Part 5 (1/2)
A piece of yet, more ancient history was supplied him in Northern Ontario, and related to me thus:
Anderson was going to Kakabonga in June, 1879, and camped one night on the east side of Birch Lake on the Ottawa, about 50 miles north-east of Grand Lake Post.
He and his outfit of two canoes met Pah-pah-tay, chief of the Grand Lake Indians, travelling with his family. He called Anderson's attention to the shape of the point which had one good landing-place, a little sandy bay, and told him the story he heard from his people of a battle that was fought there with the Iroquois long, long ago.
Four or five Iroquois war-canoes, filled with warriors, came to this place on a foray for scalps. Their canoes were drawn up on the beach at night. They lighted fires and had a war-dance. Three Grand Lake Algonquins, forefathers of Pah-pah-tay, saw the dance from, hiding. They cached their canoe, one of them took a sharp flint--”we had no knives or axes then”--swam across to the canoes, and cut a great hole in the bottom of each.
The three then posted themselves at three different points in the bushes, and began whooping in as many different ways as possible.
The Iroquois, thinking it a great war-party, rushed to their canoes and pushed off quickly. When they were in deep water the canoes sank and, as the warriors swam back ash.o.r.e, the Algonquins killed them one by one, saving alive only one, whom they maltreated, and then let go with a supply of food, as a messenger to his people, and to carry the warning that this would be the fate of every Iroquois that entered the Algonquin country.
CHAPTER IX
MOSQUITOES
Reference to my Smith Landing Journal for June 17 shows the following:
”The Spring is now on in full flood, the gra.s.s is high, the trees are fully leaved, flowers are blooming, birds are nesting, and the mosquitoes are a terror to man and beast.”
If I were to repeat all the entries in that last key, it would make dreary and painful reading; I shall rather say the worst right now, and henceforth avoid the subject.
Every traveller in the country agrees that the mosquitoes are a frightful curse. Captain Back, in 1833 (Journal, p. 117), said that the sand-flies and mosquitoes are the worst of the hards.h.i.+ps to which the northern traveller is exposed.
T. Hutchins, over a hundred years ago, said that no one enters the Barren Grounds in the summer, because no man can stand the stinging insects. I had read these various statements, but did not grasp the idea until I was among them. At Smith Landing, June 7, mosquitoes began to be troublesome, quite as numerous as in the worst part of the New Jersey marshes. An estimate of those on the mosquito bar over my bed, showed 900 to 1,000 trying to get at me; day and night, without change, the air was ringing with their hum.
This was early in the season. On July 9, on Nyarling River, they were much worse, and my entry was as follows:
”'On the back of Billy's coat, as he sat paddling before me, I counted a round 400 mosquitoes boring away; about as many were on the garments of his head and neck, a much less number on his arms and legs. The air about was thick with them; at least as many more, fully 1,000, singing and stinging and filling the air with a droning hum. The rest of us were equally pestered.
”'The Major, fresh, ruddy, full-blooded, far over 200 pounds in plumpness, is the best feeding ground for mosquitoes I (or they, probably) ever saw; he must be a great improvement on the smoke-dried Indians. No matter where they land on him they strike it rich, and at all times a dozen or more bloated bloodsuckers may be seen hanging like red currants on his face and neck. He maintains that they do not bother him, and scoffs at me for wearing a net. They certainly do not impair his health, good looks, or his perennial good humour, and I, for one, am thankful that his superior food-quality gives us a corresponding measure of immunity.”
At Salt River one could kill 100 with a stroke of the palm and at times they obscured the colour of the horses. A little later they were much worse. On 6 square inches of my tent I counted 30 mosquitoes, and the whole surface was similarly supplied; that is, there were 24,000 on the tent and apparently as many more flying about the door. Most of those that bite us are killed but that makes not the slightest perceptible difference in their manners or numbers. They reminded me of the Klondike gold-seekers. Thousands go; great numbers must die a miserable death; not more than one in 10,000 can get away with a load of the coveted stuff, and yet each believes that he is to be that one, and pushes on.
Dr. L. 0. Howard tells us that the mosquito rarely goes far from its birthplace. That must refer to the miserable degenerates they have in New Jersey, for these of the north offer endless evidence of power to travel, as well as to resist cold and wind.
On July 21, 1907, we camped on a small island on Great Slave Lake.
It was about one-quarter mile long, several miles from mainland, at least half a mile from any other island, apparently all rock, and yet it was swarming with mosquitoes. Here, as elsewhere, they were mad for our blood; those we knocked off and maimed, would crawl up with sprained wings and twisted legs to sting as fiercely as ever, as long as the beak would work.
We thought the stinging pests of the Buffalo country as bad as possible, but they proved mild and scarce compared with those we yet had to meet on the Arctic Barrens of our ultimate goal.
Each day they got worse; soon it became clear that mere adjectives could not convey any idea of their terrors. Therefore I devised a mosquito gauge. I held up a bare hand for 5 seconds by the watch, then counted the number of borers on the back; there were 5 to 10.
Each day added to the number, and when we got out to the Buffalo country, there were 15 to 25 on the one side of the hand and elsewhere in proportion. On the Nyarling, in early July, the number was increased, being now 20 to 40. On Great Slave Lake, later that month, there were 50 to 60. But when we reached the Barren Grounds, the land of open breezy plains and cold water lakes, the pests were so bad that the hand held up for 5 seconds often showed from 100 to 125 long-billed mosquitoes boring away into the flesh. It was possible to number them only by killing them and counting the corpses. What wonder that all men should avoid the open plains, that are the kingdom of such a scourge.
Yet it must not be thought that the whole country is similarly and evenly filled. There can be no doubt that they flock and fly to the big moving creatures they see or smell. Maybe we had gathered the whole mosquito product of many acres. This is shown by the facts that if one rushes through thick bushes for a distance, into a clear s.p.a.ce, the mosquitoes seem absent at first. One must wait a minute or so to gather up another legion. When landing from a boat on the Northern Lakes there are comparatively few, but even in a high wind, a walk to the nearest hilltop results in one again moving in a cloud of tormentors. Does not this readiness to a.s.semble at a bait suggest a possible means of destroying them?
Every one, even the seasoned natives, agree that they are a terror to man and beast; but, thanks to our flyproof tents, we sleep immune.
During the day I wear my net and gloves, uncomfortably hot, but a blessed relief from the torment. It is easy to get used to those coverings; it is impossible to get used to the mosquitoes.