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PLAIN TALES OF THE NORTH

BY CAPTAIN THIERRY MALLET

G. P. Putnam’s Sons

New York & London

The Knickerbocker Press

1926

Copyright, 1925

by

Revillon Frères

Made in the United States of America

A DEDICATION

To the small group of men

outside the pale of civilization who

... isolated in the Far North ...

cling to the traditions which, for two

centuries, have been represented by

the flag of Revillon Frères.

THE TALES THAT ARE TOLD

The true romance of the far North has been captured in these short stories gathered and written by Captain Thierry Mallet, President of Revillon Frères, New York. For the past twenty years he has spent part of each year inspecting our trading-posts on the outskirts of civilization.

Through his long arduous journeys over the swift waters, as well as the vast areas of ice-clad country in the North, and through his constant companionship with the fearless men of these barren lands, Captain Mallet is particularly fitted to give us these unusual and striking tales.

Victor Revillon,

Jean M. Revillon.

PLAIN TALES OF THE NORTH

Tale I: A Grave in Saskatchewan

I know a lonely grave far north in Saskatchewan. It lies on a high bank, facing a small lake, under a cluster of old jack-pines. There is no cross on that grave, neither is there a name.

Four logs, nailed in a square and half-buried in the grey moss, mark the spot where fifteen years ago two old Indians, man and wife, dug a hole six by four and laid to rest a white woman, a mere girl, a bride of a few months.

Fifteen years have passed. But after all these years her memory still lingers with the few Indians who saw her come into the wilderness, wither under the fierce blast of the Arctic winter and die as the snow left the ground and spring came.

She was an American of gentle birth, refined and delicate. Her husband brought her there in a spirit of adventure. He was a strong man, rough and accustomed to the North. She loved him. She struggled bravely through the winter, but the fierce Arctic climate, the utter solitude, the coarse food—these she could not stand. At length, while the man was away for several days tending his traps, she laid herself on the rude cabin bunk and died, all alone.

There the Indians found her white and still, and buried her a few hundred yards from the shack, on the edge of the lake.

The man came back later—then left at once. He is a squaw man now—trapping and hunting in the neighborhood.

Each year his sleigh and his canoe pass along the lake, a stone’s throw from where she lies under the jack-pines. Not once has he stopped even to glance at the spot where she bravely lived with him and died alone.

You will find crosses, inscriptions, some kind of token of remembrance on all the Indian graves. Her grave alone, in the Far North, bears neither cross nor name—just four logs, nailed together in a square, half-buried in the grey moss.

Tale II: Traveling by Canoe

It was my lot, a long time ago, to bring down a school mistress to one of the Protestant missionary settlements of the far North.

Her luggage was going by steamer, but she chose the canoe route as it was much the shorter way. Her passage had been booked before hand in one of our canoes.

The lady, who was middle aged and very short sighted, had never before left her home town in the south. She arrived at the end of the railroad punctually on time, and dressed severely in black with white celluloid collar and cuffs. She wore ordinary laced boots and cotton gloves and was armed with an umbrella and a small hand bag which could not have contained much more than a toothbrush. She refused the loan of any more apparel, such as a raincoat or high boots, and took her place in the canoe without a word.

The mosquitoes were terrible. Inside of two hours the poor woman was bitten to such an extent that it hurt us to look at her.

At the first camp fire she took off her glasses, sat on them and smashed them to bits. They were her only pair. After that she had to be led by the hand through the portages and from her tent to the canoe.

We had no trouble in getting her out in time for breakfast at 4 A. M. each morning. One yell from one of us and she was scrambling out of her tent fully dressed and with her hat on. Long afterwards, we found out that she did not even dare take her boots off at night. She was so stiff and bruised that she was afraid she might not be able to put them on again the next morning.

Nothing seemed to surprise nor frighten her. We had one very bad rapid to run. Her canoe was the last one. We waited anxiously to see how she would stand the ordeal. Down the rapid she came; her two Indian guides yelling; her canoe shipping a lot of water by the bow. She was calmly sitting on the little seat we had made for her. Her umbrella was opened and she was gazing at the sky. To this day we believe that she never saw the rapid which was about one mile long.

When we reached our destination, sunburn and mosquitoes had changed her face to such an extent that the missionaries hardly recognized her. Her clothes were in rags. She was covered with mud from head to foot. But her celluloid collar and cuffs were white. She used to wash them by trailing them in the water over the side of her canoe.

I don’t think she spoke ten words during the entire seven days of her trip.

Tale III: “Spot”

Among several hundred “Husky” dogs, which I have had occasion to watch during my trips north, I remember one particularly well.

His name was Spot. Grey like a timber wolf with funny pale circles round his eyes, he was faster and stronger than any of the team.

Although too young yet to be promoted to be leader, he showed greater intelligence than any of the other dogs. He made a point to be always on the best terms with his driver and showed great friendliness in camp as soon as he was out of harness. He never shirked his work and was exceedingly jealous of any dog who managed to slack in harness without being seen and punished by the driver.

One day, when hauling as number two behind the leader, he noticed that the latter would slack his traces as soon as he reached the back of the preceding sleigh, travelling in the same direction on the same trail. Spot, raging at the idea that the rest of the team was still pulling while the leader, resting his head on the preceding sleigh, was loafing, would immediately seize the trace with his teeth and throw himself on the snow, obliging the leader by the weight of his dragging body to fall back. He would remain in that position until a gap of thirty feet at least had opened between the two teams. Then, knowing that the leader had to start pulling his own share again if he did not want to be noticed and punished by the driver, Spot would jump to his feet and proceed with his own work with great energy and triumphant howls of joy.

At all times he was a great fighter and would often get wounded, even if he did succeed in thrashing his opponent. One day, I doctored his wounds with iodine. Ever after, as soon as he was bitten or cut, he would come up and beg for treatment.

I often tried to fool him by applying plain warm water to his wounds. I never succeeded. He would remain whining until some kind of medicine, which he could smell and taste, was rubbed on the sore spot. Anything would do—listerine, alcohol, even tooth paste. As soon as his nose and tongue satisfied him that he had been properly treated with something that he couldn’t smell and lick without distaste, he would wag his bushy tail and saunter away quite satisfied.

Tale IV: In Civilization

I know hundreds of Indians who live so far North that they have never in their lives seen a motor car, a steamer, a railway or an electric light.

A few years ago one of our best hunters asked us, as a great favor, to be allowed to go through to the line as one of the crew of the mail canoes which our trader sends twice a year to the nearest town four hundred miles away.

The man had never been there and was very keen to see the white man’s land. When he reached the frontier town at the head of the railway he showed no surprise. He inspected thoroughly all that was to be seen and kept his mouth obstinately closed. After a while, knowing that the canoes could not leave before a week, the Indian asked permission to go to Montreal with the mail clerk. The latter, who knew him well and who spoke Cree fluently, undertook to look after him. He traveled for two days and two nights in a day coach and, outside of the fact that he absolutely refused to leave the train at any moment for fear of seeing it go off without him, he appeared to enjoy the trip.

In Montreal he seemed to fight shy of the streets and preferred to remain in the lobby of the small hotel where a room had been reserved for him. He sat there all day, looking through the window.

On his return to the hunting grounds, he met me on my way south and told me how much he had liked his journey to the big city. Through sheer curiosity, I asked him then what had surprised him the most while he was in civilization. Was it the sight of the trains, motor cars, street cars, the telephone, the electric lights or the stone houses? No, none of these things seemed to have impressed him in the slightest. Finally he admitted that there was one thing that had astonished him, and that was the people in the street in front of his hotel. All those people walking so fast and passing one another without a sign. People who never stopped to speak. People who did not seem to know one another. That, he could not fathom at all.

Tale V: A Pilot

Into the lower part of Ungava Bay flows a vicious, treacherous, steel grey river called the Koksoak. Fifteen miles up that river there lies a big trading station which deals with Eskimos from the barren lands and with the Nascopi Indians from the interior of Labrador.

Tides in Ungava Bay vary from twenty to thirty feet. A 3,000-ton steamer can reach the station safely, but she must steam up the river on the flood of the tide two or three hours after the turn. The native pilot alone, through certain land marks known to him, can judge the exact time when to start. He alone can steer the ship’s course through the winding narrow channel which, amidst whirlpools and rapids, between rocks and through narrow gorges, leads to a safe anchorage fifteen miles inland in front of the Post.

At first, and during several years afterwards, we had used a small 100-ton auxiliary schooner to bring in the yearly supplies. Finally we decided to take the risk of calling at Fort Chimo, for such is the name of the Post, with our new steamer of 1,000 tons.

That year when we anchored at the mouth of the river, we did not see the familiar face of our pilot. Several Eskimos climbed on board and with them stood a little lad aged about 12, who, although of sturdy build, was no bigger than a boy of 9 or 10. The natives explained to us that the pilot had died that winter and that the boy, his son, who had always accompanied his father in his piloting up and down the river, would take the steamer to the Post.

We received the news with consternation. We also argued the point. They all claimed that they did not know the river as well as the boy. Furthermore, as piloting seemed to be a family affair, going from father to son, none of them wanted to commit a breach of etiquette by taking the lad’s place. During the heated conversation the little chap remained aloof, calm and unconcerned. He had never seen a steamer in his life, and seemed interested not only in the length of the ship but in the height of the Captain’s bridge above the water line. We were drawing eighteen feet at the stern. We could not conceive that a boy of that age would be able to realize how deep a channel we needed. We measured out twenty-four feet with a rope and showed it to him. He glanced at it and nodded. In the end we gave in and told him to take charge. He was so small that we had to bring a chair on the Captain’s bridge for him to stand on so that he could see above the railing. He did not know a word of English.

For two hours he looked at the shore with a little telescope which he had brought with him. Finally, satisfied with what he saw, he motioned to us to weigh anchor. He had never seen a telegraph but he guessed at once what half or full speed ahead meant. For a long time he kept us going at half. Each time the Skipper, frightened by the eddies which made the ship sag a little in her course, would ring full speed, the boy would motion violently to slow her down. He understood the steering gear. For starboard or port he would look around at the man at the wheel, a big burly Newfoundlander with a grey beard, and make signs with his hand either to the right or to the left. Then he would glance quickly at the bow, judge the swing, and call for “steady your helm” by putting his arm straight above his head.

For two hours he steered us without a second of hesitation. He swung our course from one side of the river to the other. We passed at times thirty feet from a cliff on the shore or an ugly rock showing its head just above the water. There wasn’t a buoy or beacon in sight anywhere on the river. The lad had his own land marks somewhere and took his bearings from them. We reached the Post safely and dropped anchor exactly where he told us to.

As soon as his job was over he ran down the ladder to the galley, where the cook gave him a small pot of jam which he hastily emptied with the help of his fingers. The boy is a grown up man now. He still pilots our ship up and down the Koksoak River.

Tale VI: Native Mechanics

Anyone who knows Eskimos well, and who has also traveled in the far East, cannot but notice that the rugged, stocky men of the Arctic have many characteristics of the Asiatics.

Their talent of imitation is one of them. Their complete lack of sense of danger when facing a white man’s invention that is absolutely new to them, is another.

Twenty years ago, I recall, a Belgian engineer on the Hankow-Pekin Railway complained to me of the utter recklessness of the Chinese in the company’s employ. The line had been running hardly a year then, and scores of Chinese were being trained to take the place of high-class European laborers—such as engine drivers.

According to the harassed official, all the Chinese were willing workers, exceedingly adaptable and absolutely fearless. They learned the practical side of their job far quicker than a white man would, but they had no notion of what danger was so far as the engine they were entrusted with was concerned. They knew, for instance, that they could obtain a certain speed which they could judge by a certain instrument with an arrow, the figures of which they could not, of course, read. They also knew that they were not allowed to let the arrow go further on the dial than a given point.

But at the beginning they could not see the difference between a straight railway track and a curved one. In consequence, they would never slow up at a sharp curve. When the engine happened to be running at sixty miles per hour—off the track she would go with disastrous results. If by any chance the Chinese engine driver escaped without injury, he had learned his lesson and would not make the same mistake twice. But a lot of them were killed. Furthermore, the engines were invariably smashed. It was very costly to the company. As the Belgian official said, “An Asiatic can learn only through bitter personal experience.”

The same applies to Eskimos. Here is one of many examples. One year our steamer brought a gasoline launch to one of our trading posts in Hudson Bay. We wished to use her for towing the barges, full of cargo, ashore. The skipper chose an intelligent looking Eskimo from the crowd and, in a couple of hours, had taught him how to run the engine. The Husky had never in his life seen a gasoline launch before but he tackled his new job with high glee and no signs of nervousness whatsoever.

The first time he was alone in charge, he ran the engine beautifully. He towed a string of barges to the shore but, having no idea of speed, he slipped his tow too late. The result was that when he was going around at full speed and heading back for the steamer, the heavy barges, which had too much way on, crashed into the wharf, knocked it down and threw fifty Eskimos or so into the icy water—happily without fatal results.

Meanwhile our Husky friend, who had seen the accident but who did not have time to work out in his head the pros and cons of the question, was reaching the ship head-on at ten knots an hour. Heedless of our shouts of warning, he stopped his engine, then reversed her when he was exactly two feet from the steamer’s side.

There was an awful crash, a cloud of smoke and our new gasoline launch disappeared to the bottom like a stone. The only thing that was left was a thoroughly frightened Eskimo floating aimlessly on the troubled waters, whom we fished out with the help of one of the winches.

Tale VII: War News in Husky Land

When the World War broke out in the centre of civilization, news spread quickly until it got to the wilderness. After that it traveled more and more slowly, but in the end it reached the remotest parts of the earth.

In the far North of Canada it took months and months for the news to filter through the barren lands.

In a lonely outpost on Hudson Bay, the one white man who lived there heard of the War, for the first time, eight months later—in March, 1915, to be exact. It was only a rumor and for a long time he could not understand clearly what had happened.

A tribe of Eskimos hunting south had met some coast Indians who had been trading, at Christmas, at Fort George in James Bay. The Crees had tried to explain to the Huskies what the Missionaries and White Traders had told them, but the peace-loving Eskimos could not realize what the word “war” meant. Furthermore, their knowledge of the Cree language was very confused. They told our man that there were a lot of dead people in the white man’s land, far away over the sea; that the noise was terrible and that the white men’s Igloos were all destroyed. They did not mention the words—war, shell, gas—which the more civilized Indians knew from hearsay and had told to them. They just repeated what had struck their imagination. In other words, what they had understood.

The trader pondered for months over that rumor. In the end he came to the conclusion that there had been a great earthquake somewhere in Europe, like the one in California in 1906, and dismissed the matter from his mind. He never thought of war.

It was in summer, when the supply ship reached his Post, that he learned what had really happened. He left at once to join the French Army and was killed a year later at Verdun.

Tale VIII: A Birch Bark Canoe

A canoe, may she be a 16-foot cruiser or a 22-foot freighter, is at all times a small craft, especially on a lake when the nearest shore happens to be a very long distance off.

Men who live in the far North pass all their time on the water as soon as the ice disappears in the spring. They are so accustomed to their cranky canoes that it never occurs to them to bother about what they should do if, by any chance, something unusual happens. But in case of emergency they think and act very quickly. I had an example of it a few years ago on Abitibi Lake.

Two Indians were freighting a heavy load of hardware in a birch bark canoe. They had a head wind and the waves were pretty high. The man at the bow thought the canoe was packed too much by the stern and shouted over his shoulder to the steersman to shift some of the load forward. The latter, from his seat in the stern, seized a 25-pound bag of shot at his feet and threw it five feet or so in front of him towards the middle of the canoe. The bag landed in an empty space right at the bottom of the canoe. The craft was old and rotten. The bag of shot simply broke the ribs, tore a gaping hole in the birch bark and disappeared straight down to the bottom of the lake.

Instantly the water started pouring in. One mile from shore, a nasty sea running and a leak larger than a man’s head which would fill and sink any canoe in a few minutes.

The steersman gave one yell and then jumped like a huge frog, landing in a sitting position right in the middle of that hole. He stuck there, shivering, with water to his waist, until the bowman, realizing the danger and paddling madly for shore, succeeded at last in beaching the canoe high and dry.

Tale IX: A Silver Fox and a Scarf

In the far North, even now in the days of fox farming, a Silver Fox means a small fortune to the lucky trapper. Men will often risk their lives to bring an exceptionally fine pelt back to the trader.

Some years ago in the Ungava district, two Eskimos, brothers, caught a beautiful Silver Fox late in March. They decided to bring it back to the Post at once. They had not caught anything before that and were half starved. The men had to travel on the ice along the sea coast. In their anxiety to reach the trader, they cut across a bay during a blizzard. The Eskimo who was breaking the trail ahead of the dogs walked on some thin ice and fell through; team and sleigh following him into the gaping hole. Man and dogs drowned although the other Eskimo, who was behind them and had stopped in time, made every effort to save them.

The lone man who was carrying the Silver Fox in a bag slung on his back kept on and managed to reach the Post, covering the last few miles literally on his hands and knees through sheer weakness and exhaustion.

The Silver Fox was shown to us at the Station next summer. It was a wonderful skin—three quarter neck fresh silvered, without a blemish. It had one distinctive and very rare mark—a small tuft of white silver hair on the center of the forehead slightly above the eyes.

The Fox eventually reached our New York house and was sold during the winter. A few months later in a well known night restaurant, a lady with a party of friends got up from her table to leave. The waiter picked up and handed to her a Silver Fox scarf which had slipped from her chair and had been lying unnoticed on the floor under the table. It was the Ungava Fox with the little white mark between the eyes.

Tale X: Dead in the Storm

It was a bleak, dreary, wind-swept morning in February. We had broken camp at the faint flush of dawn, after remaining helplessly caught for two days in our tent by a raging blizzard. It had ceased snowing and the thermometer was going down like a piece of lead. The snow, although hardening under the intense cold, was deep.

There was no trail. An Indian was struggling ahead of the dogs. Everywhere silence. Now and then a mass of snow would slide down noiselessly from the overhanging branch of a spruce tree. There was no sign of animal life. Not a track anywhere. Not even a bird on the wing in the sullen grey sky.

We were following a coulée between two high ridges thickly covered with trees. At a bend of the small valley the Indian, looking ahead, stopped dead. So did the team of Huskies.

A few hundred yards away we saw a lone dog, standing erect, keeping guard beside what looked like a mound covered with snow. The nearer we approached, the plainer we saw what it was. It was a sleigh with its load lashed on and, on the top, what seemed to us like a human body stretched out, rigid under its white mantle. The dog traces were hanging loose. The harness had been chewed and broken. The team, tired of waiting, had escaped—going back somewhere to an unknown camp. Alone, the leader had chosen to remain beside the sleigh. He was weak from hunger but still faithful to his charge. He faced us squarely with his shaggy coat bristling, swaying slightly on his legs and snarling his deep, wolf snarl. When we heard it, we knew it was the death song of a dog who was defending the dead body of his master.

The Indian cautiously lassoed him and tied him up. He made a good fight for it but the snow was too deep and his strength was far gone. We gently brushed away the snow from the top of the sleigh and looked at the man. He was lying on his back, a smile on his white face, his light blue eyes staring far away into the sky. A stranger, a prospector from somewhere south, lost in the wilderness and at the end of his rations. Caught in the blizzard, too weak to pitch camp, frozen to death while his dogs wandered in the blinding storm.

Tale XI: A Strange Team

North of 53, during the winter, I have seen sleighs drawn by horses, mules, dogs of every breed and description and even men.

But once I saw the strangest outfit of all. We were sitting beside a fire on the bank of a river only a few miles from the railway line when we heard a yell and a strange noise which appeared to be a combination of a bellow and a howl.

We got up and, to our astonishment, we saw, racing up the river on the ice in a smother of snow, a small sleigh drawn by a large yellow dog and a very small red bull. The dog was in the lead, tied to the sleigh by at least twelve yards of rope. The bull, harnessed to the sleigh by two leather traces, with his head down and his tail in the air was charging full tilt at the dog who was scampering down the trail as fast as he could lay his four paws on the snow.

On the sleigh was a load of pressed hay and, on the top of it, clung a fat man with a bushy beard and a very white face. Before we could say a word, man, bull and dog vanished round a bend of the river.

Later on we found out that the man was a Russian squatter, living three hundred miles north of the line, who wanted to try to raise cattle on the Churchill River. The bull was the first animal of the prospective herd.

As it was impossible for him to freight any cattle by canoe in summer, he had hit on the idea of taking the little bull up there in winter, on foot. The hay on the sleigh was to feed the poor animal on the trip.

The most remarkable part of this story is that, eventually, man, bull and dog reached their destination safely.

Throughout the first day, the bull made wild rushes at the dog who took great care to keep a distance between himself and his enemy. But after covering twenty miles or so, the little bull gave it up as a bad job and settled down. Very soon he became friendly with his new harness companion; both animals finally drawing the sleigh slowly and peacefully to the end of their journey.

Tale XII: A Moose Story

It never pays to take any liberties with a wild animal when one believes that the latter is at one’s mercy.

In 1908 two Indians, when crossing a large lake in Northern Ontario in a small canoe, came across a big bull moose swimming from an island to the mainland.

They needed the meat but preferred waiting until the animal was near land before shooting it. They accordingly decided to have some fun! The man at the bow found a rope, lassoed the moose by its antlers, then tied the other end of the rope to the front thwart. After that the two Indians squatted down at the bottom of the canoe, yelling sarcastic remarks to the poor wild-eyed animal which was towing them with the strength of a good sized tug.

When this strange outfit drew near the shore, the man in the bow picked up his rifle. It was an old, single barrel muzzle loader. He aimed carefully and pressed the trigger, but the weapon missed fire. Pulling up the hammer, he repeated the performance with the same result. Meanwhile, the moose was touching bottom. The Indian, realizing that the cap in his gun was wet, began to search frantically for a new one. In his excitement he forgot to pull out his knife and cut the rope.

At that spot, the bottom of the lake sloped up abruptly. Before the man could find a new cap, the moose was halfway up to his shoulders in the water. With an angry shake of the head and a loud snort, the enraged animal bounded forward. In a second the canoe upset, pitching men and freight into six feet of icy cold water.

When the two Indians came up to the surface, the first thing they saw was the stern of their canoe vanishing in the bush. That was also the last they ever saw of either moose or canoe.

Crestfallen, shivering and hungry, they reached the trading station one day later—sadder, wiser and on foot.

Tale XIII: The Little Blue Lake

In the Northwest Territories over the divide, where all vegetation dwindles down to nothing as one approaches the barren lands, I know a small lake nestling in the hollow of three hills.

The traveller reaches it on one side by a trail. On the other, a swift creek is the only outlet. Protected from the wind, the trees which surround it have grown to giant size. They stand closely packed right to the edge of the water.

The little lake with its circle of vegetation does not cover more than an acre. From the top of the hills, one peers down on it as on a small oasis lost in the desert.

Amidst the savage, grey boulders of the surrounding country, one looks lovingly on the splash of color which strikes the eye. The dark green of the murmuring jack-pines; the sapphire blue of the still, icy waters.

A little later, when the canoe has been launched on the lake and has drifted towards the center, the traveller gazes over the side in amazement. The water is as pure as crystal and deep as a well. Far down at the bottom of the lake, countless springs are scattered everywhere among the rocks. Each spring sends a column of white, foaming water up towards the surface and each column of white foam spreads and dissolves itself into millions of bubbles which dance about—mounting, ever mounting—until they burst and become part of the sapphire blue of the lake itself.

Few white men have been there—but those few cannot forget the beauty of the lonely spot. The Indians call it “The well with the White Smoke”. In the company, we call it simply “The little blue lake”.

Tale XIV: Forest Fires

Forest fires are the scourge of the wilderness. Certain years, in the late spring or during the summer, when the weather has been unusually dry, a mere spark may start a blazing tornado which will lay utter waste throughout thousands and thousands of acres of timber.

The carelessness of a trapper throwing a lighted match on the ground. The thoughtlessness of a traveller going to sleep or breaking camp without putting out his fire. Lightning striking a tree. An ordinary piece of glass lying on dry moss and catching the rays of the sun. Any of these is sufficient to kindle a fire which may burn fiercely for weeks, reaching the tops of the highest trees, smouldering underground amidst the roots and the muskeg, reaching over rivers and lakes, blazing its erratic way through the bush according to the changes of the wind.

In the solitude of the far North, where men are scattered a hundred miles from one another, no help can be secured to fight the red evil. Only heavy rain or a complete shift of wind, blowing the flames back over the already burnt area, may stop the scourge. Meanwhile all vegetation vanishes and wild animals die.

Beavers, Otters, Mink, Muskrats, that live in the water have a fair chance of escape, but nearly all the other wild folk fall victim to the deadly sheet of flames.

Foxes, Badgers, Coyotes, Ground Hogs, Chipmunks, Wolverines, Porcupines, take refuge in their holes underground where the smoke, curling lazily down and down, eventually reaches them and smothers them with their young.

Lynx, Marten, Squirrels, Wild Cats, seek safety in the trees, hiding either in their holes or on the highest branch they can find until the flames find them in their lair, or the unbearable heat, scorching them, unloosens their mad grip and precipitates them into the furnace below.

Wolves, Bears, Caribou, Deer and Moose take to flight. But the great tragedy is that, in this season, all animals have their young. The little ones get exhausted in the mad scramble through dense bush and stifling smoke. They cannot keep pace with the flames. Little by little they fall back. Then the parents return to them and remain at their side until it is too late.

A few animals, through sheer luck or by keeping their wits, manage to escape. Now and then one may find on a sandy point, reaching far out in a lake, a motley crowd of animals of all breeds, huddled together on the edge of the water or in the water itself. Perfectly indifferent to one another, their only thought is to keep away from the flames. The nearer the latter comes, the further the animals crawl and the deeper they crouch in the water.

In such cases it is a common occurrence to see a dozen rabbits sitting solemnly in the water, their heads alone showing. A little further out, two bear cubs may be grovelling on their bellies like two children at play on the seashore. While the mother swims about angrily, taking no notice of a cow-moose and her calf, both motionless in the water ... the little one standing, the mother lying down, their shoulders completely covered. A little to one side a Red Fox, a vixen, has carried her young, one by one, to the edge of the lake. The pups are too young yet to have sense to crawl in. So the mother has dropped them in the water and, crouching between them and the shore, keeps them huddled, whimpering and frightened, safe from the heat and the sparks.

Tale XV: An Indian Wake

One evening a few years ago, I was sitting alone at a small trading station on the edge of a lake in North Saskatchewan. A northeast wind was blowing and the grey water was lashed into angry white caps that raced madly one after the other.

I was watching an 18-foot canvas canoe manned by two Indians who were paddling straight for me. They were having a hard time in making the shore and seemed worried by the load they were freighting.

From where I sat I could not make out what sort of cargo they carried, but I could see that it was placed amidship and stuck out on each side well over the gunwales. I thought at first it was a log, although I was at a loss to understand why they had not placed it lengthwise under the thwarts. I finally realized, with a certain amount of astonishment, that the two men were freighting in a large coffin, the weight and the dimensions of which prevented them placing it anywhere else than above deck, so to speak, and crosswise.

I sauntered down to the beach and gave them a hand in unloading their burden. They told me that it was their father who had died a considerable time ago and they were absolutely obliged to bury him as soon as possible. Being Catholics, they had to bring the body for burial to the priest whom the bad weather had kept on his side of the lake.

An hour or so later I heard the screech of a violin. Going out to investigate, I found my two Indians in a shack close by, receiving visitors from the neighborhood and whiling away the time by an impromptu dance. Meanwhile, the coffin had been dragged outside to make more room. It lay, grim and dark, on the right side of the door along the wall of the cabin. All the dogs of the village, one by one, their tails curled up and their ears pointed, were passing in front of it in a solemn procession. I watched them from a distance. Each dog stopped—sniffed at one corner of the coffin, went to the other—sniffed again and then, slowly and religiously, cocked up one hind leg and remained there, motionless for a few seconds.

Meanwhile the wind wailed across the lake as if striving to drown the whining of the fiddle.

Tale XVI: A Walrus Story

When men have no knowledge whatsoever of the danger they run, they are liable to do the most foolhardy thing imaginable and come out of it safely—to the utter astonishment of all old timers.

Here is a striking example of that, which happened a few years ago:

We were forging ahead through the ice of Hudson Straits on an auxiliary schooner. There were on board a lot of “Husky” dogs which we were transferring from one trading station to another.

One morning the man in the crow’s nest saw a small herd of walrus asleep on the ice. Creeping up slowly, we got up to a hundred yards from them before they took any notice of the ship.

The meat was needed for the dogs. Firing a volley, we killed two of the huge animals outright. The rest of the herd dived and scattered. Manoeuvring alongside the pan, we put one man of the crew overboard to rope the carcasses to be hoisted on deck with the winch.

It happened that the sailor who went over the side was an Italian who had never been in the North. He was very keen and excited. While he was busy tying a rope round each animal’s head under the tusks, a big bull walrus, which had probably been wounded in the body a few minutes before, suddenly came up to the surface beside the pan. With one heave, the enormous animal jumped clean out of the water to the ice a few feet from the sailor whose back was turned. Everyone on board was terrified. Nobody dared to shoot for fear of hitting the man.

The walrus shook his head and seemed ready to plunge his tusks right in the middle of the man’s back. He weighed over fifteen hundred pounds.

Feeling the animal’s breath on him, the Italian turned round. “Get out of here, you ugly thing!” he shouted in his own language, and with that he slapped him right across the jaw with the back of his hand. The walrus gave a grunt, slid backwards over the edge of the pan and vanished in the depths of the sea.

The sailor calmly turned back to his job, while on board we breathed a prayer of thankfulness.

Tale XVII: Mohican ... The Wolf

Mohican was a large timber wolf, grown wise through years of bitter experience in the Canadian North.

During the winter he probably roamed through the wilderness as the head of his own pack seeking the caribou. But each spring he would come back to the country of small lakes near the eastern shores of Hudson Bay, where he ranged until fall in complete solitude.

Mohican was known to many Indians who recognized his enormous tracks on all the little sandy beaches of the lakes. But no one bothered him until, one day, he developed a keen taste for white fish and started breaking all rules by interfering with the red men.

In some way or other, the lone wolf had discovered that nets were made to catch fish. After that, for many weeks, each time he felt like it, he would search along the banks until he found the stake of a net. Then he would take to the water and swim to the net itself. Poking his head under the water he would choose the best looking white fish, leaving severely alone suckers, pickerel and such small fry, tear his prey out of the mesh, bring it back to shore and eat it at his leisure. So far, so good. Little harm was done.

But Mohican was intensely practical and like all wild animals, believed in simplifying matters as much as he could. One day he hit on the plan of dragging the net to the bank instead of swimming out to it. He therefore caught in his jaw the stout rope where it was tied to the stake. Then, proceeding backwards slowly but surely, pulled the whole net clean out of the water to the shore where he ate what he liked, leaving the rest of the catch to die and spoil in the sun.

From that day on, he pulled at all the nets which he found and his strength was enormous. Few stakes, however deeply they were driven in the mud, could resist the strain and prevent him doing all the mischief he wished.

Poor old Mohican! His cunning and intelligence were great, but he had committed the unpardonable sin of robbing the red man of his food.

One day at dawn he was seen by an Indian. The lone, old wolf was sitting on his haunches, tugging hard at the net’s rope.

The rifle cracked from behind a spruce tree, but Mohican never knew what hit him. It was a long shot, a pretty shot so far as that goes—four hundred yards—right across a small bay of the lake. He had to pay the price of his sin. Such is the law of the wilderness.

Tale XVIII: Fighting Against Starvation

In the dead of winter a few years ago, two Eskimo women, mother and daughter, were starving in their Igloo on the shores of Baffin Land. The rest of the tribe had gone inland searching for caribou. The older woman, who was lame, had been left behind with her daughter to look after her. They had been provided with a supply of food but the hunters were late in coming back and it had dwindled, little by little, to nothing. In the end the two women had killed and eaten the only dog that had remained with them. They were now helpless, waiting for death, without food of any sort, without fishing tackle and without firearms.

The third day after they had eaten their last scrap of dog meat, the younger woman caught sight of a large seal which was lying on the ice, parallel to the shore about two miles off. The floe had moved a little. Long lanes of clear water had opened up enabling the seal to climb out. It was resting with its head on the edge of the pan ready to dive at the first sign of danger.

To the starving women the seal, weighing four hundred pounds, meant food and life. Their only weapons were a knife and a hatchet. The daughter decided to stalk the seal while the mother, holding the hatchet, squatted on the beach and watched.

To that effect the younger woman, knife in hand, walked along the beach for about three miles. After that, certain to be far enough behind the quarry not to be seen, she walked out on the ice the same distance as it was from shore. Having reached that point, she began stalking the seal in earnest.

It lay with its hind flippers towards her, but every minute or so it would raise its head for a few seconds to scan the horizon. Then the woman, crawling on her hands and knees, would have to remain motionless, lying flat on the ice. Little by little she crept nearer, using every small pinnacle, every little ridge and rough edge of the pans, as a shield.

She was already weak from hunger. The constant strain began to tell on her. The nearer she crawled to the animal, the longer she had to rest and regain her breath. Seals have good ears. The slightest sound of panting would have driven the animal head first into the water.

It took her all day to cover the two miles. During all that time she was in agony at the thought that the seal, tired of dozing, would dive into the sea again before she could reach it. Still, she could not take the risk of hurrying.

Finally, only four feet separated her from the quarry. With the superb self control of the savage she waited several minutes, then, when the seal lowered its head again on the pan, she sprung at it, driving her knife clear through the hind flippers deep into the ice.

With the whole weight of her body thrown on the handle she remained there, pinning the huge animal on the floe. As long as the knife held, the seal, head and shoulders over the edge, could not dive. The infuriated animal tried to turn around and baring its cruel fangs, snapped at her. Its bulk was so huge that the yellow teeth just failed to reach her face.

For an hour the woman and the beast strained against one another. Meanwhile the mother, who had been keeping watch on the shore, was hobbling over the ice towards them in a frenzy of excitement. She knew that her daughter’s strength would have to give way sooner or later and that the time had now come for her to hasten to the rescue.

Screaming shrilly, scrambling from pan to pan, she covered the distance as fast as she could in spite of her lameness. When she reached the seal she attacked it fearlessly. With a few shrewd blows of her hatchet on the head, she dropped it dead in its tracks. Just in time, for her daughter’s hands, bleeding and frozen, were already slipping on the knife’s handle and relaxing their hold.

Tale XIX: Wild Animals in the Water

Few persons know how much water there is in northern Canada. Even fewer people realize what enormous distances all animals have to swim in quest of food or to escape from danger.

Moose and Caribou will not hesitate to cross lakes several miles wide, and for no apparent reason but to change from one feeding ground to another. I have often seen them swim over four miles in the bitterest cold weather in the early spring or late in the fall when the snow was on the ground and the temperature at freezing point.

Black Bears will swim for miles; young cubs barely four months old keeping up with their mothers.

Lynx, although hating water like all the cat tribe, will cross the widest river when migrating.

Small animals, such as porcupines and squirrels, are often found swimming a mile or so from shore.

Two years ago when paddling down the Churchill River, we found a fat old porcupine leisurely crossing the river where it was over a mile wide. He was then about eight hundred yards from where he wanted to land and his speed must have averaged one mile per hour. He took absolutely no notice of us. At each stroke of his short foreleg he grunted loudly. Now and then he would lift his quills and shake them so as to get some of the weight of the water off his back.

Squirrels, I have noticed, always swim with the wind in their backs and invariably carry their tails straight up in the air out of the water. The Indians maintain that they only take to water when the wind is favorable as they know that their tail, acting like a sail, will help them along.

White Bears, of course, are the best swimmers of all the non-amphibious mammals. They can swim for a whole day, resting now and then on their backs like sleeping seals.

In 1908, we saw a White Bear yearling cub swimming towards shore at least fifteen miles out from Cape Churchill in Hudson Bay. The nearest ice was then forty-five miles from the spot where we found him. There was absolutely no doubt that our bear had undertaken a sixty-mile swim to reach land.

Tale XX: “Sunday”

The eastern hair seals roam between the coasts of Newfoundland and Greenland. Unlike the fur seals of the Pacific, they are valuable only for their fat and the leather of their pelts. The best oil is obtained from the young pups which are born on the ice in February.

Young seals do not know how to swim at birth and the hardy fishermen of Newfoundland hunt them before they have taken to the water.

Every day of the week the crew of each vessel leaves its ship and on foot, through fog and blizzards, scours the bleak wilderness of the ice floes. But the hunt stops on Sunday—even if the vessels happen to be in the midst of thousands of seals. From Saturday midnight to Monday one o’clock, all the men remain idle.

One Sunday morning in March, 1908, I was on board a sealer. I happened to look over the side and saw a young seal sound asleep on the ice a few hundred yards from the ship. With the idea of taking it on board so as to photograph it on deck, I slipped over the side. Walking up to the pup I caught it by the hind flippers, swung it over my shoulder and started carrying it to the vessel. Although I followed my footsteps on the ice, I suddenly broke through and found myself plunged into the bitterly cold water. The little seal followed me in my downfall.

We both came up to the surface at the same time, with only one idea in our heads—to get out as quickly as possible. I tried hard to climb out on the ice. So did the pup. The hole in which we were floundering was very small. The young seal floated like an empty bottle, his body half out of the water. In his efforts to get a hold on the edge of the pan, he flapped his front flippers like a pair of fans. Each flipper was armed with five claws as hard as steel.

My face got in the way of one flipper and instantly I came to the conclusion that I had better wait until my companion got out first.

Patiently and courteously I waited until the little pup, with a lot of snorting and splashing, slowly but stubbornly wriggled himself out of the water. When my turn came I was half dead with cold, and barely managed to pull myself on the ice in safety. Leaving the seal where he was, I tottered back to the ship.

I found the skipper very unsympathetic. The only thing he had to say was: “Serves you right. This is Sunday.”

Tale XXI: Filming a White Bear on Land

During the filming of “Nanook of the North”, in the winter of 1921, we decided to take a scene of a white bear hunt at close quarters on land.

In a genuine film like ours, where one must take “close ups” of wild animals, the difficulty lies not only in approaching them sufficiently near so as not to have to use telescopic lens, but also in keeping the animals more or less on the same spot in front of the camera. Consequently, after studying the matter carefully, we concluded that the only way we could film the white bear hunt was to find in the early spring a “she” bear with cubs in her den.

The idea was that the bear would refuse to leave her young, would make a stand right away and give battle on the spot, thereby allowing the cameraman to crank away to his heart’s content. We sent, accordingly, a few Eskimos to scour the country. After a few weeks they reported having found a bear asleep in a snow bank under a cliff on the seashore, about seventy-five miles north from where we were. We were certain that the animal was a “she” bear, as the males do not hibernate but roam all winter on the ice far out to sea.

We made the trip at once with six Eskimos, three sleighs and twenty-two dogs, and built our Igloos two miles away from where the bear had been found. Then we went out on foot to reconnoiter.

We found the bear’s den easily. A large yellow spot on the snow, from which rose a slight vapor coming from the animal’s breath, plainly showed that someone was at home. We carefully chose the best spot to place our one and only camera and rehearsed the whole scene. One Eskimo was to climb above the den and rouse the bear with a long pole. The others standing in front of the den were to let the dogs go as soon as the brute appeared. We knew that the Huskies would surround the bear; and we had no doubt that she would immediately make a stand in front of her cubs and fight.

We had to wait after that for three days until the weather was clear and fine. In the end the hour came. At first, everything went off beautifully. The bear was roused out of her lair by a few vigorous pokes of the pole but, instead of showing her head out of the snow and then emerging to give battle, she burst out of her den like a rabbit from its hold. It was a “she” bear all right, but it happened that she had no cubs.

In a flash she was through the pack of dogs and away! Before the cameraman could start cranking she was already fifty yards off, racing for the sea with all the huskies after her. We tried to lift the camera, carry it and follow, but it was useless. The bear never stopped for at least a mile. After that, when it was much too late, she turned around, fought the dogs for a few minutes—scattering them easily—then went on her way and disappeared finally over the icy horizon. We never found another bear in her den that year.

Such was the way Mr. R. J. Flaherty missed the only scene from “Nanook of the North”.

Tale XXII: Vermin and Ants

“Alex is a doggoned fool.” ... The speaker, a middle-aged Yankee trapper, spat thoughtfully on the red hot stove, then gazed inquiringly at his audience.

We were four, in a log cabin on the banks of the Churchill River. It was night—late in the fall—and already cold. Inside, the atmosphere was oppressive, reeking with tobacco smoke, sweat, fish scales, and grease. Outside, the wind blew in great, uneven gusts and the shack creaked like the timbers of a labouring ship at sea.

I finally inquired why Alex was a fool, and promptly heard the following story:

“One evening last June, Alex blew in with a couple of Chippewayan Indians. He had a load of fur in his canoe and was hurrying to the line to sell it and get drunk. Alex wanted me to lend him a shirt. He was as lousy as a pet coon, and said he didn’t have time to wash his shirt. I had only one shirt, a clean one I had only worn a few times, and I was thinking of using it myself when I moved south. So I said ‘no’, and advised him to take his shirt off and lay it on an ant heap. Alex didn’t like the idea, but I told him the ants would clean up every insect. He did what I said.

“When the time came to leave, there was a fair wind down the stretch so they put up a sail in a hurry. Alex grabbed his shirt and they left.

“I saw Alex again last week. He said when he put on his shirt the vermin were gone, but he forgot to shake it first and the ants were still there! You know the kind, boys! The little red ones! And they sure did bite like hell before he could strip again!”

Tale XXIII: A Greenhorn in a Rapid

Every spring, a lot of greenhorns go North, either in hope of making their living, or in a spirit of adventure. A few struggle through and succeed. A lot meet with accidents. All of them run appalling risks.

Some years ago—before the War—there was a mild stampede on the Chamuchuan River in the Province of Quebec. Gold was reported to have been found. As soon as the ice had gone, several hundred men started North, plunging into the wilderness in quest of fortune.

A few weeks later we were poling up that same river on our way to Mistassini Lake. We reached a long straight rapid and were unloading our canoe before portaging. One of the Indians noticed, two miles away at the head of the rapid, right in the middle of the foaming river, a dark speck on a flat rock. One man said it was a bear because it moved.

What a black bear could be doing in such a spot was a problem in itself, but we let it go at that and started packing our loads. I happened to be the first one over the portage. Throwing down my load, I looked instinctively at the river. There was a man squatting dismally on a small flat rock right in the middle of the current, fifty yards or so below where the portage stopped and the rapid began.

So that was the black bear seen an hour ago! When the stranger saw us, he scrambled to his feet and started gesticulating wildly. We could not understand how he got there. He had no canoe. The rock was about three foot square. On both sides of it the river rushed down in a blind torrent of foam.

We considered a way to rescue him. The idea of running down in a canoe was out of the question. Even if we succeeded in getting him on board—we would have to go on and there was a ten foot fall a few hundred yards further down which meant immediate disaster.

We hit on the following plan. We found a good sized log, tied to it all the ropes we had in one single line, paddled as far down near the head of the rapid as we dared, anchored our canoe with a huge stone taken from shore and then paid out the rope, the log floating ahead of it towards the man on the rock.

We managed to let the log pass more or less alongside the stranger! But for a long time the man appeared frightened. Each time he missed his chance of catching hold of the log. And we had to hand it up again thirty yards or so to be able to give it the proper direction so that it would pass as near as possible to the rock.

Finally, the stranger decided to take a chance. He waved at us as if he were taking a last farewell, then jumped boldly—head first and arm extended—straight for that log. There was quite a splash and for a second we could not see whether he had succeeded in getting hold of the stump. Our rope was tight. We had reached the end of it.

We hauled in. In a few minutes we knew we had our man at the end of our line. We got occasional glimpses of him, although he was all the time half way under water. He was lying on the log—clasping it with both arms—straddling it with both legs. Little by little we got him alongside. He was nearly drowned and quite speechless. With an effort we got him on board. Then letting the log go after cutting the rope—we paddled ashore.

An hour later our new acquaintance was able to talk and tell us his story. He was a student and had gone with a party to the upper end of the river in search of gold. Disgusted with the life, homesick, weak from lack of food and from mosquito bites, he had decided to run away and reach the line. Stealing a canoe, he had started alone on his journey.

He had never been in the woods before. When he reached the rapid he missed the portage. In a second he found himself helpless in the first whirlpool. By sheer luck his canoe was thrown against that lonely flat rock. When it hit, he let his paddle go and jumped, landing safely on the big stone. The canoe, of course, disappeared in the swirl.

He had been there—squatting helplessly right in the middle of that rapid—for thirty-six hours when we happened to pass that way and rescue him.

Tale XXIV: Large Fish

When and wherever a man tells a fishing story, there is a deep-rooted feeling among everyone listening that the man is far from being truthful. That is a handicap for any one trying to describe how large fish do run in Canada north of 53. Nevertheless the fact remains that in Labrador as well as in the West, Pickerel, Muskellunge and Lake Trout grow to enormous size.

Three years ago on Reindeer Lake, in a net placed under the ice, our men caught a trout which tipped the beam at fifty-three pounds. In the same lake, when trolling the following July, we caught one weighing thirty-five pounds. We showed it to an Indian camped near by.

He told us that a few days before he had netted one much larger, which he had given to his dogs to eat.

To prove the truth of his statement he hunted around the bush, found the trout’s head and brought it to us. We measured it with the head of our own fish. It was, more or less, twice as large.

Muskellunge up to forty pounds are common in the big lakes. Some are bigger. These fish, when hungry, are vicious and often go for quarry which they can hardly swallow.

A squirrel swimming across a river is snapped up like a minnow. So are young ducklings, if they venture too far out from shore. In several instances we have seen a much larger bird successfully pulled down by a big pickerel.

Last summer when paddling near a small island on Bear Lake, we noticed three young gulls take fright, leave their nest on the rocks, and swim directly away from us. They were full grown, although they had not yet learned how to fly.

One of those gulls was pulled down three times in front of us by a muskellunge. Each time it remained under water almost a minute. The fish finally gave it up as a bad job; but we marvelled at the endurance of that young bird. It did not seem the worse for its submarine encounter.

Tale XXV: A Little Indian Girl

Railways may extend their lines far away in the north; civilization may wipe out huge slices of wilderness; the remaining Indians, in spite of all their faults intensified by the contact with white men, are still at heart wild men whose sole aim in life is to hunt and to kill.

Whatever may be their calling, there is one thing which no Indian man, woman or child can resist. It’s to try to lay low big game. In other words, to try to secure red meat each time the occasion arises.

Last summer, near where we were camped, a very old squaw took her granddaughter, aged ten, to look over her nets. The child was in the bow of the canoe. Suddenly they came across a big bull moose swimming the river. They had no rifle and there was no time to return to camp to fetch one. The old woman did not hesitate. With one sweep of her paddle she steered the small canoe straight for the moose, while she screamed to the little girl to pick up the small axe which they were using to drive in the stakes of their nets.

The child was frightened but she answered the call of the blood. She seized the axe and, when her grandmother fearlessly paddled the canoe alongside the huge horns of the moose, she struck with all her might. She was too young to know how to use her small weapon. Instead of aiming between the animal’s ears with the head of the axe, she struck blindly with the blade. She missed several times, wounding the big moose in the neck.

The infuriated animal roared, shook his head, lunged out with his front paws, narrowly missing the canoe. The little girl kept on savagely. Finally, she buried her axe in the bull’s huge back. She did not have the strength to wrench it out. The moose reached the shore, staggered up the bank and disappeared in the bush.... We found it an hour later, dead, a few hundred yards away.

There was a silent but proud little Indian girl in camp that night.

The bull moose must have weighed over twelve hundred pounds, while the axe measured exactly three feet long.

Tale XXVI: Outlawed in the Barren Lands

The barren lands ... far away, north of the trees. Wind-swept, rock strewn, colorless. An undulating desert with huge boulders, grey moss, little patches of scrub willows nestling in the hollows of the hills. Thousands of small streams and lakes.

Far away on the edge of the Arctic. Bleaker than the northern moors of Scotland shorn of their native heather. The feeding ground of the wandering herds of caribou. The nestling place of all water fowl.

Far away, skirting the frozen seas. A land of waste lying on the top of the world. Scarred and twisted by some gigantic earthquake hundreds of centuries ago. Blasted eternally by the icy breath of the pole.

The Barren Lands. The last refuge for the criminal unmercifully tracked by the law. Northward—ever northward—the man has fled from civilization. Downstream—ever downstream—he has paddled madly through the forest, seeking safety in the unknown. Leaving the trees behind him he has at last reached his goal. The Barren Lands.

But fear urges him on. He leaves his useless canoe and blindly staggers north on foot. North, north, into the heart of the land of waste from which there is no outlet. The weaker he gets the more he longs to go further. His food is nearly gone. On the top of the hills he scans the horizon. South, the line of trees has disappeared. North, nothing but the rolling desert of moss and rock.

On and on he staggers for days. He is starving now, although he is able to quench his thirst at the small icy creeks which wind their way towards the sea.

It is night. The man suddenly hears a dull moaning sound, the everlasting breaking of the surf against the shore. He has reached the end of the Barren Lands. He finds himself staggering down a rocky beach. His eyes are staring ahead of him. Nothing but a grey, unlimited ocean, dotted with icebergs.

For the first time he realizes the hopelessness of his flight. He remains a few seconds swaying on his feet. Then his brain gives way. With a scream, he tosses his hands above his head and, lurching forward, falls dead, his face in the foam of the waves.

High up in the sky, over Barren Lands and Arctic Ocean, the Northern lights reel, twist and swirl, in their eternal dance of madness.

Tale XXVII: One Thousand Years

Now and then in the far north, a trader adopts an Eskimo boy, always an orphan, and brings him up at the Station. When the boy reaches manhood he generally remains at the Post, acting as a general servant and interpreter. While his usefulness as a “jack of all trades” is great, his efficiency in English is invariably poor. No pure Eskimo can understand and speak fluently any other language but his own, and, although he is quite capable of remembering hundreds of foreign words, he has a very hazy notion of what these words really mean.