Trailmakers of the Northwest

Front matter

TRAILMAKERS OF THE NORTHWES

PAUL L.HAWORT

Class XmiaA Ronk H^

Preface

The story of the exploration of the American Northwest is one of the most picturesque and romantic in human annals. Adventurous men, pushing into the unknown at the hazard of their lives, discovered wilderness oceans whose waters seemed to mingle with the sky, followed the winding courses of mighty rivers for thousands of miles, found their way through mountain labyrinths where craggy peaks lifted high their ice-clad summits, hunted strange and dangerous wild beasts, traded and fought with tribes of treacherous, red-skinned aborigines who might be friends to-day and deadly enemies to-morrow, and finally, after centuries of effort, stood upon the shores of the vast Pacific and gazed westward over its heaving waters toward the old " Cathay."

For many years I have been an eager reader of the literature of the subject, and repeatedly I have myself made expeditions to the dwindling regions that yet remain unexplored. The present book is the outcome of this reading and of these first-hand experiences. It does not purport to be exhaustive. It is rather an impressionistic picture of a great epic movement, and, frankly, it is a book for boys — young and old.

In an appendix the reader will find a list of books, some of which, I hope, he will take the trouble to consult. By so doing he can become the partner of many an interesting adventurer and can enjoy by proxy unlimited thrilling experiences. That these books — I name only

IV

PREFACE the very best — are not more widely read is a vast pity, and is due to the fact that the great general public is unaware of their existence, or at least of their possibilities for pleasure unalloyed.

Paul L. Haworth.

Eastover

West Newton, Indiana

January, 1921

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Beaver and His Wonderful Works and How THE Demand for His Fur Led to Great Discoveries i

II. The Discovery of Hudson Bay and the

Chapter I

THE BEAVER AND HIS WONDERFUL WORKS AND HOW THE DEMAND FOR HIS FUR LED TO GREAT DISCOVERIES

The exploration of a large part of what is now Canada and the United States was due to the presence of the little animal we call the beaver.

Spanish explorers in America sought gold and silver and precious stones, and found them. Cortez and Pizarro and their mail-clad followers, riding strange animals and armed with steel swords and lances and with guns and cannon that spoke with the voice of thunder and sent invisible death from afar, conquered Mexico and Peru and obtained vast booty. For generations thereafter the mines and fisheries of Spanish America sent yearly to the homeland tall galleons filled with bars of silver and gold and frails of magnificent pearls, and Spain was envied by all other European nations for her New World treasure house. And in the days of Good Queen Bess British sea captains like Drake and Grenville lay in wait for the tall galleons and took and plundered them, for in those days even pious Englishmen deemed it no sin to spoil Spaniards and Papists.

French, British, and Dutch explorers in North America also sought eagerly for precious metals, but in vain. Now and then some optimistic navigator sailed home with a shipload of earth filled with specks of glittering mica, which he fondly believed to be gold, but two centuries and a half elapsed after Columbus's first landfall before either gold or silver was found in considerable quantities in the region north of that held by the Spaniards.

Nevertheless, settlers finally established themselves along the Atlantic seaboard and wrung a livelihood from the soil and from fisheries. Furthermore, the land was rich in fur-bearing animals whose furs were light and easily transported and were in demand in Europe, and the fur trade, in a measure, made up for the failure to find precious metals.

The skins of otters, bears, mink, martens, lynxes, and other animals were eagerly sought, but the main staple of all the fur trade was the beaver skin. It surpassed in importance all others combined, and, as we shall explain in detail later, became the unit of value over half the continent.

The beaver, as most people are aware, is a small animal, averaging thirty or forty pounds weight, but occasionally reaching sixty or seventy. It has exceedingly powerful chisel-shaped front teeth, webbed hind feet, a flat scaly tail, and is covered with a short, dense, and silky fur that is overgrown with long coarse hairs. For centuries this fur was greatly prized for the making of hats.

In the early days the habitat of the beaver extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf to Hudson Bay and the Arctic. Wherever within these limits conditions were favorable the beaver was likely to be found.

Water he must have, not only to drink but as protection against wolves and other enemies. Trees or brushwood

THE BEAVER AND HIS WORKS 3

must be present, for the beaver lives almost wholly upon bark and twigs, though at times he eats berries and the roots of such water plants as lilies and spatterdocks.

Some beavers are content merely to live in burrows dug in the banks of rivers or streams. These are sometimes called " bank beavers," and I have had trappers tell me that they form a separate species, but this is not the case. Much more interesting are those that build dams and live in hutches or lodges built in the ponds thus formed.

The dams vary in length from a few feet to a quarter or half a mile. The main object of these dams is to keep the water at a certain level. The ponds themselves vary greatly in size; I have seen them hardly more than puddles a few yards across, and I remember one in northern British Columbia that covers several hundred acres. The small dams are likely to be the work of a single family; in the building of the longer ones several families cooperate.

Most dams are built of branches and small logs, chinked with mud, but beavers will also use stones or whatever material happens to be handy. It was long popularly believed that in building them the beaver made use of his flat tail as a trowel, but this is a myth long since exploded. The beaver carries the mud clasped between his short forepaws and his breast, and does not use his tail in the building process at all. He seems, however, to use his tail to a certain extent in swimming and when alarmed he will slap the top of the water with it, making a report that can be heard a long distance. More than once in the far Northland I have been awakened by beavers that in swimming past our camp would get the dreaded manscent and would then slap their tails on the water.

In selecting a site for his dam the beaver displays much intelligence. He chooses a place where the water will form a pond close to which there will be plenty of saplings and trees of the varieties that make good food, such, for example, as birch, poplar, alder, etc.; as a rule a beaver eats the bark and twigs of deciduous trees only and does not care for evergreens like pine, cedar, or spruce. He selects a narrow spot in the stream, so that his dam will be as short as possible; and he takes every advantage of fallen trees, rocks, or other objects that will help to anchor the structure.

On small streams that do not have much current or that are not subiect to big floods a single dam is usually considered sufficient by the flat-tailed engineers. On more powerful streams they sometimes employ a plan so ingenious that it seems incredible that an animal could have the intelligence to have evolved it. Below the main dam they will construct another dam, which backs up the water against the main dam and helps to support it against the pressure from above. They have even been known to build a third dam in order to give support for the second.

Once the dam is built the beavers keep close watch upon it. A spillway, or perhaps several, has been provided, over which the surplus water can run; in case one of these ways is cut too deep by the current, the animals soon repair the damage done, for it is a prime object to keep the water always at the same level. If the injury is slight, one beaver may make all the repairs; if a considerable gap has been cut, as by a flood, all will pitch in and with sticks and earth will fill up the break.

Trappers take advantage of this habit of beavers with fatal effect. They will cut a breach in the dam and then

THE BEAVER AND HIS WORKS 5

round it will set their traps, knowing that when darkness comes the industrious animals will be almost certain to set to work making repairs and will thus put their feet in the traps.

Having completed their dam, the beavers are likely to begin building their hutch or house. This is usually made of sticks and mud, with the foundation deep enough in water so that a passageway will be left under the ice even in the coldest winter, while the conical top rises well above the surface. Late in the fall the beavers are likely to give their house an extra coating of mud. This soon freezes and forms a covering that is impenetrable by wolves, wolverines, or any of the beaver's other enemies except man.

The hutches vary in size from heaps of mud and sticks six or eight feet across and three or four feet high to structures several times as large. The largest I ever happened to have seen lies near the Quadacha River in a remote part of northern British Columbia. As it was a considerable distance out in a large pond, I was unable to get near enough to measure it, but it was certainly upwards of thirty feet across at the base and nine or ten feet high.

These big houses are usually inhabited by two or more families; the smaller houses by only one. Where two or more families occupy a hutch there will, of course, be more than one room within, which may or may not be connected; and it is possible that it is this circumstance that first gave rise to fanciful stories that beavers have several rooms appropriated to different uses, such as eating, sleeping, and storing provisions. All close observers of the beaver declare that this is not the case. Upon this subject Samuel Hearne, whose adventurous experiences will be described in detail a little later, says: " It frequently happens that some of the larger houses are found to have one or more partitions^ if they deserve that appellation; but that is no more than a part of the main building, left by the sagacity of the beaver to support the roof. On such occasions, it is common for those different apartments, as some are pleased to call them, to have no communication with each other but by water; so that in fact they may be called double or treble houses, rather than different apartments of the same house. I have seen a large beaver house built in a small island that had near a dozen apartments under one roof; and, two or three of these excepted, none of them had any communication with each other but by water. As there were beavers enough to inhabit each apartment it is more than probable that each family knew its own, and always entered at their own door."

As a rule, each apartment, whether there be one or several in a house, has at least two entrances. Doubtless this is partly because the beavers wish to be sure of an avenue of escape in case one entrance should be blocked by an enemy.

The size of the interior chambers varies greatly. Some are no more than three or four feet in diameter and two feet high. Exceptional ones have been found that were a dozen or even twenty feet across. Ten years ago when on a hunting trip in Alberta in the wilderness of mountains that lies around the headwaters of the Athabasca and Saskatchewan rivers my Cree Indian guide, Jimmy Paul, told me a strange story of such a big beaver apartment. Poor Jimmy! we ran into wretched weather on the trip, with a great deal of rain and snow, and he suffered so much that he died two days after his return. His story m

THE BEAVER AND HIS WORKS 7

was that once when a small lad he was traveling with his parents and brothers and sisters in the foothills and they were overtaken by one of the great forest fires that so often devastate the region. Escape by flight was impossible, but fortunately close by there was a small beaver pond in which stood an enormous hutch that the father and other Indian hunters had broken into that spring. The father put his squaw and the children into this house and covered the opening with a wet blanket, while he himself stood in the water outside, with another wet blanket over his head. The fire came roaring through the woods like a tornado. A she-bear and two cubs, several deer, and a bull moose also took refuge in the pond. The flames leapt right over the water and caught in the trees beyond. The father was half stifled with heat and smoke, but by frequently ducking his head he kept the blanket around it wet, while he threw water on the one he had put over the opening in the lodge. Despite these efforts, both blankets were badly singed, but the lives of all the Indians, big and little, were saved. Most of the deer were killed, and the moose and the bears were badly burned about the heads, but, when the fire finally passed, they were able to walk away.

In building dams and in gathering food beavers cut trees ranging from mere saplings up to those that are two or, occasionally, even three feet in diameter. The rapidity with which with their powerful teeth they will fell a tree is astonishing. Not infrequently the cutting looks as if it had been done with an axe, though closer inspection will show the marks of the broad teeth. When once a tree is down, the beavers cut off the limbs and cut the trunk itself into convenient lengths, though they do not do this with trunks too large to be moved.

The chief food of the beaver is bark, not the outside shell but the cambium layer, which is more nutritious. They also eat some of the wood beneath the bark but probably get little food value from it. In spring, summer, and fall they eat their meals wherever it happens to be convenient, but for winter use they sink in the water near their lodge a heap of limbs and poles.

It is in the transportation of this store of food that the beaver displays perhaps his greatest intelligence. If trees or saplings of the right variety stand at the edge of his pond, he can, of course, cut them down and then do almost all the work of transportation by water. Sometimes a tree, when cut, falls right into the pond, in which case the job is easy. But not infrequently it happens that the beavers exhaust the supply of trees close to the water and must go considerable distances for their food. One traveling in beaver country will often see the roads along which the beavers have dragged the limbs, and it is noticeable that the animals have been careful to clear away the obstacles that might impede the transportation work.

Where circumstances are favorable beavers have been known — incredible as it may seem — to dig canals from their pond to the trees they intend to cut. These canals are usually two or three feet wide and deep enough to float a limb or small log. To supply water for the canals the flat-tailed engineers will tap springs or brooks and divert the water into their waterway. In case the ground slopes up they will even construct a dam and then continue the work at a higher level. Sometimes several such dams or locks are used. Down these canals the beavers float the limbs and logs, pulling them over the dams.

The beaver displays so much skill as an engineer that

THE BEAVER AND HIS WORKS g

many naturalists consider him the most intelligent of all animals. And yet he is not all-wise even in doing the kinds of work that I have described. I recall that near one of my camps in the far Northwest I noticed two striking instances of the beaver's limitations. The animals had been felling trees that stood on the bank of a river that flowed close by. They wished, of course, the trees to fall into the water, and had they understood the art of " throwing " trees, by making most of the cut on the side nearest the water, they could have felled almost all the trees in that direction. But as often as not the main cut was on the landward side, with the result that the tree had fallen right away from the water. In many instances, in fact, the animals had gnawed in about the same depth from all sides, and in such cases the tree would fall according to the way it leaned or according to the way the wind was blowing. In one instance the animals (or one animal) had attempted to cut a small poplar that grew between three spruce. A glance would have convinced a human being that the tops of the trees were so interlaced that the poplar could not fall. Nevertheless the beavers had set to work and cut the poplar completely off. Then, when the tree did not fall, they had cut it down again, but had finally given up the undertaking as a bad job after doing a lot of useless gnawing about the butt.

The effect of the work of beavers upon the contour and shape of the land was important far beyond what is generally understood. There is hardly a stream in North America, north of Mexico, along which they did not live and labor, in many cases for countless generations. Their dams formed reservoirs which caught leaves and dead trees and debris of all kinds. These things in course of lo TRAILMAKERS OF THE NORTHWEST

time would decompose and would form a deep vegetable muck. Thus during the ages a land-forming process was going on. Ultimately the ponds would be transformed into swamps and these in turn into meadows, over which great forests might ultimately grow. In fact, millions upon millions of the richest bottom lands in the United States and Canada owe their existence to the labors of endless generations of beavers.

On this subject Warburton Pike, in his fascinating book, The Barren Ground of Northern Canada, says: " On the second day we crossed [northwest of Great Slave Lake] a large prairie dotted with lakes, formerly the home of many beavers, and still bearing evidence of their labours in the long banks which served as dams and the huge mounds which were once their houses. The beavers have all gone long ago, and the ladies who wore the pretty fur-trimmed jackets in far-away England, and the husbands who grumbled at their price, are gone too; but the beavers have left the most impression on the face of the earth. Wonderful moulders of geography they are; a stream dammed up in a level country forms a huge lake where the forest stood, the trees fall as their roots rot in standing water, and, if the dam be not attended to by the workers, a fertile grass-covered prairie takes the place of the lake."

A species of beaver inhabited Europe, and the fur of the animal was highly esteemed long before the discovery of America. The early explorers of America when they brought back beaver skins found a ready sale for them at high prices. The furs were of little weight or bulk in comparison with value, and this helped to make the development of the traffic practicable. The prices paid were even greater, in real value, than those of to-day. Hats

THE BEAVER AND HIS WORKS ii

made of such fur came to be so greatly in demand that in the seventeenth or eighteenth century a good " beaver " would sometimes bring ninety shillings, which is about twenty-two dollars and a half, and the purchasing power of money in those days was so much greater than now that this price was probably equivalent to at least a hundred dollars.

To obtain the precious skins men penetrated vast distances into savage wildernesses, great companies were formed to engage in the trade, and nations even fought each other for the control of regions rich in furs.

Chapter II The Discovery Of Hudson Bay And The Great Lakes

As everybody knows, Columbus sailed in search of a western route to the rich East Indies and never realized that he had discovered a New World. Even after the truth was known many Europeans regarded the new continents in the light of obstacles rather than acquisitions, and navigators continued to search for a way to " China and Cathay." In 1519 Magellan passed through the straits that now bear his name and, crossing a wide ocean, finally reached the true Indies. But the route he had discovered was long, and for generations men hoped that a more direct way through the great land barrier might be found.

For hundreds of years, in fact, adventurous sea captains kept pushing the prows of their ships up every inlet and river in the two Americas in the hope that the way would lead them at last to the open waters of the " South Sea," the Pacific of to-day. Even after it was clear that no such route existed in tropical or temperate climes, explorers continued down to our own time to try to find a way round northern North America. This search for the "Northwest Passage" forms one of the most adventurous and romantic chapters in all history.

Many such navigators there were — Cabot and Cartier, Davis and Baffin, Frobisher and all the rest— but the most important for our purpose was that famous English dreamer and adventurer, Henry Hudson. Two danger-

HUDSON BAY AND THE GREAT LAKES 13

ous voyages he made to the foggy, frozen sea that Hes to the eastward of Greenland, only to be turned back by impenetrable barriers of ice. On a third voyage, undertaken in the interest of the Dutch, he discovered, in 1609, the Hudson River, on whose bank rises to-day the great metropolis of our Western World.

In 1 610 he set out from the Thames in the bark Discovery, and after weeks of being buffeted about by angry seas, sailed past southern Greenland and entered Hudson Straits. Ice floes and great icebergs, miles long, dangerous reefs and rocky islands, indraughts and swift currents, made navigation perilous to the last degree, while the crew muttered against going further, and the mate, a rascal named Juet, had to be deposed for mutiny. But, undaunted, Hudson sailed his ship into that great inland sea that now bears his name, and bore away southwestward, hoping that the long-sought Northwest Passage had been found. He came at last, however, to the west side of James Bay and realized that fickle fate had tricked him and that he was land-locked, with the long Arctic winter at hand and with a scanty supply of stores.

The winter proved to be the coldest any of the explorers had ever experienced. Luckily there was wood in abundance, and stone fireplaces were built on the deck of the ship. Many birds and some other kinds of game were shot, but there was a shortage of bread. The gunner died, and others of the crew suffered from scurvy. When spring came, some fish were caught, but when the ice broke up and there was a chance to sail for home, there was food left for only about two weeks. Juet, the deposed mate, and other malcontents, plotted to maroon Hudson and the loyal men so that they themselves could have all the food and on their return home say that Hudson and the others had died.

At daybreak one morning, when Hudson came out of his cabin, three of the villains sprang upon him and bound his arms. Then the mutineers gathered round and jeered him. Hudson, his little son. and eight others, most of them weak and sick, were put into the open shallop, with some arms and cooking utensils but little or no food. One brave and loyal seaman from Ipswich was offered a chance to remain on board, but he begged to be set adrift with his commander. The ship then sailed away, leaving the boat and its occupants adrift on the great inland sea.

So passed from view Henry Hudson, one of the world's great discoverers. His fate and that of those with him remains one of the mysteries of the merciless deep. Whether they soon perished amid the angry waves, whether they were cast on some inhospitable coast and died of hunger or were slain by the savages, can never be known. A great artist has oainted a famous picture which represents the old navigator in the shallop, the helm erasned in one hand while with the other he holds the hand of his little lad, who sits between his knees and looks up into his father's face. In the background beyond a stretch of water towers a miehty icebere:. And on the noble countenance of the mariner is the boneless look of a brave man who is already staring into eternity. Whatever his fate, the famous river and the mighty bay remain the bold dreamer's monuments.

It is grim satisfaction to know that it fared ill with the mutineers. Several were slain bv the Eskimos. Tuet. the traitorous mate, died of star\'?tiort in sieht of Ireland. Only a few sur\'ived the horrors of the homeward voyage,

I'ri^in si-.c pointing by Collier "So passed from view Henry Hudson"

HUDSON BAY AND THE GREAT LAKES 15

and some of them were speedily seized and punished for mutiny.

Admiral Sir Thomas Button sailed to Hudson Bay the next year on a vain search for the missing men. He wintered at Port Nelson and lost so many men from scurvy and other causes that he could bring home only one of his two ships. Other expeditions, including one sent out by the Danes, visited the Bay in this period, but all suffered dreadful hardships, and for half a century no attempt was made at settlement. The final establishment of trading posts on the great inland sea was due to activities from another direction.

About the time that Henry Hudson was making his adventurous voyages, the French, under such hardy leaders as Champlain, were settling along the St. Lawrence at Quebec, Mont Royal (Montreal), and elsewhere. Like other visitors to the New World they had great hopes of finding silver or gold, but failing they turned their attention to the fur trade. In 161 5 Champlain ascended the rapids-filled Ottawa, crossed a portage track worn smooth by untold generations of moccasined feet following the great aboriginal route between East and West, reached the broad expanse of demon-infested Lake Nipissing, and floated down the current of French River.

Now they passed between pine-tufted craggy islands, where patriarchal fir-trees, shaggy with pendant mosses, cast dark shadows; while in the clear water the bleached trunks of fallen monarchs of the forest formed screens for hungry sharp-toothed muskellunges waiting for their" finny prey. Again they glided between walls of gneissic granite, in whose crevices the bearded cedar clung with snake-like roots; while aloft the rock maple, the aspen, and the glistening birch reared their light green foliage beneath the towering white pines. In places they beheld where rushing fires had scorched the rocks and left dead, blasted trunks standing amid the blackened stumps and prostrate bodies of comrades half consumed. From behind lichen-clad rocks the stealthy lynx and the hungry cougar watched them as they floated by, the awkward porcupine waddled leisurely with rustling quills into the thicket; the loons dived into the brown water; the startled deer, come down to drink, bounded off like huge rabbits; and the giant moose, standing in some cove to escape the flies, plunged shoreward, shaking his huge antlers and wet sides, and with unwieldy but silent trot vanished in the labyrinthine woods.

They passed the Five Mile Rapids, portaged round the Grand Recollet, where the river pours itself with unceasing roar into a foamy caldron, then fared onward past other rapids, and at length floated out upon the broad bosom of the " Mer Douce," the Fresh-Water Sea of the Hurons.

Here they turned southward down the expanses of Georgian Bay, threading their course among the thirty thousand islands off that iron-bound coast, which, when the Pyramids were yet undreamed of, had for ages felt the wash of summer waves and the battering of winter's ice. At their night camps on rocky islets their fires of resinous driftwood glared against the dark foliage of the trees and shone far out over the water, while from afar came the lonely cry of the loon, the howl of the hungry wolf, and the hoarse bellow of the moose. After an interval of darkness the east would glow again with a vivid fire across the waters and through the dagger-like tops of the firs and spruce, while the fading moon would fall beneath the western sky. Presently the camp would be