CHAPTER SIX.
SPRING AND THE VOYAGEURS.
Winter, with its snow and its ice; winter, with its sharp winds andwhite drifts; winter, with its various characteristic occupations andemployments, is past, and it is spring now.
The sun no longer glitters on fields of white; the wood-man's axe is nolonger heard hacking the oaken billets, to keep alive the roaring fires.That inexpressibly cheerful sound the merry chime of sleigh-bells, thattells more of winter than all other sounds together, is no longer heardon the bosom of Red River; for the sleighs are thrown aside as useless--lumber-carts and gigs have supplanted them. The old Canadian, who usedto drive the ox with its water-barrel to the ice-hole for his dailysupply, has substituted a small cart with wheels for the old sleigh thatused to glide so smoothly over the snow, and grit so sharply on it inthe more than usually frosty mornings in the days gone by. The treeshave lost their white patches, and the clump of willows, that used tolook like islands in the prairie, have disappeared, as the carpetingthat gave them prominence has dissolved. The aspect of everything inthe isolated settlement has changed. The winter is gone, and spring--bright, beautiful, hilarious spring--has come again.
By those who have never known an arctic winter, the delights of anarctic spring can never, we fear, be fully appreciated or understood.Contrast is one of its strongest elements; indeed, we might say, _the_element which gives to all the others peculiar zest. Life in the arcticregions is like one of Turner's pictures, in which the lights arestrong, the shadows deep, and the _tout ensemble_ hazy and romantic. Socold and prolonged is the winter, that the first mild breath of springbreaks on the senses like a zephyr from the plains of paradise.Everything bursts suddenly into vigorous life, after the long death-likesleep of Nature, as little children burst into the romping gaieties of anew day after the deep repose of a long and tranquil night. The snowmelts, the ice breaks up, and rushes in broken masses, heaving andtossing in the rising flood, that grind and whirl them into the ocean,or into those great fresh-water lakes that vie with ocean itself inmagnitude and grandeur. The buds come out and the leaves appear,clothing all nature with a bright, refreshing green, which derivesadditional brilliancy from sundry patches of snow that fill the deepcreeks and hollows everywhere, and form ephemeral fountains whose waterscontinue to supply a thousand rills for many a long day, until thefierce glare of the summer sun prevails at last and melts them all away.
Red River flows on now to mix its long-pent-up waters with LakeWinnipeg. Boats are seen rowing about upon its waters, as the settlerstravel from place to place; and wooden canoes, made of the hollowed-outtrunks of large trees, shoot across from shore to shore--these canoesbeing a substitute for bridges, of which there are none, although thesettlement lies on both sides of the river. Birds have now entered uponthe scene, their wild cries and ceaseless flight adding to it a cheerfulactivity. Ground squirrels pop up out of their holes to bask theirround, fat, beautifully-striped little bodies in the sun, or to gaze inadmiration at the farmer, as he urges a pair of _very_ slow-going oxen,that drag the plough at a pace which induces one to believe that thewide field _may_ possibly be ploughed up by the end of next year. Frogswhistle in the marshy ground so loudly that men new to the countrybelieve they are being regaled by the songs of millions of birds. Thereis no mistake about their _whistle_. It is not merely _like_ a whistle,but it _is_ a whistle, shrill and continuous; and as the swamps swarmwith these creatures, the song never ceases for a moment, although eachindividual frog creates only one little gush of music, composed of halfa dozen trills, and then stops a moment for breath before commencing thesecond bar. Bull-frogs, too, though not so numerous, help to vary thesound by croaking vociferously, as if they understood the value of bass,and were glad of having an opportunity to join in the universal hum oflife and joy which rises everywhere, from the river and the swamp, theforest and the prairie, to welcome back the spring.
Such was the state of things in Red River one beautiful morning inApril, when a band of voyageurs lounged in scattered groups about thefront gate of Fort Garry. They were as fine a set of picturesque, manlyfellows as one could desire to see. Their mode of life rendered themhealthy, hardy, and good-humoured, with a strong dash of recklessness--perhaps too much of it--in some of the younger men. Being descended,generally, from French-Canadian sires and Indian mothers, they unitedsome of the good and not a few of the bad qualities of both, mentally aswell as physically--combining the light, gay-hearted spirit and full,muscular frame of the Canadian with the fierce passions and activehabits of the Indian. And this wildness of disposition was not a littlefostered by the nature of their usual occupations. They were employedduring a great part of the year in navigating the Hudson's Bay Company'sboats, laden with furs and goods, through the labyrinth of rivers andlakes that stud and intersect the whole continent, or they were engagedin pursuit of the bisons, [these animals are always called buffaloes byAmerican hunters and fur-traders] which roam the prairies in vast herds.
They were dressed in the costume of the country: most of them worelight-blue cloth capotes, girded tightly round them by scarlet orcrimson worsted belts. Some of them had blue, and others scarlet, clothleggings, ornamented more or less with stained porcupine quills,coloured silk, or variegated beads; while some might be seen clad in theleathern coats of winter-deer-skin dressed like chamois leather, fringedall round with little tails, and ornamented much in the same way asthose already described. The heavy winter moccasins and duffel socks,which gave to their feet the appearance of being afflicted with gout,were now replaced by moccasins of a lighter and more elegant character,having no socks below, and fitting tightly to the feet like gloves.Some wore hats similar to those made of silk or beaver which are worn byourselves in Britain, but so bedizened with scarlet cock-tail feathers,and silver cords and tassels, as to leave the original form of thehead-dress a matter of great uncertainty. These hats, however, are onlyused on high occasions, and chiefly by the fops. Most of the men worecoarse blue cloth caps with peaks, and not a few discarded head-piecesaltogether, under the impression, apparently, that nature had supplied acovering which was in itself sufficient. These costumes varied not onlyin character but in quality, according to the circumstances of thewearer; some being highly ornamental and mended--evincing the felicityof the owner in the possession of a good wife--while others were soiledand torn, or but slightly ornamented. The voyageurs were collected, aswe have said, in groups. Here stood a dozen of the youngest--consequently the most noisy and showily dressed--laughing loudly,gesticulating violently, and bragging tremendously. Near to them werecollected a number of sterner spirits--men of middle age, with all theenergy, and muscle, and bone of youth, but without its swaggeringhilarity; men whose powers and nerves had been tried over and over againamid the stirring scenes of a voyageur's life; men whose heads werecool, and eyes sharp, and hands ready and powerful, in the mad whirl ofboiling rapids, in the sudden attack of wild beast and hostile man, orin the unexpected approach of any danger; men who, having been welltried, needed not to boast, and who, having carried off triumphantlytheir respective brides many years ago, needed not to decorate theirpersons with the absurd finery that characterised their youngerbrethren. They were comparatively few in number, but they composed asterling band, of which every man was a hero. Among them were those whooccupied the high positions of bowman and steersman, and when we tellthe reader that on these two men frequently hangs the safety of a boat,with all its crew and lading, it will be easily understood how needfulit is that they should be men of iron nerve and strength of mind.
Boat-travelling in those regions is conducted in a way that wouldastonish most people who dwell in the civilised quarters of the globe.The country being intersected in all directions by great lakes andrivers, these have been adopted as the most convenient highways alongwhich to convey the supplies and bring back the furs from outposts.Rivers in America, however, as in other parts of the world, aredistinguished by sudden ebullitions and turbulent points
of character,in the shape of rapids, falls, and cataracts, up and down which neithermen nor boats can by any possibility go with impunity; consequently, onarriving at such obstructions, the cargoes are carried overland tonavigable water above or below the falls (as the case may be), then theboats are dragged over and launched, again reloaded, and the travellersproceed. This operation is called "making a portage;" and as theseportages vary from twelve yards to twelve miles in length, it may bereadily conceived that a voyageur's life is not an easy one by anymeans.
This, however, is only one of his difficulties. Rapids occur which arenot so dangerous as to make a "portage" necessary, but are sufficientlyturbulent to render the descent of them perilous. In such cases, theboats, being lightened of part of their cargo, are ran down, andfrequently they descend with full cargoes and crews. It is then thatthe whole management of each boat devolves upon its bowman andsteersman. The rest of the crew, or _middlemen_ as they are called,merely sit still and look on, or give a stroke with their oars ifrequired; while the steersman, with powerful sweeps of his heavy oar,directs the flying boat as it bounds from surge to surge like a thing oflife; and the bowman stands erect in front to assist in directing hiscomrade at the stern, having a strong and long pole in his hands, withwhich, ever and anon, he violently forces the boat's head away fromsunken rocks, against which it might otherwise strike and be stove in,capsized, or seriously damaged.
Besides the groups already enumerated, there were one or two others,composed of grave, elderly men, whose wrinkled brows, grey hairs, andslow, quiet step showed that the strength of their days was past;although their upright figures and warm, brown complexions gave promiseof their living to see many summers still. These were the principalsteersmen and old guides--men of renown, to whom the others bowed asoracles or looked up to as fathers; men whose youth and manhood had beenspent in roaming the trackless wilderness, and who were, therefore,eminently qualified to guide brigades through the length and breadth ofthe land; men whose power of threading their way among the perplexingintricacies of the forest had become a second nature, a kind ofinstinct, that was as sure of attaining its end as the instinct of thefeathered tribes, which brings the swallow, after a long absence, withunerring certainty back to its former haunts again in spring.