To return to Stemaw the trapper, whom we left striding along with confident step, as though the high road lay before him, although no track or trail, discernible by European eye, is there to guide his footsteps. After a walk of two miles, a faint sound a-head brings him to a dead halt. He listens, and a noise like the rattling of a chain is heard from a dark, wild hollow in his front. "Another moment, and the rattle is again distinctly heard; a slight smile of satisfaction crosses Stemaw's dark visage; for one of his traps was set in that place, and he knows that something is caught. Quickly descending the slope, he enters the bushes whence the sound proceeds, and pauses when within a yard or two of his trap to peer through the gloom. A cloud passes off the moon, and a faint ray reveals, it may be, a beautiful black fox caught in the snare. A slight blow on the snout from Stemaw's axe-handle kills the unfortunate animal; in ten minutes more it is tied to his sledge, the trap is reset and again covered over with snow, so that it is almost impossible to tell that any thing is there; and the Indian pursues his way." And here we have a drawing of Reynard the Fox, a fine specimen of his kind, black as coal, with a white tuft to his tail, looking anxiously about him, his fore-paw fast in the jaws of a trap, with which a heavy log, fastened by a chain, prevents his making off. In the distance, the Indian, gun on shoulder, his snow-shoes, which look like small boats, upon his feet—strides forward, eager to secure his valuable prize. We give Mr Ballantyne all credit for the unpretending but useful wood-cuts scattered through his book, which serve to explain things whose form or nature would otherwise be but imperfectly understood. They are an honest and legitimate style of illustration, exactly corresponding to the requirements of a work of this kind.
The steel trap in which the fox is caught resembles a common English rat-trap, less the teeth, and is so set, that the jaws, when spread out flat, are exactly on a level with the snow. The chain and weight are hidden, a little snow is swept over the trap, and nothing is visible but the bait—usually chips of frozen partridge, rabbit, or fish, which are scattered all around the snare. Foxes, beavers, wolves, lynx, and other animals, are thus taken, sometimes by a fore-leg, sometimes by a hind one, or by two at once, and occasionally by the nose. By two legs is the preferable way—for the trapper, that is to say—for then escape is impossible. "When foxes are caught by one leg, they often eat it off close to the trap, and escape on the other three. I have frequently seen this happen; and I once saw a fox caught which had evidently escaped in this way, as one of its legs was gone, and the stump healed up and covered again with hair. When caught by the nose, they are almost sure to escape, unless taken out of the trap very soon after capture, as their snouts are so sharp and wedgelike, that they can pull them from between the jaws of the trap with the greatest ease." We are tempted to doubt the ease, or at any rate the pleasure, of such an operation, and to compassionate the unfortunate quadrupeds, whose only chance of escape from being knocked on the head lies in biting off their own feet, or scraping the skin off their jaws between those of a trap. The poor brutes have no chance of a fair fight, or even of a few yards' law and a run for their lives. Their hungry stomachs and keen olfactories touchingly appealed to by the scraps of frozen game, they eat their way to the trap, and finally put their foot in it. The trapper's trade is a sneaking sort of business; and one cannot but understand the feeling of self-humiliation of Cooper's Natty Bumpo, upon finding himself reduced from the rifle to the snare—from the stand-up fight in the forest to the stealthy prowl and treacherous trap. And hence, doubtless, do we find the occupation far more frequently followed by Indians and half-breeds than by white men—at least at Hudson's Bay. Nevertheless Mr Ballantyne, whilst enjoying dignified solitude in the remote station of Seven Islands, his French-Canadian servant and his Newfoundland dog Humbug for sole companions, received the visit of a trapper, who was not only white, but a gentleman to boot. This individual, who was dressed in aboriginal style, had been in the employ of a fur company, had married an Indian girl, and taken to trapping. He was a good-natured man, we are told, and had been well educated—talked philosophy, and put his new acquaintance up to the fact, that what he for some time had taken for a bank of sea-weed, was a shoal of kipling, close inshore. He stopped a week at the station, living on salt pork and flour-and-water pancakes, and telling his adventures to his gratified host, to whom, in his lonely condition, far worse society would have been highly acceptable.
The trapper's occupation is not always unattended with danger. So long as he has only foxes and such small gear to deal with, whom a tap on the snout finishes, it is mere child's play, barring the fatigue of long walks and heavy loads; but now and then he finds an ugly customer in one of his traps, and encounters some risk before securing him. This we shall see exemplified, if we follow Stemaw to two traps, which he set in the morning close to each other, for the purpose of catching one of the formidable coast-wolves. "These animals are so sagacious, that they will scrape all round a trap, let it be ever so well set, and, after eating all the bait, walk away unhurt. Indians consequently endeavour in every possible way to catch them, and, amongst others, by setting two traps close together, so that, whilst the wolf scrapes at one, he may perhaps put his foot in the other. It is in this way Stemaw's traps are set; and he now advances cautiously towards them, his gun in the hollow of his left arm. Slowly he advances, peering through the bushes; but nothing is visible. Suddenly a branch crashes under his snow-shoe, and, with a savage growl, a large wolf bounds towards him, landing almost at his feet. A single glance, however, shows the Indian that both traps are on his legs, and that the chains prevent his further advance. He places his gun against a tree, draws his axe, and advances to kill the animal. It is an undertaking, however, of some difficulty. The fierce brute, which is larger than a Newfoundland dog, strains every nerve and sinew to break its chains; whilst its eyes glisten in the uncertain light, and foam curls from its blood-red mouth. Now it retreats as the Indian advances, grinning horribly as it goes; and anon, as the chains check its further retreat, it springs with fearful growl towards Stemaw, who slightly wounds it with his axe, as he jumps backward just in time to save himself from the infuriated animal, which catches in its fangs the flap of his leggin, and tears it from his limb. Again Stemaw advances and the wolf retreats, and again springs upon him, but without success. At last, as the wolf glances for a moment to one side—apparently to see if there is no way of escape—quick as lightning the axe flashes in the air, and descends with stunning violence on its head; another blow follows, and in five minutes more the animal is fastened to the sledge."
Weary with this skirmish, and with the previous walk, Stemaw calls a halt under a big tree, and prepares to bivouac. Having started with him, we shall accompany him to the end of his expedition, the more willingly that his proceedings are very interesting, and capitally described by Mr Ballantyne, in whose words we continue to give them.
"Selecting a large pine, whose spreading branches covered a patch of ground free from underwood, he scrapes away the snow with his snow-shoe. Silently but busily he labours for a quarter of an hour; and then, having cleared a space seven or eight feet in diameter, and nearly four feet deep, he cuts down a number of small branches, which he strews at the bottom of the hollow till all the snow is covered. This done, he fells two or three of the nearest trees, cuts them up into lengths of about five feet long, and piles them at the root of the tree. A light is applied to the pile, and up glances the ruddy flame, crackling among the branches overhead, and sending thousands of bright sparks into the air. No one who has not seen it can have the least idea of the change that takes place in the appearance of the woods at night, when a large fire is suddenly lighted. Before, all was cold, silent, chilling, gloomy, and desolate, and the pale snow looked unearthly in the dark. Now, a bright ruddy glow falls upon the thick stems of the trees, and penetrates through the branches overhead, tipping those nearest the fire with a ruby tinge, the mere sight of which warms one. The white snow changes to a beautiful pink; whilst the stems of the trees, bright and clearly visible near at hand, become more and more indistinct in the distance, till they are lost in the black background. The darkness, however, need not be seen from the encampment, for, when the Indian lies down, he will be surrounded by the snowy walls, which sparkle in the firelight as if set with diamonds. These do not melt, as might be expected: the frost is much too intense for that; and nothing melts except the snow quite close to the fire. Stemaw has now concluded his arrangements: a small piece of dried deer's meat warms before the blaze, and meanwhile he spreads his green blanket on the ground, and fills a stone calumet (a pipe with a wooden stem) with tobacco, mixed with a kind of weed prepared by himself."
His pipe smoked, his venison devoured, the trapper wraps him in his blanket, and sleeps. We are then transported to a beaver-lodge at the extremity of a frozen and snow-covered lake. Yonder, where the points of a few bulrushes appear above the monotonous surface of dazzling white, are a number of small earthy mounds, the trees and bushes in whose vicinity are cut and barked in many places. It is a lively place enough in the warm season, when the beavers are busy nibbling down trees and bushes, to mend their dams and stock their storehouses with food. Now it is very different: in winter the beaver stays at home, and sleeps. His awakening is sometimes an unpleasant one.
"Do you observe that small black speck moving over the white surface of the lake, far away in the horizon? It looks like a crow, but the forward motion is much too steady and constant for that. As it approaches, it assumes the form of a man; and at last the figure of Stemaw, dragging his empty sleigh behind him, (for he has left his wolf and foxes in the last night's encampment, to be taken up when returning home,) becomes clearly distinguishable through the dreamy haze of the cold wintry morning. He arrives at the beaver-lodges, and, I warrant, will soon play havoc among the inmates.
"His first proceeding is to cut down several stakes, which he points at the ends. These are driven, after he has cut away a good deal of ice from around the beaver-lodge, into the ground between it and the shore. This is to prevent the beaver from running along the passage they always have from their lodge to the shore, where their storehouse is kept, which would make it necessary to excavate the whole passage. The beaver, if there are any, being thus imprisoned in the lodge, the hunter next stakes up the opening into the storehouse on shore, and so imprisons those that may have fled there for shelter on hearing the noise of his axe at the other house. Things being thus arranged to his entire satisfaction, he takes an instrument called an ice-chisel—which is a bit of steel about a foot long by one inch broad, fastened to the end of a stout pole, wherewith he proceeds to dig through the lodge. This is by no means an easy operation; and although he covers the snow around him with great quantities of mud and sticks, yet his work is not half finished. At last, however, the interior of the hut is laid bare, and the Indian, stooping down, gives a great pull, when out comes a large, fat, sleepy beaver, which he flings sprawling on the snow. Being thus unceremoniously awakened from its winter nap, the shivering animal looks languidly around, and even goes the length of making a face at Stemaw, by way of showing its teeth, for which it is rewarded with a blow on the head from the pole of the ice-chisel, which puts an end to it. In this way several more are killed, and packed on the sleigh. Stemaw then turns his face towards his encampment, where he collects the game left there, and away he goes at a tremendous pace, dashing the snow in clouds from his snow-shoes, as he hurries over the trackless wilderness to his forest home"—where, upon arrival, he is welcomed with immense glee by his greedy Squaw, whose lips water at the prospect of a good gorge upon fat beaver. We are not informed what sort of eating this is; but we read of soup made of beaver skins, which are oily, and stew well, resorted to by Europeans when short of provender in the dreary wilds of Hudson's Bay. Indeed all manner of queer things obtain favour as edibles in the territory of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. A party of Canadian voyageurs or boatmen find a basket made of bark and filled with bear's grease, which had been hidden away by Indians, who doubtless entertained the laudable design of forwarding it, per next ship, to the address of a London hairdresser. The boatmen preferred its internal application to the external one usually made of the famous capillary regenerator, and in less than two days devoured the whole of the precious ointment, spread upon the flour-cakes which, with pemican, form their usual provisions. Pemican is buffalo flesh, dried in flakes and then pounded between two stones. "These are put into a bag made of the animal's hide, with the hair on the outside, and well mixed with melted grease; the top of the bag is then sewed up, and the pemican allowed to cool. In this state it may be eaten uncooked; but the voyageurs mix it with a little flour and water, and then boil it; in which state it is known throughout the country by the elegant name of robbiboo. Pemican is good wholesome food, will keep fresh for a great length of time, and, were it not for its unprepossessing appearance, and a good many buffalo hairs mixed with it, through the carelessness of the hunters, would be very palatable." The Indians, it has already been shown, are by no means particular in their diet, and devour, with equal relish, a beaver and a kinsman. Another unusual article of food in favour amongst them is a species of white owl, which looks, we are told, when skinned, comically like very young babies. They are large and beautiful birds, sometimes nearly as big as swans. Mr Ballantyne shot one measuring five feet three inches across the wings. "They are in the habit of alighting upon the tops of blighted trees, and on poles of any kind, which happen to stand conspicuously apart from the forest trees; for the purpose, probably, of watching for birds and mice, on which they prey. Taking advantage of this habit, the Indian plants his trap (a fox trap) on the top of a bare tree, so that, when the owl alights, it is generally caught by the legs." Owls of all sizes abound in Hudson's Bay, from, the gigantic species just described, down to the small gray owl, not much bigger than a man's hand.
Hudson's Bay not being a colony, but a great waste country, sprinkled with a few European dwellings, dealings are carried on by barter rather than by cash payments, and of money there is little or none. But, to facilitate trade with the Indians, there is a certain standard of value known as a castor, and represented by pieces of wood. We may conjecture the term to have originated in the French word castor, signifying a beaver—of which animal these wooden tokens were probably intended to represent the value. It stands to reason that such a coinage is too easily counterfeited for its general circulation to be permitted, and it consequently is current only in the Company's barter-rooms. "Thus an Indian arrives at a fort with a bundle of furs, with which he proceeds to the Indian trading-room. There the trader separates the furs into different lots, and valuing each at the standard valuation, adds the amounts together, and tells the Indian, who has looked on the while with great interest and anxiety, that he has got fifty or sixty castors; at the same time handing him fifty or sixty little bits of wood in lieu of cash, so that he may, by returning these in payment of the goods for which he really exchanges his skins, know how fast his funds decrease. The Indian then looks around upon the bales of cloth, powder-horns, guns, blankets, knives, &c., with which the shop is filled, and after a good while makes up his mind to have a small blanket. This being given him, the trader tells him that the price is six castors; the purchaser hands him six of his little bits of wood, and selects something else. In this way he goes on till the wooden cash is expended. The value of a castor is from one to two shillings. The natives generally visit the establishments of the Company twice a-year; once in October, when they bring in the produce of their autumn hunts, and again in March, when they come in with that of the great winter hunt. The number of castors that an Indian makes in a winter hunt varies from fifty to two hundred, according to his perseverance and activity, and the part of the country in which he hunts. The largest amount I ever heard of was made by a man named Piaquata-Kiscum, who brought in furs, on one occasion, to the value of two hundred and sixty castors. The poor fellow was soon afterwards poisoned by his relatives, who were jealous of his superior abilities as a hunter, and envious of the favour shown him by the white men."
Mr Ballantyne visits and describes Red River settlement, the only colony in the extensive district traded over by the Hudson's Bay Company. It contained in 1843 about five thousand souls—French Canadians, Scotchmen, and Indians—and since then the population has rapidly increased. In the time of the North-West Company, since amalgamated, with that of Hudson's Bay, it was the scene of a smart skirmish or two between the rival fur-traders, in one of which Mr Semple, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, lost his life, and a number of his men were killed and wounded. We find some curious particulars of the stratagems and manœuvres employed by the two associations to outwit each other, and get the earliest deal with the Indian hunters. But to this we can only thus cursorily refer; whilst to many other chapters of equal novelty and interest we cannot even do that. We are obliged to refuse ourselves the pleasure of a piscatorical page, in which we would have shown the brethren of the angle, roaming by loch and stream on trout and salmon intent, how in the land of Hendrik Hudson silver fish are caught whose eyes are living gold. All we can do, before laying down the pen, is to commend Mr Ballantyne's book, which does him great credit. It is unaffected and to the purpose, written in an honest, straightforward style, and is full of real interest and amusement, without the unnecessary wordiness and impertinent gossip with which books of this description are too often swollen. We are glad to learn, whilst concluding this paper, that the public will soon be enabled, by a second edition of the volume, to form a better idea of its merits than it has been possible for us to give by these few brief extracts.