CHAPTER IX
At Fond du Lac I slept for the first time since we left the fort under a roof, but on account of the awful squalor of the house I should have much preferred the usual open camp in the snow. Daylight found us under way again, François and myself, with a small boy to run ahead of the dogs; as we were travelling light I expected to be able to ride the last half of the journey, but for the first two days the fish for dogs' food made our load too heavy to travel at a fast pace. I left all the musk-ox and caribou heads and skins that I had managed to save, to come in with Michel and Marlo when they made the usual journey to the fort for New Year's day, on which occasion the Indians from all quarters bring in their furs to trade, and receive a small feast of flour and sugar, an event not to be missed on any account, even though wives and families may be left to starve in the woods and the famished dogs drop with fatigue along the track.
There was no news as to the state of the ice, as we were the first people to attempt the crossing of the lake this winter. It is usually not safe for travel till the middle of December, so we coasted along the north shore, increasing the distance, but getting greater safety by doing so. We took things easily, making early starts and putting ashore frequently for a cup of tea; it was a great improvement on the canoe-travelling which had delayed us so much in the autumn. At sundown every night we picked out a sheltered spot among the tall pine-trees where firewood was plentiful, threw away the snow with our snow-shoes, and put down a thick mat of pine-brush; then a huge fire was lit and enough wood cut for the night, the fish thawed for the dogs, and supper cooked for the men. We had bread at every meal, which is in itself a luxury after four months of straight meat; the day ended with tobacco, and we rolled ourselves in our blankets to sleep, till the position of the Great Bear told us it was time to be on the march once more. People who live in civilization find it hard to believe that men in these northern latitudes habitually sleep out under the stars, with the thermometer standing at 30°, 40°, and even 60° below zero; yet it is those same people of civilization who suffer from colds in the head, lung-diseases, and a variety of ailments unknown to the voyageur, whose only dangers are starvation and the risk of accidents incidental to travelling in rough countries.
On the second day we passed a couple of houses occupied by an Indian, Capot Blanc, with whom I afterwards became great friends; he had left for the fort a couple of days before, but the ice was reported to be dangerous in the Grand Traverse. Another Indian, Thomas, a brother of Marlo and Zinto, was ready to start, and joined in with us for the rest of the journey; he had only two dogs, but with a light load managed to keep up easily enough. The ice among the islands was pretty good, but the snow was soft and deep, and it was not till our fourth night out from Fond du Lac that we camped on the last outlying island, ready to take the Traverse. About eighteen miles away to the south, without any chance to put ashore till we reached it, lay the Ile de Pierre, and we were to make for a half-breed's house that lay within a mile of it on the main shore of the lake. It had been arranged that I was to ride in pomp across this piece, so, after a good breakfast about three o'clock, I turned into the sleigh and soon dropped off to sleep to the music of sleigh-bells and a volley of French oaths with which François encouraged his dogs every few minutes. At this time the stars were shining brightly, and there was not a breath of wind. I must have slept for a couple of hours when François awoke me with the information that we were lost. Turning out of my warm berth I found a gale of wind blowing, with snow falling and drifting heavily; I could hardly make out the men in the darkness, though they were all standing within a few yards of me. Of course I had not the slightest idea where we were, or the direction in which we had been travelling. François seemed undecided, but Thomas was quite sure that by keeping the wind abeam we should hit off the Ile de Pierre. We put him ahead, and he proved perfectly right in his direction; for after four hours' steady walk we made out the land, the weather clearing a little at day-break. We had headed a little too far to the west, but were soon inside the half-breed's cabin, where we found plenty of fish for the dogs, and so decided to spend the day there, as the wind had freshened up again and the drifting snow made travelling unpleasant. We did not know what a narrow escape we had had till the owner of the house came in, after making an attempt to visit his nets. He reported the ice broken up to the west by the violence of the gale, and had we kept a little more in that direction we might easily have walked into open water in the darkness and made a disastrous ending to our expedition.
Our course the next day lay over shoal water, mostly inside sandbanks and through narrow channels of the delta of the Slave River. We crossed the main stream on good ice, and following the shore of the lake for ten miles, rattled into the fort about two o'clock, within ten minutes of the arrival of the outward-bound packet from Mackenzie River. Luckily enough it had been delayed one day by the storm that had overtaken us in the Grand Traverse, and I had an opportunity of sending out letters by the dog-sleigh that was to leave the same night. For true hospitality there is nothing in the world to beat the welcome back to a Hudson's Bay post in the North after one has made a long journey in the wilds; no need to trouble your head with the idea that you may not be wanted, or that you will eat too much of the ever insufficient supplies sent in from the outside world to the officer in charge. Why is it that the less a man has, and the harder things are to obtain, the more ready he is to divide? It does not seem to work in civilization, but it is certainly so in rough countries, and especially with the Hudson's Bay Company's officers in the Far North. Perhaps it is because they have all seen hardships and privations in the Company's service and know the value of a helping hand given in the time of need; men who have suffered themselves have always more feeling for the sufferings of others than people who have lived only on the soft side of life.
I don't think I ever enjoyed a meal so much as that first dinner at Fort Resolution, after a most necessary wash. A year later I dragged myself into a small trading-post at the foot of the Rocky Mountains after many days' total starvation, but had then got beyond the capacity of enjoying anything. On the present occasion I was able to thoroughly appreciate the change from my four months' experience in the Barren Ground. How strange it seemed once more to sit at a table, on a chair, like a white man, and eat white man's food with a knife and fork, after the long course of squatting in the filth of a smoky lodge, rending a piece of half-raw meat snatched from the dirty kettle. Then, too, I could speak again in my own language, and there was a warm room to sit in, books to read, and all the ordinary comforts of life, with the knowledge that so long as I stayed in the house I had my own place, while the wind and the snow had theirs outside.
There was no scarcity at the fort this year, although the autumn fishing had not been successful. The Fond du Lac boat had brought in a good supply of dried meat, and there was a better stock of flour than is usually to be found at a northern fort. Mr. Mackinlay, too, had got in a fair supply of luxuries from Winnipeg, and, as Mrs. Mackinlay was an excellent manager, we always lived as well as one should wish to live anywhere.