A tale of warfare.—Dog-sleds.—A missing link.—The North Sea.—“Winterers.”—Samuel Hearne.
During the three months which had elapsed since his arrival at the Forks, Cerf-vola had led an idle life; he had led his train occasionally to Fort à la Corne, or hauled a light sled along the ice of the frozen rivers, but these were only desultory trips, and his days had usually passed in peace and plenty.
Perhaps I am wrong in saying peace, for the introduction of several strange dogs had occasioned much warfare, and although he had invariably managed to come off victorious, victory was not obtained without some loss. I have before remarked that he possessed a very large bushy tail. In time of war this appendage was carried prominently over his back, something after the manner of the plumes upon casque of knight in olden times, or the more modern helmet of dragoon in the era of the Peninsular War.
One day, while he was engaged in a desperate struggle with a bumptious new-comer, a large ill-conditioned mongrel which had already been vanquished, seeing his victor fully occupied, deemed it an auspicious moment for revenge, and springing upon the bushy tail proceeded to attack it with might and main. The unusual noise brought me to the door in time to separate the combatants while yet the tail was intact, but so unlooked for had been the assault that it was found upon examination to be considerably injured. With the aid of a needle and thread it was repaired as best we could, Cerf-vola apparently understanding what the surgical operation meant, for although he indulged in plenty of uproar at every stitch no attempt at biting was made by him. He was now however sound in body and in tail, and he tugged away at his load in blissful ignorance that 1500 miles of labour lay before him.
I know not if my readers are acquainted with the manner in which dogs are used as draught animals in the great fur regions of the north. A dog sled is simply two thin oak or birch-wood boards lashed together with deer-skin thongs: turned up in front like a Norwegian snow shoe, it runs when light over hard snow or ice with great ease; its length is about nine feet, its breadth sixteen inches. Along its outer edges runs a leather lashing, through the loops of which a long leather line is passed, to hold in its place whatever may be placed upon it. From the front, close to the turned portion, the traces for draught are attached. The dogs, usually four in number, stand in tandem fashion, one before the other, the best dog generally being placed in front, as “foregoer,” the next best in rear as “steer-dog.” It is the business of the foregoer to keep the track, however faint it may be on lake or river. The steer-dog guides the sled, and prevents it from striking or catching in tree or root. An ordinary load for four dogs weighs from 2 to 400 lbs.; laden with 200 lbs. dogs will travel on anything like a good track, or on hard snow, about thirty or thirty-five miles in each day. In deep or soft snow the pace is of necessity slow, and twenty to twenty-five miles will form a fair day’s work.
If any one should ask what length of time dogs will thus travel day after day, I refer them to the following chapters, wherein the fortunes of Cerf-vola and his brethren, starting out to-day on a long journey, are duly set forth.
Some few miles west of the mission station called Prince Albert I parted from my friend Captain M——, who thus far had accompanied me. He was to return to Red River and Canada, viá Cumberland and the lakes; I to hold my way across the frozen continent to the Pacific. For many months each day would place a double day’s distance between us, but we still looked forward to another meeting, even though between us and that prospect there lay the breadth of all the savage continent.
A couple of days later I reached the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fort of Carlton, the great rendezvous of the winter packets between north and south. From north and west several of the leading agents of the fur company had assembled at Carlton to await the coming of the packet bearing news from the outer world. From Fort Simpson on the far Mackenzie, from Fort Chipewyan on the lonely lake Athabasca, from Edmonton on the Upper Saskatchewan, from Isle à la Crosse, dogs had drawn the masters of these remote establishments to the central station on the middle Saskatchewan. But they waited in vain for the arrival of the packet; with singular punctuality had their various trains arrived within a few days of each other from starting-points 2000 miles apart; yet after a few days’ detention these officers felt anxious to set out once more on their journey, and many a time the hill-side on which the packet must first appear was scanned by watchers, and all the boasted second sight and conjuring power of haggard squaw and medicine man was set at work to discover the whereabouts of the “missing link” between the realms of civilization and savagery. To me the delay, except for the exigencies of time and distance, was not irksome. I was in the society of gentlemen whose lives had been passed in all portions of the great north, on the frozen shores of Hudson’s Bay, in the mountain fastnesses of the Chipewyan range, or midst the savage solitudes that lie where, in long, low-lying capes, and ice-piled promontories, the shore of America stretches out to meet the waves of the Northern Ocean.
There was one present who in the past seven months had travelled by horse and canoe, boat and dog train, full 4000 miles; and another, destined to be my close companion during many weeks, whose matchless determination and power of endurance had carried him in a single winter from the Lower Mackenzie River to the banks of the Mississippi.
Here, while we await the winter packet, let me sketch with hasty and imperfect touch the lives of those who, as the “winterers” of the great Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson’s Bay, have made their homes in the wilderness.