Chapter VIII: On the Mackenzie

The three young companions stood in the bright sunlight on the high bank of Fort Smith at the foot of which lay the steamer which was to carry them yet farther on their northwest journey. About them lay the scattered settlements at the foot of the Grand Traverse between the Slave and the Mackenzie. Off to the right, along the low bed of the river, lay the encampment of the natives, waiting for the "trade" of the season. Upon the other hand were the log houses of the Company employees, structures not quite so well built, perhaps, as those at Chippewyan, but adapted to the severity of this northern climate.

At the foot of the high embankment, busy among the unloaded piles of cargo which had been traversed from the disembarkment point of Smith's Landing, trotted in steady stream the sinewy laborers, the same half-breeds who everywhere make the reliance of the fur trade in the upper latitudes. They were carrying now on board the _Mackenzie River_, as the steamboat was named, the usual heavy loads of flour, bacon, side-meat, sugar, trade goods, all the staples of the trade, not too expensive in their total.

There were to be seen also the human flotsam and jetsam of this northern country--miners, prospectors, drifters, government employees, and adventurers--all caught here as though in the cleats of a flume, at this focusing-point at the foot of the wild northern waters.

"John," said Jesse, at last, as he drew a full breath of warm yet invigorating air, "how is your map coming along?"

"Pretty well," replied John. "I've got everything charted this far. Look here how I've put down our journey through the rapids of the Slave River; we zigzagged all about. I put down the rocks and the biggest headlands, so I think I've got it pretty close to correct. I wonder how we ever got through there, and how the old Company men first went through."

"Two boats came through directly over the big rapids which we didn't dare tackle," said Rob. "They were tenderfeet, and they don't know to this day how lucky they were."

"Well, we were lucky enough, too," said John, "for in spite of our bad omens at Chippewyan, everything has come through fine. Here we are, all ready for our last great swing to the North. Look here on the map, fellows--I always thought that the Mackenzie River ran straight north up to the Arctic Ocean, but look here--if you start from where we are right now, and follow the Great Slave River on out through Great Slave Lake, you'll find it runs almost as much west as it does north. It lurches clear over toward Alaska, although it's all on British ground."

Jesse expressed his surprise at seeing so many "common-looking people," as he called it, up here in the fur country, where he had expected to find only gaudily dressed traders and trappers; but Rob, who had observed more closely, explained some of this to him.

"A good many of these people," he said, "are simply drifters who intend to live any way they can. They make a sort of fringe on the last thrust of west-bound settler folk; there is always such a wave goes out ahead of the permanent settlers.

"Not that they can settle this country permanently. They tell me that they raise potatoes even north of here, and, as you know, they raise fine wheat at Chippewyan; but this will never be an agricultural country. No, it's the country of the fur trade--always has been, and I hope and believe always will be."

"Well," said John, drawing himself up to his full height, "I'm for a little more excitement. It's getting slow here, watching the people load the boats."

As to what did happen in the way of interest to our travelers, Rob's diary will serve as well as anything to explain their experiences for the next few days:

"_Tuesday, June 24th._--Not quite a month out from Athabasca
Landing. Have come 553 miles. Steamboat now for the rest of
the way north. She is a side-wheeler, pretty big, with
several berths and a dining-room. I think she will be pretty
well crowded.

"More dogs here. To-day three or four big huskies ate up a
little Lapland dog puppy which one of the men had brought
along to take home with him. They broke through the bars of
the crate and hauled out the puppy and ate him alive! Don't
like the looks of them after dark.

"There is a mission school here. The Church people are
against fur-hunting. I don't see what else the natives can
do. If you wanted to buy any fur here you would have to go
to the independents and pay a big price. This place had very
little to eat left in it when we got here. Not much fish
just now, as the river is too high. The cargo of the mission
scows is not over the portage yet. Some people of the
Anglican Church go north with us, too, also four Northwest
Mounted Police, who go to Fort McPherson and Herschel
Island. They relieve others who will go out. Lonesome life,
I should think.

"_Wednesday, June 25th._--Loaded and got off 3 P.M. They
call this the Big Slave, then Mackenzie River, but I can't
see why it isn't just the same river that starts back in the
Rocky Mountains. Passed the little steamboat _St. Marie_.
The bishop of this country is on it, also many Indians. Our
boat asked him if the ice was out of Great Slave Lake, and
he says yes. Tied up very late at night.

"_Thursday, June 26th._--Have seen no game. The banks are
low and very monotonous. Not very pretty. Most people are
playing cards on the boat. No one to talk to but ourselves.
Have to slow up because the head wind is filling the scows
with water.

"There is very little darkness now, even at midnight,
although there is a sort of sunset even yet.

"_Friday, June 27th._--Tied up twelve miles from Resolution,
in delta of the Slave River. Low marshes all around. Some
men on the boat, traders and others, took canoe and paddled
over to the post.

"_Saturday, June 28th._--This is my birthday. If I were home
might have a cake or something. Other boys and Uncle Dick
very nice to me. Went out into the lake, but did not dare to
chance the waves, so came back in the channel. Our captain
is uneasy because he is afraid the independent traders will
get into Resolution before we do. Some competition even
here. Wind dropped at 9 P.M. We could have gone on, but the
Hudson's Bay always waits if it gets a chance.

"_Sunday, June 29th._--The _St. Marie_ and the _Caribou_, an
independent trading-boat, both sighted. Both probably will
beat us in to Resolution.

"_Monday, June 30th._--Loafed another day. Other boats
passed out at night. We started out late. Pulled the nose
out of our sturgeon nose scow and she began to settle. All
that the men and three pumps could do to keep her from
sinking. Got her in shallow water at last and tried to patch
her up. This was the Fort Nelson cargo, and it is ruined.
Boat covered with smeared calico and blankets and everything
else, hung up to dry. Pretty mess they will have at Fort
Nelson--but this is all they'll have for another year!
Nobody seems to care.

"_Tuesday, July 1st._--Anchored off Fort Resolution, and
went ashore. Indian tepees all over the beach. Hundreds of
dogs. Two trading-posts here, a mission school, and a
church. Mixed scenes, mostly savage. There is a York boat
down from Fort Rae. Says they are starving there. Plenty of
fish here. Hudson's Bay boat lost in this race. Independent
goods are now eighty miles farther down the river than we
are. Left a Mounted Policeman and a scientist here. No
Mounted Policeman ever had a horse up here.

"They say that the damaged cargo in the Fort Nelson boat
will lose half its value. Fort Nelson is up the Liard
River, and it takes twenty-five days of tracking from the
mouth of the Liard in the Mackenzie.

"As we go down the edge of the Great Slave Lake--the big
river runs through it--everything is quiet and the sky is
bright. Once in a while we see a belt of clear water now.
Have been on muddy water ever since we started out at
Athabasca Landing. Fort Resolution as we leave it under the
morning sun makes a pretty picture.

"All sorts of people on the boat. One Oxford man, an
interpreter and Indian agent, and his five breed children.
Another ex-Indian agent who is going north with the last of
the treaty payments. These old-timers in the north country
tell us all kinds of stories. Wish I had time to put them
down. People up here get about one mail a year. One winter
mail comes across the mountains from Dawson. They say a mail
goes into Fort McPherson from Dawson every winter, too.
Three years ago four members of the Mounted Police were lost
trying to make it across from McPherson to Dawson. Their
names were Inspector Fitzgerald, Constables Taylor and
Kenny, and Carter, a special constable. They all starved.
They are buried at Fort McPherson. Their guide was Carter,
and he got lost. The inspector of the Mounted Police who is
to go to Fort Herschel was in the Boer War, in Africa, far
south of the Equator.

"Uncle Dick tells me that the names of the tribes through
which we will pass on our big journey are, first, the Crees,
who go as far north as McMurray and Chippewyan; then the
Great Chippewyan people, scattered here over a big country;
then the Dog Ribs, the Yellow Knives, the Slavies, the
Mountain Slavies, the Rabbit or Hare people, the Loucheux,
and the Eskimos. The Loucheux and the Eskimos lap over along
the southern edge of the Arctic. We are among the Dog Ribs
here. Their canoes are very small, made out of spruce and
birch bark, and so narrow you would not think they could
float anything at all. That's as big as they can get the
bark up here.

"Now we begin to see sledges and snow-shoes and meat-racks.
They have to put everything up high so the dogs can't get
them. Dried fish everywhere, or what is left of the last
winter's supply. Looks like we were in the North at last.
Father Le Fèvre told me that at Chippewyan they put up over
a hundred thousand 'pieces of fish'--that means a whole fish
each--every year for the people and the dogs.

"English mission at Hay River has seventy scholars. They are
put in red coats. They live on fish and potatoes. We leave
at Hay River the wife of the Anglican minister. There are
two young ladies stationed there also. The minister's wife
had been gone for two years--outside, as we call it in
Alaska. Found a garden here, quite a potato-field, also
fresh pie-plant, lettuce, and radishes, all big enough to
eat on July 1st. Many fat dogs. Don't know whether the
natives eat these or not. This country under the Arctic
Ocean is different from what we thought it was--not so cold,
and more civilized in some ways.

"Our ex-Indian agent leaves us here to pay treaty money. A
young teacher leaves us also here for the Anglican mission.
We find here, much to our wonder, on one of the little
mission steamboats which beat us out from Fort Smith word
from the two good Sisters with whom we traveled on the scows
up to Fort McMurray. One was left at Chippewyan and one at
Resolution. Here also is the judicial party which we left
back at Fort McMurray. They have come down on the _St.
Marie_. We say good-by here to Father Le Fèvre. Several
church dignitaries about here. The Anglican Church seems
more prominent here than at most of the posts.

"I went out with an Indian boy here to run his nets, and we
took out an awful lot of fish--one lake trout of
thirty-three and a half pounds, and one of twenty-five
pounds, five fine whitefish, and four fish that I never saw.
The boy called them 'connies.' _Inconnu_ is the real name
for this fish. The first French _voyageurs_ who saw this
fish did not know what it was, so they called it 'unknown.'
It looks something like a salmon and something like a
sucker. Its mouth is rather square. Its flesh is something
like that of a whitefish, and it is used a great deal as
food. We don't like any fish as well as the whitefish right
along. They tell me a lake trout has been caught here
weighing forty-four and a half pounds. The boat captain
says he has seen one weighing sixty-three pounds.

"Our steamer left at 1 A.M., but when well under way
remembered that it had forgotten the mail-bags! So we turned
around and went back. If we had not done so the people north
of here would not have had any mail this year. The Hudson's
Bay Company has funny ways.

"_Wednesday, July 2d._--Off for Fort Providence. Running
better, for scows are lighter loaded now. In the morning
came into Beaver Lake, which they say is the head of the
true Mackenzie, not at Fort Smith. I suppose the lower point
is more correct; at least the other map-makers say so, in
spite of what John believes. But it's all one river.

"Many ducks, and this seems a breeding-ground. A great many
islands. Shores are broken. The river or lake is about
three-quarters of a mile to three miles wide. At 2.40 in the
afternoon we got into what they call the Mackenzie River
proper. It is only about a half to three-quarters of a mile
wide. It is bold and clearer than the other waters we have
been traveling on.

"Late in the evening reached the shores of Fort Providence,
a very sightly spot. The mission school formed their
red-clad girls in a platoon on the bank, waiting for us.
Every girl had her hands folded in front of her. The boys
were in ranks, too. They wore a gray uniform. The balcony of
the building back of them was filled with the older girls
and with the Sisters in a dark sort of uniform. All the
flags were flying. The sun was very bright. This made a
striking picture. Crowds of Indians came and sat on the
bank, waiting for us to land. A good many tepees on the flat
ground. There is a mission garden in a stockade, the best
garden we have yet seen. Here there are many onions,
potatoes, rhubarb, and a hedge of rose-bushes--a very
beautiful sight in this far land, and one I did not think we
would find.

"A good many men on the boat are trading with the Indians
for bead-work. A pair of moccasins is worth from a dollar to
a dollar and a half. One man bought the leggings of a squaw
and _off_ the squaw--for she was wearing them when he bought
them. They say the trade situation here is bad--too much
competition. Independents sometimes pay three hundred
dollars for a silver-gray fox, which is only worth a hundred
and twenty-five. The people here are Slavies, and are not
much good. The post was out of goods when we got in, and had
mighty little fur to send out, too. Indian village starving,
living on rabbits and dried fish. No fish running now. These
people seem a lazy lot.

"At Fort Resolution there were Chippewyans, Dog Ribs,
Slavies, and Yellow Knives, all mixed. At Hay River there
were Dog Ribs and Slavies. At Providence they are all
Slavies, and the Indian commissioner says they are the worst
lot on the whole river. Independent traders very angry here
because their clerks have not made any money.

"_Thursday, July 3d._--On the Mackenzie. Reached the 'head
of the line'--that is, the country where they have to track
boats on the line. At 3 P.M. reached the mouth of the Liard,
which seemed as big as the Peace River. It comes in on the
left. A grand scene here. On ahead is Fort Simpson on a very
high bluff--the most picturesque spot we have seen yet on
this trip. They say they once had electric lights here, but
not now. Some farms and gardens, much to our surprise.
Frost comes about September 1st. They all say there will be
a city here some time. Maybe, but I wouldn't like to live
there.

"Slavies at this post. Two villages, very wild and
barbarous-looking. A great many fine canoes. The life is
very wild about us here. One canoe comes in loaded down with
rabbits which they have shot along the shores. Much gaudy
clothing and savage finery now. Every one wears moccasins.
One woman here does fine porcupine-quill work. She is Mrs.
McLeod, and is the daughter of Old-man Firth, who is the
factor at Fort McPherson, so they say. She is the wife of
the factor at Fort Nelson, and knows how to trade.
Quill-work costs a lot.

"At this point we lost the wife of an Indian trader who had
come this far north with us, also two Mounted Policemen, the
ex-Indian agent and his family, a preacher and his son, and
several others. The boat company is getting lighter now.

"There was a scow-load of supplies for treaties to be used
up the Liard River. Now we find that the Hudson's Bay
Company has left all this stuff at Fort Smith, away behind
us! This shows what sort of transport it is. The Northwest
Mounted Police grub, due last April, is not here yet. No
wonder this is a starving country. It is very wild and
interesting around here. John and Jesse and I are having a
splendid time. This is the best trip we ever had.

"We had a bishop on board here. We boys talked quite a while
with the post factor. He says there are many records written
in the Company books here which go back seventy-five years
and more. We bought a few things here which we thought we
could take along with us.

"_Friday, July 4th._--It looked funny to see the British
flag, and not the Stars and Stripes, to-day. We three boys
celebrated, just the same--we went out in the woods and shot
off our rifles several times. Weather is beautiful, soft,
and warm. Made many photographs. The river here is about a
mile wide.

"We left at 4 P.M., and soon stopped to take on wood. Ran
till 8 o'clock before we could begin to see the outlines of
the Nahanni Mountains. Suppose they are a spur of the great
Rockies wandered this far away from home. A veil of smoke
seems to hang over them. We boys could not sleep very well,
and were up till 1 o'clock looking at the scenery. Uncle
Dick has been talking with the captain of our boat about the
Nahanni River, which comes down here through a notch in the
mountains. The Indians go up to the North Nahanni, portage
across to the South Nahanni, run down to the Liard River,
and come down it to the Mackenzie. This is a trip no white
man has ever taken. It must be a wild country in there. John
is honest with his map, so he just marks this place
'Unknown.' Prospectors have gone up the Liard to the
Nahanni. The geologists say there is no chance for gold in
there.

"_Saturday, July 5th._--Fort Wrigley at 7.35 in the morning.
One independent post besides the H. B. post. A good deal of
fur in these two posts, and some very fine fox skins. The
marten seem rather yellow, the lynx good, beaver and bear
good. We saw one wolverine skin here, a good many mink, and
one otter skin. This otter skin was not cased, as we fixed
them in Alaska, but was split and stretched like a beaver
skin. They say the Indians do that way with their otter
here. Did not stop long at this post, as we are beginning to
hurry now.

"It is a strange thing to us that we have not seen any game
on all this trip. No one has seen a moose since the one that
was killed above the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca. I
suppose the game country is back in farther. The Indians get
plenty of moose for their leather-work.

"In the evening we came to Fort Norman, which marks the
entry of the Bear River. I should call that the gate of
another land of mystery--up in there somewhere Sir John
Franklin perished. They say the white Eskimos are
descendants of some of his men. They say a man was taken
captive by the Indians up in there, and lived with them
several years, and then got out. He lives now somewhere in
Saskatchewan.

"At 9.45 we saw a burning bank on the Mackenzie River. It is
said to have burned forty-five years. It was in some sort of
tar sand, of which we have seen a good deal on our journey.
Tied up at 10 o'clock. There is a whole village of Mountain
Indians here at the foot of the bluff. A wild sight. The
tepees are pitched very close together. Hundreds of dogs.
Children are eating and running around everywhere. The boat
whistled, and the dogs all ran off up the hill and the
children screamed. They say that five years ago these wild
Indians left this place and went across the mountains to the
Stuart River to trade. They brought back Yukon stoves for
their tents, the same as they have up in Alaska. They came
down the Gravel River here in skin boats. Their birch-bark
canoes look like Eskimo kayaks. They have a short deck fore
and aft, and sharply slanting stem and stern posts. The bow
does not curve back.

"Fort Norman is on a high bluff. The H. B. Company has put
in some stairs. Not very many buildings, very little goods,
and little fur. We did some trading with the Indians for
trinkets. There is an Anglican church here, a very small
building. The little bell rang, and our bishop started over
to hold services. It was said that these Indians who had
come back from the Stuart River wanted to go to church
again, so this service was held for them. It was the first
time in five years in this church. There was a wedding
there to-night, they tell me, and several children were
christened, three or four years of age. One child was named
Woodrow Wilson Quasinay. We did it for a joke, but the
parents thought it was a fine name! He was four years old,
and very dirty, and cried a good deal when he got his name.

"We are getting to where the sun does not stay down very
long. The bishop read his services to-night by the natural
light of the window. With the bishop's consent we made a
flash-light picture of this scene in the church. Then there
was Holy Communion. The services were not done when the
whistle of the boat blew and everybody had to run to get on
board. The captain scolded the bishop for being so late!
This is a funny country, I think.

"This closes a week which has been quite full of events, I
think. Jesse and John very happy. The pictures around us
seem more savage. We are getting into the Far North of which
we have read so much. It is fine!"