They have suffered greatly from diseases imported by white men,
but not from whiskey. The Hudson's Bay Company has always refused
to supply liquor to the natives. What little of the evil traffic
there has been was the work of free-traders. But the Royal Mounted
Police have most rigorously and effectually suppressed this.
Nevertheless, Chief Trader Anderson tells me that the Mackenzie
Valley tribes have fallen to less than half their numbers during
the last century.
It is about ten, years since they made the treaty that surrendered
their lands to the government. They have no reserves, but are free
to hunt as their fathers did.
I found several of the older men lamenting the degeneracy of
their people. "Our fathers were hunters and our mothers made good
moccasins, but the young men are lazy loafers around the trading
posts, and the women get money in bad ways to buy what they should
make with their hands."
The Chipewyan dialects are peculiarly rasping, clicking, and
guttural, especially when compared with Cree.
Every man and woman and most of the children among them smoke.
They habitually appear with a pipe in their mouth and speak without
removing it, so that the words gurgle out on each side of the pipe
while a thin stream goes sizzling through the stem.
