Ungava

While the party in the hall were enjoying their evening meal, the men were similarly employed beside the stove in their own habitation. There was not much difference in the two apartments, save that the confusion in that of the men was much greater, in consequence of the miscellaneous mass of capotes, caps, belts, discarded moccasins, axes, guns, and seal-spears, with which they saw fit to garnish the walls. The fumes of tobacco were also more dense, and the conversation more uproarious.

“’Tis a howlin’ night,” observed Massan, as a gust of more than usual violence shook the door on its hinges.

“Me t’ink de snow-drift am as t’ick in de sky as on de ground,” said Oolibuck, drawing a live coal from the fire and lighting his pipe therewith.

“Hould on, boys!” cried Bryan, seizing his chair with both hands, half in jest and half in earnest, as another blast shook the building to its foundation.

The two Indians sat like statues of bronze, smoking their calumets in silence, while Gaspard and Prince rose and went to the window. But the frozen moisture on the panes effectually prevented their seeing out.

It was indeed an awful night—such a night as had not, until now, visited the precincts of Fort Chimo. Viewed from the rocky platform on the hill, the raging of the storm was absolutely sublime. The wind came sometimes in short, angry gusts, sometimes in prolonged roars, through the narrows, sweeping up clouds of snow so dense that it seemed as though the entire mass had been uplifted from the earth, hurling it upwards and downwards and in circling eddies, past the ravines, and round the fort, and launching it with a fierce yell into the valley of the Caniapuscaw. The sky was not altogether covered with clouds, and the broken masses, as they rolled along, permitted a stray moonbeam to dart down upon the turmoil beneath, and render darkness visible. Sometimes the wind lulled for a second or two, as if to breathe; then it burst forth again, splitting through the mountain gorges with a shriek of intensity; the columns of snow sprang in thousands from every hollow, cliff and glen, mingled in wild confusion, swayed, now hither, now thither, in mad uncertainty, and then, caught by the steady gale, pelted on, like the charging troops of ice-land, and swept across the frozen plain.

Could human beings face so wild a storm as this? Ay, they could—at least they could dare to try!

There was one traveller out upon the hills on that tremendous night. The giant was in the midst of it; but weak as the bulrush were the mighty limbs of Maximus before the rushing gale. Several days previous to this the Esquimau had been sent down to his brethren at False River, to procure some seal-meat for the dogs, and to ascertain the condition of the natives and their success in fishing. On arriving, he found that they had been so far successful, that starvation (their too frequent guest) had not yet visited their dwellings of snow. But Maximus found the old woman who had formerly saved his life very ill, and apparently about to die. Having learned from experience the efficacy of Stanley’s medicines, he resolved to procure some for the old woman, whom he had tenderly watched over and hunted for ever since the eventful day of the attack. His dogs were exhausted, and could not return. But the bold Esquimau was in the prime of life, and animated by the fire of vigorous youth. The storm was beginning to mutter in the distance. What then?—Had he not faced the blasts of the frozen regions many a time before?—Without saying a word, he threw a junk of seal-flesh into his wallet, and, striding back upon his track at the mountain’s base, he disappeared in the driving snow.

Before reaching the fort, however, the full fury of the storm had burst upon him. It cast him headlong into the snow; but he rose and staggered on. Again it burst forth, and again he fell before it like a stately pine. Rising to his knees, Maximus draw the hood of his hairy garment close round his head and face, and tried to peer through the driving snow; but he could not see until a slight lull came; then he observed a hummock of ice at a short distance, and, rising, made towards it. The lulls were short-lived, however. The storm threw him down again; instantly he was drifted over with snow; another blast came, lifted the drift into the air, and left the Esquimau exposed to all its fury. But Maximus was not conquered. He rose again, panting, it is true, but sturdy as ever, and ready to take advantage of the next lull. It came soon; and he saw a rock, or, it might be, the base of a cliff close at hand. With a quick run he reached it; and, going down on his knees, began with his gloved hands to scrape a hollow in the snow. Having made a hole big enough to contain his body, he lay down in it, and, pulling the superincumbent snow down upon him, was almost buried in the ruin. Scarcely had he drawn the hood of his coat well over his face, when another burst of the storm dashed a column of curling drift upon the rock, and the place where he lay was covered up; not a wrinkle in the drift remained to mark the spot where he was buried!

All that night the storm roared among mountains with bitter fury; but next day the wind was subdued, and the sun shone brightly on the grey rocks and on the white wreaths of snow. It shone in all the lustre of an unclouded winter sky. Not only did the sun smile upon the scene, but two mock suns or parhelia, almost as bright as himself, shone on either side of him. Yet no ray of light illuminated the dwellings of the fur-traders. All was darkness there, until Stanley rose from his couch and lighted a candle, for the purpose of examining his watch.

“Hallo! Frank, Frank!” he cried, entering the hall, while he hastily threw on his garments; “turn out, man; there’s something wrong here. ’Tis past noon, and dark as midnight. Bring your watch; perhaps I’m wrong.”

Frank yawned vociferously, and sprang from his bed. In two seconds more he made his appearance in his trousers and shirt.

“Past twelve, no doubt of – yea-o-ow! That accounts for my waking three times and going off again; but—”

“Hey! what have we here?” cried Stanley, as he opened the front door, and disclosed to view a solid wall of snow.

“Snowed up; dear me! eh! that’s odd,” said Frank, beginning to comprehend the state of matters.

Snowed up they were, undoubtedly; so thoroughly snowed up that there was not a ray of daylight within their dwelling. Had Frank been above the snow, instead of below it, he would have seen that the whole fort was so completely buried that nothing was visible above the surface except the chimneys and the flagstaff. After the first few moments of surprise had passed, it occurred to Stanley that they might ascend to the regions above by the chimney, which was wide enough, he thought, to admit a man; but on looking up, he found that it also was full of drifted snow. This, however, could have been easily removed; but there was a bar of iron stretching across, and built into the clay walls, which rendered escape by that passage impossible.

“There’s nothing for it, Frank, but to dig ourselves out, so the sooner we begin the better.”

By this time they were joined by Edith and her mother, who, although much surprised, were not at all alarmed; for rough travelling in a wild land had taught them to regard nothing as being dangerous until it was proved to be so. Besides, Stanley had assured them that they had nothing to fear, as the only evil he anticipated would be the trouble they were sure to have in getting rid of the superabundant snow. While they were talking, the back door was opened violently, and La Roche, in a state of dishabille, burst into the room.

“O messieurs, c’est fini! Oui, le world him shut up tout togedder. Oh, misere! Fat shall ye to do?”

“Hold your tongue, La Roche,” said Frank, “and bring the kitchen shovel.”

The cook instantly turned to obey, and as he rushed towards the kitchen his voice was heard exclaiming in the passage—

“Ah, c’est terrible! Mais I ver’ moshe fear de shovel be out in de neige. Ah, non; here it is. C’est bien.”

Returning in haste to the hall, he handed a much dilapidated iron shovel to Frank, who threw off his coat and set to work with vigour. The tables and chairs, and all the furniture, were removed into the inner apartments, in order to afford room for the snow which Frank dug from the open doorway and shovelled into the centre of the room. As only one at a time could work in the narrow doorway, the three men wrought with the shovel by turns; and while one was digging the tunnel, the other two piled the débris in a compact mound beside the stove. As no fire had yet been kindled, the snow, of course, did not melt, but remained crisp and dry upon the floor. Meanwhile Edith looked on with deep interest, and occasionally assisted in piling the snow; while her mother, seeing that her presence was unnecessary, retired to her own room.

“There,” cried Frank, pausing and surveying an immense cavern which he had dug into the drift, “that’s a good spell. Take a turn now, La Roche, and dig upwards; we should see daylight soon.”

“Ah, vraiment, it be time, for it am von o’clock,” replied La Roche, as he plied the shovel.

The tunnel was cut in such a way as that, while it ran outwards, it also sloped upwards; and, from the angle at which it lay, Stanley calculated that thirty feet or thereabouts would bring them to the surface. In this he was correct, for when La Roche had worked for half an hour, the snow above became slightly luminous. But the labour of conveying it from the end of the tunnel into the hall became, of course, greater as the work advanced. At length the light penetrated so clearly that La Roche was induced to thrust his shovel upwards, in the expectation of penetrating the mass. The effect of this action was striking and unexpected. Instantly the roof fell in, and a flood of sunshine poured into the tunnel, revealing the luckless Frenchman struggling amid the ruins.

“Oh, pull me hout!” he spluttered, as Frank and Stanley stood laughing heartily at his misfortune. One of his legs happened to protrude from the mass as he made this earnest request; so Frank seized it, and dragged the poor man by main force from his uncomfortable position. Immediately afterwards they all three scrambled through the aperture, and stood in open day.

The sight that met their eyes was a curious though not a satisfactory one. All that remained visible of Fort Chimo were, as we have said, the chimneys and the flagstaff. In regard to the general aspect of the neighbourhood, however, there was little alteration; for the change of position in the drifts among the mountain gorges, and the addition to their bulk, made no striking alteration in the rugged landscape. In some places the gale had cleared the sides of the mountains and left their cliffs exposed to view; in other spots the gorges and ravines were choked up, and the pine tops nearly covered; and the open water in the lake was more encumbered than usual with icebergs.

“Now, La Roche,” said Stanley, after they had surveyed the desolate scene for a few minutes in silence, “go fetch the shovel and we’ll dig out the men. I daresay, poor fellows, they’re beginning to wonder at the length of the night by this time.”

La Roche prepared to descend into the tunnel, when their attention was arrested by a strange sound beneath the snow. In a few minutes the crust began to crack at a spot not more than two yards from where they stood; then there was a sudden rupture, accompanied by a growl, and followed by the appearance of the dishevelled head and arms of a man.

“Musha, boys, but I’m out!” Bryan coughed the snow from around his mouth, and winked it from his eyes, as he spoke. The first sight that met his bewildered gaze was three pair of expanded eyeballs and three double rows of grinning teeth, a few feet from his face. Uttering a cry of terror, he fell back into the hole, the snow closed over him, and he was gone!

It need scarcely be added that Frank and Stanley commenced to dig into this hole with as much vigour as their frequent explosions of laughter would allow. In a few minutes it was re-opened, and the men issued one by one from durance vile.

“Och, sirs, ye gave me a mortial start!” exclaimed Bryan, as he rose to view the second time. “I thought for sartin ye were all polar bears. Faix we’ve had a job o’t down there. I’ll be bound to say there’s twinty ton o’ snow—bad luck to it—in the middle o’ the floor.”

“There’s work for us here that’ll last two weeks, I guess,” said Massan, as he and several of the others stooped down and gazed into the tunnel leading to the hall, at the end of which Edith’s laughing face met their view.

“When did you awake, and begin to suspect that something was wrong?” inquired Stanley of Dick Prince.

“Awake!” cried Bryan, answering the question; “we awoke at laste a dozen times. I suppose it must have bin the time for brikfust; for, ye see, although we could ha’ slept on long enough; our intariors couldn’t, be no manes, forgit their needcessities.”

“We shall have to work a bit yet ere these necessities are attended to, I fear,” said Stanley. “Go, François, and one or two of you, and open up the dog-kennel. The rest of you get all the shovels you can lay hands on, and clear out the houses as fast as you can.”

“Clear out de chimbleys fust, mes garçons,” cried La Roche, looking up from the tunnel. “Den ve vill git dejeuner ready toute suite.”

“That will we, lad,” said Bryan, shouldering a spade and proceeding towards the chimney of the hall; while the rest of the party, breaking up into several groups, set to work, with spades, shovels, and such implements as were suitable, to cut passages through the square of the fort towards the doors of the several buildings. As Massan had said, it proved to be no light work. The north-west gale had launched the snow upon the exposed buildings of Fort Chimo until the drift was fifteen or sixteen feet deep, so that the mere cutting of passages was a matter of considerable time and severe labour.

Meanwhile, Maximus awoke, and sought to raise himself from his lair at the foot of the rock. But his first effort failed. The drift above him was too heavy. Abandoning, therefore, the idea of freeing himself by main force, he turned round on his side and began to scrape away the snow that was directly above his head. The masses that accumulated in the course of this process he forced down past his chest; and, as his motions tended to compress and crush the drift around him in all directions, he soon made room enough to work with ease. In ten minutes he approached so near to the surface as to be able, with a powerful effort, to burst it upwards, and step out of his strange dormitory into the sunshine.

This method of spending the night has been resorted to more than once by arctic travellers who had lost their way; and it is sad to think that many who have perished might have saved their lives had they known that burrowing could be practised with safety. The Esquimaux frequently spend the night in this manner, but they prefer building a snow-house to burrowing, if circumstances will permit.

Cutting a slice of seal-meat, and eating as he went, Maximus resumed his journey, and soon afterwards arrived at the fort, where he found the men busied in excavating their buried dwellings.

Here he stated the case of the old woman, and received such medicines as Stanley, in his amateur medical wisdom, saw fit to bestow. With these he started immediately to retrace his steps, having been directed to proceed, after administering them, to the lake where Frank meant to try the fishing under the ice. A family of Esquimaux had been established on another lake not so far distant from the fort; and having been taught by the fur-traders how to set nets under the ice, they succeeded in procuring more than enough for their subsistence. It was hoped, therefore, that the larger lake would afford a good supply; and, the weather having become decidedly fine, Frank prepared to set out on the following day.

Chapter Twenty Six.

An excursion—Igloo building, and fishing under the ice—A snow-table and a good feast—Edith spends the night under a snow-roof for the first but not the last time

“Now then, Edith,” cried Frank, looking in at the door of the hall, “your carriage waits, and Chimo is very restive.”

“Coming, coming,” exclaimed a treble voice within; “I’m getting new lines put to my snow-shoes, and will be ready in two minutes.”

Two minutes, translated into female language, means ten, sometimes twenty. Frank knew this, and proceeded to re-adjust the sash that secured his leathern capote, as he walked towards the little sledge in front of the fort. He then tied down the ear-pieces of his fur cap more carefully, for it was very cold, though clear and sunny. The frost had set fast the lake opposite the fort, and, by thus removing the frost-cloud that overhung the open water farther out to sea, relieved the fort from the mists in which it was usually enveloped. By this time fifteen out of the “two” minutes having elapsed, he re-examined the lock of his gun, and adjusted the warm deerskin robe on Edith’s little sledge, patted Chimo on the head, looked up at the clouds, and began to whistle.

“Now, Frank, here I am,” cried Edith, running towards him with her snow-shoes in her hand, followed by her father and mother.

“Quiet, Chimo—down, sir!” said Frank, restraining the dog as it sought to bound towards its mistress. Being harnessed to the sledge, this was a very improper proceeding and was rebuked accordingly; so Chimo was fain to crouch on the snow and look back at Edith as Frank placed her in the sledge, and arranged the deerskin robes round her.

Edith wore a long fur cloak and cloth leggings. Her feet were protected from the cold by two pair of blanket socks, besides very thick moccasins of deerskin. The usual head-dress of civilised females in these regions is a round fur cap; but Edith had a peculiar affection for the Cree Indian headdress, and, upon the present occasion, wore one which was lined with fur and accommodated with ear-pieces, to defy the winter cold. The child’s general appearance was somewhat rotund. Painters would probably have said there was a little too much breadth, perhaps, in the picture. Her pointed cap, however, with the little bow of ribbon on the top, gave her a piquant air, and did away with the heavy appearance of her costume to some extent; in fact, Edith looked like a fat little witch. But if she looked fat before being wrapped up in the sledge furs, she looked infinitely fatter when thus placed, and nothing of her visible except her two twinkling eyes. So grotesque was she that the whole party burst into a loud laugh as they surveyed her. The laugh made Chimo start off at full gallop, which caused Frank to grasp the line of the sledge that trailed behind, and hurry over the snow at a most undignified pace.

“Take care of her,” cried Mr Stanley.

“Ay, ay,” shouted Frank.—“Softly, Chimo—softly, you rascal!”

In ten minutes the travellers were round the point and fairly out of sight; but the shouts of Frank, and an occasional howl from Chimo, floated back on the breeze as Stanley and his wife returned leisurely to the hall.

The road, or rather the ground, over which Frank Morton drove Edith that day was exceedingly rough and rugged—so rough that we will not try the endurance of the reader by dragging him over it. We will merely indicate its general features. First of all, they drove about three miles along the level snow at the foot of the mountains. So far the road was good; and Chimo went along merrily to the music of the little thimble-like brass bells with which his harness was garnished. Then they came to a ravine, and Edith had to get out, put on her snow-shoes, and clamber up, holding by Frank’s hand; while Chimo followed, dragging the sledge as he best could. Having gained one of the terraces, Edith slipped her feet out of the snow-shoe lines, jumped into the sledge, and was swept along to the next ravine, where she got out again, resumed her snow-shoes, and ascended as before. Thus they went up the ravines and along the terraces until the summit of the first mountain range was reached. Having rested here a few minutes, Edith once more got into the sledge, and Chimo set off. But as there was now a long piece of level ground over which for some miles they could travel in the direction of the coast, Frank took the sled-line in his hand, and held the dog at a quick walking pace. Afterwards they turned a little farther inland, and came into a more broken country, where they had sometimes to mount and sometimes to descend the hills. There were many gorges and narrow fissures in the ground here, some of which were covered over and so concealed with snow that the travellers ran some risk of falling into them. Indeed, at one place, so narrow was their escape that Chimo fell through the crust of snow, and disappeared into a fissure which descended a hundred feet sheer down; and the sledge would certainly have followed had not Frank held it back by the line; and Chimo was not hauled up again without great difficulty. After this, Frank went in front with a pole, and sounded the snow in dangerous-looking places as he went along.

Towards the afternoon they arrived at the lake where they intended to encamp, and, to their great delight, found Maximus there already. He had only arrived a few minutes before them, and was just going to commence the erection of a snow-house.

“Glad to see you, Maximus,” cried Frank, as he drove up. “How’s the old woman, eh?”

“She small better,” replied Maximus, assisting Edith to alight. “Dis goot for fish.”

Maximus was a remarkably intelligent man, and, although his residence at the fort had been of short duration as yet, he had picked up a few words of English.

“A good lake, I have no doubt,” replied Frank, looking round. “But we need not search for camping ground. There seems to be very little wood, so you may as well build our hut on the ice. We shall need all our time, as the sun has not long to run.”

The lake, on the edge of which they stood, was about a mile in circumferenee, and lay in a sort of natural basin formed by savage-looking hills, in which the ravines were little more than narrow fissures, entirely devoid of trees. Snow encompassed and buried everything, so that nothing was to be seen except, here and there, crags and cliffs of gray rock, which were too precipitous for the snow to rest on.

“Now, Eda, I will take a look among these rocks for a ptarmigan for supper; so you can amuse yourself watching Maximus build our house till I return.”

“Very well, Frank,” said Edith; “but don’t be long. Come back before dark; Chimo and I will weary for you.”

In a few minutes Frank disappeared among the rocks upon the shore; and Maximus, taking Edith by the hand, and dragging her sledge after him, led her a couple of hundred yards out on to the ice, or, more properly speaking, the hard beaten snow with which the ice was covered. Chimo had been turned loose, and, being rather tired after his journey, had coiled himself up on a mound of snow and fallen fast asleep.

“Dis place for house,” said Maximus, pausing near a smooth, level part of the lake. “You stop look to me,” he added, turning to the little girl, who gazed up in his large face with an expression half of wonder and half of fun. “When you cold, run; when you hot, sit in sled and look at me.”

In compliance with this request, Edith sat down in her sledge, and from this comfortable point of view watched the Esquimau while he built a snow-hut before her.

First of all, he drew out a long iron knife, which had been constructed specially far him by Bryan, who looked upon the giant with special favour. With the point of this he drew a circle of about seven feet in diameter; and so well accustomed was he to this operation that his circle, we believe, could not have been mended even by a pair of compasses. Two feet to one side of this circle he drew a smaller one, of about four feet in diameter. Next, he cut out of the snow a number of hard blocks, which were so tough that they could not be broken without a severe blow, but were as easily cut as you might have sliced a soft cheese with a sharp knife. These blocks he arranged round the large circle, and built them above each other, fashioning them, as he proceeded, in such a manner that they gradually rose into the form of a dome. The chinks between them he filled compactly with soft snow, and the last block, introduced into the top of the structure, was formed exactly on the principle of the key-stone of an arch. When the large dome was finished, he commenced the smaller; and in the course of two hours both the houses—or, as the Esquimaux call them, igloos—were completed.