Part 6 (1/2)
Even after the English had won the country for themselves, they did not know how large it was, for no one had explored the country from north to south or from east to west. At last a brave Scotchman named Alexander Mackenzie came to settle in Canada. He was fond of adventure and liked nothing better than roaming for miles through the wilderness, hunting the wild animals in the forest, and skimming over the lakes and down the streams in an Indian canoe. He visited many a settlement where the red children had never before looked upon a white man; he discovered rivers and lakes of which the French and English knew nothing before. He arrived in his wanderings on the sh.o.r.e of the Great Slave Lake in the very heart of the country. A large river flowed out of it. Where did it go, and how far? The Indians could not tell him.
At the beginning of the summer, he set out with a small party of white men and an Indian guide. At first it was very pleasant paddling down the river in their canoes, but after a few days they came to rapids. Then they had to take to the land and carry their canoes and their supplies on their shoulders. As they traveled onward they came to still other rapids which stopped their course again and again.
The farther north they traveled, the colder it became. The days were much longer, too, for it was nearing mid-summer. It seemed very strange to them to have the midnight as bright as daylight. The wild animals were scarce now.
”Suppose,” thought Mackenzie, ”we are unable to shoot enough for our food,” but still he kept on. He pa.s.sed Indian villages on his way, and at last met with Eskimos who were wandering about on their summer hunt.
The wild animals were different now from what the explorers had met before; they had reached the home of the polar bear and the arctic fox.
The river was full of broken ice and there were whales in the water.
They were close to the sh.o.r.es of the Arctic Ocean, and had traveled a thousand miles down the great river, which they named Mackenzie in honor of their brave leader. The party did not remain long in the bleak, northern country, but turned about and journeyed homeward as quickly as possible.
Three years afterwards Mackenzie made up his mind to cross Canada to the westward. Slowly but surely he made his way, now gliding along a stream or over a lake in his canoe; now cutting a path through a thick forest; again finding himself stopped by high cliffs or by a rus.h.i.+ng torrent.
But he kept on until he came to the Rocky Mountains, whose snowy tops reached far up towards the heavens.
”Not far beyond those mountains is the sea,” Mackenzie's Indian guide told him.
He still pushed on, through narrow pa.s.ses, between walls of rock, up steep slopes and down through deep valleys. At last he reached the other side, launching his boats in a stream flowing to the west. In a short time the Pacific Ocean lay stretched before his eyes.
Among the Eskimos and Indians.
The middle of Canada is a great plain, which ends in the north in frozen marshes, where the homes of the little Eskimos are to be found. There, in the midst of the ice and snow they work and play, in much the same way as their brothers and sisters in Greenland and Alaska.
Farther south, yet still where the summer is short, and the winter is long and cold, Indian children camp out on the prairies and on the borders of the forests. Most of these red children live in tents, or tepees, as they call them. The winter tents are lined with heavy skins, and a large fire burns in the middle, around which they sleep during the cold winter nights. They dress in the skins of the wild animals their fathers have killed, and they wear soft moccasins on their feet. They run many a mile in these moccasins without getting tired or losing their breath.
Sometimes the little Indians have great feasts when ducks and geese, deer and hares are to be found, or when the berries and birds' eggs are plentiful. But many a time during the long winter game is scarce, and there is no food to be had. Then the children must not complain, though they are faint with hunger. If an Indian child hopes to grow up and be a brave man, he must learn to bear many things and show no one how much he is suffering.
Fearful storms rage about his home in the winter. The snow falls hour after hour and the fierce winds drive it in great gusts. Sometimes in summer the winds blow hard too, but then they are hot and dry and they scorch the faces of those who are exposed to them.
The red children learn many things not to be found in books. They look at the gra.s.s,-the way the blades turn shows them where to look for the east and west. The flight of birds warns them of a coming storm and in what direction to look for it. A broken twig tells them that a wild animal has pa.s.sed by.
They have many sports. In winter they bind snow-shoes on their feet and skim over the snowfields. In summer they ride over the prairies on their ponies with pads of deer skin beneath them.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Little Canadian Indian Children.]
Sometimes they let their ponies move along at a slow walk; but more often they gallop wildly along, with black hair waving in the air, and with bright and eager eyes. Then, too, the red children have canoes, in which they paddle on the lakes or streams near home.
The canoe of the Canadian Indian is the best possible boat for the kind of life he follows, just as the Eskimo's kayak suits the icy waters of the north. Everything he needs for it can be found in the forest. He cuts down the cedar for its ribs, he gathers birch-bark with which to cover it, he gets resin from the pine to make it water-tight. When the ice begins to break up in the springtime and the wild swans and geese fly overhead, then he takes it from its winter resting place beneath the snow and launches it on the lake or stream near his home. With his birch canoe he can travel a long way through the wilderness, for when he has hunted or fished all day long, he can bring his canoe up on the sh.o.r.e and turn it bottom upwards. In an instant he has a roof to shelter him while he takes his night's sleep.
The Indian children are sure to have dogs about their home. These are long-legged, sharp-nosed creatures, and they always look lean and hungry. Sometimes a puppy is cared for tenderly. Then, perhaps, it grows up full of love for its young master. But generally the dogs are only half-fed, and they are ever ready to fight with each other, and rob the stores of their masters. Yet they are very helpful to the Indian, as well as to many a white traveler in Canada. They drag the sledges over the snow in the winter and the little carts in the summer.
Many a time they stop to quarrel among themselves; many a time the sledge is over-turned and the rider is landed in a bank of snow. Many a time the dogs refuse to obey the word of the driver. Then the long whip flies right and left among them, and with angry howls they get back into order.
Wild Animals of the Forest and Prairie.
Out on the prairies and among the forests are many wild animals which the Indian boy delights to hunt. He has a bow and arrows of his own, and when he his older, his father promises him that he will buy him a gun from the white traders. Perhaps the most clever of all the animals hunted in Canada is the beaver. It might well be called the animal-carpenter. Its favorite home is a shallow lake or stream. The children of the wilderness are ever on the lookout for small earth mounds along the banks. Whenever they find these, they also notice that trees have been cut down nearby. It was certainly the work of beavers.
These little mounds, then, are the roofs of store houses where the wise little creatures have placed piles of tender wood and roots, for their winter's supply.
From these store-houses, tunnels have been dug out for some distance under the shallow water of the pond or stream, to the very doors of the beavers' homes, which have been made very carefully out of twigs and brush, and plastered with mud. The tops can generally be seen above the surface of the water. Inside there are beds of boughs covered with soft gra.s.s and bark, and here the beavers sleep most of the hours during the winter. If the hunters come upon a beaver village in cold weather, there is no sign that the animals are near, for the beavers are all inside their homes. This is the time to get them, however, for then the soft thick fur is at its best.