Tale XXXVIII: Travelling in North Alberta
Early one spring, I stopped at an Indian’s tepee for a cup of tea, a smoke and a little chat. In front of the tent, a few yards away, stood the usual platform which all trappers build on four long, vertical piles so as to keep their stock of fish, meat, leather and pelts out of the reach of the dogs.
I was travelling with a team of six Huskies drawing a light sledge and had been making good time on the glare ice of the lakes and rivers. For, although the snow was nearly all gone in the bush, it still froze hard each night.
Before leaving the camp I asked the Indian to sell me some white fish for dog feed, of which I was short. He had plenty of it. I knew that he kept the frozen fish on the platform. He readily granted my request and while he busied himself dis-entangling the traces of my leader, which had got mixed up with a stump, I climbed on an empty box so as to reach the rack and get the fish.
Just at that moment the Indian shouted to me to take twenty fish which were already wrapped up in a dunnage bag, ready for packing on a sleigh. I glanced around, saw a brown package about two feet long and, without bothering to lift it, with one hand I pushed it so that it fell off the platform on to the ground.
As soon as it hit the frozen earth I noticed the peculiar sound it made—a crack like the branch of a tree snapping in the frost. Jumping down, I opened the parcel. There lay the dead body of a six months old child.
It was the Indian’s youngest baby. It had died at Christmas time and the man had stored it on the rack, far out of reach of the prowling dogs, until the summer came and the ground thawed out sufficiently to enable him to dig its little grave.