My intention was to leave the fort on the last ice in the spring and travel with the dogs to the spot where we had left our big canoe in the autumn, there to await the breaking up of the lakes and to descend the Great Fish River with the first open water. I had no special object in reaching the sea-coast, as a birch-bark canoe is not the right sort of craft for work among salt-water ice; and it was more to see what the Barren Ground was like in summer, and to notice the habits of the birds and animals, than for the sake of geographical discovery, that I wished to make the expedition.
The Great Fish River has been twice descended before, but of course both Back's and Anderson's parties were compelled by the shortness of the summers to confine their exploration to the immediate neighbourhood of the river; and I thought that, by spending more time at the head-waters than they had been able to do, I should get a good idea of the nature of the country and an insight into the Indian summer life among the caribou. The difficulty was to obtain a crew; but Dr. Mackay very kindly consented to Mackinlay's accompanying me, and also lent me the two engaged servants, Murdo Mackay and Moise Mandeville, brother of Michel Mandeville the interpreter, but not half such a good fellow. We hoped to be able to engage the services of some of the Indians to guide us to the head of the river, but they have such a dread of the Esquimaux, who hunt farther down the stream, that we hardly expected any of the Yellow Knives to accompany us beyond that point. Long ago there was always war between the Indians and the Esquimaux, and Hearne's description of the massacre at the Bloody Falls on the Coppermine gives a good idea of the hatred that existed between these tribes. For many years they have not met, and although the Esquimaux seen by Anderson on the Great Fish River appear peaceful enough, the Yellow Knives hunting at the head of the river are in constant fear of meeting them.
Zinto, the chief, and another Indian, Syene, arrived at the fort soon after Dr. Mackay left, and we consulted them as to the best route to follow, and whether we could depend upon their tribe for any help. They told us that there was no difficulty in reaching the head-waters of the river, as the Indians were in the habit of coming there every summer, but beyond was an unknown country; they both remembered Anderson's expedition, and were full of stories about the difficulties of navigation, the numerous portages and the likelihood of starvation, but knew nothing from personal experience. We failed lamentably in the attempt to discover when the ice in the river usually broke up. Syene told us that it was in the moon when the dogs lie on their backs in the sun, and Zinto volunteered the information that it was soon after the leaves begin to shoot on the little willows in the Barren Ground; but we could not work it out into any particular month. Both promised to make dried meat and pemmican for us if they fell in with the caribou, and to leave caches in the last bunch of pine-trees. Next day they left for their camp, two hundred miles away in the woods, to await the first signs of warmer weather to start for the spring musk-ox hunt. Zinto was to come to the fort about the 1st of May, and personally conduct us to the places where he had piled up the meat of many caribou for our use.
CHAPTER X
About the middle of February, 1890, little François, an Indian living at the mouth of Buffalo River, arrived with the news that during a hunting-trip he had made to the southward he had seen the tracks of a band of wood buffalo and intended to go in pursuit of them after this visit to the fort.
Mackinlay and myself both wanted an excuse to be in the woods again, and the next day saw us plodding across the bay on snow-shoes to the comfortable little shanty, under the high bluff, which forms the most conspicuous landmark within sight of Fort Resolution. The establishment was presided over by an old lady, formerly cook at one of the forts, and kept with a cleanliness not always to be found in a white man's dwelling. The following morning we started with two sleigh-loads of fish for the dogs and provisions and blankets for ourselves. François brought his wife and little girl, besides a rather crazy boy, given to epileptic fits, but a good worker in the intervals between his attacks. We followed the river for a mile or two, then turned into the woods on the west bank, and, crossing a lake of some size, headed in a south-west direction through the thick pine-forest, occasionally picking up a marten from a line of traps set by little François, for we were following the track that he had made on his last trip, or finding a rabbit hung by the neck in one of his wife's snares; very cunning these old women are in all things concerning the stomach, and if there are many rabbit-tracks to be seen in the snow there is little danger of going without supper.
On the second day we crossed a large prairie dotted with lakes, formerly the home of many beavers, and still bearing evidence of their labours in the long banks which served as dams and the huge mounds which were once their houses. The beavers have all gone long ago, and the ladies who wore the pretty fur-trimmed jackets in far-away England, and the husbands who grumbled at their price, are gone too; but the beavers have left the most impression on the face of the earth. Wonderful moulders of geography they are; a stream dammed up in a level country forms a huge lake where the forest stood, the trees fall as their roots rot in standing water, and, if the dam be not attended to by the workers, a fertile grass-covered prairie takes the place of the lake. From the Liard River and Great Slave Lake, to the Peace River on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, extends the greatest beaver country in the world. It is known by Indian report alone, as no white man ever penetrates far into the wilderness of pine-forest and morass; many streams head away into the interior of this unknown land, but the white man has only seen their mouths, as he passes up or down the main waterways of the North. It is true that the Company's men have ascended Hay River, a large stream falling into the Great Slave Lake, and by making an overland portage, have dropped on the Peace River at Fort Vermillion; but they have always made hurried voyages and have had no opportunity of exploring much new ground.
Scattered over this huge extent of country are still a few bands of buffalo. Sometimes they are heard of at Forts Smith and Vermillion, sometimes at Fort St. John close up to the big mountains on Peace River, and occasionally at Fort Nelson on the south branch of the Liard. It is impossible to say anything about their numbers, as the country they inhabit is so large, and the Indians, who are few in number, usually keep to the same hunting-ground. These animals go by the name of wood buffalo, and most people are of opinion that they are a distinct race from the old prairie buffalo so numerous in bygone days; but I am inclined to think that the very slight difference in appearance is easily accounted for by climatic influences, variety of food, and the better shelter of the woods. Here too the giant moose and the woodland caribou have their home, and even in the short journey that I made into this district the tracks in the snow told a tale of plenty. Many black bears' skins are brought out every year, and towards the mountains the formidable grizzly is often encountered by the fearful hunter. Nor are the small fur-bearing animals wanting; foxes—red, cross, and a few silver—seek their living on the prairie, while wolverines, fisher, mink, marten, and lynx may be trapped in the woods, and a few otters frequent the streams and lakes. In the summer ducks, geese, and many other water-birds have their nests in the muskegs, and two or three varieties of the tree grouse are always to be found. "The hunter's Paradise!" says the sporting reader; "let us go and have a hunt there." But now for the other side of the picture. In the summer it is practically impossible to travel, as it is a swampy country not to be crossed with horses, and the lakes are too far apart to be available as a canoe-route, while the mosquitos are intolerable. Only when the snow has fallen, and all water is held fast in the grip of winter, has one a chance of exploring this Land of Promise with dogs, sleighs, and snow-shoes; but, by this time, the summer life has all flown far away southward, and, though I think one would be fairly safe in pushing on, there is always a chance of coming across a large tract of gameless country, and finding a difficulty in obtaining provisions.