The Half-Breed Voyageur *

* The term "half-breed" is applied indiscriminately in the Fur Land to all persons having Indian blood in their veins, and bears no special reference to quantity. In very many instances it is difficult to tell exactly where the half-breed ends and the white man begins.

In a narrative of travel through the Hudson's Bay Territory in 1859, by Lord Southesk, is given the following pen-portrait of James McKay, a half-breed Indian guide: A Scotchman, though with Indian blood on his mother's side, he was born and bred in the Saskatchewan country, but afterward became a resident of Fort Garry, and entered the company's employ. Whether as guide or hunter, he was universally reckoned one of their best men. Immensely broad-chested and muscular, though not tall, he weighed eighteen-stone; yet, in spite of his stoutness, he was exceedingly hardy and active, and a wonderful horseman.

His face was somewhat Assyrian in type very handsome; short, delicate, aquiline nose; piercing, dark-grey eyes; long, dark brown hair, beard, and mustache; small white, regular teeth; skin tanned to a regular bronze by exposure to the weather. He was dressed in a blue-clothcapote (hooded frock-coat), with brass buttons, red and black flannel shirt, which also served as waistcoat; buff-leather moccasins on his feet, black belt around his waist; trousers of brown-and-white-striped home-made woollen stuff."

This etching of McKay will do duty, in all essential points, as the correct portraiture of a large and distinct class of people inhabiting the Fur Land, and scattered over our own northern frontier, familiarly known as half-breeds, who, neither Indian nor white, possess all the craft of one and a fair degree of the intelligence of the other. Familiar with the customs of both from infancy, they adopt many of the habits of civilized life; but, though existing under an improved exterior, the romantic life, the custom, mode of thought, and language of the Indians, retain their hold on the affections of their descendants to successive generations. Thus a man whose usual language is English, and one who speaks French alone, are enabled to render themselves mutually intelligible using Cree, their Indian mother tongue. However, each is ignorant of the civilized language ordinarily used by the other.

At the beginning of the present century, when the rival Canadian fur companies, known as the X. Y. and Northwest Companies, were engaged in fierce competition with the Hudson's Bay Company for the possession of the Indian trade, they sprung into existence, in the exigencies of this special service, a class of men known as coureurs des bois or, woodrunners. They were French colonists, whose spirit of adventure, stimulated by a desire for gain, and love for the free roving Indian life, led them to pursue the calling of trappers and traders, betaking themselves to the woods and hunting grounds of Canada, and spreading gradually over the whole country east from the height of land west of Lake Superior. As hunters and trappers, they were even more skillful than their Indian teachers. As traders they were outfitted by the Canadian companies with the necessary goods to barter with the Indians for furs; and, after periods of absence extending over twelve or fifteen months, spent travelling in their canoes, would return laden with furs of great value, their share of which they regularly squandered during a short residence in the towns or cities, previous to embarking on their next voyage. After the coalition of the competing fur companies, in the year 1821, and their consequent loss of employment as traders, these coureurs des bois gradually spread farther into the interior and penetrated the unsettled districts of Dakota and Manitoba, and the nearer Lake Superior region. In place of traders, they became more especially hunters and trappers, disposing of their furs and produce at the trading posts scattered throughout the country, and near which they invariably settled. Rarely ever did they return to their native land. The wild roving life in the wilderness had too much excitement in it to permit a voluntary return to the narrow limits of civilization. Moreover, the wood-runner had taken to himself an Indian wife; and although the marriage ceremony had lacked the essentials of bell, book, and candle, yet he got along pretty well with his squaw; and olive branches, jabbering a very few civilized tongues and a great many heathen ones, began to multiply about him.

In addition to hunting and trapping, the wood-runners became canoe men and freighters to the trading companies, or engaged in certain miniature agricultural pursuits tending to increase their subsistence. To the half-breed children numerous progeny of these French and Indian parents, descended the vocation of the father, and the nomadic instincts of the mother, resulting in the production of a civilized nomad who unites the industries of both civilized and savage life. To this element may be added a considerable number of metis, the offspring of the Scotch and English employees of the trading corporations, and the half-breeds of the old regime, resident on the Canadian coasts for the most part the poorest representatives of their class. Scattered over the vast country from the Canadas to the Pacific coast, and from the Coteau of the Missouri to the Saskatchewan, the half-breed forms the advance guard of civilization, ahead even of the white pioneer. His paternity may be French, English, or Scotch his maternity Chippewa, Cree, or Sioux; but his vocation will always be the same, until, by admixture of lighter or darker blood, he becomes resolved into one of his original elements.

As a rule, the French half-breed by far the largest and most representative class is eminently social in disposition, and gregarious in his habits. As a consequence, he lives in communities, more or less miniature, during the winter months, and trades and hunts in bands during the summer. He enjoys company and is loath to be alone. Like his wealthier white brethren, he affects two annual residences a log-house for his hibernal months and a wigwam for the summer solstice. As a rule, he may be addressed at the former. About it, he has some arable ground, which he cultivates in a feeble and uncertain manner. He scratches the surface of the ground and expects it to be prolific. Not being fond of labour, the weeds are allowed to choke the crop, the fences to fall into decay, and a general air of wreck to take possession of his tiny farm. This appearance of improvidence becomes perennial, not getting worse or better, but remaining at about the same state year after year. The scanty crops, when gathered and stacked in the open air, in irregular piles, contribute to the general tumble-down aspect. Indian ponies, with their usual worn-out and overworked look, wander about the premises or stand engaged in melancholy retrospection. About the door yard are a few wooden carts whose antecedents date back to the fields of Normandy guiltless of iron, in a state of greater or less fracture, bound up with rawhide, and ornamented with rusty sets of harness. There may possibly be a cow on the premises, though not likely to be, as she would be killed and eaten the first time her improvident owner ran short of provisions. There are dogs, however, and in proportion as the metis is poor, the number of canines increases.

The dwelling itself, except in the mid-winter months, presents an appearance of decay. The plaster placed in the interstices of the logs crumbles under the action of the elements and falls about the foundation of the building in muddy heaps, The thatch or clapboards of the roof are loosened in places and are certain not to be repaired until the next winter. Internally the house is one single apartment; occasionally, in the better class, though rarely, two apartments. The floor is of planks sawed or hewed by hand; the ceiling, if there is any, is of the same material. In one corner is the only bed, a narrow couch, painted, generally, an ultra-marine blue, or a vivid sea green. An open fireplace occupies one end of the apartment, with a chimney within the walls. A table, one or two chairs, a few wooden trunks or boxes doing duty with these people everywhere as a table, chair, clothes-press, and cupboard and dresser, constitute the furniture. About the walls somewhere, more especially over the bed, hang coloured prints of the Virgin, the sacred heart, etc., together with a rosary. It may be that the daughter of the house and there always is a daughter has come under the influence of a convent for a season, and can read; perhaps write. In that event, there is a copy of the " Lives of the Saints " on a bracket; and, it may be, a few periodicals. For the rest, the apartment is cheerless and uninviting. It may be clean, but the chances are that it is not. That peculiar aroma, too, which pervades all inhabited chambers, here becomes often aggressive, and, as it were, wrestles with the visitor for the mastery.

In this apartment, the family herd a squaw mother often, and children so numerous and dirty as to be a wonder to behold. During the day its utter inefficiency to adequately accommodate the numbers it shelters is partially concealed, from the fact that they are seldom all in at one time. But on the approach of night, when the dusky brood are all housed, the question of where they are to sleep becomes startlingly prominent. We remember well our first experience in the solution of this difficulty. Caught one stormy winter's evening, on the banks of a northern river, without preparations for camping, our uncivilized guide halted before the door of a small cabin and asked permission to remain overnight. Hospitality being one of the savage virtues, the request was readily granted. After a meagre supper of fish without salt, and a post-prandial smoke, we began to look about for a couch for the night. Nothing was visible save one narrow bed, in which our host and his swarthy consort soon retired. Now, in addition to ourselves and our guide, there were thirteen of the family, composed of children, male and female, from infancy to mature age. Where were they all to sleep? We thought of a possible loft, but there was no ceiling. Finally, we were about making preparations to sit before the fire all night when, from trunks and boxes were produced blankets and robes, and a shake-down made on the floor, into which we were directed to crawl. Scarcely had we done so, when our bed began to widen, and in a few minutes extended from wall to wall. Soon we found ourselves the central figure in a closely packed bed of thirteen, filled promiscuously with males and females. We thought involuntarily of the great bed of Ware and its thirty occupants.

The occupations of the half-breed, when not engaged as voyageur or agriculturist, are limited to fishing in the stream The term *"voyageur" as used in the North, is not necessarily restricted to boatmen or canoe men, but is also applied to all persons connected with the fur trade as freighters, guides, hunters, trappers, etc. near his residence, hunting for small game, the care for his ponies, and a round of social visits to his neighbours. The two former are followed only to the extent of furnishing a supply of food for the day, tomorrow being left to care for itself. The idea of accumulating supplies of provisions in advance, save in the late fall, never apparently enters the half-breed mind. If he fails to secure sufficient game or fish for the day's provision, he simply goes without his dinner; nor do frequent privations of this sort seem to impress upon his volatile mind the policy of reserving of present excess for future scarcity. But, should he by some fortuitous circumstance become possessed of a surplus of salable provision, its ownership becomes a consuming flame to him until disposed of. The idea of keeping anything which he can sell is an absurdity which his intellect cannot grasp.

It is in the winter season, when the cold has put an end to their labours for the most part, and the cares of existence are lightened because of advances made them upon the work of the approaching season, or the fair supply of provisions laid by from the last, that the social life of the half-breeds may be said to be at its highest. It is then that they marry and are given in marriage; that feasting, dancing, and merry-makings of all descriptions, do much abound. Every log-house then echoes to the violin of some moccasined and straight-haired Paganini, who after years of sedulous practice has attained a certain ghastly facility of execution.

It is rumoured weekly that, at the residence of Baptiste, or Pascal, or Antoine, there will be given a dance, and the rumour is accepted as a general invitation. The young bucks of the neighbourhood array themselves in the bewildering apparel which obtains upon occasions of this nature: a blue-cloth capote, with brass buttons; black or drab corduroy trousers, the aesthetic effect of which is destroyed by a variegated sash, with fringed ends pendent about the knees; moccasins, and a fur cap with gaudy tassel. The young maidens apparel themselves in sombre prints or woollen stuff but with bright-coloured shawls about their shoulders. This, with a false lustre upon their black locks, from copious applications of grease, is all that is showy about them. The dances are reels and square dances. When they begin, however, they continue for days at a time; the younger people occupying the night, and the older ones the day, repairing a home to rest, and then returning. Custom makes it obligatory for the entertainers to furnish food and liquor for the dancers, and there is a vast consumption of both. It frequently happens that, from the number of participants, and the long continuance of the dance, the amount of supplies demanded reduces the host to poverty. We have known repeated instances where at one ball, continuing three or four days, the entire winter's provision for a family was consumed, and ponies were sold to pay for the liquor. Yet, the improvident half-breed thinks nothing of it, and gives the ball, well-knowing the result. He wants either a feast or a famine. If he spends his substance on others, however, he retaliates by haunting all the festivities of his neighbours during the entire winter.

At home, when not engaged in dancing and feasting, or, taken up with the sordid and petty cares of his existence, the half-breed smokes and drinks tea. His consumption of tobacco is ceaseless, and his libations of tea would do no discredit to John Chinaman. If he hires out by the day to labour, he spends ten minutes of each hour in filling and lighting his pipe; if he is voyaging, he halts at every headland or wooded promontory to put his kettle on and drink tea. On a winter's day, he curls up by his neighbour's fire and smokes and relates his adventures. His life has run in a limited channel, but he knows every point in its course. Virtues may have abounded in it, but cakes and ale have much more abounded. But we may learn from it that many admirable things are consonant with an entire ignorance of books.

When the ploughing is done in the springtime, and the seed is in the ground, the half-breed agriculturist experiences a yearning for the chase or goes to fulfill his engagement as a voyageur. If the former, the fractured wooden carts are bound up with rawhide thongs, the broken-spirited ponies coaxed into a semblance of life and vigour, the dusky progeny packed in with boxes and blankets, the house locked up, and the migratory family set forth for the prairie or stream. With the first pitching of the wigwam, the manners and customs of civilized life cease, and the half-breed assumes the habits of a savage. He hunts for the pot; for this spring-time chase is simply to obtain daily subsistence while his meagre crops mature. His tent is encountered in the usual Indian haunts by the side of a stream or lake, or half hidden in some timber bluff on the prairie. He has become a nomad pure and simple. But, when harvest time approaches, he returns to his miniature farm. Negligently, his crop is gathered and thrashed. Reserving barely sufficient for the winter's needs, the remainder is sold, and with the proceeds, an outfit for the long fall hunt is purchased. Perhaps, if they can be obtained on credit, a few goods are selected for trade with his savage brethren. Again, with his family, he seeks the prairie and stream, and hunts for his winter's food, trading betimes for such furs as may yield a profit. Later in the fall he returns to his winter's residence, adds a few repairs to its leaky roof, plasters up the interstices in its log walls, and settles down to hibernal monotony and the dance.

If the half-breed is a voyageur or guide, the task of cultivating the garden plot is left to the members of his family, if he has one, the season of his service is the summer and fall months. For the most part, however, little or no planting is done by this class. They rely for support on a system of advances, obtained with the trading corporations of the wilderness. Engagements are generally made in December for a certain trip or amount of service, either boating or land freighting, to be performed during the ensuing season. A small advance is made by the voyageur at that time, to bind the bargain, as it were. When the meal becomes low in the measure and the wine gone from the jar, he repairs to his employers, and at times receives small advances. If he is economical which he seldom or never is these advances may eke him out a scanty subsistence until spring and labour arrive. The probabilities are, however, that he is prodigal, has his feast, and then lives, in want and squalor, upon any refuse that may come to hand. Nevertheless, he accepts the situation as a matter of course and is light-hearted through it all. At the opening of navigation, he receives another advance, which is quickly spent; then takes his place on the benches of an inland boat or canoe, pulls an oar hundreds of miles into the interior, and crosses long portages with the huge packages of the cargo strapped to his back. Over vast and trackless wildernesses echoes his monotonous boat song; on many a bleak promontory shine his camp-fires, and isolated posts waken into life and joy for one day in the year at his coming. His journey made, and the cargoes exchanged with boats from yet farther inland or distributed at the numerous forts on the way, the voyageur returns home again, receives the remnant of his wages, to be dissipated in the shortest possible time; then relapses into a condition of uncertain sparring with destiny for diurnal sustenance.

If he is a freighter, the life is essentially the same: merely exchanging the boat for the wooden carts, creaking their way in long lines over the plains, like a caravan in the desert. His days are spent in toil, his nights fighting stinging insects or shivering in the cold and wet. But his good nature never tires; his pipe is smoked in quiet satisfaction under all circumstances, and no occasion is too serious to prevent the perpetration of his practical joke.

The tastes of the half-breed are of a decided sort, and essentially like those of other mixed races. In apparel, he is fond of the colour, and, in most instances, exhibits good taste in the combinations he effects. Ornaments, too, are held in great favour, quality not being so much sought for as quantity. In this regard, however, there is a marked decadence from the extravagant ornamentation of former days. We remember when the arrival of the plain hunters at our border posts was the signal of a dress parade which, if lacking in artistic merit, amply atoned by its rainbow hues and constellations of tawdry jewelry. Ofttimes the entire profits of a season's trade would be invested in highly-coloured wearing-apparel and cheap jewelry, in which the hunter decked his tawny family and himself, and paraded the adjoining camps, with all the pride of a Hottentot chief. It was a brave and pleasant show, nevertheless, to see these athletic men and supple and graceful women, arrayed in holiday attire, galloping swiftly and lightly over the green prairies. Unfortunately, after this parade of bravery, the demon of thirst would seize them, and, if liquor was attainable, the rivalry of the dress was succeeded by a rivalry of drink, ending in a low debauch; for, in his tastes and appetites, our half-brother follows the maternal root.

The religion of the half-breed is the creed of superstition. Roman Catholic in the main, he adds to its formulas a shadowy belief in the Great Spirit. He acknowledges a purgatory, yet fondly hopes that in the next world, human shades will hunt the shades of buffalo and other animals which have lived here. When he dies, he hopes to be carried to the bosom of the saints; yet he feels that his shade will linger four nights round the -place of his decease ere taking its flight to the village of the dead. He believes in signs and omens to some extent and ties a certain number of feathers to his horse's tail, or paints rude emblems on his bark canoe, to increase their speed. Nevertheless, he yields implicit obedience to his priest, and obeys, in his volatile way, the traditions of his Church; but, overall, cherishes a dim faith in the shades of shadowland.