Pathfinding on Plain and Prairie: Stirring Scenes of Life in the Canadian North-westMcDougall, John
History
Pathfinding on Plain and Prairie: Stirring Scenes of Life in the Canadian North-west
McDougall, John
Frontier and pioneer life -- Northwest, Canadian; McDougall, John, 1842-1917; Northwest, Canadian -- Description and travel
The first Indians to come to us were some pagans, having with them
two genuine old conjurers, whose drums and rattles and medicine songs
were thum-thumming and yah-yahing almost all the time they stayed
with us. As some of the older members of this camp, and nearly all
the younger ones, came to our services, which we held every evening
and three times on Sunday, these "high priests of this old faith"
renewed their efforts, if one might judge by the noise they made; but
do what they would they could not keep their young people from our
meetings. After a time a larger camp came to us, nearly all of whom
were Mountain Stonies and mostly Christian or semi-Christian in
adherence, and our gatherings became very much more interesting. But
as all of these people had the measles or were convalescing from the
epidemic, and had lost many friends because of the fearful mortality
which this caused, we were hard worked in attending to the sick and
in comforting the bereaved. As to the former, Providence smiled upon
us, and all of our patients, young and old, recovered, which helped
us in our first acquaintance and gave us the beginning of an
influence which grew with the years.
Here I first met many who became my warm friends and bosom companions
around many a camp-fire and on many a hunting field, when danger and
darkness and hunger and storm alternated with peace and sunlight and
plenty and calm. Here was great big Adam, who from being a
first-class Pharisee, with demeanor a voicing of "Lord, I thank
Thee," etc., became, through the instrumentality of a hymn I taught
him to sing, humbled and penitent, and sought forgiveness and light.
He found it; and oh, how changed he became! And there was his son
Jacob, one of the grandest men I have known, for whom both nature and
grace had done great things. When I first saw him he was recovering
from the prevailing scourge. A noble fellow he was in form and
feature. He had a big record as a moose-hunter, and was famed as a
long distance runner. As he spoke both Stony and Cree fluently, I
very soon saw he was a man to be cultivated and made useful for God
and country.
Then there was "Little Beaver," a Southern Mountain Stony, who very
soon let me know that while he was glad to see me, he could never
make up his mind to live down here in the woods and lowlands, but was
always sighing for the mountains and foot-hills of his own section of
the country, and who by his descriptions made me wish to start west
with him and view for myself the land he loved. Another genuine
character was "Has-no-hole-in-his-ear," an old man with a large
family of boys who became my allies and faithful friends. The father
was an ardent Christian in his way, and thoroughly loyal to the new
Mission and the young missionary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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