The Forest

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The sense of smell, too, is developed to an extent positively uncanny
to us who have needed it so little. Your Woods Indian is always
sniffing, always testing the impressions of other senses by his
olfactories. Instances numerous and varied might be cited, but probably
one will do as well as a dozen. It once became desirable to kill a
caribou in country where the animals are not at all abundant.
Tawabinisáy volunteered to take Jim within shot of one. Jim describes
their hunt as the most wonderful bit of stalking he had ever seen. The
Indian followed the animal's tracks as easily as you or I could have
followed them over snow. He did this rapidly and certainly. Every once
in a while he would get down on all fours to sniff inquiringly at the
crushed herbage. Always on rising to his feet he would give the result
of his investigations. "Ah-téek [caribou] one hour."

And later, "Ah-téek half hour."

Or again, "Ah-téek quarter hour."

And finally, "Ah-téek over nex' hill."

And it was so.

In like manner, but most remarkable to us because the test of direct
comparison with our own sense was permitted us, was their acuteness of
hearing. Often while "jumping" a roaring rapids in two canoes, my
companion and I have heard our men talking to each other in quite an
ordinary tone of voice. That is to say, I could hear my Indian, and Jim
could hear his; but personally we were forced to shout loudly to carry
across the noise of the stream. The distant approach of animals they
announce accurately.

"Wawashkeshí" (deer), says Peter.

And sure enough, after an interval, we too could distinguish the
footfalls on the dry leaves.

As both cause and consequence of these physical endowments--which place
them nearly on a parity with the game itself--they are most expert
hunters. Every sportsman knows the importance--and also the
difficulty--of discovering game before it discovers him. The Indian has
here an immense advantage. And after game is discovered, he is
furthermore most expert in approaching it with all the refined art of
the still hunter.

Mr. Caspar Whitney describes in exasperation his experience with the
Indians of the Far North-West. He complains that when they blunder on
game they drop everything and enter into almost hopeless chase, two
legs against four. Occasionally the quarry becomes enough bewildered so
that the wild shooting will bring it down. He quite justly argues that
the merest pretence at caution in approach would result in much greater
success.

The Woods Indian is no such fool. He is a mighty poor shot--and he
knows it. Personally I believe he shuts both eyes before pulling
trigger. He is armed with a long flint or percussion lock musket, whose
gas-pipe barrel is bound to the wood that runs its entire length by
means of brass bands, and whose effective range must be about ten
yards. This archaic implement is known as a "trade gun" and has the
single merit of never getting out of order. Furthermore ammunition is
precious. In consequence, the wilderness hunter is not going to be
merely pretty sure; he intends to be absolutely certain. If he cannot
approach near enough to blow a hole in his prey, he does not fire.

I have seen Peter drop into marsh-grass so thin that apparently we
could discern the surface of the ground through it, and disappear so
completely that our most earnest attention could not distinguish even a
rustling of the herbage. After an interval his gun would go off from
some distant point, exactly where some ducks had been feeding serenely
oblivious to fate. Neither of us white men would have considered for a
moment the possibility of getting any of them. Once I felt rather proud
of myself for killing six ruffed grouse out of some trees with the
pistol, until Peter drifted in carrying three he had bagged with a
stick.

Another interesting phase of this almost perfect correspondence to
environment is the readiness with which an Indian will meet an
emergency. We are accustomed to rely first of all on the skilled labour
of some one we can hire; second, if we undertake the job ourselves, on
the tools made for us by skilled labour; and third, on the shops to
supply us with the materials we may need. Not once in a lifetime are we
thrown entirely on our own resources. Then we improvise bunglingly a
makeshift.

The Woods Indian possesses his knife and his light axe. Nails, planes,
glue, chisels, vices, cord, rope, and all the rest of it he has to do
without. But he never improvises makeshifts. No matter what the
exigency or how complicated the demand, his experience answers with
accuracy.

Utensils and tools he knows exactly where to find. His job is neat and
workmanlike, whether it is a bark receptacle--water-tight or not--a
pair of snow-shoes, the repairing of a badly-smashed canoe, the
construction of a shelter, or the fashioning of a paddle. About noon
one day Tawabinisáy broke his axe-helve square off. This to us would
have been a serious affair. Probably we should, left to ourselves, have
stuck in some sort of a rough straight sapling handle which would have
answered well enough until we could have bought another. By the time we
had cooked dinner that Indian had fashioned another helve. We compared
it with the store article. It was as well shaped, as smooth, as nicely
balanced. In fact, as we laid the new and the old side by side, we
could not have selected, from any evidence of the workmanship, which
had been made by machine and which by hand. Tawabinisáy then burned out
the wood from the axe, retempered the steel, set the new helve, and
wedged it neatly with ironwood wedges. The whole affair, including the
cutting of the timber, consumed perhaps half an hour.

To travel with a Woods Indian is a constant source of delight on this
account. So many little things that the white man does without, because
he will not bother with their transportation, the Indian makes for
himself. And so quickly and easily! I have seen a thoroughly
waterproof, commodious, and comfortable bark shelter made in about the
time it would take one to pitch a tent. I have seen a raft built of
cedar logs and cedar bark ropes in an hour. I have seen a badly-stove
canoe made as good as new in fifteen minutes. The Indian rarely needs
to hunt for the materials he requires. He knows exactly where they
grow, and he turns as directly to them as a clerk would turn to his
shelves. No problem of the living of physical life is too obscure to
have escaped his varied experience. You may travel with Indians for
years, and learn something new and delightful as to how to take care of
yourself every summer.

The qualities I have mentioned come primarily from the fact that the
Woods Indian is a hunter. I have now to instance two whose development
can be traced to the other fact--that he is a nomad. I refer to his
skill with the bark canoe and his ability to carry.

I was once introduced to a man at a little way station of the Canadian
Pacific Railway in the following words:--

"Shake hands with Munson; he's as good a canoeman as an Indian."

A little later one of the bystanders remarked to me:--

"That fellow you was just talking with is as good a canoeman as an
Injun."

Still later, at an entirely different place, a member of the bar
informed me, in the course of discussion:--

"The only man I know of who can do it is named Munson. He is as good a
canoeman as an Indian."

At the time this unanimity of praise puzzled me a little. I thought I
had seen some pretty good canoe work, and even cherished a mild conceit
that occasionally I could keep right side up myself. I knew Munson to
be a great woods-traveller, with many striking qualities, and why this
of canoemanship should be so insistently chosen above the others was
beyond my comprehension. Subsequently a companion and I journeyed to
Hudson Bay with two birch canoes and two Indians. Since that trip I
have had a vast respect for Munson.

Undoubtedly among the half-breed and white guides of Lower Canada,
Maine, and the Adirondacks are many skilful men. But they know their
waters; they follow a beaten track. The Woods Indian--well, let me tell
you something of what he does.

We went down the Kapúskasíng River to the Mattágami, and then down that
to the Moose. These rivers are at first but a hundred feet or so wide,
but rapidly swell with the influx of numberless smaller streams. Two
days' journey brings you to a watercourse nearly half a mile in
breadth; two weeks finds you on a surface approximately a mile and a
half across. All this water descends from the Height of Land to the sea
level. It does so through a rock country. The result is a series of
roaring, dashing boulder rapids and waterfalls that would make your
hair stand on end merely to contemplate from the banks.

The regular route to Moose Factory is by the Missinaíbie. Our way was
new and strange. No trails; no knowledge of the country. When we came
to a stretch of white water, the Indians would rise to their feet for a
single instant's searching examination of the stretch of tumbled water
before them. In that moment they picked the passage they were to follow
as well as a white man could have done so in half an hour's study. Then
without hesitation they shot their little craft at the green water.

From that time we merely tried to sit still, each in his canoe. Each
Indian did it all with his single paddle. He seemed to possess absolute
control over his craft.

Even in the rush of water which seemed to hurry us on at almost
railroad speed, he could stop for an instant, work directly sideways,
shoot forward at a slant, swing either his bow or his stern. An error
in judgment or in the instantaneous acting upon it meant a hit; and a
hit in these savage North Country Rivers meant destruction. How my man
kept in his mind the passage he had planned during his momentary
inspection was always to me a miracle. How he got so unruly a beast as
the birch canoe to follow it in that tearing volume of water was always
another. Big boulders he dodged, eddies he took advantage of, slants of
current he utilized. A fractional second of hesitation could not be
permitted him. But always the clutching of white hands from the rip at
the eddy finally conveyed to my spray-drenched faculties that the rapid
was safely astern. And this, mind you, in strange waters.

Occasionally we would carry our outfit through the woods, while the
Indians would shoot some especially bad water in the light canoe. As a
spectacle nothing could be finer. The flash of the yellow bark, the
movement of the broken waters, the gleam of the paddle, the tense
alertness of the men's figures, their carven, passive faces, with the
contrast of the flashing eyes and the distended nostrils, then the leap
into space over some half-cataract, the smash of spray, the exultant
yells of the canoemen! For your Indian enjoys the game thoroughly. And
it requires very bad water indeed to make him take to the brush.

This is, of course, the spectacular. But also in the ordinary gray
business of canoe travel the Woods Indian shows his superiority. He is
tireless, and composed as to wrist and shoulder of a number of
whale-bone springs. From early dawn to dewy eve, and then a few
gratuitous hours into the night, he will dig energetic holes in the
water with his long, narrow blade. And every stroke counts. The water
boils out in a splotch of white air-bubbles, the little suction holes
pirouette like dancing-girls, the fabric of the craft itself trembles
under the power of the stroke. Jim and I used, in the lake stretches,
to amuse ourselves--and probably the Indians--by paddling in furious
rivalry one against the other. Then Peter would make up his mind he
would like to speak to Jacob. His canoe would shoot up alongside as
though the Old Man of the Lake had laid his hand across its stern.
Would I could catch that trick of easy, tireless speed! I know it lies
somewhat in keeping both elbows always straight and stiff, in a lurch
forward of the shoulders at the end of the stroke. But that, and more!
Perhaps one needs a copper skin and beady black eyes with surface
lights.

Nor need you hope to pole a canoe upstream as do these people.
Tawabinisáy uses two short poles, one in either hand, kneels amidships,
and snakes that little old canoe of his upstream so fast that you would
swear the rapids an easy matter--until you tried them yourself. We were
once trailed up a river by an old Woods Indian and his interesting
family. The outfit consisted of canoe Number One--_item_, one old
Injin, one boy of eight years, one dog; canoe Number Two--_item_,
one old Injin squaw, one girl of eighteen or twenty, one dog; canoe
Number Three--_item_, two little girls of ten and twelve, one
dog. We tried desperately for three days to get away from this party.
It did not seem to work hard at all. We did. Even the two little girls
appeared to dip the contemplative paddle from time to time. Water
boiled back of our own blades. We started early and quit late, and
about as we congratulated ourselves over our evening fire that we had
distanced our followers at last, those three canoes would steal
silently and calmly about the lower bend to draw ashore below us. In
ten minutes the old Indian was delivering an oration to us, squatted in
resignation.

The Red Gods alone know what he talked about. He had no English, and
our Ojibway was of the strictly utilitarian. But for an hour he would
hold forth. We called him Talk-in-the-Face, the Great Indian Chief.
Then he would drop a mild hint for sáymon, which means tobacco, and
depart. By ten o'clock the next morning he and his people would
overtake us in spite of our earlier start. Usually we were in the act
of dragging our canoe through an especially vicious rapid by means of a
tow-line. Their three canoes, even to the children's, would ascend
easily by means of poles. Tow-lines appeared to be unsportsmanlike--like
angle-worms. Then the entire nine--including the dogs--would roost on
rocks and watch critically our methods.

The incident had one value, however: it showed us just why these people
possess the marvellous canoe skill I have attempted to sketch. The
little boy in the leading canoe was not over eight or nine years of
age, but he had his little paddle and his little canoe-pole, and, what
is more, he already used them intelligently and well. As for the little
girls--well, they did easily feats I never hope to emulate, and that
without removing the cowl-like coverings from their heads and
shoulders.

The same early habitude probably accounts for their ability to carry
weights long distances. The Woods Indian is not a mighty man
physically. Most of them are straight and well built, but of only
medium height, and not wonderfully muscled. Peter was most beautiful,
but in the fashion of the flying Mercury, with long smooth panther
muscles. He looked like Uncas, especially when his keen hawk-face was
fixed in distant attention. But I think I could have wrestled Peter
down. Yet time and again I have seen that Indian carry two hundred
pounds for some miles through a rough country absolutely without
trails. And once I was witness of a feat of Tawabinisáy, when that wily
savage portaged a pack of fifty pounds and a two-man canoe through a
hill country for four hours and ten minutes without a rest. Tawabinisáy
is even smaller than Peter.

So much for the qualities developed by the woods life. Let us now
examine what may be described as the inherent characteristics of the
people.

XVI.

ON WOODS INDIANS (_continued_).

It must be understood, of course, that I offer you only the best of my
subject. A people counts for what it does well. Also I instance men of
standing in the loose Indian body politic. A traveller can easily
discover the reverse of the medal. These have their shirks, their
do-nothings, their men of small account, just as do other races. I have
no thought of glorifying the noble red man, nor of claiming for him a
freedom from human imperfection--even where his natural quality and
training count the most--greater than enlightenment has been able to
reach.

In my experience the honesty of the Woods Indian is of a very high
order. The sense of _mine_ and _thine_ is strongly forced by
the exigencies of the North Woods life. A man is always on the move; he
is always exploring the unknown countries. Manifestly it is impossible
for him to transport the entire sum of his worldly effects. The
implements of winter are a burden in summer. Also the return journey
from distant shores must be provided for by food-stations, to be relied
on. The solution of these needs is the cache.

And the cache is not a literal term at all. It _conceals_ nothing.
Rather does it hold aloft in long-legged prominence, for the inspection
of all who pass, what the owner has seen fit to leave behind. A heavy
platform high enough from the ground to frustrate the investigations of
animals is all that is required. Visual concealment is unnecessary,
because in the North Country a cache is sacred. On it may depend the
life of a man. He who leaves provisions must find them on his return,
for he may reach them starving, and the length of his out-journey may
depend on his certainty of relief at this point on his in-journey. So
men passing touch not his hoard, for some day they may be in the same
fix, and a precedent is a bad thing.

[Illustration: NOR NEED YOU HOPE TO POLE A CANOE UPSTREAM AS DO THESE
PEOPLE.]

Thus in parts of the wildest countries of northern Canada I have
unexpectedly come upon a birch canoe in capsized suspension between two
trees; or a whole bunch of snow-shoes depending fruit-like beneath the
fans of a spruce; or a tangle of steel traps thrust into the crevice of
a tree-root; or a supply of pork and flour, swathed like an Egyptian
mummy, occupying stately a high bier. These things we have passed by
reverently, as symbols of a people's trust in its kind.

The same sort of honesty holds in regard to smaller things. I have
never hesitated to leave in my camp firearms, fishing-rods, utensils
valuable from a woods point of view, even a watch or money. Not only
have I never lost anything in that manner, but once an Indian lad
followed me some miles after the morning's start to restore to me a
half-dozen trout flies I had accidentally left behind.

It might be readily inferred that this quality carries over into the
subtleties, as indeed is the case. Mr. MacDonald of Brunswick House
once discussed with me the system of credits carried on by the Hudson's
Bay Company with the trappers. Each family is advanced goods to the
value of two hundred dollars, with the understanding that the debt is
to be paid from the season's catch.

"I should think you would lose a good deal," I ventured. "Nothing could
be easier than for an Indian to take his two hundred dollars' worth and
disappear in the woods. You'd never be able to find him."

Mr. MacDonald's reply struck me, for the man had twenty years' trading
experience.

"I have never," said he, "in a long woods life known but one Indian
liar."

This my own limited woods-wandering has proved to be true to a
sometimes almost ridiculous extent. The most trivial statement of fact
can be relied on, provided it is given outside of trade or enmity or
absolute indifference. The Indian loves to fool the tenderfoot. But a
sober, measured statement you can conclude is accurate. And if an
Indian promises a thing, he will accomplish it. He expects you to do
the same. Watch your lightest words carefully and you would retain the
respect of your red associates.

On our way to the Hudson Bay we rashly asked Peter, towards the last,
when we should reach Moose Factory. He deliberated.

"T'ursday," said he.

Things went wrong; Thursday supplied a head wind. We had absolutely no
interest in reaching Moose Factory next day; the next week would have
done as well. But Peter, deaf to expostulation, entreaty, and command,
kept us travelling from six in the morning until after twelve at night.
We couldn't get him to stop. Finally he drew the canoes ashore.

"Moose-amik quarter hour," said he.

He had kept his word.

The Ojibway possesses a great pride which the unthinking can ruffle
quite unconsciously in many ways. Consequently the Woods Indian is
variously described as a good guide or a bad one. The difference lies
in whether you suggest or command.

"Peter, you've got to make Chicawgun to-night. Get a move on you!" will
bring you sullen service, and probably breed kicks on the grub supply,
which is the immediate precursor of mutiny.

"Peter, it's a long way to Chicawgun. Do you think we make him
to-night?" on the other hand, will earn you at least a serious
consideration of the question. And if Peter says you can, you will.

For the proper man the Ojibway takes a great pride in his woodcraft,
the neatness of his camps, the savoury quality of his cookery, the
expedition of his travel, the size of his packs, the patience of his
endurance. On the other hand, he can be as sullen, inefficient, stupid,
and vindictive as any man of any race on earth. I suppose the faculty
of getting along with men is largely inherent. Certainly it is blended
of many subtleties. To be friendly, to retain respect, to praise, to
preserve authority, to direct and yet to leave detail, to exact what is
due, and yet to deserve it--these be the qualities of a leader, and
cannot be taught.

In general the Woods Indian is sober. He cannot get whisky regularly,
to be sure, but I have often seen the better class of Ojibways refuse a
drink, saying that they did not care for it. He starves well, and keeps
going on nothing long after hope is vanished. He is patient--yea, very
patient--under toil, and so accomplishes great journeys, overcomes
great difficulties, and does great deeds by means of this handmaiden of
genius. According to his own standards is he clean. To be sure his
baths are not numerous, nor his laundry-days many, but he never cooks
until he has washed his hands and arms to the very shoulders. Other
details would but corroborate the impression of this instance--that his
ideas differ from ours, as is his right, but that he lives up to his
ideas. Also is he hospitable, expecting nothing in return. After your
canoe is afloat and your paddle in the river, two or three of his
youngsters will splash in after you to toss silver fish to your
necessities. And so always he will wait until this last moment of
departure, in order that you will not feel called on to give him
something in return. Which is true tact and kindliness, and worthy of
high praise.

Perhaps I have not strongly enough insisted that the Indian nations
differ as widely from one another as do unallied races. We found this
to be true even in the comparatively brief journey from Chapleau to
Moose. After pushing through a trackless wilderness without having laid
eyes on a human being, excepting the single instance of three French
_voyageurs_ going Heaven knows where, we were anticipating
pleasurably our encounter with the traders at the Factory, and
naturally supposed that Peter and Jacob would be equally pleased at the
chance of visiting with their own kind. Not at all. When we reached
Moose our Ojibways wrapped themselves in a mantle of dignity, and
stalked scornful amidst obsequious clans. For the Ojibway is great
among Indians, verily much greater than the Moose River Crees. Had it
been a question of Rupert's River Crees with their fierce blood-laws,
their conjuring-lodges, and their pagan customs, the affair might have
been different.

For, mark you, the Moose River Cree is little among hunters, and he
conducts the chase miscellaneously over his district without thought to
the preservation of the beaver, and he works in the hay marshes during
the summer, and is short, squab, and dirty, and generally
_ka-win-ni-shi-shin_. The old sacred tribal laws, which are better
than a religion because they are practically adapted to northern life,
have among them been allowed to lapse. Travellers they are none, nor do
their trappers get far from the Company's pork-barrels. So they inbreed
ignobly for lack of outside favour, and are dying from the face of the
land through dire diseases, just as their reputations have already died
from men's respect.

The great unwritten law of the forest is that, save as provision during
legitimate travel, one may not hunt in his neighbour's district. Each
trapper has assigned him, or gets by inheritance or purchase, certain
territorial power. In his land he alone may trap. He knows the
beaver-dams, how many animals each harbours, how large a catch each
will stand without diminution of the supply. So the fur is made to
last. In the southern district this division is tacitly agreed upon. It
is not etiquette to poach. What would happen to a poacher no one knows,
simply because the necessity for finding out has not arisen.
Tawabinisáy controls from Batchawanúng to Agawa. There old Waboos takes
charge. And so on. But in the Far North the control is more often
disputed, and there the blood-law still holds. An illegal trapper baits
his snares with his life. If discovered, he is summarily shot. So is
the game preserved.

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