CHAPTER EIGHT.

YORK FACTORY--WINTER AMUSEMENTS--INTENSE COLD--THE
SEASONS--"SKYLARKING"--SPORTING IN THE WOODS AND MARSHES--TRADING WITH
INDIANS--CHRISTMAS DOINGS--BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE IN SPRING.

Are you ambitious, reader, of dwelling in a "pleasant cot in a tranquil
spot, with a distant view of the changing sea?" If so, do not go to
York Factory. Not that it is such an unpleasant place--for I spent two
years very happily there--but simply (to give a poetical reason, and
explain its character in one sentence) because it is a monstrous blot on
a swampy spot, with a partial view of the frozen sea!

First impressions are generally incorrect; and I have little doubt that
_your_ first impression is, that a "monstrous blot on a swampy spot"
cannot by any possibility be an agreeable place. To dispel this
impression, and at the same time to enlighten you with regard to a
variety of facts with which you are probably unacquainted, I shall
describe York Factory as graphically as may be. An outline of its
general appearance has been already given in a former chapter, so I will
now proceed to particularise the buildings. The principal edifice is
the "general store," where the goods, to the amount of two years' outfit
for the whole northern department, are stored. On each side of this is
a long, low whitewashed house, with green edgings, in one of which
visitors and temporary residents during the summer are quartered. The
other is the summer mess-room. Four roomy fur-stores stand at right
angles to these houses, thus forming three sides of the front square.
Behind these stands a row of smaller buildings for the labourers and
tradesmen; and on the right hand is the dwelling-house of the gentleman
in charge, and adjoining it the clerks' house; while on the left are the
provision-store and Indian trading-shop. A few insignificant buildings,
such as the oil-store and lumber-house, intrude themselves here and
there; and on the right a tall ungainly outlook rises in the air,
affording the inhabitants an extensive view of their wild domains; and
just beside it stands the ice-house. This latter building is filled
every spring with blocks of solid ice of about three feet square, which
do not melt during the short but intensely hot summer. The inhabitants
are thus enabled to lay up a store of fresh meat for summer use, which
lasts them till about the commencement of winter. The lower stratum of
ice in this house never melts