FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103  
104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   >>   >|  
s beef, mutton, or venison, and occasionally buffalo meat, was sent us from the Swan River district. Of tea, sugar, butter, and bread we had more than enough; and besides the produce of our garden in the way of vegetables, the river and lake contributed white-fish, sturgeon, and pike, or jack-fish, in abundance. The pike is not a delicate fish, and the sturgeon is extremely coarse, but the white-fish is the most delicate and delicious I ever ate. I am not aware of their existence in any part of the Old World, but the North American lakes abound with them. It is generally the size of a good salmon trout, of a bright silvery colour, and tastes a little like salmon. Many hundreds of fur-traders live almost entirely on white-fish, particularly at those far northern posts where flour, sugar, and tea cannot be had in great quantities, and where deer are scarce. At these posts the Indians are sometimes reduced to cannibalism, and the Company's people have, on more than one occasion, been obliged to eat their beaver-skins! The beaver-skin is thick and oily, so that, when the fur is burned off, and the skin well boiled, it makes a kind of soup that will at least keep one alive. Starvation is quite common among the Indians of those distant regions; and the scraped rocks, divested of their covering of _tripe-de-roche_ (which resembles dried-up seaweed), have a sad meaning and melancholy appearance to the traveller who journeys through the wilds and solitudes of Rupert's Land. Norway House is also an agreeable and interesting place, from its being in a manner the gate to the only route to Hudson Bay, so that during the spring and summer months all the brigades of boats and canoes from every part of the northern department must necessarily pass it on their way to York Factory with furs: and as they all return in the autumn, and some of the gentlemen leave their wives and families for a few weeks till they return to the interior, it is at this sunny season of the year quite gay and bustling; and the clerks' house, in which I lived, was often filled with a strange and noisy collection of human beings, who rested here a while ere they started for the shores of Hudson Bay, for the distant region of Mackenzie River, or the still more distant land of Oregon. During winter our principal amusement was white-partridge shooting. This bird is a species of ptarmigan, and is pure white, with the exception of the tips of the wings and
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103  
104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

distant

 

northern

 

return

 

salmon

 

Indians

 
beaver
 

Hudson

 

delicate

 

sturgeon

 
manner

shooting

 
brigades
 

canoes

 

months

 

species

 

spring

 

summer

 

ptarmigan

 

interesting

 

appearance


melancholy

 

traveller

 

meaning

 

resembles

 

seaweed

 

journeys

 

agreeable

 

Norway

 

solitudes

 

exception


Rupert

 
filled
 

strange

 

clerks

 

season

 
bustling
 

Oregon

 

collection

 

started

 

shores


region

 

Mackenzie

 

beings

 

rested

 

Factory

 

principal

 
winter
 

amusement

 

partridge

 

necessarily