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THE winter of 1868-9 came
slowly, and in the northern and western part of the country was more or less
open. There was not sufficient snow to enable us to use sleighs to go out
after buffalo, nor yet did we dare to start with carts. Moreover, the herds
kept far out on the plains, or as much so as the weather permitted them to
do. It is still very hard for the inexperienced to understand that the
colder the weather and harder the winter, farther into the north did the
great herds feed; but all through the sixties and seventies this was my
knowledge of them. With short trips to Indian camps, furnishing firewood for
our home, looking after nets and making sleighs, the short days of early
winter passed rapidly. Most of our reading was done by the dim tallow dip or
chimney fire; our literature was limited, and of the ancient type; one
thousand miles to the nearest post gave us very little trouble with our
mail. As Christmas drew on the last of the Indians had gone, scattering in
many directions into the woods and mountains. The buffalo were too far away
for any to think of them as a food supply, and the people had grown tired of
our fish diet. We were alone, so we concluded to make for Edmonton for the
holidays. We were longing for a change, for communion with kin and mother
tongue, and perhaps we were also influenced by a desire for change of food.
I confess that sometimes in my life this latter has influenced me
considerably. As there was very little snow, and as my dogs had died the
previous spring and summer of a virulent distemper, which had raged among
the wolves and dogs in our vicinity, we travelled with horses. Our friends
at Edmonton welcomed us with open arms, and we went into the fun and
festivity of the season heartily.
I think it was at this time,
essaying to preach in English at the urgent request of the resident pastor,
Rev. Peter Campbell, that I broke down. I had been using Cree for years, but
now when I attempted to speak in my own tongue I was at a loss, so much so
that I was obliged to sit down. My friend the pastor came to the rescue, and
I know that most of the audience, being gentlemen from the outlying Hudson's
Bay posts, thoroughly sympathized with me. It was here also that again I met
the "Pondura antelope," Mr. Henry Hardisty, who had the conceit to challenge
some of us to a foot-race. He was much surprised when, running against his
own brother, Mr. Richard Hardisty, and my brother David and myself, he found
that the "Pondura antelope" was distanced by every one of us. He
acknowledged "that the western slope of the Rockies was nowhere with the
eastern in speed." Possibly this will always be the case, as there is
something in climate and topography, and certainly we have plenty of space
for great running on this side. At any rate, the "Pondura antelope" said no
more about himself on that score. It was glorious to mingle with the joyous
crowd for a day or two, and the memory of the visit to old Edmonton in 1868
is still a fresh and fragrant spot in my life.
It was at this time that I,
being on the lookout for a good train of dogs, found them. A celebrated dog
breeder and trainer, Mr. McGilvery, had brought them in from Slave Lake and
given them to his brother-in-law, resident at Fort Edmonton. Owing to the
absence of snow, these dogs were not known; at any rate this would be their
first working winter. Finding that this train was for sale, I said to the
owner, "Will you let me try your dogs?" and he complied by harnessing them
up. I went down on the ice of the river and gave them a spin, and soon saw
that if I could make the trade these dogs would be a treasure. Having tried
them, the next thing was to buy them. I found that the owner wanted a good
large mare of reasonable age, with last spring's foal by her side, one cart
and harness, one sack of flour and an order on the Hudson's Bay Company for
two pounds sterling—say, as prices went at the time, mare, seventy-five
dollars; foal, fifteen; cart, fifteen; harness, five dollars; flour,
twenty-five dollars; sterling order, ten dollars—totalling one hundred and
twenty-five dollars. Well, this was a good price, but my credit was also
good. I bought the dogs, and as some of us determined to go on down to
Victoria for the New Year, I very soon demonstrated to all who travelled
with me that I had the gem train of the Saskatchewan country, which to one
of my temperament and style of travel was a benediction. Four magnificent
brutes they were, a dark brown, a jet black, and two white with tan spots.
How my heart delighted in those dogs! If anyone, even the owner, had known
them before I got them, their price would have doubled, and I often said
while using this train that I, though a poor man, would give all I paid for
the outfit for the leader alone. Even as I write, though over thirty years
have come and gone, I can see his fine hazel eyes looking into mine, and his
whole expression saying, "We are more than a match for the best of them,
aren't we?" and I would pat his big intelligent head and answer, "Yes, my
lad, we can, with the blessing of heaven, show the whole crowd of winter
travellers the way if they will only keep near enough to discern our
tracks." My dogs' names were Csar, Whiskey, Jumper and Cabrea, and a right
noble quartette they were in character, if not in name.
It was a lively, jovial crowd
that started down the Saskatchewan in time to catch the New Year at
Victoria. As there was only two or three inches of snow we had to take the
ice for it. There may have been a dozen trains in all, some Victoria people
returning home and some Hudson's Bay officers and myself visiting. Right
merrily we raced around the points, and with swinging trot and sometimes a
keen gallop our dogs rang their bells. For the time being we forgot
isolation and loneliness, and the distant mission and post, and went in for
a good healthy frolic. My new dogs without any effort would draw away from
the best trains in the party. I confess I was tremendously proud of my
"find," for thus they were termed by my almost envious friends. The "Pondura
antelope" was with us, trying his hand for the first time in dog-running.
The weather was splendid, cold, crisp and clear, and the atmosphere
surcharged with ozone, and we were living plainly enough to be healthy and
full of spirits of the right kind. Pemmican and dried meat, with a taste of
flour and water in the shape of little round cakes, served as our fare;
plain enough, but partaken of with such appetites and relish as a king might
well envy. Scotland, Ontario and the North-West were all represented in our
camp. The blood of strong and adventurous people was in our veins and
hearth, and one may be sure our camp-fire was no funeral procession. Ready
joke and ringing laugh and quick repartee and a full flood-tide of real good
nature, and thus we journeyed in right good time to Victoria, and thus with
glad cheer our friends of mission and fort met us and to their hearth and
homes bade us welcome.
Victoria at this time had a
fine settlement, of English half-breeds. These people were easily influenced
either way, and now under father's wise hand were gladly on the right side
in both civilization and Christianity. They were a distinct type of
humanity—a speculative, adventurous, roving white race of men for fathers,
and nomadic, homeless, natural people for mothers. Here was a new experiment
in the race problem—a strong, weak people—a paradox in humanity. And as all
men have needed a period of intense tuition and constant oversight in all
matters, even to the maintenance of domestic and commercial habits and
instruction in life, as well as a multiplication of law in moral and
spiritual experience, so these men wanted a leader or teacher, or failing
this they went to the wall before the many forces a man has to contend with.
Just now, in the order of Providence, the missionary is the leader in all
things, and as these are the holidays he is at the head of these gatherings,
whether for frolic, or fun, or for spiritual benefit.
Coming and going, and now for
the New Year, there were represented several distinct classes of Indian
peoples. First there was the real native of the vicinity, the semi-Wood and
Plain Cree, the man who could make his way either in the forest or plain; a
moose and fur hunter, a dweller alone with family or with the multitude,
generally a plucky character whom isolation made self-helpful. Then there
were the true woodmen, who almost shunned the plains, whose delight was to
travel alone or in small parties, and whose hunting was still-craft
Wonderful knowledge of animal movement and habit was theirs by long heredity
and by steady practice. Brave and docile, believing and humble, these were
the easiest converts to Christianity, and also were the most easily handled
by the great trading company which had exploited their country for
generations. Then there were the Plain Crees. Speaking the pure mother
tongue, while the others were more or less dialectical, these at times rose
into the classic language, doubtless of the long past, when these strange
men must have had a civilization, and possibly a literature, which have
entirely disappeared. These Plain men were the aristocrats of the nation;
they looked with disdain and contempt upon the Wood Indians. They lived in
large camps and flocked together, and while they were constantly at war,
were not nearly as bravo as the Wood men they so despised. It was amusing to
watch one of these lordly fellows visit either a mission-house or a Hudson's
Bay post. He had the air of conferring a great favor. He patronized even
more than the new graduate or the new curate. His self-consciousness
projected in every direction. If he mentioned his fellowmen, it was by way
of parenthesis and en passant, "merely a trifle, you know." The broad
plains, the big herds, the sublime ignorance had developed the wrong way
with this man, and the result was a conceited prig. Slow to learn, he had
much to unlearn; and it takes time to do the latter. Unburdening the load of
centuries of misconceptions a great work, but it must be undergone by all
people before the lessons of the new life can germinate and take root.
New Year's came in with a
crowded watch- night service. After a delightful meeting, on bended knee and
in solemn silence, we watched the last minutes of the old year pass and the
first ones of the new year come in. Then there were warm hand-shakings and
congratulations. The day was spent in a general feast, followed by out-door
sports, football, foot-races, and tugs-of-war, dog-train races, etc. The "Pondura
antelope" was steadily awaking to the agility and strength of the eastern
slope. We had come from Edmonton in quick time, so he thought. By the river
it was at least one hundred miles, on hard ice, difficult to run
continuously upon. He offered to bet two hundred dollars that no man could
go on foot this distance in twenty hours. I thought for a moment and then
told him that I did not bet, but if he would give me two hundred dollars for
the church I wanted to build at Pigeon Lake, I would do it. This backed him
down and out of the running business for the time.
The second day of January,
1869, found us a scattering crowd. "To your tents, oh, Israel," was the
necessary cry of the time. The settlement had no such supply of food as
would warrant a long stay of many visitors. No one recognized this more than
the visitors themselves. Indians and half-breeds and ourselves one after the
other departed for our widely separated homes, and by evening we were
sundered far. Our party camped in a spruce grove on a small bench, under the
shadow of the high bank of the Saskatchewan. Early the next day we reached
Edmonton. One of my sisters, Georgina, accompanied us that far, and had a
wild experience riding after my new dogs, one which almost resulted
seriously; for as we swung up the hill at the fort, so fast was the step and
so quick the turn, that my carryall upset and threw her out, and her head
striking a boulder she was for a time unconscious. My heart was in my throat
as I put her back into the sled and hurried up to the fort. Fortunately the
hurt was but temporary, however. She advised her friends after this to be
careful how they went driving behind John's dogs. Indeed, there was not snow
sufficient for such work, and I did not risk my wife and children on the dog
sleigh in returning to Pigeon Lake, but let my dogs run light beside the
sober gait of the horses we had brought in with us. There had not come any
more snow, and the sleighing was extremely poor. However, we were back at
the lake and glad to be home again, but greatly refreshed with our short
sojourn on the outside of our little world.
Our oldest little girl,
Flora, whom we had left with her grandparents at Victoria in September, I
brought up with me, and she was now with us, and though scarcely three years
old, was a most remarkable example of language learning, for in three months
she had learned to speak English. Her vocabulary was quite extensive, and
her pronunciation remarkably correct. Formerly it was all Cree with our
little daughter; now it was all English, and she quite amused her mother and
the Indians around us by her insistence in using this new language at all
times.
We found our people and home
all right, and at once fell into the routine of travel and work for the
winter. When we had a congregation, either few or many, we lectured and
preached as best we could, and around the camp-fire did some of our most
effectual work; and God blessed us in helping men and women to a higher
plane of life. Getting out timber and lumber, gathering firewood, hauling
hay, keeping the pot boiling, and our time was fully taken up. Even if we
had a study and books, there would have been precious little time for them.
But as we see things now, our study was a big room wherein was all manner of
strange life and mysterious problem, and in the working out of the questions
before us at the time God was teaching in His own way; at any rate He was
giving us a grip of this wonderful country, and also of the confidence of
the people dwelling in it. We were aliens no more in this commonwealth. |
