Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red menJameson, Mrs. (Anna)
History
Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red men
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Indians of North America -- Canada; Ontario -- Description and travel
I have another illustrative anecdote for you, which I found among a
number of documents, submitted to the society established at Toronto,
for converting and civilising the Indians. There can be no doubt of its
truth, and it is very graphically told. The narrator is a travelling
schoolmaster, who has since been taken into the service of the society,
but whose name I have forgotten.
"In the winter of 1832, I was led, partly by business and partly by the
novelty of the enterprise, to walk from the Indian Establishment of
Coldwater, to the Sault-Saint-Marie, a distance of nearly four hundred
miles.
"The lake was well frozen, and the ice moderately covered with snow;
with the assistance of snow-shoes, we were enabled to travel a distance
of fifty miles in a day; but my business not requiring any expedition, I
was tempted to linger among the thousand isles of Lake Huron. I hoped to
ascertain some facts with regard to the real mode of life of the
Indians frequenting the north side of the lake. With this view, I made
a point of visiting every wigwam that we approached, and could, if it
were my present purpose, detail many interesting pictures of extreme
misery and destitution. Hunger, filth, and ignorance, with an entire
absence of all knowledge of a Supreme Being, here reign triumphant.[16]
"Near the close of a long and fatiguing day, my Indian guide came on the
recent track of a single Indian, and, anxious to please me, pursued it
to the head of a very deep bay. We passed two of those holes in the ice
which the Indians use for fishing, and at one of them noticed, from the
quantity of blood on the snow, that the spear had lately done
considerable execution. At a very short distance from the shore, the
track led us past the remains of a wigwam, adjoining to which we
observed a large canoe and a small hunting canoe, both carefully laid up
for the winter. After a considerable ascent, a narrow winding path
brought us into a deep hollow, about four hundred yards from the bay.
Here, surrounded on every side by hills, on the margin of one of the
smallest inland lakes, we came to a wigwam, the smoke from which showed
us that it was occupied. The path for a considerable distance was lined
on both sides by billets of firewood, and a blanket cleaner than usual,
suspended before the entrance, gave me at the very first a favourable
opinion of the inmates. I noticed on the right hand a dog-train, and on
the left, two pair of snow-shoes, and two barrels of salt-fish. The
wigwam was of the square form, and so large, that I was surprised to
find it occupied by two Indians only--a young man and his wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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