by Farley Mowat
Marie had arranged the food with a generous hand, for the boys were to travel into a starvation area and they would need to carry all their supplies with them. In the wooden “grub box” Marie had packed salt, sugar, baking powder, lard, flour, tea and a can of honey, in addition to a big sack of dry meat.
In their packsacks they had spare socks, three extra pairs of moose-hide moccasins apiece, sweaters, spare shirts, six boxes of .30-30 shells each and a sewing kit. The twenty extra boxes of ammunition for Denikazi were packed in the bow.
For cooking equipment the boys carried an iron frying pan and an old sirup can, blackened by many fires, which could be used either as a tea can or “tea-billy,” as a stew-pot, or as a water pail. Matches were stored in three little glass bottles.
Even in midsummer, mornings in the northern forests can be cold, and so the boys were dressed in heavy canvas trousers, thick woolen shirts, and windbreakers of light canvas. On their feet they wore thick socks, rolled up over their trouser cuffs, and moose-hide moccasins slipped into ordinary black rubbers such as city dwellers wear over their shoes on rainy days.
The first yellow light of dawn was breaking as the boys and Denikazi’s men climbed silently into their canoes and the Crees pushed them away from shore. Despite the quiet, Jamie felt a thrill of anticipation as he took his place in the bow of the cedar canoe.
Marie called out some last-minute advice. Some of the Crees made joking remarks about the boys’ canoemanship. Then the Chipeweyans were leaning forward, their powerful arms driving their paddles deep into the still waters. Hurriedly Jamie and Awasin picked up the rhythm, and in a few moments the four canoes were slipping into the misty distances that stretched toward the north.
The Chipeweyans, skilled canoe men, and driven by the urgency of their mission, forged far ahead of the two boys. Wasting no breath on words, Jamie and Awasin paddled with all their strength, and despite the chill of the mist, sweat soon stood on their foreheads.
Jamie’s lips set stubbornly. “We’ve got to catch them,” he said grimly. “Let’s get going!”
Each boy paddled three strokes on one side of the canoe, then, flipping his paddle into the air, caught it and came down on the other side without missing a stroke. The frequent change of side meant that their muscles had no chance to grow strained in one position, and the steady rhythm of the motion made the work seem easier.
At first the canoes were gliding under the early morning shadow cast by the high banks of the lake. Toward noon they came abreast of a clearing that held the crumbled walls of an abandoned cabin. The Chipeweyan canoes swung out into the lake, giving the desolate place a wide berth.
The boys both knew the story of the deserted cabin. It had been built by a red-headed young Englishman as an outpost trading station. But for almost twenty years it had stood abandoned. No one knew for certain what happened to the young trader, but the Crees had a story that he had set out one winter to trade for white fox pelts with the Eskimos, and had never returned. The only memory of him was in this pile of rotted logs still called Red-Head Post.
“The Chipeweyans act as if they’re nervous of Red-Head Post,” Jamie commented as they paddled by.
Awasin was slow to answer. “Perhaps they know something about the trader’s disappearance that nobody else knows,” he replied. “They’re a queer people.”
Dusk was falling before the canoes reached the north end of the lake. This was where the boys would leave behind the lands they knew and enter the unknown wilderness.
The canoes nosed into a tiny sand beach where the Idthen Eldeli always began the long portage around the Kasmere Falls. It was too late that night to make the “carry,” so the campfires were lighted on the beach. The boys sat at Denikazi’s fire eating roast whitefish. When the meal was finished the Indian leader walked away without a word and rolled himself in his blankets.
The boys went back to their canoe, turned it over on the sand, and crawled underneath. They pulled the blankets up about their faces to keep the mosquitoes away. The distant quaver of a wolf drifted through the darkness but the boys did not hear, for they were already asleep.
Long before dawn they were awake again. Denikazi was in such a driving hurry to reach his own camps that he begrudged every moment wasted on the way. There was no breakfast—only a handful of dry meat to chew as the men and boys began the long portage.
Jamie volunteered to carry the canoe, but before he had gone a mile he repented his eagerness. The route was an obstacle course, strewn with fire-felled logs and swampy muskeg holes. With the canoe balanced on his back, he leaped from log to log and from hummock to hummock. To make things worse a plague of black flies attacked them.
Awasin carried the two packsacks and all the rest of the gear. He was loaded like a mule.
It took two hours to complete the carry. When at last they reached the banks of the Kasmere River they were exhausted. But already the Chipeweyan canoes were in the current. Denikazi gave them no time to rest. His harsh, pock-scarred face betrayed no sympathy as he gave the order to take to the river.
Downstream into the north the canoes fled like sparrows chased by hawks. The pine and spruce forests on either bank slid past so rapidly they seemed blurred as the boys kept their eyes glued to the river and to the erratic motions of the Chipeweyan canoe immediately ahead.
The first rapid leaped at them, a roaring canyon of foam and tortured water. In the bow, Jamie worked furiously to keep the head of the canoe away from the black rocks that raced toward him. Awasin, in the stern, paddled with all his strength to keep steerageway so that they could slide from side to side of the narrow, rock-filled channels.
One rapid followed another until noon, when the current began to die away and the river broadened into a bay. Ahead, stretching twin arms into the north, lay Kasmere Lake.
After a short halt to eat, they were off across the great lake. The hours went by monotonously. By the time the sun dropped behind the sparsely wooded hills to the west, the Chipeweyan canoes had drawn miles ahead. The boys were alone in the darkening wilderness.
Then Awasin’s quick eye picked out a number of tiny whitish blobs against the black shadows of the forests ahead. “There’s Denikazi’s camp!” he cried. “I see the tents!”
As they approached the shore, the crimson sparkle of campfires grew and spread. A chorus of dog howls echoed across the water and the steady beat of an Indian drum rolled out over the still lake.
The boys stopped paddling and let the canoe drift to shore. Ahead of them was a long sand bar upon which stood a dozen squat, cone-shaped tents. Cooking fires burned, sending strange shadows dancing on the walls of the tepees and illuminating the figures of twenty or thirty people standing motionless at the water’s edge.
It was a wild and barbaric sight. In this tent-camp of the Idthen Eldeli men lived a life that had been almost unchanged for a thousand years. Though they had rifles now instead of bows and arrows, they were untouched by most of the ways of the white man’s world. They lived in the old way, and worshiped the ancient gods.
As the canoe drifted uncertainly, the boys were hailed by the strong voice of Denikazi. In Chipeweyan he called, “Who comes?”
Awasin replied in the same tongue. “Sons of Enna, the Crees, come from afar!”
At the sound of Awasin’s ritual reply a great shout rose. It echoed out over the still water and pierced the gathering darkness.
“Friends come upon us! Lay down the bows!”
It was the ancient phrase with which the Idthen Eldeli had greeted their friends for uncounted generations.
A little frightened by the strangeness of it all, Jamie stepped cautiously out of the canoe. Denikazi led the boys to his own tent, where a fire burned high and bright. Two women appeared carrying wooden trays filled with boiled fish and dry deermeat, part of the gift from the Crees. Knowing how hungry the Chipeweyan camp was supposed to be, Jamie was about to refuse the food, but Awasin whispered quickly:
“Take it, Jamie
. They are offering the best they have, to show that we are welcome. If you refuse they will be angry.”
The boys helped themselves sparingly while the Chipeweyan chief watched silently. Not until they had finished their meal did Denikazi speak. Then he stood up beside the fire and faced them.
“When my father’s fathers went to the land of the Enna,” he began, “they received only the sharp wounds of arrows. That was a long time since. Now I have gone to the Enna and I have received food and friendship both. I will not forget this thing. Therefore remember: in this place and in this land you are the brothers of my people—and the sons of Denikazi!”
Abruptly the chief turned from them and strode toward a distant fire where a squatting circle of men awaited him. The boys slowly followed at a discreet distance.
Cautiously they walked along the row of tents toward the conference fire. The gaunt faces and thin bodies of the few people at the tents sharply confirmed Denikazi’s story of starvation. The tents themselves were made entirely of roughly scraped deer hides stretched over a framework of spruce poles. One or two had their door flaps flung back and Jamie could see that they were almost empty. A few deer-hide robes, a rusty rifle, a pile of old skin clothing and perhaps a battered wooden box made up the furnishings. He had never seen such poverty before, and he was shocked by it.
He was not surprised when Awasin said, “There is no doubt, Jamie, they are in trouble. We will hand the ammunition over in the morning.”
Now the boys were close to the great fire where Denikazi and the Idthen Eldeli men were gathered. Here were the hunters of the camp—small, wiry men, with hungry faces. One or two turned suspicious, watchful eyes on the boys, then ignored them.
Denikazi spoke and was answered by one of his men. It was all meaningless to Jamie until Awasin suddenly stiffened and his hand clutched Jamie’s arm so hard it hurt.
“What’s the matter?” Jamie whispered.
“They are planning the deer hunt out in the Barrens,” Awasin replied in a tense voice, “and they seem to think we are going with them!”
It took a moment for the startling idea to register on Jamie’s mind; then he reacted. A wave of excitement swept over him. Here was the possibility of real adventure. Visions of the vast and unknown plains of the arctic with their tremendous herds of caribou flashed before his eyes.
“Well?” he said breathlessly. “Why not?”
Awasin did not reply. In the flush of his enthusiasm Jamie rushed on. “We can get them to send a message back saying we’re going. Nobody will worry about us, and we’ll be back in a couple of weeks.” He paused but still Awasin did not reply. “What about it?” Jamie urged. “We’ll never get another chance like this!”
Awasin was a cautious lad. Jamie could throw himself into wild adventures—but if anything went wrong, it would be Awasin who was responsible. Awasin knew that neither his father nor Angus Macnair would approve. And yet his desire to see the Barrenlands was as great as Jamie’s.
Exasperated by his friend’s silence, Jamie said the first thing that came into his mind.
“You aren’t afraid, are you?” he whispered sharply.
Awasin spun about, and even in the dim light of the fire Jamie saw the harsh gleam in his friend’s dark eyes.
“We’ll go!” Awasin almost hissed. “And we’ll find out who’s frightened.”
But Awasin’s anger did not last. It may be that he was glad the decision had been forced upon him.
In the morning Awasin talked with Denikazi for some time and then told Jamie all he could gather about the expedition. It was clear that the main reason the Chipeweyans wanted the two boys along was because of their good .30–30 rifles. The Chipeweyan guns were old, rusted and almost useless except at close range. The boys’ guns might mean the difference between failure and success, and Denikazi could not afford to let the hunt fail. But he made it clear that the boys must agree to obey his word in everything. He put it this way to Awasin: “The old wolf leads and the young wolves follow!” And Awasin knew that an old wolf whose authority is challenged can be an ugly customer.
Rather grudgingly Denikazi arranged for a messenger to travel down to Thanout Lake carrying a letter from Awasin to his mother. The letter was vague because the boys could not predict how the hunt would develop. Denikazi would only say that they might be gone for “half the life of the new moon,” or roughly two weeks.
Actually Denikazi himself could not know how long he would be gone. His plan was to go north at top speed to a place which lay just outside the forests. Here he hoped to meet the deer moving southward. But if the deer had not yet arrived, Denikazi would have to push further north into the open plains. The caribou make a midsummer migration from the far north down almost to timber line each year; then they go north again for a month or so until the snow finally drives them south to spend the winter inside the forests. Denikazi had to intercept this midsummer migration if his people were to have enough food to last till winter. To him, the time he would be gone was not important. He would be gone until he had loaded his canoes with meat.
Because they wanted to, the boys convinced themselves that the hunt would last two weeks at the most.
CHAPTER 4
North to the Barrenlands
THERE WAS VERY LITTLE CEREMONY about the departure of Denikazi and his hunters for the mysterious lands to the north. Their flotilla consisted of four canoes, each about sixteen feet long, made of slabs of birch bark sewed with sinew thread and waterproofed with spruce gum. Two hunters manned each canoe and they carried only a few deerskin robes and their hunting equipment. They would have to live off the land. The boys, of course, traveled in their own canoe and with their own equipment.
They left the camp at dawn and paddled only a few miles on Kasmere Lake before entering a little stream that came swirling down out of the northwest. Here there was a halt and Denikazi spoke to the two boys.
“Ahead of us lie many portages up the White-Partridge River,” he began. “Beyond the river lies Kazba-tua, White-Partridge Lake, and there the forests die. From this time on you are but two of my men and you will do as I choose.”
The party’s progress up White-Partridge River consisted of much walking, and very little paddling. The portages were over shattered rock or across soggy muskegs and even the Chipeweyan men, with their light loads, found it hard. For the boys it was a nightmare endurance test. By dusk they were staggering with fatigue and had fallen several miles behind the Chipeweyans. They camped alone by the shores of a little lake.
After eating they sat beside a tiny fire—for already the forests were dwindling and dry wood was hard to find. The loneliness and immensity of the new wilderness seemed to close down upon them. As cheerfully as they could they unrolled their bedrolls under the upturned canoe, and when they slept it was a sleep of pure exhaustion.
In the morning when they awoke, stiff and chilled, they discovered that their fire was burning brightly and Denikazi was squatting beside it. On a forked stick slanting over the coals a fat whitefish sizzled—one of a number of fish the Chipeweyans had caught that night in a net.
As the boys scrambled to their feet, shamefaced at having overslept, Denikazi spoke. “We wait at the next portage,” he said, and walked away.
Jamie shook his head in surprise. “I don’t understand,” he said wonderingly. “He should have been mad at us for holding up the trip—and instead he brings us a fresh fish for breakfast.”
“Denikazi is all right,” Awasin replied as he pulled the hot fish off the stick and divided it. “He is worried and that’s why he seems so hard.”
“Then let’s not be a drag on him,” Jamie said. “Let’s show him we know how to travel too!”
Less than half an hour later they arrived at the portage and the Chipeweyan chief showed clearly he was pleased at the speed they had made.
The hard work of the previous day began once more. Small, shallow lakes succeeded each other, and in between were unmarked portages. But now
the forests had almost disappeared and the land was opening up as if a curtain were being raised. The hilltops were bare, and the isolated patches of forest in the valleys were composed only of stunted little spruces. The ground was rocky, with nothing but lichens and mosses to cover its harsh face.
A day passed and then another. Then a vast hill loomed high on the horizon like a huge, bald dome. Denikazi recognized it with a grunt of pleasure. “Kazba-seth!” he cried. White-Partridge Mountain. “Beyond lies Kazba-tua and there we will find deep waters for our paddles.”
When the canoes took to the water the next morning, the summer was half over. The caribou herds should already be headed south out of the vast plains. Hunters and hunted were moving steadily toward each other, but not even Denikazi could tell where, or when, they would meet.
Near the head of Kazba-tua was the Place of the New Fawns, where—in times past—the Chipeweyan hunters had met the southbound herds and speared untold numbers of caribou as the beasts swam the current. This place was Denikazi’s immediate objective and now he led the way toward it at a swift pace.
On the evening of the second day the canoes ran up a long, narrow bay that funneled into a canyon with sheer walls. The throaty roar of swift water told the hunters that here was the beginning of a mighty river. Only Denikazi knew its name. Kazon-dee-zee, the Long River, he called it. At the mouth of Kazon-dee-zee lay the Place of the New Fawns. The Indians approached it with a tense expectation, scanning the rolling plains for signs of caribou. The plains were somber, lifeless, and empty of the deer. The Indians’ disappointment must have been terrible, but they showed no trace of their true feelings.
At three o’clock the next morning Denikazi gave the order to move on. Dawn had already broken, since this far north there was very little darkness.
The boys hurried to get ready, for they had no desire to be left behind. They were shocked when they saw what lay ahead of them. The Kazon River looked like a slalom course down a mountainside. It roared over a jumbled mass of glacial boulders that tore the water into high-flung sheets of foam.