Canadian Wilds Part 5

Here a general clean-up took place, from a shave to clean linen and store clothes. As the lake upon which the fort is built was the main dropping-in thoroughfare from several parts of the interior, often two or three canoe parties would be at the "Point a la Barbe" at once.

A start would be made from there together, and when the rocky point which had hidden them from view was rounded a "flee de joie" was fired from each canoe, the paddle seized, and in unison with the quick stroke of the "paddle for the avenue," one of the usual French canoe songs was sung by the voices of the combined fleet till the rocky sh.o.r.es reproduced it from cliff to cliff.

Almost with the firing of the first shot the people at the post who were on the lookout ran up the glorious old Hudson's Bay flag to the flagstaff head, and an answering volley was returned. The handshaking, talk and laughter when the canoes beached was never to be forgotten.

Most of those at the fort had relatives or friends at one or other of the outposts, and if they were not present anxious inquiries were made and answered on the beach. Possibly some loved one had been called away since the last opportunity of communication with the fort; in such a case it devolved on some person of the new arrivals to break the sad news or receive bad tidings himself. In that case no words were necessary, the downcast look and the prolonged clasp of the hand told as well as words the bereavement. I have witnessed such meetings, and know it was only hours after the meeting that the details were imparted by words, and that night far into the small hours could be heard the death chant of the sorrowing relative.

Every night during our stay at headquarters our crews congregated at the men's guard room, and there hoed down the Red River Reels, and entered into other harmless pastimes till well up to midnight. During that week the former rigid discipline of the fort was considerably relaxed in honor of the strangers.

In the days of which I write liquor had been abolished for the servants and trade throughout the country, and a few years after even the officers' allowance of wine and brandy was cut off, so these dances were not attended by any discord or disturbance.

When the rum allowance was done away with to the servants, they received in lieu thereof two sterling per annum added to their wages, and to the Indian who had been in the habit of getting a gill of rum for every ten "made-beaver" traded, was given one skin for every ten traded, taking whatever he chose, to the amount of the aggregated skins, in goods.

For that one good deed alone, Sir George Simpson deserved the thanks of all throughout the territories when he abolished liquor as a stimulant to the men and a vehicle of trade with the natives.

The officers received no equivalent when their allowance was discontinued. It was brought about by the bad use one officer made of his allowance, and the others suffered thereby. A clerk's allowance of wine and brandy was done up in three oak kegs, each wine keg holding 2 1/4 gallons and the brandy one gallon. These were laced together with stout raw hide las.h.i.+ngs, and the piece was called a "Maccrow," and a very awkward piece it was to portage.

The majority of the officers made it a point of honor to debark the Maccrow unbroached at their respective posts, and make the contents spin religiously through the next twelve months. Some could not withstand the temptation of sampling the liquor enroute, and had very little when they reached home.

It was one of these gentlemen who was the cause of the allowance being cut off. A pet.i.tion was sent in to the Governor asking that we should receive the equivalent in money for the discontinuance of wine and brandy, which amounted to seventeen dollars at cost price, but no answer came, and we had to bear our loss and offer up some nightly words in favor (or otherwise) of the person who had made an abuse of his allowance.

CHAPTER X.

INLAND PACKS.

Prior to 1865, furs at inland posts were made up in packs of ninety pounds for transport to the frontier, but some of the young canoe men were not sufficiently strong to handle such a weight in debarking or loading them into the canoes, and a pack slipping from their grasp into the water and becoming wet inside caused delay to the whole brigade. A stop had to be made and the damaged pack unlaced, dried and repaired, before the journey could be resumed.

About the year mentioned, a top pack slipped off a man's back while being carried over a side portage, and before the man could save it had bounded down the hillside into the rapid, and was lost.

This happened to be a very valuable package, and its loss being reported called forth the next year, from headquarters, a general order to reduce the weight from ninety to eighty pounds per pack, and to make each package of pure skins--i. e., skins of only one kind.

This order to discontinue the mixing of skins was not pleasing to post managers, inasmuch as a smaller and better pack can be constructed of mixed skins than of only one kind.

For the information of trappers of to-day, I will give a summary of how many of each kind of skins made up, as nearly as possible, the prescribed weight of eighty pounds, thus:

Forty large beavers and 20 small beavers made 80 pounds.

Eight large bears and 4 small bears made 80 pounds.

Five hundred spring rats, 80 pounds.

Seven hundred and twenty large and small rats, fall, 80 pounds.

Two beavers, large, for top and bottom covers, and 60 lynx skins made 80 pounds.

Two beavers for covers and 30 otters made 80 pounds.

Two beavers for covers and 50 fox skins made 80 pounds.

We had orders to gather such furs as fisher, ermine, wolf, wolverine, skunk, and any broken or damaged skins, and make up into a separate pack.

The fine and delicate skins, as marten, mink, silver and cross foxes, were to be packed in boxes thirty inches long by twenty inches square, and into this small compa.s.s the martens and mink, after being tied in bundles of ten skins each, were packed to the number of four hundred skins.

This made a very valuable package, and the greatest care was taken of it the whole journey. Valuing them at only $5 each, one of these boxes represented the sum of $2,000.

We all saw that this mode of packing would not last; as, taking the best of care, accidents will happen, and they began the very year after the order came in force. Leaving a disagreeable job to the last, the men at each carrying place avoided these boxes, and there was a struggle to see who would not carry them. The sharp corners abraded the men's backs, and when carried on top of a pack they hurt the back of the head; so, as a rule, they were generally left till the last load, and then taken with bitter comments, and a fervent wish that the promulgator of the order for such packages were himself present to portage them over the carry.

Two of these marten boxes were left by one of our crews in the middle of a brule. In making the former trip some careless fellow must have thrown down a half-burnt match; in a few moments dense clouds of smoke arose in their rear. The country was as dry as tinder, and in the s.p.a.ce of a very few minutes the flames swept to the other end of the portage, licking up in pa.s.sing those valuable boxes and contents.

We, figuratively, locked the door for the balance of that trip after the horse had been stolen, for the remaining boxes were stored each night in the officers' tent, and during the day a responsible person was on guard over them.

It was a severe loss out of the returns of one post. No one, perhaps, could be blamed for it, but it had the desired effect of repealing the order, and we were told to pack as in the good "old corn-meal days," and mix our furs.

To arrive at an average of each kind of skins through each and every pack, we counted the whole returns and estimated the gross weight, and then divided so many of each kind of furs through the several packs, something like this: 10 beavers, 2 bears, 40 marten, 10 mink, 100 rats, 4 foxes, 4 otters, 4 lynx--80 pounds, or as the average might count out.

Previous to packing, the skins were neatly folded, placed in a pile and weighted down for a week. They were then built in the desired pack shape and underwent a severe wedge press hammering to reduce the bulk, then tied with three strong cross las.h.i.+ngs, either of raw cowhide or twenty-four-thread cod line, and when all was secure, the wedges being released, the pack tumbled out complete, less the lateral tyings, which were two in number, of eighteen-thread cod line.

The size of one of these packs, ready for transportation, was 24 inches long, 17 inches broad, and 10 inches thick. The expansion of the compressed skins would, after a few days, give it a rounded shape in the middle, but when first out of the press it was almost perfectly square, and it was the pride of each post manager to outdo the others in the beauty and solidity of his packs.

A well-made pack would withstand the ill usage and the hundreds of handlings in making a journey of four or five hundred miles from an interior post, and would reach the first steamer or train of cars without a tying giving way. In my young days I have seen a pile of 296 of these packs on the beach at one portage.

An anecdote relating to the care of such a valuable cargo may be here appended. An old factor who had not left the interior for twenty-seven years, applied for and received leave to visit civilization with the understanding that he would take care of the furs in transit. This he did during a journey of days and weeks coming down the great river, standing at each portage till every pack was over, and checking them off by numbers and the aggregate.

At last he reached steamboat navigation, s.h.i.+pped his packs, and had the bill of lading in his pocket. Having s.h.i.+pped the furs he took pa.s.sage on the same boat. During the midnight hours the captain, in making his rounds, was surprised to find a man sitting among the cargo. Who was this but Mr. S., still keeping his faithful watch. The captain asked why he was not abed in his stateroom.

"Well," he replied, "I saw rough deck hands going about the packs, and thought it better to keep an eye on them."

The captain laughed. "Why, man," he said, "we have signed bills of lading for those goods, and we are responsible for their safe delivery. Go to bed, Mr. S.," he continued, "and rest in peace, for even you have no right to touch one of those packs, now they are aboard this vessel."

That was in 1873, and I believe that old gentleman is alive yet. He retired many years ago and settled in Ontario.

CHAPTER XI.

INDIAN MODE OF HUNTING BEAVER.

Wa-sa-Kejic came over to the post early one October, and said his boy had cut his foot, and that he had no one to steer his canoe on a proposed beaver hunt. Now nice, fat beaver, just before the ice takes, is one of the tidbits that come to the trader's table, and having spare time just then I volunteered to accompany him, knowing I would get a share of the game.

As we made our way over the several small portages between the large lake on which the post is built and the one in which he had located the beaver, he told me there were two lodges on the lake to which we were making our way.

We pitched our tent on the last portage, so as not to make a fire near the beaver. Beavers have very poor eyesight, but very acute hearing and smell, and once they are frightened the sport for that night at all events is finished.

We had something to eat and then started for the lake, leaving our tent and things ready to return to after dark. Smoking and talking are forbidden when one is in a beaver lake; care also must be taken that the paddle does not rasp the side of the canoe.

The beavers had built an immense dam across the discharge of the lake, and left a small cut in the middle for the overflow to pa.s.s.

Here Wa-sa-Kejic placed a No. 4 Newhouse trap in about 4 in. of water. On a twig 9 in. high and set back about a foot from the trap he placed a small piece of castorum. The smell of this attracts a beaver. Then he lengthened the trap chain with three strands of No. 9 twine, tying it to a stout pole, which he planted very, very securely in deep water, out from the dam.

The beaver, when he finds himself caught, springs backward into the deep water and dives to the bottom; here he struggled to get away until shortness of breath compels him to rise to the surface, and this is repeated until the weight of the trap is too much for his exhausted condition, and he died at the bottom, from whence he is hauled up by the hunter when next visiting his traps.

After placing the trap on the dam Wa-sa-Kejic opened another ready for setting, tied the poles, and had everything ready; then giving me implicit injunctions not to make the least noise, told me to steer the canoe quietly to the lodge, which was fixed in a small bay out in the lake. When we reached the beaver's house, he carefully placed the trap in the same depth of water as he had done the previous one, with this difference, that he omitted the castorum, because, as he told me afterward, the beavers went on top of the house every night, the young ones to slide down into the water, and the old ones to do any necessary plastering.

Another trap was set at the next house, and from there we paddled the canoe a considerable distance from the beaver works, and figuratively rested on our oars until sundown.