Forty-Two Years Amongst the Indians and Eskimo
Beatrice Batty
9781465548252
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The contents of the present volume are in a large measure the outcome of a long-continued personal correspondence with the late Bishop of Moosonee. As Editor of the Coral Magazine I received from him many appeals for aid in the various departments of his work. I asked for graphic descriptions of the surroundings; and I did not ask in vain. Questions concerning the daily life of himself and those about him, the food and habits of the people, modes of travel, dress, climate, products, seasons, and special incidents were duly answered and fully entered into. The bishop had the pen of a ready writer, and all that he wrote was graphic in the extreme. He was, however, modestly unaware of his talent in this respect, until his eyes were opened to the fact by the well-deserved appreciation of the letters and papers which came more frequently and more regularly increasing in interest as time wore on. The bulk of this book is made up of extracts from this correspondence, with just enough information supplied to give the reader a clear idea of the bishop’s life and work. The journal of his first voyage to the distant sphere of his future labours he sent to me in quite recent years, with the expressed hope that it might be published. The various papers and letters afford not only a vivid picture of life amongst the Indians and Eskimo, but a valuable example of what may be accomplished, even under the most untoward circumstances, by indomitable perseverance, unwavering fortitude, and cheerful self-denial, accompanied always by prayer and a firm reliance upon God. ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me’ was the bishop’s watchword. His motto—‘The happiest man is he who is most diligently employed about his Master’s business.’ Should the pictures of life and work offered in the accompanying volume lead others to follow in Bishop Horden’s footsteps, their purpose will have been indeed fulfilled. In the year 1670, a few English gentlemen, ‘the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading to Hudson’s Bay,’ obtained a charter from King Charles II. The company consisted of but nine or ten merchants. They made large profits by bartering English goods with the Indians of those wild, and almost unknown, regions for furs of the fox, otter, beaver, bear, lynx, musk, minx, and ermine. The company established forts, and garrisoned them with Highlanders and Norwegians. The climate was too cold and the food too coarse to attract Englishmen to the service. The forts, or posts, were about a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles apart, and to them the Indians resorted in the spring of the year with the furs obtained by hunting, snaring, and other modes of capture. In return for these they obtained guns, powder and shot, traps, kettles, axes, cloth, and blankets. The standard of value for everything was a beaver skin. Two white foxes were worth one beaver skin, two silver foxes were worth eight beaver skins, one pocket-handkerchief was worth one beaver skin, one yard of blue cloth was worth one-and-a-half beaver skins, a frying-pan was worth two beaver skins. As time went on, and the value of furs in the market rose or fell, the prices of certain things altered. But this is a sample of what they were when the hero of our tale first went out to Hudson’s Bay in 1851. Let us accompany the young missionary on his voyage to Moose Fort, the chief of the company’s trading posts. ‘We, that is, my dear wife and myself,’ he writes, ‘went on board ship at Gravesend on June 6, 1851. Our ship was strongly built, double throughout; it was armed with thick blocks of timber, called ice chocks, at the bows, to enable it to do battle with the ice it would have to encounter. At Stromness we remained a fortnight, taking in a portion of our cargo and a number of men who were going to Hudson’s Bay in the service of the company. It was a solitary voyage. All the way we saw but one vessel.
