day was at the camping time in the afternoon. Beniah invariably chose
the highest and most exposed position to be found, that our tepee might
be the more visible to the scouts, kept out all day on either side
looking for caribou, or musk-oxen; and there was always the delaying
discussion of the Indians amongst themselves, while I, chilled to the
bone by the inaction, stood around awaiting the close of the argument
before it was possible to get to the business of camp-making. Because
the snow was packed so hard as to be impossible to shovel away with the
snow-shoe, a rocky site was always sought, where we fitted our bodies
to the uneven ground as best we could. With the camp site definitely
chosen, a circle was made of the sledges, touching head and tail; then
three lodge poles, tied together at the top, were set up in the form
of a triangle, with the ends stuck into the sledges to give them firm
footing, and the four remaining poles placed so as to make a cone of
the triangle. Over and around this was stretched the caribou-skin
tepee, with the bottom edge drawn down and outside the sledges. Blocks
of snow were then cut and banked up around the outside of the tepee
and against the sledges; all this by way of firmly anchoring the tepee,
which set so low that one’s head and shoulders would be in the open
when standing upright in the centre; but that was of no consequence,
the lodge being set up merely as a protection to the fire. A short
pole, also carried along from the last wood, was lashed from side
to side of the tepee, on to the lodge poles proper, and from this,
attached by a piece of babiche and a forked stick, hung the kettle.
Then, all being ready, four or five sticks were taken from the sledges
equally, and split into kindling wood with the heavy knife one needs
to carry in musk-ox hunting. Of course the fire furnished no warmth;
it was not built for that purpose; it was simply to boil the tea, and
perhaps I can best give an idea of its size in saying that by the time
the snow in the kettle had been melted to water and the water begun to
boil,--the fire was exhausted. While it blazed and the tea was making,
always the close circle of seven hungry men, shoulder to shoulder,
squatted around the light in the fancy that some heat must come from
that little jumping flame. Outside that other circle of sledges, the
dogs snuffed and sniffed and howled. Once I took off my gloves, with
the thought of warming my fingers. I made no second experiment of the
kind.
Having drunk the tea, we rolled up in our fur robes, lying side by
side around the tepee, with feet toward the fire and head against the
sledge, knees into the back of the man next you, and snow-shoes under
your head, away from the dogs that would eat the lacing. This was only
preparation for sleep; actual sleep, even to men as tired as we were,
never came until the dogs had finished fighting over us; for so soon as
we were rolled in our robes the dogs invariably poured into the tepee.
As there were twenty-eight dogs, and the lodge about seven feet in
diameter at its base, I need not further describe the situation. Truth
is, that no hour in the day or night was more miserable than this, when
these half-starved brutes fought over and on top of us before they
finally settled down upon us. In extreme cold weather a dog curled up
at your feet or at your back is not unpleasant; but to have one lying
on your head, another on your shoulders or hips, or perhaps a third on
your feet, and you lying on your side on rocky, uneven ground--take my
word for it, the experience is not happy. Of course you are entirely
wrapped up, head and arms as well, in your sleeping robe; if you rise
up to knock the dogs off, you open your robe to the cold: and the dogs
would be back on top of you again just as soon as you had lain down.
It is all in the Musk-ox game; and so you endure.
V
THE MUSK-OX
[Illustration: THE BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX--(_Ovibos moschatus_)
A full-grown bull. (From a photograph provided by the American Museum
of Natural History)]
Although there is nothing in the appearance or in the life of the
musk-ox to suggest romance, yet the Indians and the Eskimo surround
it with much mystery. They say it is not like other animals, that it
is cunning and plays tricks on them, that it is not safe to approach,
that it understands what is said. The Indians among whom I travelled
have a tradition that long years ago a woman wandered into the Barren
Grounds, was lost, and finally turned into a musk-ox by the “enemy.”
Perhaps this accounts for the occasional habit these Indians have when
pursuing musk-oxen of talking to them, instructing them as to the
direction of their flight, etc. Several authors maintain that these
Indians, when hunting, do not talk to other animals; but I have heard
them jabbering while hunting caribou after the same manner they do when
running after musk-oxen. Why the Indians should consider the musk-ox
tricky or ferocious, appears to me to be the only mysterious element in
the discussion; a less ferocious looking animal for its size would, it
seems to me, be impossible to find. Several Arctic explorers who have
written on the musk-ox also refer to it as “formidable” appearing and
“ferocious,” but those are the last adjectives that I should apply to
the creature. The Indians and some of the Arctic authors also say that
it is dangerous to approach, especially when wounded. My experience
does not indorse that statement. We encountered about one hundred and
twenty-five musk-oxen, killing forty-seven, and I did not see one
that even suggested the charging proclivities for which it is given
credit. They stand with lowered heads, making a hook at the dogs that
are nearest, and on occasion making a movement forward, practically
a bluff at charging, but I never saw one really charge a dog, much
less a man. I do not believe they can be induced to break the circle
they invariably form, as they would, of course, do in charging. On one
occasion I wounded a musk-ox badly enough to enable me to run him over
and around a series of short ridges finally to a standstill. He was
entirely alone, and I was without a dog, and when I had got to within
seventy-five feet of him he suddenly stopped running and faced me,
setting his stern against a rock--or, rather, over it, for it was quite
a small rock. I walked up to within about thirty or forty feet of him,
and took a head shot. I thought to see if I could reach his brain, but
the boss of his great frontal horn protects it, except for the small
opening of an inch where the horns are divided. Then with an idea of
putting a ball back of his shoulder or back of his ear, I tried to get
on his side, but as I moved, he moved, always keeping his head straight
at me, and we made several complete circles; yet, in that time,--I
suppose ten or fifteen minutes--he never offered to charge. If a
straggling dog had not come my way and attracted the bull’s attention,
I probably never would have got the chance of a shoulder shot. Mr.
Pike, whom, of living men, I consider to have made the most extended
study of the musk-ox, agrees entirely with my view of the animal so
far as its charging is concerned. Perhaps the musk-ox might charge if
you walked up and pulled his ear, but I doubt if he would under less
provocation, and really, I do not feel so certain that he would even
then. He seems a stupid, mild creature,--anything but “ferocious.”
In one little band of eight which we had separated from the main herd
and killed, a yearling calf ran against my legs, seemingly seeking
protection from the dogs precisely as a young sheep would.
[Illustration: Forefoot of Barren Grounds Musk-ox. ½ actual size]
The musk-ox appears, in fact, to be a veritable link between the ox and
the sheep. It has the rudimentary tail, the molar teeth structure, the
hairy muzzle, and the intestines of the sheep; while its short and wide
canon-bones are like those of the ox, and differ widely from either
sheep or goat. The hoofs are large, with curved toes and somewhat
concave underneath, like the caribou hoof, which facilitates climbing
rocky ridges and scraping away the snow from their only food, the
lichen and the moss, for which purpose their horns are also admirably
adapted. Mr. Rhodes has advanced the theory of the existence of a
transition between the musk-ox and the bison, but the structure of the
molar teeth and the rudimentary tail convince Professor R. Lydekker,
perhaps the foremost scientific authority, of the impossibility
of there being any manner of relationship between the two groups.
Scientifically, the musk-ox is of the genus OVIBUS, divided into _O.
moschatus_, the Barren Grounds and Greenland type, the _O. wardi_
(Lydekker), and _O. bombifrons_, otherwise known as the Harlan’s
musk-ox, an extinct type that, in a word, differed from the present
living type largely in shape of the horns, which did not have the
downward curve of those in existence, nor did the curve of the horns
come closely to the head as they do now.
[Illustration: FULL-GROWN EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX--(_Ovibos Wardi_)
Adult male. (From a photograph provided by the American Museum of
Natural History)]
[Illustration: Forefoot of East Greenland Musk-ox. ½ actual size]
Until 1898 _O. moschatus_ was the only existing type known to either
hunters or scientists. In that year, however, Lieutenant Peary, the
Arctic explorer, killed in Bache Peninsula, Greenland, a series of
specimens which, on being sent to the Museum of Natural History of New
York, were decided by Professor J. A. Allen as having sufficient
distinction to warrant classification. Meantime Rowland Ward, the
London taxidermist, had secured, by purchase, a couple of similar
specimens from East Greenland which Professor Lydekker recognized as a
new variety, and in honor of Mr. Ward named _O. moschatus wardi_. Mr.
Ward’s specimens were secured from whalers who, in turn, got them from
trading with natives in East Greenland. Lieutenant Peary’s specimens,
however, were collected on the ground by himself, and he is certainly
entitled to the honor of the new variety bearing his name. So Professor
Allen rightly thinks, and though he has adopted Professor Lydekker’s
name, he reserves _O. pearyi_ (Allen) as a provisionary one which
may be accepted for the Grinnell Land animal in case it should prove
to be separable. This, however, does not appear likely. The most
distinguishing difference between the _O. wardi_, as called, or _O.
pearyi_, as it should be known, and the _O. moschatus_, is in the head.
The entire front of the new variety head is more or less gray instead
of wholly brown, as is the _O. moschatus_; while the horn base of the
new variety is much narrower and slightly different in shape from those
of the old variety. The skulls of the two varieties are practically
alike; at least there is very slight difference. The general color of
the fur of the new variety is a little lighter, and the animal itself
is not so large or heavily built.
[Illustration: SKULL OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX--(_Ovibos Wardi_)]
[Illustration: SKULL OF THE BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX--(_Ovibos moschatus_)]
[Illustration: SIDE VIEW--(_Ovibos Wardi_)]
[Illustration: SIDE VIEW--(_Ovibos moschatus_)]
How either variety of musk-ox ever got to Greenland has been a
subject of much discussion among scientists who seem now, however, to
have finally decided that they reached the island from the west by
crossing Smith Sound from Ellesmere Land, and by crossing Robeson’s
Channel from Grinnell Land, thence along the low Greenland Coast
to East Greenland. Outside of the Arctic islands and of Arctic America
so far south as the 62d parallel, the musk-ox is unknown. There was a
time, however, when its range included all that part of the northern
hemisphere between, roughly speaking, the Arctic Circle and the North
Pole. It seems even possible that in the dim ages, the musk-ox had a
wider and much more southern distribution, for the skull from which the
extinct type _bombifrons_ was named, was found in Kentucky, another
having been found also in Arkansas. Fossil remains of musk-oxen have
been unearthed in Siberia, Alaska, Grinnell Land, and Northern Europe.
There is no authentic data of their having been found in Alaska within
the memory of present living man, and they do not range within two
hundred miles of the Mackenzie River, which is laid down as their
western limit. Much has been said of their being of recent existence
in Alaska. I made careful search for authentic data concerning their
western range, but secured no information at all trustworthy of even a
tradition of them in Alaska; while nothing more certain than hearsay
handed from father to son did I find as to their being seen near the
Mackenzie River. From time to time statements find their way into print
of a musk-ox found in Alaska. Such misleading information is based on
the tales of traders who may perhaps have got a musk-ox skin at some
Alaskan post. Mr. Andrew J. Stone, who has spent several years in the
Far North collecting for the Museum of Natural History, and who knows
Alaska and all that great stretch of country west of the Mackenzie
River thoroughly, has covered this question in a statement published in
an American Museum bulletin in 1901. It touches finally upon a question
much agitated, and it seems to me sufficiently important to make
permanent record here. Therefore I reproduce it.
[Illustration: MALE YEARLING OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX
(From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)]
AS TO THE WESTERN RANGE OF MUSK-OXEN.
Febr’y 28, 1901.
MY DEAR DR. ALLEN:--
In response to your inquiry in reference to the existence of
the musk-ox (_Ovibos moschatus_) west of the Mackenzie River,
or in Alaska, I will state there are none of these animals in
any part of Arctic America west of the Mackenzie. Previous to
my departure for the North in the spring of 1897, I had for
several years carefully searched for information upon this
subject, and from what I had gathered I had a faint hope of
finding some of these animals in the mountains west of the
Mackenzie, just south of the Arctic Coast. These mountains
are known, respectively, as the Richardson, Buckland, British,
Romanzof, and Franklin Mountains, but in reality they are the
western extension of the main Rocky Mountain range that bends
west from the Mackenzie along the Arctic Coast. On reaching
the neighborhood of these mountains, however, in the winter of
1898-99, all hope of finding living specimens of musk-ox in
them was destroyed.
The Romanzof Mountains, from which specimens of musk-ox are
reported to have recently been brought, by way of Camden Bay,
are about one hundred and seventy-five miles west of Herschel
Island. The Pacific Steam Whaling Company, with offices at No.
30 California Street, San Francisco, have maintained a whaling
station at Herschel Island for a number of years; there has
also been established there for a number of years a Church
of England Mission, under the direction of the Rev. I. O.
Stringer. I visited Herschel Island in November and December,
1898, for the purpose of collecting all possible information
relative to the animal life of those regions. On my way to
and from Herschel Island I sledded the very base of the Davis
Gilbert, Richardson, and Buckland Mountains. I stopped over
night on both journeys with a lot of Eskimo, at that time
hunting the Davis Gilbert Mountains and living in what is known
as Oakpik (willow camp), in the extreme western part of the
Mackenzie delta, very near the foot of the mountains. Specimens
of _Ovis dalli_ (white sheep) and of caribou and fur-bearing
animals were plentiful in their camp, but there was no sign of
musk-ox.
At Shingle Point, on the Arctic Coast, near the Richardson
Mountains, I spent several days with a man who was trading with
the Eskimo who were hunting the Richardson Mountains. There
were several Eskimo in his camp at the time, and he had in his
possession skins of the white sheep, caribou, and a variety of
fur-bearing animals, but there was no sign of musk-ox, and
I learned on careful inquiry through my interpreter that the
natives seemed to know nothing of them, with the exception
of one young man who had been to the eastward on one of the
whaling ships. The Tooyogmioots, a tribe of Eskimo who once
lived along this coast and hunted these different mountains,
are now almost extinct. I found between the mouth of the
Mackenzie and Herschel Island a very few individuals living in
snow houses, but I did not find in or around their places of
residence any sign of musk-ox skins, bones, or heads.
I remained at Herschel Island from Nov. 24 to Dec. 14, visiting
the Rev. I. O. Stringer and Capt. Haggerty of the steam-whaler,
_Mary Dehume_. Both men were able to converse readily with
the Eskimo in the Eskimo tongue, and they gave me every
possible assistance in making my inquiries. This whole coast
far to the westward of Herschel Island is now occupied by the
Noonitagmiott tribe of Eskimo. There were a large number of
these people at the island, and among them were parties who
hunted all the mountains of the mainland mentioned, living in
the mountains a great part of the time. Many skins of caribou,
sheep, and fur-bearing animals were seen in the possession
of these people, but none of them possessed any part of the
musk-ox, and the only members of the tribe who knew anything
of the musk-ox were those who had been carried to the east by
whaling ships. The Rev. Mr. Stringer takes great interest in
the natural resources of the country and travels extensively
among these people, but he had no knowledge of the existence
of any musk-oxen west of the Mackenzie. Capt. Haggerty had
wintered along this coast for a number of years, trading
extensively with the natives, but he had never secured or heard
of a musk-ox skin west of the Mackenzie.
All the whaling ships, which have wintered here for years,
sometimes as many as fifteen at the same time, keep Eskimo
hunters in the field continually for the purpose of securing
fresh meat for the crews, sending white sailors in charge of
dog sleds to visit the Eskimo camps to bring in the meat. It
is not uncommon for these sleds to go one hundred and fifty
to two hundred miles for meat, and all the mountains to the
north and west of Herschel Island have been visited many times
by these hunters and sledding parties, without obtaining any
trace of musk-ox. Collinson, who wintered near Camden Bay in
1853-54, does not mention the musk-ox. The U. S. Government
Survey party, which wintered on the Porcupine several years ago
and visited Rampart House, a Hudson Bay trading post at the
Ramparts on the Porcupine River, and who went from there with
Mr. John Firth, the Hudson Bay Company’s trader, north through
these mountains to the Arctic Coast and returned, did not
find musk-ox. Several white men have travelled back and forth
through these mountains from Fort Yukon, on the Yukon River, to
Herschel Island, for the purpose of securing sled dogs of the
Eskimo on the Arctic Coast, to be used on the Yukon, without
securing or learning anything of the musk-ox. Mr. Hodgson and
Mr. Firth, both in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, have
been stationed at Fort Yukon at the mouth of the Porcupine,
at Rampart House on the Porcupine, and at Lapierres House on
Bell River, a tributary of the Porcupine, during a period
of over thirty years, trading with the Loucheaux Indians,
several tribes of which hunt north of these places into the
mountains mentioned, without ever obtaining any knowledge of
the existence of musk-ox; and the Hudson Bay Company have never
secured at any of these posts any skins of the musk-ox.
Previous to the advent of the whalers on this coast, the coast
Eskimo also traded at these Hudson Bay posts. The country
between the Porcupine River and the Arctic Coast, in which
district the mountains above mentioned are situated, is
entirely accessible from the north or south, and every part of
it has been hunted for years by the Eskimo and Indians. Barter
Island, near Camden Bay, has been the rendezvous of the north
coast Eskimo for years, where they meet every summer to barter
and trade with each other. At one of these midsummer festivals
there may be seen spotted reindeer skins from Siberia, walrus
ivory and walrus skins from Bering Sea, or the stone lamps from
the land of the Cogmoliks (the far-away people) of the East,
and it is not impossible, though hardly probable, that musk-ox
skins might be found there.
I also travelled through the country of the Kookpugmioots and
Abdugmioots of the Arctic Coast, east of the Mackenzie. The
first people encountered along the coast east of the Mackenzie
are the Kookpugmioots--they hunt the coast country as far east
as Liverpool Bay, but many of their best hunters never saw a
musk-ox. The Abdugmioots originally hunted the Anderson River
country, but now live around Liverpool Bay, and most of them
have hunted musk-ox. The Kogmoliks, who once lived around
Liverpool and Franklin Bays, but who are now practically merged
with the Kookpugmioots, along the shores of Allen Channel, have
been musk-ox killers.
A good many of the Port Clarence natives, living near Bering
Straits, have killed musk-oxen, but only around the head of
Franklin Bay and on Parry Peninsula, they having been taken
there by whalers. Nearly all the whaling ships pick up Port
Clarence natives, on their way north and east to the whaling
grounds, and keep them with them until their return, perhaps
thirty months later. Some of these vessels have wintered at
Cape Bathurst and in Langton Bay at the head of Franklin Bay.
Four of these vessels wintered in Langton Bay in 1897-98,
and during the winter their Eskimo and sailors killed about
eighty head of musk-oxen, most of which were taken on the Parry
Peninsula. When I was at Herschel Island, in the winter of
1898, I saw forty of these skins in one of the warehouses of
the Pacific Steam Whaling Company. They were the property of
Capt. H. H. Bodfish of the steam whaler _Beluga_.
The range of the musk-ox at the present time does not extend
westward to within three hundred miles of the Mackenzie delta.
Any information concerning the musk-ox gathered around Point
Barrow and thence south to Bering Straits and Port Clarence,
has been obtained from natives who have accompanied whaling
ships to the East; and all the musk-ox skins that find a market
in San Francisco have been purchased, directly or indirectly,
from the whaling ships.
Very truly yours,
ANDREW J. STONE.
Wherever explorers have gone into Eastern Arctic North America they
have found the musk-ox. Lieutenant Peary, who has spent more time
in the Arctic than any other living man, writes that he has killed
musk-oxen at Cape Bryant on the Northwest Coast, and at the extreme
northern end of Greenland Archipelago, north latitude 83° 39´, and it
appears from lack of records to the contrary that they are found on all
the Arctic islands except, curiously enough, the Islands of Spitzbergen
and Franz Josef Land, where they are unknown. That the musk-ox does not
seem to migrate on the ice from island to island as the reindeer do, is
another curious fact.
Frederick Schwatka, who hunted along the Arctic Coast, and one or two
of the scientists, place the southerly range of the musk-oxen at the
60th parallel, but this is fully two, if not four, degrees too far
south to correctly represent their present range. Hearne saw tracks in
latitude 59°, and musk-oxen in latitude 61°, in 1771, but I have never
heard of musk-oxen being killed within recent years so far south as
the 62d parallel. It is conceivable, however, that they might stray
so far south, though in my opinion highly improbable. Pike records
a musk-ox killed at Aylmer Lake, in the Barren Grounds. This is the
most southerly killing that I have heard of, and the most southerly
one of which Mr. Pike makes record. Aylmer Lake is just above the 64th
parallel. I saw no musk-oxen below the 65th degree, and it was my
experience, as well as Pike’s, that musk-oxen are not what you may,
comparatively speaking, call plentiful until the 66th parallel.
[Illustration: ADULT FEMALE OF THE EAST GREENLAND MUSK-OX
(From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)]