The Arctic Prairies | Page 7

Ernest Thompson Seton
or forty cartridges at five cents
each.
On the 27th we came to the Cascade Rapids. The first or Little Cascade
has about two feet fall, the second or Grand Cascade, a mile farther, is

about a six foot sheer drop. These are considered very difficult to run,
and the manner of doing it changes with every change in season or
water level.
We therefore went through an important ceremony, always carried out
in the same way. All 13 boats were beached, the 13 pilots went ahead
on the bank to study the problem, they decided on the one safe place
and manner, then returned, and each of the 13 boats was run over in 13
different places and manners. They always do this. You are supposed to
have run the Cascades successfully if you cross them alive, but to have
failed if you drown.. In this case all were successful.
Below the Cascades I had a sample of Indian gratitude that set me
thinking. My success with John MacDonald and others had added the
whole community to my medical practice, for those who were not sick
thought they were. I cheerfully did my best for all, and was supposed to
be persona grata. Just below the Cascade Rapids was a famous sucker
pool, and after we had camped three Indians came, saying that the pool
was full of suckers--would I lend them my canoe to get some?
Away they went, and from afar I was horrified to see them clubbing the
fish with my beautiful thin-bladed maple paddles. They returned with a
boat load of 3- and 4-pound Suckers (Catostomus) and 2 paddles
broken. Each of their friends came and received one or two fine fish,
for there were plenty. I, presumably part owner of the catch, since I
owned the boat, selected one small one for myself, whereupon the
Indian insolently demanded 25 cents for it; and these were the men I
had been freely doctoring for two weeks! Not to speak of the loaned
canoe and broken paddles! Then did I say a few things to all and
sundry--stinging, biting things, ungainsayable and forcible things--and
took possession of all the fish that were left, so the Indians slunk off in
sullen silence.
Gratitude seems an unknown feeling among these folk; you may give
presents and help and feed them all you like, the moment you want a
slight favour of them they demand the uttermost cent. In attempting to
analyse this I was confronted by the fact that among themselves they
are kind and hospitable, and at length discovered that their attitude
toward us is founded on the ideas that all white men are very rich, that
the Indian has made them so by allowing them to come into this
country, that the Indian is very poor because he never was properly

compensated, and that therefore all he can get out of said white man is
much less than the white man owes him.
As we rounded a point one day a Lynx appeared statuesque on a
stranded cake of ice, a hundred yards off, and gazed at the approaching
boats. True to their religion, the half-breeds seized their rifles, the
bullets whistled harmlessly about the "Peeshoo"--whereupon he turned
and walked calmly up the slope, stopping to look at each fresh volley,
but finally waved his stumpy tail and walked unharmed over the ridge.
Distance fifty yards.
On May 28 we reached Fort MacMurray.
Here I saw several interesting persons: Miss Christine Gordon, the
postmaster; Joe Bird, a half-breed with all the advanced ideas of a
progressive white man; and an American ex-patriot, G------, a tall,
raw-boned Yank from Illinois. He was a typical American of the kind,
that knows little of America and nothing of Europe; but shrewd and
successful in spite of these limitations. In appearance he was not unlike
Abraham Lincoln. He was a rabid American, and why he stayed here
was a question.
He had had no detailed tidings from home for years, and I never saw a
man more keen for the news. On the banks of the river we sat for an
hour while he plied me with questions, which I answered so far as I
could. He hung on my lips; he interrupted only when there seemed a
halt in the stream; he revelled in, all the details of wrecks by rail and
sea. Roosevelt and the trusts--insurance scandals--the South the
burnings in the West--massacres--murders--horrors--risings--these were
his special gloats, and yet he kept me going with "Yes--yes--and then?"
or "Yes, by golly--that's the way we're a-doing it. Go on."
Then, after I had robbed New York of $100,000,000 a year, burnt 10
large towns and 45 small ones, wrecked 200 express trains, lynched 96
negroes in the South and murdered many men
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