130 
IVTsl-t" 20 
A SXOW-SHOE TRIP. 
BY DR. J. T. ROTHROCK, U. S. A. 
In the winter of 1865-66 the writer was one of a party 
doomed to isolation on the shores of Lake Tatleh, in 
Northern British Columbia. The lake may fairly be 
considered as the extreme head of the Fraser river. 
We had a comfortable log house erected, and had plenty 
of provisions for the winter that came early and lasted 
long in that latitude. So that our condition in-doors was 
comfortable enough. 
The valley of the Fraser (after it has fairly become a 
valley), shut off from the moderating influence of the 
coast winds, is one of extremes, characterized by great 
heat in summer and great cold in winter; in a word, it 
has a continental climate as opposed to an oceanie. 
The thermometer at Lake Tatleh ranged from 98° 
Fahr. in August to 50° below zero in February. Dur- 
ing the eaily daj's of the fall the range within the 
twenty-four hours was from 90 ° at noon to 15 ° at 
day break. Notwithstanding this excessive alternation 
of extremes the health of our party was good, and we 
did not have a single case of the dreaded rheumatism 
in our year’s sojourn there. When the days began to 
shorten in November, winter eame in earnest; not in 
that half threatening, half promi.sing way it does here, 
but with a lowering sky and snow clouds that each da)' 
for a week looked more and more portentous. There 
W'as no doubt as to what was coming. The only ques- 
tion was, how long before the storm king would hurl 
the snow upon us. 
We did not have long to wait. One morning about 
day break it began to come, as only an arctic or sub- 
arctic storm can. It fell steadily all that day and most 
of the night. And when morning again dawned upon 
us the air was clear and cold, and four feet of snow lay 
upon the level. There was little or no drifting during 
the subsequent few days. Winter did not need chilling 
blasts there to convince us of its real presence. Mean- 
while snow-shoes were being made, repaired and over- 
hauled in-doors, for we knew that henceforth our 
movements would be limited to the trails immediately 
about the house unless we used them. Most of the 
readers doubtless know not only how these are made, 
but just how they are used. For the benefit, however, 
of the few u ninitiated, I will say that our snow-shoes 
were about four feet long and a foot wide, in shape not 
unlike a fish, with the broadest part in front of the 
middle; the front turned up about six inches, making a 
quarter of a circle a foot in diameter. The frames were 
made from well seasoned birch or soft maple. When 
these could not be had, spruce was used as a poor sub- 
stitute. The bottoms were laced in with rawhide 
thongs, known to the natives as babiche, affording thus 
the requisite support on top of the snow, and allowing 
that accumulating on the shoe to fall through, and 
thus rid the walker of its weight. And once for all — be 
it remembered that ordinary snow-shoe walking is 
neither skating nor anything akin to it, but the most 
slavish kind of tramp, tramp, tramp. Only when 
there is a crust, or when the suow’is perfectly packed, 
does the traveller go on top of it. Usually he sink.s in 
from an inch or two to a foot, and this fact destroys all 
the illusion about skimming over the surface on snow- 
shoes. It is per se, hard w'ork, and it becomes in no 
wise easier when, over abused by the constant dragging 
of the snow-shoes, the tendons of the feet become sore 
and inflamed, and every step is unmitigated agony. 
“ Jfal de rachette," for so it is called, is the most dreaded 
accident to the winter tripman in the north. 
In the interval existing between the fall of snow and 
Christmas we were busily engaged in snaring rabbits, 
shooting grouse, and .“ working beaver” to furnish ma- 
terial on which to have a feast fitting the day we wished 
to celebrate. AVhen it came, our festive board groaned 
under the products of the feast, and a few hours later 
some of our number groaned under the festive board 
from a too liberal indulgence. The feast over, we 
thought seriously of visiting our nearest neighbor, on 
Stewart’s Lake, 195 miles away. In addition to a 
simple desire to know how they were, we had some 
letters to send by their courier to the post office, 300 
miles further down the Fraser. The ice on the lake 
looked strong as far as we could see, and we hoped to 
reach Fort St. James in eight days, as most of the way 
we could go on the ice. The snow was deep and still 
not settled, but we thought stout hearts and young 
blood would carry us through in spite of this. The 
home letters and reports were prepared, and six of us 
started, each man having one large blanket, a gun, and 
about twenty pounds of provisions — i. e., pemmican, 
tea, sugar, and just a little flour. To this 1 added, be- 
cause I happened to have them, two cakes (each weigh- 
ing about two ounces) of desiccated vegetables. The)' 
were originally brought from England for the Royal 
Engineers, but years before had become so old and 
hard that they w’ere condemned. 1 took them with a 
vague suspicion that we could use them; and the sequel 
showed th.at they were “ a mighty sight better than 
nothing.” 
January 2 we .started. The walking soon became 
slavish in the extreme. This we expected, and to keep 
our spirits up, jokes and banters were freely circulated. 
The halt was ordered once an hour to smoke our well 
used pipes. On the march we followed one behind the 
other, thus making a solid trail in the soft snow. Soon 
as the leader, whose work was hardest, became fa- 
tigued, he stepped aside, allowed the rest to |pass, and 
then fell into the rear on the beaten trail. In this we 
followed the orthodox rule of the Hudson Bay men', 
the Indians and the caribou. 
At the end of the first day we camped beyond the 
Red Rocks, 25 miles from our starting point. As this 
was our first camp, it may not be amiss to describe how 
it was prepared. First of all, we selected, for protec- 
tion from the snow, the thickest clump of fir trees we 
could find, and then taking off our snow-shoes used 
them as shovels to remove the deep snow from the 
ground. This (the snow) w'as banked up on three sides 
of the camp. Wood, and plenty of it, was cut for the 
camp lire during the long cold night, and soruce brush 
nicely laid “ shingling fashion” from the foot to the 
head of the camp. All this required at least an hour of 
hard work. Then our packs were thrown down on the 
bed; the pemmican bags laid at the head for pillows, 
and the blankets spread out to lounge upon until our 
pemmican stew was ready. Camp cookery is all simple 
and similar, so imagine supper over. Our pipes smoked, 
the events of the past day and the probabilities of the 
coming one ^vere discussed; the fire renewed and we have 
turned in for the night. (Parenthetically, we will state 
that the mercury stood that night at our head-quarters 
somewhere below zero in the twenties.) To some sleep 
came at once, unsolicited; to others, the wind m the 
tree tops, the char, cold starlight, and the stealthy 
movements of the Karkajou, acted as stimulants and 
precluded slumner, until the eye-lids became heavy from 
exhaustion, and the transition to sleep was gradually 
forced. This is no cheering picture; yet on looking 
back through the ten years that have since passed, I 
can still feel the weird enchantment of that life. The 
dreariness of the evergreen forest, the glare of the camp 
fire, the loneliness of perfect isolation, the untried dan- 
gers of the rest of the trip, have each separately and 
all combined a strange fascination. Is it a rising up of 
latent instinct, that our long removed, untutored an- 
cestors have transmitted us, an instinct outliving cen- 
turi s weakened but not obliterated by ages, because 
deeper and more natural than all the impressions cul- 
ture and civilization have made upon us? Is it the tie 
the development hypothesis seeks in our mental charac- 
ter to ally us with the animals of the pre.sent? Or is 
it only the unrest of dissatisfied mankind, in rebellion 
against any lot which is present and permanent? If 
the latter, then it is near akin to that which has so 
often started humanity to some new conquest. Haw- 
thorne says the “ world owes all its onward impulses to 
men ill at ease; the happy man invariably confines him- 
self within the ancient limits.” Certain it is that at 
some time all men have a similar drawing to such a life. 
January 3. We arose soon as the first streaks of 
dawn lighted the eastern horizon. Without waiting for 
breakfast, we “made up our packs” aud started again. 
To those unacemtomed to snow-shoe walking such ex- 
ercise without a previous meal is an)-thing but pleasant. 
It may be worth mentioning that the Indians were often 
unable to retain their food, if immediately after a full 
meal they started on a hard snow-shoe march. Diges- 
tion to them was impossible when the attention of the 
system was diverted by the walk, from the stomach, 
and just as in the case of sled dogs, nature guards them 
by throwing up the food agam. I have frequently seen 
this occur with the Indians, but never with white men. 
Two hours after our start we saw the glancing of the 
waves ahead, which showed that our ice had endea and 
that from this point still greater hardships were in store. 
Soon as we reached the open water we halted, cooked 
our morning meal, enjoyed a pipe and discussed the 
probabilities ahead. No one doubted that it was going 
to cost all our efforts to get through, but so strong is the 
determination of the typical that nota word 
was said by any one about returning and awaiting the 
freezing up of the whole lake. It would have been con- 
sidered an act of cowardice, and this was enough to 
banish all consideration of such a plan. 
In order that the difficulties of the position may he 
realized, I will say that from Bulkeley House to the 
Tete Irc'is we generally considered the lake about eighty 
miles long, and from the latter point to the southern 
end of the lake we allowed twenty miles qiore. T he 
ice extended say from Bulkely House southward thirty- 
five miles to where we breakfasted on our second morn- 
ing out. Then from the lete Troi» the ice extended up 
toward us almost six miles, leaving thus in the nighbor- 
hood of thirty-nine miles of open water. On the west- 
ern side of the lake an extensive fall of timber had 
taken place in a storm a few’ years before, and the 
whole surface of the country there was thus covered 
with tangled tree tops. In other words, to have taken 
that side of the lake would have been to fight our way 
through an abattis for thirty-nine miles. The eastern 
side was most of the way hemmed in by a precipitous 
wall of rock, a hundred or more feet high. Here and 
there a narrow beach-line was formed by the talus 
which the elements had thrown down from the rocks 
above. Occasionally a ledge ran along above the water, 
and this we gratefully accepted as an opportune path 
on which w’e might “go dry-shod.” Again the ledge 
would dip below the w’ater line; still it was a foothold 
we dare not neglect, for just when on one occasion we 
were at our wits’ end a trail was found by which we 
could follow the brow of the rocks along uniil a more 
available road presented be low. Add to all this the 
fact that we had to carry our provisions, guns and 
blankets, and when not wearing them, our snow-shoes, 
and it will be understood that the task was somewhat 
appalling to stare in the face. 
Each night we camped in sight of our starting point 
in the morning. In addition to our other misfortunes, 
one of the Indians lost his pack of provisions in the 
lake, thus shortening a supply already too scanty. This 
day we marched in all about fifteen miles. January 4th 
W'as a repetition of the day before; i. e., hard marching 
and only a little distance made. 
J.xNUARY 5th, we lay over in camp to hunt. Three 
days had already passed, and we with provisions half 
gone were hardly half over the lake. All hands turned 
out and scoured the adjacent woods (a mile in extent 
through which we could move) in hopes of finding 
some small game such as grouse or rabbit. All that we 
could find were two grouse, so that this day was a loss. 
The game had sought refuge in the mountains back 
from the lake. Day by day we plodded along until on 
the evening of the 9th of January we were at the Tete 
Trm» with but one days’ provisions lelt; even this 
much we would not have had but for the short rations 
to which we had limited ourselves. We could now 
console ourselves with the thought that at least we had 
an open march ove» the snow on the ice for the remain- 
ing 115 miles, even if we had next to no food. From 
this point begins a new feature of the trip, and one 
which has a physiological bearing. Food accomplishes 
a two fold purpose, supplying not only strength to do 
work with, but furnishes the animal heat. Bearing this 
in mind it is apparent that death from exhaustion must 
ensue earlier in cold than in a warm climate when the 
supply of food is cut off. From the reading of the ther- 
mometer at the Bulkeley House during the last week of 
our march, it appears that the temperature varied from 
twenty-five to forty degrees below zero of Fahrenheit’s 
scale. In a march for life almost any man of ordinary 
endurance could accomplish in open ground 115 miles 
with what food we had, but this low temperature made 
our march quite another thing. 
January 10. We traveled 35 miles. In camp that 
night I produced one of the cakes of vegetabies, and it 
was boiled along with the pemmican, of which latter, 
but half a ration was used. The resultant was enough 
food to “fill up,” even if it did not satisfy entirely our 
craving. 
Janu.ary 11. We broke camp early and traveled un- 
til 10 a M., when the usual halt was made to cook- 
For this meal we had tne half-ration of pemmican 
saved irom the previous evening. This exhausted all 
our food except tea, of which we had abundance left, 
and the other cake of vegetables. Startii g immediately 
after we had finished the meal, we were by 1 p. m. on 
the northern shore of Lake Tremble. Here a new’ 
trouble appeared. The lake was open to the west of 
us, and a high wind was driving the xvaves towards us, 
