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; nor, indeed, does the soil of the surrounding country, which only thaws to the depth of a few feet, the subsoil being perpetually frozen.

 

The climate of York Factory is very bad in the warm months of the year, but during the winter the intensity of the cold renders it healthy. Summer is very short; and the whole three seasons of spring, summer, and autumn are included in the months of June, July, August, and September—the rest being winter.

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