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Updated: June 10, 2025
Amik, during the summer, had made a number of snowshoe frames, and now the women were lacing them. They used fine caribou thongs, especially fine for the heel and toe. I have seen snowshoes that white men have strung with cord; but cord is of little use, for cord, or rope, shrinks when wet and stretches when dry, whereas deerskin stretches when wet and shrinks when drying.
His son-in-law, Amik, was his hunting partner. Though Amik would not be home until to-morrow, Oo-koo-hoo and his wife, their daughter and her children were coming that afternoon to get their "advances," as the party contemplated leaving for their hunting grounds on the second day.
Part of the day we spent in pottering about, in doing a little mending here and there, smoking, telling stories, or in strolling through the woods; as both Oo-koo-hoo and Amik were opposed to doing actual work on Sunday.
Transferring most of the cargo to the other canoes, Amik and I provided ourselves with a little snack and started at once for Oo-koo-koo's old camping ground. It appeared about a three-mile paddle to the fork of the river.
The lodge poles were left standing in readiness for their return next summer, and it wasn't long before all their worldly goods save their skin tepees and most of their traps, which had been left on their last winter's hunting grounds were placed aboard their three canoes, and off they paddled to the Post, to say good-bye, while Amik secured his advances.
During the feast that followed Oo-koo-hoo addressed the bear's head with superstitious awe and again begged it not to be offended or angry because it had been killed since they needed both its coat and its fat and flesh to help tide them over the winter. In this entreaty Amik did not join perhaps because he was too civilized.
They overhauled traps, and got ready all their trapping gear. It was always interesting to watch Oo-koo-hoo and Amik, even when they were engaged upon the most trivial forest work, for much of it was new to me and it was all so different from the ways of civilization. Then, too, they had taken the boys in hand and were instructing them in relation to the hunter's art.
Oo-koo-hoo now told the trader not to charge anything against his wife as he would settle her account himself, and that as Amik would be back in the morning, he, too, would want his advances, and if they had forgotten anything, Amik could get it next day. The Factor scowled again, but it was too late.
Such tactics may be successful two or three times but rarely more, so then the hunter had best fire. Now, my son, when you go hunting you will know what to do, and if Amik would only pay attention to what I say, he, too, might become a better hunter, for I have had much experience in hunting both black and grizzly bears."
We were now nearing the fork of Crane River, that in its three-mile course came from Crane Lake, on the shore of which was Oo-koo-hoo's last winter's camping ground; the men therefore decided that it was best for Amik to push on in the light canoe and get the two deerskin winter tepee coverings, as well as their traps, that had been cached there last spring; and then return to the fork of the river where the family would go into camp and wait for him.
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