The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of AmericaButler, William Francis, Sir
History
The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America
Butler, William Francis, Sir
Northwest, Canadian -- Description and travel
About three o'clock in the morning the men got up, unable to sleep on
account of the cold, and set the fire going. The noise soon awoke me, but
I lay quiet inside the bag, knowing what was going on outside. Now,
amongst its other advantages, the sack possessed one of no small value.
It enabled me to tell at once on awaking what the cold was doing outside;
if it was cold in the sack, or if the hood was fastened down by frozen
breath to the opening, then it must be a howler outside; then it was time
to get ready the greasiest breakfast and put on the thickest duffel-socks
and mittens. On the morning of the 22nd all these symptoms were
manifest; the bag was not warm, the hood was frozen fast against the
opening, and one or two smooth-haired dogs were shivering close beside my
feet and on top of the bag. Tearing under the frozen mouth of the sack, I
got out into the open. Beyond a doubt it was cold; I don't mean cold in
the ordinary manner, cold such as you can localize to your feet, or your
fingers, or your nose, but cold all over, crushing cold. Putting on coat
and moccassins as close to the fire as possible, I ran to the tree on
which I had hung the thermometer on the previous evening; it stood at 37
below zero at 3:30 in the morning. I had slept well; the cabri sack was a
very Ajax among roosts; it defied the elements. Having eaten a tolerably
fat breakfast and swallowed a good many cups of hot tea, we packed the
sleds, harnessed the dogs, and got away from the pine bluff two hours
before daybreak. Oh, how biting cold it was! On in the grey snow light
with a terrible wind sweeping up the long reaches of the river; nothing
spoken, for such cold makes men silent, morose, and savage. After four
hours travelling, we stopped to dine. It was only 9:30, but we had
breakfasted six hours before. We were some time before we could make
fire, but at length it was set going, and we piled the dry driftwood fast
upon the flames. Then I set up my thermometer again; it registered 39
below zero, 71 degrees of frost. What it must have been at day break I
cannot say; but it was sensibly colder than at ten o'clock, and I do not
doubt must have been 45 below zero. I had never been exposed to any thing
like this cold before. Set full in the sun at eleven o'clock, the
thermometer rose only to 26 below zero, the sun seemed to have lost all
power of warmth; it was very low in the heavens, the day being the
shortest in the year; in fact, in the centre of the river the sun did not
show above the steep south bank, while the wind had full sweep from the
north-east. This portion of the Saskatchewan is the farthest north
reached by the river in its entire course. It here runs for some distance
a little north of the 51th parallel of north latitude, and its elevation
above the sea is about 1801 feet. During the whole day we journeyed on,
the wind still kept dead against us, and at times it was impossible to
face its terrible keenness. The dogs began to tire out; the ice cut
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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