12!) 



In Slimmer these deer live on the great rocky wilderness that 

 extends from a short distance north of Athabasca and Reindeer Lakes, 

 between Great Slave Lake and Hudson's Bay, to the Arctic Ocean. In 

 the autumn they collect together in large bands and move southwards 

 into the wooded country where they spend the winter, leaving again for 

 the B.irrens in the early spring. 



During the present year the writer spent the summer in one of 

 their favourite wintering grounds in the hitherto unexplored region 

 north of Churchill River and south-east of Lake Athabasca. A.lmost 

 all of the deer .vere at the time away to the north, but a few stragglers 

 had remained behind. 



Our party entered the country by ascending the Caribou River, a 

 stream about as large as the Rideau, flowing into Churchill River 225 

 miles north of Battleford. On the first of July it was found to be at 

 its extreme high water level. Its banks were overhung with willows, 

 and its bed was quicksand, so that we could neither track nor po'e, but 

 were obliged to ascend it with the paddle against a heavy and constant 

 current. The river flows in a wide valley, with high granite ridges at 

 some distance back on both sides. 



As the river is ascended, poplar, white spruce, and all underbrush 

 gradually disappear, and the country becomes generally wooded with 

 Banksian Pine, with Black Spruce in the wet places, and great stony 

 tracts devoid of limber of any kind. We have now reached the winter 

 home of the Caribou which in this region stretches northward from 

 about Lat 56° 45'. It consists of long almost bare hills of Archoean 

 rocks, separated by wide valleys, the bottoms of which are filled with 

 sand and ridges of boulders. In these valleys lie many small 

 lakes, on the shore of one of which, near the head of Caribou River, 

 the Hudson's Bay Company established a small trading post last 

 autumn, and traded with the Indians throughout the winter, but in 

 spite of the fact that meat is abundant the Indians are not going back 

 there this winter and the post has been abandoned. 



The Indians report that the deer collect on the frozen surface of 

 these lakes during the day in immense herds, and are readily killed as 

 long as the desire remains to shoot them, or till the whole herd is 



mtmm 



