Oowikapun

Oowikapun, by Egerton Ryerson
Young

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Title: Oowikapun How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians
Author: Egerton Ryerson Young
Release Date: October 31, 2007 [EBook #23261]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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OOWIKAPUN ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Oowikapun
How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians
By Reverend Egerton Ryerson Young.

CHAPTER ONE.
THE WOLF TRAP.
That Oowikapun was unhappy, strangely so, was evident to all in the
Indian village. New thoughts deeply affecting him had in some way or
other entered into his mind, and he could not but show that they were
producing a great change in him.
The simple, quiet, monotonous life of the young Indian hunter was
curiously broken in upon, and he could never be the same again. There
had come a decided awakening; the circle of his vision had suddenly
enlarged, and he had become aware of the fact that he was something
more than he imagined. While, in his simple faith, he had paddled
along the beautiful rivers, or wandered through the wild forests of his
country, catching the fish or hunting the game, where at times he had
heard the thunder's crash and seen the majestic tree riven by the
lightning's power, and perhaps in these seasons of nature's wild
commotion had "seen God in cloud and heard him in the wind," yet
until very lately he had never heard of anything which had caused him
to imagine that he was in any way allied to that Great Spirit, or was in
any way responsible to him.
What was the cause of this mental disquietude, of these long hours of
absorbing thought?
To answer these inquiries we must go back a little, and accompany him
on a hunting trip which he made in the forest months ago.
Hearing from some other hunters of a place where grey wolves were
numerous, and being ambitious to kill some of these fierce brutes, that
he might adorn his wigwam with their warm skins, he took his traps
and camping outfit and set out for that region of country, although it
was more than two hundred miles away. Here he found tracks in
abundance, and so before he made his little hunting lodge in the midst
of a spruce grove, he set his traps for the fierce wolves in a spot which
seemed to be a rallying place of theirs. As they are very suspicious and
clever, he carefully placed two traps close together and sprinkled them

over with snow, leaving visible only the dead rabbits which served as
bait. Then scattering more snow over his own tracks as he moved away,
in order to leave as little evidence of his having been there as possible,
he returned to his little tentlike lodge and prepared and ate his supper,
smoked his pipe, and then wrapping himself up in his blanket was soon
fast asleep. Very early next morning he was up and off to visit his traps.
His axe was slipped in his belt, and his gun, well loaded, was carried
ready for use if necessary. When he had got within a few hundred yards
of the place where he had set his heavy traps, he heard the rattling of
the chains which were attached to them, each fastened to a heavy log.
This sound, while it made his heart jump, was very welcome, for it
meant that he had been successful. When he drew near the spot where
he had set the traps, he found that a fierce old wolf, in trying to get the
rabbit from one of them without springing it, had got caught in the
other, and although both of his hind legs were held by the sharp teeth of
the trap, he had managed to drag it and the heavy log fastened to it to
quite a distance.
When Oowikapun drew near, the wolf made the most desperate efforts
to escape; but the strong trap held him securely, and the heavy log on
the chain made it impossible for him to get far away.
Oowikapun could easily have shot him, but ammunition was dear and
the bullet hole in the skin would be a blemish, and the sound of the gun
might scare away the game that might be near; so he resolved to kill the
wolf with the back of his axe. Better would it have been for him if he
had shot him