Beatrice Batty

“ We are in a narrow, crooked lane of water, through which we move very carefully, with poles in hand, ready to do battle with any piece of ice which lies in our way, and so hour after hour slips by, and all hopes of reaching Rupert’s House are at an end; but towards evening our labours are crowned with success, and the clear sea stretches before us. There is no place to land. We set our best man at the helm, and taking reefs in our sails, trust to the protection of the Almighty. ”

“ The snow is dug away from the entrance with our snow-shoes, as well as from the sides, that there may be no dripping from its melting as the evening advances. Wood is carried in and a fire lit, and when a good beef-steak has been fried and a strong cup of tea made and partaken of, we almost fall in love with our smoky hotel, and at any rate think it far preferable to the open bivouac in the heaven-covered forest. ”

“ During the short summer of 1858, he set out with his wife and their little children to visit Whale River, in the country of the Eskimo. It was not his first journey to that post. ‘You will have need of all your courage,’ said he to his wife. Tempestuous seas, shelterless nights, and stormy days were vivid to his own memory, but wife and children were glad to see anything new, after the monotonous days and nights of the long Moose winter.
The family had not long been gone, when whooping-cough broke out at Moose. Young, old, and middle-aged were attacked alike, and numbers died. ”

“ Matawakumma means, ‘the lake of the meeting of the waters.’ It is a large lake, irregular in outline, surrounded by woods. The first thing which strikes the visitor on approaching the station is the neat little church perched on a rising ground, like a beacon set on a hill, the rallying point for the little band of Ojibbeway [98] Indians of the neighbourhood. Then the residence of the fur-trader comes in sight, the store and other buildings, and the modest parsonage-house, with its garden and accessories. The whole way from Moose the bishop saw not more than a dozen people. ”

“ I saw majestic waterfalls, and passed through fearful rapids; I walked over long and difficult places, and day after day struck my little tent, and felt grieved at seeing no new faces, none to whom I might impart some spiritual blessing. In the whole space of country over which I travelled, perhaps a dozen Indian families hunt during the winter. Sometimes even this tract is insufficient to supply their wants; animals become scarce, the lands are burnt by the forest fires, and they are reduced to the greatest distress. ”

“ The morning of departure presented a busy scene—from the store issued the men, carrying bags of flour, kegs of pork and gunpowder, bales of cloth, calico, and leather, cases of guns, chests of tea, and all the things mentioned in a trader’s inventory. All is snugly packed in the boats, the signal given, and they push off from the launch. It is a pretty sight, the men are all standing up, and their long ironclad poles for a time rise together as they force their respective boats forward, bending to the work, and putting forth their strength. ”

“ Sometimes I wish to see Moose and my friends living there, but, knowing the difficulty and expense of travelling, I put the subject out of my mind, and try to feel contented. If this place was not such a poor one for living I should certainly feel more settled. In the winter we do very well in the way of food, but my husband is obliged to occupy a good deal of his time in hunting; but in the summer we depend altogether on our nets, and if fish fails, then there is nothing at all; but I am glad to say that it is only sometimes that we get only enough for breakfast. ”

“ A man who is daunted by difficulties, who thinks there is a possibility of his not acquiring the language of the people to whom he may be sent, had far better never put his foot on ship-board for foreign work. He will in the end prove a bitter disappointment, both to himself and those who are associated with him. “I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me,” must be the watchword of every one who enters the diocese of Moosonee. ”

“ I now again deserted the Fox, and took to the canoe, in which, in somewhat less than two days, I got at last to my journey’s end. And that journey’s end is a dreary, dreary place, with scarcely any summer. It was August, and the ice was lying thick at the mouth of the river. But my work was not dreary. I here met Eskimo, the most teachable of people. They were very ready for school or service, and although their attainments were not high, so much was I impressed with their sincerity and perseverance, that I admitted four families into the Christian Church. ”

“ The short summer will scarcely allow any garden produce to come to perfection. A few very poor and puny potatoes are grown, which are highly prized by the Europeans, and carefully eked out. A very little hay is made for the winter fodder of the cows; which, however, gladly eat the nourishing white moss, which is the food of the reindeer.
‘I must tell you,’ says the bishop, with a spice of humour,’ about the Churchill cows, for they are—or were—a curious lot. ”

“ Moose was enjoying a mild winter, and food was plentiful, rabbits never more abundant, of pheasants there was no scarcity, and there was no sickness; the Moose doctor was enjoying quite a sinecure. Far otherwise was it with Rupert’s House. The weather there also had been very mild, but rain had fallen in torrents, and the swamps around were giving forth miasma, which brought disease and death to the little settlement. Influenza and dysentery attacked almost every individual.
When the Rupert’s House dogs brought the budget for the ‘packet,’ the bishop’s share of news was a sad and gloomy one. ”

“ The Eskimo of Churchill are not so bloodthirsty as their brethren in the west, who come in with their faces marked with red ochre, to indicate that they have committed a murder during the winter, a mark in which they glory, for in their opinion there is more honour in killing a human being than in killing a walrus or white bear. ”

“ The Indians there will be quite strange to me; with their language I am not at all acquainted. I had never seen one until I came here, and here only one—a poor girl, now a happy, comfortable, Christian lassie, with an English tongue, but who was cast out as an encumbrance by her unnatural relatives. In June I go on a tour to Trout Lake and Severn; this will occupy me nearly two months, and in August I once more set off for England.’
The voyage from York Factory in the autumn of 1880 was the most tedious and stormy on record, occupying ten weeks instead of five. ”

“ From Flying Post I went on to Matawakumma. At Matawakumma the Indians are decreasing, as at Flying Post. The decay of a people brings sad reflections, and the Indians seem doomed to extinction. I found a church partly built under the guidance of their trader, Mr. Richards, who takes a deep interest in his Indians’ welfare. A bell and a set of communion plate I hope to get out next ship time; the little church in the wilderness will then be tolerably well furnished. ”

“ The Moose ship could not be got off, and still lies with nearly all her valuable cargo on the rocks. The York ship came to her and took all the crew on board, together with what had been saved, and proceeded to York Factory. There she was examined, and then it appeared how near all had been to death; the wonder was how she could possibly have kept afloat. To return to England in her would have been madness, so she still lies at York. Happily a second vessel had gone to York, which took home nearly the whole of the crews of the two disabled ships. ”

“ Travelling by boat is very monotonous work indeed. At breakfast-time, dinner-time, and when the day’s work was done, we endeavoured to catch a few fish, our rod a long rough stick cut from the woods, a piece of strong cord for a line, to which we attached a large hook baited with salt pork; with this we would occasionally draw out a perch, a trout, a pike from six to twelve pounds in weight. At the Long Portage I changed my mode of travelling, my companions now using the canoe. With my new friends I got on extremely well, taking advantage of every opportunity to instruct them in divine things. ”

“ The effects of a flood are not always evident at once; it is after the lapse of months that they become apparent, when the poor Indian on arriving at his winter hunting-grounds finds that the water has been there, and destroyed nearly the whole of the rabbits. He is reduced to great straits, and the energies of the whole family are required to keep them from starvation.’
Rabbits are the staple food of the Indians in the season. The skins, being of little value for barter, are used by them as blankets, the women sewing them very neatly together. ”

“ Winter came. It set in severely, and much earlier than usual, preventing the fall fishery, much depended upon for the supply of winter food. All the more thankful was the bishop for the founding of the Moose store.
In January he wrote: ‘It is a very great relief to know that the food is here. As to the store being put up, that must bide its time. Every person has as much as he can do, myself included. Just now wood and fire take precedence of everything else. ”

“ My eldest child has been twice so ill that I thought she would die, but an Indian, by his charms, saved her; and recently a spirit appeared to me, telling me to take heed and never give up my children, for if I did, he would no longer take care of them, and they would die.”
‘I remained at Brunswick until the Indians departed to Michipicoton for supplies of flour. I went with them a little way, and then on to Flying Post by a road untrodden by any save the Indian on his hunting expeditions. ”

“ The annual ship came and went, and the good folks at Moose began to feel at once that winter was at the door. The weather, though still warm, could not be long depended upon. ‘We begin,’ wrote the bishop, ‘to take up our potatoes; that done, we look well to our buildings, to prevent as far as possible the entrance of frost; then we endeavour to lay in a stock of fish for the winter, some of which are salted while others are frozen—in which state they keep good almost all the winter; after that, pigs and cattle are killed, and cut up, and allowed to freeze. ”

“ I have given, God’s grace enabling me to do so, more than twenty years of my life to the cause which is so close to my heart, and I long to see the whole of the country under my charge not only free from superstition, but likewise entirely under the sway of Christ, that there shall not be a tribe, either among the Crees, Ojibbeways, or Eskimo, which has not its well-instructed and fully-accredited teacher. Many of the tribes do not see a minister’s face for years.’
Bishop Horden had now been actively engaged in the mission field nearly a quarter of a century. ”

“ Ahead, stretching as far as the eye could reach, is ice—ice; now we are in it. More and more difficult becomes the navigation. We are at a standstill. We go to the mast-head—ice! rugged ice in every direction! One day passes by—two, three, four. The cold is intense. Our hopes sink lower and lower; a week passes. The sailors are allowed to get out and have a game at football; the days pass on; for nearly three weeks we are imprisoned. Then there is a movement in the ice. It is opening. The ship is clear! Every man is on deck. ”

“ The winter hitherto has been a very mild one. When it stands at or a little above zero, we consider it decidedly warm.
‘Of all I received last ship time nothing gladdened my eyes more than the sight of a box of Eskimo [104] books in the syllabic character, printed from manuscript sent home the previous year. I can fancy with what delight Mr. Peck pounced on them, and with what gratification the Eskimo beheld the raising of the lid which exposed to view so much spiritual food. Our native library is becoming extensive, new books being added every year. There is no language without literature. ”

“ At New Brunswick much progress is being made; most of the Indians are now baptized, and as the present agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company there is a great friend of missions, and one who will do all in his power for the spiritual benefit of those attached to his trading post, I hope it will not be long before heathenism will have taken its entire departure, and Christianity be the professed religion of that important portion of my charge. ”

“ Horden commenced building a school-house. He had from the first assembled the children for daily instruction, but to board and clothe them was impossible without some friendly help, all necessaries at Moose being nearly double the price of the same articles at home. At one time it was quite double. From this we may gather with what delight was hailed, as the season came round, the arrival of the annual ship, bringing to the missionary and his family the stores needed for themselves and their charges for the year to come. ”

“ The large handsome store, and a good garden, with the steward’s house adjoining, with a group of workshops—carpenter’s, joiner’s, cooper’s, and the blacksmith’s forge behind, cow-houses and stables for cattle, horses, pigs, and sheep. In the foreground is the grave-yard neatly fenced round; then a field of waving barley, another of potatoes, and a large hay-meadow, with again a group of cottages, gardens, and tents.
The ship had come in, and people were hurrying about everywhere. The Mink was receiving cargo, the Marten too, as well as a barge with sails set. ”

“ Any of the Indians who can come in to celebrate the Christmas and New Year’s festivals eagerly seize the opportunity. But this is not possible for the greater number, whose hunting-grounds lie at considerable distances from the fort. In their far-away tents they have no means of Christian communion or instruction, except by intercourse with one another, and by the study of the portions of Scripture, prayers, and hymns which they gladly and thankfully carry away with them to their lonely homes in the wilderness. ”

“ If the rabbits failed, famine stared the inhabitants in the face. The worst year ever known was the one the bishop first spent in the country, when a fourth of the entire population died, some from actual starvation, the rest being killed and eaten by their friends! The tales of that terrible winter are heartrending in the extreme. The most painful case was that of a man and his wife who lost their whole family of six children.
Among the Indians of Matawakumma was one named Arthur Martin. ”

“ We are at the commencement [57] of the straits; we see land, high, rugged, barren hills; snow is lying in the valleys, stern winter is already come; it seems a home scarcely fit for the white bear and the walrus. What are these solitary giants, raising their heads so high, and appearing so formidable? They are immense icebergs which have come from regions still farther north, and are now being carried by the current through Hudson’s Straits into the Atlantic Ocean. The glass speaks of coming bad weather, the top-sails are reefed, reefs are put to the main-sail ”

“ I have seen a man with an emaciated countenance, who in one winter lost six children, all he had; and, horrible to relate, nearly every one of them was killed for the purpose of satisfying the cravings of hunger. At the post to which he was attached, Kevoogoonisse, out of about 120 Indians, twenty died through starvation in one winter.’
The country may be said to be one vast forest, with very extensive plains, watered by large rivers and numerous lakes, inhabited by a few roving Indians, who are engaged in hunting wild animals to procure furs for the use of civilized man. ”