent off with two Indians as a relief party to look for the Company’s autumn mail, which was now more than six weeks overdue. The mail should have come down the Hays River from Oxford House, 250 miles distant, before the close of navigation, but as nothing had yet been heard of it or the party, fears were entertained as to their safety. It was thought they must have been lost in the river.

DOG-TRAIN AND CARRYALL.

As to York Factory, it is one of those places of which it may be said “the light of other days has faded.” In the earlier days of the Hudson’s Bay Company it was an important centre of trade, the port at which all goods for the interior posts were received, and from which the enormous harvests of valuable furs were annually shipped. Such business naturally necessitated the building of large storehouses and many dwellings to shelter the goods and provide accommodation for the large staff of necessary servants. As late as the summer of 1886, when I visited York, there was a white population of about thirty, besides a number of Indians and half-breeds in the employ of the Company; but things had now changed. Less expensive ways of transporting goods into the interior than freighting them hundreds of miles up the rivers in York boats now existed, and as the local supply of furs had become scarce serious results necessarily followed. Gradually the staff of servants had been dismissed or removed, and one by one the dwellings vacated, until York was now almost a deserted village. The Indians also had nearly all gone to other parts of the country.

One of the first duties receiving our attention upon reaching York was the placing of poor crippled Michel in the doctor’s hands. His frozen feet, still dreadfully sore, were carefully attended to, and it was thought that in the course of a few weeks they might be sufficiently recovered to allow him to walk. As to taking him any farther with us, that was unadvisable, for he was now in the care of a physician, and in a place where he would receive all necessary attention. Besides, we would have no means of carrying him, unless upon a sled drawn by our own men, and such an additional burden would seriously retard progress. It was therefore admitted by all that the best plan was to leave Michel in Dr. Milne’s care, to be forwarded as soon as he was well enough to walk. This was promptly arranged, and with as little delay as possible preparations were made for departure.

Two dogs from our Churchill team were purchased outright from Jimmie, who happened to be the owner of them, and a third having been secured from Morrison, the Indian, we only required one more to make up a fair team, and this was procured from the Doctor. Another team was hired from the Company, and it was at first thought, with the aid of these two, we might comfortably make the twelve days’ trip to Oxford House. But when supply bills were made out it was found that with the assistance of only two teams for so long a trip, each man would have to haul a heavily-loaded toboggan. The Doctor therefore, with some difficulty, raised a third team to accompany us for two days on the journey.

The next necessary preparation was the procuring of a guide and drivers for the teams. As the mail-carriers and two other Indians, Mr. Mowat’s companions, had already gone to Oxford House, few men were left at the Fort who knew the route; but happily a man was found who turned out to be another brother of our guide from Churchill. He was a very dark Indian, younger than Jimmie, and of much less noble appearance, and was known by the name of Charlie. He was said to be well fitted for the purpose, and we felt that a brother of our guide could not be a very poor man. Our party, including Arthur Omen, the driver from Churchill, who had determined to accompany us out of the country, was now complete. Twelve days’ rations, consisting of bacon, flour, sugar and tea, were served out to each man, with a warning to make them last through the trip or suffer the consequences. The flour was then baked up into the more convenient form of cakes. Dog-fish was also provided, and all being loaded upon the three sleds and two toboggans, the second stage of our sledding journey was begun on Tuesday morning, the 28th of November. The dog-sleds were not the same as those we had used in traversing the hard driven snow of the plains, but were what are known as “flat sleds” or large toboggans, they being better suited to woodland travel.

The condition of our party on leaving York was vastly different from what it had been on leaving Churchill. The two hundred mile tramp, although crippling some of us and causing all plenty of exertion, had hardened our muscles so much that, with the ten days’ “lie up” on the bank of the Nelson River, and a four days’ rest at York, we were now in first-class walking trim, and started up the Hays River at a brisk pace.

The first day’s march was upon the river ice, and our first camp was made on the bank, in two feet of snow, beneath the shelter of the evergreens. Beyond this our course led through the woods to the north of the river, and by many winding ways we journeyed on.