The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-10-05

skin moccasins. My sleeping geal
consisted of a robe of twenty-foul
lynx skins lined with q blanket.
OF course all wore snow shoes and
as such an article is utterly unknown
in Kansas, l might say that a snow
shoe is contrivance some four feel
long and eight inches broad, made o.
rawhide woven over wooden frame
and worn ON the feet to keep a person
from falling into the snow up to the
ears at every step.
On Nov. H., the day after the sur
disappeared, we started, following In
general the course of the Porcupine
river but often taking long portages
over the hills i'm order to cut off large
bends, as the river is a very crooked
one. And such travelling! 1 thought
L had tried about every form of vic.
lent leg exercise from dancing the
Newport to Guiding the attentions ofan
illmannered bulldog, but this thing
of snow-shoeing twenty-five miles
day was a revelation as to how terri
bly, tired and fOotsore man can get
But it is impossible to give more than
the toughest outline of this trip, as il
is long story and one of terrible
hardshio-the worst / have ever un.
dergone.
We usually started about a. m.
and at daybreak which was about 10
o'clock, had a lunch and then kept at
it until or 6p. m. There were but
two or three hours of daylight each
day so tn at most of our travelling was
done in the dark and we often became
separated and had to shout. fire off
guns. or strike matches in Or
der to locate each other. The weather
was clear, calm and intensely cold
A tent would have been worse than
useless in such cold weather, so that
we merely bunked down in the snow
without any shelter overhead. sup
pose it is needless to say that we
slept with our fur clothes on and lay
as close together as possible. In six
days of hard traved we reached La
Pierre House which at one time was a
trading post of the Hudson Bay Com
pany, but is now unoccupied. Here
we found small band of natives and
remained with them one day to rest.
Leaving the Porcupine river at this
place we struck into the mountains
and at O'Clock in the morning of the
second day crossed the summit of the
divide that separates the drainage of
the Yukon from that of the Mckenzie.
These mountains are the most north
ern extremity of the Rockies, and are
bare and treeless. The view from the
summit as seen under the gorgeous
Arctic IN oonlight is one that defies
description. We descended the east
ern slope of the mountains rapidly,
and that night camped in clump of
willows with the thermometer 4S de-
grees below zero. The next morning
we arose from our beds in the snow at
l a. m. and following gorge for per-
haps twenty miles came out upon the
frozen surface of Peel river just above
its junction with the Mckenzie and at
4 o'clock reached our destination
And it was not day too soon for me,
as 1 was literally worn down to skin
and bones, with every joint so stiff
and sore from the unusual exercise
that 1 could barely move without a
groan. To walk 200 miles in nine
days is no job to be laughed at, even
if person has plank road with a
hotel at the end of every days journey
and a beer garden every five miles,
but when it comes to going up hill |
and down on snOwshoes through the |
dark, sleeping out in the snow every |
night, and living on dry meat and tai
low, and all through the cold of Arctic
winter it is pretty tough task and
crowds the limit of human endurance
pretty close.
When a white man runs on to one
If his own race In such a lonely land
Is this he can expect pretty hospit-
lble treatment, and 1 was not disap-
The Hudson Bay Company's
raider, Mr.. John Firth, took me
nto his house and treated me so
hat 1 felt inclined to accept his
to remain all winter. For
wo days 1 lay stretched out on
pile of caribou skins before a roar
ng flre, almost too tired to talk.
The arrival of a white man across
ountry from Alaska of course created
sensation, and the natives came
rom far and near to bask in my smiles
nd admire the frost bites on my face.
Is lay there ON my couch and re-
eived delegation after delegation of
If clothed savages, every one of whom
INSISTED on shaking hands with me, 1
lit like some old Turkish vizier re. .
Giving homage from his subjects.
Fl. Mcpherson is not a fort as the 1
anne implies but trading post of the
hudson Bay Co, and is the most
one now occupied by
lem and is the only one north of the
rctic circle. The white residents
re Mr.. Firth, Archdeacon Mcdonald b
Church of England man, and two L