We entered this forest, and in four days reached the southern end of the Green Lake, a long narrow sheet of water of great depth. The dogs went briskly over the hard snow on the surface of the ice-covered lake, and ere sun set on the 15th of February we were housed in the little Hudson’s Bay post, near the northern extremity of the lake. We had run about 150 miles in four days.
A little more than midway between Carlton and Green Lake, the traveller crosses the height of land between the Saskatchewan and Beaver Rivers; its elevation is about 1700 feet above the sea level, but the rise on either side is barely perceptible, and between the wooded hills, a network of lakes linked together by swamps and muskegs spreads in every direction. These lakes abound with the finest fish; the woods are fairly stocked with fur-bearing animals, and the country is in many respects fitted to be made the scene of Indian settlement, upon a plan not yet attempted by American or Canadian governments in their dealings with the red man.
On the morning of the 17th February we quitted the Green Lake, and continued on our northern way. Early on the day of departure we struck the Beaver or Upper Churchill river, and followed its winding course for some forty miles. The shores were well wooded with white spruce, juniper, and birch; the banks, some ten or twenty feet above the surface of the ice, sloped easily back; while at every ten or fifteen miles smaller streams sought the main river, and at each accession the bed of the channel nearly doubled in width.
Hitherto I have not spoken of the cold; the snow lay deep upon the ground, but so far the days had been fine, and the nights, though of course cold, were by no means excessively so. The morning of the 19th February found us camped on a pine ridge, between lakes, about fifteen miles south of Lac Ile à la Crosse, by the spot where an ox had perished of starvation during the previous autumn, his bones now furnishing a night-long repast for our hungry dogs. The night had been very cold, and despite of blanket or buffalo robe it was impossible to remain long asleep. It may seem strange to those who live in warm houses, who sleep in cosy rooms from which the draught is carefully excluded, and to whom the notion of seeking one’s rest on the ground, under a pine-tree in mid-winter, would appear eminently suicidal; it may seem strange, I say, how in a climate where cold is measured by degrees as much below the freezing point as the hottest shade heat of Carnatic or Scindian summer is known to be above it, that men should be able at the close of a hard day’s march to lie down to rest under the open heavens. Yet so it is.
When the light begins to fade over the frozen solitude, and the first melancholy hoot of the night owl is heard, the traveller in the north looks around him for “a good camping-place.” In the forest country he has not long to seek for it; a few dead trees for fuel, a level space for his fire and his blanket, some green young pines to give him “brush” for his bed, and all his requirements are supplied. The camp is soon made, the fire lighted, the kettle filled with snow and set to boil, the supper finished, dogs fed, and the blankets spread out over the pine brush. It is scarcely necessary to say that there is not much time lost in the operation of undressing; under the circumstances one is more likely to reverse the process, and literally (not figuratively as in the case of modern society, preparing for her ball) to dress for the night. Then begins the cold; it has been bitterly cold all day, with darkness; the wind has lulled, and the frost has come out of the cold, grey sky with still, silent rigour. If you have a thermometer placed in the snow at your head the spirit will have shrunken back into the twenties and thirties below zero; and just when the dawn is stealing over the eastern pine tops it will not unfrequently be into the forties. Well then, that is cold if you like! You are tired by a thirty-mile march on snow shoes. You have lain down with stiffened limbs and blistered feet, and sleep comes to you by the mere force of your fatigue; but never goes the consciousness of the cold from your waking brain; and as you lie with crossed arms and up-gathered knees beneath your buffalo robe, you welcome as a benefactor any short-haired, shivering dog who may be forced from his lair in the snow to seek a few hours’ sleep upon the outside of your blankets.
Yet do not imagine, reader, that all this is next to an impossibility, that men will perish under many nights of it. Men do not perish thus easily. Nay even, when before dawn the fire has been set alight, and the tea swallowed hot and strong, the whole thing is nigh forgotten, not unfrequently forgotten in the anticipations of a cold still more trying in the day’s journey which is before you.
Such was the case now. We had slept coldly, and ere daylight the thermometer showed 32 degrees below zero. A strong wind swept through the fir-trees from the north; at daylight the wind lulled, but every one seemed to anticipate a bad day, and leather coats and capôtes were all in use.
We set off at six o’clock. For a time calmness reigned, but at sunrise the north wind sprang up again, and the cold soon became more than one could bear. Before mid-day we reached the southern end of Lac Ile à la Crosse; before us to the north lay nearly thirty miles of shelterless lake, and down this great stretch of ice the wind came with merciless severity.
We made a fire, drank a great deal of hot tea, muffled up as best we could, and put out into the lake. All that day I had been ill, and with no little difficulty had managed to keep up with the party. I do not think that I had, in the experience of many bitter days of travel, ever felt such cold; but I attributed this to illness more than to the day’s severity.
We held on; right in our teeth blew the bitter blast, the dogs with low-bent heads tugged steadily onward, the half-breeds and Indians wrapped their blankets round their heads, and bending forward as they ran made their way against the wind. To run was instantly to freeze one’s face; to lie on the sled was to chill through the body to the very marrow. It was impossible to face it long, and again we put in to shore, made a fire, and boiled some tea.