United States or Bouvet Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is not necessary to say more than that Alexander Mackenzie proved himself to be a first-rate fur-trader at a time when the fur-trade was carried on under great difficulties and amid severe privations. For many years he was in charge of Fort Chipewyan, the remote establishment to which we have just conducted our reader.
More than one of the hunters have assured me that it is safer to molest a mother Bear than a mother Wolverine when accompanied by the cubs. Bellalise, a half-breed of Chipewyan, told me that twice he had found Wolverine dens, and been seriously endangered by the mother. The first was in mid-May, 1904, near Fond du Lac, north side of Lake Athabaska.
'Thou, Gowhee, hast a wife and children and a deerskin lodge in the Chipewyan. What is thy will in the matter? 'Give thou her of the goods which are mine by the word of the captain the blankets, the beads, the tobacco, the box which makes strange sounds after the manner of the white men.
As we passed near the place where the poor woman had been murdered, I felt a strong desire to return to the spot. I could not very well understand the feeling, but it lay so strong upon me that, when we reached the ridge where we first came in sight of the Chipewyan camp, I fell behind until my companions disappeared in the woods, and then ran swiftly back.
"If any woman in my country were to tell a lie to make another woman unhappy, she would be thought very, very wicked." "I am sure of it," she said. "I wish I could go to your country and be at rest." She turned to her work and began talking to the others in Chipewyan. Now another woman entered.
Hood himself was the first to leap into the canoe and incite the men to follow him, and shoot the rapid to save the lives of their companions. DR. RICHARDSON'S Journal. The loss of this man's services, and the necessity of procuring a guide, determined us to wait for the arrival of the North-West Company's people from Fort Chipewyan, and we encamped accordingly.
The Chipewyan calender is divided in two seasons dog season and canoe season. What the horse is to the Arab, what the Reindeer is to the Lap and the Yak to the Thibetan, the dog is to the Chipewyan for at least one-half of the year, until it is displaced by the canoe. During dog season the canoes are piled away somewhat carelessly or guarded only from the sun.
Blue or white beads are almost the only articles of European manufacture coveted by the Loucheux. They perforate the septum of the nose and insert in the opening three small shells which they procure at a high price from the Esquimaux. On the west bank of Mackenzie's River there are several tribes who speak dialects of the Chipewyan language that have not hitherto been mentioned.
This indecisive conduct was extremely annoying to me, especially as the next evening was fixed for the departure of the ships. At the appointed time on the following morning, four men only presented themselves, and these, after much hesitation, engaged to accompany the Expedition to Fort Chipewyan, if they should be required so far.
The communications which the chief and the guides then gave respecting the route to the Copper-Mine River, and its course to the sea, coincided in every material point with the statements which were made by Boileau and Black-meat at Chipewyan, but they differed in their descriptions of the coast. The information, however, collected from both sources was very vague and unsatisfactory.
Word Of The Day