Failure of an attempt to accompany a war-party to the
Missouri—removal to Elk River—joined in my hunting grounds
by some Naudoways, from Lower Canada—hospitality of the
Crees—practice of medicine—dispute with a Naudoway—band of
Tus-kwaw-go-nees—Brine Spring, on Elk River—I receive a severe
injury by falling from my horse—involved in difficulty by my
foster brother—habits of the moose-deer—range of the moose, the
elk, and the reindeer.
At this place we remained until spring, when, at the commencement of
the sugar season, we went to Ke-nu-kau-ne-she-way-boant. We applied to
the Indians there to give us some trees to make sugar. They gave us a
place where were a few small trees, but the old woman was dissatisfied,
and refused to remain. We therefore travelled two days by ourselves,
until we found a good place to make sugar, and in the same district were
plenty of beavers, as well as birch for troughs. When we had been here
long enough to have finished making sugar, Wa-me-gon-a-biew came to us
in distress, with his father-in-law, and all his large family. We were
able to give them something, but old Net-no-kwa did not present him ten
of my largest and best beaver skins without remarking, “these, and many
more, have all been killed by my little son, who is much weaker and less
experienced than either yourself or Wa-me-gon-a-biew.” She was not very
well pleased in giving, and the old man was a little ashamed to receive
her present. After a few days they left us for the trading-house, and
Waw-be-be-nais-sa joined us when we started in company to go to the Mouse
River trading-house. Leaves were out on the trees, the bark peeled, and
we were killing sturgeons in the rivers, when there came a snow more than
knee deep, and the frost was so severe that the trees cracked as in the
middle of winter. The river was frozen over, and many trees were killed.
At the Mouse River trading-house, the Assinneboins, Crees, and
Ojibbeways, were again assembling to go to join the Mandans in making
war upon the A-gutch-o-ninne-wug, the people I before mentioned. This
time I wished to have accompanied them, and I said to the old woman,
“I will go with my uncles, who are going to the Mandans.” She tried to
dissuade me, but finding me obstinate, took away my gun and moccasins.
This opposition rather increased my ardour, and I followed the Indians,
barefoot and unarmed, trusting that some among them would supply me, but
in this I was mistaken for they drove me back, and would by no means
allow me to accompany them. I was irritated and dissatisfied, but I had
no alternative but to return, and remain with the women and children.
I did not ask the old woman for my gun again, but taking my traps, I
went from home and did not return until I had caught beavers enough to
purchase one. When I had done so, my anxiety to overtake the war-party
had subsided. Many of the women they had left behind now began to be
hungry, and it was not without great exertion on my part, and that of the
very few young boys and old men who were left, that their wants could be
supplied.
The war-party at length returned, having accomplished little or nothing.
We then left them, and in company with one man, a relative of Net-no-kwa,
called Wau-zhe-gaw-maish-kum, (he that walks along the shore), we
started to go to Elk River. This man had two wives. The name of one
was Me-sau-bis, (goslin’s down.) He was also accompanied by another
distinguished hunter, called Kau-wa-be-nit-to, (he that starts them all.)
Our course from Mouse River was very near due north, and as we had six
horses, we travelled with considerable rapidity, but it was many days
before we reached the head of Elk River. Here Wau-zhe-gaw-maish-kum left
us to go to the Missouri on a war-party, but Kau-wa-be-nit-to remained,
and gave us always the finest and best of the game he killed. He directed
me also to a beaver dam and pond, at some distance, to which I went one
day at evening, and having sat down I found a road which the beavers were
then using to bring timber into the pond. By this road I sat down to
watch, supposing I should soon see them pass one way or the other. I had
scarce sat down when I heard, at no great distance, a sound which I knew
was that made by a woman in dressing skins. I was a little alarmed, as I
knew of no Indians in that quarter, and was apprehensive that some of an
unfriendly tribe might have come to encamp there. But being determined
not to return home ignorant who and what they were, I took my gun in my
hands, in the position which would enable me to fire immediately, and
proceeded cautiously along the path to examine. My eyes were commonly
directed considerably ahead, but I had not walked far, when looking
to one side, I saw in the bushes, close to my side, and not one step
from the path, a naked and painted Indian, lying flat upon his belly,
but, like myself, holding his gun in the attitude of firing. My eyes no
sooner fell upon him, than simultaneously, and almost without knowing
what I did, I sprang to the other side of the path, and pointed my gun
directly at him. This movement he answered by a hearty laugh, which
immediately removed my apprehensions, and he soon arose and addressed me
in the Ojibbeway language. Like myself, he had supposed no other Indians
than his own family were, at that time, in the country, and he had been
walking from his own lodge, which stood very near to the beaver pond,
when he was surprised to perceive a man approaching him through the
bushes. He had first perceived me, and concealed himself, not knowing
whether I was a friend or an enemy. After some conversation he returned
home with me, and Net-no-kwa discovered that he was a relative of hers.
The family of this man remained with us about ten days, and afterwards
went to encamp by themselves, at a distance.
I was now left, for the second time, with the prospect of spending the
winter alone, with the exception of those of our own family. But before
the commencement of cold weather there came from Mo-ne-ong, (Montreal)
seven Naudoway hunters, one of them a nephew of Net-no-kwa. They remained
with us, and in the fall and early part of winter, we killed great
numbers of beaver. Five of the Naudoways I surpassed in hunting, and
though they had ten traps each, and I only six, I caught more beavers
than they did. Two of the seven men could beat me at almost any thing.
In the course of the winter, two more Naudoways came to our camp, who
were in the interest and employ of the company called by the Indians
Ojibbeway Way-met-e-goosh-she-wug, (The Chippeway Frenchmen.) After these
had been some time with us, the game was exhausted, and we began to be
hungry. We agreed all to go one day in search of buffaloes. At night, all
had returned except a tall young man, and a very small old man, of the
Naudoways. Next day the tall man came home, bringing a new buffalo robe,
and having on a handsome pair of new moccasins. He said he had fallen in
with seven lodges of Crees, that at first they had not known him, and
it was with great difficulty he had made them understand him, but being
received into one of the lodges, and fed, and treated with kindness, he
had remained all night. In the morning, he folded up the buffalo robe
they had given him to sleep on, and would have left it, but they told
him they had given it to him, and observing, at the same time, that his
moccasins were not very good, one of the women had given him a pair of
new ones. This kind of hospitality is much practised among Indians who
have had but little intercourse with the whites, and it is among the
foremost of the virtues which the old men inculcate upon the minds of
children in their evening conversations. The Naudoway had been little
accustomed to such treatment in the country from which he came.
He had not been long at home before the old man arrived, who pretended
that he had seen fifty lodges of Assinneboins, and had been kindly
received by them, and although he had nothing to show in proof of his
assertions, that they had plenty of meat, and were disposed to be very
hospitable. He persuaded us that he had better go to join them. In the
morning we were all ready to accompany him, but he said, “I cannot go
yet, I have first to mend my moccasins.” One of the young men, that
there might be no unnecessary delay, gave him a pair of new moccasins,
but in the next place, he said he must cut off a piece of his blanket,
and make himself some mittens. One of them, who had some pieces of
blanket, assisted him to make some mittens, but he still invented excuses
for delaying his departure, most of which resulted in the supplying, by
some one of the party, some of his little wants. At length we began to
suspect him of lying, and having sent some one to follow his trail, we
ascertained that he had neither travelled far, seen Indians, nor eaten a
mouthful since he left home.
Knowing it would be in vain to search for the fifty lodges of
Assinneboins, we went in pursuit of the Crees, whom our Naudoway had
seen, but we unexpectedly met with another band of the same tribe. These
were strangers to us, but inquiring for their chief, we went into his
lodge and sat down. The women immediately hung the kettle over the fire,
and then took out of a sack a substance which was then new and unknown to
all of us, and which excited in our party considerable curiosity. When
the food was placed before us, we found it consisted of little fishes,
scarce an inch long, and all of the same size. When put into the kettle,
they were in large masses, frozen together. These little fishes, with
the taking and eating of which we afterwards became familiar, are found
in small holes which remain open in the shallow ponds, crowded together
in such numbers that one may scoop up hundreds of them at once with the
hands. After we had finished our meal, the woman who appeared to be the
principal wife of the chief, examined our moccasins, and gave us each
a new pair. These people were on a journey and soon left us. We now
determined to make a sunjegwun, and deposit such of our property as would
impede us in a long journey, and go to the plains in pursuit of buffalo.
We accordingly followed the path of the Crees, and overtook them in the
Prairie.
It was about the middle of winter when we arrived among them, and soon
afterwards our tall Naudoway fell sick. His friends applied to an old
medicine man of the Crees, called Muk-kwah, (the bear,) requesting him
to do something for his relief. “Give me,” said the old man, “ten beaver
skins, and I will use my art to relieve him.” As we had left our peltries
behind, and killed but few beaver since we started, we could raise only
nine, but we gave him a piece of cloth which was more than equal in
value to one beaver, and he consented to begin. He prepared his lodge for
the first days’ practice before the patient was admitted. He then being
brought in, was seated on a mat near the fire. Old Muk-kwah, who was a
ventriloquist of but indifferent powers, and a medicine man of no great
fame, imitated, as well as he could, various sounds, and endeavoured to
make those standing by believe they proceeded from the breast of the
sick man. At length he said he heard the sound of bad fire in the breast
of the Naudoway, and putting one hand to his breast, the other and his
mouth to the back, he continued for some time blowing and rubbing, when
he, as if by accident, dropped a little ball upon the ground. After again
blowing and rubbing, alternately dropping the little ball, and rubbing it
between his hands, he at length threw it into the fire, where it burned,
with a little whizzing noise, like damp powder. This did not surprise me
at all, as I saw he had taken the precaution to sprinkle a little powder
on that part of the floor of the lodge where the ball fell. Perceiving,
probably, that what he had now done was not likely to prove satisfactory
to his employers, he pretended that there was a snake in the breast of
the sick man which he could not remove till the following day, when with
similar preparations, and similar mummeries, he seemed to draw out of
the body of the sick man, a small snake. One of his hands he kept for
some time on the place from which he pretended to have drawn the snake,
as he said the hole could not close immediately. The snake he refused to
destroy, but laid it carefully aside for preservation lest, as he said,
it should get into somebody else. This ill-conducted imposition did not
fail to excite the ridicule of the Naudoways, and had no perceptible
effect upon the sick man. They soon learned to imitate his several
noises, and made him a subject for sarcasm and ridicule. Some of the more
sensible and respectable men among the Crees advised us to have nothing
more to say to Muk-kwah, as he was esteemed but a fool among them.
It was about this time that I had some difficulty with a Naudoway Indian
who was hunting for the Ojibbeway Way-me-ta-goo-she-wug. He had arrived
since I had in the country, and his right to hunt in any part of it
was certainly no better than mine. He had, in one or two instances,
complained of me for hunting where he said I had no right to hunt. Having
now found a gang of beavers, I set my traps for them, and, as usual, left
them till the next day. On going next morning I found he had followed my
trail, taken up all my traps, thrown them into snow, and set his own in
place of them. He had caught but one beaver, which I did not hesitate
to carry home as my own, and throwing all his traps in the snow, I set
mine again as before. The affair soon became public, but all the band,
even his own friends, the Naudoways, sided against him, and assured me
they would support me in the course I had taken. In affairs of this kind,
the customs of the tribe are as a law to the Indians, and any one who
ventures to depart from them, can expect neither support nor countenance.
It is rare that oppression or injustice in affairs of private right
between man and man, take place among the Indians.
We stayed about one month in the prairie, then returned to the lodge
where we had left the old woman, thence to our trading-house on Elk
River. Here a lodge of Tus-kwaw-go-mees from Canada came into our
neighbourhood. I had now separated from the Naudoways and was living by
myself. When I first visited the Tus-kwaw-go-mees, and went into their
lodge, I did not know who they were. The man presently went out, brought
in my snow-shoes, and placed them by the fire to dry and finding they
were a little out of repair, he directed an old man to mend them. He
then proposed to go and hunt with me until they should be repaired. He
killed, in the course of the day, several beavers, all of which he gave
me. The kindness of this family of Tus-kwaw-go-mees continued as long as
we remained near them. Their language is like that of the Ojibbeways,
differing from it only as the Cree differs from that of the Mus-ke-goes.
When the sugar season arrived, I went to Elk River and made my camp
about two miles below the fort. The sugar trees, called by the Indians
she-she-ge-ma-winzh, are of the same kind as are commonly found in the
bottom lands on the Upper Mississippi, and are called by the whites
“river maple.” They are large, but scattered and for this reason we made
two camps, one on each side of the river. I remained by myself in one,
and in the other were the old woman and the little children. While I
was making sugar, I killed plenty of birds, ducks, geese, and beaver.
There was near my camp a large brine spring, at which the traders used
to make salt. The spring is about thirty feet in diameter, the water is
blue, and, with the longest poles, no bottom can be found. It is near the
bank of the Elk River, between the Assinneboin and Sas-kow-ja-wun, about
twenty days’ journey from the trading-house at Lake Winnipeg. There are,
in that part of the country, many brine springs and salt lakes, but I
have seen no other as large as this.
At this trading post I met a gentleman who took much notice of me, and
tried to persuade me to accompany him to England. I was apprehensive he
might leave me there, and that I should not be able to reach my friends
in the United States, even if any of them were living. I also felt
attached to hunting as a business and an amusement; therefore I declined
his invitation. Among other Indians who assembled at this trading-house
in the spring, came our old companion and friend, Pe-shau-ba, and, as
usual, they expended the products of their winter and spring hunts, their
sugar, etc. for whiskey. After they had drank all they could purchase,
old Net-no-kwa gave them an additional ten gallon keg, which she had hid
the year before under the ashes back of the trader’s house. Their long
debauch was attended by mischievous quarrels, and followed by hunger
and poverty. Some one proposed, as a method of relieving the pressure
of hunger, now becoming severe, that a hunting match should be made, to
see who, of all those that were assembled, could take, in one day, the
greatest number of rabbits. In this strife I surpassed Pe-shau-ba, who
had been one of my first instructors in hunting, but he was yet far my
superior in taking large animals.
From this trading-house we returned by the way of Swan River, and the
Me-nau-ko-nos-keeg, towards Red River. About the Me-nau-ko-nos-keeg and
Ais-sug-se-bee, or Clam River, whose head waters interlock, we stopped
for some time to trap beaver, being assisted by a young man called
Nau-ba-shish, who had joined us some time before, but at length falling
in with a trace on which Indians had passed only two days before, I
determined to try to see them. Leaving the old woman and the family with
Nau-ba-shish, I mounted my best horse, and followed the path through the
prairie. After a few hours I passed a place where had been a lodge the
day before, and my horse was stepping over a log which lay across the
path, when a prairie hen flew from under it. The horse being frightened,
threw me, and I fell upon the log, afterwards upon the ground, but as I
still held the bridle rein, the horse stepped with his fore foot upon
my breast. For some hours I was not able to get on my horse. When I at
last succeeded, I determined still to follow on after the Indians, as I
believed myself nearer to them than to my own lodge. When I arrived among
them I could not speak, but they perceived that I had been hurt, and
treated me with kindness. From this hurt, which was very severe, I have
never since recovered entirely.
A part of my object in visiting this band had been to try to hear
something from Wa-me-gon-a-biew, but they had not met with him. I now
determined to leave the old woman at Menaukonoskeeg and go to Red River
by myself. I had four horses, one of which was a very fleet and beautiful
one, being considered the best out of one hundred and eighty which a
war-party of Crees, Assinneboins, and Ojibbeways, had recently brought
from the Fall Indians. In this excursion they had been absent seven
months. They had fallen upon and destroyed one village, and taken one
hundred and fifty scalps, besides prisoners.
Ten days after I left Menaukonoskeeg on this horse, I arrived at the
Mouse River trading-house. Here I learned that Wa-me-gon-a-biew was at
Pembinah, on Red River. Mr. M’Kee sent a man to show me the road to the
head of the Pembinah River, where I found Aneeb, a trader with whom I was
well acquainted. One day’s journey from this house, I found the lodge of
the father-in-law of Wa-me-gon-a-biew, but I saw nothing of my brother,
and the old man did not receive me kindly. He was living with a party of
about one hundred lodges of Crees. Perceiving that something was not as I
could have wished, I went to spend the night with an old Cree whom I had
seen before. In the morning, the old man said to me, “I am afraid they
will kill your horse, go and see how they are abusing him.” I went as he
directed, and found that a parcel of young men and boys had thrown my
horse down upon the ground, and were beating him. When I came up, I found
some were holding him by the head, while one man was standing on his body
and beating him. To this man I said, “my friend,[19] you must come down;”
he answered, “I won’t.” “I shall help you down,” said I, and pushing him
down, I took the bridle from those who held him, and led him home, but he
had received an injury from which he could never recover.
I now enquired the cause of this unexpected and very unfriendly
treatment, and learned that it was on account of Wa-me-gon-a-biew, who
had turned away his former wife, and quarrelled with his father-in-law.
In this quarrel, the old man’s horse and dog had been killed, which
injury his young friends were visiting upon my horse. The origin of this
quarrel seemed to me to be such as to leave some appearance of right on
the part of Wa-me-gon-a-biew. He had treated his wife as well as is usual
among them, and only parted with her because her father refused to part
with her, insisting that Wa-me-gon-a-biew should accompany him in all his
movements. Rather than do this, he chose to leave his wife altogether,
and had done so in a peaceable manner, when her relatives showed a
disposition to offer him some molestation. As I was alone, I feared they
might follow me, and try to do me some injury at my next encampment.
But they did not, and on the following day I arrived at the place where
Wa-me-gon-a-biew was now living with his new wife. The old man, his
father-in-law, whom I had seen before, met me outside of the lodge, and
was surprised to hear that I had come from Menaukonoskego, the distance
being greater than they usually go by themselves in that country.
Here I remained four days, hunting with my friends. Then I started,
accompanied by Wa-me-gon-a-biew and his wife, to return. We went to the
village where they had tried to kill my horse, and though the old man
had moved to some distance, he soon heard of us, and came in accompanied
by his brothers. We slept at a lodge near the trader’s tent. I intended
to have watched, as I was apprehensive that they would attempt either to
rob or otherwise injure us, but through fatigue, I fell asleep. Late at
night I was waked by Wa-me-gon-a-biew, who said the old man had been in,
and taken his gun from over his head. He admitted that he was awake when
the old man entered, and had watched him from under his blanket until
he went out with the gun. I reproached him for pusillanimity, telling
him he deserved to lose his gun if he would suffer an old man to take it
away while his eyes were open. Nevertheless, I made an attempt, though an
unsuccessful one, to recover the gun.
Before we reached Mouse River, my horse had become so poor and feeble
that even the woman could not ride him. We rested two days, and then went
on. We had suffered much from hunger, having for many days killed only
one poor buffalo, when we met with a small band of Crees, under a chief
called O-ge-mah-wah-shish, a Cree word, meaning chief’s son. Instead
of relieving our wants, they treated us in an unfriendly manner, and I
overheard them talking of killing us, on account of some old quarrel with
a band of Ojibbeways. They would sell us nothing but a small badger, and
we lost no time in escaping as far as we could from them. We were starved
for two days more when we met an Ojibbeway, called Wawb-uche-chawk, (the
white crane,) who had very lately killed a fat moose.
With this man we lived about a month, during all which time we had plenty
of food, and slept in his lodge. He was moving in the same direction that
we were. He did not leave us until we arrived at Rush Lake River. The
old woman had gone from the trading house where I left her, to live with
Indians, at the distance of four days. My three horses which, before
starting, I had fettered and turned out that they might become accustomed
to the place, had been neglected, and were now dead; notwithstanding I
had given very particular charge to Net-no-kwa to take off the fetters
at the commencement of winter. She had neglected it. My horse which I
rode to Red River was also dead, and I had none left. Net-no-kwa having
apparently relinquished her claim to me, and Wa-me-gon-a-biew now leaving
me, I remained for some time entirely alone about the trading house. The
trader, whose name was M’Glees, at length took notice of me, and invited
me to live with him. He said so much to induce me to leave the Indians,
that I felt sometimes inclined to follow his advice, but whenever I
thought of remaining long at the trading house, I found an intolerable
irksomeness attending it. I felt an inclination to spend all my time in
hunting, and a strong dislike to the less exciting employments of the men
about a trading house.
At the head of the Menaukonoskego river was a trading house which I
started to visit, in company with five Frenchmen and one Ojibbeway woman
sent by Mr. M’Glees. We were furnished only with enough meat for one
meal, all of which we ate on the first night after we started. About the
middle of the third day, we came to a small creek of salt water, and on
the summit of a little hill by the side of it, we saw a man sitting. We
went up to him, but he gave no answer to our questions. We then took
hold and tried to rouse him by shaking, but we found him stiffened by
the cold, and when we took our hands off him, he tumbled to the ground
as if he had been frozen entirely stiff. His breath still came and went,
but his limbs were no longer flexible, and he appeared in most respects
like one dead. Beside him lay his small kettle, his bag, containing steel
and flint, his moccasin awl, and one pair of moccasins. We tried all the
means in our power to resuscitate him, but all in vain. Regarding him as
one dead, I advised the Frenchmen to return with him to the trading house
from which we came, that he might be properly buried. They did so, and
I learned afterwards that he ceased breathing an hour or two after they
started. It appeared that he had been sent away from the trading house
at the head of the river, as too indolent to be suffered to remain. He
had started almost destitute of provisions, and come some distance to
Wa-me-gon-a-biew’s lodge. Wa-me-gon-a-biew had fed him, and offered him
plenty of provisions to take with him, but he declined, saying he should
not have occasion for it. He was then very much enfeebled, and had been
about two days in coming the short distance to the place where we had
found him. After they started with him, I went on with the Ojibbeway
woman and soon arrived at Wa-me-gon-a-biew’s.
I had remained here about a month, hunting with my brother, when
Net-no-kwa arrived, having come in search of me. Wa-me-gon-a-biew went
by my direction, to a place on Clam River to hunt beaver, and I returned
with Net-no-kwa to Menaukonoskeeg, where we made sugar. There were ten
fires of us together and after the sugar making was over, we all went
to hunt beavers in concert. In hunts of this kind, the proceeds are
sometimes equally divided, but in this instance every man retained what
he had killed. In three days I collected as many skins as I could carry.
But in these distant and hasty hunts, little meat could be brought in,
and the whole band was soon suffering of hunger. Many of the hunters,
and I among others, for want of food, became extremely weak, and unable
to hunt far from home. One day, when the ice in the ponds was covered
midling deep with water, I reached a place about a mile distant from
camp, and in a low swamp I discovered fresh moose signs. I followed up
the animal, and killed it, and as it was the first, it was made a feast
for the whole band, and all devoured in a single day.
Soon afterwards, all the Indians came down in two days’ journey to
the mouth of the river, where we were joined by Wa-me-gon-a-biew,
who had made a very successful hunt on Clam River. We stopped at the
trading house one mile from the lake, and remained here drinking until
our peltries were all sold. Then we started, accompanied only by
Wa-me-gon-a-biew, to come down to the mouth of the river. The distance
was so short that we did not take the dogs on board the canoes. As they
ran along the shore, they started an elk, and drove him into the water
in the lake, whence we chased him on shore with the canoe, and killed him
on the beach.
About this time, we met with an old Ottawwaw chief, called
Wa-ge-to-tah-gun, (he that has a bell,) more commonly called Wa-ge-toat.
He was a relative of Net-no-kwa, and had with him at that time, three
lodges and two wives. One of his sons had also two wives. With him we
remained two months and almost every morning, as he was going out, he
called me to accompany him to his hunt. Whenever he hunted with me, he
gave me all, or the greater part of what he killed. He took much pains to
teach me how to take moose and other animals which are difficult to kill.
Wa-me-gon-a-biew, with his wife, left us here, and went to Red River.
There is an opinion prevalent among the Indians, that the moose, among
the methods of self-preservation with which he seems better acquainted
than almost any other animal, has the power of remaining for a long
time under water. Two men of the band of Wa-ge-to-tah-gun, whom I knew
perfectly well, and considered very good and credible Indians, after a
long day’s absence on a hunt, came in, and stated that they had chased a
moose into a small pond, that they had seen him go to the middle of it,
and disappear, and then choosing positions, from which they could see
every part of the circumference of the pond, smoked, and waited until
near evening; during all which time, they could see no motion of the
water, or other indication of the position of the moose. At length, being
discouraged, they had abandoned all hope of taking him, and returned
home. Not long afterwards came a solitary hunter loaded with meat. He
related that having followed the track of a moose for some distance, he
had traced it to the pond before mentioned, but having also discovered
the tracks of two men, made at the same time as those of the moose, he
concluded they must have killed it. Nevertheless, approaching cautiously
to the margin of the pond, he sat down to rest. Presently he saw the
moose rise slowly in the center of the pond, which was not very deep, and
wade towards the shore where he was sitting. When he came sufficiently
near, he shot him in the water. The Indians consider the moose shyer and
more difficult to take than any other animal. He is more vigilant, and
his senses more acute than those of the buffalo or caribou. He is fleeter
than the elk, and more prudent and crafty than the antelope. In the most
violent storm when the wind, and the thunder, and the falling timber
are making the loudest and most incessant roar, if a man, either with
his foot or his hand, breaks the smallest dry limb in the forest, the
moose will hear it, and though he does not always run, he ceases eating,
and rouses his attention to all sounds. If in the course of an hour, or
thereabout, the man neither moves, nor makes the least noise, the animal
may begin to feed again, but does not forget what he has heard, and is
for many hours more vigilant than before.
Wa-ge-to-tah-gun, the chief with whom we were living, took every
opportunity to instruct me as to the habits of the moose and other
animals, and showed great pleasure when my exertions in the chase were
crowned with success. As we were now about to part from him, he called
out all the young hunters to accompany him for one day. Several young
women went also. He killed a fat buck moose, which he gave to me.
The country between Lake Winnepeg and Hudson’s Bay is low and swampy, and
is the region of the caribou. More to the west, towards the Assinneboin
and Saskawjawun, is the prairie country, are found elks and buffalo. The
caribou is not found among the elk, nor the latter among the former.