A SEA SCOUT ON THE WATCH

CHAPTER III
CANADA

PASSING Out of the United States, northward, we enter on British territory, namely, Canada.

How Our Empire Grew

All the vast Overseas Dominions did not come to Great Britain of themselves. They were won by the hard work and the hard fighting of our forefathers.

In South AFRICA we had to fight the natives for our foothold, which once gained we never let go-and though it has cost us thousands of lives and millions of money, we have got it now.

AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND were got by our sailor­-adventurers, like Captain Cook, outstripping all other nations in their plucky navigation of immense, unknown oceans.

INDIA was practically in possession of the French when Clive and Wellesley drove them out, and then in turn had to fight the hordes of fighting natives of the -interior; and gradually, foot by foot, by dint of hard fighting we have won that country for our Empire.

EAST AFRICA, UGANDA, and the SUDAN beyond Egypt, and SOMALILAND, have also been fought for and won in quite recent times.

Canada

Most of North America belonged to Great Britain at one time. Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain John Smith,

and other pioneers founded colonies in the southern and eastern parts, coming across the ocean in little cockle­shells of ships, some of them only thirty tons, in measure­ment no bigger than a barge.

Think of the pluck of your forefathers in tackling a voyage like that, which took them some months to carry out, with only a limited supply of food and water. And then, when they got to land with their handful of men, they had to overcome the Indians, and in some cases other European adventurers, before they could call the land their own ; and for years they could hold it only by continual fighting with Indians.

Eastern Canada was similarly discovered by Jacques Cartier and a gallant lot of sailor-explorers from France, who set up French colonies along the coast and the St. Lawrence, nearly four hundred years ago. The English were near them to the south, and in Newfoundland, which had been annexed for England by Sir Humphrey Gilbert--the half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh--in Queen Elizabeth's time.

As Britain and France in Europe were continually at war, it was natural that their respective colonies in North America could not be on the best of terms, so that friction and fighting were frequent between them, and both were brave and seasoned fighters, for they both had continually to be fighting the Indians, and thus the struggle between them was a long and tough one.

Sometimes the French won, and sometimes the British. In the fight at Ticonderoga, 3600 French, after a gallant resistance, beat off the British attack, which had been also carried out with the greatest bravery by the 42nd Black Watch Highlanders.

Six times the attackers tried to carry the fort by storm, and even climbed the parapet, only to be pushed back again with heavy losses, until at last they were forced to retreat with the loss of 1944 officers and men. Of the Highlanders, nearly all the officers were killed or wounded, and three-quarters of the men.

For its gallantry on this occasion, the regiment received from the King the title which it bears to-day, “The Royal Highlanders.”

However, the French were not helped by their people in France, and in the end Nova Scotia was annexed ; and finally Wolfe captured Quebec after the famous battle on the Plains of Abraham, just outside the city, in which the generals on both sides-Wolfe on the British and Montcalm on the French-were killed.

And thus Canada became a British possession.

The French-Canadians

But the French-Canadians, deserted by their own countrymen, like the brave and manly fellows they were, accepted their defeat in the best spirit-just like a team which has got the worst of a football match-they did not bear any grudge against their late enemies, but set to work to join with them, as true Canadians, in making their country great and prosperous.

The story should never be forgotten how the young French-Canadian Adam Dollard, with his sixteen brave companions, fought the Iroquois on the Ottawa River, whither they had gone to meet a threatened attack on Montreal.

For seven days they held their little fort against over­whelming numbers of the Redskins, fighting untiringly day and night, until, worn out, wounded and helpless, they were rushed by superior numbers. They never yielded, they fought it out to the very last-never saying die till they were dead. But their sacrifice was worth it.

The Iroquois, with their best men killed and their pride broken, dared go no farther against such plucky settlers, and gave up all idea of other attacks on them. They retired away back to their own villages, with a whole­some respect for the white men.

And it was not only the French men who were brave, but the women also took their share.

Madeleine de Vercheres, a girl of fifteen, with one old man, one soldier, and her two small brothers, defended her father's fortified farm for a week against hostile Iroquois-chiefly by dressing herself in a soldier's helmet and showing her head at different parts of the defences, so that the Indians thought the place must be full of soldiers, and were afraid to make a real attack ; and on the eighth day a relief force came and drove off the besiegers.

Thus the French-speaking Canadians not only helped in defeating the Indians, but also took the field shoulder to shoulder with the English-speaking Canadians, for the King, against the Americans.

The British Colonies to the south of Canada had had orders given them by the government at home which were distasteful to them, and they broke out in revolt and refused to be under the home government any longer. and proclaimed their independence.

They tried to get the Canadians to join in their revolt, but this the Canadians were too loyal to do. So later the Americans tried to take Canada.

Then it was that the British troops came to the assist­ance of Canada, and the French-Canadians also joined with zest in fighting loyally for their new King and country, against the American forces.

The French-Canadians did excellent service for Canada. On one occasion, during the war of 1812-14, about one thousand of them, assisted by a band of Indians, under Colonel de Salaberry, defeated a much superior force of Americans under General Hampton, by scouting round them, hidden in the woods, and sounding bugles and firing rifles from all points, so that the Americans believed themselves surrounded by a very strong force, and con­sequently they retreated in the greatest hurry, never stop­ping till they were some twenty-five miles away from the place.

The gallant General Brock was killed in leading a charge on Queenston Heights, near Niagara, in which battle the Americans were beaten, after a severe tussle. His body was laid for a time in the house of a man named Secord.

This man's wife, Laura Secord, shortly afterwards became one of the heroines of the war, for she over­heard some American officers talking about their plan for surprising a British fort at Beaver Dam, twenty miles away.

So, as her husband was lying wounded and unable to get away, she herself made her way through the American outpost line by driving her cow before her as if taking her out to graze.

Then slipping into the woods-in spite of the Indians being everywhere-she cleverly made her way to the British post under command of Lieut. Fitz­Gibbon, and gave him such timely warning that he was able to make an ambuscade with his forty-seven men and a band of Indians, and to catch the American force as it came along. He thus captured five hundred and forty of the enemy.

Finally, in the battle of Lundy's Lane, fought near Niagara; by about 3,000 British and Canadian troops under Generals Riall and Drummond, 4,000 Americans under General Brown were defeated.

It was a desperate fight of seven hours during the night, at the end of which the Americans, having lost over 1,000 men, retreated, leaving the Canadians victorious with a loss of 84 killed and 559 wounded.

And that was the end of the war. Canada was served by the bravery of its men and by all working loyally together-French and English-speaking Canadians and British soldiers.

And since then there have been several occasions on which they have taken the field together: in the Red River Expedition in Manitoba, 1870, in the Nile Ex­pedition in Egypt, 1882, and in the late South African War, 1899, in which the Canadian troops particularly distinguished themselves.

To Canada belongs the honour of being the largest Dominion of the British Empire.

Canada is about ten times the size of the parent country, Great Britain; it is larger than Australia; one and a half times the size of India and Burma put together, twice the size of South Africa, and twice the size of East Africa, Uganda and the Sudan together.

So it is a pretty big country; and it contains about a quarter of the territory of the whole Empire.

At the same time, Great Britain has eight times the number of people in it. But Canada, as, indeed, the whole of the Empire, is going ahead fast, and, as the boys grow up to increase the number of men, the British Empire will be a still mightier one than it is now.

If the Canadian boys rise to be men worth their salt, Canada will have the place of honour in that Empire. To show you how Canada strikes an English boy arriving there I quote the following from diaries written by the Scouts who went with me to that country three years ago.

The party of fifteen Scouts selected to visit Canada embarked with me at Liverpool on board the Canadian­Pacific Company's mail steamer Empress of Ireland, on July 29th, 1910.

They were divided into two patrols, the “Beavers” and the “Wolves,” under command of Mr. Eric Walker and Captain Wade.

While on board the Scouts kept watches and learnt navigation for their Sea Scout badges, practised signalling, first-aid, and carried out drill with their trek cart, and played 'boardship games, etc.

Captain Foster, the commander of the ship, and the officers took the greatest interest in teaching the boys all they could.

The Scouts, for their part, showed them­selves to be a particu­larly smart, efficient, and nice lot of fellows. Each of them kept a diary of the trip. I myself read them with much in­terest, and I propose to give a few extracts from them which may amuse others.

The Voyage

“ . . . At sea. We only get breakfast, lunch and dinner. I miss my afternoon tea a good bit. (Poor fellow!) It is rather trying to be out of sight of land for so long (second day out), but I am getting used to it.

“ . . . At sea.  Bad. ''Nuff sed I”

“ . . . We were in the Marconi office, and the operators were showing us the working of the system, when one of them noticed that I had a Signaller's Badge, and told me to run. through the alphabet. So I put my fingers on the lever and started.

“One of the onlookers wondered if the signal had been received by anyone, so he put the receiver to his ear, and got an abrupt message from Belle Isle, some hundreds of miles away — a message which meant “Shut up!”

In Canada

On August 4th, the ship steamed up the great St. Lawrence River to Quebec, sighting the Montmorency Waterfall as she passed. Quebec is a fine old French-­Canadian city, with its citadel standing on a bluff over­looking the St. Lawrence.

Here the Scouts disembarked, and took the train to cross the great continent of Canada.

“ . . . In Quebec fine buildings of stone rub shoulders with one-storey log-cabins.

“ . . . When we got alongside the landing-stage at Quebec we did good turns by carrying people's parcels ashore for them.

“ . . . The train is much bigger than an English train, with an enormous locomotive with a cow-catcher in front and a big bell, which keeps ringing as it goes through a town or station.

“ . . . The engine, when it whistles, does not shriek like ours do, but gives a sort of growl like a playful mastiff. . . . On the trains there are no guards,' but ` conductors ' ; and no `engine-drivers ' or `stokers,' but the 'engineer' and his lieutenant.' There is a negro "porter" to each carriage.

“ . . . The rails are not laid any too straight, and the carriages bound about.

“ . . . The telegraph insulators, instead of being china, as at home, are glass-green, blue, and some­times red.

“ . . . Along the railway were quantities of flowers, chiefly a certain red flower, a sort of ` willow weed,' I think. All the hills and woods were covered with it, and it looked most awfully pretty among the green trees.

“ . . . We were much amused by our negro porter. He had been to college, and looks like a highly educated gentleman. Wears gold spectacles, too. He gave us one of his college yells:

Mary had a little lamb, lamb, lamb! Ra, Ra, Ra!
Who are you?
The Scouts! Scouts!! Scouts !!!”

“ . . . Whenever the train stopped we all got out and discovered sonic blueberries ; but I don't exactly care for them. At Mattanoa we all jumped out and stodged on raspberries, and were only just in time to catch the train.”

On the Prairie

The next step in the tour, after the Scouts had landed at Quebec, was their proceeding by train through the vast wooded province of Ontario, with its innumerable lakes and rivers, across the open prairie and corn-lands of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, to the open downs of Alberta, bordering on the Rocky Mountains.

Here they left the train in which they had spent so many days and nights, and went on to a ranch for a few days and tasted something of the life of ranchmen ; they saw real live cowboys and Indians, and tried their hand at lassoing bronchos and branding steers.

Also, some of them made an expedition to Banff, in the “ Rockies,” and saw in the forest reserve there several bison, elk, and boars.

Altogether, thanks to the kindness of ranchers, Indians, and N.-W. Mounted. Police, the Scouts had a very good time near Cochrane.

Here are a few more extracts from their diaries, which give some of their experiences and impressions during this part of their trip

“ . . . Running for the train, my watch fell out of my pocket and smashed into a thousand pieces on the pavement. I didn't mind. It never went before-it has gone now !

“ . . . Tumbled out about 8.30 a.m. Part of the train caught fire at Whitewood. Saw a ` gopher' (a kind of ground squirrel) on the side of the line. Stopped at Broad­view for about twenty minutes. Saw a North-West Mounted Policeman -hat like the Scouts, red jacket, spurs, etc.

“ . . . A Canadian boy on the train was very decent, and told us a lot about the sport in this country, and showed us how to trap animals. He was only fifteen, but, judging by English boys, he was more like twenty-three.

“ . . . All day travelling over the prairie. Next day, after breakfast, we went in a cart over the prairie. “ . . . On the march we met a Royal N.-W. Mounted Policeman, who gave us a ride on his horse, which was jolly decent of him all round.

"Saw a North-West Mounted Policeman, Scout's hat, red jacket, and spurs. He was jolly decent all round."

“ . . . Three live cowboys came galloping up, wearing "shaps" (sheepskin riding-overalls), and yelling and firing revolvers. They must spend an awful lot of money on ammunition, for they shoot an awful lot into the air, and cartridges cost more here than in England.

“ . . . In the afternoon we went to see the branding of the colts. They let us have a try at throwing the colts and keeping them down. It was very exciting. In the evening the calves were branded. This was more fun, as they had to be wrestled with to throw them.

“ . . . Spent the free time in shooting "prairie dogs." These are a great pest to the ranchers, and they are very pleased when one is killed. Shot eight in twelve shots.

“ . . . An Indian who had ridden over in the morning went against us in a scouting match. He was to get into the ranch and we had to see and stop him. He was, however, seen by Allen.

“ . . . One of the Scouts got an unpleasant surprise. He was 'snapping' a noble Red Indian warrior, in a dirty blanket, who was driving some mustangs, when he suddenly found the warrior charging down on him, angrily protesting.

“ . . . We were invited to supper by Mr. Lumsden, a farmer near here. He was awfully decent, and gave us the best meal I ever had. He seemed to understand that boys do not care for thin slices of bread and butter, but like a good square meal.

“ . . . I spent the morning fishing, and caught thirteen beautiful trout.

“ . . . I saw a very big grass snake come from a hole under a trestle bridge and swim across the stream. It was wonderful to see how fast and gracefully it was able to swim by wriggling about like an eel. It was the first snake I have seen in its native wilds.

“ . . . l was surprised at the numbers of insects here. Very large butterflies, peculiar beetles, and many different kinds of grass-hoppers, while the variety of stinging flies was enormous. Every fly seems to sting out here. I am covered with stings.

“ . . . Mr. Meikejohn lent us two ponies, so Grocock and I went on them. The other boys said we were two rather amusing sights as we rode over the field.

“ . . . After Mr. Meiklejohn had given us supper, we had a band which was home­made. There were clappers made from horses' ribs, drums made from empty lard-tins, with skin stretched over them, and triangles made from the prongs of old hayforks.

“ . . . An old Indian gave us a ride into town, so we treated him to ice-cream.

I treated a Red Indian to an ice cream.

“ . . . We were piled on top of each other in the little cart and driven home. We were pretty stiff when we got there, especially the bottom layer of boys in the cart.

“ . . . We gave two Indians dinner, and were absolutely astonished at the amount they put away.

When. they left us we gave the old Indian a lot of stores-sugar, tea, corned. beef, etc. When he had got as much as he could carry, lie told us he liked us very much, so we felt we had created a good impres­sion.”

Canoe Travelling in Canada--In a Gale

For your life sit quite still!"

This was said to me by my canoeman on Gull Lake. It is one thing to glide smoothly and noiselessly in your birch-bark canoe over the calm surface of one of the lakes, where the woods and sky are reflected on the dead smooth water as if it were a looking-glass, but it is quite another thing to be fought by the storm, with seething, great waves which threaten at one moment to surge in over the end of your boat and at the next to roll it bodily over sideways.

That was what we were going through when Jim, my canoeman, made his remark to me, and a bigger wave than usual was curling and breaking towards us above the heads of the others as if to swamp us.

Jim was in the stern, and Ben was in the bow, while I sat tight in the middle.

They were old hands at the game.     Both of them knelt, facing forward to use their paddles-that is the regular way to do it. The man in the bow does the navigating, while the one in the stern helps him to steer the boat.

In this case, as the great wave came on, they almost stopped the canoe, and, with a quick turn, made her face the wave and thrust her gently forward to meet it ; then, just as she reared up in front, Ben seemed to lean forward with his paddle over the bow and to cut the shock of the water, while somehow the seething monster subsided under us, and we had a wide view for an instant over the stormy surface of the lake, and there, behind us, was the wall of water rushing away to leeward.

But the canoeman did not pause to admire it; they twisted their boat round in a second, and, taking ad­vantage of the rather smooth spell which immediately followed, they rushed the little boat along as if they were in for a race.

Ticklish Work

In this way they gained a good many yards before another curler began to show itself above the rest, bearing down upon our broadside, and when it got close they repeated their manoeuvre of slowing the canoe round to meet it.

And that was the way we staggered along for mile after mile. Never were two waves alike ; they all wanted slightly different treatment.

Sometimes they were short but steep ones, so that, as our bow went up, our stern went down, and was in danger of getting buried.

At other times a wave that had not been big enough to turn to, or which was not solid enough to lift us, would slop its top in over the gunwale, which was only four inches above the surface, and so added to the water that was swashing about in the bottom of the canoe, and which it was my duty to bale out again with a birch bark dipper.

We had a lively time that journey, but cold and wet as it was, the work done by these two expert canoemen was so interesting to watch, as they took each wave in a different way, that it did not seem long, and I felt almost sorry when at length they ran her quietly in under the lee of some rocks, and we safely reached the end of our adventurous trip at the other side of the lake.

You who have read that delightful book of Canadian adventure; “Snowshoes and Canoes,” by W. H. G. Kingston, will remember that a canoe is built of a light skeleton of keel, ribs, crossbars, and gunwale, made of strips of cedar-wood, and then covered outside with sheets of the tough, thin bark of the birch tree.

These sheets are stitched together with withes, made by pulling up the long, thin roots of the fir trees and splitting them with a knife.

Withes also make excellent cord for woodsmen.

The joinings of the sheets are then made watertight with “ gum,” that is, the resin out of spruce trees melted over a fire and poured on.

This boat is very quickly made by an expert woodsman, and is very light and very buoyant on the water, and will carry a lot of weight, only you cannot do much dancing about in it.

In fact, you have to be very careful indeed in getting into it, and you have to sit tight when you are in it, otherwise it is quite willing to capsize with you at any moment.

That is why it is no use starting out to be a back­woodsman unless you can swim.

A “ ninny “ (that is, a fellow who cannot swim) would not remain a backwoodsman very long, because he would be drowned within a few days.

I remember on one occasion we nearly had to swim for it.

We were paddling gaily across a lake on which were several small islands, and were thinking of nothing in particular, when “ bang ! push! “ and we ran on to a rock which was just below the surface of the water.

We soon shoved off again, but water began to trickle into the bottom of the canoe, and we found that we had dented the birch bark and knocked a small hole in it.

So we paddled for all we were, worth to one of the rocky islands close by ; here we quickly bundled our baggage and ourselves ashore, and drew the canoe up out of the water and turned her upside down.

Then, with our knives, Ben and I scraped little spare bits of “ gum “ off the seams of the canoe, while Jim lit a small fire of driftwood.

Ben, after flattening the dent and the hole, put a piece of rag over it (taken from his sore finger !) and, with a brand from the fire, melted the “ gum “ over the rag, and so stuck it over the hole and made it water­tight.

It was all done so quickly and neatly that within ten minutes of our having run on the rock we were once more afloat and on our voyage, with our ship as buoyant and watertight as ever.

A backwoodsman is not stopped by such a trifle as a hole in his boat, he quickly invents a way of mending it-that is what we call resourcefulness.

Portaging

A great part of Canada consists of a network of lakes and streams among dense forests, so that roads are too difficult to make and do not exist.

The only way to get about is with light canoes ; with your canoe you can paddle up the rivers and across the lakes, taking your pack of clothing and food, and you then walk through the forest to the next bit of water, carry­ing your pack and your canoe.

As a rule two, or sometimes three, men travel together, and while one carries the canoe, the others carry the packs through the forests. This part of the travelling is called “ portaging,” the ground walked over being called a “portage.”

To carry your canoe, you put it on your head like a big hat!

You first of all tie the two paddles, with their handles crossed, to the crossbars of the canoe, then you turn the canoe bottom upwards and lift it on to your head, so that the two paddles rest on your shoulders. Thus your shoulders take the weight with your head inside the canoe.

The Beaver

When you come across a beavers' “lodge “ for the first time, it looks to you a mere pile of mud and drift­wood at the edge of the lake. But if you examine it closely, you will find it is a carefully-built, dome-shaped hut, made of sticks and mud and small logs intermingled.

The entrance to it is a round hole, a foot or two below water-level, so that no stranger can come in except by diving, and there is no need to shut the door to keep out the draught on a cold day.

Then inside there is a sort of bench running round the hut, on which the beavers lie with their tails hanging down, so that if the water should rise in the night their tails will get wet and give them warning that something is amiss.

In the top of the dome a very small hole is left, about the size of your thumb, which is the ventilator, and in the winter the warm air may often be seen coming out of it in the form of a thin wisp of steam in the frosty air.

The logs which form the but are chiefly poplar and birch rods, which the beaver cuts down and neatly trims with his powerful teeth.

When a family of beavers have built their “lodge” close to the water's edge, they then proceed to dam up the river in order to raise its level, so that their door may be well under water, and they show such skill in choosing the place for the dam and in building it up that a tenderfoot would be inclined to think people were kidding him when they told him that it was made by animals and not by men.

One dam, close to which I was once encamped during my visit, was built on a stream which flowed out of a lake, the lodge being about 200 yards from it on t he lake shore.

The lake itself was nearly three miles long and over one mile wide, yet the dam, as made by the beavers, was big enough to cause the water in the lake to rise about two feet above its former level.

Mr. Beaver is a very shy beast. You hardly ever see him in the daytime ; but at night, if you keep still, you will often see him swimming about and bringing logs to repair his house or the dam. He is like an enormous rat-the size of a big dog-with a flat, leather-like tail.

His fur is very valuable, and consequently he is getting rather scarce in many places. And in any case he is very difficult to catch, because he is so clever. Trappers use the most cunning, well-hidden traps, but the beaver seems to understand them quite well ;         in some cases he has been known to overturn them, so that they shall be useless, and in others he has put a log of wood in to release the spring instead of himself. And when a beaver has been caught by the leg, he has been known to bite off his foot and leave that in the trap rather than be taken alive.

Humping a Pack

The beaver dam at which we camped was at the end of a “ portage,” that is, where people arrived at the lake-side, having come overland from the next lake, carrying their baggage and canoes. The beavers, squint­ing out of their house among the reeds, must have seen many “ voyageurs,” or canoe parties, arrive at the lake-side by the portage.

Generally a canoe party consists of two, or sometimes three, people. For a portage, one takes the canoe and carries it upside down on his head, having tied the two paddles to the thwarts so as to rest on his shoulders.

A canoe weighs about 40lbs. and looks an unhandy kind of hat to wear when making your way through tangled wood or over rocks and broken ground ; but it is wonderful how easily a man carries it who is accustomed to it.

A New Kind of Hat!

Then the other man or two in the party carries each a load or “ pack “ containing the food, tent, spare clothing, blankets, and cooking-pots. This load will weigh from 60lb. to 80lb.

It feels a lot if you try to lift it and carry it like a port­manteau, but it feels quite light if you carry it in the way that is usual in Canada, and that is on your back with a supporting band pressed round your forehead. This band is called a “ hump line,” and I strongly re­commend every Scout, when he has a big load to carry, to do it with a “hump line.”

Even your haversack can be carried in this way, if it is heavily loaded, much more easily than if you carried it slung from the shoulders only. Try it for practice.

Put the strap over your forehead, letting the bag rest on your back, and hold the strap with a hand, pulling downwards, one each side of your head, and you will be able to carry a big weight quite easily.

In every camp, as in every town, men are either workers or shirkers. You do not find many shirkers in a Canadian camp! The shirker could not stop there a day-the others would not have him ; it is a kind of unwritten law. Every backwoodsman takes his share as the natural thing, and everyone, whether he is the master who pays for the expedition, or the man who is paid to act as guide—carries his pack just the same as the rest, and he does ,lot try to pick out a light one for himself, or ask other people to carry his load for him. He just humps his own pack.

Hump Your Own Pack.

And that is what every fellow with any grit in him does in his journey through life ; he takes his share in the work or difficulties, whether they are heavy or light, and does not try to leave it to others to do his work for him. He “humps his own pack,” and knows that he has earned his rest when he sits in comfort by the camp fire at the close of the day.

Following a Trail

Jake and I were following a blazed trail through the woods most of the day. A “ trail “ means, as a rule, a path, but there wasn't much path to be seen where we went, we were simply following a line through the forest, which he had taken some years before, to get to the next lake, some five miles away.

He had blazed his way by chipping slices of bark off the trees with his axe. This left a light-coloured patch or "blaze" on the side of each tree, and time and weather had worn the colour down to a dirty grey, so they were not so very easy to see ; and in many places the under­brush had grown up so as to hide the tree-stems from view. So it was slow work, moving along from blaze to blaze.

Often, too, the trail would turn sharply off in an unexpected direction, so that, after looking at all the trees ahead of you for a blaze, you would at last find it on one away to your right or left.

Such a turn had probably been made in order to go round a fallen tree or branch, which had since rotted away.

As we went along, Jake kept his axe going to renew the old blazes, and to add new ones on to trees which had not already been blazed, and he repeated the blaze on the back of each tree, so that one could see the trail equally well on the return journey.

Then every bush or branch of underbrush that came in our way was broken down, partly to show the line we had gone, and also to discourage its growth, which would cover the tree-stems and their blazes.

Three ways of telling other Scouts to turn to the right.

Some fellows seem to think that there are different ways of bending twigs over to show the trail. Well, this is true in a way, but the most usual system is to break the twig forwards, that is, with the head of it pointing the way in which you are going.

At the same time the Canadian-Indians, as a rule, break it the other way; they pull the twig towards them and make it point backwards-in the direction that they have come.

They say that this makes it easier to find your trail home again, because when you are returning, you see the underside of the leaves, which are usually lighter in colour and easier to notice.

A blaze is made about the height of your shoulder above the foot of the tree, on the face of it, not on the side. The blaze should be about the size of your hand or a little larger, and where a turn is made in the trail you blaze the tree with an ordinary blaze on the face, and a long blaze on the side to which the turn is made. (See Fig. 1.)

When in the open where there is long grass, you tie up a tussock to show your trail. If you turn to a new direction, you make the tied-up tussock bend in that direction. (Fig. 2.)

If you are out where there are neither trees, bushes, nor long grass, but where there are stones, you put one stone on top of a larger one to show the trail. If you make a turn, you put up the two stones, and another alongside them pointing to the new direction.  (Fig. 3.)

Montreal Scouts

Two days and nights by train from Montreal, through the endless woods and lakes of Ontario, and then out on the open prairie, and we came to Winnipeg.

This used to be a fortified trading-post of the Hudson Bay Company, where the Indian trappers and buffalo hunters used to bring in their skins to sell or to barter for guns and ammunition.

The gateway of the old fort, Fort Garry, still stands, and Colonel Steele, who commands all the military forces in Manitoba, and is Commissioner of the Boy Scouts there, told me that he stood on sentry as a trooper in that gateway nearly forty years ago, when the present Field-Marshal Lord Wolseley came there as a Colonel to see the Governor of the post, Mr. Donald Smith, who is now on the Council of the Boy Scouts, and better known in these clays as Lord Strathcona.

But Winnipeg; instead of being a fortified frontier post, is now a great city, with its electric cars, taxi-cabs--and Boy Scouts. And these Boy Scouts are very smart and workmanlike indeed.

One troop of seventy is a mounted troop, and is the cadet troop of Strathcona's Horse, the regiment which so distinguished itself in the South African War.

Another forty-eight hours in the train across the vast, open corn and cattle prairie brings you to Calgary, where there is, in addition to the ordinary troop of Scouts, also the beginning of a good, hard-riding troop of mounted Scouts.

The North-West Mounted Police

But in getting to Calgary you pass Regina, a big town out on the open prairie. Here are Boy Scouts (and I never saw such fellows for doing good turns, with a broad, good-natured smile on all the time, especially when they were carrying my baggage !), but besides these there are also the headquarters detachment of the Royal North-West Mounted Police.

These, as you know, are the finest force of their kind in the world. Grand, smart-looking men, half soldier, half policeman, able to ride and to shoot and to look after themselves in the Arctic winter or blazing summer.

They have to be equally handy on horseback, or in canoes, or with a dog-sleigh. And as they are scattered about in ones or twos in distant parts of the country to keep order among rough characters in mining districts, or wild Indians, or smugglers, horse thieves, and other “ undesirables,” they have to be strong and very plucky, and each one to be equal to six ordinary men-and so they are. The result is that when an evil-doer comes under their eye he is a “gone coon.”

Their uniform is the cowboy hat of the Scouts, with the red tunic and blue breeches of a dragoon, and brown gauntlets and field boots.

A Vancouver Story

Vancouver City is growing very rapidly, and the citizens are awfully proud of this.

The story is told that, a little while ago, a Vancouver man met a friend in the train and in conversation said “ Have you been to Vancouver lately ? “

“ Yes,” said the friend, “ I was there last week.”

“ Last week! “ said the Vancouver man. "Oh ! but my dear fellow, you should see it now.”

Well, I had not seen it for a year and a half, and in this time the change was marvellous. New streets and suburbs had sprung up in every direction, and 25,000 new citizens had come to live there.

I saw the Boy Scouts there, and a very smart lot they were, too. I must say I was glad to see the bare knees again, for in America nearly all the Scouts at present wear breeches and canvas gaiters, which don't look half so well as the British bare-kneed system. Now that the Americans know that that is also the kit worn by ex­plorers and big-game hunters and soldiers in Central Africa just as it is in India, they are wanting to change their long breeches for shorts.

A Lumber Camp

While at Vancouver I was able to visit a lumber camp, that is a place in the forest where the woodsmen are cutting timber and getting it out to the sawmills.

Most of the forests have streams or lakes in them, and the timber when it is cut is run down to these and then floated, sometimes for a hundred miles, down to the saw­mill. In this particular forest there was not a river handy, so the owner had built a railway to carry the timber down.

We went up on this line for seven miles through beautiful woodland scenery, up and down hill till at length we reached the “camp.” This consisted of a few log houses or “ bunk “ houses in which the lumbermen lived, and a “ mess house “ in which they have their meals.

We got there just at dinner-time. The men had all come in from their work. An iron crowbar hanging from a tree was their dinner bell. When this was struck the first time it was the warning to get ready for dinner, and everybody got to work washing himself, brushing his

hair, and generally tidying up. You have probably heard of the lumbermen being a pretty rough and tough crowd, but whatever they may be they are at any rate clean.

Then, when the second “ bell “ rang, they all walked very quietly into the mess house to dinner.

I have often pointed out to Boy Scouts that scouts of the woods always walk so lightly that, even when they come into a house with their heavy boots on, they make very little noise, so that you can tell them at once from a clodhopper who goes stamping about fit to smash the floor.

These lumberers not only walked very quietly, but also there was scarcely a sound while they ate their dinner, because they have a curious rule which does not allow any talking at meals.

The reason for this is that in a busy lumber camp the dinner-hour has to be short. The men are well fed by a cook and his mates, and, to get the food served quickly, everything has to be done in good order. This would be impossible if the men were all racketing about, and shouting and talking, and possibly arguing up to fighting point.

So, instead of a wild rollicking crew that one might expect in a lumber camp, one found a very clean, quiet, well-disciplined lot of men, and fine; healthy, active-­looking fellows they were.

After a very good dinner of pork and beans, flapjacks, and pumpkin pie, we went and saw them at their work in the forest.

Here it was that one noticed not only their strength and skill, but more particularly their wonderful activity when skipping from log to log, or dodging falling timber and so on. Their way of felling a tree is first to scoop two little holes with their axes on opposite sides of the trunk, and then stick a couple of planks, about four feet long, into these to form platforms on which they can stand about three feet above the ground.

Next they get to work with their axes, and with alter­nate strokes they quickly cut out a great wedge from the stem on the side to which they want it to fall. Then they take a big double-handed saw and cut through from the opposite side until the great tree totters and falls.

It is next trimmed of its limbs and branches till it is quite bare, then the end of a long steel rope is brought and hooked securely round one end of it.

A wire, like a loose telegraph wire, is hooked on to a neighbouring tree.   Then when all is ready a man jerks this wire a couple of times. Two blasts of a distant steam whistle reply (for the wire is connected with the whistle of a donkey-engine close to the railway), and the next moment the great log begins to move, slowly at first, but faster and faster as it goes along, pushing aside fallen branches and brushwood with irresistible weight, till it fairly rushes through the forest, throwing up stones and dirt, banging into and over other fallen logs, surging up and down, crashing and groaning and squeaking till really you could imagine it was some kind of legless elephant on the rampage, or some gigantic land-salmon that had just been hooked.

At one place I saw such a log butt straight into a tree that was standing glorying in the sunshine. The next thing that tree knew was that it was falling, crashing to the earth with its branches broken and crushed beneath it-done for!

And it was a pretty sight to see the lumbermen who happened to be close to it skip out of the way, without apparently any wild hurry or rush, just a step or two, as if they knew exactly where it would fall.

Finally; the great log was towed right up to the railway. Here a tree-stem had been set up on end in a socket to act as a crane. A steel rope, rove through the pulleys at the head of it, had a pair of ends to it, each fitted with a sharp hook.

A lumberman pressed a hook into each end of the log, the engine wound up the wire rope, and, as it took the weight of the log, the hooks drove themselves into the wood, and thus held it and lifted it into mid-air, while the crane slung it gently over and on to the truck which was awaiting it on the line.

Scouts who Wash

After the logging camp, our engine ran us through the woods again in a new direction for some miles, till we came to the river running in a deep ravine or canyon; as they call it here.

This river came from the Stave Lake by a waterfall 150 ft. in depth, but this fall had now been "harnessed" by being made to run through four enormous pipes. Each of these pipes had a great turbine engine at the foot of it.

Thus, with no expense or trouble of steam and fuel, the water alone made the engines to go, and these were manufacturing electricity, which was then carried for thirty miles by overhead wires to Vancouver to light the town, and to run the machinery and the tramcars of the city.

The damming of the falls and the erection of all this wonderful machinery right away in the heart of the forest was a splendid piece of engineering, and the men who did it, were just, another sample of Scouts living a rough, wild, healthy life in the backwoods.

The manager, in showing me round their camp of log Buts, showed me one but which he said was a very important one, and that was the bath-house, in which the men could get shower-baths when they came in dirty from their work.

He said that all the best men liked to get their bath every day, and unless the camp was fitted with these they did not stay long. So you see they were true Scouts in that way, too, and carried out the daily washing which the Boy Scouts do.

Scouts and Chocolate

Victoria in British Columbia is a great shipping port, and also has the Royal Naval Arsenal of Esquimalt (with the accent on the i) ; it has a fleet of seal-fishing boats, and it manufactures paint and beer and many other things. But the thing that I liked best about it was the chocolate candy.

Apart from its sweets, Victoria produces a very fine crop of Boy Scouts. Of course, they are not sweet, but, still, I thought them very good, and was mighty glad to see them looking so fit and efficient. And they are going to be more efficient yet, for they are starting Sea Scouts, and I don't suppose any place in the world gives much better chances for sea scouting than does British Columbia.

Both Victoria and Vancouver will, I hope, soon have really good establishments of boats and crews.

There are grand wooded inlets from the sea in which to go cruising. These inlets run for miles inland among the forests and mountains, and many of them have never been properly mapped or explored, so there is a fine opening for the Scouts there.

CONTENTS

		The Baden-Powell Library. A Selection of excerpts from the works of Lord Baden-Powell and works relating to his life and career.
		Robert Baden-Powell, Founder of the World Scout Movement, Chief Scout of the World. A Home Page for the Founder. Links Relating to Baden-Powell on the Pine Tree Web and elsewhere.

The Pine Tree Web Home Page: A Collection of the Author's Links

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Copyright © Lewis P. Orans, 2002
Last Modified: 4:42 PM on July 4, 2002