Part 6 (1/2)
NEARING TRIP'S END
Transferring most of the cargo to the other canoes, Amik and I provided ourselves with a little snack and started at once for Oo-koo-koo's old camping ground. It appeared about a three-mile paddle to the fork of the river. Nothing save the quacking of ducks rus.h.i.+ng by on the wing, the occasional rise of a crane in front of us, the soaring of an eagle overhead, and the rippling wakes left by muskrats as they scurried away, enlivened our hurried trip. We found the leather lodge coverings in good order upon a stage, and securing them along with several bundles of steel traps that hung from trees, we put all aboard and found we had quite a load, for not only were the tepee coverings bulky, each bundle being about two feet thick by four feet long, but they were heavy, too, for each weighed about a hundred pounds. Then, too, the traps were quite a load in themselves. I didn't stop to count them, but it is surprising the number of traps a keen, hard-working hunter employs; and they ranged all the way from small ones for rat and ermine to ponderous ones for bears. Also we gathered up a few odds and ends such as old axes, an iron pot, a couple of slush scoops, a bundle of fish-nets, and a lot of old snowshoes. Crane Lake, like many another northern mere, was a charming little body of water nestling among beautiful hills. After a cup of tea and some bannock, we once more plied our paddles.
Now it was down stream and we glided swiftly along, arriving at the confluence of the Crane and Caribou just before twilight and found smiling faces and a good supper awaiting our return. How human some Indians are, much more so than many a cold-blooded white.
Next day we wanted to make the Height-of-land portage for our camp. As it meant a long, stiff paddle against a strong current for most of the distance, we were up early, if not bright, and on our way before sunrise. This time, however, no rapids impeded us and we reached the portage on the farther sh.o.r.e of Height-of-land Lake, tired and hungry, but happy over a day's work well done. It was a pretty little lake about two miles long, surrounded by low-lying land in the midst of a range of great rock-bound hills, and its waters had a whimsical fas.h.i.+on of running either east or west according to which way the wind struck it. Thus its waters became divided and, flowing either way, travel afar to their final destinations in oceans thousands of miles apart.
But the western outlet, Moose Creek, being too shallow for canoes, a portage of a couple of miles was made the following day, to the fork of an incoming stream that doubles its waters and makes the creek navigable. When we camped that night the hour was late. Then a two-days' run--the second of which we travelled due north--took us into Moose Lake; but not without shooting three rapids, each of which the Indians examined carefully before we undertook the sport that all enjoyed so much. An eastern storm, however, caught us on Moose Lake and not only sent us ash.o.r.e on an island, but windbound us there for two days while cold showers pelted us. Another day and a half up Bear River, with a portage round Crane Falls, landed us on the western sh.o.r.e of Bear Lake at the mouth of Muskrat Creek--and there we were to spend the winter.
There, too, I remembered Th.o.r.eau when he said: ”As I ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the rainbow over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear through the cleansed air, from I know not what quarter, my Good Genius seemed to say,--'Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day,--farther and wider,--and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home'.” And furthermore: ”Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not.
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.”
III
OO-KOO-HOO'S EL DORADO
OUR WINTER CAMP
Bear Lake was beautiful. Its sh.o.r.es were fringed here and there with marshy reeds or sandy beaches; and its rivulets, flowing in and out, connected it with other meres in other regions. At dawn moose and caribou came thither to drink; bears roamed its surrounding slopes; lynxes, foxes, fishers, martens, ermines, and minks lived in its bordering woods. Otters, muskrats, and beavers swam its inrus.h.i.+ng creeks; wolverines prowled its rocky glens, and nightly concerts of howling wolves echoed along its sh.o.r.es. The eagles and the hawks built their nests in its towering trees, while the cranes fished and the ruffed grouse drummed. Nightly, too, the owls and the loons hooted and laughed at the quacking ducks and the honking geese as they flew swiftly by in the light of the moon. Salmon-trout, whitefish, pike, and pickerel rippled its placid waters, and brook-trout leaped above the s.h.i.+mmering pools of its crystal streams. It was Oo-koo-hoo's happiest hunting ground, and truly it was a hunter's paradise . . . a poet's heaven . . . an artist's home.
”What fools we mortals be!”--when we live in the city!
The site chosen for the lodges was on one of two points jutting into the lake, separated by the waters of Muskrat Greek. On its northwest side ran a heavily timbered ridge that broke the force of the winter winds from the west and the north, and thus protected Oo-koo-hoo's camp, which stood on the southeast side of the little stream. Such a site in such a region afforded wood, water, fruit, fish, fowl, and game; and, moreover, an enchanting view of the surrounding country.
Furthermore, that section of The Owl's game-lands had not been hunted for forty-two moons.
Immediately after dinner the men began cutting lodge poles, while the women cleared the tepee sites and levelled the ground. On asking Oo-koo-hoo how many poles would be required for the canvas lodge which he had kindly offered me the use of for the coming winter, he replied:
”My son, cut a pole for every moon, and cut them thirteen feet in length, and the base of the tepee, too, should be thirteen feet across.” Then looking at me with his small, shrewd, but pleasant eyes, he added: ”Thirteen is our lucky number. It always brings good fortune. Besides, most canoes are made of thirteen pieces, and when we kill big game, we always cut the carca.s.ses into thirteen parts. My son, when I have time I shall carve a different symbol upon each of the thirteen poles of your lodge; they shall represent the thirteen moons of the year, and thus they will enable you to keep track of the phase of the season through which you are pa.s.sing.”
All the poles were of green pine or spruce. The thin ends of three of the stoutest were lashed together; on being erected, they formed a tripod against which the other poles were leant, while their b.u.t.ts, placed in a circle, were spread an equal distance apart. Over that framework the lodge covering was spread by inserting the end of a pole into the pocket of each of the two winds.h.i.+elds, and then hoisting the covering into place. Next the lapping edges, brought together over the doorway, were fastened securely together with wooden pins, while the bottom edge was pegged down all round the lodge with wooden stakes. In the centre of the floor-s.p.a.ce six little cut logs were fastened down in the form of a hexagon, and the earth scooped from within the hexagon was banked against the logs to form a permanent and limited fireplace.
The surrounding floor s.p.a.ce was covered with a layer of fir-brush, then a layer of rushes, and finally, where the beds were to be laid, a heavy mattress of balsam twigs laid, s.h.i.+ngle-fas.h.i.+on, one upon another, with their stems down. Thus a springy, comfortable bed was formed, and the lodge perfumed with a delightful forest aroma. Above the fireplace was hung a stage, or framework of light sticks, upon which to dry or smoke the meat. Around the wall on the inner side was hung a canvas curtain that overlapped the floor, and thus protected the lodgers from draught while they were sitting about the fire. The doorway was two feet by five, and was covered with a raw deerskin hung from the top. A stick across the lower edge kept the skin taut. A log at the bottom of the doorway answered for a doorstep and in winter kept out the snow. Now the lodge was ready for occupation.
As there are six different ways of building campfires, it should be explained that my friends built theirs according to the Ojibway custom; that is, in the so-called ”lodge fas.h.i.+on”, by placing the sticks upright, leaning them together, and crossing them over one another in the manner of lodge poles. When the fire was lighted, the winds.h.i.+elds formed a perfect draught to carry the smoke up through the permanently open flue in the apex of the structure, and one soon realized that of all tents or dwellings, no healthier abode was ever contrived by man.
Indeed, if the stupid, meddlesome agents of civilization had been wise enough to have left the Indians in their tepees, instead of forcing them to live in houses--the ventilation of which was never understood--they would have been spared at least one of civilization's diseases--tuberculosis--and many more tribesmen would have been alive to-day.
On entering an Indian tepee one usually finds the first s.p.a.ce, on the right of the doorway, occupied by the woodpile; the next, by the wife; the third, by the baby; and the fourth, by the husband. Opposite these, on the other side of the fire, the older children are ranged.
To the visitor is allotted the warmest place in the lodge, the place of honour, farthest from and directly opposite the doorway. When the dogs are allowed in the tepee, they know their place to be the first s.p.a.ce on the left, between the entrance and the children.
While the two leather lodges of the Indians stood close together with stages near at hand upon which to store food and implements out of reach of the dogs and wild animals, my tepee, the canvas one, stood by itself a little farther up the creek. Taking particular pains in making my bed, and settling everything for service and comfort, I turned in that night in a happy mood and fell asleep contemplating the season of adventure before me and the great charm of living in such simplicity. ”In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coa.r.s.er and simpler wants,” says Th.o.r.eau, ”but I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. . . . But how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a _poor_ civilized man, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a savage?”
Next morning, while roaming about the point, I discovered two well-worn game trails that, converging together, led directly to the extreme outer end of our point. The tracks were the wild animals' highways through that part of the woods, and were used by them when they desired to make a short cut across that end of the lake by way of a neighbouring island. Worn fairly smooth, and from three to five inches in depth, by from eight to ten inches in width, these tracks were entirely free of gra.s.s or moss. In following them a few hundred paces, I could plainly recognize the prints of the moose, the bear, the wolf, and the fox; and a few smaller and lesser impressions with regard to the origin of which I was not so sure. The trails were much like the buffalo trails one used to see upon the plains. To my delight, my lodge door was not more than ten paces from that wild Broadway of the Wilderness.
INDIAN POLITENESS
After breakfast Oo-koo-hoo suggested that a ”lop-stick” should be cut in honour of the white man's visit. Selecting a tall spruce, Amik, with a half-axe in hand, began to ascend it. When he had climbed about three parts of the way up he began to chop off the surrounding branches and continued to do so as he descended, until he was about halfway down, when he desisted and came to earth. The result was a strange-looking tree with a long bare trunk, surmounted by a tuft of branches that could be seen and recognized for miles around.
Cutting lop-sticks is an old custom of the forest Indians. Such trees are used to mark portages, camping grounds, meeting places, or dangerous channels where submerged rocks lie in wait for the unsuspecting voyageur. In fact, they are to the Indian what lighthouses are to the mariner. Yet, sometimes they are used to celebrate the beginning of a young man's hunting career, or to mark the grave of a famous hunter. When made to indicate a wilderness rendezvous, the meeting place is commonly used for the purpose of coming in contact with their nearest neighbours or friends, and halting a day or so, while upon their voyage to the post, in order to discuss their affairs--the winter's hunt, the strange tracks they have seen, the strange sounds they have heard, the raiding of their hunting ground, and the like. Always at such meetings a fire is kindled regardless of the season, an ancient custom of their old religion, but used to-day more for the purpose of lighting pipes. Beside the fire a post stripped of its bark is erected, and on it a fire-bag containing tobacco for the use of all hands is hung. Around the fire the women and children spread a carpet of brush, upon which the men sit while conversing. At such meetings one never hears two Indians talk at once--a fine example for white people to heed--nor do they openly contradict one another as the vulgar white man does, for such an offence would be considered, by the savage, rude--and the offender would be regarded as no better than a white man; for they believe themselves to be not only the wisest and the bravest, but the politest people in the world; and when one stops to compare the average Indian with the average white man in North America, one must grant that the savage is right.