The Barren Ground of Northern CanadaAn account of a journey in 1889 to the desert region of Canada between Hudson Bay and the Arctic Sea, in order to find and study the musk-ox and its Indian hunters. |
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ammunition animals Arctic Athabasca band bank Barren Ground Beaulieu blanket boat cache camp canoe caribou chance Chipeweyan cold course crew cross distance dogs east Esquimaux exploration feet fire Fish River flour Fond du Lac Fort Resolution Fort Smith François frozen half-breeds hard Hudson's Bay Company Hudson's Hope hunt Indians island journey killed Lac de Gras Lake Mackay land leaving Lesser Slave Lake load lodge Mackay Mackenzie River Macleod's Lake meat moccasins morning mountains Murdo musk-ox night northern open water paddling passed Peace River pines plenty portage ptarmigan put ashore rapid reached rocks Rocky rough Saltatha seen shore short side skins Slave Lake Slave River sleighs Smoky River snow snow-shoes soon spot stream tea and tobacco timber tion tracks walk weather willows wind winter wolverines woods Yellow Knives Zinto
Popular passages
Page 89 - Ptarmigan came literally in thousands, while the tracks of wolves, wolverines, and Arctic foxes made a continuous network in the snow. Scattered bands of caribou were almost always in sight from the top of the ridge behind the camp, and increased in numbers till the morning of October 2Oth, when little Baptiste, who had gone for firewood, woke us up before daylight with the cry of La foule!
Page vi - This, then, was the sole object of my journey ; to try and penetrate this unknown land, to see the Muskox, and find out as much as I could about their habits, and the habits of the Indians who go in pursuit of them every year.
Page 91 - ... glasses, we could see them coming like regiments on the march. In every direction we could hear the grunting noise that the caribou always make when travelling; the snow was broken into broad roads and I found it useless to try to estimate the number that passed within a few miles of our encampment. . . This passage of the caribou is the most remarkable thing that I have ever seen in the course of many expeditions among the big game of America. The buffalo were for the most part killed out before...
Page 90 - ... regiments on the march. In every direction we could hear the grunting noise that the caribou always make when travelling ; the snow was broken into broad roads, and I found it useless to try to estimate the number that passed within a few miles of our encampment. We were just on the western edge of their passage, and afterwards heard that a band of Dog-Ribs, hunting some forty miles to the west, were at this very time in the last straits of starvation, only saving their lives by a hasty retreat...
Page 48 - Its range," writes Warburton Pike, "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. In the summer time they keep to the true Barren Grounds, 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 Indians, and from my own personal experience, it was late in October, immediately after the rutting season, that...
Page 304 - ... with in the execution of his task, his steps are surely and closely followed by the trader, the lumberer, or the agriculturist, and not long after these comes the builder of railways with his iron road. It is, therefore, rather from the point of view of practical utility than \. from any other, that an appeal must be made to the public or to the government for the further extension of explorations, and my main purpose in addressing you to-night is to make such an appeal, and to show cause, if...
Page 49 - 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 toward the seacoast 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...