By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 9, 1946.
“They must be a tough bunch,” commented Jimmie Frise, looking up from the newspaper.
“Who?” I inquired.
“These kids on Operation Muskox1,” said Jim. “They’re going to drive snowmobiles loaded with fighting equipment from away up at Fort Churchill, on Hudson Bay, straight across the sub-Arctics, to Edmonton. Three thousand miles. In winter.”
“It’s time,” I informed him, “that we Canadians lost our awe of winter. What’s so wonderful about these soldiers going on a hike across northern Canada? Our mining men have been doing it for 30, 40 years.”
“Well,” said Jim, shivering, “I wouldn’t care to be with them.”
“Look,” I submitted. “We Canadians have a very great responsibility. We are one of the small handful of nations bordering on the Arctic. There’s Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden -and us. Now, all those other nations of the Arctic are very Arctic-conscious. But we Canadians all stand with our faces to the south. We yearn over the border southward. The Swedes and Norwegians and Finns developed ages ago an Arctic culture. They have found mines, and built towns and cities, far into the Arctic. Now Russia is doing the same. But we still huddle along the U.S. border; and most young Canadians dream of Hollywood.”
“And most old Canadians,” laughed Jimmie, “dream of Florida.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Instead of loving winter, we hate it. Instead of facing north, we huddle south. Suggest to a young man that he pack his bag and vanish into the north and he shudders. What we need is a new Horace Greeley2 to say to the Canadians, ‘Go north, young man, go north!’ That way, fortune lies.”
“Maybe this Muskox expedition, if it gets enough publicity,” suggested Jim, “will inspire a lot of young men to go really north. I mean, into the real Arctic.”
“The Arctic,” I assured him, “has had any amount of publicity. Did you ever hear of Sir John Franklin3? One hundred and twenty-five years ago, when he was just a junior officer of the British navy, Lieut. John Franklin was sent on a sort of Operation Muskox by the British admiralty. He was to go overland, from somewhere in Hudson Bay, to explore the Polar sea and find out if there was a northwest passage to the Pacific.”
“Somebody,” muttered Jim, “is always looking after us. This new Operation Muskox is intended to try out military equipment in case we ever need to fight anybody on our northern frontier. Franklin was sent by the British government to find out how quickly the Royal Navy could get from the north Atlantic to the Pacific.”
“Maybe,” I pointed out, “some British merchants had friends at the admiralty. Merchants are always looking for a reduction in freight rates.”
“What happened to Franklin?” inquired Jim.
“Lieut. Franklin, with two midshipmen named Hood and Back,” I recounted, “and a naturalist by the name of Dr. Richardson, arrived at Fort York, on Hudson Bay-that’s a little south of Churchill – in 1819, and spent four years exploring. In canoes they worked in to Lake Winnipeg, then up to Lake Athabasca, then up to Great Slave lake and around it. Then down the Coppermine river to the Polar sea.”
“In 1819?” cried Jimmie.
“Eight hundred miles north and west of Churchill, where our Muskox expedition is now,” I assured him, “Franklin and his expedition…”
“Just the four of them?” protested Jim.
“No,” I admitted. “They had a character by the name of John Hepburn, an ordinary seaman, to whom Franklin more than once credits the saving of the lives of the entire expedition. They also had French-Canadian canoemen and Indian guides and hunters to supply them with game.”
“Holy smoke,” sighed Jim. “No airplanes to drop supplies to them!”
1,200 Miles on Snow-shoes
“In 1821,” I informed him, “one of the midshipmen, Back, with three Indians, spent five months travelling back over the trail for provisions, on snow-shoes, from November to March, a distance of 1,200 miles. And all he had for shelter was one blanket and one deer skin.”
“Holy…” cried Jim. “A midshipman!”
“All of Back’s snow-shoe journey.” I pointed out, “was far north of where Operation Muskox is going!”
“So it’s nothing new?” supposed Jim.
“New!” I scoffed. “Listen: About every hundred miles farther into the Arctic Franklin’s expedition from the British navy went, they would come to a large log house. And in that house, 125 years ago, they would meet a gentleman by the name of McVicar or McGillivray or McDougall or McDonald…”
“Aha,” cut in Jim, “the fur traders!”
“Who had been up there,” I finished, “all their lives, and had succeeded somebody by the name of McAndrews or Fraser or Logan, who had been living, quite cheerfully, all their lives, for a hundred years back. Jim, Scotland occupied the Arctic 200 years ago.”
“Then,” protested Jim, “why isn’t the Arctic populated now?”
“We ran out of Scotchmen,” I explained.
Jim got up and looked out the window. And shivered.
“It’s hard to believe,” he murmured.
“Skiing,” I stated, “is doing something to arouse in young Canadians a little love of winter. It’s only in cities and towns that winter looks horrible. And that’s not on account of winter. That’s because of cities and towns. We build our cities and towns for summer. In Norway, and our other Arctic neighbors, they build lovely chalets that look perfect in a winter setting. The average Canadian house, in winter, looks like a cat left out in the rain.”
“And our dress, in Canada,” contributed Jimmie. “Our Canadian styles, for coats, suits, boots and shoes, are set by a gang of gents from the suit and cloak trade in annual convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, or Miami, Florida. Canadians should develop a style of clothing that is Canadian. It should be based on Scottish, Norwegian and Russian fashions. We should wear heavy tweeds and homespuns. Our winter boots should be stout half-Wellingtons and thick brogues, instead of these silly St. Louis, Missouri, low shoes, with goloshes…”
“That was what I was saying,” I reminded. “We yearn over the southern border!”
“There’s nothing we can do about it” concluded Jim, still shivering at what he saw out the window – the grimy, sleety, slushy, sooty prospect of Toronto in mid-winter.
“Oho, yes there is,” I retorted.
Jim turned and looked at me sarcastically.
“We,” I enunciated, “suppose ourselves to be sportsmen. In spring, summer and autumn, we fish and hunt. We love to disport ourselves in the open air – so long as it isn’t cool.”
“Fair weather sports?” suggested Jim.
“I’m afraid that’s what we are, Jim,” I stated sadly.
“Who would want to be out rabbit hunting,” he demanded, “on a day like this?”
“I bet, out in the country, it’s a swell day,” I asserted. “What makes the day look dismal are those sloppy, grimy buildings, covered with soot and dirty snow. Out in the country even with this gray sky, I’ll bet there is a zest and tang to the air. I’ll bet the landscape, the spruce and cedars, the skyline, with the tracery of elm trees, the woodlots dark and bluish in the distance…”
“It Would Be Romantic”
“You may have something there,” said Jim with animation. “We speak of a man being ‘bushed’ from living too long in the wilderness. I wonder if we city people aren’t ‘citied’ the same way?”
“It could be,” I agreed. “Maybe that’s why Canadians as a whole dislike winter. They’re ‘citied’.”
“Personally,” stated Jim loudly, “I don’t see any reason why two guys like us – who enjoy every minute of the outdoors from May to November – couldn’t get just as big a kick out of the woods in winter.”
“There’s no fishing or shooting at this season,” I reminded.
“No, but there are winter birds and animals, to see,” declared Jim, “and tracks in the snow. A true lover of the outdoors can surely get as big a kick out of trailing a fox or a partridge in the snow… saaay, how about it?”
“We could go,” I concurred, standing up, “in honor of the boys on Operation Muskox. To show our appreciation of what that little band of Canadians is doing for Canadians as a whole, some of us old-timers ought to spend a few winter week-ends, camping on their old familiar fishing or hunting grounds.”
“Listen,” cried Jimmie enthusiastically, turning his back on the window., “how about going up and camping on Manitou Creek somewhere! Maybe at the Blue Hill where I lost that big buck two seasons ago. Man, it would be wonderful to see that country in mid-winter! It would be romantic.”
“We can drive to Fraserville,” I contributed, delighted. “And snow-shoe in to Manitou creek. It isn’t four miles.”
“We’ll camp beside Blue Hill,” exulted Jimmie, “on the sheltered side, whichever way the wind is blowing.”
“We’ll take my little silk tent,” I listed.
“And my red tarpaulin, which we’ll set up with sticks for a windbreak,” contributed Jim.
“I’ll wear snow-shoes,” I set forth.
“And I’ll wear skis,” determined Jim.
“And our sleeping bags,” I added.
“We’ll get a sled,” enthused Jim, “on which we can stow all our…”
“Nothing doing!” I interrupted firmly. “You can’t haul a sled on skis!”
“Why, you’d never feel it,” protested Jim. “A small sled, and you on snow-shoes…”
“We’ll each,” I insisted, “carry our share in pack-sacks. Our bedrolls, spare clothes, food. I’ll carry the little silk tent. You carry the tarpaulin.”
“We ought to haul a sled,” muttered Jim.
“It’s only for Saturday and Sunday,” I pointed out.
So Friday night, after the most delightful three previous, nights of planning, packing, drawing up lists, replanning, unpacking, repacking and relisting, we loaded Jim’s closed car and headed for Fraserville, where we had arranged with Joe Hurtubise, over the long-distance telephone, to spend the night at Joe’s combination general store and hotel.
The minute we got outside the city limits, we knew we were doing the right thing. Not half a mile past the last street car terminal, the whole face of nature altered. The grimy city was left behind and our headlights bored into a wonderland of white. And every mile grew more snowy and more chaste and beautiful. Not 10 miles out of town a big jack-rabbit bounded across the highway in our headlights.
“Ah, boy!” gloated Jimmie at the steering wheel.
Through silent, serene wintry country we entered small villages that looked beautiful in the white night. We proceeded slowly through a couple of larger towns, seeing once more, though not quite as repulsive, the slushy, murky ruin that a town makes of winter.
Then came the rising country where winter in its rarest beauty really comes – the beginning of the highlands of Ontario. The highway was cleanly plowed and swept, and our car soared through the gleaming night like a bird. Shadows of woods, deep shade of cedar and spruce, became more frequent. Inside the car, we could feel the new, keener freshness of the air.
Joe Hurtubise was waiting up for us and put our laden car in his shed. We had a light snack of cold pork, pumpkin pie and boiled tea, then went to bed with instructions to Joe to wake us well before 6 a.m. so we could set out on our Operation Muskox with the actual dawn.
It was a beautiful dawn. Not a soul in Fraserville was awake when we stepped out of Joe’s door into the pearly frost of a perfect morn. The cold pinched the corners of our nostrils.
Jim got into his ski harness, I harnessed on my snow-shoes and Joe helped us both get into our pack-sacks.
“Well, so long,” called Joe, who always seemed to perish with the cold,” so long boys, I still think you is nuts.”
And we set off down the road for the side road that leads to Manitou creek – an old familiar road in November.
A Strange Country
It was incredibly unfamiliar in February. It was like an undiscovered country. Jim went ahead, sliding long-legged on his skis. I came behind, wide-legging it on my snow- shoes. Up hills, down dales, past swampy bends full of silent and deathly cedars we have never noticed in November, we made good time. We halted frequently to gaze on the landscape, so strange, though we knew every yard of it in summer and autumn. Unknown valleys appeared, only a few hundred yards off the beaten path. Strange hummocks and little rocky cliffs stood forth which even in autumn, when the leaves are down; we did not know existed. We halted for chickadees. We saw a bevy of redpolls, not much bigger than chickadees, but of a rosy and innocent chubbiness, like cherubs. Several Canada jays – the gray, bullheaded silent jays – floated ghostly into sight of us to mutter mysteriously at our intrusion. We saw all kinds of tracks – squirrel, mice and what must have been a porcupine because it left a wide furrow in the snow.
“To think,” said Jim, “what we have been missing all these years.”
“You notice,” I said, “that it is getting kind of hazy. I think we ought to get in to Blue Hill and get our camp made…”
A little wind began to disturb the bare and rigid branches of the trees overhead. A few snowflakes hustled past, like vagrants. It grew grayer. Jim, leading, paused only once after a long steady march. And this time, it was to beat his arms around his chest.
“Colder, eh?” he called.
“You ought to use snow-shoes,” I informed him. “They keep you warmer than skis.”
Jim skied on. Up hill, down dale, round curves, through swamp and ever darkening woods, we bore on; and about mid-morning, coming out on a plateau, we saw Blue Hill not half a mile ahead. We studied the wind, now steadily rising, and decided the southwest side of Blue Hill would be the place to pitch our tent.
Blue Hill is one of the wildest and most rugged features of the country where we hunt deer. It is surrounded by a tangled forest of living trees and the charred remains of ancient bush fires.
But upholstered with snow, it was the simplest thing in the world to work around the southern side and find an ideal camping spot. Manitou creek, still gurgling, guaranteed us our water supply not 50 feet away. Old Blue Hill, granite and grim, broke the rising northeaster that was showering small, anxious snowflakes in intermittent gusts on us.
We downed our pack-sacks. With my snow-shoes, we dug down and found a good level spot for our tent. We strung up the tent. We cut balsam boughs for the floor of the tent, thick, deep, fragrant. We set up the tarpaulin. We unpacked our gear. I rigged a shelf of boughs in a deep snowbank for our larder. Jim got a fire going.
“I’m perished,” he said.
“I’ll be cook,” I offered.
And while the sky dropped lower and the northeast wind began to wail in the trees and shove at our tent, I proceeded with lunch.
It is astonishing how hard it is to crack an egg into a frying pan with mitts on.
Jim went into the tent, and came out immediately to stand near the fire and beat his arms around his chest.
“What’ll we do after lunch?” he quivered.
“We could mooch around, looking for wild animal tracks.” I suggested, delicately breaking another egg with my mitts on.
“It’s going to snow and drift,” said Jim, “and the tracks will be all covered up.”
“We can go for a hike, and look at some of the runways we know.” I suggested, shaking the frying pan with my mitts on.
“We don’t want to get lost, with a blizzard coming on,” warned Jim.
“We won’t get lost,” I asserted. “We know this country like a book.”
Jim stopped thumping his arms and gazed around at the landscape.
“I don’t recognize it at all,” he said hollowly. “I never saw this country before in my life…”
“Now, now, now!” I cautioned, poking the bacon with my long-handled camp fork.
“Have you been in the tent yet?” asked Jim, resuming his beating. “It’s like a damp ice-box.”
“We can open the flaps,” I explained, “and let the heat of the fire reflect in…”
Jim tied the flaps back, but the gathering wind ballooned the little tent grotesquely. It pulled loose a couple of the tie ropes from the ground.
“We’ll have to repitch the tent, with its back to the wind,” said Jimmie.
We ate our eggs and bacon, with mitts on. The sky dropped right down to earth. The wind moaned and wailed. Snow came so suddenly that we could not even see Blue Hill, a hundred yards behind us…
Just as dark fell, four hours later, Joe Hurtubise looked out his parlor window and saw us coming out of the blizzard.
He had the door open for us to stumble in.
“I knowed,” he said heartily, as he helped us off with the packs, “I knowed you wasn’t THAT nuts!”
Editor’s Notes: One of the readers of this site has the original artwork for this story. You can see it below with the note that it was received on December 20 for issue on February 9th.
- Operation Musk Ox was an 81 day operation by the Canadian Military at the time of this article. The goal was to determine how defendable Canada was. More can be found online here as well as video here. ↩︎
- Horace Greely was an American newspaper publisher famous for the quote “Go west young man!” ↩︎
- John Franklin is a well known explorer whose ships were recently discovered in 2014 and 2016 and are now designated as the Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site. ↩︎
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