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Updated: May 28, 2025
Late in the afternoon we landed on an island that contained a semi-barren knoll, but which otherwise was wooded with small spruce. On the knoll we found an abundance of mossberries, and soon after we had devoured them we happened upon a supper in the form of two spruce-grouse. George and Hubbard each shot one.
At the best, mossberries were composed practically of seeds and water, with a tough rind of skin about them; but the berries he found were of the preceding year, dry and shrivelled, and the nourishment they contained verged on the minus quality. Scarcely better was the bark of young saplings, stewed for an hour and swallowed after prodigious chewing.
It is violating no confidence to say here that the second lake was not Michikamau's southeast bay; it was simply the peculiarly-shaped body of water that appears on my map under the name, Lost Trail Lake. Two and a half miles up Lost Trail Lake we climbed a barren ridge, where we found blueberries, mossberries and bake-apple berries.
Some one hundred and fifty yards farther on George and I forded a brook, after which our course was through closely-grown, diminutive fir trees until we came to a series of low, barren knolls. On these knolls we found some mossberries. Then we pushed on. It was dreadfully slow travelling. The wind was in the east, and was rising.
The mossberries, having been frozen, were fairly sweet, and they modified, to some extent, the acid of the cranberries, so that taken together they made a luncheon for which we, in our great need, were duly grateful. After eating as many of the berries as our stomachs would hold, we were able to pick a pan of them to take with us.
Our food was the same as on the day previous, with the addition of some mossberries and cranberries we found on the barren ridge over which we crossed. It was another day of hard portaging on stomachs crying for food, and when we pitched our camp we were so exhausted that we staggered like drunken men.
Once or twice while skirting Lake Elson we halted to pick the few scattering mossberries that were to be found, once we halted to make tea to stimulate us, and at our old camp on Mountaineer Lake we again boiled the bones and used the water to wash down another piece of the caribou hide. In the afternoon George took the lead, I followed, and Hubbard brought up the rear.
Even the skins were boiled to make broth, the bones pounded into fragments that could be chewed and swallowed. Daylight prospected through the snow, and found occasional patches of mossberries.
On the top of the ridge and on the slope where it descended to the marsh we found a few mossberries, which we ate while we rested. Crossing the marsh, we stepped from bog to bog when we could, but a large part of the time were knee-deep in the icy water and mud.
And we had found what lay hidden behind the ranges. But were we ever to get out to tell about it? We stopped on the shore of Lost Trail Lake to eat some badly-needed cranberries and mossberries.
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