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"By George, boys, I ain't got but four or five pairs of moccasins in the place! There's plenty of oil tan; I can fix you all right there. But smoke tans! That Abítibi gang mighty near cleaned me out. You'll have to try the Indians."
This woman married a Hudson's Bay man named MacDonald, and he brought her to Lachine, where she bore him 3 sons; then he died of small-pox, and Sir George Simpson gave orders that she should be sent up to Abitibi and there pensioned for as long as she lived. She was about 75 at the time of the incident. She many times gave evidence of clairvoyant power.
Once a summer a six-fathom canoe manned by a dozen paddles struggled down the waters of the broken Abítibi. Once a year a little band of red-sashed voyageurs forced their exhausted sledge-dogs across the ice from some unseen wilderness trail. That was all. Before her eyes the seasons changed, all grim, but one by the very pathos of brevity sad.
At 19 he came to the north-west in service of the company, and his long and adventurous life, as he climbed to his present responsible position, may be thus skeletonised: He spent six months at Fort Temiscamingue, 1 year at Grand Lac, 3 years at Kakabonga, 5 years at Hunter's Lodge, Chippeway, 10 years at Abitibi, 3 years at Dunvegan, Peace River, 1 year at Lesser Slave Lake, 2 months at Savanne, Fort William, 10 years at Nipigon House, 3 years at Isle a la Crosse, 4 years on the Mackenzie River, chiefly at Fort Simpson, 6 months at Fort Smith.
He said: "You white men live on things that come out of the ground, and are buried in the ground, and properly, but we Indians live on things that run above ground, and want to take our last sleep in the trees." Another case of Indian clairvoyance ran thus: About 1879, when Anderson was at Abitibi, the winter packet used to leave Montreal, January 2, each year, and arrive at Abitibi January 19.
Setting out on snowshoes, dragging their provisions and equipment on toboggans, then advancing, sometimes on foot, sometimes in bark canoes, they penetrated by the Ottawa River and Temiskaming and Abitibi Lakes as far as James Bay. They did not brave so many dangers and trials without being resolved to conquer or die; accordingly, in spite of its twelve cannon, Fort Monsipi was quickly carried.
In a way, the Indian shop resembled a department store except that all the departments were jumbled together in a single room. At one post I visited years ago that of Abitibi they had a rather progressive addition in the way of a millinery department.
A moment's silence followed, during which the current of the mighty river bore the light craft a few yards down stream. Then from the ten voyageurs arose a great shout. "Abítibi! Abítibi!" Their paddles struck in unison. The water swirled in white, circular eddies. Instantly the canoe caught its momentum and began to slip along against the sluggish current.
Each detail of life came to her in the round of habit, wearing the garment of accustomed use. But of the world she knew nothing except what she had been able to body forth from her reading, and that had merely given her imagination something tangible with which to feed her self-distrust. "Must I decide at once?" she asked. "If you go this year, it must be with the Abítibi brigade.
"They took your pelts and arms, and escorted you to Sudbury. They were my Indians. Once on the upper Abitibi you were stopped by a man named Herbert, who warned you from the country, after relieving you of your entire outfit. He told you on parting what you might expect if you should repeat the attempt severe measures, the severest. Herbert was my man.
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