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
"Me fin' way easy. Me know way me come, or me follow my tracks, or me
know by de sun. If no sun, me look at trees. Trees grow more branches
on side toward sun, and got rough bark on north side. At night me know
by see de stars."
We camped in a log-hut Alexandre had built for a hunting camp. It was
very picturesque and substantial, built of huge logs, and caulked with
moss. It had a great earthen bank in the middle for a fireplace, with an
equally large opening in the roof, boarded several feet high at the
sides to form a chimney. At one corner of the fire bank was an ingenious
crane, capable of being raised and lowered, and projecting from a
pivoted post, so that the long arm could be swung over or away from the
fire. At one end of the single apartment were two roomy bunks built
against the wall. With extraordinary skill and quickness the Indians
whittled a spade out of a board, performing the task with an axe, an
implement they can use as white men use a penknife, an implement they
value more highly than a gun. They made a broom of balsam boughs, and
dug and swept the dirt off the floor and walls, speedily making the
cabin neat and clean. Two new bunks were put up for us, and bedded with
balsam boughs and skins. Shelves were already up, and spread with pails
and bottles, tin cups and plates, knives and forks, canned goods, etc.
On them and on the floor were our stores.
[Illustration: ANTOINE'S CABIN]
We had a week's outfit, and we needed it, because for five days we could
not hunt on account of the crust on the snow, which made such a noise
when a human foot broke through it that we could not have approached any
wild animal within half a mile. On the third day it rained, but without
melting the crust. On the fourth day it snowed furiously, burying the
crust under two inches of snow. On the fifth day we got our moose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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