The Perils and Adventures of Harry Skipwith by Land and Sea

“Good night, old fellow,” said Trevor, drowsily. “Wake me when the storm is over, for we shall not be able to move till then.”

“Of course,” said I. “But if you wake first rouse me up.”

“Oh, yes. I say, Har – that’s it – just what – ”

Trevor’s attempt to speak more failed him – or, at all events, I did not hear him, and we were both asleep. In my sleep, however, I heard the storm raging and the water dashing against the sandbank. Suddenly I was conscious that I was lifted from the ground – there was a hissing noise, and I felt very cold. I sprang to my feet, shouting out to the rest of the party, who were soon spluttering and jumping and crying out, not knowing what had happened or was going to happen. I very quickly guessed; a wave had broken over the bank, and as yet we could not discover who or what it had carried off, as it had completely extinguished the fire. I shouted out, demanding if all hands were there. Trevor, Swiftfoot, Pierre Garoupe, and the other voyageurs answered; but Peter made no reply. Again I shouted – no one answered. We felt for the spot where he had lain, but he was not there.

“Poor fellow, he must be lost!” I exclaimed.

Just then I heard a cry, and Ready, who had disappeared, gave a bark. Guided by the sound, I stumbled on to the spot, and there, caught in a bush and half in the water, I found a human being whom I recognised as Peter, from his exclamation —

“Oh, sir, we shall all be drowned and dead!”

With considerable exertion I managed to drag him up to the top of the bank again; and it was some time before he recovered. Some of the party ran to the canoes – they were safe as yet – but the storm was raging more furiously than ever, and should another wave wash over our bank they might be carried bodily away, when, unless seen by passing Indians, we should be left to starve.

To light another fire was impossible, as by this time all the wood around was thoroughly saturated. So there we sat or stood the livelong night, holding on to bushes or to paddles or other pieces of wood stuck in the ground to enable us to resist any other wave which should be driven over the bank. I have passed several disagreeable nights in my life, but that was one of the most disagreeable. All I can say is that it might have been worse. I would rather have been there than racked with pain on a bed of sickness – or on an iceberg – or in an open boat in the South Pacific, parched with thirst – or in a dungeon, or in many other disagreeable places. So we sat quiet, and tried to amuse ourselves by talking. Wet damps the pipes, I have observed, of the most determined songster or whistler; so that although two or three of us began a tune, it speedily stopped.

The storm raged as furiously as ever, the waves coming one after the other rolling up the bank; and, as we watched them, it appeared as if each successive one must advance beyond its predecessors and sweep us away. Poor Peter, after his former experience, was very much alarmed.

“Here it comes again, sir; here it comes. ’Twill be all over with us!” he cried out, as a huge roller capped with foam, looking vastly higher than it really was, came onwards towards the bank. It struck the solid ground, which it palpably shook. Then on it came, curling over, up, up, up. The water reached us; we sprang to our feet, holding each other’s hands and bending forward to resist its power united to the fury of the wind. It scarcely, however, reached to our ankles. While some of the mass rushed over the bank, the greater part flowed back, to be again hurled forward yet with diminished strength against the opposing barrier.

The dawn will come in spite of the darkness of the longest night; and as this was a short one, we were agreeably surprised to find it breaking, though, in the uncertain light, the waters looked more foaming and agitated than they appeared to be when the day was more advanced.

Gradually, too, the wind fell, the rollers ceased to strike the bank with their former fury, and though after a storm on the ocean days pass before it becomes calm, scarcely had the wind dropped than the surface of the lake became proportionately smooth. The sun came out, and its powerful rays dried our clothes and sticks sufficient to boil our kettle. After a hearty breakfast, we repaired our canoes with fresh gum, and continued our voyage.

As Trevor had been compelled to throw overboard so much of our provisions, we were anxious to secure some more to prevent the necessity of sending back to Red River. Swiftfoot told us of a river near at hand where large quantities of fine fish can always be caught – the Jack-fish River. Towards it we steered, and, after proceeding up a little way, came upon a weir, or “basket,” as it is called, erected across it by the Indians. It was much broken; but a number of Turkey buzzards hovered around, ready to pounce on any fish which might get into it. Our Indians immediately set to work to repair it. Indians, like other savages, are very industrious when hungry, and idle in the extreme when their appetites are satisfied. Our fellows were, fortunately for us, hungry, and so they worked with a will. The weir consisted of a fence of poles stretching completely across the river and doping in the direction of the current, so that the water could pass freely through. On one side there was an opening in this palisade, near the bank, about a yard in width, leading into a rectangular box with a grated bottom sloping upwards, through which the water flowed with perfect ease. The fish in the day-time see the weir, and either swim back or jump over it; but at night, hoping to avoid it, they dart through the opening, not observing the impediment beyond. Swimming on, they at length find themselves high and dry on the upper part of the grated trap or pound. The fisherman sits by the side of it with a wooden mallet in his hand, with which he knocks the larger fish on the head as they appear, and then pitches them out on the bank to be in readiness for his squaw, who appears in the morning to clean and cut them up.

We repaired the weir before dark, and, camping near it, after supper set to work to catch fish in this, to us, novel manner. We divided the party into watches, so that fish-catching and cleaning went on all night. I began, with Swiftfoot to assist me. I knocked the fish on the head, and he threw them out, while a whole gang were employed in splitting and cleaning them. No sooner were the shades of evening cast over the river than the hapless fish began to dash into our trap. The masque-alonge, a huge pike, first made his appearance, his further progress being effectually stopped; and he was soon on the grass in the hands of the cleaners. Five or six gold-eyes next appeared, and then a sucking-carp and three perch, or, more correctly, well-eyed pike. The voyageurs had lighted a fire, and those not engaged in fishing sat up to eat the fish caught by their companions as fast as they could cook them. Ready, who had been on short commons lately, especially relished his share. As we had formed two pounds, one on each bank of the river, and had relays of fish-catchers, we entrapped between three and four hundred fish of the sorts I have mentioned. Had we possessed a sufficient supply of salt, we might have effectually preserved them. We pickled all we could, and dried in the sun and with smoke those we did not immediately eat.

The lake being calm, the following day we continued our voyage to the mouth of the Little Saskatchewan River, which, it will be seen, communicates with Lake Manitobah, close to which there are some valuable salt works. The wind was fair up the river, but foul for proceeding to the works by the lake. Setting sail, we ran merrily along under sail, overtaking a fleet of Indian canoes belonging to a tribe of Swampies, each with a birch-bark sail. At night we camped, and our Swampy friends coming up with us, did the same near a rapid, where they immediately began to fish. This they did from their canoes. One man paddled and another stood in the bow of the canoe with a net like a landing net at the end of a long pole. As his quick eye detected a fish he dipped his net as a scoop or ladle is used, and each time brought up a fish three or four pounds weight. I may safely say that I saw an Indian, in the course of a few minutes, catch twenty-five white fish. If these people better knew the method of preserving their fish they need never suffer, as they often do, from hunger.

That morning, the wind being foul, the poor squaws were employed in tracking the canoes along the banks of the river. After watching them for some time as they came up towards our camp Peter went forward, and in dumb show, offered to help them, whereat he was treated by the ladies with silent contempt, while his companions saluted him with shouts of hearty laughter. I cannot describe the scenery fully of this curious mixture of lake and stream through which we passed. The banks are generally low – now the water rushed through a narrow passage formed of huge boulders of rocks – now it expanded into a fine lake. Once we forced our way through a vast natural rice field extending for miles, affording food for birds innumerable, and to as many Indians as took the trouble to collect it. They run their canoes into the midst of a spot where the rice is the thickest, and bending down the tall stalks, shake them till they have a full cargo. At length we reached, what we little expected to find in that remote region, a large comfortable cottage in the midst of a well-cultivated and productive farm, surrounded by a number of smaller but neat dwellings. This was an Indian missionary station, where upwards of a hundred and fifty Indian men, women, and children, permanently reside under the superintendence of a devoted English missionary and his wife, assisted by a highly-educated young lady who had lately come out from England to join them. She has learned the Ojibway language, so as to devote her attention most profitably to the education of the children. We visited the school, and it was interesting to see the way in which the little dark-skinned creatures listened to the words which came from the young lady’s lips, and the intelligent answers they gave, as our interpreters translated them, to the questions she put.

There was a service in Ojibway, consisting of prayers, a chapter in the Bible, singing, and a short address, which we attended. The congregation was most attentive, and a considerable number of heathen Indians came in to listen. The service was rather short, but I have no doubt that the excellent missionary considered it wiser to send his hearers away wishing for more, and resolved to come again to listen, than with a feeling of weariness, and declaring that it should be the last time they would set foot within those walls. The missionary’s own cottage was excessively neat and pretty, both inside and out, he feeling, evidently, that it must serve as a model, as he himself, in a degree, was to his converts. Their abodes were, indeed, very superior to those of heathen Indians, while their fields, cultivated in a much better manner than are those found generally among the Indian tribes, are made to produce Indian corn, potatoes, and a variety of other vegetables. There was nothing very curious or romantic in the short visit we paid to this missionary station in the wilderness, yet it was truly one of the most really interesting, thus to find a church in the wilderness performing its duty effectually of converting the heathen from their gross ignorance and sin to a knowledge and practice of the truth. Not far off was a Hudson’s Bay Company’s post, and, like some previous travellers we afterwards met, we had to complain of the scenes of drunkenness and vice which took place among the heathen Indians encamped outside it. The Company prohibits the sale of liquor to Indians; but notwithstanding this large quantities are given away to induce them to sell their peltries cheap, and to gamble away their property, so that they must go forth again to hunt. Thus the missionaries are unable to obtain an influence over them, and the unhappy race are dying from three causes – from drunkenness, from hardships, and from scarcity of food, which, as hunters for fur-bearing animals, they are unable to provide for themselves and families. In my opinion, by means of missionaries who can impart Christian knowledge, and instruction in agricultural and other useful arts, with the opening up of markets for the result of their industry, can alone the rapid decrease of the Indian race be arrested.

After a pleasant stay of a couple of days at this promising station, we proceeded on our voyage to the Salt Springs. After passing into Lake Winnepegosis, we reached the springs, which are situated about four hundred yards from the lake shore, on a barren area of about ten acres of extent, but a few feet above the level of the lake. The whole shore of the lake is said to contain salt springs. At this spot there are some forty or fifty springs, though rather less than thirty wells have been dug by the manufacturers, whose works consist of three log-huts, three evaporating furnaces, and some large iron kettles or boilers. When a fresh spring is discovered a well five feet broad and five deep is excavated and a hut and furnace erected near it. The brine from the wells is ladled into the kettles, and as the salt forms it is scooped out and allowed to remain a short time to drain before it is packed in birch-bark baskets for transportation to the settlements. The brine is so strong that thirty gallons of brine produce a bushel of salt; and from each kettle, of which there are eight or nine, two bushels can be made in a day in dry weather. Some freighters’ boats were taking in cargo at the portage on Lake Manitobah for the Red River as well as for other parts, and we here also took on board as much as we could carry; having purchased several bushels besides, to be brought on to the mouth of the Little Saskatchewan, that we might salt some white fish to serve us for future use.

We might have proceeded by a more direct route – through Lake Winnepegosis – to the mouth of the Great Saskatchewan, but we wished to navigate the large lake from one end to the other. We accomplished all we proposed in five days – reached the mouth of the rapid and gold-bearing Great Saskatchewan. Near the entrance is a long and fierce rapid, which it was necessary for us to mount, before we could again reach water on which we could navigate our canoes. It is nearly two miles in length. The water from above comes on smoothly and steadily; then, suddenly, as if stimulated to action by some sudden impulse, it begins to leap and foam and roll onward till it forms fierce and tumultuous surges, increasing in size till they appear like the rolling billows of a tempestuous sea, ready to engulf any boat venturing over them. In the one case, on the ocean, the movement is caused by the wind above; in the present instance by that of the water itself passing over an incline of rough rocks beneath.

Having partly unladen our canoes, leaving two men in alone, one to steer and the other to fend off the rocks, the rest of us harnessed ourselves to the end of a long tow line, with straps round our bodies, and commenced tracking them up the rapid along a path at the top of the cliffs. It was very hard work, as we had to run and leap and scramble along the slippery and jagged rocks alongside the cataract.

It was curious to know that we were still in the very heart of a vast continent, and yet to be navigating a river upwards of half-a-mile in width. After proceeding twenty miles we passed through Cross Lake, and soon afterwards entered Cedar Lake, which is thirty miles long and twenty broad. We had now to proceed for some hundred miles up this hitherto little-known river, which, rising in the Rocky Mountains, is navigable very nearly the whole distance from their base. As we were sailing we were agreeably surprised, on turning a point, to see before us on the right bank of the river, in the midst of fields of waving corn, a somewhat imposing church, whose tall spire, gilt by the last rays of the evening sun, was mirrored in the gliding river; a comfortable looking parsonage; a large and neat school-house, and several other dwelling-houses and cottages. This proved to be the Pas Mission, one of the many supported by the Church Missionary Society. Here we were most liberally and hospitably received. Above it is Fort Cumberland, a trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company. An upward voyage of a hundred and fifty miles, aided by a strong breeze, brought us to Fort à la Carne, another Hudson’s Bay Company’s post, where we found Stalker and our carts, and were joined by Pierre Garoupe, who had come across the country from Red River with a further supply of provisions and stores.