My father Marius and many of the Elders in Attawapiskat have stories about the days when they used dog teams. I recall one story my dad told me. He awoke in the night to the sounds of his dogs barking.
As he pushed back his heavy blanket he felt the cold chill inside the canvas prospector tent. There was a blue glow inside the tent from the full March moon. He could still see the dying orange embers inside his small camp stove. The dogs were barking wildly and he could hear them tramping on the snow and pulling at their lines outside the tent.
There must be someone or something that awoke them, he thought. He had most of his clothes on including his homemade moose hide moccasins, as it was customary to sleep this way even in the warmth of the down blanket. At minus-30 degrees Celsius it does not take long for the biting cold to freeze everything inside a tent. He searched for his homemade fur-lined hat and fur-lined moose-hide gloves by the light of a small candle he had lit.
As he stirred inside his tent, he wondered what was making the dogs so excited. It could be a small animal or bird; perhaps it was wolves that were trying to get at his sled dogs. Then again, maybe it was just another trapper passing through with his own dogs. He searched for his gloves and hat on the soft spruce-bough floor of the tent. The space was small but he managed to accommodate his little stove, a wood pile to last the night, food, the beaver and fox pelts he had skinned before going to bed and his day pack of traps.
Suddenly, at one corner of the tent, he saw something move in the dim candlelight. A few spruce boughs turned up and he could hear something move along the canvas side of the tent. He reached for a piece of firewood and crawled towards the moving subject. He
saw a little head pop up and realized that he was being visited by Mr. Weasel, who had surely discovered the scent of the animals he had skinned and stored in the tent.
He hit at the side of the tent where the weasel was moving to try and flush it out. The dogs barked louder, sensing the drama taking place inside the tent. As he swung at Mr. Weasel, who was slipping through the spruce boughs, he made contact. The agile little animal darted out of the tent. He could hear the dogs frantically yelping as Mr. Weasel ran through the snow and into the forest.
He pulled back the tent flap and headed outside to make sure Mr. Weasel had departed. The only evidence Mr. Weasel had left were little tracks in the snow that he could see under the blue glow of the full moon.
Before going back to sleep, he made the rounds to each of his sled dogs thanking them each by name for their watchfulness, protection and their companionship. The dogs went back to sleep and dad slipped back into the comfort of the goose down blanket.
When I hear stories like these about the days of the dog teams, it makes me feel good. Even though we have snowmobiles these days to make it easier to travel over the frozen muskeg, through the forests, on the frozen rivers and deep snow, I know that my dad and many of the Elders up the James Bay coast miss those days of the dog teams.
My mother Susan also remembers living in the north before settling in Attawapiskat and using snowshoes and sled dogs as a regular form of transportation. There was no other way to get around. Surviving in the frozen and remote land of the far Canadian north where there is little to eat meant moving from place to place. People either endured a lonely trip on snowshoes pulling a sleigh behind them or they raised dogs to pull a heavy sled.
There were many advantages to using dogs. Not only did they pull heavy loads across great distances but they also provided protection. Their keen sense of smell and direction could take a trapper through a blinding snowstorm to the safety of home. Unlike snowmobiles, dogs did not break down and more importantly they also provided companionship for trappers and hunters who traveled alone over the frozen landscape. In a lot of ways we have lost the respect we once had for our friend, the dog. The past couple of generations have grown up without this special relationship with these loyal and protective animals. We should not forget the days of the dog teams because if technology ever fails us in a big way we may have to turn to our friend the dog once again.
