The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1905-08-03
George fIson. Hero of the
Wild.
BY JAMES E. c. SAWYER, D. D.


On the last day of his life Leonidas
Hubbard, Jr, the heroic explorer who
persisted in the wild of Labrador of
starvation in October, 1903, wrote not
only the last minute and intensely in
teresting entry in his diary, but also a
few letters, one of which was to Mr. S.
A. King, manager of the Hudson Bay
Company's post at Missanabie, Ontario,
thanking him for sending to him as as
sistant in his expedition, George Elson.
In this letter Mr.. Hubbard said,
George is grand, heroic fellow In
his diary he often speaks of Georges
sagacity, fidelity, courage, patience, and
cheerfulness. On August "a, 1903, he
wrote "All restless at inactivity but
George. He is CAIN and philosophical,
cheerful and hopeful always. A wonder
full man"
A wonderful man indeed he is, and a
real hero. His solitary and arduous
journey to secure help for the perishing
explorer was the splendid and thrilling
elimination of the great fortitude and
marvellous fertility of resources which
he constantly displayed from the begin
ming of the Universities of the eXpedi-
ton.
0CO1RC LlSOA 10 lIlC VI q
Scotchman who came to Canada cen
fury ago as clerk in the service of the
Hudson BayCompany. This Scotch clerk
married a half-breed, whose father was
Scotch physician. Georges father was
for half a century in the service of the
Hudson Bay Company. He was by trade
| carpenter, and was superintendent of
the company's buildings at Whale
River, Fort George, and Rupert's House
in succession. At Rupert's House, locat-
ed on James Bay, at the mouth of Ru-
pert River, George was born thirty
years ago. The white strain in his blood
is wholly Scotch, his mother and his
father mother each being half Scotch
and half Indian.
AS boy, George loved to hear the
stories of the old Indian hunters, and
learned by heart some of the legends of
the great Algonquin people to whom
the Cree tribe is related. Like his
father before him, he had an active and
joyous boyhood, his mischievous pranks
sometimes proving perilous. His IA
vorite sport was wild-goose shooting
In the latter part of April the gray
geese, wavies. and ducks come i'll great
focks to Hudson's Bay ON their way
still further north, remaining till about
the first of June, when they go far
north to rear their young. In the fall
they come again on their way south,
arriving at the southern end of Hud-
sons Bay about the first of September
and remaing for some two months. In
both spring and fall the young men go
forth in hunting parties to shoot them,
not merely for the excitement OF the
sport, but to obtain them for food. In
the autumn a hunting party will kill
and salt hundreds of them, thus secur-
ing considerable part of the winter
food of Hudson Bay Companys post.
The shooting is best on windy day.
When the sportsmen return to their
camp at evening they build a huge fire,
sometimes thirty feet in length, before
whose blaze twenty geese are roasted
at once, and around this huge campfire
the hunters feast together.
The greatest event of the year at Ru-
pert's House was the annual arrival of
the mail boat from Moose Factory,
bringing not only mail, but also the
yearly supply of merchandise from
England. Next in interest and import
ance was the spring arrival of the In
dams, hundreds in number, their canoes
loaded with furs The New Year was
ushered in with salutes from all the
guns available, and the festivities con-
tinued for several days and nights.
George received his schooling from