Little Folks of North America / Stories about children living in the different parts of North America

by Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade

The canoe of the Canadian Indian is the best possible boat for the kind of life he follows, just as the Eskimo’s kayak suits the icy waters of the north. Everything he needs for it can be found in the forest. He cuts down the cedar for its ribs, he gathers birch-bark with which to cover it, he gets resin from the pine to make it water-tight. When the ice begins to break up in the springtime and the wild swans and geese fly overhead, then he takes it from its winter resting place beneath the snow and launches it on the lake or stream near his home. With his birch canoe he can travel a long way through the wilderness, for when he has hunted or fished all day long, he can bring his canoe up on the shore and turn it bottom upwards. In an instant he has a roof to shelter him while he takes his night’s sleep.

The Indian children are sure to have dogs about their home. These are long-legged, sharp-nosed creatures, and they always look lean and hungry. Sometimes a puppy is cared for tenderly. Then, perhaps, it grows up full of love for its young master. But generally the dogs are only half-fed, and they are ever ready to fight with each other, and rob the stores of their masters. Yet they are very helpful to the Indian, as well as to many a white traveler in Canada. They drag the sledges over the snow in the winter and the little carts in the summer.

Many a time they stop to quarrel among themselves; many a time the sledge is over-turned and the rider is landed in a bank of snow. Many a time the dogs refuse to obey the word of the driver. Then the long whip flies right and left among them, and with angry howls they get back into order.

Wild Animals of the Forest and Prairie.

Out on the prairies and among the forests are many wild animals which the Indian boy delights to hunt. He has a bow and arrows of his own, and when he his older, his father promises him that he will buy him a gun from the white traders. Perhaps the most clever of all the animals hunted in Canada is the beaver. It might well be called the animal-carpenter. Its favorite home is a shallow lake or stream. The children of the wilderness are ever on the lookout for small earth mounds along the banks. Whenever they find these, they also notice that trees have been cut down nearby. It was certainly the work of beavers. These little mounds, then, are the roofs of store houses where the wise little creatures have placed piles of tender wood and roots, for their winter’s supply.

From these store-houses, tunnels have been dug out for some distance under the shallow water of the pond or stream, to the very doors of the beavers’ homes, which have been made very carefully out of twigs and brush, and plastered with mud. The tops can generally be seen above the surface of the water. Inside there are beds of boughs covered with soft grass and bark, and here the beavers sleep most of the hours during the winter. If the hunters come upon a beaver village in cold weather, there is no sign that the animals are near, for the beavers are all inside their homes. This is the time to get them, however, for then the soft thick fur is at its best.

In the autumn the men and boys generally catch the animals in traps, but in the winter, when the ice is frozen quite solid, the hunters stop up the passage from the beaver’s home to his store-house on the bank. Then with their axes, they break into the lodges, and dragging out the fat sleepy animals, they kill them, one by one. The sledges are soon packed and the hunters start for home, thinking as they go, of the feast of fat meat they will soon have. The beautiful furs must be tanned and put away for the traders, but the flesh of the animals they will enjoy themselves.

Besides beavers, there are martens, minks and fishers to be hunted and trapped, as well as muskrats and skunks. As soon as autumn comes the men and boys begin to put their traps in order, for with the first cold of November, they will carry them out to the pine forests. The Indian children would tell you that they cannot imagine why the fisher is so called. They know its ways and that it never goes near to the water except when it has to cross over to the other side. It has a long bushy tail and its fur is even richer than the costly sable.

As for the mink, they have discovered it is quite different from either the marten or the fisher, and its fur is not as beautiful. It lives near the streams and feeds upon crabs and fish. Many a time the young Indian has caught a mink by baiting his trap with fish.

Sometimes, as the children are playing around the camp in the evening, they hear a sudden screech in the distance. It is the cry of a wild-cat, or lynx. They would not care to have it take them by surprise, for it is a fierce creature, and its teeth and claws are very sharp. The men, however, hunt wild-cats and get many of them every year, because they are well paid for the skins.