Ungava

Chapter Five.

Ice looks unpropitious—The start—An important member of the party nearly forgotten—Chimo

Stanley’s forebodings and Massan’s prognostications proved partly incorrect on the following morning. The mouth of the river, and the sea beyond, were quite full of ice; but it was loose, and intersected in all directions by lanes of open water. Moreover, there was no wind.

The gray light of early morning brightened into dawn, and the first clear ray of the rising sun swept over a scene more beautiful than ever filled the fancy of the most imaginative poet of the Temperate Zones. The sky was perfectly unclouded, and the surface of the sea was completely covered with masses of ice, whose tops were pure white like snow, and their sides a delicate greenish-blue, their dull, frosted appearance forming a striking contrast to the surrounding water, which shone, when the sun glanced upon it, like burnished silver. The masses of ice varied endlessly in form and size, some being flat and large like fields, others square and cornered like bastions or towers—here a miniature temple with spires and minarets, there a crystal fortress with embrasures and battlements; and, in the midst of these, thousands of broken fragments, having all the varied outlines of the larger masses, appearing like the smaller houses, cottages, and villas of this floating city of ice.

“Oh how beautiful!” exclaimed little Edith, as her father led her and Mrs Stanley towards the canoes, which floated lightly in the water, while the men stood in a picturesque group beside them, leaning on their bright red paddles.

“It is indeed, my pet,” replied Stanley, a smile almost of sadness playing around his lips.

“Come, George, don’t let evil forebodings assail you to-day,” said Mrs Stanley in a low tone. “It does not become the leader of a forlorn hope to cast a shade over the spirits of his men at the very outset.” She smiled as she said this, and pressed his arm; but despite herself, there was more of sadness in the smile and in the pressure than she intended to convey.

Stanley’s countenance assumed its usual firm but cheerful expression while she spoke. “True, Jessie, I must not damp the men; but when I look at you and our darling Eda, I may be forgiven for betraying a passing glance of anxiety. May the Almighty protect you!”

“Is the country we are going to like this, papa?” inquired Eda, whose intense admiration of the fairy-like scene rendered her oblivious of all else.

“Yes, dear, more like this than anything else you have ever seen; but the sun does not always shine so brightly as it does just now, and sometimes there are terrible snow-storms. But we will build you a nice house, Eda, with a very large fireplace, so that we won’t feel the cold.”

The entire population of Moose Fort was assembled on the beach to witness the departure of the expedition. The party consisted of fifteen souls. As we shall follow them to the icy regions of Ungava, it may be worth while to rehearse their names in order as follows:—

Mr and Mrs Stanley and Edith.

Frank Morton .

Massan , the guide.

Dick Prince , principal hunter to the party.

La Roche , Stanley’s servant and cook.

Bryan , the blacksmith.

François , the carpenter.

Oolibuck, Augustus , and Moses, Esquimau interpreters.

Gaspard , labourer and fisherman.

Oostesimow and Ma-istequan, Indian guides and hunters.

The craft in which these were about to embark were three canoes, two of which were large and one small. They were made of birch bark, a substance which is tough, light, and buoyant, and therefore admirably adapted for the construction of craft that have not only to battle against strong and sometimes shallow currents, but have frequently to be carried on the shoulders of their crews over rocks and mountains. The largest canoe was sixteen feet long by five feet broad in the middle, narrowing gradually towards the bow and stern to a sharp edge. Its loading consisted of bales, kegs, casks, and bundles of goods and provisions; each bale or cask weighed exactly 90 pounds, and was called a piece. There were fifteen pieces in the canoe, besides the crew of six men, and Mr Stanley and his family, who occupied the centre, where their bedding, tied up in flat bundles and covered with oiled cloth, formed a comfortable couch. Notwithstanding the size and capacity of this craft, it had been carried down to the beach on the shoulders of Massan and Dick Prince, who now stood at its bow and stern, preventing it with their paddles from rubbing its frail sides against the wharf; for although the bark is tough, and will stand a great deal of tossing in water and plunging among rapids, it cannot sustain the slightest blow from a rock or other hard substance without being cracked, or having the gum which covers the seams scraped off. To those who are unacquainted with travelling in the wild regions of the north it would seem impossible that a long journey could be accomplished in such tender boats; but a little experience proves that, by judicious treatment and careful management, voyages of great length may be safely accomplished in them—that they are well adapted for the necessities of the country, and can be taken with greater ease through a rough, broken, and mountainous region than ordinary wooden boats, even of smaller size, could be.

The second canoe was in all respects similar to the one we have described, excepting that it was a few inches shorter. The third was much smaller—so small that it could not contain more than three men, with their provisions and a few bales, and so light that it could with the greatest ease be carried on the shoulders of one man. It was intended to serve as a sort of pioneer and hunting craft, which should lead the way, dart hither and thither in pursuit of game, and warn the main body of any danger that should threaten them ahead. It was manned by the two Indian guides, Oostesimow and Ma-istequan, and by Frank Morton, who being acknowledged one of the best shots of the party, was by tacit understanding regarded as commissary-general. It might have been said that Frank was the best shot, were it not for the fact that the aim of Dick Prince was perfect, and it is generally admitted that perfection cannot be excelled.

Although differing widely in their dispositions and appearance, the men of the expedition were similar at least in one respect—they were all first-rate, and had been selected as being individually superior to their comrades at Moose Fort. And a noble set of fellows they looked, as they stood beside their respective canoes, leaning on their little, brilliantly coloured paddles, awaiting the embarkation of their leaders. They all wore new suits of clothes, which were sufficiently similar to give the effect of a uniform, yet so far varied in detail as to divest them of monotony, and relieve the eye by agreeable contrast of bright colours. All of them wore light-blue cloth capotes with hoods hanging down behind, all had corduroy trousers gartered below the knee, and all wore moccasins, and had fire-bags stuck in their belts, in which were contained the materials for producing fire, tobacco, and pipes. So far they were alike, but the worsted belts of some were scarlet, of others crimson, and of others striped. Some gartered their trousers with thongs of leather, others used elegant bands of bead-work—the gifts, probably, of sorrowing sweethearts, sisters, or mothers—while the fire-bags, besides being composed some of blue, some of scarlet cloth, were ornamented more or less with flowers and fanciful devices elegantly wrought in the gaily-dyed quills of the porcupine.

On seeing Stanley and his wife and child approaching, Massan gave the order to embark. In a moment every man divested himself of his capote, which he folded up and placed on the seat he was to occupy; then, shaking hands all round for the last time, they stepped lightly and carefully into their places.

“All ready, I see, Massan,” said Stanley, as he came up, “and the ice seems pretty open. How say you? shall we make a good day of it?”

Massan smiled dubiously as he presented his thick shoulder as a support to Mrs Stanley, while she stepped into her place. He remembered the conversation of the previous evening, and determined that, whatever should happen, he at least would not cast the shadow of a doubt on their prospects. But in his own mind he suspected that their progress would be interrupted ere long, as the wind, although very light—almost imperceptible—was coming from the north-west.

“It’ll be full flood in less nor half an hour,” he replied, “and—(take care, Miss Edith, give me your little hand; there, now, jump light)—and we’ll be past the p’int by that time, and git the good o’ the ebb till sun-down.”

“I fear,” said Frank Morton, approaching, “that the ice is rather thick for us; but it don’t much matter, it will only delay us a bit—and at any rate we’ll make good way as far as the point.”

“True, true,” said Stanley; “and it’s a great matter to get fairly started. Once off we must go forward. All ready, lads?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Now, Frank, into your canoe and show us the way; mind we trust to your guidance to keep us clear of blind alleys among these lanes of water in the ice.”

At this moment Edith—who had been for the last few minutes occupied in alternately drying her eyes and kissing her hands to a group of little children who had been her play-fellows during her sojourn at the fort—uttered a loud exclamation.

“Oh! oh! papa, mamma—Chimo!—we’ve forgot Chimo! Oh me! don’t go away yet!”

“So we have!” said her father; “dear me, how stupid to forget our old friend!—Hallo! Frank, Frank, we’ve forgot the dog,” shouted Stanley to his young comrade, who was on the point of starting.

On hearing this, Frank gave a long, shrill whistle. “That’ll bring him if he’s within ear-shot.”

When the well-known sound broke upon Chimo’s ear, he was lying coiled up in front of the kitchen fire, being privileged to do so in consequence of his position as Edith’s favourite. The cook, having gone out a few minutes previously, had left Chimo to enjoy his slumbers in solitude, so that, when he started suddenly to his feet on hearing Frank’s whistle, he found himself a prisoner. But Chimo was a peculiarly strong-minded and strong-bodied dog, and was possessed of an iron will! He was of the Esquimau breed, and bore some resemblance to the Newfoundland, but was rather shorter in the legs, longer in the body, and more powerfully made. Moreover, he was more shaggy, and had a stout, blunt, straightforward appearance, which conveyed to the beholder the idea that he scorned flattery, and would not consent to be petted on any consideration. Indeed this was the case, for he always turned away with quiet contempt from any of the men who attempted to fondle him. He made an exception, however, of little Edith, whom he not only permitted to clap him to any extent, but deliberately invited her to do so by laying his great head in her lap, rubbing himself against her, and wagging his bushy tail, as if to say, “Now, little girl, do what you will with me!” And Eda never refused the animal’s dumb-show request. When she was very young and had not much sense—at which time Chimo was young too, but possessed of a great deal of sense—she formed a strong affection for the Esquimau dog, an affection which she displayed by putting her little arms round his neck and hugging him until he felt a tendency to suffocation; she also pulled his ears and tail, and stuffed her fat little hands into his eyes and mouth,—all of which dreadful actions she seemed to think, in her childish ignorance, must be very pleasant to Chimo, and all of which the dog appeared really to enjoy. At all events, whether he liked it or not, he came regularly to have himself thus treated every day. As Eda grew older she left off choking her favourite and poking out his eyes, and contented herself with caressing him. Chimo also evinced a partiality for Mr Stanley and Frank Morton, and often accompanied the latter on his hunting excursions; but he always comported himself towards them with dignified hauteur, accepting their caresses with a slight wag of acknowledgment, but never courting their favour.

On jumping up, as we have already said, and observing that the door was shut, the dog looked slowly and calmly round the apartment, as if to decide on what was best to be done; for Chimo was a dog of great energy of character, and was never placed in any circumstances in which he did not pursue some decided course of action. On the present occasion there was not a hole, except the key-hole, by which he could hope to make his escape. Yes, by-the-bye, there was a hole in the window, which was made of parchment; but as that was merely the bullet-hole through which the animal that had given his skin for a window had been shot, and was not larger than a shilling, it did not afford much hope. Nevertheless Chimo regarded it with a steady gaze for a minute or two, then he turned to the fire, and having satisfied himself that the chimney was impracticable, being full of flames and smoke, he faced the window once more, and showed his teeth, as if in chagrin.

“Whew-ew! Chimo-o-o!” came Frank’s voice, floating faintly from afar. Chimo took aim at the bullet-hole. One vigorous bound—a horrible crash, that nearly caused the returning cook to faint—and the dog was free.

“Ah, here he comes!—good dog!” cried Frank, as the animal came bounding over intervening obstacles towards the canoes. Chimo made straight for the small canoe, in answer to his master’s call; but, like many dogs and not a few men, he owned a higher power than that of a master. The voice of his little mistress sounded sweetly in his ear, like the sound of a silver bell. “O Chimo, Chimo! my darling pet! come here—here.” It was a soft, tiny voice at the loudest, and was quite drowned amid the talking and laughter of the men, but Chimo heard it. Turning at a sharp angle from his course, he swept past the light canoe, and bounding into that of Mr Stanley, lay down beside Eda and placed his head in her lap, where it was immediately smothered in the caresses of its young mistress.

Mr Stanley smiled and patted his little girl on the shoulder, as he said, “That’s right, Eda; the love of a faithful dog is worth having and cherishing.” Then turning towards the stern of the canoe, where Massan stood erect, with his steering paddle ready for action, he said to that worthy—

“Now, Massan, all ready; give the word.”

“Ho, ho, boys; forward!”

The paddles dipped simultaneously in the water with a loud, gurgling sound; the two large canoes shot out into the stream abreast of each other, preceded by the light one, which, urged forward by the powerful arms of Frank and the two Indians, led the way among the floating fields of ice. The people on shore took off their caps and waved a last farewell. Dick Prince, who possessed a deep, loud, sonorous voice, began one of those beautiful and wild yet plaintive songs peculiar to the voyageurs of the wilderness. The men joined, with a full, rich swell, in the chorus, as they darted forward with arrow-like speed—and the voyage began.

Chapter Six.

Character partially developed—Ducks for supper—A threatened “nip”—Bundled out on the Ice

Fortunately the wind veered round to the south-east soon after the departure of the canoes from Moose Fort, and although there was not enough of it to ruffle the surface of the river, it had the effect of checking the influx of ice from James’s Bay. The tide, too, began to ebb, so that the progress of the canoes was even more rapid than it appeared to be; and long before the sun set, they were past the point at the mouth of the river, and coasting along the shores of the salt ocean.

Outside of them the sea was covered with hummocks and fields of ice, some of which ever and anon met in the cross currents caused by the river, with a violent shock. Close to the shore, however, the thickness of the ice caused it to strand, leaving a lane of open water, along which the canoes proceeded easily, the depth of water being much more than sufficient for them, as the largest canoe did not draw more than a foot. Sometimes, however, this space was blocked up by smaller fragments, and considerable difficulty was experienced in steering the canoes amongst them. Had the party travelled in boats, they would have easily dashed through many of these checks; but with canoes it is far otherwise. Not only are their bark sides easily broken, but the seams are covered with a kind of pitch which becomes so brittle in ice-cold water that it chips off in large lumps with the slightest touch. For the sea, therefore, boats are best; but when it comes to carrying the craft over waterfalls and up mountain sides, for days and weeks together, canoes are more useful, owing to their lightness.

“Take care, Massan,” said Mr Stanley, on approaching one of these floes. “Don’t chip the gum off if you can help it. If we spring a leak, we shan’t spend our first night on a pleasant camping-ground, for the shore just hereabouts does not look inviting.”

“No fear, sir,” replied Massan. “Dick Prince is in the bow, and as long as his mouth’s shut I keep my mind easy.”

“You appear to have unlimited confidence in Prince,” said Stanley, with a smile. “Does he never fail in anything, that you are so sure of him?”

“Fail!” exclaimed the steersman, whose paddle swept constantly in a circle round his head, while he changed it from side to side as the motions of the canoe required—“fail! ay, that does he sometimes. Mortal man must get on the wrong side o’ luck now and then. I’ve seen Dick Prince fail, but I never saw him make a mistake.”

“Well, I’ve no doubt that he deserves your good opinion. Nevertheless, be more than ordinarily careful. If you had a wife and child in the canoe, Massan, you would understand my anxiety better.” Stanley smiled as he said this, and the worthy steersman replied in a grave tone,—“I have the wife and child of my bourgeois under my care.”

“True, true, Massan,” said Stanley, lying back on his couch and conversing with his wife in an undertone.

“’Tis curious,” said he, “to observe the confidence that Massan has in Prince; and yet it would be difficult to say wherein consists the superiority of the one over the other.”

“Perhaps it is the influence of a strong mind over a weaker,” suggested his wife.

“It may be so. Yet Prince is an utterly uneducated man. True, he shoots a hair’s-breadth better than Massan; but he is not a better canoe-man, neither is he more courageous, and he is certainly less powerful: nevertheless Massan looks up to him and speaks of him as if he were greatly his superior. The secret of his power must lie in that steady, never-wavering inflexibility of purpose, that characterises our good bowman in everything he does.”

“Papa,” said Edith, who had been holding a long conversation with Chimo on the wonders of the scene around them—if we may call that a conversation where the one party does all the talking and the other all the listening—“papa, where shall we all sleep to-night?”

The thought seemed to have struck her for the first time, and she looked up eagerly for an answer, while Chimo gave a deep sigh of indifference, and went to sleep, or pretended to do so, where he was.

“In the woods, Eda. How do you think you will like it?”

“Oh, I’m sure I shall like it very much,” replied the little one. “I’ve often wished to live in the woods altogether like the Indians, and do nothing but wander about and pull berries.”

“Ah, Jessie,” said Stanley, “what an idle little baggage your daughter is! I fear she’s a true chip of the old block!”

“Which do you consider the old block,” retorted Mrs Stanley—“you or me?”

“Never mind, wife; we’ll leave that an open question.—But tell me, Eda, don’t you think that wandering about and pulling berries would be a very useless sort of life?”

“No,” replied Edith, gravely. “Mamma often tells me that God wants me to be happy, and I’m quite sure that wandering about all day in the beautiful woods would make me happy.”

“But, my darling,” said Stanley, smiling at the simplicity of this plausible argument in favour of an idle life, “don’t you know that we ought to try to make others happy too, as well as ourselves?”

“Oh yes,” replied Eda, with a bright smile, “I know that, papa; and I would try to make everybody happy by going with them and showing them where the finest flowers and berries were to be found; and so we would all be happy together, and that’s what God wants, is it not?”

Mr Stanley glanced towards his wife with an arch smile. “There, Jessie, what think you of that?”

“Nay, husband, what think you?”

“I think,” he replied in an undertone, “that your sagacious teaching against idleness, and in favour of diligence and attention to duty, and so forth, has not taken very deep root yet.”

“And I think,” said Mrs Stanley, “that however wise you men may be in some things, you are all most incomprehensibly stupid in regard to the development of young minds.”

“Take care now, Jessie; you’re verging upon metaphysics. But you have only given me your opinion of men as yet; you have still to say what you think of Eda’s acknowledged predilection for idleness.”

“Well,” replied Mrs Stanley, “I think that my sagacious teaching, as you are pleased to call it, has taken pretty firm root already, and that Eda’s speech is one of the first bright, beautiful blossoms, from which we may look for much fruit hereafter; for to make one’s self and one’s fellow-creatures happy, because such is the will of God, seems to me a simple and comprehensive way of stating the whole duty of man.”

Stanley’s eyes opened a little at this definition. “Hum! multum in parvo; it may be so,” he said; and casting down his eyes, he was soon lost in a profound reverie, while the canoe continued to progress forward by little impulsive bounds, under the rapid stroke of the paddles. Eda rested her fair cheek on the shaggy brow of Chimo, and accompanied him to the land of nod, until the sun began to sink behind the icebergs on the seaward horizon, where a dark line indicated an approaching breeze.

Massan cast an uneasy glance at this from time to time. At length he called to his friend in the bow, “Hello, Prince! will it come stiff; think ye?”

“No,” replied Prince, rising and shading his eyes with his hand; “it’ll be only a puff; but that’s enough to drive the ice down on us, an’ shut up the open water.”

“It’s my ’pinion,” said Massan, “that we should hold away for the p’int yonder, an’ camp there.”

Dick Prince nodded assent, and resumed his paddle.

As he did so the report of a gun came sharply over the water.

“Ha!” exclaimed Stanley, looking out ahead; “what’s that?”

“Only Mr Frank,” said Massan; “he’s dowsed two birds. I see’d them splash into the water.”

“That’s right,” said Stanley; “we shall have something fresh for the kettle to-night. And, by the way, we’ll need all we can kill, for we haven’t much provision to depend on, and part of it must be reserved in case of accidents, so that if Frank does not do his duty, we shall have to live on birch bark, Massan.”