Sharp County record., 1880-01-15
THE STORY OF WAKUZZA.

One night when l was in the land of
She Blackfeet, on tributary Of the
North Saskatchewan, the regular
evening romancing in front of the fire
grave to me story of Wakuzza, as told
dy a renegade voyageur, who carried
under his grizzled hair q library Of un-
written and imprinted romance.
BIcAlpine, factor Of the HudSOn'S
Hay Company, had been ordered, in the
wear 1895, to explore the region to the
west and northwest OF the bay; to eX-
cEnaiue the country about the Great Slave
E4zke and the Great Bear Lake; also, to
explore the Mackenzie River from the
sSZave Lake to its mouth in the Arctic
, Ocean. New trading posts were to be
established. A party of Athabasca In
dians served McAlpine as hunters and
gylides. They had reached a point to
She north and far to the west of the
Slave Lake, when the Arctic winter of
T79T closed on them. 1t was the land
eIf SNOW and cold--the land where the
northern lights blaze and actually
G,rat-kle as they sweep out OF the north
c1rn horizon in waves of fire, flowing
upward through space to the zenith.
AlcAlpine had made his winter encamp-
.Irent in the woods on the banks of the
Moose River. TO the west the Rocky
Maintains loomed, in disordered sub,
ilse as St snow. %oTy Yak rers, X SWsin SWamps
eyIf were ice bound. Z The groans of the
fwzzen earth and water, as the frost pen
atrated deeper and deeper, struck
EIarsElly on McAlpine's ears. The split
dIhg OF the sappy birch trees o. nights
sounded like the sharp reports of
rides. Almost daily loud noise
EiIIe thunder rolled out from
tine not far distant mountains, and the
g55rr0r-stricken Athabasca Indians cow
cred as they heard the voice of the
avalanche, which they thought was the
demon of the mountain. The solitude
gyas intense. They were in the north
SIN edge of the Thickwood country.
Ueep lay the snow. Superstition, ever
cifa in the minds of the North American
Endians, had its silent counterpart in
T}le. brain of the half-civilized McAlpine.
X,he tales that this hard-headed Scotch
EiGtGr of the fur company heard when q
child, kneeling at his mother lap in the
little hut in the Shetlands of Scotland,
came trooping back to him at night in y
group of Uncanny recollectionS.
Game was scarce in the ThickWOod
country, as it is in all forests, and only
Gy arduous hunting was famine kept
saioof. They hunted to the south, as to
the north the trees dwarfed rapidly, and |
tf0ere was no open land Depression
&lung heavily over the camp. All were
discouraged, all uneasy, all alarmed
Nightly, as their fire was piled high
with logs, the talk of the Indians re-
grerted to the countless legends of the
&f0cky Mountains. Such blood chilling
tGKes as 1.-The Lost Souls of the Chief
M0untain," "The Headless Hunters of
The Cypress Hills" or "The Three
Eishers Of the Slave Lake, were told
and vetold by the solemn group. Nc
alpine became affected with hereditary
second sight, and his nights were made
unhappy by grim visions. Hard-headed,
a,oId-hearted, self-cOntained, he did not
aetray what he saw, and none knew the
anguish he suffered as he thought his
ceason was tottering. He resolved to
hUnC to the north, oStensibly for game,
realiy for the utter fatigue he needed to
s9e able to sleep unhaunted by the spec
GeZs of his brain.
Hunting on The l1th of January, 1877, |
In descended into little valley. There,
au Che surface of the ice-bound river, in
she newly fallen snow, he saw the well
defined track of q Snow-shoe. Startled
nv the sight, he halted and examined it,
20 prove to himself that twas real. Sat .
ls6ed on this point, he cautiously fol-
EETed it for few miles then, his brain
cEaaring itself of the fantastic phantoms
nj its idleness, and restored to practical
EigGr, he thought he had better return
1ae camp and warn his followers OF the
possible danger of hostile Indians. Re-
1HYned, he told his tale. 1t was re- /
,ueivcd with many smothered eXclama-
GiGHs of surprise. To soul his follow .
csrs refused to believe that he had seen
she fresh track of q strange show-shoe. .
They declared that no one ever win .
ared in the country; that it was will