Provencher: Last of the coureurs de bois 0887680712, 9780887680717

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NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE

THOMAS J. BATA LI BRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY

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PROVENCHER Last of the Coureurs de Bois

PROVENCHER last of the Coureurs de Bois PAUL PROVENCHER in collaboration with

GILBERT LA ROCQUE translated by A. D. MARTIN-SPERRY

) )

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BURNS & MacEACHERN LIMITED Don Mills, Ontario

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Provencher, Paul, 1902Provencher Translation of Provencher : le dernier des coureurs de bois. ISBN

0-88768-071-2 pa.

I. Provencher. Paul, 19022. Hunting. 3. Montagnais Indians. I. La Rocque, Gilbert, 1943II. Title. SK601.P73I3

639’. T0924

C77-001025-3

© Copyright Les Editions de L’Homme Ltee. 1974 English Translation © Copyright Burns & MacEachern Limited, 1976 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Burns & MacEachern Limited 62 Railside Road Don Mills, Ontario M3A IA6 ISBN 0-88768-071-2

Contents PREFACE . 9 FOREWORD

.

INTRODUCTION

.

PART ONE: Uapistan The Montagnais

H 17

. 25

. 27

Caribou Paunches . 47 The River aux Rochers . 61 Basic Survival Methods Uapistan’s Story

. 75

. 93

PART TWO: On the snow or on the water

.

121

Snow-shoes and Dogs .

123

On the Water

145

.

In the Woods with the Commandos

.

PART THREE: The bow and the fishing-rod The Moose’s Savage Charge

163

.

185

.

187

Hunting with the Bow . 207 Hunting Bear

. 223

The Devil in the Pigsty

.r. 237

The‘Small Fry’of the Toulnoustook The Shark of Baie-Comeau

. 247

. 261

EPILOGUE . 273 SOME PHOTOGRAPHS . 275

* Photos and Sketches by the author

To my grandchildren

Preface In his third book on the forest, Paul Provencher tells us of his life as a coureur de bois: almost fifty years of roaming the forests of Quebec, foiling their hidden dangers, discov¬ ering their resources, loving them, and understanding them.

This book of Paul Provencher’s is not merely the autobiography of a forestry engineer: it is also a collection of anecdotes about some engaging and picturesque personalities, among both Indians and Whites — characters who share with us a whole host of secrets they have learnt from the forest, and who show us how they managed to overcome difficulties and dangers which would probably have proved fatal to the city-dwellers that most of us are.

Because he has studied the forest so thoroughly, the author is able to offer us elements of botany and ecology in simple language full of imagery,' but at the same time precise. Nobody knows the vegetation in the undergrowth of the basins of our Northern rivers better than he does how it shows the quality of the soil in which it grows; and what healing plants the coureur de bois can find within it.

As he makes us relive a past which is almost epic, Paul Provencher teaches us how to put to good use some very simple things which can make forest life both bracing and pleasant. 9

I myself have had the pleasure of accompanying Paul Provencher on trips into the forest during two summers now, alas, in the distant past: and I can vouch for the absolute authenticity of this book, which I welcome as the life-story of a man at once courageous, colourful, and full of joie de vivre — a man who is anxious to share with others the joys and the knowledge that he himself has found in the forest. There can be no doubt that reading Last Of The Coureurs De Bois will help to give the younger gener¬ ation a warmer appreciation of the beautiful forests of Quebec, such as their forebears had. Paul-E. Lachance

10

Foreword Paul Provencher received me in his den: a huge room in the basement of his house, filled with weapons, equipment, souvenirs, and trophies. On the wall hung oil paintings signed ‘Paul Provencher’. Right in the centre of the room, heaped together or just lying on the floor, were bear and muskrat traps; a quiver full of arrows (some of which bore brownish stains on their tips); a moose’s cervical vertebra with an arrow-head permanently embedded in it; a ruck¬ sack; an artist’s easel — I had the feeling that the last of the coureurs de bois had not really aged at all, and that he was ready to set out again at a moment’s notice; that his past was not completely behind him, but enveloped him and moved with him like an aura — a sort of perpetual present, if you will. Besides, there he was, right in front of me, with his powerful, stocky body constantly in motion, his seemingly inexhaustible energy, his lively, precise gestures, his clear voice; never at a loss for a word, his eyes sparkling beneath his bushy eyebrows — In just a few minutes, he’d already managed to pull out some maps, bend a bow with a fiftypound pull, make me blow down his blowpipe, and show me some slides on his projector — he really displayed amaz¬ ing vitality for a man in his seventies — then papers appeared and disappeared as if by magic in a whirlwind of words and gestures that left me almost stunned; photos were slid onto the long plywood table; Paul Provencher was beside me on my left — next moment, he was on my right. All the same, I had to ask him questions — his book — but I got the impression that for that I’d have to catch him in one of his own bear traps — finally, he calmed down a little, with

only his arms and those huge hands of his still going round and round like windmills; and I listened as the last of the coureurs de bois began to talk. “On 3rd July 1908 I was playing on the balcony at the back of our house when I noticed thick black smoke coming from the railway station, at the north end of town. At first I thought that the train waiting in the station, ready to leave, must have two engines pulling it instead of one — that would take more coal, and thus produce more smoke. That seemed the logical explanation: but when I looked over there again, a few seconds later, I saw the smoke was very much thicker; it had spread, and was now a huge menacing cloud in the sky being blown by a strong wind in our direction. I ran into the kitchen, calling to my mother to come quickly and take a look. “ ‘It’s just a big fire at the north end of town, darling; the firemen’ll soon have it out. You go on playing — off you go, darling.’ “This was the start of the conflagration that laid waste the town of Trois-Rivières. Our house did not escape, and was totally destroyed. To escape the flames, we had to get over onto the other side of the river, where my uncle ‘Baby’ Labarre (my mother was a Labarre) took us in, with what few possessions my parents had managed to cram into three suitcases. “So the whole family boarded the Glacial, the boat that ran from Trois-Rivières to Saint-Angèle de Laval. The town all in flames was a terrifying spectacle — I could just vaguely make it out through the suffocating smoke, in which big pieces of burning tar-paper were being whirled about by the billowing eddies: in my childish mind, I really thought the end of the world was at hand. “What a contrast with the peace and tranquillity I found when we got to my uncle’s place in the country! I was still too young to worry about the shock and anguish 12

my parents were feeling. I was quite happy to be able to run after the calves and the pigs whenever I wanted, or to look after the hens and the rabbits. However, I very soon learnt self-discipline. “These events left their mark on me for the rest of my life — especially the freedom to run unhindered every¬ where, right up to the woods surrounding the farm. I used to swell with importance when my beloved uncle took me with him to his sugaring-hut, or let me hold the other end of his big two-handled saw when he cut firewood — it was in the sugaring-hut that I learnt how to wear snow-shoes, and met my first skunk and my first porcupine. What a wonderful experience that season in contact with Nature was for me! “When we returned to Trois-Rivières, all Government employees who had lost their homes in the fire — this included my father, who was a lawyer and Assistant Prothonotary — each received a big circus tent to give them temporary shelter while they were getting themselves re-established. “This new life under canvas gave me a certain amount of freedom from the confines of the balcony; and despite all the difficulties, I managed to achieve a little of the freedom I had tasted on the farm, and for which I hungered so ardently. Later, my father bought a small property of twenty-four acres, three miles out of town, not far from the River Saint-Maurice. It was there that 1 began to develop my taste for adventure and discovery. “I was twelve years old at the time, and had two broth¬ ers. We used to make short trips together into our little forest, where we would build huts out of branches. We loved playing Indians, armed with bows and round-tipped arrows: our wild animals were squirrels, groundhogs, partridges, and even a roe-deer. Whenever we went any distance away from our usual paths, we always blazed the 13

trail by marking trees and breaking branches, so that we shouldn’t get lost. One day one of our cousins, who was an abbé and loved fishing, came to spend a week’s holiday with us; and we went right through the woods to the River Saint-Maurice and fished there. We fished from the bank, casting our baited hooks as far as we could, and then watching our lines for twitches when the fish bit. I caught a four-pound small-mouth bass; and my cousin got an eel three feet long. That was a week to dream about. “After that, I begged my mother to make me a little tent out of a piece of the circus tent which we’d hidden away very carefully. She made it for me, in return for a promise that 1 would be ‘a good boy’: and indeed, for a while, I tried very hard to be a really model boy. “At school, my vocation became clear. My favourite reading was tales of the adventures of the pioneers. Fenimore Cooper became my favourite author. When I was seventeen, my father let me spend my holidays with the surveyor Lacoursière as a rear chainman in the Gaspé, where he had been awarded a contract to carry out the cadastral survey of Saint-Alexis-des-Monts. I very soon lost my puppy fat in these mountains with their steep slopes — I lost eleven pounds in two months. My father had thought this a cunning trick on his part which would rid me of my taste for adventure, for he wanted me to become a lawyer; but he missed the mark completely, and the following year I managed to attach myself to a team of forestry engineers who were going to take an inventory of the Tourville forest concession, north of Saint-Paulin. “In 1925, I travelled through the Temiskaming area with some other surveyors. I had all sorts of extraordinary adventures with our Huron guides (Sioui, from Lorette). In June of that same year, I got my degree as a forestry engineer. My intense love of Nature — to the point of making it the central feature of my life — sprang partly 14

from atavism (my ancestor Sebastian Provencher had also been a coureur de bois in Quebec in 1663), and partly from pure chance (that strong hot breeze from the north-west, on 3rd July 1908)”. Paul Provencher fell silent. There on the table in front of me lay a collection of articles he had written — more than six hundred typewritten sheets in all. All I had to do was go through this plentiful material and pick out what I needed to write the book. Now it was my turn to live through an adventure. Gilbert La Rocque

15

16

Introduction

When bad weather blows up in the north-east, the sea on the North Shore is grey, stormy, and terrifying. After the end of October, the lumberjacks say that the ‘season of little miseries’ has arrived. And how right they are! Soaked to the skin from morning till night by the heavy dew or the soft snow clinging to the brushwood of the undergrowth, they tire themselves out very quickly as they make their way through the forest, sliding about on the slippery surface, or floundering in the boggy patches. It is impossible to stop long enough for a proper rest; your body starts shuddering with the cold — and you must be on your way again, willy-nilly.

In January and February there are three-day-long storms which make it completely impossible for you to move — not to mention the deep powdery snow-drifts which invariably follow these storms, formed by a north wind strong enough to cut you in two. In winter, the tem¬ perature sometimes drops to sixty below. This is the time when the rivers freeze over, so that they seem to be asleep, covered with ice and snow — but still giving the impression that their sleep is troubled, from the muffled sound you can always hear when you stand on the bridge of ice that spans them. These rivers form the ‘arteries’ used by ex17

plorers over the years to make their way into the interior of New Quebec. The rivers on the North Shore have many physiographical features in common. In general, they are geolo¬ gical faults which have come into being over the millennia, running more or less north and south. The solid granite has split and undergone a slip at right angles, to expose an imposing vertical face which has been oxidized and pol¬ ished by the wind, rain, and hail. These cliffs vary from a thousand to sixteen hundred feet in height. The Manicouagan and des Outardes Rivers have a drop of some two thousand feet between the 18

Laurentian Plateau, situated some 400 miles inland, and sea-level (at the Gulf of Saint-Lawrence): this results in a large number of impressive natural cascades, waterfalls, and rapids whose turbulent waters always form a most arresting spectacle. Fine weather returns with March: and April is the season of snow-crusts. By this time, the snow has reached its greatest depth. Now the surface hardens to the point where it will bear the weight of a man on snow-shoes without his sinking in. Since all the undergrowth is covered, you can move quickly and easily from one place to another. You should take advantage of this, for with the 19

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arrival of summer, travel through the forest becomes more difficult as you find yourself going through tangled brush¬ wood which makes speedy progress impossible.

*

*

*

Life in the woods means snow-drifts; long expeditions on snow-shoes, which last for months; Indians; trappers; setters of snares for hares; big hunts; the fabulous fish of the Great North; pulp-wood; and prospectors. 20

I can remember my first expedition in 1919, when I was busy studying surveying. We had no cooking-stove, and had to do our cooking on the embers of an open fire. Our bread and tarts were cooked by reflected heat in ‘bakers’ or portable Dutch ovens placed in front of the fire. Pork and beans simmered away in iron pots which we buried under the ashes after supper. They cooked all through the night like this, and were ready for us in the morning. Our dining-room furniture consisted of a big table with a bench on either side, and two chests which served as store-cupboards, and were set near the fire under cloth covers. The table was covered with cheese-cloth, which stopped the wasps and flies from playing about in the jar of molasses or the sugar-bowl. We used to eat a lot of ashes and mosquitoes with our meals; and there was always fierce competition between us hungry humans and the little yellow wasps, for the sweet tarts we had for dessert. How we coughed and spat when we took a couple of these little beasties in with a mouthful of tart! Sometimes we lived in lumberjacks’ huts made out of round logs, with the chinks blocked up with sphagnum or whatever other kind of moss we could find in the woods. The floor-planks had been smoothed with an adze. We had to put our potatoes into containers under the tables in the kitchen, to stop them freezing. The huts had double roofs, with a four-inch layer of earth between the two roofs. We had bunk-beds made of logs covered with fir branches as mattresses. The place was hot enough when filled with people — especially in the upper layer of bunks and near the centre of the hut, not far from the “sow” — an empty oil or gasoline drum, set on a square of sand, and fitted with a seven-inch pipe; this formed our stove. Very often, when the temperature fell to thirty or forty degrees below zero, and we could hear 21

trees splitting from the effect of the frost, a ‘sow’ at each end of the hut would not have been too much to get all the wet clothing hung from the ceiling really dry, and to prevent the men in the corner bunks from freezing. (I won’t attempt to deny that there was usually a pretty masculine stink in those huts!) I remember that in 1927 I spent a night at a small contractor’s near La Tuque, in the basin of the SaintMaurice. He lived with his two sons, and their log hut sheltered the three men and their horse. After supper that evening, they let the stove go out; and just the heat from the horse’s body kept the hut warm until morning. We fell asleep to the rhythm of the horse’s jaws as he champed at his hay, and the sound of his digestive processes. The smell of ammonia and sulphur in that hut easily outdid all other stenches; and next morning I could detect, by the subtle difference in the way they smelt, which of the sons had just had a bowel movement, and which had mucked out the stables as his morning chore! But most often, in winter as in summer, the tent was my only shelter during the years I was livmg in the woods. Whatever the season, there was no difference in the way the tent was pitched. The crossed end-pieces, which served to hold up the horizontal rod from which the tent was hung, also supported the two horizontal rods which held back the vertical stakes to which the side cords of the tent were attached. This primitive but practical framework gave the tent considerable solidity, and allowed you to pitch it the same way every time, and well stretched. The chimney from the stove came out through the front, through a metal plate specially made for the purpose, which slipped into a pocket sewn onto the tent. In this way, any sparks that escaped from the stove went outside, and the risk of fire disappeared almost completely. Finally, to give even more solidity, and to stop the wind turning 22

your “palace” upside down, a length of stout fishing-line ran from the top of the crossed end-pieces down to the ground, at front and rear; and then you were really safe. In order to make ourselves as comfortable as possible, and give the men time to pitch camp before nightfall after we’d moved (for we lived a really nomadic existence), I used to go ahead and use my snow-shoes to flatten out the track we would be using; this gave the snow time to harden, thus allowing the dogs to move their loads along at top speed. If you were travelling alone, or with a guide, then you had to do the job of trampling down the site you’d chosen for your night’s encampment on your own. You usually went about it by taking off your snow-shoes 23

and using them to beat the snow down to ground level. Then you’d spread a thick layer of fir and spruce branches, to serve as flooring and mattress. You would also scatter branches outside the entrance, to act as a carpet and stop your feet from sinking in. Then the thick night falls over the forest, and the frost comes down like an axe on the little camp. But the wise trapper has not been wasting his time; and it may truly be said that his efforts have been successful. Once the canvas has been stretched over the framework, and the snow banked up all round against the sides, and the stove is nice and warm, and there’s a haunch of beaver in the pot — then he can slip into an almost total state of well-being — even though he may not yet fully realize that right then and there, in the heart of the 'woods, he is living through the best moments of his life.

24

Part One

UAPISTAN

The Montagnais As a child, I was crazy about adventure stories and novels. At college, I devoured Fenimore Cooper’s novels, The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, Lake Ontario, etc., and dreamt about them. There’s no doubt that these books made a lasting impression on my mind; and to some extent they’ve contributed toward making me what I am today. Later, when I finished my studies, my father (who was Prothonotary of Trois-Rivières) got me my first job. Hoping to turn me into a lawyer, he put me to studying the archives: by so doing, he wanted to let me familiarize myself with the classification of legal documents. My first job consisted of tracing the history of my family. I found this extremely interesting; and I finally realized where my pronounced taste for adventure came from. My ancestor Sebastian had been a genuine coureur de bois around 1663. As for my mother’s side (who were of Acadian origin), they’d been driven along the south bank of the Saint Lawrence by the Mohawks: my genea¬ logical study showed that several of them had been killed, and the others had only just managed to escape in the most pitiable state, with their finger-nails torn out. Thus I found myself reliving Fenimore Cooper’s rousing tales in the history of my own family. Inevitably, this increased my desire for adventure; and my vocation became clear — much to my father’s despair. In 1925, I’d been all up and down the Saint-Maurice and its tributaries, as a forestry engineer: and when I was 27

sent in 1929 to take inventory in the basins of the Manicouagan, Toulnoustook, Franklin, and aux Rochers Rivers, at Shelterbay, my dreams began coming true. I was at last going to meet the true contemporary coureurs de bois — the Montagnais Indians. One of the main advantage I got from living in their company and in the intimacy of their homes, and from following them as guides and supervising them as employees, was that I was able to observe every¬ thing they did, and understand them. I met the Montagnais for the first time at about the same latitude as the Northern Créés of Ontario. However, they gave me the impression of being better coureurs de bois than the Indians of Lake Seul at Sioux Lookout in Ontario. Before white men started colonizing Canada, all the indigenous natives of our continent were completely subject to the laws of Nature, whose demands varied from 28

one region to another. Those in the West, where the land was flat and game plentiful, had an easier life than the Montagnais, who had to struggle for survival in a rougher region — a rugged country, difficult of access; an often hostile environment, in which the game was more timid (and hence much harder to catch) as a result of the everchanging winds in this maze of valleys and mountains. I believe their unceasing struggle to stay alive, their harder and more eventful existence, and their never-ending search for food have all helped to develop in them the inventive mind that is one of their characteristics, and to make them the most skilled and resourceful people in the forest — in a word, real coureurs de bois. Early White explorers who had Montagnais as teachers and guides obtained the best possible preparation for the conquest of large areas — as they proved when they dis¬ covered the access-routes to the West and the North. The Montagnais form part of the great tribe of Algon¬ quin Indians of the East, whose territory embraced the whole northern forest — spruce, fir, jack pine, birch, and aspen — from the north of Saskatchewan up to the coasts of Labrador, running along the north shores of Lakes Superior and Huron, then along the Saint-Lawrence to Quebec, and taking in the whole of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland . Eight main groups of Indians of Algonquin stock shared this vast territory. The Montagnais form part of the Montagnais-Naskapi group. It is interesting to note in passing that the Beothuks of Newfoundland were the reason why the Indians were called ‘Redskins’, because of the layer of red ochre they spread over their bodies, their faces, and their various possessions. They were also the only Indians on the North American continent who did not own dogs. *

*

* 29

Born wherever the chances of a nomadic life may dictate — in a round hut; alongside a portage; in a clump of caribou lichen, or even in the middle of a burnt-out patch of forest — the children are brown, chubby, and full of life. As an inheritance from their Mongol forbears, they display an air of impassive gravity from their earliest age, an imperturbable calm concealed behind an enigmatic smile which they retain throughout their lives. Breast-feeding is more or less regular, to suit the imperious demands of a hungry youngster who never fails to claim his due. The mother’s breast is quickly produced, and the young glutton sucks at it with a smile of satisfac¬ tion, recognizing it as a rich and abundant source of life. For her part, the Montagnais mother never fails to hang up a pair of mink paws on the poles of the shelter as an offering to the Tshe Mento, the deity of the hunt, so that 30

31

he will always look favourably on the child and keep his snares and traps well filled. She believes that this sort of precaution will ensure the continuity of her race. Thanks to the attentions of a devoted mother, the child gradually becomes accustomed before long to a change of diet, consisting of small pieces of meat, pre-chewed by his mother. A little later, when he begins to cut his teeth, he experiences a violent desire to put everything he can lay his hands on into his mouth: he will even chew the end of his father’s pipe — till the bitter taste of the nicotine fills his mouth and makes him pull a face, much to the amuse¬ ment of the rest of the family. These early experiences undoubtedly help to develop in him the almost excessive taste for tobacco which is a characteristic of the adult Montagnais. 32

He’s a born explorer, and must be tethered to one of the posts of the shelter by a leash of raw leather, to stop him from throwing himself against the stove. However, he soon learns to move about more and more freely within the limits laid down by his mother’s perpetual vigilance: he will gaze out, fascinated, at the world of Nature which is still denied to him — perhaps making plans in his little head for an escape to complete freedom. But this gentle discipline is accepted by the baby willingly enough, and becomes part of his everyday life. At the age of four, how thrilled he is to be finally allowed to imitate his father, and be given his first handrolled cigarette to light himself, in front of his parents and the visitors! His eyes shine with a sort of passion as he slowly brings the match with its fascinating flame up to his cigarette. The smell of the burning paper and tobacco rises in his nostrils, and he tells himself the time has come to “eat” the smoke; he takes his first puff and chokes on it immediately, so that he must turn his head aside, while the spectators burst out laughing. However, a mixture of stubbornness and wounded pride compels him to smoke the thing to the end, even if it makes him sick, but he finds the occasion a precious experience; and there can be no doubt that tshish-temao (tobacco) will become a necessity in his life, and not just a whim. Lucky is the Montagnais child whose father has de¬ cided to raise a few beaver-hounds. As puppies, these dogs think only of two things — playing and eating. Completely without viciousness, they become living playthings for the children, letting themselves be smothered in love, and submitting to the roughest of caresses without a growl. Later, when the boy is let off the leash, he has already become a sensible child — or at least a much calmer one. However, he is very active, though for the moment he is content to watch others gambolling about through lowered 33

eyelashes. He keeps nice and warm in his jacket, which has a protective hood that covers his neck and ears. His legs are left free and uncovered; and this limits his frolics to the neighbourhood of the tent, for the sharp branches of the undergrowth scratch his legs, so that he learns instinctively to keep away from them. The initiation of the baby — that born explorer — takes place naturally and gradually: he will soon learn to be a real coureur de bois. The Montagnais Indian has won himself a great repu¬ tation in our northern forest as a mighty load-carrier. The young Montagnais first learns about portage perched on his mother’s pack, attached to her by means of a sweater which she grasps with one hand in front, so that he cannot fall. For him, it’s a most exciting apprenticeship. He loves 35

these trips, and would like to be carried like this all the time. He loves moving house, and is excited by all the extra activity in the camp at such times. He sees both men and women setting off with loads on their backs which are sometimes almost unbelievable: these pictures remain stamped on his memory all his life; and they will go on being repeated — within him and around him — since they will form part of his existence. It’s more or less true to say that the Montagnais is a born portageur. 36

Perched on his mother’s pack

He loves moving house

Before he’s even five, you’ll see him trotting along during portages, behind the grown-ups, carrying a little five-pound tub of fat. That represents the first stage, before he’s promoted to the ‘head-band’ — which doesn’t take long; for when he turns six, his father has already prepared a thick protective band of birch-bark for his head. This band of bark is softened in the heat of the camp-fire embers, shaped to fit the child’s head, and set aside to dry. Tater, the youngster will be so proud of his “crown” that he’ll wear it ostentatiously, and won’t be parted from it. He’ll even sleep in it. When moving-day comes, he’ll use a length of fishing-line to tie up his load; then — rather clumsily — he’ll shoulder it, just like his elders. As proof that his son’s now become a ‘man’, his proud father will stick his pipe into the boy’s mouth, and say: “Off you go, my son! Now you’re a real portageur!” 38

At six, he’s still only carrying a child’s load. But as he grows older, so his pack grows larger and heavier. Even though the packages he’s carrying may sometimes be stacked up well above his head, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s become a superman, however much he looks like one: the biggest loads aren’t always the heaviest though they’re the hardest ones to carry. Experience will soon teach the young Hercules that fatigue attributable to an error of judgement cannot be justified in the arduous life of a Montagnais trapper. He’ll learn that it’s better to go about things logically, and husband his strength, so that he can follow the example of the most experienced mem¬ bers of the group during moves, rather than have to do his portages in two shifts and thus hold up progress because people have overestimated his strength. By the time he’s thirty-five, he’ll have learnt to load himself up properly, without upsetting the balance of his load; and his loads will become heavier and heavier. For 39

example, here’s how my friend Sylvestre Kapu went about it. A twenty-five-pound sack of beans formed the base of his load: and the stout cord that supported it was adjusted so that the sack rested horizontally across the top of Sylvestre’s buttocks. A second sack of beans, with a slightly shorter cord, lay immediately above the first: then the fifty-pound tub of fat — this with a slightly longer line to it — was slipped neatly over his head, to rest on his back, toward the centre of the two sacks of beans. Finally a third sack — a hundred pounds of flour — was slung behind his neck with an elegant sideways balancing move40

ment, back and forth. This last sack was not held by any cord. The first time I met Sylvestre, in the Outardes portage, he was coming along at a good pace, with a dreamy air — and three hundred and ninety pounds on his back. We didn’t waste too much time in friendly greetings: and as I watched him moving off into the distance, I scratched my head and asked myself a few unanswerable questions. A man’s physical strength has its limits. Sometimes I would find myself worn out with effort, crushed beneath the weight of a load I had mistakenly selected which was too heavy for me: and I wondered what criteria the Montagnais used to establish the distance between stages along the Manicouagan portages. Of course I never found out: but one thing I know for certain, it was a good long dis¬ tance — at least a mile and a half, on average. Also, over the years, I established that an ordinary load for these men of the woods, inured to every possible demand, was about a hundred and fifty pounds. No city-dweller will deny that even if he is in good physical shape, carrying a load of a hundred and fifty pounds for a mile and a half without a rest is very tiring: and many will find that the last hundred yards call for a real display of will-power! In sandbag contests, the weight has been set at two hundred pounds. I remember a chap called Beauvais, from Saint-Maurice, who covered nineteen miles in one of these contests at Trois-Rivières, in 1919. I used to think about him to give myself courage, as I collapsed to the ground with my load when I finally reached the long-awaited staging-point. I turned my head at the slight rustle of moccasins, to see Sylvestre standing near me, having just arrived with a second load — this time composed of two sacks of beans with two tubs of fat placed between them. He spent a 41

moment recovering his breath, one knee on the ground, before he laid down his load, which weighed three hundred and forty pounds. I couldn’t help noticing that there wasn’t even a drop of sweat at the end of his nose, whereas I was bathed in perspiration. I’ve met many canoe-carriers; and it’s rare to find one who’s not developed the famous ‘canoe hump.’ This cartilaginous growth covers the sixth or seventh cervical vertebra, where the cross-bar of the canoe rests when the Indian puts it onto his shoulders to carry it. It comes from the forceful rubbing and irritation of the flesh by the canoe which varies in weight from fifty to sixty-five pounds or more. When this sort of massage continues for months, it 42

spent a moment recovering his breath, knee on the ground

must inevitably produce a deformity which, if sufficently exaggerated, becomes a source of pride to its Montagnais possessor. For example, Jos Color of Betsiamites had an exceptional hump, which had deeply impressed one of my own carriers: when we got to the end of the portage, he said to me: “M. Provencher, did you meet a bull moose on the path? He didn’t have any antlers — but he had a bloody great hump on his neck!” 43

I thought of Jos Color at once — I knew him well: he’d be making for his hunting-grounds about this time. A factor which contributes very largely to the for¬ mation of this famous hump is that the crossed paddles are tied to the front cross-bar of the canoe only by their blades; and when the canoe is loaded on, the free ends are kept in place on the shoulders merely by the portage harness: in this way, the load rests entirely on the base of the neck. There are advantages in carrying the canoe in this fashion: firstly, the carrier can easily free himself of his encumbering load if faced with unexpected danger; and secondly, the ends of the paddles are exerting pressure only on the deltoid muscle, instead of pressing on the end of the collar-bone, which would prove unbearable in the long run. Naturally, one aims at a solution that produces the minimum of pain while providing the maximum of efficiency and security — even at the price of growing this hump, so much admired by every coureur de bois.

45

Caribou Paunches One has to have lived with Indians, and shared their huts, their tents, and their meals, to understand their views on certain customs and tastes which the white man might perhaps consider totally abnormal. Their ideas on hygiene are not always the same as ours, and the trapper who feels the urge to go and live among them needs a stout heart and a cast-iron stomach.

You’ll learn to put up with their banique — a kind of bread made out of flour, baking-powder, salt, and water — and with the animal heads you may well come across at the bottom of your soup-bowl — muskrat, hare, or owl; one soon gets used to every kind of animal flesh, from skunk to lynx. But the Montagnais love fermented dishes; and certain of these dishes seem somewhat strongly fla¬ voured, to say the least, to the most hardened of our gourmets. For example, they find sour caribou paunches a real delicacy — and when you’re living with them, it’s odds on that sooner or later you’ll find yourself obliged to share this particular gastronomic pleasure with them.

This is why I’ll never forget one particular hunt out of all the hunts I’ve been on — and God alone knows how many that comes to during forty years of life in the woods. The taste of what the Indians made me eat during that hunt will still be in my mouth three years after I’m in my grave! 47

The banique.

Thirty-five years ago, I was carrying out a forest population survey for my company, in the highlands of the Manicouagan River. I was accompanied by a trapper and two Montagnais, who served as guides and general assis¬ tants: Félix, Sylvestre, and Théophile, all three of them outstanding coureurs de bois. The two Montagnais had been hired locally: they lived off what they caught hunting. 48

with their families, in the hunting-grounds which had passed from father to son for generations. Being Montagnais, they’d inherited the qualities of their ancestors and also their superstitions. They enjoyed working for me. The job entailed a preliminary reconnaissance and exploration, during which we would have to live like nomads — a way of life very similar to their usual one. Furthermore, they could lift their traps every now and then, while still on salary. Our food supplies were running low, and it became a matter of urgency for us to obtain some fresh meat: so a caribou hunt was arranged. The night before, I caught Sylvestre taking a hare’s shoulder-blade off the hot embers in the cast-iron stove: he examined it carefully, in complete silence, while Théophile and Félix watched him, smoking placidly. Nothing was said during the rest of the evening; but early next morning, before we set out, I picked up the shoulder-blade without Sylvestre’s noticing: I found that on the broader side of the bone he’d drawn a rough sketch of the country over which we would be hunting, and that the thin plate of bone had been burnt by the fire in two places. I then realized that he’d been casting our horoscope, and that the direction we were going to take to find our caribou had been laid down for us by the two burnt spots. Pure superstition, of course, but the fact remains that Sylvestre must have known what he was doing, for about three o’clock that afternoon, as he breasted a hillock, he suddenly signed to us to get down, and used his hand to indicate that he’d seen seven animals. His instructions were quickly given. With his hand, he motioned me over to a narrow ravine, into which I crept silently. The wind was blowing into my face — an encouraging sign. Théophile and Félix were sent out to the right, along a ridge: he himself stayed where he was. I realized at once that he knew his business, for all of us were down-wind of the 49

He’d seen seven animals.

animals. As I got to the end of my gully, I heard a shot. I moved forward two paces quickly, to see what was hap¬ pening, and saw two caribou galloping toward me. I let them come within fifty feet of me before I fired. I was lucky enough to kill them both. Théophile and Sylvestre had each brought one down. Félix was less lucky, and had gone off after the others. As I walked over toward my companions, 1 saw Sylvestre administer the coup de grâce to his caribou, which was still moving. Théophile stood nearby, watching closely. Immediately, Sylvestre slit the animal’s throat; and my two Indians buried their faces in the hot blood from the jugular veins, drinking it down in great gulps to assuage their odd thirst. Although I have often bled game on a hunt, the spectacle of this blood¬ thirsty act, and the sight of their faces all reddened with 50

blood when they lifted their heads to draw breath, shocked me so deeply that I felt dreadfully sick, and almost threw up on the spot. To say that I felt ‘a trifle indisposed’ is putting it mildly — and the coming sequel definitely didn’t make me feel any better! When it, was time for us to eat, after the paunches had been removed from the bodies, I watched Sylvestre carve the flesh along the ribs, where the caribou’s fat is formed. He cut out a piece about eight inches square, scraped off the bits of paunch still adhering to it, and held it out to me triumphantly, saying: “Otshimau Paul, here’s your lunch!” I could see that Sylvestre had cleaned the raw, bleeding flesh a little by scraping it with his knife: but there were still foul green smears left on the meat — I couldn’t keep my eyes off them whenever I took a none-too-enthusiastic look at my slice impaled on a 51

I watched Sylvestre carve the flesh aloryjj^e ribs.

dry stick and cooking over the fire, right in line with the tea-kettle. I felt sick at heart, and not really hungry at all. The slices of meat for the other three received the same perfunctory scraping, and took their places alongside mine. The fatty part of the meat grew soft quite quickly, and soon melted and boiled, thus helping the cooking process along. The minutes dragged by: then I swallowed painfully as Sylvestre handed me my stick. I pretended to accept it with pleasure — what else? it was completely out of the question for me to refuse it: but I knew very well my face must be white as a sheet. By dint of cooking and recooking it, I managed to eat it all in the end. Sylvestre 53

continued dressing the animals; and I noticed that he never wasted a thing. He took the foetuses from the females — and even their paunches, from which he removed a third of their contents, replacing it immediately, with the animal’s own warm blood. For each paunch, he rolled up his sleeve and plunged his hand in, kneading the smelly mess vig¬ orously to mix it well together. Then he wiped his arm off in the snow and closed the paunch by making a knot in the loose skin of the envelope. “Look”, he said to me when he’d finished, “Miam tuk-ushkasseken! (That makes lovely jam!)” This ‘jam’ was then left to ferment for six days behind the stove; after that it was just right. The foetuses removed from the females would make a tasty treat for the old people with poor teeth — the bones were soft, and the meat more tender. When Sylvestre and Théophile disappeared shortly afterward into the undergrowth, on the way back, dragging their caribou by the nostrils and ‘with’ the nap of the hide, I couldn’t help thinking that the scene I’d just witnessed could well have taken place thousands of years ago. Without any doubt, things went exactly the same way in the Stone Age, and with just as little cere nony. It must not be forgotten that Sylvestre’s and Théophile’s ancestors were nomads who originally lived in northern Asia. When they came to Canada across the Bering Strait, they in¬ stinctively hunted the animal best fitted to provide them with food and clothing — namely the caribou. For my own part. I’d have no hesitation in picking the caribou over the moose every time, for several reasons. First of all, there’s much less wastage in the caribou: it’s more tender than the moose, and all the meat can be used up easily. I remember one year we had to fill nearly 165 four-pound boxes to carry the meat of a bull moose we’d killed: and I had to eat moose stew for three years, to salve my conscience! Nothing like that with the caribou: we ate 54

it five times a day, finishing up with a bed-time snack; and we never seemed to get tired of it. The Montagnais found the blood of the moose too strong to drink, but they loved the much sweeter blood of the caribou (and I was able to check the sweetness for myself, when I plucked up enough courage to drink some with them on some of our later hunts). Moving a dead moose is no small affair: unless one has adequate equipment available, the job is definitely a most disheartening one. On the other hand. I’ve actually seen my guides pull a caribou (after gutting it), by means of a fishing-line through its nostrils: sometimes they’ve covered a distance of more than four miles in this way before reaching camp. Had it been a moose, they’d have needed a tractor. And what about leather thongs, mitts, and moccasins? Snow-shoes strung with caribou thongs do not stretch in spring weather; on the contrary, the humidity makes them tighten up. Caribou hide gives a soft, durable leather, easy to tan and easy to sew. It also has the ines¬ timable advantage of being a perfect insulator against cold — its fleece of fine hairs is not unlike sheepskin. The Eskimos use it as a mattress in their igloos. The moose has none of these advantages. Even the horns are used to make knife-handles, coarse needles, spear-points, etc., and the hooves are used to provide buttons. Furthermore, caribou live in herds, which is more advantageous for the hunter who knows their habits. Living as he does by hunting and fishing in the most inhospitable area of the continent, the territory least favoured by Nature, the Indian has only the animals to rely on for his sustenance. It is thus quite normal that the customs of these men, and their feelings too, should have been transformed during the course of the ages, so that artificial contempt — such as I used to encounter previous¬ ly — simply does not exist among them. 55

I was mulling over these thoughts as I lay stretched out on my caribou skin at the bottom of the hole in the snow in which Félix and I were to spend the night. When the two Indians left us, there were still two caribou to be skinned: so we’d decided to sleep out under the stars. We used our snow-shoes to clear the snow away down to the ground over an area seven feet square, at the foot of a rock. At the bottom of the hole we put a layer of spruce branches a foot thick. Two caribou skins served as mattresses. Our make¬ shift shelter was roofed with two more skins stretched raw side up on poles driven down into the snow. To stop the air coming in where these skins touched the surface of the snow, we laid spruce branches and pressed a foot of snow down over them with our snowshoes, thus sealing the joint hermetically. Félix lit a fire about four o’clock in the afternoon, in front of the doorway of our shelter. The heat was reflected back off the face of the rock, and kept us surprisingly comfortable inside. What impressed me most was to see the smoke going up the sloping face of the rock and then rising vertically, instead of blinding us inside our shelter. 56

When Sylvestre saw us coming in with our loads of meat, he shouted to me from a distance: “Hurry up, Otshimau — I know you’re hungry!” With a great beam¬ ing smile he offered me some raw marrow which he’d dug out from one of the hoof-bones of his caribou. To avoid hurting his feelings I took a piece, which I swallowed without even chewing it, in case it made me sick. A few days later, I almost gave up the ghost when they handed me a bowl full of sour tuk-ushkasseken. Pascal Bacon, a neighbouring Montagnais trapper who’d come to visit Sylvestre, gobbled it up in great ladlefuls, saying with his mouth full: “Eat some, Otshimau — it’ll make your hair grow!” For interest, here is the recipe used by the Chipewayan Indians of the North-West Territories, taken from the Diary of Samuel Hearne, Hudson’s Bay Company, Cum¬ berland House, 1774: 57

CMGESTIVE:

SYSTEM

OF THE

CARIBOU

CONTENTS Of RÜMEN4 (W)N\ *GNNS- TUK - OTSEMTETi) +he JAM

IoESQPHAGUS I

THIRD Ç.T0MAC8

(trituration)

rumen or paunch ' 4 V

RENNET (GASTRIC

•* "l

\ \ / (storage RtstuoiRI ,t J J

RElNEER. N'OSE, LICHEN .SMALL FWT>, SMALL GREEN LEAVES

/

«VITAMINS

STOMACH

BA.C

PREPARING THE JXM Ie«»*' t»( c*“C ••*»**>!

SACf^

- Bipv_aci ^ w TH C^"luT\ uim - Miay

ttf-tmT *m. S«X O^vs k/*o*» Pvkci • T>VTf\ » 8-r ott p»m«Sm aii* f*tw - Apt* wAticw \T .•> 3\,ST «HO*-

|lNTEST|NE 1

1 EXCREMENT |

“Among the Chipewayans, their most remarkable dish — which is also that of all the Indian tribes both in the North and the South of this country — consists of caribou blood mixed with the half-digested contents of the paunch and boiled with sufficient water to give it the consistency of thick pea soup, to which is added fat and scraps of tender meat. Then, to make the dish more appetizing after it has been well mixed in the paunch, the paunch is sus¬ pended above the camp-fire to allow the contents to ferment and be smoke-cured for several days. This process gives the dish such a pleasant taste that the most refined of palates would enjoy it, if only they could rid themselves 58

of their prejudices — and provided they had not seen it being prepared: for according to the beliefs of these Indians, it is the task of the males to crush the nodules of fat by chewing them and them spitting them back into the mixture, in order to give the soup a uniform creamy consistency. It is to be noted that only the men with healthy teeth undertake this delicate task of mastication. Moose paunches taste too strongly of fir trees, and are not used among the Indians who hunt farther to the South.”

When I got back to civilization, my researches showed that the paunch or rumen of the caribou contains reindeermoss and lichen, small green leaves, and small fruits rich in Vitamin C (anti-scorbutic), as well as Vitamins K and B — these last two coming from the rumen itself. The enzymes of Vitamin K are essential to life, in the sense that without their action the nutritive cycle could not be completed: they permit the assimilation of the plants ingested by the animal and provide proteins and carbo-hydrates. The enzymes of Vitamin B promote coagulation of the blood, and thus counteract haemorrhages. The stench of these paunches at the height of their fermentation, coupled with that of the raw meat hanging from the ceilings of the tents, has often nauseated me. I once almost upset the cast-iron stove in my efforts to get outside as quickly as possible for a breath of fresh air — followed by great bursts of laughter from the squaws. Even after thirty-five years, I have not succeeded in acquiring a nose for these savage, sensual smells.

However, I feel myself fortunate to have lived through, and above all to have been able to record on film, the end of an era which forms part of Canada’s history — the era of the true Canadian coureur de bois. It represents a page of our history which has now been turned — the end of an era which will never return. 59

The River aux Rochers Before investing funds in any business, it is both logical and normal for the investor to get some idea about the business — what risks there are in it, what advantages or disadvantages: in short, he wants to see the balance-sheet, or a report which shows the trading record of the merchant with whom he proposes to associate himself.

However, there is one special feature about the logging industry: the huge forest areas are owned by the Crown, and the purchaser of a lot is merely a concessionaire — the actual land itself remains Crown property. However, the concessionaire is permitted to make use of Nature’s products, to distribute them or sell them in accordance with the agreement reached between the two parties, by means of timber rights, ground rents, and so on. The concessionaire also binds himself, by signing the agreement, to satisfy the requirements of the Crown by conforming to the regulations of the Department of Lands and Forests of the Province of Quebec.

Naturally, before concluding an agreement of this importance, the investor will pay a preliminary visit to his future forest holdings — or at least have an exploration carried out on his behalf. Thus I found myself called upon in 1929 to carry out a reconnaissance of certain concessions. Later, I was asked to do a detailed forestry survey of these concessions, which lay in the drainage areas of the Manicouagan, des Outardes, Franklin, and aux Rochers Rivers 61

Uapistan

in the Province of Quebec, and at Heron Bay and Sioux Lookout in Ontario. It was at this time that I met Uapistan. Georges Boisvert, the general manager of the Quebec North Shore Paper Company, who’d had Uapistan as a guide for several years, told him as he left: “Provencher, the forestry engineer who’s going to be your boss, and whom you’ll meet at Baie-Comeau, is a tough character of six foot two. So be prepared to stand up to him!” Uapistan put his things together and came to look for me in my little hut situated at the end of the bay now known as Baie-Comeau. When the door opened, I noted the look of enquiry on the guide’s face, as he stood on the threshold with an air of indecision, looking to see where the giant described by Boisvert could be hiding in the hut. I turned out to be quite 62

a surprise for him — for the good Lord, in his wisdom, has made me only five foot two! We introduced ourselves: and from that moment we got on famously together for many years. Jos Savard (Uapistan was his Indian name) was then fifty-five, and stood five feet seven inches tall. He had black hair, an aquiline nose, and a swarthy skin. His gait was slow, measured — and somehow special. He took long steps, bending his knee as he went. He was a heavy smoker of leaf tobacco. Very discreet, very observant, this laconic man possessed excellent judgement: and his well-calculated actions made him highly efficient. Unbelievably strong for his size, and as fit as a fiddle, he was gifted with extraordinary endurance and courage. A Montagnais by birth, he had inherited from his ancestors all their qualities as first-class coureurs de bois: and he spoke their language perfectly — which proved very useful to me. *

*

*

Uapistan and I were to leave in two days’ time to reconnoitre the area at the head of the aux Rochers: we would be passing Lake Saint-Joseph — a difficult region, mountainous and precipitous, but promising for timber. Jos had met Ti-Basse Saint-Onge during the afternoon, and had told me how much Ti-Basse wanted to join us on this trip. I was not too enthusiastic, when I thought of TiBasse’s seventy-five years, but in the end I gave in, when my guide pointed out what an advantage it would be to have Ti-Basse with me — a man who knew every last inch of the area we were going to cross, since it had formerly been his own hunting-ground. Secretly, I was delighted to have the services of these two Montagnais, who were certainly no ‘babes in the wood’ — they were true coureurs de bois, very like those 63

of the days of Des Groseillers, De La Verendrye, and Thompson. Despite his age, Ti-Basse carried an enormous pack that weighed two hundred pounds, held on his forehead by a length of stout fishing-line; a simple handful of moss 64

served as a pad between the cord and his skull. As for Uapistan, he handled our eighteen-foot canoe like a child’s toy. I ventured to try Ti-Basse’s load during a short portage, much to my regret. The cord pressed so hard against my temples that I was squinting when I reached the end of the portage. This exploration trip was Ti-Basse Saint-Onge’s last visit to his hunting-grounds. He died a few years later, at the age of eighty-seven. 65

just fallen and wrei

However, we had overestimated the old fellow’s prodigious memory; and this almost cost us dear. During our second week, after we’d crossed the famous Lake Saint-Joseph chain of mountains, we found Ti-Basse worn out at the end of a portage he’d just completed. His memory had failed him, and he’d forgotten that at this point of the river there were some impressive rapids. He’d carried all the baggage down to the foot of the rapids: and he’d just fallen, with his last load, and wrenched his knee. He was sitting unhappily on his pack, quite incapable of going any further. His knee was still swelling visibly. To find poor Ti-Basse thus reduced to impotence, his eyes hollow and pleading, gave us a nasty shock. We had really reached the point of no return. Here we were in this magnificent scenery, alone at the bottom of a gorge of the aux Rochers with 1600 foot-high mountains all round us: 66

we decided it was impossible to retrace our steps with Ti-Basse on our backs, and the only thing to do was to continue along the stream. Our problems were increased by the black flies. We had to make cotton cowls and wristlets to protect our necks, ears, and wrists: we also had to sew up the flies of our trousers to the very top, and the fronts of our shirts right up to the chin — otherwise we’d have been driven mad. That left just our eyes, nostrils, and mouths as the bait. We spent our time blowing down our noses and blinking. I said to Uapistan: “We’ve just found the factory where they make the black flies for the rest of Canada!” Then, as I drew in a breath, a fly entered my mouth and got stuck behind one of my tonsils. I started coughing and choking. If Jos hadn’t been there to thump me on the back with might and main and make me throw up, I’d have been a goner. Anyway, we had to act quickly. I lit a fire immediately, and Jos busied himself with the tent and the stove. As for me, this was the third time something like this had happened to me. In 1923, on the Saint-Maurice north of Shawinigan, I’d had to get our cook out of the woods suffering from an attack of appendicitis. Then in February 1926, at Anticosti, one of my men had sliced off two toes with an axe as we were carrying out a survey. We’d had to get him out quickly: and it wasn’t much fun, on snow-shoes through the brushwood. The picture of the trail of blood on the snow stayed in my memory for a long time. Jos Uapistan Savard, for his part, had lived through countless adventures as a trapper: as for Ti-Basse, he’d seen plenty of them himself during his life, and was not the sort of man to become unnerved over a swollen knee. What worried him most was to see himself reduced to impotence, and thus to be holding up my work. He felt himself guilty, so to speak, and this feeling deeply wounded his self-pride as an Indian. Darkness had fallen: and with it 67

came the damp coolness of the summer night. However, our spirits revived in the pleasant warmth of the stove, after a few swigs of hot, strong, ‘triple-brewed’ tea and a good pipeful of Canadian tobacco. We wrapped his knee in damp moss and a pair of woollen stockings. Three days later, Ti-Basse could walk in the portages with a stick — just like a proper gentleman. Uapistan said with a laugh: “All he needs now is a cigar and a bowler hat!” The forest and its inhabitants held no secrets for these two men. The smallest tracks, the most insignificant and imperceptible signs, which a White would never even have noticed, showed them where wild beasts had passed. After interpreting these signs, they were nearly always able to say, with uncanny accuracy, where they would have to go to catch and kill their game. I was highly pleased to find myself completely alone in the depths of the forest with these two fine coureurs de bois. I kept watching them without appearing to — espe¬ cially in the evenings, round the camp fire, as they crouched or knelt close to the warm embers keeping an eye on the cooking of a banique, and I could watch their two bronzed, impassive faces in the flickering firelight. Between them¬ selves they used a dialect full of imagery, but there was so much mumbling in it that I could never understand it. With a little effort of imagination, it was not hard to see them as the heroes of the tales of Gustave Aimard and Fenimore Cooper which I had loved so much in my child¬ hood: and I used to amuse myself by picking out the roles which fitted each of them the best. By this time, I was already beginning to feel for Uapistan something which later on, after years of shared adventures, I would recognize as admiration and respect. It was Uapistan who taught me all about the woods — how to survive in them, and above all how to live in them. On many occasions I owed my life to the poker-faced vigilance 68

which he seemed able to keep up twenty-four hours a day. On one occasion, he averted disaster by intervening just as some idiot was about to fry us in our hut by pouring gasoline onto the hot embers in the stove, to make the fire burn up. This unwitting arsonist was a somewhat limited and sullen-tempered character: my men couldn’t stand him any longer, and I’d had to tell him he was through. To spare him from sleeping out in the open, I’d allowed him to spend the night in my hut while waiting for the boat, which was due the next day. I lent him a couple of blankets, and he lay down on the floor, beside the stove. Jos didn’t trust our guest at all, and slept with one eye open all through the night, keeping watch on him from up in his bunk. Around three o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by a great shout, which made me sit up in bed with a start. It was Jos, who’d just stopped the idiot from throwing the contents of the can of gasoline we kept for our lamps onto the embers. If he’d actually done it! — well, I hardly like to think what sort of state all three of us would have found ourselves in! *

*

*

A month had already gone by since we’d left. We were now travelling right in the heart of the hunting-grounds where old Ti-Basse had spent the, best years of his life, thirty years before. It was a rich, well-stocked area, which he’d probably inherited from his father, in the usual way. Some burnt areas, formerly covered by growths of birch and small wild cherry trees, had become a young forest, clean and vigorous. I was sure that seen from a plane the tender pale green of the foliage would have shown the demarcation-line between the old trees and the new. The animals who had been driven away by the fire had returned and were now multiplying, since food was 69

available in abundance. Along the rivers it was quite common to come across trees felled by beavers, and otter slides. Finding tracks and signs of gnawing never failed to interest my two Montagnais. It meant as much to them as the headlines on the first page of our morning paper mean to us. While we were certainly not short of fresh meat, our stock of bread was shrinking alarmingly. So we had to ration the banique, which formed our main dish and could be described as our ‘daily bread.’ It must be admitted that despite its nutritive properties, banique is by no means a gourmet dish. As an article of food, it’s rough, and not very tasty. You’re not actually eating mouthfuls of plain flour — but you’re not far from it! Flour and water are mixed with salt and baking-powder. Everything is well kneaded together, then put into the casserole to cook. The mixture rises slowly, and not very far. After an hour’s baking, you get a big pancake of cooked flour, two inches thick, with a solid crust — the whole thing weighing some three pounds. It doesn’t taste too bad — and you get used to it in the long run; you may even end up quite liking it! But above all banique is easy to carry, and doesn’t take up much space in your baggage. Every time a new banique appeared at our meals, we had to check our stock of flour; and we were alarmed to see the level going down more and more quickly day by day. By now, we were convinced we’d have to make do without it — for we had to finish our job at all costs before we returned to civilization. Naturally, we were unlikely to die of hunger — far from it, for there was no lack of fresh meat. Ti-Basse still had to use his stick, and couldn’t move too far from the tent. However, he managed to set a few snares and catch a hare for us occasionally: and sometimes he’d shoot a partridge. Once he even managed to bring down a merganser. We kept body and soul together: and anyway, we couldn’t have cared less — we were happy. 70

The work progressed, even if slowly, but we did miss our banique — and fish, too; they simply weren’t biting. One morning, Ti-Basse woke up with a splendid idea in his head, and told us we wouldn’t have to go without our banique after all. I didn’t know whether Jos and he, during their evening confabulation, had decided to work a miracle, or invent some mysterious recipe, or perform some conjuring trick to eke out our remaining stock of flour. However, much to my astonishment, there was a big banique baking on the stove next evening. It had been a lovely day, I was in excellent spirits (I could see the job would be finished in another three or four days), and I was hungry as a hunter. I’d have eaten anything! Our menu consisted of the big oily merganser — and of course Ti-Basse’s special banique, which turned out to be black inside, and tasted of licorice. The two Indians knew what they were eating, but I hadn’t the slightest idea; and I couldn’t help telling Ti-Basse: “That little bun of yours tastes a bit odd!” To which Ti-Basse replied, between two mouthfuls and a swig of tea: “Myum! myum!” — eat it up, man! We’re not going to be short of flour any longer. Well, there was certainly no shortage of what he called ‘flour’: and that’s a fact! But when I felt the effects of the purgative dish he’d given me to eat, I nearly died! At first I thought the fat of the merganser had caused the dreadful upset in my insides. But I soon found that my monster attack of diarrhoea came from the lichen ‘rock tripe.’ Ti-Basse had in fact taken this lichen, boiled it, dried it, ground it up, and then added it to the flour: its laxative properties cannot possibly be overestimated — it had worked on me in superlative fashion, and cleaned me out properly. I was out of action for two days, and had to take things very easy on the third. Ti-Basse and Uapistan came out of it well enough. Of course, it wasn’t out of mischief that the old man had fixed 71

me so thoroughly: I’m sure he was merely trying to help me. The trouble was quite simple: I wasn’t equipped with the insides of an Indian — intestines capable of with¬ standing anything, and seemingly immune against drugs of this nature. On the subject of this famous ‘rock tripe’ which gave me the trots so badly, its scientific name is umbilicaria pustulata; and I found that it’s a lichen very common throughout Canada, growing on rocks. Blackish in colour, it looks something like a very thin pancake, varying between one and six inches in diameter. Its flat disc is provided with a navel, supported on a short stem (the hilum), which serves as a channel for the mineral salts which nourish the lichen. It’s interesting to note that the lichen itself is a double entity, formed by the association of a mushroom and an alga. A symbiosis of this nature implies reciprocal benefits: each plant gives something to the other, and receives something else in exchange. Thanks to this symbiosis, lichens can grow in places — for example, on the bare rock — where neither a mushroom nor an alga could survive alone. We had wretched weather on our last day: and in order to vary the menu a little, I’d asked Ti-Basse to have another try to catch us a few trout. So the old fellow took off in one direction, in the canoe; while we went the other way, toward the mountains. We got back to camp at the end of the afternoon, soaked to the skin: but much to our disappointment there was no smoke coming out of the chimney in the tent. Ti-Basse hadn’t yet returned. Uapistan lit the fire, and I made some tea. Jos filled his big pipe, and we settled down to wait, with our eyes riveted on the bend in the river. Nearly an hour went by before we finally saw the canoe gliding along slowly, against the current. “To be coming back so late, he must surely have emptied the trout-hole completely!” I said to Jos. 72

“Perhaps”, he replied, puffing at his pipe. Ti-Basse hauled his canoe up onto the beach, then leant over to pick something out of the bottom of the craft, before turning the latter upside down and tying it up. At that distance, I thought at first that he had a string of trout there — yet I’d been able to make out some feet quite clearly, and I was sure it wasn’t a bird. When Ti-Basse came closer, I realized that what he was holding in his hand was nothing other than a toad, and an enormous one, too! The poor old man was very embarrassed as he put his catch down before us and explained in all seriousness: “They weren’t biting and this was all I could catch!” An absolutely symbolic gesture, I thought, in view of his completely serious air. I’d already eaten frogs’ legs, and thoroughly enjoyed them, but toad ? — never! When they warmed up the oily meat of the merganser, and that dreadful black banique reappeared on the table, I felt my hunger disappearing as if by a miracle: and when I 73

went to bed, I could hardly wait for dawn to break, so that I could go on ahead and finally find a proper trouthole. That trip was one of the unforgettable ones. Each of us profited from it; and Ti-Basse had realized his long¬ standing dream of seeing his old hunting-grounds once more: he’d made his last trip into the forest.

74

Basic Survival Methods I’d noticed that Uapistan always travelled light, and never cluttered himself up with useless things. Apart from his axe, which he always carried in his hand, and his pipe in the corner of his mouth, Uapistan seemed to need nothing, and yet to be always ready to meet Nature’s challenges. This intrigued me deeply, so much so that one day I asked him to empty out his pockets for me. He looked at me in surprise, and then burst out laughing. “You think I’ve pinched your matches, Otshimau?” “Oh no, Uapistan! Come I trust you. I just want to pockets that gives you such began emptying his pockets

on now, you know very well see what you carry in your self-confidence!” At that, he willingly enough.

He took out a pouch full of tobacco; a dozen matches in a water-tight case made of birch-bark; five hare snares made of brass wire; a single-bladed pocket-knife; a small whetstone; four lengths of fishing-line each about a yard long; two wire leaders about the same length; four inchand-a-half fishhooks; and a twenty-foot length of line. From his right hip pocket he took out an oilcloth tobacco-pouch containing a handful of tea; from his left, a catapult and six round pebbles half an inch in diameter, and four three-inch nails. The whole collection probably weighed about half a pound. The belt holding up his pants consisted of a thin thong of oil-tanned leather, thirty inches long. 75

Well, I’d stripped my ‘superman!’ But what a lesson in forethought I’d had from it! If this born woodsman could manage to conquer hunger and live comfortably in the depths of the forest with these minor articles, then surely, by imitating him, I myself could also manage to get by, even though I didn’t have his skill. And that’s what I did. When we set out together on a trip, we would each carry our own baggage, In mine, I always included a spare pair of woollen socks and some underwear; also a threefoot Swedish saw-blade wrapped up in a piece of cloth; an extra twenty-foot length of fishing-line; a frying-pan; and a banique three inches thick and seven inches across. Uapistan carried the tea-kettle, two tin cups, three plates, two soup spoons, two forks, the tea, salt, and pepper, half a pound of bacon, some fat, and a big onion. He also took a muskrat trap with him. We were quite happy that way. The forest became our larder; and we knew it was never empty. Contrary to all the safety rules which the White trapper must adhere to scrupulously, Uapistan never used a map on his trips into the forest. “Me? My map’s engraved inside my head, where I can’t lose it!”, he’d say, tapping his forehead with his forefinger. Equally, it was rare to see him using a compass to orient himself. To tell the time, he looked at the sun. He never travelled through the brush¬ wood in the dark, and he always stayed in his tent in foggy weather. “At night”, he used to say, “dry branches could poke your eyes out: and I enjoy looking at the beauties of Nature too much to travel in the fog.” What could be more logical? It was hard to get Uapistan to admit that he could ever get lost in the forest, especially in the Manicouagan region, which he knew like the back of his hand. One day I asked him: “How would you know where you were, on an overcast day when you couldn’t tell which way was north?” 76

The Manicouagan region

He hesitated for a few moments, then answered me with a bantering smile: “I’d have to work a miracle, wouldn’t I? Hee! hee! It’s not too easy to work a miracle, hee! hee!” I really enjoyed going into the forest with a companion with his sort of outlook; furthermore, Uapistan’s qualifi¬ cations and knowledge were absolutely invaluable. This was why I have always advised anyone who will listen to me never to go into the forest with people who are morose or nervy. If morale is good, you’re not likely to find yourself being overtaken by events and giving way to panic, which only too often lies at the root of some of the worst tragedies. Under the paralyzing effect of panic, your memory crumbles, your judgement becomes clouded, your senses lose their sharpness, your appetite disappears, your will grows feeble, you go half-crazy. The instinct of self77

preservation leads you astray; you feel Death hard on your heels; you start running — anywhere. In this way you waste your energy uselessly; you wear yourself out; and you end up dead. Take the case of some poor devil who’s lost, but finally manages to get his bearings: now he still needs to build a fire in order to get through the night. But very often he finds that his matches, which he kept in his pockets, are damp and no good any longer. “Now if that were you, Uapistan, what would you do?” “That’s easy. That hunter simply isn’t thinking. You take a cartridge, remove the bullet, and put a bit of rag in its place — the tail of your shirt, say; then you fire it into a heap of dry twigs, mixed with little pieces of birch-bark and another bit of your shirt. You fan the embers with your hand, to make a little wind, and you’ll get a flame.” “Supposing you don’t have a rifle?” Uapistan dug around in his pocket and brought out a magnifying-glass that some surveyor had given him. “That’s easy too — but you need fine weather. The sun does it.” “Supposing there’s no sun?” “Then you’ve got to play the violin!”, Uapistan answered. Of course, he meant producing fire by friction. Uapistan was a good teacher, and it didn’t take me long to learn how to ‘play the violin.’ First of all I prepared a sufficient quantity of tiny chips of dry wood and birchbark (or shredded cedar-bark, paper, moss, etc.) which I then placed under the notch in the fire-board. You must never forget to make this notch: it is in fact through this opening that the oxygen reaches the chips and helps them catch fire. When the friction raises the temperature of the wood to the point of charring it, or even setting it alight, the spark so produced travels through to the chips lying under the notch and forms embers, which catch fire quickly, provided they get enough oxygen. 78

I noticed that the string of Uapistan’s drill-bow con¬ sisted of a leather thong. The reason for this was both simple and logical: an ordinary string slips on the drill, and wears out quickly, whilst the leather grips the wooden stick, and lasts much longer.

79

80

81

The friction raises the temperature of the wood.

82

83

Some Eskimos pair off in twos to produce fire by friction. One of them holds the fire-stick and presses down on it, while the other plies the leather thong wrapped round the stick. Among the people of the Six Nations, the fire-stick carried a sort of flywheel, set low down on the stick in order to keep the pressure steady. The drill-bow consisted of a small board with a hole in it through which the firestick was passed: the stick itself had an opening at the top through which the string of the drill-bow was threaded. The ends of the string were attached to the two ends of the bow. When the board was spun round and round, the bowstring wound itself tightly round the fire-stick, making the drill-bow climb up to the top of the stick. Then the board was pressed firmly downward along the stick, which made the bowstring unwind and turn the fire-stick, thus producing the necessary friction on the fire-board. Among the Iroquois, the fire-stick was five feet long; it too carried a flywheel. In 1937, at Fort Mackenzie, in the Ungava district, I learnt that the Naskapi in that area used a long fire-stick, somewhat like that of the Iroquois, when they had no matches. These Indians were not very communicative; and I had to use a lot of persuasion and many packs of ‘Alouette’ tobacco before I could get them to reveal their secrets. “We never short of matches here.” As he spoke, David Inish rummaged in his pocket, and showed me a little round box made of birch-bark. He took the lid off, and showed me there were about twenty matches in the box. He put it back in his pocket carefully, and said with a twinkle in his eye: “If Montreal people come up Ungava — no matches — much better they stay Montreal!” I understood very well what he was getting at: and in order not to look foolish in front of all the squaws and the other Indians gathered round us, I too took out my own 84

little box of matches, almost an exact replica of his, which Uapistan had given me as a present. This did a lot to increase my prestige in their eyes, and also helped to win me their confidence. *

*

*

I often questioned Uapistan about the way to trap animals. He was always patient with me, and gave me detailed answers, no doubt conscious of his extempora¬ neous position as a teacher, and of my keenness to understand his answers fully, and to watch — and then to imitate — his demonstrations. As a general rule, he used the snare for animals with heads bigger than their necks, such as the hare, the fox, the lynx, and the bear. We also sometimes used the snare to catch skunks and groundhogs. Furred animals such as the mink, the marten, the otter, the beaver, the fisher, the muskrat, and the weasel have necks as big as their heads, so that when they struggle, the snare slides over their heads, allowing them to escape, since they cannot be strangled. In these cases, traps are used. As regards beaver, Uapistan told me he’d taken them with the snare, the trap, and the pitfall. He’d also caught one or two with his bare hands; and others he’d clubbed, or shot. To catch beaver with the snare, in spite of their thick, short necks, Uapistan had thought up a special method. In the spring, when the sun begins to warm the ground again, the beavers come out about three o’clock in the afternoon to eat young aspens on the mountain-side; and they follow well-beaten paths. We would set the snare right in the middle of one of these paths. For the snare itself, we’d use five-stranded steel wire. Now since the beaver can weigh up to forty pounds, or even more, it takes something pretty solid to hold him. 85

The pole we used to string him up was eighteen feet long, and six inches in diameter at the thick end. As opposed to the springy stick for the hare, which we bent double, this one worked like a see-saw; and its fulcrum was about a third of the way along it from the thin end. This fulcrum consisted of a forked branch of a dried tree set in the ground. When the pole was made ready for action, with the heavy end up in the air, it was held in that position by tying the thin end to the bait — a young aspen three quarters of an inch thick, planted firmly in the ground six inches behind the snare. The snare itself was attached to the small end of the pole, and hung in the opening left for the beaver to go through, for we’d blocked the path beforehand with a barrier of dried stakes, so as to make 86

him creep through the special opening. To stop the bait being torn out of the ground by the constant effect of the upward pull exerted by the weight of the heavy end of the pole creating a turning-movement round the fulcrum, we were careful to leave a few knots two or three inches long when we were trimming the bait. These protuberances hooked themselves into the roots and underground vege¬ tation, thus holding the device in place. The snare was eight inches in diameter, and the bottom of it rested on the ground. To keep it in place, we laid a small dried stick at an angle across the wire: a small notch on the underside stopped the wire sliding about. Then,to get at the bait, which lay just beyond the snare — six inches beyond, the beaver, following its usual habit of holding the branch it was about to cut, would put its head and one forepaw through the snare. “But doesn’t it worry him to feel himself hemmed in like that?”, I asked Uapistan, the first time I saw him setting his beaver-snare. 87

“No, it doesn’t make any difference. It doesn’t worry him. What does worry him is when he bites through the bait, and finds himself being lifted off the ground, and strangled. He just stays up there in mid-air, hanging by his neck and one paw.” “What about the bait?” “Well, to make sure he doesn’t lose his lunch, the beaver usually takes it up with him when he goes — Hee! hee!” “With all these tricks of yours, you can’t often have gone hungry, eh, Uapistan?” “Oh, I’ve been pretty hungry sometimes!” “I’ve heard that hares are about the easiest of the lot to catch. Is that true?” “Sometimes, some of them turn out to be cleverer than poor Uapistan!” He told me there were two ways to catch hares: one was a stick that sprang upwards, the other was a fixed stick. It was easier in winter, because then the hare makes tracks 88

Paul foovDJcMft _

which he follows regularly: and when the tracks are well marked, the odds are favourable. In summer, you have to examine the broken twigs along the paths; if the sap is fresh, the hare will pass that way the next night, for he always moves about at night. When there was moonlight, and the wire of the snare was too shiny, Uapistan would blacken it in the smoke from burning birch-bark. There was no need to put out bait to attract the hares: however, Uapistan remembered a winter when hares were rare, so that he’d decided to build them an enclosure. He’d collected some birch-shoots and put them into an enclosure made of fir branches, leaving a few holes, in which he set five or six snares. He’d taken three hares the first night. 89

The enclosure

He told me that when you set a snare, you must always use dry branches: if you use green branches, the hares will merely eat them. You must also ensure that the stick that holds the snare is not too rigid, otherwise the animal will surely snap the wire as it leaps and struggles to free itself. A branch about half an inch in diameter by four feet long is sufficient. The open snare should be about four and a half inches across, and must hang approximately four inches above the ground. To stop the hare from passing underneath the snare, you put two small dry branches under it in the form of an X. “Why an X?” “Hares don’t like scraping the fur off their breasts as they squeeze between the dry stakes set beneath the snare! Once I didn’t have any wire for my snare, and I had to make it out of fishing-line instead. Next morning, the hare had eaten my snare — 1 wasn’t too proud of that. I went back to camp, soaked my fishing-line in kerosene, and next morning I had my hare.” “But supposing you don’t have any kerosene?” “Then I take a quid of Canadien tobacco, and rub my fishing-line in it. It’s not as good as kerosene, but it works almost as well. I’ve never seen a hare chewing Canadien tobacco yet!” 90

In autumn, the springy stick is very popular: a branch of peeled willow is the best thing to use, but not in winter, since a green branch will freeze, and remain in the bent position; you must use a dry branch then. It’s also better to use brass wire rather than fishing-line, because the hare is strangled quicker. “II he takes too long to die”, Uapistan explained. “The blood flows into his head, and he doesn’t look very nice when you serve him up. If I’m really hungry, I’ll eat him all the same, and think about some¬ thing else. Now my father couldn’t have cared less about it!”

91

92

Uapistan’s Story I would never have wished to look as though I were prying into Uapistan’s affairs. Fortunately, he seemed quite ready to talk about himself; and he showed complete confidence in me. I was fascinated by the life of this Indian, and I listened to him most attentively whenever he started telling me of his adventures. The intimate conditions of our life were curiously conducive to confidences. We shared the same dangers, the same hardships, the same joys. Merely by being with him I learnt to keep ‘trapper’s silence’ during the day, and to move stealthily through the undergrowth in order to surprise the game on which we depended often enough for our food. Thus it was only in the evenings, or on stormy days, that we talked together in the tent, in the pleasant warmth of the little stove. Since our daily routine had nothing very interesting about it — it was always the same, and we lived through it together — we both felt the instinct, quite naturally, to recall old memories. During the long winter evenings, with just the two of us alone in our little tent, we used to stay up in the lamplight, our faces ruddy in the glow of the embers we could see through the door of the cast-iron stove. I listened en¬ thralled as he told me of his life as an Indian. The smell of our good Canadien tobacco mingled with the scent of our beds of fir branches to give our conversations a highly poetic atmosphere. This particular day, at the head of one of the branches of the Toulnoustook River, we’d been immobilized by a 93

heavy snowstorm. Uapistan had left his bed to open the door a crack and take a look out over the lake: the storm was raging heavier than ever. As for me, I took a little exercise by vigorously pushing the roof of the tent up and down, to dislodge the five or six inches of snow that had accumulated there. “If this keeps up, we’ll get at least a foot”, said Uapistan. I took the opportunity of pouring a little water into the tea-kettle and putting another log in the stove. Uapistan filled his pipe and went back to his bed. */ was named Uapistan — the marten, he said. That’s my name, and I’m proud of it! I’m a Montagnais by birth, and there’s nothing in the history of my people to make me feel ashamed. How did I come to be called Uapistan?, I asked myself when I was about six. Neither my physique nor the expression of my face showed any striking resem¬ blance to a marten. I can even recall taking a marten one day from my father, who’d just caught three of them, and holding it up close to my face before the bit of broken mirror which was one of our treasured possessions and formed part of our furniture, to assure myself there weren’t really any common features between the marten’s face and my own. Later on I found out that during the year of my birth my father and mother had travelled up to Lake Mistinik in the Manicouagan district, to take possession of the famous ‘marten mountains’ which my grandfather had left my father in his will. Mistinik was part of my family’s hunting-grounds; but my grandfather had always kept it for himself, and never let anyone hunt there. It was only after his death that the lands passed to my father.

* Authors’ note. In order to make Uapistan’s story clearer and easier to read, we have rendered it in a form which does not necessarily adhere to the somewhat rudimentary expressions actually used by the Indian.

94

When they arrived at the mouth of the lake, after a two-month trip — they left the reservation on August 15th, the day after the Indian holiday, and reached Mistinik on October 14th — my mother, who was preg¬ nant, felt she wanted to stop for a day or two. The camp¬ site was chosen carefully, in a dry spot, where everything was nice and handy. While my father was out setting his snares, my mother felt the warning signs of approaching childbirth: she went into the tent, and without further ado she brought me into the world — That’s how it happened, my guide told me, opening the door of the stove for an ember with which to relight his pipe. After a long silence, he continued: My cries were masked by the noise of rapids in a little stream that ran past the tent; so my father heard nothing when he came back, until he was within a few feet of the shelter. Then he dashed in to my mother, who greeted him with a smile. “Uapistan, Uapistan —” were his first words as he took me in his arms. Then he turned to my mother and looked at her tenderly. She answered him with a nod of her head, which meant that she agreed, and that henceforth my name would be Uapistan. My mother had been thinking of this name ‘Uapistan’ for a long time. Besides, since Fortune had favoured my grandfather so much in his marten hunts, the reason must surely be that he’d succeeded in attracting the favours of Tshe Mento Uapistan, the god of martens, by offering him his own progeny? “It took us a long time to convert your grandfather to our beliefs — he was very obstinate!”, the missionary priest told me when I went with my father to the presbytery after we’d come back from a hunt. It was customary to visit the missionary and present him with the first marten skin of the season. 95

My mother whom many people considered very pretty, so they say. . . —

I very much doubt if they’d really been able to indoc¬ trinate my grandfather, despite all their hard work and preaching. I’ve o ften heard members o f my family say that in revenge he’d dedicated all his children to the various gods of the wild beasts. It would thus have run counter to the traditions of my people for my mother, who was pure Montagnais in 96

origin, to have shaken her head in disagreement when my father looked at her as he raised me in his arms and pronounced the name ‘Uapistan’ with fervour and convic¬ tion. In a manner of speaking, I had become his lucky charm: and indeed, the god Tshe Mento of the martens showed himself grateful in due course.

As I listened to this tale I found myself thinking it was more than probable that whenever some big event occured in the savage vastness of the North, all the old beliefs welled up from the depths of past millenia to haunt the imagination of the Indians, so that they quickly forgot what they had learnt at the mission during the summer. My mother, who had a pronounced Asiatic cast of countenance, and whom many people considered very pretty, so they say, was young and strong. Thus, only two days later, travel was resumed without hindrance, up to the head of the lake. My father, who was skilled in the use of the curved knife*, made short work of cutting the board which would serve me as a bed during the first eleven months of my life. For her part, my mother had made me some swaddlingclothes in which she put a generous amount of soft dry mosses, which were both antiseptic and very absorbent. I spent whole days like this, encased in my swaddlingclothes and tied to my plank — sometimes lying on top of the baggage, in the canoe; sometimes on my mother’s back,

during portages;

sometimes

hanging from

the

branch of a tree, tossed about by the wind, when she was busy. A comfortable shelter was built at the border of our hunting-ground. Since we intended to live in this hut for several years, my father sited it at the foot of a sandy slope above the high-water mark, facing south and over*

Knife with a curved blade, whetted and tempered. 97

My father.

looking the lake. My father knew the big advantages of a hut dug into the ground; this was why he’d set his floor at least ten inches deep. The inside of the hut was ten feet square by seven feet high. Two small panes of glass served as windows; they gave enough light, seeing that the two gable-ends were closed only by well-stretched empty floursacks.

These two gable-ends served also as ventilators: 98

/ was called Uapistan — the marten.

they allowed the air to circulate freely, which kept the hu¬ midity from building up inside.

The joints between the

round logs that formed the roof were packed with moss, and the whole surface was covered with birch-bark. Several inches of sand were placed on top; and an old canoe-sail held down by strong spruce pegs was spread over all. And that was our castle! 99

I grew up at Lake Mistinik, in an atmosphere of freedom which during my first year was limited only by the fourfoot caribou-hide leash which tethered me to the wall of the hut. This safety measure was used by every mother in my tribe, and was always admired by the Whites who came to visit us on the reservation in summer. This first year proved exceptionally good for hunting. Both my father and my mother hunted; and between them they took 175 martens, as well as numerous beavers, otters, mink, muskrats, and lynxes. The hunting- grounds of the ‘Uapistan —this was what we were known as — were rich, and we got a good living from them! Every year we used to go into the marten reserve to hunt, in order to obtain our food and the funds which enabled us to renew our provisions of flour, tea, and tobacco for the following season. This was the pattern of the first years of my life. 100

There was a silence. I filled my pipe and handed him my tobacco-pouch; then I turned to the door of the stove. Choosing a suitable sliver from one of the spruce logs in the wood-pile, I tore it off, lit it, and handed it to him to light his pipe with. “It’s my turn to use the ember!”, I told him. “A splinter of wood always gives you a light”, he replied,” but it’s never as good”. He blew a long stream of 101

smoke out through his nostrils, and then resumed his story, as though he were talking to himself: When I was young, at the mission school, I had a marked advantage over many of my companions, thanks to the knowledge I’d acquired through being with my father. In the eyes of my White friends, my experience of life in the woods put me up on a pedestal, so to speak; for they knew nothing of the secrets of the vast solitudes. I took an understandable pride in it. I had an innate faculty for observation, far superior to theirs. I’d probably inher¬ ited this from my father more than from my mother. He had in fact pitted himself all through his life against the elements and the wild beasts: and he’d never have been able to survive if he hadn’t known how to outwit the animals and capture them, or defend himself against them when necessary. 102

Among the Montagnais, hunting the bigger animals is one of the husband’s daily chores: the smaller animals, such as the hare and the partridge, are part of the mother’s duties, which include bringing up the family, doing the washing and cooking, chopping wood, stringing snowshoes, scraping skins, and cutting leather thongs. Another of her duties is to find good spots for fishing. So it’s quite natural that from birth we should be endowed with these enhanced powers of observation which are so sadly lacking among the Whites. Thus, I’d noted during my first trips into the forest with my father that his first action on arriving at a camp-site was to find north, so that he could always site his shelter with the entrance facing south. He wasn’t the only one who did this: all Montagnais hunters had the same habit, for all the cabins we came across on our trapping trips had their doors facing south — never north or east. When I asked my mother why we did it this way, she pointed toward the northern sky and told me: “Uapistan, you must always be very careful with Tshe Mento Tshiueten, the God of the North, and above all never look as though you were spying on Him. If the door faces south, when you come out of your hut, you have your back turned toward Him, and this satisfies Him. Just remember that the martens wouldn’t enter our traps if we had our door facing north, for that would make Him angry with us. You know our habits: we’re always peering out of the door of the hut to see what’s going on; and naturally He’d think we were spying on Him if He saw us there — and that would bring His anger down on us, and don’t you ever forget it!” This lesson in good manners was burned deep into my mind: and as I grew up I always conformed with the custom. 103

One day in February, a surveyor who was spending the night with us congratulated my father on knowing so well how to set up camp, because he always had the door of his shelter facing south. “Joachim”, he said, “that’s the only way to keep the place warm!” This pleased my father enormously: he showed his pleasure by nodding his head vigorously, with a big smile on his face, and going “Flee! hee! hee!” as though he’d never stop. (This was the way we always showed approval and pleasure). Since it was late, and the surveyor’s own camp was a long way off, my father could hardly refuse him hospitality when he expressed the desire to spend the night with us. Although our hut was quite sufficient for the needs of our family, it wasn’t large. My father had built it that way on purpose, for practical reasons. I’ll always remember the scene when Mr. Surveyor came in through our narrow door: he had very broad shoulders, and had to make two tries to get in. Owing to his powerful build, he couldn’t get through the door facing forward, and had to come in sideways. When he saw the fir branches which formed the floor lying directly on the bare earth, he said as he got undressed: “You’d think it was summer-time, inside here; yet there’s a good four feet of snow outside. And the branches are lying directly on the bare earth!” He leant forward and thrust his fingers into the layer of branches. My mother, who was sitting on her heels in the corner opposite the door, showed her approval in the same way as my father by nodding her head and putting on an artificial smile. The surveyor sat down on a little truckle-bed my father’d built in front of the stove for my brother Jean-Marie, who’d had earache the week before: then he asked us our names, one after the other. 104

We just stared at him, my two brothers and I, without saying a word, our mouths hanging open, and not know¬ ing what to think: then we slowly moved closer to each other. Finally my mother murmured “Uapistan”, pointing me out with her eyes, her head half lowered. My father came in with an armful of red spruce. He said to my mother: “Marie-Hélène, Mr. Surveyor’s sleeping here tonight. Lay the table, and cook the caribou!” Obediently, she brought out a nice raw haunch of caribou wrapped in a white cloth, and began cutting thick slices which soon formed a pile on the metal plate she was using as a dish. This appetizing sight made the surveyor’s big Adam’s apple bob up and down several times; it was easy to see that his mouth was watering. His hunger betrayed him in this uncontrollable reflex action. My mother began diluting the traditional sauce, tuk ushkasseken (made from sour caribou pauches) before serving any condiments; while my father stirred up the larch-wood embers with the poker, through the little door in the stove. At once there was a crackling noise, and the stove gave off an intense heat. “ You like caribou, Mr. Surveyor?” my father asked him, beginning a highly picturesque conversation, for he had great difficulty in speaking decent French. Never¬ theless, he managed to make himself understood: but I was already far ahead of him in this subject, because I’d had the opportunity of learning to speak and write correct French during my days at the mission school, where I attended the classes run by the French Sisters. “Oh, very much, Joachim!”, cried the surveyor. “When did you kill your caribou?” “Last week, fifteen miles away. Not lucky. All the woods grown thick. Can’t see caribou too well through the woods.” 105

While the conversation staggered along in this frag¬ mented language, my mother continued preparing the meal. She’d put two or three nice red juicy slices to boil in bubbling fat: then she’d added in a couple of soupspoonfuls of the green sauce from the sour paunches. Immediately, her corner of the hut gave off an odour which spread everywhere; and it was so penetrating it was impossible not to notice it. A thick blue smoke floated up and satu¬ rated the air inside the hut. Our nostrils expanded under the effect of this utterly savage and sensually enticing odour. The sour paunches, a great delicacy highly appreciated by all Montagnais, added an unsurpassable flavour to the meat. The sauce was delicious, and left a delicate little aftertaste on the palate, like a kiss. I kept watching the fat surveyor, who couldn’t take his eyes off the saucepan, in which the thick green paste of the tuk ushkasseken could be seen. My mother stirred the sour paunches vigorously, to soften their consistency; and now they gave off the aroma we enjoyed so much, at full strength. Mr. Surveyor, who was sweating heavily, suddenly went over to the door, saying to my father: “We Whites have a saying: ‘To make a good steak, you’ve got to have the oven hot before you put it in. ’ I see you Montagnais also have the same saying, and follow it to the letter, for it’s damned hot in this hut!” To which my father replied: “Well, we'll open the door, Mr. Surveyor!” But no sooner had he started speaking than the surveyor was already outside in the spruces, out of sight. You’d have thought he’d just seen the Devil! I’ve always wondered why he took off so fast, and especiallv why he returned from his little trip in the fresh air all pale and greenish. 106

He came back inside after about ten minutes, looking none too happy, and stepped over the strip of white cloth that served as our table and table-cloth, on which the plates were now standing loaded with meat. That’s better now!”, he said. “I must say the tempera¬ ture in your hut’s much better now — much more normal. ” “Yes, Joachim’s built a good hut for his family !”, mv father replied. ‘‘Just the right size. My hut’s not cold. To keep my hut warm took only two cords of wood all winter.” As he spoke, my father noticed the table was not properly set — a side-dish was missing. He went outside quickly, to return almost immediately with two caribou hooves from the food-store near the hut. I was thrilled — I could almost taste the dish already that my father was about to offer. Needless to say, all these preparations sharpened my hunger even further. My father smashed the hooves with the head of his axe; and the raw frozen marrow, which looked like sticks of pink cream, was picked out skilfully and laid on a plate in front of Mr. Surveyor. ‘‘It’s good, this marrow, Mr. Surveyor!”, said my father, offering him the plate. Then the meal began in earnest. It was customary for the women and children to eat lasts so I possessed my soul in patience — there was nothing else I could do. Every time I saw a stick of raw marrow disappearing down my father’s throat, I swallowed with him instinctively. Oh, but it looked so good! The smacking noises my father made as he savoured the clear green tuk ushkasseken sauce were sweet music in my ears. And as I watched the slices of caribou meat disappearing, all covered with this lovely sauce and soaked in fat, I thought there’d be nothing left for us at the end of the meal. I could have screamed! 107

I kept an eye on Mr. Surveyor, and thought he was very nice, for I noticed that in spite of his great hunger, he barely nibbled at a little stick of marrow, and only took the driest bits of steak. Naturally, he left some on his plate; and the more he left, the more the portion of left-overs which would eventually fall to me took on proportions which I was anxious to see grow larger and larger every second, for I knew very well we were enjoying a banquet at which nothing would be left. “Eat up, Mr. Surveyor, there’s more sauce!” With that, my father gave him a piece of banique to soak up the sauce with. True, I found Mr. Surveyor full of good qualities: but all the same I felt he was taking an age to eat up a meal as delicious as this one. Finally they finished eating: and now / was only waiting for my father’s permission to attack the dish in my turn, when Sophie started playing up with my mother, until my mother was obliged to give her the breast, above her plate. Of course this was perfectly natural, since Sophie was hungry. But this fresh delay exasperated me so much that I extended a furtive hand toward the red sticks. My mother, who was sitting near me, only managed to give me a clumsy slap on the hand — she couldn’t leave Sophie, who was hanging from her breast. “Eko-mo-ne-le-mests, Ko-te-pitatits-ke-mi-estete! (Let Mr. Surveyor eat, you little wretch!)” I drew back, sulking, but Mr. Surveyor, who had sensed my feelings, took the biggest of the several pieces of marrow sticks that remained on the dish and gave it to me, saying: “ Here, Uapistan: when you’ve finished, I’ll give you another!” I held out my hand timidly, and the piece of raw marrow disappeared down my throat in a twinkling. ‘Even if Mr. Surveyor finds these red sticks taste like rotten 108

wood’, I said to myself, ‘Uapistan certainly doesn’t!’ So I had some lovely snacks while I was waiting for permission to satisfy myself properly with steak and tuk ushkasseken. When the meal was finished, my father collected the bones of the caribou hooves, in order to crush them and boil them for their fatty content, for with us, no part of the caribou is wasted. While my mother, my brothers, and I were eating, my father looked at what Mr. Surveyor had left on his plate, and said to him: “You haven’t eaten much, Mr. Surveyor, aren’t you hungry?” “As a matter of fact, Joachim”, he replied, “I’m not a big eater — / never have been. It’s almost unbelievable how little I eat, seeing how big and tall I am. But rest assured, I found it delicious, and I’ve had plenty to eat! The raw marrow and the green sauce and the caribou — that was all very nourishing. Very filling, too! It gets rid of your hunger quickly!” “Hee! hee!”, my father answered. “Yes, it satisfies you quickly. ” With that, he stretched out his arm and took a last piece to serve as dessert. To tell the truth, I was sorry to see it go. I was afraid he was going to empty the dish. We made ourselves comfortable; and at Mr. Surveyor’s urging my father spent the evening telling how he’d killed his caribou. I was all ears, and listened attentively to every little detail of this exciting hunt, so dramatically described by my father. When it was time to go to bed, and Mr. Surveyor took his soft boots off, I noticed what a lovely pair of slippers he was wearing. I felt it would give me the greatest ofpleasure just to touch these little sheepskin slippers. They were smart, and they looked very warm. I continued to look at them enviously when he put them under the bed before he 109

got into it. Nothing would have made me happier than to have had them on my feet for the night. These childish thoughts were going round in my head as my father, noticing Mr. Surveyor yawning his head off showed him Jean-Marie’s bed and told him: “I’ve prepared the bed for you, Mr. Surveyor, You’ll sleep there.” It would have been unworthy of a Montagnais to make a White sleep on the ground — especially when there was a bed in the hut. By offering Mr. Surveyor the bed, my father was being specially polite to him: and my mother, not wishing to be outdone, ended up by opening her knapsack and taking out our only quilted coverlet, four feet square, which was used to wrap Sophie in; she spread this on the log bed, and produced a white pillow-case as well. We’d have found it difficult to offer anything more. This was all we had, apart from a grey double blanket, and a piece of tent canvas which served to cover us all on the floor. As for Sophie, she slept in a little hammock my mother had run up quickly from another piece of blanket rolled up between two cords, which she hung from the two walls that formed the corner of the hut where I slept. When Sophie woke up and started crying, my mother pushed the hammock a few times, and the swinging motion soon sent Sophie to sleep again. At the same time, she sang some lullabies which seemed to have a magical effect, for they made Sophie stop crying. The only unpleasant smell in the hut came from Sophie’s corner — she was always wet. The smell grew noticeably worse when my mother swung the hammock vigorously, singing at the top of her voice to drown out Sophie’s wails. We were used to it, and hardly noticed it any longer. I only realized this when I saw Mr. Surveyor, in the light that came from the stove after the candle was put 110

out, spreading his handkerchief over his nose when my mother swung the hammock. During his usual final inspection before settling down for the night, my father noticed that the visitor’s feet were sticking out some sixteen inches beyond the end of the bed. “Don’t worry Mr. Surveyor! — I’ll make the bed a bit longer, for your feet — this chest’ll do fine to support your heels.” The chest was duly dragged to the foot of the bed, and the coverlet pulled down over our guest’s feet. “You won’t be cold, Mr. Surveyor, I promise you”, said my father as he fed the stove with red spruce. “My hut’s nice and hot, even if it’s very cold outside, it’s not cold inside my hut. Take this evening, for example! Listen! Outside it’s freezing — the spruces are splitting from the cold. A nice little fire for the night, that’s all we need! My hut’s not cold!” As he spoke, he snuffed out the candle and stretched oui alongside my mother, who’d been snoring for some time already. The crackling of the red spruce in the stove and, outside, the splitting of the trees in the grip of the unbeliev¬ able cold presented a striking contrast which made us appreciate the slowly-growing heat inside the hut. We were comfortable on the floor of branches, so that within ten minutes the whole family was snoring in chorus. Except me — / wasn’t asleep. This fixed idea of mine made it impossible for me to close my eyes. I wanted to try on Mr. Surveyor’s slippers so badly that I refused to go to sleep until everyone else was fast asleep. Oh! but that took some time. I can tell you, because our big guest found it hard to get to sleep on that bed! For one thing, his hand¬ kerchief made it hard for him to breathe; and for another, the fire my father had built up was putting out an almost

unbearable heat, which lasted at least two hours. Mr. Surveyor’s repeated sighs, and his continual tossing and turning, made it only too clear that he couldn’t sleep. Finally the hut cooled down a little, and the surveyor fell asleep at last. 1 could tell this by the fact that when the coverlet fell to the Poor, he didn’t pick it up. Then, ever so carefully, by the last dying light of the embers in the stove, I crept on all fours toward the slippers I coveted so much, put them on my feet, and returned to my place. ‘What slippers!’, I said to myself. ‘How soft and warm!’ And I wondered how he could give up so much comfort by taking them off to go to bed! Perhaps he was afraid they might get burnt, so close to the stove? While I was turning these things over in my mind, and enjoying the unparalleled happiness, my eyelids drooped and closed without my noticing it. I was suddenly awakened by a terrible cry and a kick in the stomach. I was terrified, and took up a defensive position in the dark; and at the same moment I heard Mr. Surveyor fall back on his bed tike a ton of bricks. Then complete silence. I couldn’t understand what was going on. My mother had cried out that I knew! — I’d recognized her voice: and the kick had also come from her. When I managed to think straight, I cleared up the mystery by deduction from the facts. First of all, I had to admit that on the evidence I’d been the immediate cause of this confusion, w hich could have had serious consequences if my father hadn’t decided my mother must have had a bad dream. So the first thing I did was to take off the slippers and put them back as close as possible to where I’d taken them from, in complete silence, with slow, calculated movements. The cold had wakened Mr. Surveyor, who’d tried to find some matches, but in vain — there weren’t any within his reach. He’d picked up the coverlet which had fallen 112

to the floor, near the bed, and had groped around trying to find his slippers. It’s very hard to orient oneself in complete darkness; and he’d accidentally got close to my mother and caught hold of her foot as he groped around. It was at this point that my mother, taken by surprise, had cried out and lashed out at me, so to speak. At the same moment, Mr. Surveyor, just as shaken as she was, had thrown himself onto his bed, not daring to say a word lest he should cause embarrassment, even though he might have to put the whole thing down to a nightmare next morning, if any¬ body brought the subject up. I need hardly say my night was spoilt, and I wasn’t looking forward to the next morning. I very much doubt if Mr. Surveyor got much sleep that night. The heat had kept him awake during the early part of the night, and the cold did the same later on: and he lay shivering, waiting for the dawn, with the rough bits of log that made up the bed sticking into his ribs. Finally he got up and swung open the door of the stove in purposeful fashion. This woke my father, who immediately lit the candle and grabbed the axe to cut some chips and kindling. I could also hear him breaking off the dry ends of some of the fir branches which stuck out of the floor; these got the stove going very quickly. Everyone uses this quick method in their huts nowadays. It was very cold in the hut: I could tell this because when I peeped out from under my blanket, I could see a long trail of vapour from their mouths as they breathed. I felt quite chilly in my corner, and lay curled up like a gundog. I would have loved to go and lie alongside the stove; but needless to say I wouldn’t have moved from my place for all the money in the world — not even if they’d tipped me out of bed! 113

In fact, I pretended to be breathing regularly, and tried not to shiver too much, so as not to arouse suspicion. When my father had left his bed, I’d seized the opportunity of pulling a bit more blanket over to my side, to cover myself as much as possible. My mother had done exactly the same thing, but more quickly and less discreetly. When the stove had been relit, my father quickly rolled himself a cigarette and smoked it, squatting on his heels with his back against the stove. He kept sucking in the smoke and letting it out through his mouth and nostrils, just like a chimney. Mr. Surveyor had had enough of his knobbly bed; he too lit his pipe and sat down to warm his back against the stove. Conversation started slowly, and didn’t really get under way until the little stove was putting out a pleasant heat. “You’re not cold now, Mr. Surveyor?”, my father asked, when the temperature had risen to over eighty degrees. “Oh no, Joachim! You’ve got a nice little hut here!” A few minutes later the logs of red spruce were blazing fiercely, and the intense heat had turned the metal chimney red again. In the end it really became much too hot, and my father said: “I told you — my hut’s not cold — we must open the door and let some air in. Almost too hot now, my hut!” He got up and went to open the door, then came back to sit near the stove. It went on like this till morning. My father regulated the temperature by opening the door more, or closing it, as necessary. As a secondary effect of this process, the whole family got up earlier; and Sophie’s cries brought us all awake in earnest. My mother knew her habits well, and 114

gave her a little breakfast feed, then put her back in the hammock without further ado and told me to swing her; then she started to make breakfast. My fears were unrealized, and there were no questions about ‘the dream’ at breakfast. I saw my mother’s eyes flash when they met Mr. Surveyor’s; but no question of any sort was ever raised, and everything was normal. The caribou steak and more red sticks of raw marrow reap¬ peared on the table: but Mr. Surveyor preferred to stick to a piece of banique smeared with fat, and a cup of tea, continuing to claim that despite his size he was not a big eater. As soon as day broke, he put on his snow-shoes and shook hands warmly with each of us; then he left us, saying: “Niaut! Niaut! (Au revoir!). Many thanks for your hospitality. Niaut!” We answered him in unison: “Niaut!” Then we watched him disappear down the trail before we went back inside, each of us carrying two or three pieces of wood to keep the fire going in the stove. The little door of the hut was closed: and our camp life re¬ sumed its course. Night would soon be falling- Outside our tent, the storm was raging even more fiercely. The snow flakes hissed as they hit the stove-pipe; sometimes a drop of water would form, to disappear almost immediately as steam. Every now and then lumps of soft snow slid off the overloaded branches. We felt a bit like prisoners; but in spite of this we were very comfortable. Once more there was a long silence in the tent. I was the first to get up, to say good evening to the stars; my guide followed me. I threw two pieces of red spruce into the 115

stove, shut the little heat-control door, and put the wash¬ basin underneath to stop any sparks dropping out into the fir branches and setting the place on fire. Then I bundled myself up in my sleeping-bag. Uapistan laced up the door of the tent, and blew out the candle.

116

Some Montagnais

117

118

119

120

Part Two

ON THE SNOW OR ON THE WATER

Snow-shoes and Dogs Some people prefer travelling in the woods in winter, others in summer. Those who trade in furs will obviously choose the winter. So will explorers, for it’s easier and cheaper to move from place to place in the winter, all the more so since one’s food keeps better; that’s why I myself preferred the winter. An old surveyor said to me once: “In winter-time, on snow-shoes, with the snow up to your knees, it’s hard enough dragging your own body round. You can’t carry anything else except a face-cloth, a tooth-brush, a blanket, and a tent to give you shelter.” Of course snow-shoes are an absolute necessity for moving about in the snow. Their shape seems designed to suit the terrain in which they’re used; for example, those used in the plains are long and narrow, and turned up in front, with minor variations depending on the locality. Among the Montagnais, who live in a mountainous and extremely rugged area, the shape of the snow-shoe is round, and the long tail has practically disappeared, being really nothing but a hindrance on steep slopes and in thick undergrowth. In the end, the famous ‘bearpaw’ has come to be accepted as being the most practical of all. It cannot be denied that without a tail the friction of the wood on the morning crusts in spring had a tendency to wear the frame down till it split apart. However; the Montagnais, practical as always, soon learnt to add a small flat tail at this period 123

The method of stringing snow-shoes ■ i

124

of the year; he’d attach this tail under the vulnerable area of the frame to give it support. The trick worked: and he’d also bind the sides with thin leather thongs to protect them. I’ll always remember Simon Larouche, who came to see me one morning, during one of our trips, to complain that our ‘bearpaws’ didn’t have enough space between the two cross-bars, which made it uncomfortable for him when he used them, because his heel rested on the lower bar. To support his complaint, he gave me a demonstra¬ tion. I should say here that Simon was a big chap of six foot three, who weighed 235 pounds and had Size 14 feet. “Besides that, your snow-shoes aren’t big enough, and I sink in up to my belly, while the others walk along on top of the snow as easy as pie!” Well, we had a real problem there! I thought at once of my good friend Bill Maher, a manager in Franquelin, who was another giant well over six feet tall: he was pleased to lend me his snow-shoes for Simon, for he had two pairs of them. His snow-shoes measured twenty-six inches across the front cross-bar, and sixteen inches between the two bars. Simon had to laugh when he saw these two ‘rafts’! Two days later, he was back to see me: he told me he was no better off — he couldn’t get through the clumps of fir bushes along the trails with those huge snow-shoes! There’s no problem for the hunter, who doesn’t have to stick to a straight line as he moves along: but someone whose snowshoes aren’t too satisfactory and who isn’t fully practised in their use is likely to get a sore crotch and suffer from ‘snow-shoe strain’! Since there was no hope of our finding this somewhat special type of snow-shoe at any store,my guide Félix Poitras had built a mould on which he formed his frames of birch-wood. Without this practical device of his, we’d have had to return to the big snow-shoes with tails 125

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