THE BEVAN HOTEL

JAMES MURRAY, Proprietor
BEVAN, B.C.

EXCELLENT MEALS

Fully Licensed

Fishermen's Lodge

Oyster River
Vancouver Island

Percy Elsey, Proprietor

Licensed Premises

Our Motto: “Just Like Home”

some Crees pitched on the virgin prairie
where the town of Pouce Coupe now
stands, and enjoyed the rabbit stew and
purple-coloured birch syrup Joe Noseky
placed before us. Later we received an
addition to our party in the person of an
old Iroquois hunter and the blackest Cree I
ever saw, Joe Meskinak.

Disappearing for a while, Meskinak

arrived back in camp full of abuse and bad
liquor and frothing at the mouth. After
he’d made two attempts to brain me with a
whiskey bottle, and kicked down the lodge
poles—-bringing the tepee tumbling about
our ears—I succeeded in roping the homici-
dal savage who spent the rest of the night
firmly trussed to a cottonwood stump, alter-
nately sobbing, shrieking abuse and howling
out his war song.

GREAT HIGHWAY OF THE FUTURE

Next day, accompanied by a retinue of
armed Beavers yelling out their songs, we
forded the treacherous cutbank and fol-
lowed a dim pack-trail through a dank forest
of pines and cottonwoods bearded with grey
moss, little thinking that in years to come it
would form part of an international high-
way linking the Land of the Star Spangled
Banner with Alaska.

As we made camp a couple of nights
later Napoleon led me through the woods
and pointed down below. A thousand feet
beneath us the wicked South Pine roared
tumultuously *twixt wooded banks, throwing
its swirling waters into those of the Peace
some miles below. It was a vast panorama
of mountains, dark green forests and yellow
cutbanks split by swiftly-flowing streams.
Far off a pointed cone made a jagged break
against the skyline. “Fogo Menahag-O-
Waskihagon!” He pointed to a diminutive
square of white buildings nestled at-its base.
“There’s the Pine Fort!” (Fort St. John.)

Rafting our supplies, and swimming our
pack-horses across the Pine we cantered

e

across the five-mile prairie and emerged on
a broad flat facing the Peace, bordered on
the right by the decaying barracks of Major
Constantine’s axe-swinging Mounted Police
first to assay the task of hacking an overland
highway to the Yukon. Beside them, with
red roof and whitewashed walls, rose the
empty barracks of the B. C. Provincial
Police, recently vacated when Constable
Jamieson resigned to lead another colony of
homesteaders and townsite artists west to
Hudson’s Hope.

Across the river, on an open clearing
overshadowed by a ragged range of hills,
were pitched scores upon scores of conical
skin lodges, while horse herds ranged the
sidehills and the flats. The far bank seemed
vibrant with aboriginal life and movement,
The musical tinkle of horse-bells mingled
with the high-pitched cries of scolding
squaws, the occasional bark of an angry dog,
and the incessant throbbing of tom-toms.
High up on a pointed knoll some savage was’
sending his quavering song to the spirits. .

Silhouetted against the skyline we un
slung our rifles and fired into the air. Im
mediately we noticed a commotion across
the river and a narrow dugout pulled out in
our direction, only to be swept by the surg: |
ing current around the point. |

Kenneth Beatton, son of the Hudson’s
Bay factor, and a Beaver Indian wearing
brightly dyed plumes in a quill-worked hat
band, finally appeared and agreed to ferry

ee

GREEN LANTERN HOTEL

F. AND M. CRUCIL, Proprietors

The Stopping Place in Chemainus for
Motorist and Commercial Traveller

LICENSED PREMISES i

Chemainus British Columbia

ROYSTON
GENERAL STORE

The RED & WHITE Stores
L. BALL, Proprietor

GROCERIES, ETC.
ROYSTON, B.C.

McAfee Lumber Company

LIMITED

*

Logging Operations and Sawmill
GANGES, B. C.

Salt Spring Island

Front Street

GENERAL AUTO SALES

Distributors for

Chevrolet and Oldsmobile

LIMITED

Nanaimo, B. C. :
Phone 1200

Page Twenty

THE SHOULDER STRAP