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The Merchant's Tale
by Watson Kirkconnell

-1-

The coldest day I ever knew
Was New Year's, back in '22,
Out in the bush near Kapuskasing
Where, as a trapper, I was facing
The grimmest prospect I had known
Since first I started on my own.
I had no money, to begin with,
And just the clothes upon my back,
Guns, traps, an axe, a knife to skin with,
Four snarling huskies, and a shack.
The spot I'd chosen was the worst
From Porquois Junction west to Hearst -
At least it seemed that way to me
As rations gave out steadily
And in my traps i failed to find
Much paying fur of any kind.
To make things worse, it was my dream
To get some cash, to cease to roam,
To form a matrimonial team
And have some kids and rear a home,
Back in some thriving town;
For I was keen to settle down.
Christmas brought neither cheer nor smiles -
The dogs and I were facing hunger 
Until I trekked in,  thirty miles,
To beg some food. When one is younger,
So piteous a case no doubt
Can block the sun completely out,
And so , for four days  I debated
This course of action that I hated.
Next morning, I was just departing 
When heavy weather checked my starting.
The day began with flakes of snow 
That fell in droves by half past seven,
Flooding a silent world below
Out of a dark and windless heaven.
They fluttered down, a flood of fleece,
Filling the morning sky completer
Than if ten billion big white geese
Were being plucked by old Saint Peter - 
Thus sending, from the sky's high crown,
An avalanche of eider down
That soon mounted, heap on heap, 
to a white blanket, four feet deep,
And bent the branches of the spruce 
Until it almost snapped them loose.
Towards evening, snowfall slackened off,
But a wild gale then smote the cabin
With shriek and sob and wail and cough
And through each cranny seemed to stab in
With icy daggers of derision,
While through the window-pane my vision
Saw in a maddened maelstrom go
A streaming flux of blinding snow
Torn from the spruce-trees' tossing boughs
And from the ground.  In wild carouse, 
Earth seemed to shatter, fuse and fade,
And in white frenzy to disperse,
As if some cosmic Hand had made
A milk-shake of the universe.

-2-

For six and thirty hours the wind
Ragged madly on, and kept me pinned
There in my cabin, where my cupboard,
Like that of well-known Mrs. Hubbard,
Was grimly scant of food to feed
Me and my huskies in our need.
So, when the third day dawned at last
And all the storm was plainly past,
I went outside to find my sled
And mush to town to get some bread.
My little shack was almost hid
Under a mighty drift of white;
Smoke from the chimney upward slid
High in the frosty morning light,
A slender column, pale and wan,
Athwart the sundogs of the dawn;
But I had little time to gaze
On winter's strange and eerie ways.
Giving each husky as a treat
A cast off moccasin to eat,
I chewed in haste my last cold bannock,
And, with a certain sense of panic,
I started in a hurry, tracing
The shortest trail to Kapuskasing.
A frozen creek off Woman River 
Was windswept clear of all its snow.
My lead dog here stopped, all a-quiver,
And when I tried to make him go,
He scratched the ice and gave a bark
That sounded like a curt remark.
I came to look. The little creek
Had frozen solid in its bed,
And in the ice, not far to seek,
Were six fresh pickerel, frozen dead.
Thus I had chopped, five minutes later,
From this first class refrigerator,
A savory dinner for my dogs
And for myself. I split some logs, 
Built up a fire and fried a fish,
Finer than any king could wish.
But the delay and bitter frost
Persuaded me to stop and camp,
Counting the time as safely lost
In such a long, exhausting tramp.
And so, with sleep my chief desire,
I lay down near the blazing fire.

-3-

When I awoke, my dogs had vanished,
leaving no trace that I could see
Beyond the heaving drifts that banished
All thought of stalking them for me.
The fire was out, and nature dealt
Such cold as I have never felt
In all my life, before or since:
It made my aching eyeballs wince,
And seared my anguished lungs and throat
As if some hidden fire smote
My tissues, mingled in my breath,
And doomed me to a gasping death.
My brows and lashes slowly froze,
My cheeks felt cut in tingling strips,
And the slow trickle from my nose
Formed icicles along my lips.
Yet in crisis so terrific
My first desire was scientific,
An urgent impulse to be sure
About the present temperature.
I should have told you in digression,
How, as a highly prized possession,
I took with me where'er I went
A very handy instrument -
A Fahrenheit thermometer,
To which I daily would refer.
Nor would I leave it at my shack,
For fear, before I happened back,
Some thirsty, wandering tramp would call
And drain it of its alcohol.
So, now, I quickly got it out,
And looked, and looked,- and tried to doubt
My eyes' own evidence, but no! -
It stood at ninety-eight below.
I tried to start a fire, but found
My hands too numb to light a match;
And not an ember on the ground
Remained , on kindling wood to catch.
I shouted for my dogs.  Amazed,
I heard no sound of my own voice.
My shouts were mute; and standing dazed.
I felt my one remaining choice
Was to keep moving down the trail
To town before my strength should fail.
I had not gone five hundred feet
Before the cold began to get me.
I could not push on nor retreat:
My faltering snowshoes would not let me.
But just when hope was almost gone
I saw a breath-steam flow
Out of a fissure in the snow
Where a deep drift had formed upon
A cliff base that in summer gave
Low access to a shallow cave.
Slipping my snowshoes off, I used them
As frantic implements to dig;
And with vigor that abused them
I reached the cave.  It was not big,
But body warmth was waiting there
To save me in my chill dispair,
For two fat black bears in a heap
Were gently snoring  in their sleep.
They were too drowsy to awake,
For  when I snuggled down between them
One merely gave his paws a shake
And one growled slightly. I had  seen  them
Late in the autumn, by the river,
And never dreamed they would deliver
My body from a frosty fate,
But now, in a most friendly state,
I lay between them on my back
And dreamed about my dogs and shack.
How long I dozed, I cannot tell,
But presently I knew right well
That further warmth my veins caressed,
And found, accounting for the heat,
Some fourteen rabbits on my chest
And two fat beavers at my feet,
While every corner round about
That my dim vision could determine
Was packed with squirrels, plump and stout,
And fox, and lynx, and Arctic ermine.
The most unprecedented weather
Had brought these creatures all together.
A timid, cowering set of friskers,
with frozen toes and frosty whiskers.
Of hate or rage they showed no spark,
But proved as mild in disposition
As if beasts of Noah's Ark
Had tried an Arctic expedition,
And I, a sort of Gulliver
Had crashed the berths reserved for fur.
In circumstances such as these,
I was, however, rightly grateful
to beasts that would not let me freeze
And meet death forlorn and hateful.
The only lingering fear of mine
In that uncanny, beast-filled place
Was least some thoughtless porcupine
Should make a mattress of my face.
The hours passed by, I must have slept
Although the air grew still more frigid,
And one by one the beasts that crept
About my frame were growing rigid,
Until at last the bears and I
Alone were left that did not die
Under that furry coverlet
That warded off the winter's threat.

-4-

Next day it thawed. I ventured out,
And was surprised to hear a shout
Raised in my own stentorian roar
Where I had called my dogs before.
The cold had chilled my voice, you see,
And left the air-waves all congealed,
And with the rising mecury
My yells thawed out, and as they pealed
Across the snow, before my  eyes
I saw my huskies all arise
Out of deep burrows they had dug
To use the snowdrifts as a rug.
I had a busy time that day,
Carting the fur-beasts all away
From that old cave where they had died
While I was on the underside,
I left my friends, the  bears, in slumber;
But from the small beasts without number
I got such pelts that, freed from fret,
I cleared two thousand dollars net,
And gave up trapping all together
Because I didn't like the weather.

-5-

All these things happened long ago.
Since then I've wandered to and fro,
And finally have settled down
here in this quiet little town.
I've married, too, and have acquired
Such children as I long desired:
Five boys and girls, all under ten,
Make me the happiest of men,
With pity for the senseless drone
Who has no offspring of his own.
Yet sometimes, when in January
Cold winds by night sweep off the prairie,
And five small kids, in search of heat,
Come to my bed to warm their feet
On me, their father, I recall
That far-off , coldest day of all.
Then at those little girls and boys
I make a sleepy, bear-like noise,
And urge them (growling hoarse and strange)
To try their mother for a change.

from The Flying bull, by Watson Kirkconnell
 
 

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