C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

42 THE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RATperil of their lives and had often been obliged to wade ashore in their longskirtedrobes when they stopped to camp for the night. "I had all my teeth outbefore 1 came in," she added, "and 1 have only been out once since then, Many ofus do not go out at all."One old-timer, when relating his life history, said: "1 came in 40 years agoand I've never been out since. No, 1 haven't found no gold to speak of. Not yet."Then he added: "My mate, he came in with the Klondike rush and he just stayedaround ever since,"One morning we went ashore and met a trapper living in a log hut near thewoodpile that stood ready for the steamer. We fell into conversation. Times werechanging for the worse in his district, he told us. "How?" we enquired. "Peopletoo thick on the ground," he said gloomily. We looked about us into the silentforest and thought of the distance to the last settlement and to the one that layahead. "Where's your nearest neighbour?" we asked him. "Why the settlement200 miles down," he replied, "but now there's another trapper come in, aBelgian fellow and he's camped a hundred miles from here. "A hundred miles, it seemed, was no distance in days of winter travel by dogteam.During a talk with a surveyor who had been living on the Barren Grounds, werealized that distance is not measurable in miles, it is a quality relative to the kindof life that one leads. Often, he had walked five miles before he had gatheredenough willow shoots to make a fire for boiling tea. In that land he had seencaribou on their autumn migration, passing at the rate of some 15 to the acre forsix continuous days. Apparently even the caribou like to enjoy the space of thecountry. Once, there had been eight inches of snow on the ground on the first ofAugust. He seemed to have been content with that way ofliving.No doubt that land is magnetic, demanding from its adherents self-sacrifice,endurance and fortitude but giving in return things that are beyond all price:strength, independence, comradeship and, best of all perhaps, the absence ofany need for haste. Many a northern settler develops a sense of close unity withthe land that has become his home. As for the women, their lot is apt to pressmore hardly on them. One does not often meet the type of a certain governmentofficial's wife who assured us that she would rather be leader in the social life ofher small settlement than a mere nobody in Winnipeg or Edmonton.Talk with any new acquaintance had become a real adventure. Among the 30-odd passengers with whom we travelled on our three weeks cruise, we did not