We
did not propose to be boated around in a big birch-bark by two voyagers
among blankets and crackers and ham, but each provided himself a little
thirteen-foot cedar canoe, twenty-nine inches in the beam, and weighing
less than forty pounds. I cannot tell you precisely how our party was
sorted, but one was a lawyer with eyeglasses and settled habits, loving
nature, though detesting canoes; the other was nominally a merchant, but
in reality an atavie Norseman of the wolf and raven kind; while I am not
new. Together we started.
Presently the Abwees sat about the board of a lumbermen's hotel, filled
with house-flies and slatternly waiter-girls, who talked familiarly
while they served greasy food. The Abwees were yet sore in their minds
at the thoughts of the smelly beds up-stairs, and discouragement sat
deeply on their souls. But their time was not yet.
After breakfast they marched to the Hudson Bay Company's store, knowing
as they did that in Canada there are only two places for a traveller to
go who wants anything--the great company or the parish priest; and then,
having explained to the factor their dream, they were told "that beyond,
beyond some days' journey"--oh! that awful beyond, which for centuries
has stood across the path of the pioneer, and in these latter days
confronts the sportsman and wilderness-lover--"that beyond some days'
journey to the north was a country such as they had dreamed--up
Temis-camingue and beyond.
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