Billy Loutit had shot a Pelican; the skin was carefully preserved
and the body guarded for the dogs, thinking that this big thing,
weighing 6 or 7 pounds, would furnish a feast for one or two. The
dogs knew me, and rushed like a pack of Wolves at sight of coming
food. The bigger ones fought back the smaller. I threw the prize,
but, famished though they were, they turned away as a man might
turn from a roasted human hand. One miserable creature, a mere
skeleton, sneaked forward when the stronger ones were gone, pulled
out the entrails at last, and devoured them as though he hated
them.
I can offer no explanation. But the Hudson's Bay men tell me it is
always so, and I am afraid the remembrance of the reception accorded
my bounty that day hardened my heart somewhat in the days that
followed.
On the Nyarling we were too far from mankind to be bothered
with dogs, but at Fort Resolution we reentered their country. The
following from my journal records the impression after our enforced
three days' stay:
"Tuesday, July 16, 1907. - Fine day for the first time since July
3. At last we pulled out of Fort Resolution (9.40 A. M.). I never
was so thankful to leave a place where every one was kind. I think
the maddest cynophile would find a cure here. It is the worst
dog-cursed spot I ever saw; not a square yard but is polluted
by them; no article can be left on the ground but will be carried
off, torn up, or defiled; the four corners of our tent have become
regular stopping places for the countless canines, and are disfigured
and made abominable, so that after our escape there will be needed
many days of kindly rain for their purification. There certainly
are several hundred dogs in the village; there are about 50 teepees
and houses with 5 to 15 dogs at each, and 25 each at the mission
and H. B. Co. In a short walk, about 200 yards, I passed 86 dogs.
"There is not an hour or ten minutes of day or night that is not
made hideous with a dog-fight or chorus of yelps. There are about
six different clans of dogs, divided as their owners are, and a
Dogrib dog entering the Yellow-knife or Chipewyan part of the camp
is immediately set upon by all the residents. Now the clansmen of
the one in trouble rush to the rescue and there is a battle. Indians
of both sides join in with clubs to belabour the fighters, and the
yowling and yelping of those discomfited is painful to hear for
long after the fight is over. It was a battle like this, I have
been told, which caused the original split of the tribe, one part
of which went south to become the Apaches of Arizona. The scenes
go on all day and all night in different forms. A number of dogs
are being broken in by being tied up to stakes. These keep up
a heart-rending and peculiar crying, beginning with a short bark
which melts into a yowl and dies away in a nerve-racking wail.
This ceases not day or night, and half a dozen of these prisoners
are within a stone's throw of our camp.
"The favourite place for the clan fights seems to be among
the guy-ropes of our tent; at least half a dozen of these general
engagements take place every night while we try to sleep.
"Everything must be put on the high racks eight feet up to be safe
from them; even empty tins are carried off, boots, hats, soap, etc.,
are esteemed most toothsome morsels, and what they can neither eat,
carry off, nor destroy, they defile with elaborate persistency and
precision."
A common trick of the Indians when canoe season arrives is, to put
all the family and one or two of the best dogs in the canoes, then
push away from the shore, leaving the rest behind. Those so abandoned
come howling after the canoes, and in unmistakable pleadings beg
the heartless owners to take them in. But the canoes push off toward
the open sea, aiming to get out of sight. The dogs howl sadly on
the shore, or swim after them till exhausted, then drift back to
the nearest land to begin the summer of hardship.
If Rabbits are plentiful they get along; failing these they catch
mice or fish; when the berry season comes they eat fruit; the weaker
ones are devoured by their brethren; and when the autumn arrives
their insensate owners generally manage to come back and pick up
the survivors, feeding them so that they are ready for travel when
dog-time begins, and the poor faithful brutes, bearing no grudge,
resume at once the service of their unfeeling masters.
All through our voyage up Great Slave Lake we daily heard the sad
howling of abandoned dogs, and nightly, we had to take steps to
prevent them stealing our food and leathers. More than once in the
dim light, I was awakened by a rustle, to see sneaking from my tent
the gray, wolfish form of some prowling dog, and the resentment I
felt at the loss inflicted, was never more than to make me shout
or throw a pebble at him.
One day, as we voyaged eastward (July 23) in the Tal-thel-lay
narrows of Great Slave Lake, we met 5 canoes and 2 York boats of
Indians going west.
