The Arctic Prairies Part 8

Quite the most abundant carpet in the forest here is the uva-ursi or bear-berry. Its beautiful evergreen leaves and bright red berries cover a quarter of the ground in dry woods and are found in great acre beds. It furnishes a staple of food to all wild things, birds and beasts, including Foxes, Martens, and Coyotes; it is one of the most abundant of the forest products, and not one hundred yards from the fort are solid patches as big as farms, and yet when I brought in a spray to sketch it one day several of the Hudson's Bay officers said: "Where in the world did you get that? It must be very rare, for I never yet saw it in this country." A similar remark was made about a phoebe-bird. "It was never before seen in the country"; and yet there is a pair nesting every quarter of a mile from Athabaska Landing to Great Slave Lake.

Fort Smith, being the place of my longest stay, was the scene of my largest medical practice.

One of my distinguished patients here was Jacob McKay, a half-breed born on Red River in 1840. He left there in 1859 to live 3 years at Rat Portage. Then he went to Norway House, and after 3 years moved to Athabaska in 1865. In 1887 he headed a special government expedition into the Barren Grounds to get some baby Musk-ox skins.

He left Fort Rae, April 25, 1887, and, travelling due north with Dogrib Indians some 65 miles, found Musk-ox on May 10, and later saw many hundreds. They killed 16 calves for their pelts, but no old ones. McKay had to use all his influence to keep the Indians from slaughtering wholesale; indeed, it was to restrain them that he was sent.

He now lives at Fort Resolution.

One morning the chief came and said he wanted me to doctor a sick woman in his lodge. I thought sick women a good place for an amateur to draw the line, but Squirrel did not. "Il faut venir; elle est bien malade."

At length I took my pill-kit and followed him. Around his lodge were a score of the huge sled dogs, valuable animals in winter, but useless, sullen, starving, noisy nuisances all summer. If you kick them out of your way, they respect you; if you pity them, they bite you. They respected us.

We entered the lodge, and there sitting by the fire were two squaws making moccasins. One was old and ugly as sin; the second, young and pretty as a brown fawn. I looked from one to the other in doubt, and said:

"Laquelle est la malade?"

Then the pretty one replied in perfect English: "You needn't talk French here; I speak English,' which she certainly did. French is mostly used, but the few that speak English are very proud of it and are careful to let you know.

"Are you ill?" I asked.

"The chief thinks I am," was the somewhat impatient reply, and she broke down in a coughing fit.

"How long have you had that?" I said gravely.

"What?"

I tapped my chest for reply.

"Oh! since last spring."

"And you had it the spring before, too, didn't you?"

"Why, yes! (a pause). But that isn't what bothers me."

"Isn't your husband kind to you?"

"Yes--sometimes."

"Is this your husband?"

"No! F----- B----- is; I am K-----."

Again she was interrupted by coughing.

"Would you like something to ease that cough?" I asked.

"No! It isn't the body that's sick; it's the heart."

"Do you wish to tell me about it?"

"I lost my babies."

"'When?"

"Two years ago. I had two little ones, and both died in one month.

I am left much alone; my husband is away on the transport; our lodge is nearby. The chief has all these dogs; they bark at every little thing and disturb me, so I lie awake all night and think about my babies. But that isn't the hardest thing."

"What is it?"

She hesitated, then burst out: "The tongues of the women. You don't know what a h.e.l.l of a place this is to live in. The women here don't mind their work; they sit all day watching for a chance to lie about their neighbours. If I am seen talking to you now, a story will be made of it. If I walk to the store for a pound of tea, a story is made of that. If I turn my head, another story; and everything is carried to my husband to make mischief. It is nothing but lies, lies, lies, all day, all night, all year. Women don't do that way in your country, do they?"

"No," I replied emphatically. "If any woman in my country were to tell a lie to make another woman unhappy, she would be thought very, very wicked."

"I am sure of it," she said. "I wish I could go to your country and be at rest." She turned to her work and began talking to the others in Chipewyan.

Now another woman entered. She was dressed in semi-white style, and looked, not on the ground, as does an Indian woman, on seeing a strange man, but straight at me.

"Bon jour, madame," I said.

"I speak Ingliss," she replied with emphasis.

"Indeed! And what is your name?"

"I am Madame X-------."

And now I knew I was in the presence of the stuckup social queen.

After some conversation she said: "I have some things at home you like to see."

"Where is your lodge?" I asked.

"Lodge," she replied indignantly; "I have no lodge. I know ze Indian way. I know ze half-breed way. I know ze white man's way. I go ze white man's way. I live in a house--and my door is painted blue."

I went to her house, a 10 by 12 log cabin; but the door certainly was painted blue, a gorgeous sky blue, the only touch of paint in sight. Inside was all one room, with a mud fireplace at one end and some piles of rags in the corners for beds, a table, a chair, and some pots. On the walls snow-shoes, fis.h.i.+ng-lines, dried fish in smellable bunches, a portrait of the Okapi from Outing, and a musical clock that played with painful persistence the first three bars of "G.o.d Save the King." Everywhere else were rags, mud, and dirt. "You see, I am joost like a white woman," said the swarthy queen. "I wear boots (she drew her bare brown feet and legs under her) and corsets. Zey are la," and she pointed to the wall, where, in very truth, tied up with a bundle of dried fish, were the articles in question. Not simply boots and corsets, but high-heeled Louis Quinze slippers and French corsets. I learned afterward how they were worn. When she went shopping to the H. B. Co. store she had to cross the "parade" ground, the great open s.p.a.ce; she crowded her brown broad feet into the slippers, then taking a final good long breath she strapped on the fearfully tight corsets outside of all.

Now she hobbled painfully across the open, proudly conscious that the eyes of the world were upon her. Once in the store she would unhook the corsets and breathe comfortably till the agonized triumphant return parade was in order.

This, however, is aside; we are still in the home of the queen. She continued to adduce new evidences. "I am just like a white woman.

I call my daughter darrr-leeng." Then turning to a fat, black-looking squaw by the fire, she said: "Darrr-leeng, go fetch a pail of vaw-taire."

But darling, if familiar with that form of address, must have been slumbering, for she never turned or moved a hair's-breadth or gave a symptom of intelligence. Now, at length it transpired that the social leader wished to see me professionally.

"It is ze nairves," she explained. "Zere is too much going on in this village. I am fatigue, very tired. I wish I could go away to some quiet place for a long rest."

It was difficult to think of a place, short of the silent tomb, that would be obviously quieter than Fort Smith. So I looked wise, worked on her faith with a pill, a.s.sured her that she would soon feel much better, and closed the blue door behind me.

With Chief Squirrel, who had been close by in most of this, I now walked back to my tent. He told me of many sick folk and sad lodges that needed me.

It seems that very few of these people are well. In spite of their healthy forest lives they are far less sound than an average white community. They have their own troubles, with the white man's maladies thrown in. I saw numberless other cases of dreadful, hopeless, devastating diseases, mostly of the white man's importation. It is heart-rending to see so much human misery and be able to do nothing at all for it, not even bring a gleam of hope. It made me feel like a murderer to tell one after another, who came to me covered with cankerous bone-eating sores, "I can do nothing"; and I was deeply touched by the simple statement of the Chief Pierre Squirrel, after a round of visits: "You see how unhappy we are, how miserable and sick. When I made this treaty with your government, I stipulated that we should have here a policeman and a doctor; instead of that you have sent nothing but missionaries."