When are they going to camp? Why don't they camp? These were questions I kept repeating to myself. We were going down a river. It was now late. I would expect to find them camped around the next point, but, alas! yonder they were disappearing around another point. Often I wished I had not come, but I was in for it, and dragged wearily on, legs aching, back aching, almost soul aching.
Finally they did camp. I heard the axes ringing, and I came up at last.
They had climbed the bank and gone into the forest. I pushed my sleigh up and unharnessed my dogs, and had just got the collar off the last one in time to hear father say, "Hurry, John, and carry up the wood." Oh, dear! I felt more like having someone carry me, but there was no help for it.
Carrying ten and twelve foot logs, and you on snow-shoes, is no fun when you are an adept, but for a novice it is simply purgatory. At least I could not just then imagine anything worse than my condition was.
By great dint of effort get the log on to your shoulder and then step out; snow deep and loose; bushes and limbs of trees, and your own limbs also all conspiring, and that successfully, to trip and bother. Many a fall is inevitable, and there are a great many logs to be carried in, for the nights are long and cold.
William felled the trees and cut them into lengths, and I grunted and grumbled under their weight in to the pile beside the camp.
At last I took off my snow-shoes and waded in the deep snow.
Father and his interpreter, in the meanwhile, were making camp, which was no small job. First, they went to work, each with a snowshoe as a shovel, to clear the snow away for a space about twelve feet square, down to the ground or moss; the snow forming the walls of our camp. These walls were then lined with pine boughs, and the bottom was floored with the same material; then the fire was made on the side away from the wind. This would occupy the whole length of one side; except in the case of a snow-storm, there would be no covering overhead.
If the snow was falling thick some small poles would be stuck in the snow-bank at the back of the camp, with a covering of canvas or blankets, which would form the temporary roof of the camp.
At last we were done; that is, the camp was made, the wood was carried, the fire was blazing.