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.
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