Front matter

Being Some Account of a Woman's Journey through Canada to the Arctic

BY AGNES DEANS CAMERON

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

Published November, 1909

A Magnificent Trophy

TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER, JESSIE ANDERSON CAMERON

AND

TO ALL THOSE WHO TRY TO LIVE OUT HER SIMPLE RULE: "WE MUST JUST TRY TO DO THE VERY BEST WE CAN"

PREFACE

It is customary to write a preface. Mine shall be short. Out of a full heart, I wish to thank all the splendid people of the North who, by giving me so freely information and photographs, and chapters out of their own lives, have facilitated the writing of this story. For their spontaneous kindness to me and mine no acknowledgment that I can here make is adequate. What we feel most strongly we cannot put into words.

AGNES DEANS CAMERON.

August, 1909.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I: THE MENDICANTS REACH WINNIPEG

The Mendicants leave Chicago—The invisible parallel of 49 where the eagle perches and makes amorous eyes at the beaver—Union Jack floats on an ox-cart—A holy baggage-room—Winnipeg, the Buckle of the Wheat-Belt—The trapper and the doctor—Mrs. Humphry Ward speaks—Boy Makers of Empire—The vespers of St. Boniface

CHAPTER II: WINNIPEG TO ATHABASCA LANDING

The 1,000-mile wheat-field—Calgary-in-the-Foothills—Edmonton, the end of steel—The Brains of a Trans-Continental—Browning on the Saskatchewan—East Londoners in tents—Our outfit—A Waldorf-Astoria in the wilderness—The lonely cross of the Galician—Height of Land—Sergeant Anderson, R.N.W.M.P., the sleuth of Lesser Slave

CHAPTER III: ATHABASCA LANDING

Athabasca Landing, the Gateway of the North—English gives place to Cree—Limit of the Dry Martini—Will the rabbits run?—The woman printer—Hymn-books by hand in the Cree syllabic—Baseball even here—Rain and reminiscences—The World's Oldest Trust

CHAPTER IV: DOWN THE ATHABASCA ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE MILES TO GRAND RAPIDS

"Farewell, Nistow!"—The rainy deck of a "sturgeon head" under a tarpaulin—Drifting by starlight—The wild geese overhead—Forty-foot gas-spout at the Pelican—The mosquito makes us blood-brothers—Four days on our Robinson Crusoe Island in the swirling Athabasca—Nomenclature of the North—Sentinels of the Silence

CHAPTER V: NINETY MILES OF RAPIDS

The Go-Quick-Her takes the bit in her mouth—Mallards on the half-shell—We set the Athabascan Thames afire—Sturgeon-head breaks her back on the Big Cascade—Fort McMurray—A stranded argosy, wreckage on the beach—Miss Christine Gordon, the Free Trader—A land flowing with coal and oil and gas and tar, timber and lime

CHAPTER VI: FORT CHIPEWYAN PAST AND PRESENT

Old Fort Chipewyan—In the footsteps of Mackenzie and Sir John Franklin—Sir John turns parson—Grey Nuns and brown babies—Where grew the prize wheat of the Philadelphia Centennial—Militant missionaries fight each other for souls—The strong man Loutit—Wyllie at the forge—An electric watch-maker—Where the Gambel sparrow builds—"Out of old books"

CHAPTER VII: LAKE ATHABASCA AND ITS FOND DU LAC

Farewell to the Mounted Police—Our blankets on the deck—Fern odours by untravelled ways—Typewriting and kodaking in 20 hours of daylight—Navigating Lake Athabasca by the power o' man—A 23-inch trout—First white women at Fond du Lac—Carlyle among the Chipewyans, a Fond du Lac library—The hermit padre and the hermit thrush—Worn north trails of the trapper—Caribou by the hundred thousands—The phalarope and the suffragette

CHAPTER VIII: FOND DU LAC TO FORT SMITH

World's records beaten on the Athabasca—Down the Slave to Smith's Landing—Priests sink in the Rapid of the Drowned—The Mosquito Portage—Fort Smith, the new headquarters—Lady-slippers and night-hawks—Steamer built in the wilderness—Last stand of the wood bison—The grey wolf persists—Fur-trade and the silver-fox—Breeding pelicans.

CHAPTER IX: SLAVE RIVER AND GREAT SLAVE LAKE

"Red lemol-lade" kiddies—Tons of crystal salt—Great Slave Lake and its fertile shores—Yellow-Knife and Dog-Rib, subjects of the Seventh Edward—Hay River and its annual mail—Ploughing with dogs—Bill balked—The Alexandra Falls—Bishop Bompas as a surgeon; amputations while you wait.

CHAPTER X: PROVIDENCE TO SIMPSON, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES DOWN THE MACKENZIE

Drowning of De-deed—Fort Simpson, the old headquarters—A mouldy museum—The shrew-mice that were not preserved in rum—The farthest north library—Gold-seekers and grub-staked brides—Bishop Bompas, the Apostle of the North—Owindia, the Weeping One—Fort Simpson in the first year of Victoria the Good.

CHAPTER XI: FORT GOOD HOPE ON THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

Tenny Gouley tells us things—Mackenzie River, past and present—The fringed gentian at Fort Wrigley—The fires Mackenzie saw—The weathered knob of Bear Rock—Great Bear Lake—Orangeman's Day at Norman—The Ramparts of the Mackenzie—Fort Good Hope under the Arctic Circle—Mignonette and Old World courtesy—We meet Hagar once more—Potatoes on the Circle—The Little Church of the Open Door

CHAPTER XII: ARCTIC RED RIVER AND ITS ESKIMO

Arctic Red River—Wilfrid Laurier, the merger—Mrs. Ila-la-Rocko, the danseuse—Marriage as the Oo-vai-oo-aks see it—Orange-blossoms at Su-pi-di-do's—Trading tryst at Barter Island—Floating fathers—By-o Baby Bunting—Wild roses and tame Eskimo—Midnight football with walrus bladder and enthusiasm—Education that makes for manliness

CHAPTER XIII: FORT MACPHERSON FOLK

Sir John Franklin's lobsticks at Point Separation—We reach Fort Macpherson on the Peel—Sergeant Fitzgerald, R.N.W.M.P., eulogizes the Eskimo—An Eskimo wife must make boots that are waterproof—She ariseth also while it is yet night and cheweth the boots of her household—Cribbage-boards the link between Dick Swiveller and the Eskimo—Linked sweetness long drawn out—Chauncey Depew of the Kogmollycs

CHAPTER XIV: MORALIZING UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN

The Midnight Sun—Our friend the heathen—"We want to go to hell"—Catching fish by prayer—The Eskimo and the Flood—Pink tea at the Pole—Always a balance in the Eskimo Bank—Marriage for better and not for worse—Christmas carols even here

CHAPTER XV: MAINLY CONCERNING FOOD

Jurisprudence on ice—The generous Innuit—Emmie-ray, the Delineator pattern—Weak races are pressed south—Roxi, a re-incarnation of Sir Philip Sidney—Blubbery bon vivants—Eskimo knew the Elephant—We write the last chapter of the story of McClure, the navigator—Cannibalism at the Circle

CHAPTER XVI: THE TALE OF A WHALE

Circumpolar Bowhead makes his last stand—Whales here and elsewhere—The Yankee peddler at Canada's back-door—Thirteen and a half million in whale values—Wind-swept Herschel, the Isle of Whales—One wife for a thousand years—Baleen, Spermaceti, and Ambergris—Save the Whale

CHAPTER XVII: SOUTH FROM THE ARCTIC TO CHIPEWYAN

Lives lost for the sake of a white bead—The stars come back—The Keele party from the Dollarless Divide—"Here and there a grayling"—Across Great Slave Lake—The first white women at Fort Rae—Land of the musk-ox—Tales of 76 below—Two Thursdays in one week—Rabbits on ice

CHAPTER XVIII: TO MC MURRAY AND BACK TO THE PEACE

The nuptials of 'Norine—Ladies round gents and gents don't go—The fossil-gatherers—I give my name to a Cree kiddie—A solid mile of red raspberries—The typewriter an uncanny medicine—The Beetle Fleet leaves for Outside—Shipwrecked on a batture

CHAPTER XIX: UP THE PEACE TO VERMILION

Ho! for the Peace—One break in 900 miles of navigation—A grey wolf—Bear-meat and the Se-weep-i-gons—Ninety-foot spruces—Tom Kerr and his bairns—The fish-seine that never fails—Our lobsticks by Red River—The Chutes of the Peace

CHAPTER XX: VERMILION-ON-THE-PEACE

The farthest north flour-mill—The man who made Vermilion—Wheat at $1.25 a bushel—An Experimental Farm in latitude 58° 30'—An unoccupied kingdom as large as Belgium—Where the steamer Peace River was built—The hospitable home of the Wilsons—Vermilion a Land of Promise Fulfilled—Culture and the Cloister—Thomas of Canterbury on the Stump

CHAPTER XXI: FORT VERMILION TO LESSER SLAVE

Se-li-nah of the happy heart—My premier moose—The rare and resourceful boatmen of the North—Alexander Mackenzie's last camp

CHAPTER XXII: PEACE RIVER CROSSING TO LESSER SLAVE LAKE

Pleasant prairies of the Peace—We tramp a hundred miles—The Angelus at Lesser Slave—Poole coats and Norfolk shooting-jackets—Roast duck galore—Alec Kennedy of the Nile—Louise the Wetigo, she ate nineteen

CHAPTER XXIII: LESSER SLAVE LAKE TO EDMONTON

Jim wins: Allie Brick can't run—100,000,000 acres of wheat-land—Jilly-Loo bird still lacks a rib—100 moose in one month—Peripatetic judges but no prisoners—The best-tattooed man in the Province of Alberta—The-Man-Who-Goes-Around-and-Helps

CHAPTER XXIV: HOMES AMONG THE YELLOW WHEAT

Edmonton again—Wyllie goes out on the Long Journey—Donaldson killed by a walrus—Two drowned in the Athabasca—Steel kings and iron horses—Wheat-plains the melting-pot of a New Nation

ROUTES OF TRAVEL

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A magnificent trophy

Map showing the Author's Route

Sir Wilfred Laurier

Earl Grey, Governor-General of Canada

Winnipeg, the Buckle of the Wheat Belt

The Canadian Women's Press Club

A section of Edmonton

The Golden Fleece of Saskatchewan

Irrigation ditch, Calgary, Alberta

A Waldorf-Astoria on the prairie's edge

Athabasca Landing

Necessity knows no law at Athabasca

The Missionary Hymnal for the Indians

C.C. Chipman, Commissioner of the H.B. Co.

A "sturgeon-head" on the Athabasca

"Farewell, Nistow!"

Grand Rapids, on the Athabasca River

Portage at Grand Rapids Island

Our transport at Grand Rapids Island

Cheese-shaped nodules, Grand Rapids Island

Scouts of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

Towing the wrecked barge ashore

The scow breaks her back and fills

Miss Gordon, a Fort McMurray trader

The steamer Grahame

An oil derrick on the Athabasca

Tar banks on the Athabasca

Fort Chipewyan, Lake Athabasca

Three of a kind

Woman's work of the Far North

Lake Athabasca in winter

Bishop Grouard

The modern note-book

Tepee of a Caribou-eater Indian

A bit of Fond du Lac

Birch-barks at Fond du Lac

Fond du Lac

Father Beibler carrying water to a dying Indian

Smith's Landing

A transport between Fort Smith and Smith's Landing

Lord Strathcona, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company

The world's last buffalo

Tracking a scow across mountain portage

The "red lemol-lade" boys

Salt beds

Unloading at Fort Resolution

Coming to "take Treaty" on Great Slave Lake

On the Slave

Dogs cultivating potatoes

David Villeneuve

Hudson's Bay House, Fort Simpson

A Slavi family at Fort Simpson

A Slavi type from Fort Simpson

Interior of St. David's Cathedral

Fort Simpson by the light of the Aurora

Indians at Fort Norman

Roman Catholic Church at Fort Norman

The ramparts of the Mackenzie

Rampart House on the Porcupine near the Mackenzie mouth

A Kogmollye family

Roxi and the Oo-vai-oo-ak family

Farthest North football

Two spectators at the game

An Eskimo exhibit

Constable Walker and Sergeant Fitzgerald in Eskimo togs

Two wise ones

A Nunatalmute Eskimo family

Cribbage-boards of walrus tusks

Useful articles made by the Eskimo

Home of Mrs. Macdonald

Eskimo kayaks at the Arctic edge

A wise man of the Dog-Ribs

A study in expression

We tell the tale of a whale

Two little ones at Herschel Island

Breeding grounds of the seal

The Keele party on the Gravel River

The first typewriter on Great Slave Lake

The bell at Fort Rae mission

The musk-ox

A meadow at McMurray

Starting up the Athabasca

On the Clearwater

Evening on the Peace

Our lobsticks on the Peace

The chutes of the Peace

Pulling out the Mee-wah-sin

The flour mill at Vermilion-on-the-Peace

Articles made by Indians

The Hudson's Bay Store

Papillon, a Beaver brave

Going to school in winter

My premier moose

Beaver camp, on Paddle River

The site of old Fort McLeod

Jean Baptiste, pilot on the Peace

Fort Dunvegan on the Peace

Fort St. John on the Peace

Where King was arrested

Alec Kennedy with his two sons

Cannibal Louise, her little girl and Miss Cameron

A Peace River Pioneer

Three generations

A family at the Lesser Slave

A one-night stand

A rye field in Brandon, Manitoba

Charles M. Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railway

William Mackenzie, President of the Canadian Northern Railway

Donald D. Maun, Vice-president of the Canadian Northern Railway

William Whyte, Second Vice-president of the Canadian Pacific Railway

In the wheat fields

Hon. Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior

Threshing grain

Doukhobors threshing flax

Sir William Van Horne, first President of the Canadian Pacific Railway

Map of the Author's Route