If an Indian took a four point H. B. blanket, even with the rough usage it was subjected to, it would keep him and his wife warm for a year. The next season, a new one being bought, the old one did service for another winter as lining for mittens, strips for socks, and leggings for the younger branches.
Steel traps being dear twenty-five years ago, and the long canoe transport being costly so far into the interior, we did not import them very largely.(7)
Bears, martens, minks and even beaver and otter were killed in deadfalls; and with different sizes of twine, the Indians snared rabbits, lynx, and, in the spring, even the bear.
The Indians principal, and I may say, only tools for hunting and for his support were his axe, ice chisel, twine and his gun. I mention the gun last because the hunter only used it for caribou and moose, ducks and geese. Ammunition was too costly to use it for anything that could be trapped or snared.
A life chief was elected by the Indians themselves, and he was supported in his management of the tribe by the officer in charge of the post. The chief had precedence in being outfitted, his canoe headed the fleet of canoes on arriving at the post in the spring, and was the one to lead off in the autumn. His was the only pack of furs carried up from the beach, by our men, to the store, and he set the example to his young men by being the first to pay his last year’s advances. To him we gave, as a present, a new suit of black cloth clothes, boots, hat, etc., and to his wife a bright tartan wool dress piece, and a tartan shawl of contrasting pattern.
Our currency, or medium of trade, was called “Made Beaver,” equivalent in most articles to a dollar. The value of each skin was computed in “Made Beaver.” For every hundred of “Made Beaver” of skins that the Indian brought in we allowed him as a gratuity “Called Rum,” ten “Made Beaver,” he was at liberty, after paying his debt, to trade whatever he fancied out of the shop to the extent of his “Rum.” But unless he paid his debt in full the “Rum” he was entitled to went towards his account. This, however, seldom happened, because one that did not pay his debt in full was looked down upon by his friends, and his supplies for the next year were reduced in proportion to his deficiency.
What a change has taken place in the past quarter of a century. I hear from the person now in charge of that post (it is kept up principally now to protect our further interior post) that all those Indians are dead and gone. Their descendants number scarcely one-third of the original band. They are thieves, drunkards and liars as a rule; the white man’s diseases and firewater have left their trail.(8) White trappers have penetrated their country in all directions from the line of railway and exterminated most of the furbearing animals. Instead of, as their forefathers, getting a good supply of all necessary articles to assure them of comfort for a year, these, their sons and grandsons, can get no one to risk advancing them. They live principally, now, on fish and when they do succeed in killing a skin, the most likely thing to happen is, they will travel many miles to barter it for whiskey.(9)
This is one of the results of railways and civilization. I can say with the late lamented Custer “The good Indians are dead.”(10)
END NOTES
7 “Twenty-five years ago” would make it the 1880s. Long Lake Post was supplied by canoe brigades on two routes: up the Pic River from Lake Superior, or up the Black River (now the Aguasabon River at present-day Terrace Bay) and up Long Lake.
8 So, what transformed a “virtuous” race (to use the author’s term) into “thieves, drunkards, and liars”? Did the character of this race change virtually overnight? Every reasonable person can reach only one conclusion: it was the degradation of their spiritual beliefs and practices, the disrespect for their mother tongues and traditional lifestyles, and, above all, the loss of their children to the residential school system. And the children themselves?: “During the years that the system was in place, children were forcibly removed from their homes and, at school, were often subjected to harsh discipline, malnutrition and starvation, poor healthcare, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, neglect, and the deliberate suppression of their cultures and languages.” Credit The Residential School System – Canada.ca. What is surprising, what is truly amazing, is the strength, the resilience, and the vibrancy of First Nations’ culture today.
9 How soon we forget the history of St. Anne’s Indian Residential School. The news cycle has already pushed it out of most people’s memory. Here are extracts from a CBC report on March 29, 2018: Headlines and subs – “The horrors of St. Anne’s” “Ontario Provincial Police files obtained by CBC News reveal history of abuse at the notorious residential school that built its own electric chair” Text – “Over the next six years [beginning in 1992], the OPP would interview 700 victims and witnesses and gather 900 statements about assaults, sexual assaults, suspicious deaths and a multitude of abuses alleged to have occurred at the school between 1941 and 1972.” Credit The horrors of St. Anne’s | CBC News .
10 This quote is wrongly attributed to American general George Armstrong Custer. He did say, however, “I can’t retire until the last Indian is dead”. He could be a jerk sometimes. No, it was General Philip Sheridan who said, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead”. This quote is often rendered as “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Sheridan too, sometimes, could be a jerk. The concluding remark by author T.A. Reynolds put him in the same class as Custer and Sheridan, momentarily.
(Conclusion)