Journals · Chapter
Chapter VII explained
The narrator continues the return journey upriver, encountering abandoned native encampments and canoes, trading goods for left-behind articles, and dealing with the English Chief's emotional turmoil.
What happens
The narrator continues the return journey upriver, encountering abandoned native encampments and canoes, trading goods for left-behind articles, and dealing with the English Chief's emotional turmoil. The party struggles against strong currents, cold weather, and difficult terrain, while hunting and gathering berries. The narrator attempts to ascend a mountain but is thwarted by marshy ground. Observations include the unusual separation of river currents, the sinking of waters revealing saline shoals, and signs of reindeer and beaver activity.
Themes in this chapter
Survival and Hardship
The party endures cold weather, strong currents, difficult walking on stony beaches, and unsuccessful hunting; the narrator nearly drowns in a marsh.
Colonial Trade and Economics
The narrator leaves trade goods for abandoned native articles, demonstrating the exchange system between European explorers and Indigenous peoples.
Geography and the Natural World
Detailed observations of river currents, saline shoals, mountain ranges, marshy ground, and the behavior of reindeer and beavers.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
Leads the expedition, makes decisions about trading goods, orders the men, and attempts to ascend a mountain for observation.
- The English Chief
Initially reluctant and tearful, he is soothed by the narrator and later reveals Chipewyan war customs; he accepts liquor and continues with the party.
- The Indians
Young Indians receive abandoned articles; they hunt geese and reindeer, but often return unsuccessful; one accompanies the narrator on the mountain ascent.
- The Chipewyans
Referenced by the English Chief regarding their custom of going to war after shedding tears.
Key passages
“I ordered my men to remove them to the shade, and gave most of the other articles to the young Indians. The English Chief would not accept of any of them. In the place, and as the purchase of them, I left some cloth, some small knives, a file, two fire-steels, a comb, rings, with beads and awls.”
The narrator had the canoes moved to the shade and distributed the abandoned items to the young Indians, while the English Chief refused any. As payment, the narrator left trade goods including cloth, knives, a file, fire-steels, a comb, rings, beads, and awls.
Illustrates the colonial trade dynamic and the narrator's attempt to establish goodwill.
“He informed me that it was a custom with the Chipewyan chiefs to go to war after they had shed tears, in order to wipe away the disgrace attached to such a feminine weakness, and that in the ensuing spring he should not fail to execute his design; at the same time he declared his intention to continue with us as long as I should want him.”
The English Chief explained that Chipewyan chiefs traditionally go to war after crying to erase the shame of showing emotion, and he planned to do so next spring, but promised to stay with the expedition as long as needed.
Reveals cultural practices and the chief's personal motivations.
“It was impossible not to consider it as an extraordinary circumstance, that the current of the former river should not incorporate with that of the latter, but flow, as it were, in distinct streams at so great a distance, and till the contracted state of the channel unites them.”
The narrator noted the remarkable phenomenon where the two rivers' currents remained separate for a long distance, only mixing when the channel narrowed.
Highlights the narrator's scientific curiosity about river hydrology.