_OF THE FUR-BEARING ANIMALS_
[Illustration: Eskimo Boys.]
For food purposes among land animals the caribou, which closely
resembles the reindeer, ranks first. These roam over the interior in
great quantities, feeding on the very plentiful Iceland moss. In winter
they scrape away the snow with their large cow-like hoofs to get at
it. In Newfoundland they are very plentiful in the interior, and Mr.
W. Tyrrell of Winnipeg told me, that on the west side of Hudson Bay
he found thousands, so tame they would eat out of his hands. They
migrate north in summer, and south in winter, due, says Rae, to their
“sense of polarity,” but I should presume in search of food. They are
difficult to find in the woods, for the colour of their skins varies
with the seasons, and always closely resembles their surroundings.
Unfortunately they are too far inland for the majority of settlers to
reach.
The stags have magnificent antlers, which are especially fine about
October, the rutting season. With these they fight fiercely, going down
on their knees, and striking with the powerful brow-antlers. I have
seen several pairs of “locked horns” that have been picked up, the poor
creatures having got these fixed and died side by side of starvation.
A hunter this fall, having skinned a young stag he had killed, put the
skin over him so that the horns, which were attached, came on his head.
He then walked out towards a herd of does, over which a fine stag was
keeping zealous watch as they grazed on the open marsh. They allowed
him to come within range, and then the stag, mistaking him for a rival,
actually charged down upon him.
Polar bears are not uncommon, and five were killed this season near
Cape Chidley. Captain Blandford, of the S.S. _Neptune_, told me that,
having sent some men ashore for water in a strange harbour near Cape
Chidley, they returned in great haste, calling for their guns, and
shouting, “Bears!” They were soon perceived from the ship to be firing,
shot after shot being heard in rapid succession, and great expectations
were raised of bear steak for dinner. At last the hunters returned
with downcast countenances. The bears proved to be only inflated heads,
which some Eskimo were using as buoys for their lines.
In one boat going out to their fish trap were seven men, six rowing,
and the skipper standing on the stern seat, steering with an oar.
Suddenly a large white bear was sighted swimming close to the boat.
There was no gun on board, and yet the men were loath to lose so rich a
prize. Chase was therefore given, and the skipper kept hurling at the
bear the large two-pronged lead “jigger,” with a stout line attached.
Each time he threw it the bear warded it off, striking it a smart blow
with his fore-paw. At last one jigger came fast, and then another, till
the bear, who seemed only bent on escape, and was now wearied with
repeated diving, was hauled near the boat, and first clubbed with an
oar, and then despatched with an axe.
Black bears are very common. They are, as a rule, herbivorous, eating
the wild berries, and insectivorous; but one night a settler I was
staying with showed me the skin of a large bear he had just trapped.
He was living at the mouth of a trout and salmon river, the entrance
to which he barred with nets. Two bears happening to observe some fish
struggling in the net on the surface of the water near the land were,
I suppose, tempted to feloniously sample the unexpected windfall, and
having once erred, continued their wild career. For the settler told
me they learnt regularly to come down and haul his nets, dragging them
to the land, and not only eating out the fish, but severely damaging
the nets. But punishment had been meted out to one in the form of a
charge of buckshot, to the other by a steel trap.
Cartwright thus illustrates the power of this bear: “We discovered
this morning the damage done by a polar bear to a cask of oil. It was
of strong oak staves, well secured by thick, broad hoops of birch. Yet
with one blow of his tremendous paw he had snapped off the four chime
hoops and broken the staves short off.”
The most valuable fur animals are the fox, otter, beaver, mink,
marten, and lynx. Musk-rats, squirrel, and hares are also plentiful.
The porcupine is not uncommon. One specimen I shot was larger than
a sucking pig. The long black hair, which almost obscures the short
quills, made it resemble a bear as it sat asleep on a bough at the top
of a fir tree. A bullet through the head brought it down at once, but
even when mortally wounded they will cling to the boughs, and you may
have to fell the tree. I saw a dog one day worrying one. The porcupine,
with its head well down, waited for the dog to come near, and then
switched round his tail end, on which are most spikes, with lightning
speed, hoping to leave some in his enemy’s nose. The quills are all
barbed, so that they “work in.” In this way they will kill dogs,
wolves, and foxes. A fox was found dead near Hopedale, its skin ruined
by festering sores, which, on examination, showed the ends of the black
and white quills. It is very amusing to see how easily it wards off an
enemy by always turning its back to him! When the dog was tired out,
the porcupine went up the nearest tree, had a good meal, and went to
sleep on a bough.
Black or “silver” fox skins are very valuable. For one good black skin
I have known £170 given by a Russian nobleman. The average retail
value of silver fox skins is nearly £50. Now the cunning of foxes is
proverbial, but Cartwright tells us a story of vulpine ingenuity in a
marten. One day he was going to travel a long distance, and desired
to leave a deposit of food for his return journey. He feared to bury
it, because foxes would be sure to find it, so climbing a tree he hung
it by a string from one of the branches. Shortly after a marten came
along, and espied the dainty morsel high over his head. Whether he had
watched old Cartwright climbing, or whether it was an inspiration, the
tale does not say, but in any case it climbed the tree also, gnawed
through the string, and then, with an appetite whetted by the exercise,
had a square meal at its leisure.
[Illustration: A Beaver.]
Walking one day through thick wood we came across a regular “pathway,”
the trees having been felled to make travelling easy. A glance at the
stumps showed that it was a road cut by beavers, to enable them to drag
their boughs of birch along more easily. The pathway led to a large
house on the edge of a lake, and, fortunately for us, the beaver was at
home. There were other houses on an island in the lake, and below them
all a large, strong dam, some thirty yards long, built the shape of a
half-moon, and below this two more complete dams across the river that
flowed out. The dams were made of large tree-trunks, with quantities
of lesser boughs, and were many feet thick, and very difficult to
break down. The houses were built half on land, half in the water. The
sitting-room is upstairs on the bank, and so is the “crew’s” bedroom,
and the front door made at least three feet below the surface to
prevent being “frozen out” in winter, or, worse still, “frozen in.”
The whole house was neatly rounded off, and so plastered with mud as to
be warm and weather-proof. This is done by means of their trowel-like
tails, which are also of great use in swimming. The house was so strong
that even with an axe we could not get in without very considerable
delay. In the deep pond they had dammed up, we found a quantity of
birch poles pegged out. The bark of these forms their winter food, and
is called “browse.” The beaver cuts off enough for dinner, and takes
it into his house. Sitting up, he takes the stem in his fore paws,
and rolls it round and round against his chisel-shaped incisor teeth,
swallowing the long ribands of bark thus stripped off. While entering
the house the stick often sets off a trap set for them. The trappers
say they do this purposely. When surprised they retreat to holes in the
bank, of which the entrances are hidden under water. These are called
“hovels.”
Beavers always work up wind when felling trees, and cut them on the
water side, so that they fall into the pond if possible, and the
wind helps to blow them home. This beaver we caught proved to be a
hermit—at least he was living alone. He may have been a widower of
unusual constancy. They do not destroy fish, their food in summer being
preferably the stem of the water-lilies. Otters occasionally kill and
eat beavers. When they call the beaver has to try and be “not at home.”
Of the other animals I have not space to say much. The blue-grey hare
is a large animal, and like all the others turns white in winter—so
wonderfully does God remember all His creatures.
The pretty little squirrel is very tame. Like a good sensible fellow
he makes round holes in the ground, and hides enough berries for his
“winter diet.”
The climate of Labrador is rigorous in the extreme, in spite of
the fact that in summer, especially in the inlets, the thermometer
sometimes registers 75° and even 80° F. Icefields from Baffin’s
Bay and Davis Strait block the coast from October to June, the sea
freezing entirely over all along the shore. Over this all the winter
travelling is done, but sometimes the commotion below so moves the
ice up and down that a team of dogs with their sledge will only move
backwards when a swell arises. The average temperature all the year
round is at Hopedale 27° F., at Nain 22·5° F., that is a mean average
temperature of 5° and 9·5° respectively of frost. During the months
the sea is open, countless islands of ice are driven all along the
coast, while snowslips often make the land dangerous. A settler, his
two sons, and son-in-law were ascending the slope of an island near
Sandwich Bay to witness the first break-up of the ice in spring, when
an avalanche of snow buried all but one son, who was a few yards behind
the rest. Rushing to where he saw his father last, and tearing away
the hard-frozen snow with hand and foot, he came eventually on his
father’s head, four feet below the surface. Though his father heard the
son searching, he could neither stir nor shout to guide him, from the
weight of snow over him. This man told me the sad story. The other two
lads were lost.
Storms of exceptional violence and of sudden onset occasionally visit
the coast. The wind seems to blow from all quarters at once, hurling
clouds of sea-water as dust, often mixed with icy spicules, far over
the land. A few years ago a vessel in Black Tickle, lying at anchor
near Gready, was carried up and left on the rocks twenty feet above
high-water line; at the same time £4,000 of damage was done, in that
one harbour alone, by all the stages with the summer’s voyage of fish
and all the boats being suddenly washed away. It was then October, and
snow was on the ground. All the survivors left as soon as possible. On
returning next year an old man of this vessel was found dead beneath
the snow, his hands crossed, his eyes bandaged. Evidently he had laid
himself out for burial. On October 9, 1867, in one of these sudden
gales, forty vessels were hurled on the rocks. Forty poor souls lost
their lives, and fifteen hundred people were cast ashore.
Again on October 26, 1885, in a similar hurricane 80 vessels were lost,
70 lives, and 2,000 men, women, and children left on the coast. The
Newfoundland Government had to send up special steamers to bring these
people home.
Easterly gales especially, as the water is deep, heave in a most
wonderful ground-swell. Close to the land, I have in our little steamer
been so low down in these great watery valleys, that, standing on deck,
we could not see even the tops of the hills over the crest of the next
wave. Admiral Bayfield says, “It bursts with fury right over islands
thirty feet in height, sending sheets of foam and spray, sparkling in
the sunbeams fifty feet up the sides of precipices.”
One feature, however, of rare beauty is peculiar to these Arctic
regions. I mean the Aurora Borealis. At times one radiant crown circles
the zenith; at others, vast columns of light advancing across the
heavens keep changing shape like battalions of men attacking, the
varying uniforms of these flying squadrons resplendent with every
shade of violet, red and gold; at others deadly pale phantoms creep
ghost-like upwards from the northern horizon, till the whole space
overhead is filled with quivering rays. Icebergs, till now invisible,
reveal their baneful presence; but almost before the sailor has time to
note their bearings, these transient glories are suddenly extinguished,
and the sea and sky are once more plunged into darkness, all the more
death-like for the contrast, so that men call it, “The dead at play.”
The weird mirage also serves to add mystery to these regions. Often
have we seen huge icebergs as if capsized, and hovering in the waves
of ether over the stern realities below, as though kissing them and
rejoicing in their power for evil.
[Illustration: Mountaineer Indians on the _Sir Donald_.]