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
This was our first meeting since that time, and we were naturally
pleased. Here was my opportunity as a missionary, and I seized it
with eagerness. In the tent, on the hunt, at our services, Sunday
and Monday and all the week, we were watching our opportunities and
preaching the gospel of peace and good-will, of a present and eternal
salvation. What a school to be placed in by the order of God's
providence!
For the work I had to do I must acquire an actual knowledge of the
country, I must gain the confidence of the people, I must learn their
language and mode of life, I must become familiar with their history,
their religion, and their idioms of thought; and here amongst these
Crees and Stonies, living with them in their own way and in their own
country, I was being educated for the work God had in hand for me to
do.
A short time ago, in one of the favored cities of older Canada, a
prominent lawyer asked me at the close of the service one Sunday
morning, "What university did you graduate from, Mr. McDougall?"
"The largest on earth," I answered; "all out of doors, amid the
varied experiences of frontier life." "Certainly," said the lawyer,
"it was a grand schooling, and you have profited by it." Thus God
was training me. My teachers were Samson and Paul, Cree and Stony,
Blackfoot and Blood, Piegan and Sarcee, and every Hudson's Bay
Company officer and employee, every cultivated traveller and hardy
pioneer and wild western empire foundation layer; and along with
these the grand pages of the older Bible, as written upon the
mountains and plains and forests and streams of this big new country.
I was learning every day some needed lesson.
Our Sundays were busy times. When the weather permitted we held
three open-air meetings. When it rained we went from lodge to lodge.
Mrs. McDougall sang well and rendered effective aid. The Indians
generally take to singing, and as some of the translations we used
were full of the very pith of the gospel message, their hearts were
reached; the men cried out for salvation, and through Jesus found it.
For some two weeks the Stonies remained with us, we doing what we
could for them in instruction in religious matters, as also awakening
within them a desire for knowledge as to the world and things in
general. When they left us to go back to the mountains we began to
move northward, and I concluded to leave with Samson what horses of
mine were still without loads, and move straight on to the lake, for
the time was drawing near when other parties might visit the Mission.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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