CHAPTER ONE.THE FUR COUNTRIES.Boy reader, you have heard of the Hudson's Bay Company? Ten to one, youhave worn a piece of fur, which it has provided for you; if not, yourpretty little sister has--in her muff, or her boa, or as a trimming forher winter dress. Would you like to know something of the countrywhence come these furs?--of the animals whose backs have been strippedto obtain them? As I feel certain that you and I are old friends, Imake bold to answer for you--yes. Come, then! let us journey togetherto the "Fur Countries;" let us cross them from south to north.A vast journey it will be. It will cost us many thousand miles oftravel. We shall find neither railway-train, nor steamboat, norstage-coach, to carry us on our way. We shall not even have the help ofa horse. For us no hotel shall spread its luxurious board; no road-sideinn shall hang out its inviting sign and "clean beds;" no roof of anykind shall offer us its hospitable shelter. Our table shall be a rock,a log, or the earth itself; our lodging a tent; and our bed the skin ofa wild beast. Such are the best accommodations we can expect upon ourjourney. Are you still ready to undertake it? Does the prospect notdeter you?No--I hear you exclaim. I shall be satisfied with the table--what careI for mahogany? With the lodging--I can tent like an Arab. With thebed--fling feathers to the wind!Enough, brave boy! you shall go with me to the wild regions of the"North-west," to the far "fur countries" of America. But, first--a wordabout the land through which we are going to travel.Take down your Atlas. Bend your eye upon the map of North America.Note two large islands--one upon the right side, Newfoundland; anotherupon the left, Vancouver. Draw a line from one to the other; it willnearly bisect the continent. North of that line you behold a vastterritory. How vast! You may take your scissors, and clip fiftyEnglands out of it! There are lakes there in which you might _drown_England, or make an island of it! Now, you may form some idea of thevastness of that region known as the "fur countries."Will you believe me, when I tell you that all this immense tract is awilderness--a howling wilderness, if you like a poetical name? It iseven so. From north to south, from ocean to ocean,--throughout all thatvast domain, there is neither town nor village--hardly anything that canbe dignified with the name of "settlement." The only signs ofcivilisation to be seen are the "forts," or trading posts, of theHudson's Bay Company; and these "signs" are few and far--hundreds ofmiles--between. For inhabitants, the country has less than ten thousandwhite men, the _employes_ of the Company; and its native people areIndians of many tribes, living far apart, few in numbers, subsisting bythe chase, and half starving for at least a third part of every year!In truth, the territory can hardly be called "inhabited."