Part 2

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.