Chapter XI: Times of Famine

Life in the northland is hard and lonely enough at the best; but when food gives out, and starvation stares people in the face, it is too horrible even to imagine. And yet it is a common thing during the long winters, when game is scarce, when no fish are to be caught, and even the little rabbits die, for famine to stalk through the land, bringing misery and death to hundreds of men, women, and children.

“In India and elsewhere,” says Mrs. Bompas, “as soon as such a calamity is made known, subscriptions are raised, and supplies are sent off as soon as possible. But it must be months and months before the tidings of the misery here could even reach our friends in England, and in the meantime to what terrible straits might we not be reduced. One shudders to think of what men are driven to by the pangs of hunger.”

Both whites and Indians suffer at such times. How hard it must be for parents to see their little children crying out for food, and to be unable to give them any! In 1878, the Bishop returned from his visit to the Pacific coast. When he reached his diocese, sad stories were told him of the fearful famine which had ravaged his flock the previous winter. Food was scarce, owing to the extreme mildness of the season, interfering with the chase, and the mission supplies having failed to reach them in the fall. He gives a graphic picture of the sufferings endured in the diocese:

“Horses were killed for food, and furs eaten at several of the posts. The Indians had to eat a good many of their beaver-skins. Imagine an English lady taking her supper off her muff! The gentleman now here with me supported his family for a while on bear-skins—those you see at home mostly in the form of Grenadier caps. Can you fancy giving a little girl, a year or two old, a piece of Grenadier’s cap, carefully singed, boiled and toasted, to eat? Mr. McAulay’s little girl has not yet recovered from the almost fatal sickness that resulted. The scarcity brings out the strange contrast between this country and others. Elsewhere money ‘answereth all things,’ and among India’s millions half a million sterling will relieve a famine; but send it here, and though a great sum among our scattered individuals, who can be counted by tens, yet it would do us no good, as for digestion we must find it ‘hard cash’ indeed!”

It was not only at one place or one season that the famine came. It was a common occurrence. Once, in 1886, the Bishop held his Synod at Fort Simpson. There was a scarcity of food, the beginning of the great famine which ensued, and all were placed on short allowance. One day the dinner consisted of barley and a few potatoes, but it is said that the Bishop was equal to the occasion, commending the scanty fare by repeating Prov. xv. 17: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”

The winter that followed the meeting of the clergy was a terrible one. The famine increased. Game was scarce, few moose were to be obtained, the rabbits all died, and the fish nearly all left the river. The Indians asserted that the scarcity of the finny prey was caused by the propeller of the new steamer _Wrigley_, which first churned the head-waters of the great river the preceding fall, but was unable to reach the northern posts owing to the ice; hence the lack of supplies. But any excuse would serve the Indians, as, on a previous occasion when fish were scarce (so Mrs. Bompas tells us), the natives said it was due to the white women bathing in the river. Such a radical change as cleanliness was evidently as much disliked by the fish as by the Indians.

Through the weary days of famine sad reports reached the Bishop of Indians dying for lack of food.

“Forty starving Indians,” so he wrote, “are said to have been eating each other on Peace River, and 200 dead there of measles, and a like number at Isle à la Crosse.”

“We have been living for some days,” says Mrs. Bompas, “on barley soup and potatoes twice a day. We are four in family, and William gives us all the giant’s share, and takes so little himself. One hopes and prays for help. One hears terrible accounts of the Indians, all about, all starving; no rabbits or anything for them to fall back upon. Here many of them hunt for rotten potatoes thrown away last fall. Oh, it is truly heart-rending!”

Well has Longfellow in his “Hiawatha” described the desolation of such a scene as is only too common in the North:

“O the long and dreary winter!
O the cold and cruel winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker
Froze the ice on lake and river.
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o’er all the landscape;
Fell the covering snow and drifted
Through the forest round the village....

“O the wasting of the famine!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!
All the earth was sick and famished;
Hungry was the air around them;
Hungry was the sky above them;
And the hungry stars above them
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them.”

The mission party were placed on half rations, and earnest prayers were offered up to the great Father above for deliverance. Starving wolves were seen prowling around, ready to snatch up anything, carrying off little children if they ventured near. “We are just hanging on by our eyelashes,” quaintly wrote Mrs. Bompas.

The Bishop starved himself to feed his household, and daily he became thinner and more haggard. At last the provisions were so reduced that the Bishop, to lessen the number at the Fort, left for another place. He seldom thought of himself, but only of those dependent upon him. He could live anywhere, even in a snow-bank, with a few scraps for food. Truly his wants were few.

“An iron cup, plate, or knife,” writes Mr. Spendlove, “with one or two kettles, form his culinary equipment. A hole in the snow, a corner of a boat, wigwam, or log-hut, provided space, six feet by two feet, for sleeping accommodation. Imagine him seated on a box in a twelve-foot room, without furniture, and there cooking, teaching, studying, early and late, always at work, never at ease, never known to take a holiday.”

Mrs. Bompas tells us that the Bishop was a very self-contained man. During the years when he was itinerating among the Indians and Eskimo he had lived so much alone in tent or cabin that he had learnt to be wholly independent of external aid. Moreover, he had trained himself to endure hardness as a good soldier of the Cross. His diet was at all times abstemious, almost severely so. To the last he never allowed himself milk or cream in tea or coffee. He was a fairly good cook and bread-maker, and loved to produce a good and savoury dish for his friends, although eschewing all such dainties himself.

From a photograph taken during a heavy fall of snow.]

One day, when they knew not where to-morrow’s food would come from, Mr. Spendlove and several Indians came, bringing moose-meat. They told a terrible story of suffering below. All at Fort Wrigley were starving, absolutely no food was to be obtained, and a number of Indians died. Mr. Spendlove and his fellow-travellers were pitifully thin. Several of the poor dogs had died off, and those which survived were too weak to draw the sled, and had to be hauled themselves. By a special mercy they came upon two moose, which had just been killed by wolves. This meat helped them out, and probably saved their lives.

“All the Indians were just on the verge of starvation,” wrote Mr. Garten of Fort Rae. “All kinds of shifts were made to preserve life; they were obliged to eat some of the parchment of the fur which they caught; and even old leather dresses which had been worn by the Indian women were eaten up. The children fared very badly, not being able to eat the leather. Of course, there were the usual miseries accompanying such a state of things: such as men falling down from exhaustion, stealing what little they could from each other, etc., but happily no crimes were committed, as far as I know; only two Indians died from starvation. Things would not have been so bad had there been rabbits and partridges, but unhappily these also were wanting.”

At such times terrible stories were related of what happened away from the Fort. Husbands driven mad from the pangs of hunger were said to have eaten their wives and little ones.

“There is an old Indian,” says Mrs. Bompas, “even now pointed out here, who is said to have eaten his wife and children.”

“Such a dreadful thing occurred on Friday,” she wrote at another time, “which has saddened us all. The poor Indian Cachie was seen crossing the river, wading through the water and over the ice at the peril of his life. He got to the shore at last in a most distressing state. His wife and three children all died from starvation. There are rumours more ugly still concerning him, though we hope they are but rumours. Even at the best it is a sad, ghastly story. The poor man has been living on berries and squirrels.”

Not only did the wives and little children suffer most at such seasons, but the aged, especially the old women. Bishop Stringer, much farther north, several years later, gives an instance of what it means to these people in times of want:

“In March a man came staggering in, and it required only a glance to tell that he was starving—he looked more like a skeleton than a man of flesh and blood. We gave him some food, little by little at first, and then he told his story. He and his aged mother spent the winter about fifty miles to the westward. Game became scarce, and their supply of food became exhausted. Being camped beside an old decayed whale carcass, they lived on this for a time; but they soon became so weak, and the snow so deep, that they were not able to procure it any longer. The man caught some foxes, and they ate them; then even foxes failed. Their only two dogs were sacrificed to appease their appetites. When almost on the point of starvation, they started for here without blanket or tent. The mother was nearly blind, and when about thirty miles from this place the son had to leave her in a snow-house. He himself was so weak that it took three days to come a distance that is considered one day’s fair travelling. He told us he thought his mother would be dead, and all the other natives seemed to think the same, and so they did not think it important to start out at once to bury her. After some little trouble, I got one native to go with me, and, taking my dog-team, reached there early the next day. My companion expected to find her a corpse, but when we reached her snow-house she called from within: ‘Inooaloon kaivet?’ (My son, have you come back?). We found her crouched in the middle of a snow-house about three feet high, the door of which was partly open, with snow drifting in. Here she had been for three days without blanket or any covering but her clothing, and without fire, drink, or food. She was very thirsty, and we soon made a fire, melted snow, and gave her some water. I asked her if she were hungry, and she said only a little, but someone had come to her each night and had given her some fresh deer-meat. (This, no doubt, was a dream or a vision; but it had the effect of keeping her courage up, which is a great deal with an Eskimo.) I asked her if she had slept, and she said she had slept every night. She was not the least bit frozen, although the temperature was down below zero. She said also that she had asked the Good Spirit to help her, and that He had heard her, and she had not been afraid. Poor body! she had very little knowledge of higher things, but her faith seemed to be great. We put her on the sled, and came back to Herschel Island without camping—a continuous trip of about fifty or sixty miles. My dogs were good, or we could not have done it. The old woman’s eyesight was after a time restored, and of course they were both very thankful for the help they received. The man was in our house to-day, and he says that his mother is quite hearty and strong.”

Though many of these people, in the midst of such trouble, sank lower than brutes, yet it is pleasing to know that the knowledge of Christ filled some hearts, lifted them to a higher level, and kept them from doing horrible things. Listen to the words of two Indian Christians, which were told to the Rev. W. Spendlove:

“I have had a hard life,” said one; “seen many deaths from starvation—thirty one winter. I have seen much wickedness, too: have known men to eat human flesh; kill the old folks by a blow with an axe; pitch the new-born child in the snow to die. Yes, greedy men go to other men’s wives; blows to women instead of words; children beaten like pounding the drum. I heard the Good News; I took it in my heart, and kept it there. I kept from all this evil, but I am an old sinner. My heart has been black as your ink; God has made it feel like raw flesh. He took away lots of my children. I rebelled; I called the Great Spirit hard names. I said: ‘God is not wise; He must be unpitiful to want my children when I need them so badly.’ Stop! I am a foolish Indian; my black heart makes me talk that way. Those evil things are not done now. Who stopped them? What shamed us Redmen of our black, dirty ways? I see it clear now. God’s Spirit pricked holes in our hearts and minds. His Word has entered and stopped the fire of sin. It cannot burn now.

“I have drunk animals’ blood, eaten raw flesh, and the bad, dirty insides of all wild animals. Nothing can change that heart. But I tell you there is another heart grown out of the old one; now I have two. The new one is made by faith in the blood of Jesus. I take the holy bread and wine. I am happy; my soul is free and clean. Now I cook my food, keep myself clean, wear white men’s clothes, and pray daily to my Saviour. With these words I shake hands with you big praying-men.”

And another is:

“I am a poor Red Indian wife, not supposed to speak first to white people. I speak with my back turned, my head down, and a shawl over my face. Why do this now? My heart is full—running over. I know who is my Master; His name is sweet and strong in my ears. He now keeps my heart steady with His words. I travel about the woods, and over mountains; I carry heavy burdens, but my step is light, my heart is strong, the light is white in my eyes now, because my sin-burden is laid on Jesus.”

To add to the misery of famine, there was always the horror of darkness; for candles became very scarce, owing to lack or thinness of deer, from which grease is obtained. Over and over again Mrs. Bompas laments the want. And what a joy it was even to obtain a “bladder of grease”!

“How you would smile,” she once wrote, “to see my jealous care of every particle of grease; how I save every small piece from my own candlestick and keep it in a little box, so at the end of several days I have just enough to place in a saucer, and with a piece of wick form my ‘wax candle’ for dressing!”

These, then, are some of the hardships the missionaries have to undergo in that far-off land, in order to carry the Gospel message to the natives of the North. Much do they need our prayers and sympathy in their great loneliness, that they may not faint, but carry forward the banner of the Master.