On Canada's Frontier: Sketches of History, Sport, and Adventure and of the Indians, Missionaries, Fur-traders, and Newer Settlers of Western CanadaRalph, Julian
History
On Canada's Frontier: Sketches of History, Sport, and Adventure and of the Indians, Missionaries, Fur-traders, and Newer Settlers of Western Canada
Ralph, Julian
Hudson's Bay Company -- History; Indians of North America -- Canada; Northwest, Canadian -- Description and travel
Supper over, and a glass of grog having been put down, with water from
the hole in the ice whence the liquid for the inevitable tea was gotten,
the night's rest is begun. The method for this varies. As good men as
ever walked have asked nothing more cosey than a snug warm trough in the
snow and a blanket or a robe; but perhaps this traveller will call for a
shake-down of balsam boughs, with all the furs out of the sled for his
covering. If nicer yet, he may order a low hollow chamber of three sides
of banked snow, and a superstructure of crotched sticks and cross-poles,
with canvas thrown over it. Every man to his quality, of course, and
that of the servant calls for simply a blanket. With that he sleeps as
soundly as if he were Santa Claus and only stirred once a year. Then
will fall upon what seems the whole world the mighty hush of the
wilderness, broken only occasionally by the hoot of an owl, the cry of a
wolf, the deep thug of the straining ice on the lake, or the snoring of
the men and dogs. But if the earth seems asleep, not so the sky. The
magic shuttle of the aurora borealis is ofttimes at work up over that
North country, sending its shifting lights weaving across the firmament
with a tremulous brilliancy and energy we in this country get but pale
hints of when we see the phenomenon at all. Flashing and palpitating
incessantly, the rose-tinted waves and luminous white bars leap across
the sky or dart up and down it in manner so fantastic and so forceful,
even despite their shadowy thinness, that travellers have fancied
themselves deaf to some seraphic sound that they believed such commotion
must produce.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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