Winter Adventures of Three Boys | Page 2

pinching cold is the icy, biting air.
Yesterday the waves may have been merrily rippling in the sunshine on
the beautiful lakes. To-day, after a night of storm and boreal tempest,
the ice is rapidly forming, and is binding down in strongest fetters the
highest billows.
Mr and Mrs Ross were much pleased and amused at the genuine
excitement of the lads as they realised the wondrous transformation
wrought by this first wintry storm, and the possibilities it opened up to
them for other kinds of sport, than those in which, for some time past,
they had been so deeply interested. Eager and excited as they were,
they had as yet no definite plan of action for their winter amusement.
So sudden had been the transition, there had been no time to think.
However, with boyish candour and joyous anticipation, they were all
ready with their suggestions.
"Skates!" shouted Alec, as he caught a glimpse of an icy expanse that
glittered in the distance as a ray of sunshine shot out through the
parting clouds and for a moment rested upon it.

"Toboggans!" cried Sam, as he saw a steep hillside one mass of
beautiful snow.
"Let us make an ice boat," said Frank. Although he had never seen one,
yet he had eagerly read much about them, and at the sight of the frozen
lake was wild to set about the manufacture of one of these dainty craft,
that he might enjoy the exhilarating sport he had so long anticipated.
"Capital suggestions are all of these," said Mr Ross. "Still, as the ice is
not yet twenty-four hours old, and therefore not very safe for skating,
and the snow has not yet fallen in sufficient quantity upon the hills to
make them smooth enough for tobogganing, and the carpenter will
require some time to make an ice boat, and we will have six good
months of winter in which to enjoy these and other sports, my
suggestion is that we get ready to-day to start, as soon as the ice will be
safe, for the island fisheries and bring home the dogs."
"The dogs! the dogs! yes, hurrah for the dogs!" cried all the boys in
unison.
So everything was for the moment forgotten, or postponed, in their
eager anticipation to become intimately acquainted with the dogs, about
which they had heard so much. During the summer months the dogs
were away to a distant island, where they were cared for by Kinesasis, a
careful old Indian, who with a few nets easily caught all the fish they
required for food. This island was quite out of the route of travel, and
so our young friends had seen but little of Mr Ross's dogs, about which
many interesting stories had been told them. Now at the prospect of
soon seeing them they were greatly delighted.
Although so much can be done with dogs in winter in those high
latitudes, there is practically no use for them in summer. It is true that
some enterprising missionaries had used them for ploughing up their
little potato fields and gardens, and yet it was slow work and not long
continued. But through the long winter the dog is practically the only
draft animal that can be utilised by the inhabitants of those regions.
From the far-off forest the wood for fuel is dragged home by the dogs.
The frozen fish, which are caught and piled up on stages beyond the

reach of wolves or other wild beasts, are drawn home to the villages
from the distant fisheries by the well-trained dogs.
When a Christian decides to exchange his old wigwam for a house, all
the squared timber and logs required in its construction are dragged, if
not floated by water in the summer time, it may be several miles, by the
dogs. Christian hunters use them to drag home the moose and reindeer
or other heavy game they may shoot. Formerly their wives and mothers
had to do this heavy work, but now Christianity has relegated this and
many other heavy duties to the dogs.
However, the greatest and most arduous work to which the dogs are put
is that of drawing the canoles and dog-sleds of travellers and tourists or
fur traders for long distances through various parts of that great
northern land. Without the dogs, travelling in that country would be
practically impossible in the winter months. So full of lakes and rivers
is the country that it is possible to go almost anywhere in a birch canoe
in summer by making occasional portages. But when the severe cold
freezes up those water stretches and the snow lies thick, and there is not
the least vestige of a road or trail, then the value and sagacity of the
dogs are seen and