In the fall of the year, and as the Winter advances, those people sew the skins of the deer's legs together in the shape of long portmanteaus, which, when hauled on the snow as the hair lies, are as slippery as an otter, and serve them as temporary sledges while on the barren ground; but when they arrive at any woods, they then make proper sledges, with thin boards of the larch-tree, generally known in Hudson's Bay by the name of Juniper.[122]
{324} Those sledges are of various sizes, according to the strength of the persons who are to haul them: some I have seen were not less than twelve or fourteen feet long, and fifteen or sixteen inches wide, but in general they do not exceed eight or nine feet in length, and twelve or fourteen inches in breadth.
The boards of which those sledges are composed are not more than a quarter of an inch thick, and seldom exceed five or six inches in width; as broader would be very unhandy for the Indians to work, who have no other tools than an ordinary knife, turned up a little at the point, from which it acquires the name of Bafe-hoth among the Northern Indians, but among the Southern tribes it is called Mo-co-toggan. The boards are sewed together with thongs of parchment deer-skin, and several cross bars of wood are sewed on the upper side, which serves both to strengthen the sledge and secure the ground-lashing, to which the load is always fastened by other smaller thongs, or stripes of leather. The head or fore-part of the sledge is turned up so as to form a semi-circle, of at least fifteen or twenty inches diameter. This prevents the carriage from diving into light snow, and enables it to slide over the inequalities and hard drifts of snow which are constantly met with on the open plains and barren grounds. The trace or draught-line to those sledges is a double string, or slip of leather, made fast to the head; and the bight is put across the shoulders of the person who {325} hauls the sledge, so as to rest against the breast. This contrivance, though so simple, cannot be improved by the most ingenious collar-maker in the world.
Their snow-shoes differ from all others made use of in those parts; for though they are of the galley kind, that is, sharp-pointed before, yet they are always to be worn on one foot, and cannot be shifted from side to side, like other snow-shoes; for this reason the inner-side of the frames are almost straight, and the outer-side has a very large sweep. The frames are generally made of birch-wood, and the netting is composed of thongs of deer-skin; but their mode of filling that compartment where the foot rests, is quite different from that used among the Southern Indians.
Their clothing, which chiefly consists of deer-skins in the hair, makes them very subject to be lousy; but that is so far from being thought a disgrace, that the best among them amuse themselves with catching and eating these vermin; of which they are so fond, that the produce of a lousy head or garment affords them not only pleasing amusement, but a delicious repast. My old guide, Matonabbee, was so remarkably fond of those little vermin, that he frequently set five or six of his strapping wives to work to louse their hairy deer-skin shifts, the produce of which being always very considerable, he eagerly received with both hands, and licked them in as fast, and with as good a grace, as {326} any European epicure would the mites in a cheese. He often assured me that such amusement was not only very pleasing, but that the objects of the search were very good; for which I gave him credit, telling him at the same time, that though I endeavoured to habituate myself to every other part of their diet, yet as I was but a sojourner among them, I had no inclination to accustom myself to such dainties as I could not procure in that part of the world where I was most inclined to reside.
The Southern Indians and Esquimaux are equally fond of those vermin, which are so detestable in the eyes of an European; nay, the latter have many other dainties of a similar kind, for beside making use of train-oil as a cordial and as sauce to their meat, I have frequently seen them eat a whole handful of maggots that were produced in meat by fly-blows. It is their constant custom to eat the filth that comes from the nose; and when their noses bleed by accident, they always lick the blood into their mouths, and swallow it.
The tract of land inhabited by the Northern Indians is very extensive, reaching from the fifty-ninth to the sixty-eighth degree of North latitude; and from East to West is upward of five hundred miles wide. It is bounded by Churchill River on the South; the Athapuscow Indians' Country on the West; the Dog-ribbed and Copper Indians' Country on the North; and by Hudson's Bay on the East. {327} The land throughout that whole tract of country is scarcely anything but one solid mass of rocks and stones, and in most parts very hilly, particularly to the Westward among the woods. The surface, it is very true, is in most places covered with a thin sod of moss, intermixed with the roots of the Wee-sa-ca-pucca, cranberries, and a few other insignificant shrubs and herbage; but under it there is in general a total want of soil, capable of producing anything except what is peculiar to the climate. Some of the marshes, indeed, produce several kinds of grass, the growth of which is amazingly rapid; but this is dealt out with so sparing a hand as to be barely sufficient to serve the geese, swans, and other birds of passage, during their migrations in the Spring and Fall, while they remain in a moulting state.
The many lakes and rivers with which this part of the country abounds, though they do not furnish the natives with water-carriage, are yet of infinite advantage to them; as they afford great numbers of fish, both in Summer and Winter. The only species caught in those parts are trout, tittameg, (or tickomeg,) tench, two sorts of barble, (called by the Southern Indians Na-may-pith,) burbot, pike, and a few perch. The four former are caught in all parts of this country, as well the woody as the barren; but the three latter are only caught to the Westward, in such lakes and rivers as are situated among the woods; and though some of those rivers lead to the barren ground, yet the {328} three last mentioned species of fish are seldom caught beyond the edge of the woods, not even in the Summer season.
There is a black, hard, crumply moss, that grows on the rocks and large stones in those parts, which is of infinite service to the natives, as it sometimes furnishes them with a temporary subsistence, when no animal food can be procured. This moss, when boiled, turns to a gummy consistence, and is more clammy in the mouth than sago; it may, by adding either moss or water, be made to almost any consistence. It is so palatable, that all who taste it generally grow fond of it. It is remarkably good and pleasing when used to thicken any kind of broth, but it is generally most esteemed when boiled in fish-liquor.