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Updated: May 24, 2025
The Hudson's Bay Company, however, never allows its men to shoot rapids with fur-laden canoes; so it was on that wild stretch of our trip that the skill of the voyageur was tested most. At the head of one of the great rapids Oo-koo-hoo, seeing that I mated well with one of his crew, invited me to take a paddle and help them through.
Oo-koo-hoo, having ascertained the amount of his credit, reckoned that he would use about fifty skins in buying traps and ammunition; the rest he would devote to the purchase of necessaries for himself and his party, as his son-in-law had arranged with him to look after his family's wants in his absence. So the old gentleman now asked for the promised skins.
But the bear and the wolf traps remained undisturbed though we saw a number of wolf tracks near at hand. Turning westward we ascended a slope and came suddenly upon the fresh track of a bear. It was fairly large, and was travelling slowly; merely sauntering along as though looking for a den in which to pass the winter. At once Oo-koo-hoo was all alert.
"Yes, we'll send her to that finishing school in Toronto," her mother mused, while Free Trader Spear scratched his head once more, and three house flies lazily sat on the sugar bowl and hummed a vulgar tune. After dinner Mr. Spear invited me into the trading room to see some of the furs he had secured. Among them were four silver fox skins as well as the black one he had bought from Oo-koo-hoo.
Oo-koo-hoo took pains to teach the boys everything in relation to trapping, and as soon as he was sure they had mastered the details of setting such traps, he went ahead with his axe to blaze the right trees, while the boys followed with the auger, and in the work of boring the holes and driving the nails took turn and turn about.
On the last hunt my snowshoe thongs had blistered my feet, but now, thanks to Oo-koo-hoo, I was shod with the most perfect footgear for winter travel I have ever known a natural sock that was both blister- and cold-proof. I had never heard of it before, but The Owl assured me that it had been long in fashion among the Indians.
The otter is an unusually playful, graceful, active, and powerful animal; but when caught in a trap becomes exceedingly vicious, and the hunter must take care lest he be severely bitten. Oo-koo-hoo told me that on one occasion, when he was hunting otters, he lost his favourite dog.
That night, when I was sitting beside Oo-koo-hoo, we began talking about bear hunting and he said: "My son, some day you, too, may want to become a great bear-hunter, and when you do go out to hunt alone, don't do as I do, but do as I say, for I am growing old and am sometimes careless about the way I approach game."
Oo-koo-hoo led the way and, as he walked along, would occasionally turn and, pointing at the trail, whisper: "My white son, see, a moose passed two days ago . . . That's fox this morning," and when we were overlooking the stream, he remarked: "This is a good place for muskrats, but I'll come for them by canoe." The principal object of the trip was to set fox and marten traps.
In setting steel traps for them the hunter placed the traps either in the water or on the bank at a spot where they were in the habit of going ashore, and to decoy them to that landing Oo-koo-hoo rubbed castoreum on the branches of the surrounding bushes just in the same way as he did for mink or otter.
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