Much of this powdered rock is washed by rain into the lakes and
ponds; in time these cut their exits down, and drain, leaving each
a broad mud-flat. The climate mildens and the south winds cease
not, so that wind-borne grasses soon make green meadows of the
broad lake-bottom flats.
The process climbs the hill-slopes; every little earthy foothold
for a plant is claimed by some new settler, until each low hill is
covered to the top with vegetation graded to its soil, and where
the flowering kinds cannot establish themselves, the lichen pioneers
still maintain their hold. Rarely, in the landscape, now, is any of
the primitive colour of the rocks; even the tall, straight cliffs
of Aylmer are painted and frescoed with lichens that flame and
glitter with purple and orange, silver and gold. How precious and
fertile the ground is made to seem, when every square foot of it
is an exquisite elfin garden made by the little people, at infinite
cost, filled with dainty flowers and still later embellished with
delicate fruit.
One of the wonderful things about these children of the Barrens
is the great size of fruit and flower compared with the plant. The
cranberry, the crowberry, the cloudberry, etc., produce fruit any
one of which might outweigh the herb itself.
Nowhere does one get the impression that these are weeds, as often
happens among the rank growths farther south. The flowers in the
wildest profusion are generally low, always delicate and mostly
in beds of a single species. The Lalique jewelry was the sensation
of the Paris Exposition of 1899. Yet here is Lalique renewed and
changed for every week in the season and lavished on every square
foot of a region that is a million square miles in extent.
Not a cranny in a rock but is seized on at once by the eager little
gardeners in charge and made a bed of bloom, as though every inch
of room were priceless. And yet Nature here exemplifies the law
that our human gardeners are only learning: "Mass your bloom, to
gain effect."
As I stood on that hill, the foreground was a broad stretch of old
gold - the shining sandy yellow of drying grass - but it was patched
with large scarlet mats of arctous that would put red maple to its
reddest blush. There was no Highland heather here, but there were
whole hillsides of purple red vaccinium, whose leaves were but a
shade less red than its luscious grape-hued fruit.
Here were white ledums in roods and acre beds; purple mairanias
by the hundred acres, and, framed in lilac rocks, were rich, rank
meadows of golden-green by the mile.
There were leagues and leagues of caribou moss, pale green or lilac,
and a hundred others in clumps, that, seeing here the glory of the
painted mosses, were simulating their ways, though they themselves
were the not truly mosses at all.
I never before saw such a realm of exquisite flowers so exquisitely
displayed, and the effect at every turn throughout the land was
colour, colour, colour, to as far outdo the finest autumn tints of
New England as the Colorado Canyon outdoes the Hoosac Gorge. What
Nature can do only in October, elsewhere, she does here all season
through, as though when she set out to paint the world she began
on the Barrens with a full palette and when she reached the Tropics
had nothing left but green.
Thus at every step one is wading through lush grass or crushing
prairie blossoms and fruits. It is so on and on; in every part of
the scene, there are but few square feet that do not bloom with
flowers and throb with life; yet this is the region called the
Barren Lands of the North.
And the colour is an index of its higher living forms, for this
is the chosen home of the Swans and Wild Geese; many of the Ducks,
the Ptarmigan, the Laplongspur and Snowbunting. The blue lakes echo
with the wailing of the Gulls and the eerie magic calling of the
Loons. Colonies of Lemmings, Voles, or Groundsquirrels are found
on every sunny slope; the Wolverine and the White Wolf find this
a land of plenty, for on every side, as I stood on that high hill,
were to be seen small groups of Caribou.
This was the land and these the creatures I had come to see. This
was my Farthest North and this was the culmination of years of
dreaming. How very good it seemed at the time, but how different
and how infinitely more delicate and satisfying was the realisation
than any of the day-dreams founded on my vision through the eyes
of other men.
CHAPTER XXXVII
FACING HOMEWARD
On this hill we divided, Preble and Billy going northward; Weeso
and I eastward, all intent on finding a herd of Musk-ox; for this
was the beginning of their range. There was one continual surprise
as we journeyed - the willows that were mere twigs on Aylmer Lake
increased in size and were now plentiful and as high as our heads,
with stems two or three inches thick. This was due partly to the
decreased altitude and partly to removal from the broad, cold sheet
of Aylmer, which, with its July ice, must tend to lower the summer
temperature.
For a long time we tramped eastward, among hills and meadows, with
Caribou. Then, at length, turned south again and, after a 20-mile
tramp, arrived in camp at 6.35, having seen no sign whatever of
Musk-ox, although this is the region where Pike found them common;
on July 1, 1890, at the little lake where we lunched, his party
killed seven out of a considerable band.
