The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-17
Wearisome Labor Performed by
Hudson Bay Company's Men.
VOYAGER TOO TIREDTO EAT
Portaging a Heavy Boat and Her Load
Over Rocky Road-Suggestion of
Cannibalism in Fate of Two Men
at a Distant Point

or course, but in a good year from 5000
to $500 may be taken as fair ave-
rage. He may have eight or ten bears,
dozen beavers, four or five offers, a
number of lynxes, martens and minks
and several hundred musuuash or
muskrats. When all the hunters have
come in the furs are pressed into
packs of 100 pounds each and sent in
York boats to the frontier trails, over
which they are carted to the nearest
railway station to be shipped to Lon
don, England, where they are carefully
sorted and afterward sold at the two
great annual sales of the company in
January and March, which are attend
ed by buyers from all parts of the
world.
In the hard life of the voyageur there
are ever present the elements of danger
and excitement With the first glance
of dawn the guide shouts his warn
ing "Leve! Level" and the men
spring from their blankets, pack their
camp outfit into the boats and are off
Six oars go to a boat, one to a man,
besides sweep" in the hands of both
bow and steersman. The oars are large
and heavy and the rowers rise to their
feet and sink back onto their seats
with each long stroke. At o'clock
they put ashore for breakfast and
about noon another halt is made then
they go on until night falls, when they
stop for the day, eat their supper and
throw themselves on the ground for
a few hours rest. l have been told
by voyageurs that they have been so
tired at night that they were unable
to eat and have flung themselves down
on the nearest level spot without so
much as removing their coats or
snatching a blanket and slept the
sleep of dead WEAKNESS until reused
at daybreak by the cry of the guide.
Fifteen to twenty miles is perhaps an
average days journey; much depends
upon the water. In some places rapids
and portages occur with exasperating
frequency; in others the stream is
broad and deep and there is little
current. Again, in crossing a lake,
with a favorable wind, sail may be
made and the rowers have a welcome
rest; while in breasting a rapid around
which it is unnecessary or impossible
to portage tracking is resorted to.
A long line is attached to the bow of
the boat and the men dsembark, leav-
ing only the steersman to keep her nose
off the shore or off rocks in the stream,
while the men far ahead on the bank
haul her up against the torrent. Ac-
cidents are common. A block of over
hanging ice four or five feet thick, left
by the spring flood, may fall upon
man. as he passes beneath it. and crush
out his life; a sudden access of force
in the current as the boat rounds
bend may jerk the crackers from their
feet and into the river, and some may
not get out again. Or the boat may
drift upon a rock, smash to atoms and
the cargo and the men in her be lost.
But portaging is the hardest work
which comes TO the voyageur, for some
times it is necessary to drag the heavy
York boat and to carry her load of
four or five tons over a rough, rocky
point a mile in width. a portage strap
is fastened to one piece of about 100
pounds, another piece, perhaps two, are
placed upon this, and with the strap
against his forehead, with barred legs
and shoeless feet, man after man tolls
across the portage until the narrow
path beneath is soft and damp with
human sweat. They are glad when
the last piece is over. The clumsy oars
seem light when they pick them up
again.
Hunting is the main recreation Of
the majority of the officers and clerks.
The staff at post often go on ana
camp for a week and 100 or more geese
and double that number of ducks load
the boats on the return. The ptarmigan
Drown IN summer anu NIlNe III NlitSI
lis a good game bird, and in some To-
calities pinnated grouse or prairie
chickens are very numerous. Our ubi-
quitous little friend the partridge, too,
Is nowhere more frequently at home
to the hunter than here, and he is often
such stranger to the guile of man that
an Indian will walk up to the tree upon
which he is sitting and slip the moose
that he has fixed at the end of pole
over his head After the first snow in
the fall rabbit shooting is good sport,
and in seasons when they are plenti-
full so or so to the credit of a single
huntsman in an afternoon is not an I'M
common score. Then there is the large
game, such as moose and deer, while
now and then stupid bear pokes his
nose in dangerous proximity to the fort,
the staff turns out and he is shot for
his fatal inquisitiveness.
At one of the posts where / was sta
toned we kept a moose for two years.
She was taken when very young by an
Indian, who killed her mother and
brought the calf in his canoe to the fort.
She became quite tame and in the sec
ond winter we broke her to drive in
harness Her chief amusements were
soaring Indians by racing up to them
and stopping abruptly with loud snort
and planting her forefeet ON the backs
of the train dogs. train dog VIII
nOWl upon the SliSllltoN SANuSt anu ZIG
pathetic outbursts which greeted the
successful performance of this latter
feat appeared to cause unstinted en-
joyment and a certain mild wonder
which it was ludicrous to behold. The
clerks often set traps adjacent to the
fort and in this way find another means
of passing time and adding to their in
comes. Snowshoeing is also popular
exercise on the short days, and at posts
where they are kept horses are in much
requisition.
At an outpost where a clerk is alone
with his Indian servant, however, the
life is wearisome 10 a degree, and pri-
walton not infrequently adds to the
hardship of it. Supplies may run short,
and in any case he is expected to stock
himself with fish taken in nets from the
lake. near which his post is situated,
for his table and his dogs, as well as
to augment his larder by the expert ana
diligent use of his gun. Rare instances
have occurred where, through accident,
supplies had not reached the far out
ports for which they were intended
and the men had literally died OF star