Beside the stunted pines already mentioned, there are some tufts of dwarf willows; plenty of Wishacumpuckey, (as the English call it, and which they use as tea); some jackasheypuck, which the natives use as tobacco; and a few cranberry and heathberry bushes; but not the least appearance of any fruit.
The woods grow gradually thinner and smaller as you approach the sea; and the last little tuft of pines that I saw is about thirty miles from the mouth of the river, so that we meet with nothing between that spot and the seaside but barren hills and marshes.
The general course of the river is about North by East; but in some places it is very crooked, and its breadth varies from twenty yards to four or five hundred. The banks are in general a solid rock, both sides of which correspond so exactly with each other, as to leave no doubt that the channel of the river has been caused by some terrible convulsion of nature; and the stream is supplied by a variety of little rivulets, that rush down the sides of the hills, occasioned chiefly by the melting of the snow. Some of the Indians say, that this river takes its rise from the North West side of Large White Stone Lake, which is at the distance of near three hundred miles on a straight line; but I can scarcely think that is the case, unless there be many intervening lakes, which are supplied by the vast quantity of water that is collected in so great an extent of hilly and mountainous country: for were it otherwise, I should imagine that the multitude of small rivers, which must empty themselves into the main stream in the course of so great a distance, would have formed a much deeper and stronger current than I discovered, and occasioned an annual deluge at the breaking up of the ice in the Spring, of which there was not the least appearance, except at Bloody Fall, where the river was contracted to the breadth of about twenty yards. It was at the foot of this fall that my Indians killed the Esquimaux; which was the reason why I distinguished it by that appellation. From this fall, which is about eight miles from the sea-side, there are very few hills, and those not high. The land between them is a stiff loam and clay, which, in some parts, produces patches of pretty good grass, and in others tallish dwarf willows: at the foot of the hills also there is plenty of fine scurvy-grass.
The Esquimaux at this river are but low in stature, none exceeding the middle size, and though broad set, are neither well-made nor strong bodied. Their complexion is of a dirty copper colour; some of the women, however, are more fair and ruddy. Their dress much resembles that of the Greenlanders in Davis’s Straits, except the women’s boots, which are not stiffened out with whalebone, and the tails of their jackets are not more than a foot long.
Their arms and fishing-tackle are bows and arrows, spears, lances, darts, etc. which exactly resemble those made use of by the Esquimaux in Hudson’s Straits, and which have been well described by Crantz;(4) but, for want of good edge-tools, are far inferior to them in workmanship. Their arrows are either shod with a triangular piece of black stone, like slate, or a piece of copper; but most commonly the former.
The body of their canoes is on the same construction as that of the other Esquimaux, and there is no unnecessary prow-projection beyond the body of the vessel; these, like their arms and other utensils, are, for the want of better tools, by no means so neat as those I have seen in Hudson’s Bay and Straits. The double-bladed paddle is in universal use among all the tribes of this people.
Their tents are made of parchment deer-skins in the hair, and are pitched in a circular form, the same as those of the Esquimaux in Hudson’s Bay. These tents are undoubtedly no more than their Summer habitations, for I saw the remains of two miserable hovels, which, from the situation, the structure, and the vast quantity of bones, old shoes, scraps of skins, and other rubbish lying near them, had certainly been some of their Winter retreats. These houses were situated on the South side of a hill; one half of them were under-ground, and the upper parts closely set round with poles, meeting at the top in a conical form, like their Summer-houses or tents. These tents, when inhabited, had undoubtedly been covered with skins; and in Winter entirely overspread with the snow-drift, which must have greatly contributed to their warmth. They were so small, that they did not contain more than six or eight persons each; and even that number of any other people would have found them but miserable habitations.
Their household furniture chiefly consists of stone kettles, and wooden troughs of various sizes; also dishes, scoops, and spoons, made of the buffalo or musk-ox horns. Their kettles are formed of a pepper and salt coloured stone; and though the texture appears to be very coarse, and as porous as a drip-stone, yet they are perfectly tight, and will sound as clear as a China bowl. Some of those kettles are so large as to be capable of containing five or six gallons; and though it is impossible these poor people can perform this arduous work with any other tools than harder stones, yet they are by far superior to any that I had ever seen in Hudson’s Bay; every one of them being ornamented with neat mouldings round the rim, and some of the large ones with a kind of flute-work at each corner. In shape they were a long square, something wider at the top than bottom, like a knife-tray, and strong handles of the solid stone were left at each end to lift them up.
Their hatchets are made of a thick lump of copper, about five or six inches long, and from one and a half to two inches square; they are bevelled away at one end like a mortice-chissel. This is lashed into the end of a piece of wood about twelve or fourteen inches long, in such a manner as to act like an adze: in general they are applied to the wood like a chisel, and driven in with a heavy club, instead of a mallet. Neither the weight of the tool nor the sharpness of the metal will admit of their being handled either as adze or axe, with any degree of success.
The men’s bayonets and women’s knives are also made of copper; the former are in shape like the ace of spades, with the handle of deers horn a foot long, and the latter exactly resemble those described by Crantz. Samples of both these implements I formerly sent home to James Fitzgerald, Esq. then one of the Hudson’s Bay Committee.
Among all the spoils of the twelve tents which my companions plundered, only two small pieces of iron were found; one of which was about an inch and a half long, and three eighths of an inch broad, made into a woman’s knife; the other was barely an inch long, and a quarter of an inch wide. This last was riveted into a piece of ivory, so as to form a man’s knife, known in Hudson’s Bay by the name of Mokeatoggan, and is the only instrument used by them in shaping all their woodwork.
Those people had a fine and numerous breed of dogs, with sharp erect ears, sharp noses, bushy tails, etc. exactly like those seen among the Esquimaux in Hudson’s Bay and Straits. They were all tethered to stones, to prevent them, as I suppose, from eating the fish that were spread all over the rocks to dry. I do not recollect that my companions killed or hurt one of those animals; but after we had left the tents, they often wished they had taken some of those fine dogs with them.
Though the dress, canoes, utensils, and many other articles belonging to these people, are very similar to those of Hudson’s Bay, yet there is one custom that prevails among them—namely, that of the men having all the hair of their heads pulled out by the roots—which pronounces them to be of a different tribe from any hitherto seen either on the coast of Labradore, Hudson’s Bay, or Davis’s Straits. The women wore their hair at full length, and exactly in the same stile as all the other Esquimaux women do whom I have seen.
When at the sea-side, (at the mouth of the Copper River,) besides seeing many seals on the ice, I also observed several flocks of sea-fowl flying about the shores; such as, gulls, black-heads, loons, old wives, ha-ha-wie’s, dunter geese, arctic gulls, and willicks. In the adjacent ponds also were some swans and geese in a moulting state, and in the marshes some curlews and plover; plenty of hawks-eyes, (i.e. the green plover,) and some yellow-legs; also several other small birds, that visit those Northern parts in the Spring to breed and moult, and which doubtless return Southward as the fall advances. My reason for this conjecture is founded on a certain knowledge that all those bir
ds migrate in Hudson’s Bay; and it is but reasonable to think that they are less capable of withstanding the rigour of such a long and cold Winter as they must necessarily experience in a country which is so many degrees within the Arctic Circle, as that is where I now saw them.
That the musk-oxen, deer, bears, wolves, wolvarines, foxes, Alpine hares, white owls, ravens, partridges, ground-squirrels, common squirrels, ermines, mice, etc. are the constant inhabitants of those parts, is not to be doubted. In many places, by the sides of the hills, where the snow lay to a great depth, the dung of the musk-oxen and deer was lying in such long and continued heaps, as clearly to point out that those places had been their much-frequented paths during the preceding Winter. There were also many other similar appearances on the hills, and other parts, where the snow was entirely thawed away, without any print of a foot being visible in the moss; which is a certain proof that these long ridges of dung must have been dropped in the snow as the beasts were passing and repassing over it in the Winter. There are likewise similar proofs that the Alpine hare and the partridge do not migrate, but remain there the whole year: the latter we found in considerable flocks among the tufts of willows which grow near the sea.
It is perhaps not generally known, even to the curious, therefore may not be unworthy of observation, that the dung of the musk-ox, though so large an animal, is not larger, and at the same time so near the shape and colour of that of the Alpine hare, that the difference is not easily distinguished but by the natives, though in general the quantity may lead to a discovery of the animal to which it belongs.
I did not see any birds peculiar to those parts, except what the Copper Indians call the “Alarm Bird,” or “Bird of Warning.” In size and colour it resembles a Cobadekoock, and is of the owl genus. The name is said to be well adapted to its qualities; for when it perceives any people, or beast, it directs its way towards them immediately, and after hovering over them some time, flies round them in circles, or goes a-head in the same direction in which they walk. They repeat their visits frequently; and if they see any other moving objects, fly alternately from one party o the other, hover over them for some time, and make a loud screaming noise, like the crying of a child. In this manner they are said sometimes to follow passengers a whole day. The Copper Indians put great confidence in those birds, and say they are frequently apprized by them of the approach of strangers, and conducted by them to herds of deer and musk-oxen; which, without their assistance, in all probability, they never could have found.
The Esquimaux seem not to have imbibed the same opinion of those birds; for if they had, they must have been apprized of our approach toward their tents, because all the time the Indians lay in ambush, (before they began the massacre,) a large flock of those birds were continually flying about, and hovering alternately over them and the tents, making a noise sufficient to awaken any man out the soundest sleep.
After a sleep of five or six hours we once more set out, and walked eighteen or nineteen miles to the South South East, when we arrived at one of the copper mines, which lies, from the river’s mouth about South South East, distant about twenty-nine or thirty miles.
This mine, if it deserve that appellation, is no more than an entire jumble of rocks and gravel, which has been rent many ways by an earthquake. Through these ruins there runs a small river; but no part of it, at the time I was there, was more than knee-deep.
The Indians who were the occasion of my undertaking this journey, represented this mine to be so rich and valuable, that if a factory were built at the river, a ship might be ballasted with the ore, instead of stone; and that with the same ease and dispatch as is done with stones at Churchill River. By their account the hills were entirely composed of that metal, all in handy lumps, like a heap of pebbles. But their account differed so much from the truth, that I and almost all my companions expended near four hours in search of some of this metal, with such poor success, that among us all, only one piece of any size could be found. This, however, was remarkably good, and weighed above four pounds.(5) I believe the copper has formerly been in much greater plenty; for in many places, both on the surface and in the cavities and crevices of the rocks, the stones are much tinged with verdigrise.
It may not be unworthy the notice of the curious, or undeserving a place in my Journal, to remark, that the Indians imagine that every bit of copper they find resembles some object in nature; but by what I saw of the large piece, and some smaller ones which were found by my companions, it requires a great share of invention to make this out. I found that different people had different ideas on the subject, for the large piece of copper above mentioned had not been found long before it had twenty different names. One saying that it resembled this animal, and another that it represented a particular part of another; at last it was generally allowed to resemble an Alpine hare couchant: for my part, I must confess that I could not see it had the least resemblance to any thing to which they compared it. It would be endless to enumerate the different parts of a deer, and other animals, which the Indians say the best pieces of copper resemble: it may therefore be sufficient to say, that the largest pieces, with the fewest branches and the least dross, are the best for their use; as by the help of fire, and two stones, they can beat it out to any shape they wish.
Before Churchill River was settled by the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was not more than fifty years previous to this journey being undertaken, the Northern Indians had no other metal but copper among them, except a small quantity of iron-work, which a party of them who visited York Fort about the year one thousand seven hundred and thirteen, or one thousand seven hundred and fourteen, purchased; and a few pieces of old iron found at Churchill River, which had undoubtedly been left there by Captain Monk. This being the case, numbers of them from all quarters used every Summer to resort to these hills in search of copper; of which they made hatchets, ice-chissels, bayonets, knives, awls, arrow-heads, etc.(6) The many paths that had been beaten by the Indians on these occasions, and which are yet, in many places, very perfect, especially on the dry ridges and hills, is surprising; in the vallies and marshy grounds, however, they are mostly grown over with herbage, so as not to be discerned.
The Copper Indians set a great value on their native metal even to this day; and prefer it to iron, for almost every use except that of a hatchet, a knife, and an awl: for these three necessary implements, copper makes but a very poor substitute. When they exchange copper for iron-work with our trading Northern Indians, which is but seldom, the standard is an ice-chissel of copper for an ice-chissel of iron, or an ice-chissel and a few arrowheads of copper, for a half-worn hatchet; but when they barter furrs with out Indians, the established rule is to give ten times the price for every thing they purchase that is given for them at the Company’s Factory. Thus, a hatchet that is bought at the Factory for one beaver-skin, or one cat-skin, or three ordinary martins’ skins, is sold to those people at the advanced price of one thousand percent; they also pay in proportion, for knives, and every other smaller piece of iron-work. For a small brass kettle of two pounds, or two pounds and a half weight, they pay sixty martins, or twenty beaver in other kinds of furrs.(7) If the kettles are not bruised, or ill-used in any other respect, the Northern traders have the conscience at times to exact something more. It is at this extravagant price that all the Copper and Dog-ribbed Indians, who traffic with our yearly traders, supply themselves with iron-work, etc.
From those two tribes our Northern Indians used formerly to purchase most of the furrs they brought to the Company’s Factory; for their own country produced very few of those articles, and being, at that time, at war with the Southern Indians, they were prevented from penetrating far enough backwards to meet with many animals of the furr kind; so that deer-skins, and such furrs as they could extort from the Copper and Dog-ribbed Indians, composed the whole of their trade; which, on an average of many years, and indeed till very lately, seldom or ever exceeded six thousand Made Beaver per annum.
At
present happy it is for them, and greatly to the advantage of the Company, that they are in perfect peace, and live in friendship with their Southern neighbours. The good effect of this harmony is already so visible, that within a few years the trade from that quarter has increased many thousands of Made Beaver annually; some years even to the amount of eleven thousand skins.(8) Beside the advantage arising to the Company from this increase, the poor Northern Indians reap innumerable benefits from a fine and plentiful country, with the produce of which they annually load themselves for trade, without giving the least offence to the proper inhabitants.
Several attempts have been made to induce the Copper and Dog-ribbed Indians to visit the Company’s Fort at Churchill River, and for that purpose many presents have been sent, but they never were attended with any success. And though several of the Copper Indians have visited Churchill, in the capacity of servants to the Northern Indians, and were generally sent back loaded with presents for their countrymen, yet the Northern Indians always plundered them of the whole soon after they left the Fort. This kind of treatment, added to the many inconveniences that attend so long a journey, are great obstacles in their way; otherwise it would be as possible for them to bring their own goods to market, as for the Northern Indians to go so far to purchase them on their own account, and have the same distance to bring them as the first proprietors would have had. But it is a political scheme of our Northern traders to prevent such an intercourse, as it would greatly lessen their consequence and emolument. Superstition, indeed, will, in all probability, be a lasting barrier against those people ever having a settled communication with our Factory; as few of them choose to travel in countries so remote from their own, under a pretence that the change of air and provisions (though exactly the same to which they are accustomed) are highly prejudicial to their health; and that not one out of three of those who have undertaken the journey, have ever lived to return. The first of these reasons is evidently no more than gross superstition; and though the later is but too true, it has always been owing to the treachery and cruelty of the Northern Indians, who took them under their protection.
A Journey to the Northern Ocean Page 16
