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

4 4 T H E L A D I E S , T H E G W I C H ' I N , A N D T H E RATAs we listened and looked about us we gained some idea of the effects of lonelinesson mankind in these unpeopled latitudes; it can so easily drive a weak manto marry a native, a temperate man to become a drunkard, a sane man tomadness. Later in our travels we met men who had lived so long alone that theyhad become "queer in the head." Thinking people will sometimes forearmthemselves against the effects of solitude. There were two priests, old friends,who served lonely missions far from each other and were frozen in for manymonths each year. They wrote to each other weekly, leaving the letters to accumulateuntil such time as they could post them. They knew that reading alone cannotkeep a man's mind alert, and that many a man who has always been a reader, afterliving alone in the Arctic for a while, will lose his interest in books. The mothersuperior, who spent much time in the northern convents, told me that she had togo out to Montreal once in every few years, to keep her mind alive.We were beginning to learn that beyond the sunsets and the beauty of theNorth there was many a bitter human struggle and failure, many a slow disintegrationof the human character but also many a gallant fight to retain sanity andcontentment.In my diary of our travels there are frequent references to the sky, the sunsetsand their afterglow, the peacefulness of the river, also stories of men who hadcome "in"—and remained "in" with never a wish to revisit the busy world outside.They are brief, laconic entries, jotted down in tired moments but they awaken awhole world of memories.Evening at Lac la Biche. An hour ashore. Beautiful lake. Smooth water.Untidy tents and half-breeds. Walked eastwards. Saw sooty terns. Cowbells.Scent of poplars. Wonderful stillness ... Had long chat with Canadian NWPoliceman returning to duty on Ellesmere Land. Or he might be posted toBernard Inlet. Interesting photographs of ice and snow. Never before metanyone who lives so near the North Pole, but he takes it as a matter of course... Talked to a trapper returning to his solitary cabin after selling last winter'sfurs. These trappers talk as if they had nearly lost the power of linking oneword to the next ... Perhaps they think in monosyllables. Perhaps we all thinkin monosyllables ... Saw wax-wing and three-toed American Woodpecker withyellow crest ... Long walk in forest. Hard to realise the vast size of this countrywhen wandering among trees, even in a clearing no distant horizon. Trees somonotonous. No change ahead, only sometimes a glint of light between stems,