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

Two Idle Weeks 91All this was but poor sport for Gwen who had to make the best of things byreading borrowed books, awaiting or enjoying visitors and, when it was warmenough, sketching from the balcony. But three superimposed parallel lines ofmuddy water, level forest and distant heights did not make inspiring subjectmatterfor a picture. Only on certain days, the blue colour of the Richardsonrange of mountains would glow with a most unearthly depth. It was like a promiseof freedom to a prisoner. So Gwen ticked off the days, one by one, in her diaryand exercised as much patience as possible.Meanwhile I had been learning how to paddle a canoe. Finding on the shorean Am.erican just setting off to look at his fish nets, I enlisted his help and had myfirst lesson from him. Next morning I acquired an Irish friend named Tyrell whogave me daily lessons in his 17-foot canoe, when he went out to inspect his nets.He was a trapper and surveyor, married to an Indian squaw, discursive in talk likemost Irishmen and incapable of being dull. We would paddle across the river to abeautiful green creek that led away into unknown country, and every time weentered that creek I felt the call of the unknown, insistent as a physical pain, butafter taking out the white fish from the nets, we would always return by the way wehad come. He had a theory that mosquitoes were sent by Providence to preserveducks, which would otherwise be exterminated by the natives. In early June, hehimself had been forced by mosquitoes to quit rat-trapping. Under his tuition Igained a certain amount of facility in handling a canoe with a single paddle andvery soon the backward sweep of the paddle, with its after-thought twirl to keep astraight course, became automatic.Sundays and weekdays alike we heard strange mournful chants issuing fromthe convent chapel opposite our room. It seemed as if the nuns spent many hoursof each day chanting or groaning Gregorian tunes to the accompaniment of awheezing harmonium. Once, when the chapel was unoccupied at midnight, Icrept and Gwen hopped into it, and we saw from the window the sun resting onthe far edge of the lake, and before it sank below the horizon it began to riseagain. It was July 3rd. We had actually seen the Midnight Sun.On our second Sunday we went to an Eskimo service in the Church ofEngland chapel. Canon Hester literally squeezed out music from a harmonium.The women, dressed in bright cotton garments, all wore fur hoods above theirgreasy black hair and tattooed faces, the children were squealing and crawlingabout the floor. An Eskimo deacon read the lesson which sounded like a contin-