Snow Shoes and Canoes The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory

Excerpt

Black Fort—The pack-horse train sets out—Sandy McTavish’s sagacity—The night-watch—The two redskin horse-thieves—A snowstorm—An uncomfortable bed and a terrible night—My delight at finding my horse alive—We obtain shelter in a wood—Desperate encounter between a lynx and an eagle for the possession of a hare—The hare becomes my prize—The untimely appearance of a wolf.

The short summer of the North-West Territory of British America, the region in which the events I am about to describe took place, was rapidly drawing to a close.

I had been sent from Black Fort, of which my elder brother Alick had charge, with Sandy McTavish, an old follower of our father’s, and two other men, to bring up ammunition and other stores as a winter supply from Fort Ross, about 150 miles off—a distance, however, of which we did not think much.

The stores ought to have been brought up the greater part of the way by the Saskatchewan, but a canoe had been lost in ascending the rapids, and no other was at that time to be procured to replace her. It became necessary, therefore, at all costs to transport the required stores by land. We had eight pack-horses, besides the four animals my companions and I rode.

We were all well armed, for though the Crees and other Indian tribes in the northern part of the territory were generally friendly, we might possibly encounter a party of Blackfeet on the war-trail who, should they find us unprepared, would to a certainty attack us, and endeavour to steal our horses and goods. We were but few in number for such an undertaking, but no more men could be spared. Sandy, however, was a host in himself. He thoroughly knew all the Indian ways, and from his long experience was well able to counteract them.

Many an evening, while seated at our camp-fire or at the stove in the fort, during winter, has he beguiled the time with accounts of his hairbreadth escapes and desperate encounters with the redskins. He had no enmity towards them, notwithstanding the attempts they had made on his life.

“They were but following the instincts of their savage natures,” he used to observe; “and they were not ower weel pleased with the white men for hunting in the country which they call theirs, though it must be allowed they dinna make gude use of it.”

Sandy was as humane as he was brave, and I am very sure he never took the life of an Indian if he could avoid doing so with due regard to his own safety. He had come out from Scotland when a mere boy with our father, who was at that time a clerk in the Hudson’s Bay Company, but who had ultimately risen to be a chief factor, and was the leader in many of the adventurous expeditions which were made in those days. He was noted for being a dead shot, and a first-rate hunter whether of buffalo, elk, or grizzly bear. Sandy had followed him in all his expeditions, and took the greatest delight in describing them to us.

Having remained at Fort Ross a couple of days, to rest our beasts and prepare the packages for transport, we set out, Sandy and I leading, and the two men, Pat Casey and Pierre Lacrosse, following in the rear with the baggage animals.

We travelled at the rate of about twenty-five miles each day. That distance being accomplished, we encamped at night under shelter of a grove of poplars or willows, we being glad of the protection they afforded; for although the weather was fine, the wind had begun to blow somewhat cold....