_THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN’S LIBRARY_
_EDITED BY
CASPAR WHITNEY_
MUSK-OX, BISON, SHEEP
AND GOAT
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
MUSK-OX, BISON, SHEEP
AND GOAT
BY
CASPAR WHITNEY
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
AND
OWEN WISTER
[Illustration]
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1904
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1904,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up, electrotyped, and published February, 1904.
_Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
THE MUSK-OX. BY CASPAR WHITNEY
I. MY FIRST KILL 17
II. THE PROVISION QUESTION 32
III. SEASONS AND EQUIPMENT 44
IV. METHOD OF HUNTING 56
V. THE MUSK-OX 70
THE BISON. BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL 107
THE MOUNTAIN SHEEP: HIS WAYS. BY OWEN WISTER 167
THE WHITE GOAT AND HIS WAYS. BY OWEN WISTER 227
INDEX 277
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE BEGINNING OF THE SLAUGHTER _Frontispiece_
PAGE
IN THE FAR NORTH 15
AT BAY 30
OUTNUMBERED 45
EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX CALF 57
HEAD OF TWO-YEAR-OLD MUSK-OX BULL 57
MUSK-OXEN ON CAPE MORRIS JESUP, BROUGHT TO BAY BY DOGS 65
THE AUTHOR’S BARREN GROUND HUNTING KNIFE AND AX 67
THE BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX--A FULL-GROWN BULL 71
FOREFOOT OF BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX 76
FULL-GROWN EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX--ADULT MALE 77
FOREFOOT OF EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX 79
SKULL OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX--FRONT VIEW 82
SKULL OF THE BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX--FRONT VIEW 82
SKULL OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX--SIDE VIEW 83
SKULL OF THE BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX--SIDE VIEW 83
MALE YEARLING OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX 87
ADULT FEMALE OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX 95
MUSK-OX CALF 101
THE LAST OF THE HERD 109
PROTECTED 139
ROCKY MOUNTAIN SHEEP 169
ALERT 177
UNDER A HOT SKY 187
SURPRISED 201
THE SADDLEBACK SHEEP 213
ABOVE TIMBER LINE 229
THE WHITE GOAT IS AN AGILE CLIMBER 253
THE MUSK-OX AND ITS HUNTING
BY CASPAR WHITNEY
[Illustration: IN THE FAR NORTH]
I
MY FIRST KILL
We had passed through the “Land of Little Sticks,” as the Indians so
appropriately call that desolate waste which connects the edge of
timber land with the Barren Grounds, and had been for several days
making our way north on the lookout for any living thing that would
provide us with a mouthful of food.
We had got into one of those pieces of this great barren area, which,
broken by rocky ridges, of no great height but of frequent occurrence,
are unspeakably harassing to the travelling snow-shoer. It was the
third twelve hours of our fast, save for tea and the pipe, and all day
we had been dragging ourselves wearily up one ridge and down another
in the ever recurring and always disappointed hope that on each we
should sight caribou or musk-oxen. The Indians were discouraged and
sullen, as they usually did become on such occasions; and this troubled
me really more than not finding food, for I was in constant dread of
their growing disheartened and turning back to the woods. That was
the possibility which, since the very starting day, had at all times
and most seriously menaced the success of my venture; because we were
pushing on in the early part of March, at a time when the storms are at
their greatest severity, and when none had ever before ventured into
the Barren Grounds. Therefore, in my fear lest the Indians turn back, I
sought to make light of our difficulties by breaking into song when we
stopped to “spell”[1] our dogs, hoping by my assumed light-heartedness
to shame the Indians out of showing their desire to turn homeward.
How much I felt like singing may be imagined.
So the day dragged on without sight of a moving creature, not even a
fox, and it was past noon when we laboriously worked our way up one
particular ridge which seemed to have an unusual amount of unnecessary
and ragged rock strewn over its surface. I remember we scarcely
ventured to look into the white silent country that stretched in front
of us; disappointment had rewarded our long searchings so often that
we had somehow come to accept it as a matter of course. Squatting down
back of the sledge in shelter from the wind seemed of more immediate
concern than looking ahead for meat: at least we were sure of the
solace our pipes gave. Thus we smoked in silence, with no sign of
interest in what the immediate country ahead might hold for us, until
Beniah, the leader of my Indians, and an unusually good one, started
to his feet with an exclamation and, hurriedly climbing on top a
good-sized rock, stretched his arm ahead, obviously much stirred with
excitement. He shouted, once and loud, “_ethan_,”[2] and then continued
mumbling it as though to make his tongue sure of what his eyes beheld.
We all gathered around him, climbing his rock or on other ones, in
desperate earnestness to see what he saw in the direction he continued
pointing. It was minutes before I could discern anything having life in
the distance which reached away to the horizon all white and silent,
and then I detected a kind of vapor arising apparently from some dark
objects blurringly outlined against the snow about four miles away; it
was the mist which arises from a herd of animals where the mercury is
ranging between sixty and seventy degrees below zero, and on a clear
day may be seen five miles away. Thoroughly aroused now, I got my
field-glasses from my sledge and searched the dark objects under the
mist. They were not caribou, of that I was certain; as to what they
were I was equally uncertain, for the forms were strange to my eye. So
I handed the glasses to Beniah, saying, “_ethan illa_.”[3] Beniah took
the glasses, but as it was the first time he had ever looked through
a pair, their range and power seemed to excite him quite as much as
did the appearance of the game itself. When he did find his tongue,
he fairly shouted, “_ejerri_.”[4] I had no accurate knowledge of what
“_ejerri_” meant, but assumed we had sighted musk-oxen. Instantly all
was excitement. The Indians set up a yell and rushed for their sledges,
jabbering and laughing. It seemed incredible that these were the same
men who so shortly before had sat silent with backs to the wind,
dejected and indifferent.
Every one now busied himself turning loose his dogs,--a small matter
for the Indians, with their simply sewn harness from which the dogs
were easily slipped, but a rather complex job for me. My dog train had
come from the Post, and its harness was made of buckles and straps and
things not easily undone in freezing weather; so it happened that by
the time my dogs were unhitched, the Indians and all their dogs were
fully quarter of a mile nearer the musk-oxen than I and running for
very dear life. My preconceived notions of the musk-ox hunting game
were in a jiffy jolted to the point of destruction, as I now found
myself in a situation neither expected nor joyful. It was natural to
suppose some assistance would be given me in this strange environment,
and that the consideration of a party of my own organizing and my own
paying should be my killing the musk-ox for which I had come so long
a distance. But we were a long way from the Post and interpreters
and restraining influences; and at this moment of readjustment I
speedily realized that it was to be a survival of the fittest on this
expedition, and if I got a musk-ox it would be of my own getting.
It comforted me to know that, even though somewhat tucked up as to
stomach, due to three days’ hard travel on only tea, I was in fine
physical condition, and up to making the effort of my life.
By the time I had run about two miles I had caught the last of the
Indians, who were stretched out in a long column, with two leading
by half a mile. Within another mile I had passed all the stragglers,
and was running practically even with the second Indian, who was two
or three hundred yards behind the leading one. This Indian, Seco by
name, was one of the best snow-shoe runners I ever encountered. He
gave evidence of his endurance and speed on many another occasion than
this one, for always there was a run of four miles or more after every
musk-ox herd we sighted, and invariably a foot-race between Seco and me
preceded final leadership. I may add incidentally that he always beat
me, although we made some close finishes during the fifty-seven days we
roamed this God-forgotten bit of the earth.
On this particular day, though I passed the second Indian, Seco kept
well in the lead, with practically all the dogs just ahead of him. It
was the roughest going I had ever experienced, for the course lay over
a succession of low but sharp, rocky ridges covered with about a foot
of snow, and, on the narrow tripping shoes used in the Barren Grounds,
I broke through the crust where it was soft, or jammed my shoes between
the wind-swept rocks that lay close together, or caught in those I
attempted to clear in my stride. It was a species of hurdle racing to
test the bottom of a well-fed, conditioned athlete; how it wore on a
tea diet I need not say.
After we had been running for about an hour, it seemed to me as though
we should never see the musk-oxen. Ridge after ridge we crossed and yet
not a sight of the coveted quarry. Seco still held a lead of about one
hundred yards, and I remember I wondered in my growing fatigue why on
earth that Indian maintained such a pace, for I could not help feeling
that when the musk-oxen finally had been caught up, he would stop until
I, and all the Indians and all the dogs had come up, so as to more
certainly assure the success of the hunt: but it was not the first time
I had been with Indian hunters, and I knew well enough not to take any
chances.
In another half hour’s running, as I worked up the near side of a
rather higher and broader ridge than any we had crossed, I heard the
dogs barking, and speeding to the top, what was my disappointment, not
to say distress, at beholding twenty-five to thirty musk-oxen just
startled into running along a ridge about a quarter of a mile beyond
Seco, who, with his dogs, was in full chase after them about fifty
yards ahead of me. What I thought at that time of the Northland Indian
hunting methods, and of Seco and all my other Indians in particular,
did the situation and my condition of mind scant justice then--and
would not make goodly reading here. Had I been on an ordinary hunting
expedition, disgust with the whole fool business would, I doubt not,
have been paramount, but the thought of the distance I had come and the
privations undergone for no other reason than to get a musk-ox, made me
the more determined to succeed despite obstacles of any and all kinds.
So I went on. The wind was blowing a gale from the south when I reached
the top of the ridge along which I had seen the musk-oxen run, and
the main herd had disappeared over the northern end of it, and were a
mile away to the north, travelling with heads carried well out, though
not lowered, at an astonishing pace and ease over the rocks. Four had
separated from the main body and were going almost due east on the
south side of the ridge. I determined to stalk these four, because I
could keep the north side of the ridge, out of sight, and to leeward,
feeling certain they would sooner or later turn north to rejoin the
main herd. It seemed my best chance. I perfectly realized the risk I
ran in separating from the Indians; but at that moment nothing appeared
so important as getting a musk-ox, for which I had now travelled nearly
twelve hundred miles on snow-shoes.
I have done a deal of hunting in my life, over widely separated and
trackless sections, and had my full share of hard trips; but never
shall I forget the run along that ridge. It called for more heart and
more strength than any situation I ever faced. Already I had run, I
suppose, about five miles when I started after those four musk-oxen;
and when the first enthusiasm had passed, it seemed as though I must
give it up. Such fatigue I had never dreamed of. I have no idea how
much farther I ran,--three or four more miles, likely,--but I do
remember that after a time the fancy possessed me that those four
musk-oxen and I were alone on earth, that they knew I was after their
heads, and were luring me deep into a strange land to lose me; thus in
the great silent land we raced grimly, with death trailing the steps
of each. The dead-white surface reaching out before me without ending
seemed to rise and to fall as though I travelled a rocking ship; and
the snow and the rocks danced around my whirling head in a grinning,
glistening maze. When I fell, which frequently I did, it seemed such a
long time before I again stood on my feet; and what I saw appeared as
though seen through the small end of field-glasses.
I was in a dripping perspiration and had dropped my fur capote and
cartridge-belt after thrusting half a dozen shells into my pocket.
On and on I ran, wondering in a semi-dazed way if the musk-oxen were
really on the other side of the ridge. Finally the ridge took a sharp
turn to the north, and as I reached the top of it, there--about one
hundred yards ahead--were two of the musk-oxen running slowly but
directly from me. Instantly the blood coursed through my veins and
the mist cleared from my eyes; dropping on one knee I swung my rifle
into position, but my hand was so tremulous and my heart thumped so
heavily that the front sight wobbled all over the horizon. I realized
that this might be the only shot I should get,--for Indians had gone
into the Barren Grounds in more propitious seasons, and not seen even
one herd,--yet with the musk-oxen going away from me all the while,
every instant of time seemed an insuperable age. The agony of those
few seconds I waited so as to steady my hand! Once or twice I made
another attempt to aim, but still the hand was too uncertain. I did not
dare risk a shot. When I had rested a minute or two, that seemed fully
half an hour,--at last the fore sight held true for an instant; and I
pressed the trigger.
The exultation of that moment when I saw one of the two musk-oxen
stagger, and then fall, I know I shall never again experience.
The report of my rifle startled the other musk-ox into a wild gallop
over a ridge, and I followed as rapidly as I could, so soon as I
made sure that the other was really down. As I went over the ridge I
caught sight of the remaining musk-ox, and shot simultaneously with
two reports on my left, which I later discovered to have come from the
second Indian whom I had passed in closing upon Seco on the run to the
first view of the musk-oxen, and who now hove in sight with one dog, as
the second musk-ox dropped.
I found on returning to my kill that it was a cow, needless to say a
sore disappointment; and so, although pretty well tuckered out, I again
started to the north in the hope that I might get wind of the other two
of the four after which I had originally started, or find tracks of
stragglers from the main herd. Several miles I went on, but finding no
tracks, and darkness coming down, I turned to make my way back, knowing
that the Indians would follow up and camp by the slain musk-oxen for
the night. But as I journeyed I suddenly realized that, except for
going in a southerly direction, I really had no definite idea of the
exact direction in which I was travelling, and with night setting in
and a chilling wind blowing I knew that to lose myself might easily
mean death. So I turned about on my tracks and followed them back first
to where I had turned south, and thence on my back tracks to where the
musk-ox lay. It was a long and puzzling task, for the wind had always
partly, and for distances entirely, obliterated the earlier marks of my
snow-shoes.
Nine o’clock came before I finally reached the place where the
dead quarry lay; and there I found the Indians gnawing on raw and
half-frozen musk-ox fat. Seco, badly frozen and hardly able to crawl
from fatigue, did not turn up until midnight; and it was not until he
arrived that we lighted our little fire of sticks and had our tea.
[Illustration: AT BAY]
Then in a sixty-seven degrees below zero temperature we rolled up in
our furs, while the dogs howled and fought over the carcass of my first
musk-ox.
II
THE PROVISION QUESTION
Except in the summer, when the caribou are running in vast herds,
venture into the Barren Grounds entails a struggle with both cold and
hunger. It is either a feast or a famine; more frequently the latter
than the former. So there was nothing extraordinary in being upon our
third day without food at the first musk-ox killing to which I have
referred. Yet the lack of nourishment was not perhaps as trying as the
wind, which seemed to sweep directly from the frozen seas, so strong
that we had to bend low in pushing forward against it, and so bitter
as to cut our faces cruelly. Throughout my journey into this silent
land of the lone North the wind caused me more real suffering than
the semi-starvation state in which we were more or less continuously.
Indeed, for the first few weeks I had utmost difficulty in travelling;
the wind appeared to take the very breath out of my body and the
activity out of my muscles. I was physically in magnificent shape, for
I had spent a couple of weeks at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake,
and what with plenty of caribou meat and a daily run of from ten to
twenty miles on snow-shoes by way of keeping in training, I was about
as fit as I have been at any time in my life. Therefore the severe
struggle with the wind impressed me the more. But the novelty wore off
in a couple of weeks, and though the conditions were always trying,
they became more endurable as I grew accustomed to the daily combat.
One of the first lessons I learned was to keep my face free from
covering, and also as clean shaven as was possible under such
circumstances. It makes me smile now to remember the elaborate hood
arrangement which was knitted for me in Canada, and that then seemed
to me one of the most important articles of my equipment. It covered
the entire head, ears, and neck, with openings only for eyes and mouth,
and in town I had viewed it as a great find; but I threw it away before
I got within a thousand miles of the Barren Grounds. The reason is
obvious: my breath turned the front of the hood into a sheet of ice
before I had run three miles; and as there was no fire in the Barren
Grounds to thaw it, of course it was an impossible thing to wear in
that region and a poor thing in any region of low temperature. After
other experiments, I found the simplest and most comfortable head-gear
to be my own long hair, which hung even with my jaw, bound about just
above the ears by a handkerchief, and the open hood of my caribou-skin
capote drawn forward over all.
I learned a great many things about hunting the musk-ox on this
first effort, and not the least memorable was the lesson of how very
difficult an animal it is to score on without the aid of a dog. This
is solely due to the lie of the land. The physical character of the
Barren Grounds is of the rolling or prairie type. Standing on the first
elevation after passing beyond the last timber, you look north across
a great expanse of desert, apparently flat country dotted with lakes
innumerable, and broken here and there by rock-topped ridges. When you
get actually into the country, you find these ridges, though not high,
are yet higher than they look to be, and the travelling in general
very rough. In summer there is no travel over the Barren Grounds,
except by canoe; for barring the generous deposit of broken rock, it is
practically a vast swamp. In the winter, of course, this is frozen over
and topped by a foot or a foot and a half of snow. It was a surprise to
find no greater depth of snow, but the fall is light in the very far
North, and the continuous gales pack and blow it so that what remains
on the ground is firm as earth. For that reason the snow-shoes used in
the Barren Grounds are of the smallest pattern used anywhere. They are
from six to eight inches wide, three feet long, and, because of the dry
character of the snow, have rather closer lacing than any other shoe.
This is the shoe used also throughout the Athabasca-Slave-Mackenzie
River sections. The snow nowhere along this line of travel is over a
couple of feet in depth, is light and dry and the “tripping” shoe,
so called, is the very best possible for such kind of going. In the
spring, when the snow is a little heavier, the lacing is more open,
otherwise the shoe is unchanged.
It is well known, I suppose, that the Barren Grounds are devoid
absolutely not only of trees but even of brush, except for some
scattered, stunted bushes that in summer are to be found in occasional
spots at the water’s edge, but may not be depended upon for fuel. From
Great Slave Lake north to the timber’s edge is about three hundred
miles; beyond that is a stretch of country perhaps of another hundred
miles, suggestively called the Land of Little Sticks by the Indians,
over which are scattered and widely separated little patches of small
pine, sometimes of an acre in extent, sometimes a little less and
sometimes a little more. They seem to be a chain of wooded islands in
this desert that connect the main timber line (which, by the way, does
not end abruptly, but straggles out for many miles, growing thinner and
thinner until it ends, and the Land of Little Sticks begins) with the
last free growth; and I never found them nearer together than a good
day’s journey. About three or four days’ travel takes you through this
Land of Little Sticks and brings you to the last wood. The last wood
that I found was a patch of about four or five acres with trees two or
three inches in diameter at their largest, although one or two isolated
ones were perhaps as large as five or six inches. Here you take the
fire-wood for your trip into the Barrens.
I have been often asked why the periods of starvation experienced
in musk-ox hunting could not be obviated by carrying food. I have
been asked, in a word, why I did not haul supplies. The patent answer
is that, in the first place, I had none to take; and that, in the
second place, if I had had a car-load at Great Slave Lake to draw
upon, I would have been unable to carry provisions with me into
the Barren Grounds. It is to be remembered that Great Slave Lake,
where I outfitted for the Barren Grounds, is nine hundred miles from
the railroad, that every pound of provision is freighted by water
usually, or by dog sledge on emergency. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s
posts, beginning at Athabasca Landing, are located along the great
waterways--Athabasca, Slave, Mackenzie rivers--about every two hundred
miles. These are small trading posts, having powder and ball, and
things to wear, and of ornament, rather than things to eat. Provisions
are taken in, but to a limited extent, and there is never a winter
which does not see the end of the company’s supplies before the ice
breaks up and the first boat of the year arrives. There is never a
plenty even for the usual demand, and an unusual demand, if it is to be
met, means a trimming all round. In snow-shoeing from the railroad to
Great Slave Lake I secured fresh sledge-dogs and men and provisions
at every post, which carried me to the next post north, whence men
and dogs returned to their own post, while I continued north with a
new supply. Although there was comparative plenty at the time of my
trip, so carefully are the stores husbanded that I never could get
supplies more than just enough to carry me to the next post; and these
were invariably skimped, so that for a five days’ journey I habitually
started with about four days’ supplies.
Thus it is easy to see why there were no provisions at Great Slave Lake
for me to draw on; and, as I have said, had there been an abundance,
it would have been impossible for me to carry them (and would be
equally so for any one else venturing into the Barren Grounds at the
same season of the year) simply for lack of transportation, which,
after all, is the great problem of this North Country. One would think
that in a land where the only means of travel for most of the year,
where almost the very existence of the people depends so largely on
sledge-dogs, there would be an abundance of them and of the best breed;
yet the truth is that sledge-dogs of any kind are scarce even on the
river thoroughfares. At the company’s posts there is not more than
one, or at the most two, spare trains; among the Indians, upon whom, of
course, I had to rely when I outfitted for the Barren Grounds, dogs are
even scarcer. Fort Resolution is one of the most important posts of the
Hudson’s Bay Company in all that great country, and yet the settlement
itself is very small, numbering perhaps fifty; the Indians--Dog Ribs
and Yellow Knives--living in the woods from six to ten days’ travel
from the post. I found it not only extremely difficult to get Indians
to go with me, but secured seven dog teams only after widest search.
This reads strange, I am sure, yet it was all but impossible for me to
secure the number of dogs and sledges required for my trip.
But, some of my friends have asked, with seven sledges and twenty-eight
dogs, surely there was room to carry enough provision to insure against
starvation in the Barren Grounds? Not at all. There was not room to
carry more than tea, tobacco, our sleeping-furs, and moccasins and
duffel socks. Moccasins and duffel and tobacco and tea are the highly
essential articles in the Barren Ground outfit. The duffel is a light
kind of blanket which is made into leggings and also into socks.
You wear three pairs inside your moccasins, and at night, if you
have been well advised, you put next to your feet a slipper moccasin
of the unborn musk-ox, hair inside. It must be remembered that in
the Barren Grounds you have no fire to thaw out or dry frozen and
wet clothing. The tiny fire you do have is only enough to make tea.
Therefore abundant duffel and moccasins are necessary, first, to have
a dry, fresh change, and second, to replenish them as they wear out,
as they do more than elsewhere, because of the rocky going. As for
tea and tobacco, no human being could stand the cold and the hardship
of a winter Barren Ground trip without putting something hot into
his stomach every day, while the tobacco is at once a stimulant and
a solace. The space left on the sledge after the tea and tobacco and
moccasins and duffel have been stowed must be filled with the sticks
that you cut into pieces (just the width of the sledge) at the last
wood on the edge of the Barren Grounds proper. The sledge is a toboggan
about nine feet in length and a foot and a half in width, made of two
or three birch slats held together by crosspieces lashed on to them
with caribou thongs, turned over and back at the front into a dasher,
which is covered by a caribou apron (sometimes decorated in crude
painting), and held in its curved position by strings of babiche,--as
the thongs of caribou skin are called,--the same material which
furnishes the snow-shoe lacing. On this sledge is fitted a caribou-skin
body, about seven feet in length, the full width of the sledge, and a
foot and a half deep. Into this is stowed the load. Then the top sides
are drawn together, and the whole lashed firmly to the sledge by side
lines. This must be done with the care and security bestowed upon the
diamond hitch used on pack-animals; for the sledge in the course of a
day’s travel is roughly knocked about.
It requires no further explanation, I fancy, to show why it is not
possible to carry provisions.
One of my friends on my return from this trip suggested the possibility
of shipping dogs into the country; of doing, in a word, somewhat as
do the pole-hunting expeditions. That might be possible to a wealthy
adventurer, but, even so, I should consider it an experiment of very
doubtful results, simply because of the impossibility of feeding the
dogs after they had arrived in the country, or of providing for them
after you had started into the Barren Grounds. There is a period
in the summer at Great Slave Lake when any number of dogs could be
sufficiently fed on the quantities of fish that are then to be caught
in the lake; and no doubt enough fish could be stored to feed them in
the season when the lakes are frozen, if the dogs remained at the post.
Even so, that would keep busy a number of especially engaged fishermen.
But when you started for the Barren Grounds with all these dogs, your
feeding problem would be an overwhelming one indeed, for only in the
midsummer, when the caribou are to be found in large herds, would it be
possible to kill meat for a great many dogs; and in midsummer you would
not, could not, use dogs at all; at that season the Barren Grounds
are invaded by means of the chain of lakes and short portages which
begin at the northeastern end of the Great Slave Lake. Even travelling
along the river the question of dog feed is a serious one, and you
are obliged to carry the fish which have been caught the previous
summer and stored at the posts in great frozen heaps. It is obvious,
therefore, that there is no easy or comfortable way of getting into the
Barren Grounds. It would be impracticable to do other than rely on the
resources at hand and go into the silent land just as do the Indians.
It is simply impracticable to do other than to depend on the caribou
and the musk-oxen for food for both men and dogs.
III
SEASONS AND EQUIPMENT
Midsummer is the season when the hunter may visit the Barren Grounds
with the least discomfort and least danger, for at this time you go
by canoe. The caribou are plentiful and the thermometer rarely goes
below freezing-point. But even then trials are many, and there is
considerable danger of starvation. The mosquitoes are a pest almost
beyond endurance, and the caribou, although abundant, are down toward
the Arctic and of very uncertain movement. Their course of migration
one year may be fifty to one hundred miles east or west of where it was
the preceding year. In the 350,000 square miles of the Barren Grounds
one may easily go days without finding caribou even at such a time of
plenty; and not to find them might easily mean starvation.
[Illustration: OUTNUMBERED]
The most extensive trips into the Barren Grounds for musk-oxen previous
to my venture had been made by two Englishmen, Warburton Pike and
Henry Toke Munn. Mr. Pike (a hunter of experience whose book, “Barren
Ground of Northern Canada,” published in 1892, still stands as one
of the most interesting and faithful contributions to the literature
of sport and adventure) spent the better part of two years in this
country, and made several summer and autumn trips into the Barren
Grounds. He made one summer trip solely for the purpose of killing and
cacheing caribou, which he might draw upon in the next autumn musk-ox
hunt when the caribou were scarce. Yet, notwithstanding all this
preparation, he had a very hard time of it in the autumn hunt and was
unable to accomplish all that he set out to do. He did get, however,
the musk-ox he went after. On Munn’s autumn trip, although there were
yet to be had some fish in the lakes, he and his party and their dogs
had a starving time of it indeed. I particularize these two trips to
instance the difficulties of hunting in the Barren Grounds, even when
the conditions are the most favorable that may be had.
The Indians time their hunting trips into the Barren Grounds by the
movement of the caribou,--in the early summer, about May, when the
caribou begin their migration from the woods down to the Arctic Ocean;
and in the early autumn when the caribou are fairly well distributed
and are working back toward the wood again. Caribou are absolutely
essential to penetration of the Barren Grounds, because from the
woods to where musk-oxen are found is a considerable distance, and no
possible meat except that supplied by these members of the deer family.
Nor is a trip into the Barren Grounds always rewarded with musk-oxen.
Many Indian parties have gone in and failed to see even a track, and
many others have skirmished along the edge, dreading to plunge into the
interior, and hopeful perhaps of a stray ox. The Indians, who do not
now hunt musk-oxen as much as formerly owing to the lessened demand
for the pelt, usually go in parties of four to six; never less than
four, because they would be unable to carry a wood supply adequate
to getting far enough into the Barren Grounds for reasonable hope of
securing the game; and rarely more than six, because when they have
got as far into the country as six sledges of wood will permit, they
have either got what they want, or they have had enough of freezing and
starving to impel a start homeward. Only the hardiest make the trip;
to be a musk-ox hunter and an enduring snow-shoe runner, is the dearest
ambition of and the greatest height to which the Far Northland Indian
can attain.
Before I started on my trip I heard much of pemmican, and fancied it
procurable at almost any northern post, as well as supposing it a
reliable source of provender. The truth is, however, that pemmican is
a very rare article these days in that section of the country, and in
fact is not to be found anywhere south of Great Slave Lake, and only
there on occasion. This is largely because the caribou are not so
numerous as formerly, and the Indians prefer to keep the grease for
home consumption, when at ease in their autumn camps. Even among the
Indians around Great Slave Lake pemmican is used but very little in
the ordinary tripping (travelling). It has been substituted by pounded
caribou meat, which is carried in little caribou-skin bags and eaten
with grease. One can never get too much of grease in the Northland,
where it is eaten as some consume sugar in the civilized world. And
this is to be accounted for by the burning up of the tissues in cold
dry climate and the absence of bread and vegetables; for meat and tea
are the sole articles of food. Coffee, by the way, is a luxury to be
found only occasionally on the table of a Hudson’s Bay Company post
factor.
There is so much to be told, if one is to give an adequate idea of
what hunting the musk-ox implies, that I find it somewhat difficult,
without going to considerable length, to cover the entire field. I
suppose it is because the musk-ox is the most inaccessible animal
in the whole wide world, that there is so much curiosity concerning
the conditions of hunting it, and so much interest in the recital of
one’s experience. From time to time a great many letters come to me
filled with questions, and I am and shall always be happy to add in
personal letters any data I may have overlooked here. I am trying,
however, to make this chapter thoroughly practical and intelligible to
those with any thought of ever seeking the musk-ox in this region. The
easiest way, as I have said, is to go by Hudson’s Bay Trading boat,
which leaves Athabasca Landing as soon as the ice breaks, down to
Resolution. If you have arranged beforehand by letter with the factor
at Resolution, you will arrive there in time to make a summer hunt into
the Barren Grounds, which is reached, as I have shown, by means of
short portages and a chain of lakes, starting from the northeast corner
of Great Slave Lake, and following Lockhart’s River. If you are not
delayed and do not get too far into the Barren Grounds, you would stand
a chance of getting out and back to Athabasca Landing on the water; but
everything would have to go your way and the trip be most expeditious
in order to do this. If you were not out in time to go by open water,
it would necessitate a nine hundred mile snow-shoe trip, or laying over
until the following spring when the ice broke up again.
The Canadian government has protected musk-oxen for several years, and
in order to hunt, one must be provided with a special permit from that
government. The protection of the musk-ox seems scarcely necessary,
for although the polar expeditions have slaughtered a great many on
Greenland and on the Arctic islands, the killing of them in the Barren
Grounds proper never has been, and never will be, sufficiently large
to give concern to the Canadian government. The musk-ox is of a genus
that seems to be a declining type among the world’s animals, but if
extinction comes to those in the Barren Grounds, it certainly will
never be through their killing by white men or Indians. If any great
value attached to the hide, it might be another story; but the truth is
that the musk-ox robe is not a valuable fur, is sought after, indeed,
but very little. It is too coarse to wear, and the only use to which it
seems admirably adapted is as a sleigh-robe.
There is no difficulty in getting Indians for the summer hunt, for then
the labor is slight as compared with snow-shoeing, and there need be no
considerable worry about provisions. Nor would there be but very little
trouble in securing Indians for the early autumn. The great difficulty
I encountered in organizing my party was due solely to the time of year
in which I made the venture. I was not particularly seeking hardship,
but I had to go when I could get away from my professional duties, and
that brought me to Great Slave Lake the first of March. February and
March are the two severest months of the entire year in the Barren
Grounds. It is the time when the storms are at their height and the
thermometer at its lowest. No one had ever been into the Barren Grounds
at that period, and the Indians, who are very loath to venture into an
unknown country or at an unusual season, were disinclined to accompany
me. Indeed it was only by diplomatic handling of the leader and through
the extremely kind offices of the Hudson’s Bay Company post factor,
Gaudet, that I ever succeeded in getting started.
Perhaps it will serve those contemplating such a trip one day, to
record here my personal equipment.
One winter caribou-skin robe, lined with a pair of 4-point
Hudson’s Bay Company blankets.
One winter caribou-skin capote (coat with hood).
One heavy sweater.
Two pairs of moose fur-lined mittens.
One pair moose-skin gloves. (Worn inside of mittens.)
One pair strouds (loose-fitting leggings).
Three silk handkerchiefs.
Eight pairs of moccasins.
Eight pairs of duffel socks.
One copper kettle (for boiling tea).
One cup.
45-90 Winchester half magazine rifle.
Hunting-knife. (See cut page 45.)
Compass.
Spirit thermometer.
10 pounds of tea.
12 pounds of tobacco.
Several boxes of matches.
Flint and steel and tinder.
Two bottles of mustang liniment (which promptly froze solid and
remained so; it was fortunate I did not have occasion to use
it).
In addition I carried, in case of emergency, such as amputation of
frozen toes or other equally unpleasant incidents,--a surgeon’s knife,
antiseptic lozenges, bandages, and iodoform. Of this outfit no two
articles were more important perhaps than the moose-skin gloves and the
strouds. The gloves are worn inside the mittens and worn always; one
never goes barehanded in the Barren Grounds at any time, day or night,
if one is wise. The strouds (reaching above the knee and held up by a
thong and loop attached to waist belt) catch the flying and freezing
snow dust from the snow-shoes, thus protecting the trousers. I forgot
to add, by the way, that I wore Irish frieze trousers, cut small at
the bottoms so as to be easily tied about the ankles. My underwear
was of the heaviest, and I carried a pair of moccasin slippers made
of the unborn musk-ox calf, fur inside. If you ever make a trip after
musk-oxen, do not bring in anything from the outside, except your
rifle, ammunition, and knife. Everything else you should secure at
the outfitting post. There is nothing in this world that equals the
caribou-skin capote for travel in the Northland; it is very light and
practically impervious to the wind. You will also carry with you a
tepee, made of caribou skin. This tepee, or lodge, is not carried for
your comfort or protection against inclement weather, but entirely for
the protection of your camp-fire; because the furious wind that sweeps
the Barren Grounds in winter would not only blow out your flame but
blow away your wood as well. The poles for your lodge you cut at the
last wood and lash to the side of the sledge.
In summer time the question of transportation is much simpler; you go
by canoe and you do not need strouds or the winter caribou-skin capote.
There is a very great difference between the winter and the summer
caribou pelts, and the latter is used for the summer trips. Nor do you
need a tepee in summer.
IV
METHOD OF HUNTING
Among the Indians that live south and west of the Barren Grounds (no
Indian lives in the Barren Grounds), the method of hunting the musk-ox
is practically the same, and, as I have shown in the early part of this
paper, it is because the Indians lack high hunting skill and because
their dogs are neither trained nor courageous that bigger kills are
not made. White hunters and trained dogs could practically wipe out
every herd of musk-oxen they encountered; for while it is true that
musk-oxen give you a long run once you have sighted them, yet when you
get up to them, when the dogs have brought them to bay, it is almost
like shooting cattle in a corral. There is always a long run. I think
I never had less than three miles, and in the first hunt which I have
described, I must have run nine or ten. But, as I say, when you get up
to them it is easy, for they will stand to the dogs so long as the
dogs bay them. And all this running would be unnecessary if the Indians
exercised more hunting skill and judgment.
[Illustration: EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX CALF
Collected at Fort Conger by Commander R. E. Peary, U.S.N. (From a
photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)]
[Illustration: HEAD OF A TWO-YEAR-OLD MUSK-OX BULL
Killed and photographed in the Barren Grounds by the author. The horns
are just beginning to show a downward tendency. Hair over forehead is
gray, short, and somewhat curly. The background is the tepee referred
to in the text.]
Although the prairie form of the country is not altogether the best
for stalking, yet one could stalk comparatively near a herd before
turning the dogs loose. The Indians never do this, and, in addition,
the dogs set up a yelping and a howling the moment they catch sight
of the quarry. This, of course, starts off the musk-oxen, which
invariably choose the roughest part of the country, no doubt feeling,
and rightly, too, that their pursuers will have the more difficult
time following. Indian dogs are not always to be relied upon, for they
have a disposition to hunt in a group, and your entire bunch of dogs
is apt to stop and hold only three or four stragglers of the herd
while the remainder of the musk-oxen escape. Sometimes when they stop
practically the entire herd, the dogs are very likely, before you come
up to them, to shift, leaving their original position and gradually
drawing together; perhaps, the whole pack of dogs finally holding only
half a dozen, while the rest of the musk-oxen have run on. Musk-oxen,
when stopped, invariably form a circle with their sterns in and their
heads out; it matters not whether the herd is thirty or half a dozen,
their action is the same. If there are only two, they stand stern to
stern, facing out. I have seen a single musk-ox back up against a rock.
Apparently they feel safe only when they get their sterns up against
something.
Hunting musk-oxen on the Arctic Coast or the Arctic islands after the
manner of the polar expeditions, is a much simpler proposition. There
the hunters are always comparatively near their base of supplies, and,
from all accounts, the musk-oxen are more numerous than they are in the
interior. According to Frederick Schwatka, the Innuits hunt musk-oxen
with great skill. They hitch their dogs to the sledge differently
from the method of the Indians to the south. The southern Indians
hitch their four dogs in tandem between two common traces, one on each
side; while each Eskimo dog has his own single trace, which is hitched
independently to the sledge. When the Innuits sight the musk-oxen, each
hunter takes the dogs of his sledge, and holding their traces in his
hand, starts after the game. The wisdom of this method is twofold: in
the first place it immeasurably aids the running hunter, for the four
or five straining dogs practically pull him along; indeed, Schwatka
says that when these Innuits come to a hill they squat and slide down,
throwing themselves at full length upon the snow of the ascending bank,
up which the excited dogs drag them without any effort on the part of
the hunter. I should like to add here that if such a plan were pursued
in the Barren Grounds over the rocky ridges, the remains of the hunter
would not be interested in musk-ox hunting by the time the top of a
ridge was reached. Seriously, the chief value of hunting in this style
is that the hunter controls his four to six dogs, the usual number of
the Eskimo sledge. When they have caught up with the musk-ox herd, he
then looses them and he is there to begin action. The Eskimo dogs are
very superior in breed to those used by the Indians farther south, and
are trained as well to run mute.
The chances of getting musk-oxen in the Barren Grounds are not so good
in summer as in winter, because travelling by canoe you are, of course,
bound to keep to the chain of lakes, and your course is therefore
prescribed, it being impossible to travel over the land at will as
it is in winter when all is frozen. One day’s hunting is about like
another. There is nothing to kindle the eye of the nature lover. In
winter it is like travelling over a great frozen sea; in summer it
is a great desolate waste of moss and lichen, dotted with lakes and
rock-topped ridges, which observe no one or special form of direction.
There is a black moss that the Indians sometimes burn if they can find
it dry enough, and a little shrub that furnishes a bitter tea if the
tea of civilization has run out. Nearly all of the lakes have fish, and
a hunter ought really, with experience and judgment, to go in and out
in summer time without suffering any excessive starvation. Warburton
Pike, who has studied the Barren Grounds in summer time more thoroughly
than any other man living, reports spots covered with wild flowers that
grow to no height but in comparative profusion and some beauty.
The distance you make in a summer day of Barren Grounds travel may
depend entirely on your inclination, for with the fish and the moving
caribou you are fairly well assured against hunger, and the weather
is comparatively warm and permits of lingering along the route. It is
quite another story in the winter, for then food is always a problem,
and every day draws on your slender supply of wood. Of course the
farther you penetrate, the nearer you get to the Arctic Coast, the more
likely you are to see musk-oxen; and the faster you travel, of course,
the farther you can penetrate. We averaged about twenty miles a day.
That means that we kept busy every hour from the time we started until
we camped. The hour of starting depended very largely upon whether or
not there was a moon. If there was a moon, we would get started so
as to be well under way by daylight, which when we first entered the
Barren Grounds would be about nine o’clock. If there was no moon, we
waited for daylight. There always was a moon unless it stormed; but
it stormed most of the time. When there was a moon, however, it was
always full. Travelling from Lac La Biche to Great Slave Lake on the
frozen rivers, where it was a mere question of getting from one post
to another, we used to start about two o’clock in the morning, the sun
coming up about ten o’clock and setting at about three, and darkness
falling almost immediately thereafter. In this river travelling I
averaged a full thirty-five miles a day for the (about) nine hundred
miles.
[Illustration: MUSK-OXEN ON CAPE MORRIS JESUP (88° 39´ North Lat.).
BROUGHT TO BAY BY DOGS MAY 17TH, 1900
The animals are within a quarter of a mile of the extreme northern
limit of the most northerly land on the globe. Photograph by courtesy
of Robert E. Peary, by whose expedition it was taken.]
[Illustration: The Author’s Barren Ground Hunting Knife and Ax (14
inches long)]