These Great Slave
Lake Indians are like a lot of spoiled and petulant children,
with the added weakness of adult criminals; they are inconsistent,
shiftless, and tricky. Pike, Whitney, Buffalo Jones, and others
united many years ago in denouncing them as the most worthless and
contemptible of the human race, and since then they have considerably
deteriorated. There are exceptions, however, as will be seen by
the record.
One difficulty was that it became known that on the Buffalo expedition
Bezkya had received three dollars a day, which is government
emergency pay. I had agreed to pay the regular maximum, two dollars
a day with presents and keep. All came and demanded three dollars.
I told them they could go at once in search of the hottest place
ever pictured by a diseased and perfervid human imagination.
If they went there they decided not to stay, because in an hour
they were back offering to compromise. I said I could run back to
Fort Smith (it sounds like nothing) and get all the men I needed
at one dollar and a half. (I should mortally have hated to try.)
One by one the crew resumed. Then another bombshell. I had offended
Chief Snuff by not calling and consulting with him; he now gave
it out that I was here to take out live Musk-ox, which meant that
all the rest would follow to seek their lost relatives. Again my
crew resigned. I went to see Snuff. Every man has his price. Snuff's
price was half a pound of tea; and the crew came back, bringing,
however, several new modifications in our contract.
Taking no account of several individuals that joined a number of
times but finally resigned, the following, after they had received
presents, provisions, and advance pay, were the crew secured to
man the York boat on the "3 or 4" days' run to Pike's Portage and
then carry my goods to the first lake.
Weeso. The Jesuits called him Louison d'Noire, but it has been
corrupted into a simpler form. "Weeso" they call it, "Weeso" they
write it, and for "Weeso" you must ask, or you will not find him.
So I write it as I do "Sousi" and "Yum," with the true local colour.
He was a nice, kind, simple old rabbit, not much use and not
over-strong, but he did his best, never murmuring, and in all the
mutinies and rebellions that followed he remained staunch, saying
simply, "I gave my word I would go, and I will go." He would make
a safe guide for the next party headed for Aylmer Lake. He alone
did not ask rations for his wife during his absence; he said, "It
didn't matter about her, as they had been married for a long time
now." He asked as presents a pair of my spectacles, as his eyes
were failing, and a marble axe. The latter I sent him later, but
he could not understand why glasses that helped me should not help
him. He acted as pilot and guide, knowing next to nothing about
either.
Francois d'Noire, son of Weeso, a quiet, steady, inoffensive chap,
but not strong; nevertheless, having been there once with us, he
is now a competent guide to take any other party as far as Pike's
Portage.
C., a sulky brute and a mischief-maker. He joined and resigned
a dozen times that day, coming back on each occasion with a new
demand.
S., grandson of the chief, a sulky good-for-nothing; would not have
him again at any price; besides the usual wages, tobacco, food,
etc., he demanded extra to support his wife during his absence.
The wife, I found, was a myth.
T., a sulky good-for-nothing.
Beaulieu, an alleged grandson of his grandfather. A perpetual
breeder of trouble; never did a decent day's work the whole trip.
Insolent, mutinous, and overbearing, till I went for him with intent
to do bodily mischief; then he became extremely obsequious. Like
the rest of the foregoing, he resigned and resumed at irregular
intervals.
Yum (William), Freesay; the best of the lot; a bright, cheerful,
intelligent, strong Indian, boy. He and my old standby, Billy
Loutit, did virtually all the handling of that big boat. Any one
travelling in that country should secure Yum if they can. He was
worth all the others put together.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CHIPEWYANS, THEIR SPEECH AND WRITING
Sweeping generalisations are always misleading, therefore I offer
some now, and later will correct them by specific instances.
These Chipewyans are dirty, shiftless, improvident, and absolutely
honest. Of the last we saw daily instances in crossing the country.
Valuables hung in trees, protected only from weather, birds, and
beasts, but never a suggestion that they needed protection from
mankind. They are kind and hospitable among themselves, but grasping
in their dealings with white men, as already set forth. While they
are shiftless and lazy, they also undertake the frightful toil of
hunting and portaging. Although improvident, they have learned to
dry a stock of meat and put up a scaffold of white fish for winter
use. As a tribe they are mild and inoffensive, although they are
the original stock from which the Apaches broke away some hundreds
of years ago before settling in the south.
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.
