Young Alaskans in the Far North - Emerson Hough (the little red hen read aloud TXT) 📗

tie back to wait for our pilots. There are three good pilots to eight boats. Many pictures of boats running the Cascade, which drops eight or ten feet like a mill-dam. Wonderful what these men can do with the boat.

“Now three or four small rapids which I don’t mind, then at 11.45 we struck Mountain Rapids, which made little Charl’ ‘get some scares,’ as François says. Sometimes we eat on the boat. I asked Father Le Fèvre if he had prayed for high water, and he said yes. Then I asked him what he did if high water didn’t come. He said, ‘my son, although in that case I prayed for high water, perhaps God likewise took another way to show His power, and so saved us out of even greater danger and discomfort.’ He’s a bird.

“The Moberly Rapids don’t amount to much. We ran them at 1.30—the last on the great chain of rapids, so they say. In about fifteen minutes we could see Fort McMurray on ahead. Many scows were lying along the shore, mostly loaded, some empty. Climbed up a steep hill to a fine flat on top of the bluff. Woods all around. A fine site for a town, and the Indians have it. The flat was covered with tepees, also some tents. There were dogs and dogs and babies and babies everywhere, with squaws and Indian men walking around all dressed up in their best. The Indian agent is going to pay their treaty money. It is only eight hundred and fifty dollars altogether—not very much, I think. Hear a lot of talk about lands and towns and railroads and oil.

“There are some Chippewyans here, and a lot of Crees, but these northern Indians don’t speak the Cree language. Got my moccasins mended. Made some pictures. The Grahame is the name of the H. B. steamboat which is going to take us down the river from here. We will tow our scow and sleep on the steamboat. Monday morning is when we start.

“Sunday, June 8th.—The treaty payment goes on, although it is Sunday. Indian men sitting down on the grass before the commissioner. He asks each one what right he has to claim money from the Great Father, I suppose. Once in a while he turns to the clerk and says, ‘We’ll give this old duffer twenty bucks.’ This doesn’t look to me like very much money. I don’t think they get much help. They are poor and dependent. If they couldn’t rustle well out of doors they all would die. Much trade finery among the natives, who dress very bright. Several Northwest Mounted Policemen in red-jacket uniform who go north with us on the boat. She is going to be crowded. The judge and his party are going on the scows.

“Well, this is the end of the scow-work for us, so it seems. Uncle Dick thinks we will be more comfortable on the steamer, and will see more people to talk to than if we stuck to our own scow. We will tow her alongside. I hope they will let us run through the Smith’s Landing portage, on the Little Slave, a hundred miles below here. I never had a better time in my life than the first 250 miles. The mosquitoes don’t bother us quite so much. John eats a great deal, and Jesse is getting fat. Having a bully time.”

VI ON THE STEAMBOAT

As Rob indicated in his diary, the start from McMurray was made early on Monday morning, but the stop was long enough for the boys to gain an idea of the importance of this busy frontier settlement. Here also came in the Clearwater River, down which, by way of a chain of lakes, all the brigade traffic used to come before the discovery that the Grand Rapids themselves could be run. When it is remembered that the start was made from Athabasca Landing on May 29th, and the arrival at McMurray on June 7th, it will be seen that, crude as the system and the means of transport had been, a great deal of results had been attained. Rob figured that at the rate of two hundred and fifty miles a week they would not get very far, but Uncle Dick pointed out that now, since they had reached steamer transport, the journey would advance very rapidly.

The steamboat, after its start, passed the string of scows, among which were some boats of independent traders, and a few hardy adventurers bound north, for what purpose they hardly knew.

The Grahame advanced steadily and rapidly down-stream. Some of the passengers excitedly tried to point out to Uncle Dick the value of the oil-lands in this part of the world, but Uncle Dick only smiled and said he was out for a good time, and not building railroads now.

The weather grew quite warm, and in the state-rooms the boys found that the thermometer stood at ninety degrees. With one stop for wood at a yard where the natives had piled up enormous quantities of cordwood, the boat tied up after making perhaps sixty miles.

On the following day she continued her steady progress down-stream between the green-lined shores. The banks of the river now grew lower and lower, and by nine o’clock in the evening, at which time it still was light, there began to show the marshes of the Peace River Delta, one of the most important deltas in all the world. The boat ran on into the night, and before midnight had passed the mouths of the Quatre Fourches, or Four Forks, which make the mouth of the Peace River.

The boys wondered at the great marshes which now they saw, and Uncle Dick explained to them that here was one of the greatest wild-fowl breeding-grounds in all the world.

“If there were any way in the world for sportsmen to get up here,” said he, “this country would soon be famous, for it certainly is a wilderness. Here is where the natives shoot wild geese for their winter’s meat. And as for ducks, there is no numbering them.”

Every one sat on the decks of the boat late at night, and we may rest assured that the boys were on hand when finally the Grahame swung to her moorings along the rocky shore of historic Fort Chippewyan.

In the morning they went ashore eagerly and gazed with wonderment over the wild scene which lay all about. The point where they landed was a rocky promontory. Before it lay high, rocky islands, among which ran the channels of the two great rivers which here met in the great waters of Athabasca Lake.

“Just to think,” said Rob to his friends, “this post here was founded a hundred and forty-three years ago. My, but I’d have liked to have been with old Sir Alexander at that time! He ought to have a monument here, it seems to me, or some sort of tablet; but there isn’t a thing to tell about his having found this place or done anything extraordinary.”

“I wonder how much these natives here are going to get in the way of treaty money,” said John, as he saw the commissioner again putting up his tent with the flag of his country above it. “There are a lot of canoes coming in from everywhere, so they say—fifty Cree boats from their camp. They tell me that the Crees and Chippewyans don’t mix any too well. I think the Crees have got them scared when it comes to that.”

“Well, these dogs have got me scared,” complained Jesse. “I never saw so many dogs in all my life. And there isn’t a cow anywhere in the world, nor even a goat or sheep.”

“They have to have these dogs in the winter-time, you understand,” said John, paternally. “They pull as much as a team of horses would in the snow.”

“Yes, and they eat as much as a horse would,” said Jesse. “The bacon for Fort Resolution was unloaded here last night, and the dogs ate up more than a ton of it; there’s nothing left there except a lot of paper and pieces of canvas! I’ll bet it’s the first time these dogs here ever had a square meal in their lives!”

“I don’t know about that,” said Rob, laughing. “Look over yonder.” He pointed to where an Indian woman sat on the ground, cleaning a lot of fish. Around her squatted a circle of gaunt, wolfish creatures which seemed ready to devour her and her fish alike.

Uncle Dick joined their group as they wandered around, and explained such things as they did not understand.

“This is one of the greatest posts of all the fur trade,” said he. “It is the center, as you have learned, of a lot of the native tribes in this part of the world. It ships from here an enormous amount of fur which the traders collect. The independent traders are breaking in here now, but the natives learn to catch more and more fur, so it seems. I suppose in time it will be exterminated. Then the natives will go, too.

“Over yonder is a tombstone, but not any monument for Sir Alexander. It tells about the life-history of an old factor who lived here for so long in this wilderness. It’s all old, old, old—older almost than any city in the United States, or at least older than a great many of our considerable cities. But you would think this was at the beginning. There are the natives, and there are the dogs, just as they were when Sir Alexander came through. Perhaps they didn’t have so much calico then. Of course they didn’t have repeating-rifles then, and surely not steel traps. But they talked the same language, and in my opinion they had about as much religion then as they have now.”

“What’s that boat out there with a sail on it?” demanded Rob, after a time, pointing to a small craft which was moored near by.

“Goodness only knows,” replied Uncle Dick. “There are all sorts of fool adventurers in the world, and they take all sorts of fool chances. I have heard that there are a half-dozen prospectors in that schooner, going north, they don’t know where nor why.

“Well, at least we can say we’re in the North here,” he added. “They get just nine mails a year at Chippewyan, about four mails in and the rest of them go out. In the summer-time mail service runs about once a month.

“They say they did have a horse in here two years ago, and that it ran off, and they did not find it for two years. They had a team at Fort McMurray, and it was lost, too. I wouldn’t call this a good horse country myself! No, it’s a fur country and an Indian country. That’s why it’s interesting to us, isn’t it?”

“Well,” said John, “we ought to get some pictures of the treaty payments to the Indians to show our folks back home how they live up here. I wish I had brought along twice as many rolls of film as I’ve got. I never get tired of making pictures of dogs and Indians.”

“Well, when you are photographing Indians study Indians, too,” said Uncle Dick. “Most people look at Indians just as an object of curiosity, but he may be quite a fellow, even so. For instance, there are these Crees sitting over there in the grass before the flag, waiting for their treaty money. They flock by themselves, quite distinct from the Chippewyans; they don’t camp within three miles of each other. As you know, the Crees are of the Algonquin family. They have pushed west all the way from eastern Canada, following the fur trade.