Part 7 (2/2)
Gold is also found on the Fraser River, while the mountains nearby are rich in other minerals.
The Klondike Mines.
Far up in the northwest of Canada, near the borders of Alaska, are the famous Klondike mines. You have probably heard of them, and of the long, hard journey a person must take to get there. Such wonderful stories have been told of the riches one can bring away from these mountains, that many a young man has left home and friends to seek his fortune there. Now-a-days it is easier to reach the Klondike mines than it was a few years ago, but the country is cold and dreary and most of the food must be brought from a distance, so that few white children have found their way there. Yet as they sit in their cosy homes, they are glad to listen to the stories of that wild country, told to them by the brave men who have been to the Klondike gold regions.
CHAPTER V-Little Folks of Labrador
East of the large bay where Henry Hudson lost his life is the peninsula of Labrador. Although it is farther south than Greenland or Alaska, its sh.o.r.es are very bleak and bare, because of cold winds that blow inland from the ocean. You can easily guess that this country is the home of Eskimos who seem the best fitted of all people to live in the lands of ice and snow.
Some white children are to be found there, however. Their fathers are fishermen who get a living for their families out of the icy waters of the ocean. Sometimes, too, they hunt the deer, or set traps for other wild animals. In the summer time the children search for birds' eggs, and in the autumn the men and boys keep on the lookout for eider-ducks, wild swans, ducks, geese and ptarmigan. The meat of these birds is sweet and tender, while the feathers make warm beds, pillows and quilts.
The children of the fishermen paddle about in the rough waters in their canoes when many other children would be afraid to venture out from the sh.o.r.e. They ride over the snow in low sledges drawn by half-tamed, surly dogs. They spend many a day fis.h.i.+ng for cod and salmon. They hunt for the berries, ripening in the suns.h.i.+ne of the short summer. They play with their Eskimo neighbors whom they meet once a week to study their Bible lessons with the kind missionaries, who have come to live among them.
Each Eskimo house is entered by a long, low pa.s.sage, made of logs and turf. The floor of the one big room is covered with boards, and a long, wooden platform at one end is the sleeping place for the whole family.
On another side is a fireplace lined with pebbles, where the mother cooks the food for the family. There is a window in the house or maybe there are two, so that altogether the Eskimos of Labrador can be far more comfortable than their brothers and sisters of Greenland.
They live in much the same way, however. They dress in furs; they fish; they kill seals; they hunt the deer; they ride over the country in low sledges drawn by unruly dogs; they make kayaks, in which they paddle about among the islands near to the sh.o.r.e. They are not obliged to build snow or stone houses like their brothers in Greenland. Cold as it is, forests of spruce and pine grow not very far inland; so that they are able to get plenty of logs for the walls of their houses. These they plaster so thickly with turf, that the wind cannot make its way inside.
The Indians of Labrador.
As you leave the coast, and travel inland, you will find that the air becomes warmer and that there are more trees and plants. The country is much pleasanter, and no doubt this is the reason that the Indians of Labrador prefer to live here in winter rather than on the coast. The redmen are great hunters, too, and as there are many wild animals in the forests, they spend the autumn and winter trapping and shooting. Here and there along the ponds and streams you may see the bark wigwams of the redmen.
Children dressed in skins go skimming past you over the snow fields.
They wear snow-shoes on their feet, so they can travel fast. When they are tired of this sport, they can take a ride on a dog-sledge, or play with their puppies. The boys help their fathers set traps for martens and foxes; they go on porcupine hunts; they search for beaver villages, and sometimes they come hurrying home to say that they have come upon a bear or the tracks of a lynx or an otter.
The girls learn to embroider moccasins and leggings with beads and porcupine quills; they bring wood for the fires and drinking water from the streams; they weave baskets. After a deer-hunt they dry the meat and grind it to make pemmican. Indeed, they learn all those things that Indians think are necessary for the making of good and helpful women. So the days pa.s.s and the years follow each other in bleak Labrador.
CHAPTER VI-Little Folks of Newfoundland
You remember that when Cartier went to Canada hoping to find a comfortable place where his people could settle, he stopped first at a large island off the eastern coast, giving it the name of Newfoundland.
But he did not stay there. The high crags reaching out into the sea and the rocky sh.o.r.es seemed to frown upon him and he decided to go farther where Mother Nature should give him a more friendly welcome. At that time Indians were living along the coast, getting their food by catching fish and trapping wild animals. No white men came to settle in Newfoundland till many years after Cartier's visit, for like him, they chose to make their homes in a more inviting country.
Now, however, many rosy-cheeked boys and girls live on the island. Their fathers are fishermen who have settled there because they have found it is one of the best fis.h.i.+ng-grounds in the world. Off the southeast coast stretches a sandbank at least three hundred miles long, and in the waters nearby millions of cod and haddock are found every year. It is no wonder, therefore, that not only the fishermen who live in Newfoundland, but people from Canada and the United States, and even from countries across the ocean, gather on the sh.o.r.es of the island every year to fish.
Heavy fogs hang over these sh.o.r.es for a large part of the year, and are caused in a curious way. There is a warm current that flows northward through the Atlantic Ocean, making the western coast of Greenland so much warmer than the eastern that most of the people there choose to live on that side of the island. But there is also a very cold Arctic current flowing southward, filling the air along the eastern coast of Labrador with frost. These two currents meet off the Newfoundland sh.o.r.e, and as the warm and cold come together, clouds of vapor rise in the air.
It is the smoke of a water battle.
Notwithstanding the fogs and the dampness, the children of Newfoundland love their home dearly. They love the deep and narrow bays that reach far into the land, and they often make up sailing parties to the small islands that dot the clear, deep waters. They love the blue sky of the summer. They watch with delight the icebergs that float by from time to time in their journey from the frozen north. When winter comes these children search along the sh.o.r.e for the seals that play on the floating cakes of ice and bask in the sunlight. Best of all they enjoy the famous ”silver thaw” of Newfoundland, perhaps the most beautiful sight in all the world.
This ”silver thaw” or ice-storm, is seen only in winter. It is caused by a heavy fall of rain when the air is very cold. As the rain falls, it turns to ice on everything it touches. The branches of the trees and the tiniest twigs upon them are coated with garments of ice which grow thicker and thicker as the storm continues. Every bush and shrub receives the same beautiful dress. At last the clouds pa.s.s and the sun s.h.i.+nes out in all his glory. Then the world around is changed in an instant into a wonderland of beauty. It seems as though one were surrounded by myriads of diamonds, each one glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. The riches of Aladdin seem nothing beside them.
Neither the fishermen nor the children care to explore the inland country very far. There are many high hills there, but they are bare and rocky. Cattle could not be raised easily in such places, nor could gardens be planted. So the people are content to stay near the sh.o.r.es and get a living from the waters near by.
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