NEW-YEAR'S AT LA BICHE 33 



few potatoes, which grow here fairly well, but are making 

 no progress towards self-support, as are those of the same 

 nation more to the south. 



After what I had seen the night before of the prelimi- 

 naries to the annual feast-day, I did not expect on New- 

 Year's to be able to make any preparations for our further 

 progress. Long before we had turned out of our blankets 

 the house was literally packed with Indians, and by noon- 

 time the fiddle was going and the dancers had entire pos- 

 session of the floor. I doubt if I ever saw, outside of some 

 of the Chinese dens in San Francisco, so many crowded 

 into the same space. I lacked the heart to talk business 

 with Gairdner, who, I divined from some of his remarks, 

 had not accomplished, in the way of making ready our dog 

 brigade, all I had expected of him. I simply pitied him 

 for the unpleasant and malodorous fulness of his home, 

 and I pitied his half-breed wife and her daughters, who 

 were kept cooking for and feeding half-starved Indians 

 from early morn until late into the night. Heming took 

 his pencil and scratch pad and I my camera, and we went 

 out to see the New-Year's-day arrivals and the dogs and 

 the Indians. 



In front of the fort's stockade were gossiping groups 

 that grew with each fresh arrival, while scattered all about 

 the enclosure, just where their drivers had left them, 

 were the dog trains of the Indians who had come to fill 

 Gairdner's house and eat the Hudson's Bay Company 

 meat. There was no housing nor feasting for these 

 dogs; in a 24 -below -zero atmosphere they stretched 

 out in the snow and waited, without covering and with- 

 out food. The Indians with their blanket coats or ca- 

 potes, and the dogs and sledges and " jumpers," made a 

 picturesque whole against the unbroken background of 

 snow, but, like all Indian pictures, its attractiveness faded 

 3 



