TRAIL

END OF THE

Every Now and Again the North Takes Its Toll—This First-Hand
Account of an Aged Trapper’s Last Stand Against Cold and Starvation
Might Have Been Put to Rhyme by Bob Service.

SENEROUS AND bountiful to the
trong of limb and rugged physique, the
Sreat North Country has riches untold
o bestow upon the adventurous soul who
s willing to pay the price of privation
ind silence which She demands. Loneli-
jess and hunger, cold and back-breaking
abour are the sacrifices offered in her ice-
sillared temple. The lure of gold, and
-he harvest of shining furs, have been
-he irresistible magnets which drew fron-
ersman and cheechako alike, to the rocks,
slaciers and scrub pine of the north.

Resentful of the unfit who should have
the temerity to come within her domains,
the Great North Country is menacing and
deadly. Those who are weak, or infirm
through the weight of years, fall easy
victim to the rigours of the north, which
sasts its austere mantle over them for-
ever.

At the frontier post of Telegraph Creek
in north-western British Columbia, Con-
stable Redhead sat at his desk in the log
cabin police detachment. Pondering over
reports and statistical returns, his mind
continuously strayed. He was thinking of
70-year-old John Cowan, who last fall
had gone into the Grassy Lake country,
forty miles from the post. The old man
had been warned, both by himself and
others, that it was foolhardy to defy a
northern winter alone, far from help, but
Cowan had been obstinate. “Young fel-
ler,” he had said, “I was trappin’ long
before ye were thought of. I kin look
after meself, and I got to tend me trap-
line, so I’m goin’. That’s all there’s to it.”
And gone he had. It had been September,
and, helped by a neighbour, he packed in
his supplies to a point on the main trail
about eight miles from his cabin. They
had established a “cache’’, so that if he
ran out of provisions, there would always
be sufficient to take him back to Telegraph
Creek. It was now April, and Cowan
should have been in long ago with his
furs. Turning back to his work, Redhead
tried to concentrate, but to no avail. The
picture of the old man who had reached
the normal span of life, perhaps lying ill
in his lonely cabin, continuously came be-
fore him.

Goop NEIGHBOURS

Going out he called on Fletcher Day,
a resident of Telegraph Creek who had
known the old man quite well, and, in
fact, was the one who had taken him up

head, and offered to guide the constable
to old John Cowan’s trap-line if he
wished. The constable gratefully accepted
the offer. “Here,” he thought, “is another
instance of the generosity and humane
interest in another’s welfare which is
characteristic of the north. Where else
would a man offer to take on a trip of
ninety miles without compensation, over

_ a rough trail to see if an old man is ali

right.” Day was willing to go right away,
and after getting the dog teams ready,
and securing provisions, Redhead and
Day set out.

They left Telegraph Creek on April
3rd, 1947, and arrived at the Cowan
cabin on April 5th, having covered a dis-
tance of about forty miles. As they
neared the tiny cabin, all was still. There
was no smoke, nor the least sign of life.
As they approached, the abject condition
of the habitation struck both men. “How
could anyone live in a place like this
through a northern winter,” thought Red-
head. His unspoken words were reflected
in the glance which passed between him-
self and Day. The building, if such it
could be called, was formed of logs which
were in the last stages of disintegration.
The walls were barely able to hold them-
selves up, and showed bulges where the
slightest push would obviously bring the
entire structure down with a crash.

For a roof, a number of moose hides
had been stretched across a framework
of poles. The moose hides were old and
quite rotten. There was no window and
the only entrance was through a “door”
of canvas.

Finp Bopy FrozEN So.Lip

The two men entered the cabin, which
was pitch black, as there were no win-
dows. Only six feet by nine feet, it did
not take long for them to find the object
of their quest. Lying on a bunk made
of poles covered with swamp grass, was
the body of old John Cowan. The old
man was frozen solid. Fully clothed in
mackinaw coat and trousers, he was also
wearing a fur-lined hat and moccasins.
He was partially wrapped in a blanket,
and apparently had been overtaken by
death while attempting to keep warm in
his bunk.

The constable made the usual routine
examination of the deceased to find any
marks of violence, or other cause of
death, but nothing was found which
would indicate that the old man had died
by any other means than cold and star-

vation.

A search of the cabin was made. Be-
fore this was undertaken, the roof had
to be ripped off to admit light and air.
There was not a morsel of food any-
where in the cabin. No matches could
be found either on the person of the de-
ceased or among his effects. There was
not a stick of wood for fuel, and
the ashes in the battered tin stove were
mute witness that old John Cowan had
used the last of his wood supply in a vain
attempt to keep warm. There was not a

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