[OTELNE, THE INDIAN OF THE GREAT NORTH WOODS]
In the "movies" you have surely seen pictures of the Far North—Alaska or northern Canada, or even the northern United States—with the brave, rough men who live about mining or lumber camps or trading posts. In many of the pictures, you remember, there have been Indians. Here is an account of the life of those Indians when they are away from the trading posts.
At the end of this story you will find an outline partly made out. After you have read the story through, compare it with the outline, and fill in the topics left blank under a, b, c, etc. You may add more sub-topics if you think you need them.
When white men first came to America, they thought it was a country called India of which they had often heard. So they called the people they found here Indians. They also called them red men, because they were about the color of a copper cent that has been carried a while. These red men did not have many tools and other things to make it easy to work and to live. They had no horses, cows, pigs, sheep or chickens, so they had to catch wild animals for food. They had no guns nor rifles, but made spears and bows and arrows with which to kill their game. They had no iron. Their arrow points and spear heads were of sharpened stone, as was a heavy tool they made something like our hatchet. It was a very dull, poor hatchet. They had no cloth to make clothes. Instead, they used the skins of wild animals they caught or shot with their bows and arrows. Instead of houses they had tents or wigwams made of skins. The Indians thought the white men's things were wonderful, and they were much pleased to trade furs and game for blankets, guns, powder, and bullets. The Indians like bright, pretty things, so they were very fond of trading for beads to make necklaces and ornaments for their suits.
After a long time, the white men took most of the Indians' country, but there is still a large part of North America where there are more Indians than white men. This is far to the north in Canada, in a wide strip between the towns and farms of the white men and the cold, snow land of the Eskimos. The soldiers who have been to the Great War tell us much about England, France, and Germany; but the country where the Indians still have their hunting grounds is larger than all of these countries put together. The region is covered with evergreen forests, a great silent land of deep snow and trees and cold. It is too cold and rocky for the white man to make farms, so he has not cut down the trees. There are no cities nor houses, nothing but forests where the Indian hunts game and lives in his tent as he has always lived.
To trade with these Indians, the white men have built stores in the edge of the Indian country. They are called Posts—Trading Posts. When the warm days of June come and the ice is all melted, the keeper of a Post begins to look up the river watching for canoes to come around the bend. At last he sees one. In front sits an Indian woman paddling, and in the stern of the canoe sits Otelne, her husband, paddling and also steering. They are coming to the post to trade. In the middle of the boat are a boy, a girl, a brand new baby, and a dog. The boy's name is Akusk (arrow); the girl's name is Wabogum (flower). The baby's name is Wabshish (little white hare). He is tied to a board to keep him safe and warm. The canoe contains one more thing, very precious, a big bundle of fur skins. This is the wages of a whole year, the result of a hard winter's work in the forest.
The keeper of the Post shakes hands with Otelne. Otelne opens the bale of furs, and the first afternoon he and his wife trade a few muskrat skins for some flour, beans, bacon and canned peaches. Then the Indians camp and have a feast. Other canoes come down the river bringing other families until the post becomes a great picnic ground. They talk over the happenings of the winter, of getting lost in storms, of upsetting their canoes, of falling through the ice, of the bears they have caught, and the wolves that have chased them. They wonder what has happened to the Indians who do not come back. They have canoe races and the different families, or tribes, play match games of la crosse. This game, which the white men learned from the Indians, is now the national game of Canada, as baseball is of the United States.
In August the trading is over, and the Indians start back to the hunting grounds for another year's work. The canoe is loaded full. Instead of the bale of furs, Otelne has in his canoe a new tent, a sheet-iron stove, some stove pipe, twenty-five steel traps, a rifle, one thousand cartridges, fish hooks and fishing line, a wood saw, knives, axes, buckets, blankets, and a lot of white men's clothes. He did not buy any shoes because he would rather have the moccasins he makes himself.
It is hard work to paddle the heavy load up the river against the swift current. Presently they hear the roaring noise of a waterfall where the stream jumps down over some rocks. The canoe cannot pass this, so they all get out and carry the canoe and all its load, bit by bit, along a little path that leads to the quiet water above the falls. Here they load the canoe again and paddle on, but they soon come to another carrying place, or portage as it is called, and have to unload again. They are not afraid to leave their belongings while they go back to the foot of the falls, for no Indian would think of stealing anything he found in this way.
You can see why the Indians do not use white men's boats, for no white man's boat is as light as the birch bark canoe. You can also see why they do not take much food from the post. They cannot carry it and all they need for camping and hunting too. They must have the tent and traps, so they take only food enough to last until they get far enough from the post to find game.