Plain Tales of the North

by Thierry Mallet

One day, when hauling as number two behind the leader, he noticed that the latter would slack his traces as soon as he reached the back of the preceding sleigh, travelling in the same direction on the same trail. Spot, raging at the idea that the rest of the team was still pulling while the leader, resting his head on the preceding sleigh, was loafing, would immediately seize the trace with his teeth and throw himself on the snow, obliging the leader by the weight of his dragging body to fall back. He would remain in that position until a gap of thirty feet at least had opened between the two teams. Then, knowing that the leader had to start pulling his own share again if he did not want to be noticed and punished by the driver, Spot would jump to his feet and proceed with his own work with great energy and triumphant howls of joy.

At all times he was a great fighter and would often get wounded, even if he did succeed in thrashing his opponent. One day, I doctored his wounds with iodine. Ever after, as soon as he was bitten or cut, he would come up and beg for treatment.

I often tried to fool him by applying plain warm water to his wounds. I never succeeded. He would remain whining until some kind of medicine, which he could smell and taste, was rubbed on the sore spot. Anything would do—listerine, alcohol, even tooth paste. As soon as his nose and tongue satisfied him that he had been properly treated with something that he couldn’t smell and lick without distaste, he would wag his bushy tail and saunter away quite satisfied.

Tale IV: In Civilization

I know hundreds of Indians who live so far North that they have never in their lives seen a motor car, a steamer, a railway or an electric light.

A few years ago one of our best hunters asked us, as a great favor, to be allowed to go through to the line as one of the crew of the mail canoes which our trader sends twice a year to the nearest town four hundred miles away.

The man had never been there and was very keen to see the white man’s land. When he reached the frontier town at the head of the railway he showed no surprise. He inspected thoroughly all that was to be seen and kept his mouth obstinately closed. After a while, knowing that the canoes could not leave before a week, the Indian asked permission to go to Montreal with the mail clerk. The latter, who knew him well and who spoke Cree fluently, undertook to look after him. He traveled for two days and two nights in a day coach and, outside of the fact that he absolutely refused to leave the train at any moment for fear of seeing it go off without him, he appeared to enjoy the trip.

In Montreal he seemed to fight shy of the streets and preferred to remain in the lobby of the small hotel where a room had been reserved for him. He sat there all day, looking through the window.

On his return to the hunting grounds, he met me on my way south and told me how much he had liked his journey to the big city. Through sheer curiosity, I asked him then what had surprised him the most while he was in civilization. Was it the sight of the trains, motor cars, street cars, the telephone, the electric lights or the stone houses? No, none of these things seemed to have impressed him in the slightest. Finally he admitted that there was one thing that had astonished him, and that was the people in the street in front of his hotel. All those people walking so fast and passing one another without a sign. People who never stopped to speak. People who did not seem to know one another. That, he could not fathom at all.