At first its owner had no meat to spare, but when he found
that the visitor had a flask of whiskey he offered for it a large
piece of Moose meat; when this was refused he doubled the amount,
and after another refusal added some valuable furs and more meat
till one hundred dollars worth was piled up.
Again the answer was "no."
Then did that Indian offer the lodge and everything he had in it,
including his wife. But the trader was obdurate.
"Why didn't you take it," said the friend whom he told of the
affair; "the stuff would have netted five hundred dollars, and all
for one flask of whiskey."
"Not much," said the trader, "it was my last flask I wouldn't 'a'
had a drop for myself. But it just shows, how fond these Indians
are of whiskey."
While some of the Chipewyans show fine physique, and many do great
feats of strength and endurance, they seem on the whole inferior
to whites.
Thus the strongest portager on the river is said to be Billy
Loutit's brother George. At Athabaska Landing I was shown a house
on a hill, half a mile away, to which he had carried on his back
450 pounds of flour without stopping. Some said it was only 350
pounds, but none made it less. As George is only three-quarters
white, this is perhaps not a case in point. But during our stay
at Fort Smith we had several athletic meets of Indians and whites,
the latter represented by Preble and the police boys, and no matter
whether in running, walking, high jumping, broad jumping, wrestling,
or boxing, the whites were ahead.
As rifle-shots, also, the natives seem far inferior. In the matter
of moose-hunting only, as already noted, the red-man was master.
This, of course, is a matter of life-long training. A white man
brought up to it would probably do as well as an Indian even in
this very Indian department.
These tribes are still in the hunting and fishing stage; they make
no pretence of agriculture or stockraising. Except that they wear
white man's clothes and are most of them nominally Roman Catholics,
they live as their fathers did 100 years ago. But there is one
remarkable circumstance that impressed me more and more - practically
every Chipewyan reads and writes his own language.
This miracle was inborn on me slowly. On the first Buffalo hunt we
had found a smoothened pole stuck in the ground by the trail. It
was inscribed as herewith.
"What is that Sousi?" "It's a notice from Chief William that Swiggert
wants men on the portage," and he translated it literally: "The fat
white man 5 scows, small white man 2 scows, gone down, men wanted
for Rapids, Johnnie Bolette this letter for you.
