Olaus J. Murie

Journeys to the Far North


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weasel coming hippety-hop to investigate me. The weasel is curious and vigorous in its movements. This one came right up to me, nosing about to see and to understand about me before he pattered off over the snow, disappearing in the woods like a dim moonlight shadow.

      Once I came upon an open space in the creek. There must have been a warm spring there to keep this bit of water from freezing. A small group of mallard ducks apparently knew this pool would remain open and were taking a chance on spending the winter there. In later years in Alaska I found similar open places, some even north of the Arctic Circle, occupied by ducks and by water ouzels. This little sprite, the ouzel, or dipper, takes advantage of such open places in the snowy winter and exhibits the virility of its little life by singing through the winter!

      These were some of the glimpses of life on Maidman Creek. There were other things, too—such as a literary adventure that did not require snowshoes or lunch. One Sunday I remained in my room most of the day reading The Silent Places by Stewart Edward White. What a treat it was to see how such a sensitive person could tell about living in just this kind of country—a varied country, with streams, forests, tamarack swamps—“the silent places.”

      Then came Christmas! At home in Minnesota we had always had a Christmas tree and all the usual domestic trimmings that go with that day. What would it be like up here?

      About the middle of December a “packet” came up from Cochrane, eight days by dogteam. In the mail were letters from home, a Christmas box, and the book The Man Without a Country. Here was I, too, in a far country. It was especially warming to get word from home, the first in a long time.

      Christmas is celebrated variously in different countries, many of the activities being the result of tradition. Here at Moose Factory the Indians took advantage of some of the white man’s tradition. It was the custom for some of them to bring a stocking or a little bag to the houses to be hung up, and on Christmas day they would come calling for them, hopefully.

      The highlight of the day for me was being invited to attend Christmas dinner in the evening at the home of Mr. Wilson, the head of the Hudson’s Bay Company for all of Hudson Bay. I felt a little strange among these very British folk because of their speech and their way of doing things, but it was a wonderful meal. At dessert time came another tradition I had only read about. Through a door of the living room where we were assembled came Mr. Wilson’s daughter, carrying a plum pudding aflame with brandy, the ceremonious climax of our Christmas dinner.

      As I became better acquainted and entered into the life of this little community, I gained an impression which was strengthened by later experience. There was an atmosphere of the remote past. Oxen were still used to haul wood. There was an apparent lack of hurry in all activities, as if the powerful trading company, with a tradition and history dating back to 1670, need not join in the modern rush of the business world. Perhaps rush and hurry were not necessary in dealing with the northern Indians and Eskimos.

      There were other things that had also come down in history—the long Indian history before any white men had come. The Hudson’s Bay Company initials were sometimes interpreted as “Here Before Christ.” It is true they had been there a long time; but the Indians had been there long before that, and the white people at Moose Factory had I learned some of the unwritten Indian history and mythology. One day Mr. Moore told me an Indian “yarn,” as he called it. Some Great Spirit—I don’t know what he was called— portioned out to the animals the fat they were to have on their bodies. One by one they were dipped in a lake of grease. The rabbit got anxious and jumped into the lake before his turn came. The Great Spirit was displeased with this selfish action, so to punish the rabbit he took him up and pulled him through his hand, wiping off the grease. For his disobedience the rabbit was to go without his share. But between the shoulders, in the little cavity back of the neck, a small portion was left after he was wiped off. To this day that is the only place where the rabbit has any fat.

      Truly, the Indian is a close observer; and like all of us, he has tried his best to interpret observed facts. What shall we think of our attitudes and feelings about the world about us? Beauty is present in all parts of the world, but my being in what was then considered the Far North may have conditioned some of my reactions. In my diary for December 27 I find the following, written for myself:

      “Sunday. I read all morning and in the afternoon went across to the “French Company” to a gathering to sing. I enjoyed it more than the church service here, for there was such an evident feeling of sincerity. As I was coming back with Willie Moore (the Moores’ older son), the moon came out, and I saw it was going to be a rare night. It has been mild today with snow falling most of the time.

      “After tea I put on my warm cap and deerskin mittens, and went out for a walk. I believe I enjoyed some of the best moments of my life. I went along the ‘Northwest Path.’ The trees stood around me—masses of spruce, a rich, soft black, the spire tops outlined against the bright, moonlit sky and here and there silvered over with a coating of snow. As I walked, I looked through openings or lanes among the trees, where the soft but clear moon-shadows stretched across, and rounded snow mounds and snow-covered logs were outlined by their delicate shadows. On the level snow and over the snow sprinkled trees sparkled the ‘diamonds,’ and over all, high in the sky, shone a clear moon. I walked along the path, here gazing up at the wonderful moonlit trees, there looking in among the trunks into a little opening flooded with light, or along a lane where the delicate shadows mingled wonderfully. Small bushes seemed frosted over and sparkled. Everything seemed crystalline, yet strangely mellow. There was a feeling of purity about the whole thing, as if I were in a holy place—so much so that when I heard someone shout to his dogs in the distance it felt painful, like a discordant note in music.

      “I finally came to the river bank out at the back of the island, and here was another scene. The wide, smooth expanse of the river was bounded by the distant, dark shores of the islands. I crossed over to Charles Island and wandered about on a diminutive lake, and finally turned back as a thin, cloudy haze began to dim the shadows and obscure the wonderful purity of the moonlight. In such surroundings a man feels elated, no task seems too big, and all evil thoughts disappear.”

      One day in late January I went through some swamps to “Mi Lord’s Ridge.” I was crossing one of these snowy “plains,” head down against a wind, when I became aware that grouse were running around me, in all directions. These proved to be a flock of about eighteen sharp-tailed grouse, feeding among the scattered dwarf birches and paying little heed to me. The birds would run quickly, then stop abruptly at a little bush, picking away vigorously at the seeds or buds for a moment, only to scurry off to another bush. From time to time one or two of the hindmost would fly along and alight near the front of the band. They appeared very busy, although at times one or two would crouch awhile in the snow, possibly because of my presence. They all carried their tails straight up, and there was a low conversational “whistling” as they fed.

      In such snow-covered “muskegs” I found a border of tamaracks, the small deciduous cone-bearing tree common to these places. Years later I found a few sharp-tailed grouse living in a limited tamarack woods in Interior Alaska. Apparently the muskeg-tamarack environment is an agreeable home for the sharptail in the north country.

      On the way back on this January day, as I plodded along on snowshoes, I came on the place where these grouse had spent the night under the snow. Each one had tucked itself away underneath, and the snow which had fallen that night and drifted had covered it nicely. In the morning they all had simply pushed up and out and begun feeding. This made me recall boyhood days in Minnesota, when very often prairie chickens would burst out of the snow at my feet when disturbed by my approach to their snug retreat. Willie Moore told me that the sharp-tailed and spruce grouse do not sleep under the snow in springtime when crusts form. But the ruffed grouse continues to do so, and some get frozen in by a strong crust. These birds have learned, as many outdoor people have, that in the cold of midwinter it is warmer under the snow blanket.

      So many things to learn about during this first winter in the north! I knew, of course, that the snowshoe rabbit has a more or less regular “population cycle,” a building up of numbers for ten or eleven years to a “high,” followed by a “crash” in numbers. In the winter of 1914–15, these rabbits