3, 1 saw more of Fort Smith than I wished for, but
endeavoured to turn the time to account by copying out interesting
chapters from the rough semi-illegible, perishable manuscript
accounts of northern life called "old-timers." The results of this
library research work appear under the chapter heads to which they
belong.
At each of these northern posts there were interesting experiences
in store for me, as one who had read all the books of northern travel
and dreamed for half a lifetime of the north; and that was - almost
daily meeting with famous men. I suppose it would be similar if
one of these men were to go to London or Washington and have some
one tell him: that gentle old man there is Lord Roberts, or that
meek, shy, retiring person is Speaker Cannon; this on the first
bench is Lloyd-George, or that with the piercing eyes is Aldrich,
the uncrowned King of America. So it was a frequent and delightful
experience to meet with men whose names have figured in books of
travel for a generation. This was Roderick MacFarlane, who founded
Fort Anderson, discovered the MacFarlane Rabbit, etc.; here was
John Schott, who guided Caspar Whitney; that was Hanbury's head
man; here was Murdo McKay, who travelled with Warburton Pike in
the Barrens and starved with him on Peace River; and so with many
more.
Very few of these men had any idea of the interest attaching
to their observations. Their notion of values centres chiefly on
things remote from their daily life. It was very surprising to see
how completely one may be outside of the country he lives in. Thus
I once met a man who had lived sixteen years in northern Ontario,
had had his chickens stolen every year by Foxes, and never in his
life had seen a Fox. I know many men who live in Wolf country, and
hear them at least every week, but have never seen one in twenty
years' experience. Quite recently I saw a score of folk who had
lived in the porcupiniest part of the Adirondacks for many summers
and yet never saw a Porcupine, and did not know what it was when
I brought one into their camp. So it was not surprising to me to
find that although living in a country that swarmed with Moose, in
a village which consumes at least a hundred Moose per annum, there
were at Fort Smith several of the Hudson's Bay men that had lived
on Moose meat all their lives and yet had never seen a live Moose.
It sounds like a New Yorker saying he had never seen a stray cat.
But I was simply dumfounded by a final development in the same line.
Quite the most abundant carpet in the forest here is the uva-ursi
or bear-berry. Its beautiful evergreen leaves and bright red berries
cover a quarter of the ground in dry woods and are found in great
acre beds.
