Chapter XII: MID Drifting Ice

We have seen the Bishop travelling over the great Northern waterways in trim canoes in the summer, and on snow-shoes over the white trails in the winter. We will now watch him battling and struggling forward on a rude raft mid surging, drifting ice.

In May, 1881, he began those marvellous trips which only a giant constitution could have endured. From the Peace River district he made a voyage far north to visit the Tukudh Indians. Here he was given a hearty welcome, and rejoiced to find that the natives had begun to teach one another to read from the books which had been printed for their benefit. An Indian from the far-off Yukon came all the way to see him at this place, and urged him to go again and visit his tribe. The Bishop was standing by a smouldering camp-fire listening to the native pleading for his people. Suddenly the Indian pointed downwards to the dying coals at their feet. “That,” he said, “is how you have left us. You kindled the fire of the Gospel among us, and left it untended to die out again. Why have you done this?”

The Bishop was much moved. He longed to go to them, or to send someone in his place, but his men were very few, and he himself was needed farther south. So, after spending the summer among these noble Tukudhs, travelling from May to August 2,500 miles, he returned to Great Slave Lake to meet an incoming mission party from England. After that he went up the turbulent Liard River from Fort Simpson to visit two forts there—Liard and Nelson.

Winter was close upon him when he once again got back to Fort Simpson. Mrs. Bompas was at Fort Norman, 200 miles away, and he must reach that place as soon as possible, to relieve her of the responsibility of the mission-work.

Arriving at Fort Simpson, he found the river full of floating ice, and no canoe could navigate that cruel stream in such a condition. He was urged to remain there where it was comfortable; it would be madness to go forward. But no, that was not the Bishop’s way; he would go, no matter how great the difficulties.

A raft was therefore hurriedly built. This was a poor affair—only a few logs placed side by side, and several poles or boards across the top to hold them together. Even the sturdy Vikings of olden days would have shrunk from venturing forth on such a craft; but the Bishop was greater than they. He had not only the courage of the Vikings, but the holy enthusiasm of St. Paul, and these two virtues formed a combination which could accomplish almost any undertaking.

With one Indian he started from Fort Simpson upon his shaky craft. With long poles in their hands they steered their way down the stream. The floating ice jammed around them, threatening to crush their tiny craft and engulf them in a watery grave. At times they were standing in water half-way to the knees, owing to the pressure of some heavy blocks of ice. Then, as they handled their long poles, the water ran down their sleeves and drenched their bodies. The cold wind whistled about them, and froze the water upon their clothes till they were covered with an icy armour. The mittens on their hands became wet, then stiff and frozen, while ice formed on the poles, making them heavy and slippery. At night there was the camp-fire upon the shore, the brief rest, and then up and on again, for they must rush through before the river became solid from bank to bank.

Thus every day they battled on, chilled to the bone, and ever in danger, yet never giving up. But stern Winter knew no mercy. Colder and colder it grew, until at last the icy bridge was formed, to remain during long, dreary months. Then they were forced to abandon the raft, and fortunate were they to find shelter at a place on the side of the stream, known as La Violdete’s House. Here the Bishop remained for ten days, until the ice in the river was strong enough to travel upon. At the end of that time he and four Indians started on foot for Fort Norman. They hoped to reach it in six days, and took just enough food to last them for that period. One of the Indians, seeing the tracks of a bear, went off in pursuit, and lost sight of the others entirely.

The Bishop and his three remaining companions pushed steadily forward. But, alas! they missed the right trail, and by the time they should have reached Fort Norman it was still six days’ journey off. When they at length found out their mistake their food was very low, and they were forced to place themselves on short allowance. Wearily they plodded onward, beating their way through tangled bushes and tramping through the snow. Their feet, too, became sore, for the rough ground, covered with sharp stones and snags, tore their moccasins, and caused them to stumble and sometimes to fall.

At length they ate their last scrap of food—a fish and one small barley-cake between four starving men. Fort Norman was still two days’ hard travelling ahead, and they must make it, or perish there in the wilderness. The Bishop was becoming very weak and footsore. His continual travelling and hardships since May were telling upon him. How he longed to stop, to just lie down under some tree, and rest, rest! But no, that would be fatal! His flock needed him, and he must not give up. So with firmly-compressed lips, and face drawn and haggard, he stumbled on, trying to keep pace with his more sturdy companions.

But even the Bishop’s splendid will could not conquer his worn body. His feet refused to move, and he sank exhausted upon the snow. “Leave me here,” he said to the Indians; “I can go no farther. You push on and send me back some food.” There was nothing else to do, for men in desperate circumstances cannot stand upon ceremony. So, building a fire under one of the trees, and spreading some fir boughs on the ground, the Indians once again started forward.

And there in the lone wilderness the faithful Bishop was left, perhaps to die. Suppose the Indians, too, should give out ere they reached the Fort! What then? Or suppose prowling, hungry wolves should find him. Then, in either case, another name would be added to the long list of noble men and women who had given their lives for the Master’s sake.

Meanwhile, at Fort Norman, Mrs. Bompas was enduring an agony of suspense. Where was the Bishop? Why was he so delayed? Had something terrible happened to him? Besides this, there was the responsibility of the mission-work, with the many demands of the ever imperative Indians. A white woman of high culture, away in the great North, living in a rude log-house, shut off from all communication with the outside world, and her husband lost somewhere in the wilds!

The loneliness and dreariness of this place has been vividly described by that earnest missionary, the Rev. W. Spendlove.

“We reside,” he said, “in the northern confines of British territory, on the Arctic slopes of this continent, not far from the Arctic Circle and Great Bear Lake, amid wild, mountainous scenery. Either the wild fury of the storm rages or dead calm with intense cold prevails, interchanged with bright sun, and cheerless ice and snow landscape for eight months of the year. Ice-blocked and snow-bound, dark forest covers the banks of the Mackenzie River, and beyond, a trackless desert of beautiful, perfectly dry snow. Distance, 8,000 miles from England, upwards of 1,500 miles beyond the out-limit of Canadian frontier border of civilization, and our nearest missionary brother fifteen days’ journey. Cut off from white people, shut up among Red Indian savages! Oh, what vast solitudes! What extreme loneliness! The effort to obtain sufficient food and fuel for these regions is no easy task. Other conditions of life are most disadvantageous. Nothing in nature to smile upon us for eight months. No sight or sound of civilization. No European Christian to mingle with, or fellow-worker to shake the hand, join in mutual sympathetic intercourse, and say, ‘Go on, brother, I believe in you and your work.’”

If such conditions were so trying and terrible to a man, what must they have been to a woman with a body by no means of the strongest, accustomed for years to a life of comfort and the refined atmosphere of London drawing-rooms? To make matters worse, “these Indians,” so Mrs. Bompas tells us, “like all savage tribes, despise women. They call them among themselves ‘the creatures,’ and will not submit to a woman’s sway.”

One night towards the middle of November, Mrs. Bompas was aroused from sleep and much startled by loud knockings upon the door. Trembling, and fearing for the Bishop, she demanded who was there. “We bring you tidings of the Bishop,” came the reply. “He is starving.”

It did not take Mrs. Bompas long to spring from her bed, and examine the two Indians as to the truth of their report. When she heard of her husband’s pitiable condition her heart sank very low. At the same time there came the thought and firm belief that the Arms which had shielded him through so many dangers would befriend him still.

She well knew there was no time to lose, and her first effort was to induce one of the men, Whu-tale by name, to take relief to the Bishop. Though this Indian was not one of the starving party, he had learned the story from the three who had straggled, half-starved, into the Fort, and had hurried off with another to carry the tale to the mission-house. Mrs. Bompas knew he could be trusted to go in search of the Bishop, and with Indian sagacity would find the place.

“Whu-tale,” she said, “Bishop is starving in the woods. I send him meat. Chiddi, chiddi!” (Quick, quick!). “You take it to him, eh?” But Whu-tale did not like the idea of starting out at that time of the night on such a long errand, and doubtfully he shook his head. “Maybe to-morrow,” he replied, with true Indian passiveness.

“No, Whu-tale,” urged the anxious woman. “To-morrow the Bishop must be here. He cannot stand until he has eaten meat. I want you to take it now, and go to him like the wind. If you go directly and bring Bishop safe, I will give you a fine flannel shirt.”

At this Whu-tale grew interested. Though the Bishop’s sufferings did not appeal to him, the offer of the flannel shirt moved him, and a little more briskly he remarked: “Then, it would not be hard for me to go, and perhaps like the wind.”

Having accomplished this much, Mrs. Bompas had still stern work ahead. Wrapped in a deer-skin robe, she emerged from the house, and climbed the hill to the Fort, and aroused the Hudson’s Bay Company’s officer from a sound sleep to obtain a supply of moose-meat. The thermometer was nearly 80 degrees below zero, and starving wolves had been recently seen lurking near the fort. She thought of neither one nor the other, but only of her husband, out alone in the night.

At last Whu-tale was ready, and much rejoiced was she to see him start off on his errand of mercy. All the next day Mrs. Bompas waited and watched in great suspense. The hours dragged slowly by. Daylight came and went. Whu-tale had not returned. Darkness came, and just when Mrs. Bompas was about to give up in despair, the travellers returned, the Bishop hardly able to stand, and his beard fringed with icicles. The Lord had indeed preserved him from the many and great dangers, and thankful hearts offered up fervent prayers to Him that night in the little mission-house.

Here the Bishop stayed all the winter, and, notwithstanding his last fearful experience, left again in the spring, among the drift-ice, for the purpose of visiting Archdeacon McDonald at Peel River, whose health was not good. Of the risk the Bishop ran in this journey down-stream with the drifting ice the following description in his own words will give some idea:

“The breaking-up of the ice in spring in the large rivers, like the Mackenzie, is sometimes a fine sight. The ice may pile in masses along the banks to the height of forty feet, or be carried far into the woods. When any check occurs to this drifting of the broken ice, so as to back the stream, the ice may suddenly rise to the height of fifty feet or more and flood the country.

“The rivers and lakes freeze in winter to a depth of from six to ten feet, and the force and impetus of large masses of ice of this thickness, when hurled along the rapid current of a mighty river, are enormous. Few exhibitions of the power of the great Creator are more imposing than when ‘He causeth His wind to blow and the waters flow.’”