We were getting day by day farther into "the beyond." There were no
traces here of the hand of man. Only Jimmie knew the way--it was his
trapping-ground. Only once did we encounter people. We were blown into a
little board dock, on a gray day, with the waves piling up behind us,
and made a difficult landing. Here were a few tiny log houses--an
outpost of the Hudson Bay Company. We renewed our stock of provisions,
after laborious trading with the stagnated people who live in the lonely
place. There was nothing to sell us but a few of the most common
necessities; however, we needed only potatoes and sugar. This was
Jimmie's home. Here we saw his poor old mother, who was being tossed
about in the smallest of canoes as she drew her nets. Jimmie's father
had gone on a hunting expedition and had never come back. Some day
Jimmie's old mother will go out on the wild lake to tend her nets, and
she will not come back. Some time Jimmie too will not return--for this
Indian struggle with nature is appalling in its fierceness.
There was a dance at the post, which the boys attended, going by canoe
at night, and they came back early in the morning, with much giggling at
their gallantries.
The loneliness of this forest life is positively discouraging to think
about. What the long winters must be in the little cabins I cannot
imagine, and I fear the traders must be all avarice, or have none at
all; for there can certainly be absolutely no intellectual life.
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