Chapter II: Part 2

One Sunday morning in March, 1908, I was on board a sealer. I happened to look over the side and saw a young seal sound asleep on the ice a few hundred yards from the ship. With the idea of taking it on board so as to photograph it on deck, I slipped over the side. Walking up to the pup I caught it by the hind flippers, swung it over my shoulder and started carrying it to the vessel. Although I followed my footsteps on the ice, I suddenly broke through and found myself plunged into the bitterly cold water. The little seal followed me in my downfall.

We both came up to the surface at the same time, with only one idea in our heads—to get out as quickly as possible. I tried hard to climb out on the ice. So did the pup. The hole in which we were floundering was very small. The young seal floated like an empty bottle, his body half out of the water. In his efforts to get a hold on the edge of the pan, he flapped his front flippers like a pair of fans. Each flipper was armed with five claws as hard as steel.

My face got in the way of one flipper and instantly I came to the conclusion that I had better wait until my companion got out first.

Patiently and courteously I waited until the little pup, with a lot of snorting and splashing, slowly but stubbornly wriggled himself out of the water. When my turn came I was half dead with cold, and barely managed to pull myself on the ice in safety. Leaving the seal where he was, I tottered back to the ship.

I found the skipper very unsympathetic. The only thing he had to say was: “Serves you right. This is Sunday.”

Tale XXI: Filming a White Bear on Land

During the filming of “Nanook of the North”, in the winter of 1921, we decided to take a scene of a white bear hunt at close quarters on land.

In a genuine film like ours, where one must take “close ups” of wild animals, the difficulty lies not only in approaching them sufficiently near so as not to have to use telescopic lens, but also in keeping the animals more or less on the same spot in front of the camera. Consequently, after studying the matter carefully, we concluded that the only way we could film the white bear hunt was to find in the early spring a “she” bear with cubs in her den.

The idea was that the bear would refuse to leave her young, would make a stand right away and give battle on the spot, thereby allowing the cameraman to crank away to his heart’s content. We sent, accordingly, a few Eskimos to scour the country. After a few weeks they reported having found a bear asleep in a snow bank under a cliff on the seashore, about seventy-five miles north from where we were. We were certain that the animal was a “she” bear, as the males do not hibernate but roam all winter on the ice far out to sea.

We made the trip at once with six Eskimos, three sleighs and twenty-two dogs, and built our Igloos two miles away from where the bear had been found. Then we went out on foot to reconnoiter.

We found the bear’s den easily. A large yellow spot on the snow, from which rose a slight vapor coming from the animal’s breath, plainly showed that someone was at home. We carefully chose the best spot to place our one and only camera and rehearsed the whole scene. One Eskimo was to climb above the den and rouse the bear with a long pole. The others standing in front of the den were to let the dogs go as soon as the brute appeared. We knew that the Huskies would surround the bear; and we had no doubt that she would immediately make a stand in front of her cubs and fight.

We had to wait after that for three days until the weather was clear and fine. In the end the hour came. At first, everything went off beautifully. The bear was roused out of her lair by a few vigorous pokes of the pole but, instead of showing her head out of the snow and then emerging to give battle, she burst out of her den like a rabbit from its hold. It was a “she” bear all right, but it happened that she had no cubs.

In a flash she was through the pack of dogs and away! Before the cameraman could start cranking she was already fifty yards off, racing for the sea with all the huskies after her. We tried to lift the camera, carry it and follow, but it was useless. The bear never stopped for at least a mile. After that, when it was much too late, she turned around, fought the dogs for a few minutes—scattering them easily—then went on her way and disappeared finally over the icy horizon. We never found another bear in her den that year.

Such was the way Mr. R. J. Flaherty missed the only scene from “Nanook of the North”.

Tale XXII: Vermin and Ants

“Alex is a doggoned fool.” ... The speaker, a middle-aged Yankee trapper, spat thoughtfully on the red hot stove, then gazed inquiringly at his audience.

We were four, in a log cabin on the banks of the Churchill River. It was night—late in the fall—and already cold. Inside, the atmosphere was oppressive, reeking with tobacco smoke, sweat, fish scales, and grease. Outside, the wind blew in great, uneven gusts and the shack creaked like the timbers of a labouring ship at sea.

I finally inquired why Alex was a fool, and promptly heard the following story:

“One evening last June, Alex blew in with a couple of Chippewayan Indians. He had a load of fur in his canoe and was hurrying to the line to sell it and get drunk. Alex wanted me to lend him a shirt. He was as lousy as a pet coon, and said he didn’t have time to wash his shirt. I had only one shirt, a clean one I had only worn a few times, and I was thinking of using it myself when I moved south. So I said ‘no’, and advised him to take his shirt off and lay it on an ant heap. Alex didn’t like the idea, but I told him the ants would clean up every insect. He did what I said.

“When the time came to leave, there was a fair wind down the stretch so they put up a sail in a hurry. Alex grabbed his shirt and they left.

“I saw Alex again last week. He said when he put on his shirt the vermin were gone, but he forgot to shake it first and the ants were still there! You know the kind, boys! The little red ones! And they sure did bite like hell before he could strip again!”

Tale XXIII: A Greenhorn in a Rapid

Every spring, a lot of greenhorns go North, either in hope of making their living, or in a spirit of adventure. A few struggle through and succeed. A lot meet with accidents. All of them run appalling risks.

Some years ago—before the War—there was a mild stampede on the Chamuchuan River in the Province of Quebec. Gold was reported to have been found. As soon as the ice had gone, several hundred men started North, plunging into the wilderness in quest of fortune.

A few weeks later we were poling up that same river on our way to Mistassini Lake. We reached a long straight rapid and were unloading our canoe before portaging. One of the Indians noticed, two miles away at the head of the rapid, right in the middle of the foaming river, a dark speck on a flat rock. One man said it was a bear because it moved.

What a black bear could be doing in such a spot was a problem in itself, but we let it go at that and started packing our loads. I happened to be the first one over the portage. Throwing down my load, I looked instinctively at the river. There was a man squatting dismally on a small flat rock right in the middle of the current, fifty yards or so below where the portage stopped and the rapid began.

So that was the black bear seen an hour ago! When the stranger saw us, he scrambled to his feet and started gesticulating wildly. We could not understand how he got there. He had no canoe. The rock was about three foot square. On both sides of it the river rushed down in a blind torrent of foam.

We considered a way to rescue him. The idea of running down in a canoe was out of the question. Even if we succeeded in getting him on board—we would have to go on and there was a ten foot fall a few hundred yards further down which meant immediate disaster.

We hit on the following plan. We found a good sized log, tied to it all the ropes we had in one single line, paddled as far down near the head of the rapid as we dared, anchored our canoe with a huge stone taken from shore and then paid out the rope, the log floating ahead of it towards the man on the rock.

We managed to let the log pass more or less alongside the stranger! But for a long time the man appeared frightened. Each time he missed his chance of catching hold of the log. And we had to hand it up again thirty yards or so to be able to give it the proper direction so that it would pass as near as possible to the rock.

Finally, the stranger decided to take a chance. He waved at us as if he were taking a last farewell, then jumped boldly—head first and arm extended—straight for that log. There was quite a splash and for a second we could not see whether he had succeeded in getting hold of the stump. Our rope was tight. We had reached the end of it.

We hauled in. In a few minutes we knew we had our man at the end of our line. We got occasional glimpses of him, although he was all the time half way under water. He was lying on the log—clasping it with both arms—straddling it with both legs. Little by little we got him alongside. He was nearly drowned and quite speechless. With an effort we got him on board. Then letting the log go after cutting the rope—we paddled ashore.

An hour later our new acquaintance was able to talk and tell us his story. He was a student and had gone with a party to the upper end of the river in search of gold. Disgusted with the life, homesick, weak from lack of food and from mosquito bites, he had decided to run away and reach the line. Stealing a canoe, he had started alone on his journey.

He had never been in the woods before. When he reached the rapid he missed the portage. In a second he found himself helpless in the first whirlpool. By sheer luck his canoe was thrown against that lonely flat rock. When it hit, he let his paddle go and jumped, landing safely on the big stone. The canoe, of course, disappeared in the swirl.

He had been there—squatting helplessly right in the middle of that rapid—for thirty-six hours when we happened to pass that way and rescue him.

Tale XXIV: Large Fish

When and wherever a man tells a fishing story, there is a deep-rooted feeling among everyone listening that the man is far from being truthful. That is a handicap for any one trying to describe how large fish do run in Canada north of 53. Nevertheless the fact remains that in Labrador as well as in the West, Pickerel, Muskellunge and Lake Trout grow to enormous size.

Three years ago on Reindeer Lake, in a net placed under the ice, our men caught a trout which tipped the beam at fifty-three pounds. In the same lake, when trolling the following July, we caught one weighing thirty-five pounds. We showed it to an Indian camped near by.

He told us that a few days before he had netted one much larger, which he had given to his dogs to eat.

To prove the truth of his statement he hunted around the bush, found the trout’s head and brought it to us. We measured it with the head of our own fish. It was, more or less, twice as large.

Muskellunge up to forty pounds are common in the big lakes. Some are bigger. These fish, when hungry, are vicious and often go for quarry which they can hardly swallow.

A squirrel swimming across a river is snapped up like a minnow. So are young ducklings, if they venture too far out from shore. In several instances we have seen a much larger bird successfully pulled down by a big pickerel.

Last summer when paddling near a small island on Bear Lake, we noticed three young gulls take fright, leave their nest on the rocks, and swim directly away from us. They were full grown, although they had not yet learned how to fly.

One of those gulls was pulled down three times in front of us by a muskellunge. Each time it remained under water almost a minute. The fish finally gave it up as a bad job; but we marvelled at the endurance of that young bird. It did not seem the worse for its submarine encounter.

Tale XXV: A Little Indian Girl

Railways may extend their lines far away in the north; civilization may wipe out huge slices of wilderness; the remaining Indians, in spite of all their faults intensified by the contact with white men, are still at heart wild men whose sole aim in life is to hunt and to kill.

Whatever may be their calling, there is one thing which no Indian man, woman or child can resist. It’s to try to lay low big game. In other words, to try to secure red meat each time the occasion arises.

Last summer, near where we were camped, a very old squaw took her granddaughter, aged ten, to look over her nets. The child was in the bow of the canoe. Suddenly they came across a big bull moose swimming the river. They had no rifle and there was no time to return to camp to fetch one. The old woman did not hesitate. With one sweep of her paddle she steered the small canoe straight for the moose, while she screamed to the little girl to pick up the small axe which they were using to drive in the stakes of their nets.

The child was frightened but she answered the call of the blood. She seized the axe and, when her grandmother fearlessly paddled the canoe alongside the huge horns of the moose, she struck with all her might. She was too young to know how to use her small weapon. Instead of aiming between the animal’s ears with the head of the axe, she struck blindly with the blade. She missed several times, wounding the big moose in the neck.

The infuriated animal roared, shook his head, lunged out with his front paws, narrowly missing the canoe. The little girl kept on savagely. Finally, she buried her axe in the bull’s huge back. She did not have the strength to wrench it out. The moose reached the shore, staggered up the bank and disappeared in the bush.... We found it an hour later, dead, a few hundred yards away.

There was a silent but proud little Indian girl in camp that night.

The bull moose must have weighed over twelve hundred pounds, while the axe measured exactly three feet long.

Tale XXVI: Outlawed in the Barren Lands

The barren lands ... far away, north of the trees. Wind-swept, rock strewn, colorless. An undulating desert with huge boulders, grey moss, little patches of scrub willows nestling in the hollows of the hills. Thousands of small streams and lakes.

Far away on the edge of the Arctic. Bleaker than the northern moors of Scotland shorn of their native heather. The feeding ground of the wandering herds of caribou. The nestling place of all water fowl.

Far away, skirting the frozen seas. A land of waste lying on the top of the world. Scarred and twisted by some gigantic earthquake hundreds of centuries ago. Blasted eternally by the icy breath of the pole.

The Barren Lands. The last refuge for the criminal unmercifully tracked by the law. Northward—ever northward—the man has fled from civilization. Downstream—ever downstream—he has paddled madly through the forest, seeking safety in the unknown. Leaving the trees behind him he has at last reached his goal. The Barren Lands.

But fear urges him on. He leaves his useless canoe and blindly staggers north on foot. North, north, into the heart of the land of waste from which there is no outlet. The weaker he gets the more he longs to go further. His food is nearly gone. On the top of the hills he scans the horizon. South, the line of trees has disappeared. North, nothing but the rolling desert of moss and rock.

On and on he staggers for days. He is starving now, although he is able to quench his thirst at the small icy creeks which wind their way towards the sea.

It is night. The man suddenly hears a dull moaning sound, the everlasting breaking of the surf against the shore. He has reached the end of the Barren Lands. He finds himself staggering down a rocky beach. His eyes are staring ahead of him. Nothing but a grey, unlimited ocean, dotted with icebergs.

For the first time he realizes the hopelessness of his flight. He remains a few seconds swaying on his feet. Then his brain gives way. With a scream, he tosses his hands above his head and, lurching forward, falls dead, his face in the foam of the waves.

High up in the sky, over Barren Lands and Arctic Ocean, the Northern lights reel, twist and swirl, in their eternal dance of madness.

Tale XXVII: One Thousand Years

Now and then in the far north, a trader adopts an Eskimo boy, always an orphan, and brings him up at the Station. When the boy reaches manhood he generally remains at the Post, acting as a general servant and interpreter. While his usefulness as a “jack of all trades” is great, his efficiency in English is invariably poor. No pure Eskimo can understand and speak fluently any other language but his own, and, although he is quite capable of remembering hundreds of foreign words, he has a very hazy notion of what these words really mean.

I remember well a certain Post servant called “Nero”. No one knew how he got that strange name. He was about sixty years old and thought himself head and shoulders above any other native in the country. Wise to the ways of white men, the equal of any other Eskimo in traveling and hunting, he was a well known character within a radius of five hundred miles.

One summer I was traveling with him along the eastern coast of Hudson Bay. The weather was clear and we were sailing in a little schooner a few hundred yards off shore.

Everywhere, Eskimos have a habit of erecting cairns of rocks on all the cliffs and high spots so as to have land marks when traveling in winter, especially during stormy weather.

I happened to notice one of those cairns which was of unusual size. The rocks, which had been piled very neatly and carefully one on top of the other, were enormous. It must have taken several men quite a few days of labor to put it up.

I called Nero’s attention to the cairn, and added that it looked very old and I wondered how long it had been there. Nero, never at a loss for an answer, nodded cheerfully and replied “Yes, much old—thousand years.” I grinned and remarked, “How do you know it has been there so long?” Nero hesitated a few seconds then retorted brightly, “Yes, thousand years. I know. It was here when I a little boy. I saw her, thousand years.”

After that answer, I gave it up and changed the subject of conversation.

Tale XXVIII: A Practical Joke

Indians have the reputation of being always of a serious turn of mind. My experience is to the contrary. They talk incessantly, laugh at any joke and love to play tricks on each other.

One night on Isle a la Crosse Lake, we had pitched camp near the tepee of a Chippewayan family. The weather was beautiful, the mosquitoes were gone—there was not a cloud in the sky.

The father, an old Indian with long, grey hair, decided to sleep in the open. He rolled himself up in his blanket in the bottom of his canoe and was soon asleep—snoring peacefully under a full moon, millions of stars and the shimmer of the northern lights low down on the horizon.

As soon as my two Indians saw that, they crept to the lake, filled a large kettle full of water, returned noiselessly and poured the contents of the kettle very gently in the canoe. Three times they did that without waking the sleeper. Then they hid in the bush and waited.

In a few minutes the old man grunted, shifted, turned round again, and then sat up hurriedly. First, he felt the bottom of the canoe with both hands and discovered several inches of water that had soaked through his blankets and clothes. After that, he looked up towards the sky. He searched silently for clouds and signs of rain. The moon was still there—as brilliant as ever. So were the stars! He got out of the canoe, felt himself all over again, bent down a second time to feel the water then, walking away a few paces, he gazed long and searchingly above him and turned around so as to inspect thoroughly the four points of the compass.

That was too much for the two Indians hiding in the bush. One started to grunt, the other to groan. In a second the old man understood the joke and burst out laughing, slapping his wet thighs with his two bony hands.

Two hours later the three men were squatting in front of a fire, drinking tea and talking. Every now and again I would hear a peal of laughter. They were still making merry over the joke.

Tale XXIX: Eskimo Arithmetic

Far away in the sub-arctic, the sturdy Eskimos live happily—hunting and fishing for food, trapping for furs to trade for clothing, ammunition and for such luxuries as tea, sugar, tobacco and jam. They speak only their own language, and their idea of quantities or numbers is always very hazy. Some tribes do not seem to be able to count more than ten. But their remarkable intelligence offsets this weakness.

One year I told an Eskimo, who hunted two hundred miles north of one of our stations, to report to me, the next summer, how many sea trout he had caught that spring at the mouth of a certain river where we thought of establishing an outpost.

The native borrowed a pencil and a sheet of paper from the trader and departed. The next year he brought in the paper, very much soiled, but showing exactly how many fish he had killed—1132. For each trout the Eskimo had drawn a line, varying in length according to the size of the fish, and for each ten trout he had scrawled a double line. Nobody had ever taught him that.

Another instance of mathematics was reported to me in the Northwest two years ago. At a certain post, we were using an Eskimo to trade with a far away tribe which we could not get in touch with otherwise. In the fall our trader would put on the man’s sleigh so many articles, telling him how many articles he ought to give out for each skin. The next spring the man would return and faithfully turn over the furs with the balance of the untraded goods. There never was a mistake. But a year later, our trader noticed that the Eskimo brought back a bundle of furs of his own which he would trade with us afterwards, and for which it was difficult to account as the balance of the merchandise returned was correct and the native himself was not supposed to trap.

The trader finally asked him how it happened, and the Husky’s answer plainly proved that he had found out by himself the secret of division. For instance, each article, that ought to have been given out for fur, the Eskimo cut in two; keeping one half for himself so as to trade it later on against fur on his own account.

Thus our native friend would trade one-half a pound of sugar instead of a whole one; half a stick of tobacco, and so on. He went so far as filing an ordinary file in two, trading one-half for us and the other for himself.

When our trader told him that he was not very fair to his northern brothers, he laughed and answered, “They have not learned how to count. I have.”

Tale XXX: “Caribou”

In the northwest of Canada, far away from civilization, there still exist huge herds of caribou that roam by tens of thousands. In summer, they are to be found on the barren lands; in winter, through the wooded wilderness around Reindeer Lake.

The main body of the herd seems to follow a steady routine of migration.

Each year the natives know exactly where to find it. The Eskimos follow the caribou during the summer. The Chippewayans lie in wait for them on their way south in the early fall. From then on until spring those Indians live on the herd, using the meat for food and the leather for clothing.

At all times during the year, the grey timber wolves hover around, cutting out and pulling down the young, the maimed and the weak. Still, the caribou ranks never seem to dwindle. In countless numbers each year they move north or south, according to the season, obeying the law of their kind.

In winter, when one travels through that enormous country which lies between Cree Lake and Pakatawagan, through Bear Lake, Wollaston Lake, further north to Nueltin Lake, further southeast to Reindeer Lake, one is liable to meet, any day, hundreds and hundreds of these deer. In the depth of the bush one seldom sees them. But they seem to have a fondness for lakes, over the ice of which they roam aimlessly, in the open, milling like sheep at the slightest sign of danger.

All men who travel in those regions depend on these deer for food, not only for themselves but for their dogs. Each team of “huskies” is wise to what a herd of caribou means as soon as it is sighted. When the traveller reaches a lake and sees the deer far away on the ice, the dogs realize what is going to happen, and strain silently and excitedly in their traces. The deer, foolishly, look around, run about, stop and stare. Little by little, the sleigh drawn by the straining dogs gets nearer and nearer.

Finally the man with one short word stops the team, then steps out of the sleigh, aims and fires. Instantly the dogs are off, baying like maniacs. The man makes a flying leap, grabs the sleigh and scrambles on board. The seven dogs are racing madly towards the deer who are running around in circles.

If the man’s aim has been true, in a few minutes the team of “huskies” has reached its prey and, in a mad leap, is worrying its throat.

If he has missed, the man calls out a second time. The dogs stop dead and the rifle barks again.

Tale XXXI: In Siberia

In pre-war days in Siberia, traveling on the railway was easy; but as soon as one left it, one was liable to meet with a certain amount of adventures.

One night in the middle of winter, I landed at the station of Omsk. No one was there to meet me and I did not know a word of Russian. I was told that the town was at least six miles away and that to reach it one had to travel through a wild, empty country of rolling plain and small bush. Furthermore, quite a few Russians in Moscow and on the train had entertained me in French with terrible stories of escaped convicts, brigands, hold-ups and murders. In fact, only that week before my arrival, a traveler was supposed to have been shot and robbed on the same road that I had to take to go to town.

After a lot of trouble, I found a “troika” drawn by the usual three horses and was able to make the driver understand where I wanted to go.

I snuggled down under the fur robes and pulled out a revolver which I kept in my hand ready for any emergency. We started slowly through very bad roads. The cold was intense. In a little while, just as I was thinking that I had never seen such a beautifully lonely country to commit wholesale murder in, we heard a shout ahead of us. At that time we were half way up a small hill and, on the top of it hardly one hundred yards from us, plainly visible on the sky line, was a man on horseback. I could distinguish his big shaggy fur cap and a rifle which he held in his right hand with the stock resting on his thigh, the barrel sticking up.

In a flash I thought of the Russians’ stories which I had disbelieved. I was being held up after all. I jerked out my gun from under the furs. I was desperate and had made up my mind to shoot first, trusting to luck. Just then the solitary cavalier shouted something in Russian, which, of course, I did not understand. My driver, with a yell to his horses, swung them frantically to the right and, in a second, the sleigh was in the deep snow out of the trail, half turned over on its side in a ditch. I clutched the sides so as not to be pitched out. At the same moment a tornado seemed to be upon us. I vaguely realized in the darkness that there were wild looking men on horseback. Some had drawn swords, others lances. There must have been one hundred of them. But instead of stopping—they swept downhill, past us, in a mad gallop. Before I could press the trigger everything was over. The road was empty, the night was silent and my driver was coaxing his horse back on the trail.

As soon as I reached Omsk I told our man, there, what had happened and asked for further information. “Why, that was his Imperial Majesty’s mail going to the station to catch the midnight train for the east. It is always surrounded by a squadron of cavalry with one or two scouts ahead to clear the road.”

My brigands were the regular Cossacks of the Czar.

To this day, I feel a cold shudder at the thought of what would have happened if I had fired my revolver in their midst. Talk of past murders on that lonely Siberian road! Picnics compared to what mine would have been!

Tale XXXII: In the Hudson Straits

Windswept, bleak and ragged, savagely beautiful in their utter desolation, the mighty shores of Labrador tower over the racing tides of Hudson Straits.

Far out on the horizon a bank of mist hangs low, blending itself with the steel grey of the sea. Close by at the foot of the cliffs, a line of white foam everlastingly coils and uncoils itself, surging angrily against the glittering walls of granite.

In between, scattered over the grey waters, hundreds of icebergs are floating. In all shapes and sizes, these grim fragments of the eternal Arctic glaciers seem to keep guard over the sea. Like sentinels on the edge of the Polar regions they drift slowly back and forth in the Straits, obedient to tide and wind, leaving behind them a long wake of swirling eddies and floating cakes of ice.

Above all a grey, cloudless, cold sky. Everywhere silence. A silence which grips one’s heart. A silence which no earthly sound would seem able to shatter. A silence which one hears.

On the very edge of the highest cliff, a man stands alone. Dressed in seal skin, bare-headed, his long, coarse black hair thrown back and mingling with the dog fur trimming of his hood—the Eskimo hunter is watching the sea. His weather-beaten face is inscrutable. With slanting eyelids narrowed, his black eyes stare into space without a quiver of an eyelash. His square jaw is closed tightly. One hand is holding by the barrel a rifle in its greasy case. The other clutches a rawhide cartridge pouch.

The man has been there every day for weeks. Today, after two hours’ watch, he suddenly wheels around, drops his cartridge pouch, picks a handful of cartridges and loads his rifle. His task finished, he looks again towards the sea for a full minute. Then, satisfied, he raises the rifle to his shoulder and fires six shots at regular intervals.

The crack of the Winchester shatters the silence—echoes along the cliff—sending down towards the sea wave after wave of sound which, in turn, is picked up and flung back by each gully and by each cave throughout the mass of granite.

Startled from its nest, an eagle dashes from the cliff, sweeps up to the level of the man, remains motionless for a fraction of a second poised in midair—then uttering a shrill cry, lashes with its wings and dives into space.

Far down on the beach, amid the rocks which form a natural slide to the sea, tiny specks appear moving hurriedly back and forth. These are Eskimos, comrades of the man who stands guard hundreds of feet above them.

Their skin tents, huddled together in the chaotic mass of stone, remain invisible to the eye. They have heard the signal and their excitement is great. Smaller specks run about the beach. Some dash even into the icy water which flings them back in a blind, white smother of foam. These are the dogs, the sleigh Huskies, the faithful companions of the natives. Their short, wolf-like howl rises above the general confusion.

In a few minutes a white puff of smoke is seen, followed shortly by the quick bark of the rifle. Then another explosion is heard until the spluttering of a general fusillade rends the air ... answering the six shots fired from the top of the cliff.

Far out at sea, looming ghostlike through the fog, threading her cautious way amidst the icebergs—a three-masted auxiliary schooner appears. On her foremast flies the Revillon Frères flag. It is the supply ship which, once a year, calls on those desolate regions.

Tale XXXIII: Whiskey Jack

In northern Canada, birds migrate south as soon as the winter sets in. The only ones who remain throughout the entire cold season are the Ravens, the little Arctic Owls and the Jays which are known from the Atlantic to the Pacific as Whiskey Jacks. The latter can be found everywhere in the bush. Although they shun the most northern villages and settlements, still they can not live far away from the haunts of men. Therefore one sees them hovering around every likely spot along all the trails, either on land or by the water, in the neighborhood of lumber camps, trapping shacks, hunting caches and portages. As soon as the traveler appears in one of those places, a small flock of Whiskey Jacks appear flitting from one tree top to another, calling, shrieking, whistling, ever on the lookout for any sign of food.

There is a superstition in the North which claims that the killing of a Whiskey Jack brings bad luck. No one, even an Indian, would ever think of harming them. The result is that, being very tame, they often prove themselves regular pests in camp. Their only idea seems to be to hoard food for winter use. And from early spring until late fall one can see them picking up any available scrap which they stow away in various tree holes.

Their boldness is always a source of amusement to the traveler. I have seen Whiskey Jacks pounce on a piece of bacon in the frying pan and succeed in carrying it away; others raid an empty tent and steal any small thing they can find. They often get in trouble—the unlucky one then uttering the most extraordinary shrieks which are always taken up by all the other birds. It is a common occurrence to see one poke its head into an empty tin and have a great deal of difficulty in getting it out. Some, raiding a tent, get their claws caught in the mosquito net, while others hovering around a camp fire singe their tails and wings in a mad scramble for some half cooked tidbit.

The funniest jam I ever saw a Whiskey Jack get into was when the bird found a bowl on the ground filled with pieces of bannock soaked in rum. The bird was hungry and gobbled five or six pieces before the old prospector found out that his favorite evening dish was in danger. Whiskey Jack flew a few feet away and settled on a branch of a tree. But in a few minutes the liquor took effect. He began giving a series of dismal squawks, cocking his head on one side then on the other, swaying more and more until he actually fell down on the ground, where he lay unable to get up but screeching madly all the time.

The bird was all right again in an hour or so and went on flying around in search of more food, but he obstinately refused any more bannock from any one’s hands.

Tale XXXIV: Makejo

Makejo, a full-grown red fox, was born on the marshy shores of James Bay. Originally, he belonged to a litter of six pups which a Cree Indian had dug up in the spring and given to our trader at Moose Factory. The pups were still blind and helpless when they reached human hands. They took kindly to the bottle, but the mixture of condensed milk and plain water on which our man tried to raise them proved a failure. One little fox alone survived the ordeal. That was Makejo.

Although undersized and weak at first, he grew amazingly fast soon after he was weaned. When I saw him two years later he was larger and heavier than any fox of that region. Blood red, with a mask fringed with black and a large white tip at the end of his brush, he was as tame as a dog and as mischevious as a monkey.

He lived in the trader’s house, slept in a box, and came instantly at the call of his name. He was a great mouser. Now and again the trader would lock him up in the storeroom at night where he would kill dozens of mice, which he would invariably eat—barring the tails.

He would play with the children by the hour and had taught himself any amount of tricks while running madly up and down the house. His chief stunt was a back somersault. He had started doing it while leaping against the wall of the room but ended by doing it at any moment, even from a standing position.

In summer, he was allowed to use a hole cut out for him on one of the windows on the ground floor. He would get out through this to a small ledge, four feet above the ground, where he would pass hours sunning himself and keeping an eye on everything that was going on.

His chief delight was to torment the twenty-odd Post dogs which were always loafing in the neighborhood. They all belonged to the Malamute breed and would have killed him instantly had they been able to catch him. But they never did.

Makejo, from his ledge, would watch the dogs until they were asleep. Then, jumping down like a streak of lightning, he would flash through the pack yelping. In a second every Husky was after him. His speed was so marvelous, his eye so quick and his judgment of distance so uncanny, that he would remain several minutes tearing in and out of the dogs with perfect impunity until, with one leap, he would jump on his ledge again and disappear in the house through his little hole.

For all I know, Makejo may still be living happily where I saw him last.

Tale XXXV: Two Little Eskimo Boys

Hundreds of stories could be told regarding the hardships which form part of the daily life of the Canadian Eskimos, also their resourcefulness and their endurance.

Five years ago in August, near Cape Dufferin, two Eskimos started paddling in their kayaks along the shore. Each man in his little craft had his son—one five years old, the other seven. After a few hours, they decided to go to some islands six miles off shore to look for sea gulls’ eggs. Not caring to take the two children out so far, in case a storm came up, they left them on the beach and told them to wait.

The two little boys remained there all day. Night came. They huddled together, shivering, in the lee of a rock. When dawn appeared there were no signs of the two men. Another day and another night passed; still the children waited, feeding on seaweed and small shell fish which they found along the beach.

When the third day came they decided to walk back, following the shore, to the tribe. Going round the bays, climbing up and down huge slides of rocks, walking inland each time they found rivers they could not swim until they discovered a place to ford them, those two boys—aged five and seven, respectively—never lost heart.

Picking up on the beach what they could find to eat, they eventually got back to the tribe after two days and nights of constant traveling. They were footsore, wet to the bone, and famished.

They gave the alarm and a small party of men paddled immediately to the islands. There they found the two men marooned amidst hundreds of nests on which they had been feeding.

It appears that on their arrival, four days before, they had at first gone to sleep on the beach in the sun, leaving their kayaks partly out of the water. The tide rose and the two kayaks drifted out of sight. They had suffered no hardships—having plenty of food and being confident that eventually some one would come to look for them.

Furthermore, they did not feel anxious about the children. In their minds, a thirty mile walk alone on the rugged seashore, the fording of three swift rivers, and the lack of food and the exposure during four consecutive days and nights, could not possibly harm two little Eskimo boys of five and seven.

Tale XXXVI: An Indian Warrior

It was late in the fall of 1916, in the Somme, during the War. The Canadian Army in junction with one of the French Army Corps at its right had gone over the top and brilliantly carried an enemy’s strong position, two miles deep. The inevitable counter attack had been repulsed and, although the shelling was still vicious, one felt that the show was over for that day. The wounded were streaming out of the communication trenches towards the rear. A few dead bodies were lying about in small groups.

I was passing along quickly, following a sunken road, when I noticed a swarthy Canadian soldier on the ground, apparently dying of his wounds. I happened to be glancing towards him when he looked up, saw me, and, making a sign of the hand, called out clearly, “Nipi.” I recognized the word at once and stopped in amazement. The man was a full-blooded Cree Indian. He must have volunteered somewhere in Northern Canada, gone overseas, fought, and was now dying all alone in the mud of the Somme. He did not seem to be able to speak a word of English.

I knelt beside him and put my water bottle to his lips. Meanwhile I racked my brain for the few words of Cree I still knew. When he had finished drinking I began slowly to tell him, one by one, all the words I remembered. I said in Cree, “lake, fire, bear, moose, tent, axe, canoe.” What else, I do not recall. Dozens of Cree words—one after the other. Then I named in Indian, all the northern places I knew from Labrador to Yukon.

As soon as the Cree warrior heard my first words, he caught hold of my hands with both of his own and held on to them like a drowning man. He looked at me with a startled face, then his expression changed little by little. He was far gone then but he could still hear and understand the words of his native tongue. A far away look came into his dying eyes, his features relaxed and a smile hovered on his lips. He had forgotten the battlefield. His thoughts were away, far away, in some part of the Canadian wilderness which he and I knew.

It was all over in a few seconds. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something and then his soul went West; suddenly, without a flutter, straight to the Happy Hunting Grounds of his ancestors.

Tale XXXVII: Burro

Jack was a little grey donkey, a genuine little burro owned by the cook of a lumber camp in northern British Columbia. He was used for odd jobs around the men’s quarters and, when off duty, roamed about aimlessly at his own free will. He was old, tame as a dog and very wise.

We hired him one day to carry our grub and blankets on a fishing expedition. We had no fixed place to go. We simply cut across country through bush and hills, stopping to fish at every likely stream, camping when we felt like it. Jack behaved perfectly for three days. He carried his little load quietly and steered his way through any kind of ground according to our instructions, which we telegraphed to him from behind with a tap of the hand or an occasional shove.

On the third day at sundown, we pitched our tent on an old camping ground and found there two large cans of tomatoes which someone had left behind. The next morning, we loaded the little burro and placed the two cans on the top of his pack. Jack gave a grunt and promptly lay down. Nothing would induce him to rise until one of us thought of taking the two cans off. Then he proceeded on his way as if nothing had happened. For at least two hours we tried to fool him with those two tomato tins—but failed utterly. Each time we laid them on his pack, ever so gently from behind, he would stop dead and lie down again. Finally we had to give it up and throw the two cans away.

When the time came to return to the lumber camp, we were not certain of our way. In fact, we had only had a very hazy idea of our direction as we had been travelling in a round about sort of way in a very hilly country thickly covered with large trees. We decided to put our faith in Jack. He seemed to understand that we were going home. He took us back, foot by foot, exactly the same way we had come. His memory was uncanny. All the unnecessary little detours we had made, around a bush or a rock on our way up, he scrupulously made again on the way down. He never changed his pace once. He just jogged along with his head down and his eyes half closed. But nothing would make him step out of what he thought was the proper trail.

Two miles from camp, when we could already see the tents in the valley, we tried to make him take a short cut. He absolutely refused and showed the usual signs of lying down. He had been in charge all the way back and intended remaining so until we arrived.

Tale XXXVIII: Travelling in North Alberta

Early one spring, I stopped at an Indian’s tepee for a cup of tea, a smoke and a little chat. In front of the tent, a few yards away, stood the usual platform which all trappers build on four long, vertical piles so as to keep their stock of fish, meat, leather and pelts out of the reach of the dogs.

I was travelling with a team of six Huskies drawing a light sledge and had been making good time on the glare ice of the lakes and rivers. For, although the snow was nearly all gone in the bush, it still froze hard each night.

Before leaving the camp I asked the Indian to sell me some white fish for dog feed, of which I was short. He had plenty of it. I knew that he kept the frozen fish on the platform. He readily granted my request and while he busied himself dis-entangling the traces of my leader, which had got mixed up with a stump, I climbed on an empty box so as to reach the rack and get the fish.

Just at that moment the Indian shouted to me to take twenty fish which were already wrapped up in a dunnage bag, ready for packing on a sleigh. I glanced around, saw a brown package about two feet long and, without bothering to lift it, with one hand I pushed it so that it fell off the platform on to the ground.

As soon as it hit the frozen earth I noticed the peculiar sound it made—a crack like the branch of a tree snapping in the frost. Jumping down, I opened the parcel. There lay the dead body of a six months old child.

It was the Indian’s youngest baby. It had died at Christmas time and the man had stored it on the rack, far out of reach of the prowling dogs, until the summer came and the ground thawed out sufficiently to enable him to dig its little grave.

Tale XXXIX: Mother and Cubs

Late one evening in August, our ship was plowing her way through a sea of slushy ice and small pans in Hudson Straits. The weather was dead calm. Ahead of us, to the northwest, the sun was sinking over the horizon, staining sky and ice in crimson. Astern—to starboard—miles away, the rugged coast of Baffin Land loomed up, faint and dark.

The only sound which struck the ear was the steady droning of the engine; while now and then a pan of ice, cut in two by the ship’s stem, cracked under the impact, then groaned and grinded as it slid and was crushed under the keel.

Suddenly a sharp cry rang out from the crow’s nest, “White bear ahead—a she bear with two cubs. Two points at starboard.” Instantly every one rushed to the bow. Five hundred yards away, floundering through the ice, in and out of the water, was a great big bear. She had seen us and was trying to get away. A few yards in front of her were two small cubs—four months old—struggling hard to keep ahead of their mother.

The whole crew was in a turmoil of excitement. The skipper already had a rifle in his hands. So had the cook and one of the sailors. For a long time the bears were able to keep their distance. The pans of ice were large and fairly close together. Mother and cubs would climb on one—race a few hundred yards—dive, swim a few feet—then get out of the water and run again.

Meanwhile the ship had to wind her way between the ice, or butt the heaviest pans which sometimes slowed her down completely. We reached, at last, a spot where the ice was scattered. Huge lakes separated each pan.

Although the bears swam bravely, the ship was gaining on them. In a few minutes we were almost on top of them—just as they reached some more ice and climbed on it.