Hudson Bay, R. M. Ballantyne [read full novel TXT] 📗

hear these dingy sons and daughters of the wilderness raising their melodious voices in harmony in praise of the Christian’s God.

Upon our arrival at the village, we were ushered into Mr Evans’ neat cottage, from the windows of which is a fine view of Playgreen Lake, studded with small islands, stretching out to the horizon on the right, and a boundless wilderness of trees on the left. Here were collected the ladies and gentlemen of Norway House, and a number of indescribable personages, apparently engaged in mystic preparations for the approaching feast. It was with something like awe that I entered the schoolroom, and beheld two long rows of tables covered with puddings, pies, tarts, stews, hashes, and vegetables of all shapes, sizes, and descriptions, smoking thereon. I feared for the Indians, although they can stand a great deal in the way of repletion; moderation being, of course, out of the question, with such abundance of good things placed before them. A large shell was sounded after the manner of a bugle, and all the Indians of the village walked into the room and seated themselves, the women on one side of the long tables, and the men on the other. Mr Evans stood at the head, and asked a blessing; and then commenced a work of demolition, the like of which has not been seen since the foundation of the world! The pies had strong crusts, but the knives were stronger; the paste was hard and the interior tough, but Indian teeth were harder and Indian jaws tougher; the dishes were gigantic, but the stomachs were capacious, so that ere long numerous skeletons and empty dishes alone graced the board. One old woman, of a dark-brown complexion, with glittering black eyes and awfully long teeth, set up in the wholesale line, and demolished the viands so rapidly, that those who sat beside her, fearing a dearth in the land, began to look angry. Fortunately, however, she gave in suddenly, while in the middle of a venison pasty, and reclining languidly backward, with a sweetly contented expression of countenance, while her breath came thickly through her half-opened mouth, she gently fell asleep—and thereby, much to her chagrin, lost the tea and cakes which were served out soon afterwards by way of dessert. When the seniors had finished, the juveniles were admitted en masse, and they soon cleared away the remnants of the dinner.

The dress of the Indians upon this occasion was generally blue cloth capotes with hoods, scarlet or blue cloth leggins, quill-worked moccasins, and no caps. Some of them were dressed very funnily; and one or two of the oldest appeared in blue surtouts, which were very ill made, and much too large for the wearers. The ladies had short gowns without plaits, cloth leggins of various colours highly ornamented with beads, cotton handkerchiefs on their necks, and sometimes also on their heads. The boys and girls were just their seniors in miniature.

After the youngsters had finished dinner, the schoolroom was cleared by the guests; benches were ranged along the entire room, excepting the upper end, where a table, with two large candlesticks at either end, served as a stage for the young actors. When all was arranged, the elder Indians seated themselves on the benches, while the boys and girls ranged themselves along the wall behind the table. Mr Evans then began by causing a little boy about four years old to recite a long comical piece of prose in English. Having been well drilled for weeks beforehand, he did it in the most laughable style. Then came forward four little girls, who kept up an animated philosophical discussion as to the difference of the days in the moon and on the earth. Then a bigger boy made a long speech in the Seauteaux language, at which the Indians laughed immensely, and with which the white people present (who did not understand a word of it) appeared to be greatly delighted, and laughed loudly too. Then the whole of the little band, upon a sign being given by Mr Evans, burst at once into a really beautiful hymn, which was quite unexpected, and consequently all the more gratifying. This concluded the examination, if I may so call it; and after a short prayer the Indians departed to their homes, highly delighted with their entertainment. Such was the Christmas feast at Rossville, and many a laugh it afforded us that night as we returned home across the frozen lake by the pale moonlight.

Norway House is perhaps one of the best posts in the Indian country. The climate is dry and salubrious; and although (like nearly all the other parts of the country) extremely cold in winter, it is very different from the damp, chilling cold of that season in Great Britain. The country around is swampy and rocky, and covered with dense forests. Many of the Company’s posts are but ill provided with the necessaries of life, and entirely destitute of luxuries. Norway house, however, is favoured in this respect. We always had fresh meat of some kind or other; sometimes beef, mutton, or venison, and occasionally buffalo meat, was sent us from the Swan River district. Of tea, sugar, butter, and bread we had more than enough; and besides the produce of our garden in the way of vegetables, the river and lake contributed white-fish, sturgeon, and pike, or jack-fish, in abundance. The pike is not a delicate fish, and the sturgeon is extremely coarse, but the white-fish is the most delicate and delicious I ever ate. I am not aware of their existence in any part of the Old World, but the North American lakes abound with them. It is generally the size of a good salmon trout, of a bright silvery colour, and tastes a little like salmon. Many hundreds of fur-traders live almost entirely on white-fish, particularly at those far northern posts where flour, sugar, and tea cannot be had in great quantities, and where deer are scarce. At these posts the Indians are sometimes reduced to cannibalism, and the Company’s people have, on more than one occasion, been obliged to eat their beaver-skins! The beaver-skin is thick and oily, so that, when the fur is burned off, and the skin well boiled, it makes a kind of soup that will at least keep one alive. Starvation is quite common among the Indians of those distant regions; and the scraped rocks, divested of their covering of tripe-de-roche (which resembles dried-up seaweed), have a sad meaning and melancholy appearance to the traveller who journeys through the wilds and solitudes of Rupert’s Land.

Norway House is also an agreeable and interesting place, from its being in a manner the gate to the only route to Hudson Bay, so that during the spring and summer months all the brigades of boats and canoes from every part of the northern department must necessarily pass it on their way to York Factory with furs: and as they all return in the autumn, and some of the gentlemen leave their wives and families for a few weeks till they return to the interior, it is at this sunny season of the year quite gay and bustling; and the clerks’ house, in which I lived, was often filled with a strange and noisy collection of human beings, who rested here a while ere they started for the shores of Hudson Bay, for the distant region of Mackenzie River, or the still more distant land of Oregon.

During winter our principal amusement was white-partridge shooting. This bird is a species of ptarmigan, and is pure white, with the exception of the tips of the wings and tail. They were very numerous during the winter, and formed an agreeable dish at our mess-table. I also enjoyed a little skating at the beginning of the winter; but the falling snow soon put an end to this amusement.

Spring, beautiful spring! returned again to cheer us in our solitude, and to open into life the waters and streams of Hudson Bay. Great will be the difference between the reader’s idea of that season in that place and the reality. Spring, with its fresh green leaves and opening flowers, its emerald fields and shady groves, filled with sounds of melody! No, reader; that is not the spring we depict: not quite so beautiful, though far more prized by those who spend a monotonous winter of more than six months in solitude. The sun shines brightly in a cloudless sky, lighting up the pure white fields and plains with dazzling brilliancy. The gushing waters of a thousand rills, formed by the melting snow, break sweetly on the ear, like the well-remembered voice of a long-absent friend. The whistling wings of wild-fowl, as they ever and anon desert the pools of water now open in the lake and hurry over the forest-trees, accord well with the shrill cry of the yellow-leg and curlew, and with the general wildness of the scene; while the reviving frogs chirrup gladly in the swamps to see the breaking up of winter and welcome back the spring. This is the spring I write of; and to have a correct idea of the beauties and the sweetness of this spring, you must first spend a winter in Hudson Bay.

As I said, then, spring returned. The ice melted, floated off, and vanished. Jack River flowed gently on its way, as if it had never gone to sleep; and the lake rolled and tumbled on its shores, as if to congratulate them on the happy change. Soon the boats began to arrive. First came the “Portage Brigade,” in charge of L’Esperance. There were seven or eight boats; and ere long as many fires burned on the green beside the fort, with a merry, careless band of wild-looking Canadian and half-breed voyageurs round each. And a more picturesque set of fellows I never saw. They were all dressed out in new light-blue capotes and corduroy trousers, which they tied at the knee with beadwork garters. Moose-skin moccasins cased their feet, and their brawny, sunburned necks were bare. A scarlet belt encircled the waist of each; and while some wore hats with gaudy feathers, others had their heads adorned with caps and bonnets, surrounded with gold and silver tinsel hat-cords. A few, however, despising coats, travelled in blue and white striped shirts, and trusted to their thickly-matted hair to guard them from the rain and sun. They were truly a wild yet handsome set of men; and no one, when gazing on their happy faces as they lay or stood in careless attitudes round the fires, puffing clouds of smoke from their ever-burning pipes, would have believed that these men had left their wives and families but the week before, to start on a five months’ voyage of the most harassing description, fraught with the dangers of the boiling cataracts and foaming rapids of the interior.

They stopped at Norway House on their way, to receive the outfit of goods for the Indian trade of Athabasca (one of the interior districts); and were then to start for Portage la Loche, a place where the whole cargoes are carried on the men’s shoulders overland for twelve miles to the head-waters of another river, where the traders from the northern posts come to meet them, and, taking the goods, give in exchange the “returns” in furs of the district.

Next came old Mr Mottle, with his brigade of five boats from Isle à la Crosse, one of the interior districts; and soon another set of camp-fires burned on the green, and the clerks’ house received another occupant. After them came the Red River brigades in quick succession: careful, funny, uproarious Mr Mott, on his way to York for goods expected by the ship (for you must know Mr Mott keeps a store in Red River, and is a man of some importance in the colony); and grasping, comical, close-fisted Mr Macdear; and quiet Mr Sink—all passing