In the various records of Arctic exploration, and especially in those
dealing with the Barren Ground, there is frequent mention of deer,
reindeer, and caribou, leaving the casual reader in doubt as to how many
species of deer inhabit the rocky wilderness between the woods and the
Arctic Sea. As a matter of fact, the Barren Ground caribou (which name I
prefer, as distinguishing it from the woodland caribou, the only other
member of the reindeer tribe existing on the American continent) is the
sole representative of the Cervidæ found in this locality.
The chief distinction between this animal and its cousin the woodland
caribou, or _caribou des bois fort_ in the half-breed parlance, lies in
the different size, the latter having by far the advantage in height and
weight. I have had no opportunity of weighing specimens of either kind,
but should imagine that the woodland must be fully a third the heavier
of the two. I cannot agree with some of the natural history books which
state that the smaller animals carry the larger horns, as of all the
Barren Ground caribou that we killed I never saw any with horns to
compare with the giant antlers of the woodland caribou of Newfoundland
or British Columbia; more irregular, if possible, they may be, and
perhaps have a greater number of points, but they are far behind in
weight, spread, and size of beam. The perfect double plough is more
often seen in the smaller specimen, the larger animal being usually
provided with only one, or with one plough and a spike. In colour they
closely resemble each other, but there is rather more white noticeable
in the representative of the Barren Ground, especially in the females,
while the texture of the coat, as is to be expected, is finer in the
smaller variety. The hoofs have the same curious "snow-shoe" formation
in both cases.
The range of the Barren Ground caribou appears to be from the islands in
the Arctic Sea to the southern part of Hudson's Bay, while the Mackenzie
River is the limit of their western wandering, although not many years
ago they are known to have crossed the Slave River in the neighbourhood
of Fort Smith. In the summer time they keep to the true Barren Ground,
but in the autumn, when their feeding-grounds are covered with snow,
they seek the hanging moss in the woods. From what I could gather from
the Yellow Knife Indians at the east end of the Great Slave Lake, and
from my own personal experience, it was late in October, immediately
after the rutting season, that the great bands of caribou, commonly
known as _La Foule_, mass up on the edge of the woods, and start for
food and shelter afforded by the stronger growth of pines farther
southward. A month afterwards the males and females separate, the latter
beginning to work their way north again as early as the end of February;
they reach the edge of the woods in April, and drop their young far out
towards the sea-coast in June, by which time the snow is melting rapidly
and the ground showing in patches. The males stay in the woods till May
and never reach the coast, but meet the females on their way inland at
the end of July; from this time they stay together till the rutting
season is over and it is time to seek the woods once more.
The horns are mostly clear of velvet towards the end of September, but
some of the females carry it later even than this; the old bulls shed
their antlers early in December, and the young ones do the same towards
the end of that month, the females being some weeks later. In June both
sexes present a very shabby appearance, as the old coats have grown long
and white and are falling off in patches; by the end of July the new
hair has grown, and the skins are then in their best condition.
The caribou are extremely uncertain in their movements, seldom taking
the same course in two consecutive years, and thus affording ground for
the universal cry in the North that the caribou are being killed off. I
think there is really much truth in the statement that they keep a more
easterly route than formerly, as they seldom come in large quantities
to the Mackenzie River, where they used to be particularly numerous in
winter. This is in a great measure accounted for by the fact that great
stretches of the country have been burnt, and so rendered incapable of
growing the lichen so dearly beloved by these animals. The same thing
applies at Fort Resolution, where, within the last decade, the southern
shore of the Great Slave Lake has been burnt and one of the best ranges
totally destroyed.
One point that seems to bear out the theory of a more easterly movement
is that within the last three years the caribou have appeared in their
thousands at York Factory on the west side of Hudson's Bay, where they
have not been seen for over thirty years; but I cannot believe, judging
from the vast herds that I myself saw, that there is any danger of the
caribou being exterminated.
It is absurd to say that the white man is killing them off, as no white
man ever fires a shot at them unless they pass very close to a Company's
establishment, and the Indians are themselves surely dying out year by
year. Nor is it any argument to say that the Indians sometimes starve to
death from want of success in hunting, as a glance at Hearne's _Journey
to the Northern Ocean in 1771_ will show that the same state of affairs
prevailed before the Company had penetrated to the Great Slave Lake or
Mackenzie River. Starvation will always be one of the features of a
Northern Indian's life, owing to his own improvidence; his instinct is
to camp close on the tracks of the caribou and move as they move; a
permanent house and a winter's supply of meat are an abomination to him.
Since the introduction of firearms the Indian has lost much of his old
hunting lore! a snare is almost a thing of the past, but is still
occasionally used when ammunition is scarce. It is no hard matter to
kill caribou in the open country, for the rolling hills usually give
ample cover for a stalk, and even on flat ground they are easily
approached at a run, as they will almost invariably circle head to wind
and give the hunter a chance to cut them off. But it is with the spear
that the vast slaughter in the summer is annually made. The best
swimming-places are known and carefully watched, and woe betide a herd
of caribou if once surrounded in a lake by the small hunting-canoes. One
thrust of the spear, high up in the loins and ranging forward, does the
work. There is no idea of sparing life, no matter what the age or sex of
the victim may be; the lake is red with blood and covered with sometimes
several hundred carcasses, of which fully one-half are thrown away as
not fat enough to be eaten by men who may be starving in a month. Surely
this should exterminate the game; but, if one remonstrates with the
Indians at the waste, the ready answer comes: "Our fathers did this and
have taught us to do the same; they did not kill off the caribou, and
after we are gone there will be plenty for our children." These animals
are easily induced to swim at any particular spot by putting up a line
of rocks at right angles to the water, and a line of pine bush planted
in the snow across a frozen lake has the same effect; the caribou will
not pass it, but following it along fall an easy prey to the hunter
lying in ambush at the end of the line. In the winter they are killed in
great numbers on the small lakes in the timber, as they seem disinclined
to leave the open lake and will often run close up to the gun rather
than take to the woods. I have heard this accounted for by the
suggestion that they take the report of the gun for a falling tree and
are afraid of being struck if they venture off the lake; but I fancy
their natural curiosity has a great deal to do with this extraordinary
behaviour. It frequently happens that they will run backwards and
forwards within range till the last of the band is killed.
The caribou supplies the Indian with nearly all the necessaries of life;
it gives him food, clothing, house, and the equivalent of money to spend
at the fort. He leaves the trading-post, after one of his yearly visits,
with a supply of ammunition, tea, and tobacco, a blanket or two, and, if
he has made a good season's hunt, is perhaps lucky enough to have taken
one of the Company's duffel _capotes_ (about the best form of greatcoat
that I have ever seen). He has a wife and family waiting for him
somewhere on the shore of the big lake where fish are plentiful,
expecting a gaudy dress, a shawl, or a string of beads from the fort,
but relying entirely on the caribou for maintenance during the awful
cold of the coming winter. The journey up till they fall in with the
caribou is usually full of hardships, but once they have reached the
hunting-ground and found game a great improvement in affairs takes
place; the hunter is busy killing, while the women dry meat and make
grease, dress the skins for moccasins, mittens, and gun-covers, and cut
_babiche_, which takes the place of string for lacing snow-shoes and
many other purposes. For the hair-coats, which everybody, men, women,
and children, wear during the cold season, the best skins are those of
the young animals killed in July or August, as the hair is short and
does not fall off so readily as in coats made from the skin of a
full-grown caribou; while the strong sinews lying along the backbone of
an old bull make the very best thread for sewing. Anything that is left
over after supplying the whole family finds a ready sale at the fort,
where there is always a demand for dried meat, tongue-grease, dressed
skins, and _babiche_, so that the Dog-Ribs and Yellow Knives, whose
country produces little fur, with the exception of musk-ox robes, are
thus enabled to afford some few of the white man's luxuries, tea and
tobacco being especially dear to the Indian's heart.
A good hunter kills the caribou with discretion according to their
condition at various seasons of the year. After the females leave the
woods in the early spring he has of course only the males to fall back
on, and these are usually poor till August, when the bones are full of
marrow and the back-fat commences to grow. By the middle of September
this back-fat, or _depouille_ as it is called in Northern patois, has
reached a length of a foot or more forward from the tail, and, as it is
sometimes a couple of inches thick and extends right across the back, it
is a great prize for the lucky hunter. It is a point of etiquette that
when two or more Indians are hunting in company, the _depouille_ and
tongue belong to the man who did the killing, while the rest of the meat
is shared in common.
Towards the end of October, when the rutting season is over, the males
are in very poor condition. The females then come into demand, but it is
not till the end of the year that they show any back-fat at all, and
this is always small in comparison with that of a bull killed in the
Fall. The summer months are generally spent by the Indians far out in
the Barren Ground, and then, as I have said, they slaughter everything
that comes within reach of their spear in the most indiscriminate
manner.
Excepting in times of plenty, when the utmost recklessness with
provisions is displayed, there are very few parts of the caribou thrown
away, and often the actual stomach is the only thing left; the blood is
carefully preserved, and some of the intestines are prized as great
luxuries. If one does not see the actual preparations for cooking they
are good enough, but the favourite dish of all, the young unborn caribou
cut from its dead mother, I could never take kindly to, although it is
considered a delicacy among the Indians throughout the northern part of
Canada. Another morsel held in high esteem is the udder of a milk-giving
doe, which is usually roasted on the spot where the animal is killed. Of
the external parts the ribs and brisket rank highest, the haunches being
generally reserved for dog's food; a roast head is not to be despised,
and a well-smoked tongue is beyond all praise. It was the caribou of the
Barren Ground that provided the reindeers' tongues formerly exported in
such quantities by the Hudson's Bay Company. The general method of
cooking everything in the lodge is by boiling, which takes most of the
flavour out of the meat, but has the advantage of being easy and
economical of firewood.
The marrow is usually eaten raw, and, as there is no blood visible in
the bones of a fat animal, it is not such a disgusting habit as it seems
to be at first sight, and one readily accustoms oneself to the fashion.
Everybody who has travelled in the North has experienced the same
craving for grease as the cold becomes more intense. In the case of a
white man the enforced absence of flour and all vegetable food may be an
additional cause for this feeling; but it is a fact that you can
cheerfully gnaw a solid block of grease or raw fat that it would make
you almost sick to look at in a land of temperate climate and civilized
methods of living.
The Indian is by no means the only enemy of the caribou. Along the shore
of the Arctic Sea live straggling bands of Esquimaux who kill great
quantities of these persecuted animals, although employing more
primitive methods than their southern neighbours; it is done, moreover,
at the most fatal season of the year, just as the females have arrived
at the coast and are dropping their young. Then there are the
ever-hungry wolves and wolverines that hang with such pertinacity on the
travelling herds and rely upon them entirely for subsistence. It is
rarely that a caribou once singled out can escape. The wolves hunt in
bands and seldom leave the track they have selected; the chase lasts for
many hours, till the victim, wearied by the incessant running, leaves
the band and his fate is sealed; he has a little the best of the pace at
first but not the staying power, and is soon pulled to the ground. Many
a time I witnessed these courses, and once disturbed half a dozen wolves
just as they commenced their feast on a caribou in which life was hardly
extinct, and I took the tongue and _depouille_ for my share of the hunt.
[Illustration: A Dead White Wolf]
I only saw wolves of two colours, white and black, during my stay in the
North, although I heard much talk of grey wolves. There was some sort
of disease, resembling mange, among them in the winter of 1889-90, which
had the effect of taking off all their hair, and, judging from the
number of dead that were lying about, must have considerably thinned
their numbers. They do not seem to be dangerous to human beings except
when starving; but the Indians have stories of crazy wolves that run
into the lodges, kill the children, and play general havoc. I know that
they do at times get bold under stress of hunger, as my own hauling dogs
were set upon and eaten by them while harnessed to the sleigh close to
the house at Fond du Lac; nothing remained but the sleigh, and a string
of bells that must have proved less tempting than the rest of the
harness.
I scarcely credit the statement I have often heard made, that the
wolverines will kill a full-grown caribou, although it is possible that
they may attack the young ones. They follow the herds more for the
pickings they can get from the feasts of the wolves, and are content
with showing their fighting powers on hares and ptarmigan; if meat is
not to be had they will eat berries freely, and their flesh is then not
so bad as after they have had a long course of meat. The _carcajou_
possesses great strength and cunning in removing rocks and breaking into
a _cache_; it climbs with great agility, and has a mean trick of
throwing down a marten-trap from behind and taking out the bait, and is
generally credited by the Indian with more wiles than the devil
himself. It is an animal common enough in many parts of Canada, but is
rarely seen in the woods on account of its retiring habits. In the
Barren Ground, however, I had many opportunities of watching them
through the glasses as they worked at the carcass of a caribou or
musk-ox, and was much struck by the enormous power exercised by so small
an animal; in travelling it seems to use only one pace, the _lope_ of
the Western prairies, which it is said to be able to keep up for an
indefinite time.
Another great source of annoyance to the caribou are the two sorts of
gadfly which use these animals as a hatching-ground for their eggs. The
biggest kind, which seem the most numerous, deposit their eggs on the
back, and, as they hatch out, the grubs bore through the skin and prey
on the surrounding flesh. They begin to show in October, and grow bigger
through the winter till the following spring, the number of holes in
many cases rendering the skin absolutely useless for dressing. The other
kind of fly lays its eggs in the nostril, with the result that in the
months of May and June a nest of writhing grubs, slimmer and more lively
than the grubs under the skin, appears at the root of the tongue; at
this time of year the caribou may be often seen to stop and shake their
heads violently, with their horns close to the ground, evidently greatly
troubled by these grubs. Of the latter kind the Indians who travelled
with me in the summer have a great horror, warning me to be very careful
not to eat them, as they have an idea they would surely grow in a man's
throat; and whenever we killed an animal, the first operation was to cut
off its head and remove these unpleasant objects. By the beginning of
August all the grubs have dropped off and the holes healed up, while the
new coat has grown and the skins are then in their best condition.
I could not hear of any attempt ever having been made to domesticate the
caribou, though there is no good reason why they should not be trained
to do the same work as the reindeer of Northern Europe. If this were
brought about it would do away with the greatest difficulty of winter
travel, the trouble about dog's food, which cripples any attempt to make
a long journey except where game is very plentiful; wherever there was
green timber and hanging moss the caribou might find its own supper, and
would always come in better for food than a thin dog in times of
starvation.
The caribou afford a wide scope for the superstitions so ingrained in
the Indian nature, and the wildest tales without the least foundation
are firmly believed in. One widely-spread fancy is that they will
entirely forsake a country if anyone throws a stick or stone at them,
and their disappearance from the neighbourhood of Fort Resolution is
accounted for by the fact of a boy, who had no gun, joining in the
chase when the caribou were passing in big numbers, and clubbing one to
death with a stick; this belief holds good also down the Mackenzie
River, as does the idea that these animals on some occasions vanish
either into the air or under the ground. The Indians say that sometimes
when following close on a herd they arrive at a spot where the tracks
suddenly cease and the hunter is left to wonder and starve. It is very
unlucky to let the dogs eat any part of the head, and the remaining
bones are always burnt or put up in a tree out of reach, the dogs going
hungry, unless there happens to be some other kind of meat handy.
Another rather more sensible superstition, presumably invented by the
men, is that no woman must eat the gristle of the nose (a much-esteemed
delicacy), or she will infallibly grow a beard.
Such are examples of the endless traditions told of the caribou, which
will always form the chief topic of conversation in the scattered lodges
of the Dog-Ribs and Yellow Knives.