Mina Hubbard

“ At the bend a tributary stream came in from the northwest to merge itself in the stronger tide, and together they flowed straight on at the foot of a long, dark-wooded ridge. Here at this stream our portage route led out from the river.
When the showers had passed we had supper, and as we sat at our meal the sun came out again, throwing a golden glow over all. Clouds lay like delicate veils along the hill-sides, sometimes dipping almost to their feet. Walking back along the edge of the terrace I watched till they gathered thick again and darkness came down over all. ”

“ Am writing a starter here, before beginning our march north. Wallace and George at breakfast now. I'm not. Sick of goose and don't want it. Ate my third of a loaf of bread lumpy without grease and soggy, but like Huyler's bonbons to our hungry palates. Dreamed of being home last night, and hated to wake. Jumped up at first light, called boys and built fire, and put on kettles. We must be moving with more ginger. It is a nasty feeling to see the days slipping by and note the sun's lower declination, and still not know our way. ”

“ Trout, pounders, jumping like greedy hogs to fly. Took about fifty while boys were making two short portages in P.M. Bread, small loaf, coffee, sugar, goose, trout for supper. Big feed in celebration geese and good water. At end of to-day's course turned to right into wrong channel, into little narrow lake half mile long, prettiest I ever saw. Big barren bluff rises from water on north, barren mountains a few miles to west, ridge of green to west, sun setting in faces to contrast and darken, two loons laughing, two otters swimming in lake. ”

“ There was many a wistful glance cast across to the other shore where we could see a fine sand terrace. There the walking must be smooth and easy; but we could not cross, the rapids were too heavy.
During the afternoon we found the first and only fresh caribou tracks seen in the lower Nascaupee valley. A pair of fish eagles, circling high above us, screamed their disapproval of our presence there. We saw their nest at the very top of a dead spruce stub, some sixty feet or more above the ground. This was one of the very many things on the trip which made me wish I were a man. ”

“ Some thinking had convinced me that the two months' estimate for the journey to Ungava was far from correct; but I still feared it was useless to entertain hope of being in time for the ship. Yet one does hope even when it is plainly useless. Nevertheless life had come to be a serious matter with us all now, excepting Gilbert, for the men too were averse to spending a winter in Labrador, and had rather advocated a return by way of Davis Inlet or the Grand River. Gilbert alone sang and laughed as merrily as ever, undisturbed by doubts or fears. ”

“ As I watched the other canoe slip down the long slope of a big wave I wondered, often, if it would come up again, for it looked as if bound straight for the bottom of the lake. Soon, however, it was on the crest of another wave and ready to dip again. The most exciting part of the experience was watching its motions. The perspective made them seem more remarkable than those of my own, which indeed were startling enough at times.
With glad hearts we felt the wind drop a little as we neared the point. ”

“ Through the wooded land the soil appeared to be simply a tangle of fallen and decayed tree-trunks grown over with thick moss of another variety, in which you sank ankle deep, while dark perilous looking holes yawned on every side, making you feel that if once you went in you might never appear again. Sometimes our way led along a fine bear trail on a sandy terrace where the wood growth was small and scattered, and where the walking was smooth, and even as that of a city street, but much softer and pleasanter. ”

“ Standing in the stern of the canoe, guiding it with firm, unerring hand, Job scanned the river ahead, choosing out our course, now shouting his directions to George in the bow, or again to Joe and Gilbert as they followed close behind. Usually we ran in the shallow water near shore where the rocks of the river bed looked perilously near the surface. When the sun shone, sharp points and angles seemed to reach up into the curl of the waves, though in reality they did not, and often it appeared as if we were going straight to destruction as the canoe shot towards them. ”

“ Sometimes towards evening in dreary November, when the clouds hang heavy and low, covering all the sky, and the hills are solemn and sombre, and the wind is cold, and the lake black and sullen, a break in the dark veil lets through a splash of glorious sunshine. It is so very beautiful as it falls into the gloom that your breath draws in quick and you watch it with a thrill. ”

“ George showed me, only a few miles from where we were standing, Mount Hubbard, from which Mr. Hubbard and he had seen Michikamau; Windbound Lake and the lakes through which they had hoped to find their way to the great lake; the dip in the hills to the east through which they had passed on their long portage. He pointed out to me a little dark line on the brow of the hill where the bushes were in which they had shot the rabbit, and on the eastern slope another dark shadow showing where they had shot the ptarmigan.
So much of life and its pain can crowd into a few minutes. ”

“ The trail led down into a valley opening eastward to Seal Lake, and walled in on three sides by the hills. On either hand reaching up their steep slopes were the spruce woods with beautiful white birches relieving their sombreness, and above- -the sheer cliffs. A network of little waterways gave back images of delicate tamaracks [Larches] growing on long points between. Not a leaf stirred, and silence, which is music, reigned there. The valley was flooded with golden light, seeming to hold all in a mysterious stillness, the only motion the rapids ”

“ Here were clear, cold streams with their trout and grayling, and here, when his work admitted, he hunted and fished and dreamed out his plans, his thoughts turning ever more insistently to the big, outside world where his heroes did their work.
He entered the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1893. High strung and sensitive, with a driving energy and ambition to have part in the larger work of the world, be suffered during the early part of his course all the agonies that come to those of such a nature while they grope in the dark for that which they are fitted to do. ”

“ It seemed as if they must certainly fall overboard. I expected every minute to find myself perforce taking a header into the deep water. Sometimes we brushed the edge of a big ice-bank. The moment the poles were lifted the canoe stopped its forward movement, and if they were not quickly set again it began to slip back with the current. At last the water became too shallow and rough and we went ashore. Here the portaging began, and I climbed up over the ice-banks and walked along the shore. Even while ice and snow lingered, the flowers were beginning to bloom, and I found two tiny blue violets. ”

“ The faces here were not bright and happy looking as at the Montagnais camp. Nearly all were sad and wistful. The old women seemed the brightest of all and were apparently important people in the camp. Even the little children's faces were sad and old in expression as if they too realised something of the cares of wilderness life. ”

“ While exploring a bay to N.W., we landed to climb ridge. George found three partridges. I shot one, wounded another, pistol. Camped to- night cheerful but desperate. All firm for progress to Michikamau. All willing to try a return in winter. Discussed it to-night from all sides. Must get a good place for fish and caribou and then freeze up, make snowshoes and toboggans and moccasins and go. Late home and they will worry. Hungry for bread, pork and sugar. How I like to think at night of what I'll eat, when I get home and what a quiet, restful time I'll have. Flies bad by spells to-day. ”

“ Then came an invitation to go up to the camp. As George interpreted he did not look at all comfortable, and when he asked if I cared to go I knew he was wishing very much that I would say "No," but I said, "Yes, indeed." So we went up while the other three remained at the canoes.
Even in barren Labrador are to be found little touches that go to prove human nature the same the world over. One of the young men, handsomer than the others, and conscious of the fact, had been watching me throughout with evident interest. He was not only handsomer than the others, but his leggings were redder. ”

“ Nevertheless rising far above either praise or blame stands the beauty of that message which came out from the lonely tent in the wilderness. In utter physical weakness, utter loneliness, in the face of defeat and death, my husband wrote that last record of his life, so triumphantly characteristic, which turned his defeat to a victory immeasurably higher and more beautiful than the success of his exploring venture could ever have been accounted, and thus was compassed the higher purpose of his life. ”

“ I climbed up the river wall to the high, sandy terrace above. This great wall of packed boulders is one of the most characteristic features of the lower river. It is thrown up by the action of ice in the spring floods, and varies all the way from twenty feet at its beginning to fifty and sixty feet farther down. One of the remarkable things about it is that the largest boulders lie at the top, some of them so huge as to weigh tons. On the terrace, moss berries and blue berries were so thick as to make walking slippery. The river grows more magnificent all the time. ”

“ His imagination kindled by what he had read, and the oft-repeated tales of frontier life in which the courage, endurance, and high honour of his own pioneer forefathers stood out strong and clear, it was but natural that the boy under the apple trees should feel romance in every bit of forest, every stream; that his thoughts should be reaching towards the out-of-the-way places of the earth where life was still that of the pioneer with the untamed wilderness lying across his path, and on into the wilderness itself. ”

“ The sand-hills stand about the wide-mouthed bay into which the river flows, and many little wooded islands lie at its head, and in the river's mouth, which is entirely obscured by them, so that it is not until you are close upon them that the river can be seen. For a mile we threaded our way among these islands and found ourselves at the mouth of the Crooked River where it enters the Nascaupee on the north. ”

“ The fourth was Gilbert Blake, a half-breed Eskimo boy trapper, one of the two young lads of the rescue party George Elson had sent back two years before, when his heroic, but unsuccessful, efforts to save Mr. Hubbard's life had brought him to Donald Blake's house. Through the courtesy of M. Duclos, in whose service he was employed at the time of my arrival, he was released that he might go with me. The men were splendid, capable-looking fellows, with an air of quiet dignity and self-possession about them, which comes from conscious ability and character. ”

“ Wind bound in camp all day. Lay in tent almost all the time. Spits of snow. No breakfast. Bit of fish and its liquor for lunch. Same with a dash of pea meal at night. Oh! to be away from this lake and its gales and to be started home! Last night we quit rolling in blankets and made bed to keep warm. All three crawled in. Warmer than other way. Quite comfortable all night. Plan a great deal for the future. I am planning to give more time to home. Less fretting and more home life. I've let my ambitions worry me. More time for my meals when I get home and more for my wife and our friends. ”

“ Then to my surprise the men suddenly changed paddles for poles and turning the bows inshore poled right on up over the mud-bank. It was such a funny and novel performance that it snapped the spell for me, and I joined with the men in their shouts of laughter over the antics of the canoe on the slippery mud-bank. When we finally reached the top and slid out on to the flat, we saw a man, who we supposed must be Mr. Ford, the agent at the post, coming over the mud with his retinue of Eskimo to meet us. ”

“ Outlet hunting is hell on nerves, temper and equanimity. You paddle miles and miles, into bay after bay, bay after bay, with maybe no result till you are hopeless. Ugh! This is a great relief to be about to start north through the woods—fairly high ground to start with—on a hunt for Michikamau. Hope we will not have swamps. Lakes will probably stop us and make us bring up the canoe. Good evening and we are happy, despite fact that grub is short and we don't know our way and all that.
Sunday, August 30th.—Beautiful, clear Sunday, but no Sunday rest for us. ”

“ You have told me that heaven is beautiful. Tell me now one thing more. Is it more beautiful than the land of the musk ox in summer, when sometimes the mist blows over the lakes, and sometimes the waters are blue, and the loons call very often? This is beautiful, my Father. If heaven is more beautiful I shall be content to rest there till I am very old."
The camp consisted of two large wigwams, the covers of which were of dressed deer-skins sewed together and drawn tight over the poles, while across the doorway bung an old piece of sacking. ”

“ As we will be staying in one place we will not require as much as you will, because if you fail on the way, it will mean sure death to us too. And if you happen to come on some trappers, just send them with grub, and don't come up yourself as you will be too weak. Or if you get to Northwest River, Mr. M'Kenzie will find men to send, and you will stay there. If I should starve and you get out, Mr. M'Kenzie will help you in all you need, and will keep you there this winter. By the first boat you will go to New York, and my diary don't give to anyone but to Mrs. Hubbard. ”

“ It was not until noon on Saturday, July 15th, that we left our pretty camp, for it rained steadily in the meantime. Then we started on our cross-country trip, working up to the north, from which direction the brook flows. A two-mile carry brought us out on Saturday evening to a lake at its head. After dinner on Sunday we again went forward with a whole mile of paddling to cheer us on our way. From the head of the lake another mile of good portaging brought us at last to waters flowing to Seal Lake, and we were again in the canoes to taste for a little the pleasures of going with the tide. ”