LIFE AND HABITS 41 



Never having seen these great treks, I simply tell what others 

 have told me. 



Gradually the winter begins to break ; days become 

 longer, nights less bitter. The Aurora Borealis which has 

 lighted up the long dreary nights with its scintillating 

 shafts of ever-changing lights is no longer seen. The sun 

 takes on a warmer hue, the snow softens and the ice breaks 

 away from the banks of the pools. 



The Fourth Period has come. It is the season of hope- 

 fulness and promise. The Caribou become restless, the 

 large herds break up and in ones and twos the does begin 

 the long return journey to their summer homes in the north. 

 The stags, less in a hurry, having no expectant young to think 

 of, follow along in small herds. This spring travelling is quite 

 different from the conditions found in the autumn. The 

 great mass of snow is melting, rivers are clogged with loose 

 ice which piles up along the banks, tearing away the over- 

 hanging bushes and scarring the tree-trunks as it works its 

 way down stream. Rivers that were a couple of feet deep 

 in October may now be seething torrents, fifteen or twenty 

 feet in depth, so that the great cakes of ice fight their way 

 down, creaking, groaning and splashing madly. They pile 

 up like small mountains against obstructions, then suddenly 

 breaking loose, fling themselves into the foaming water, 

 bearing everything before them in their tempestuous haste 

 to reach an outlet. In this way are the rivers kept open. 

 This is the pruning by water and ice of the bank vegetation, 

 merciless but thoroughly effective. It accounts for' the 

 marked difference between the rivers of the north and those 

 of the gentler south, where there is nothing to clear away 

 the fallen trees which choke the waterways large and small. 

 Occasional freshets may move the debris from one 

 point to another, but there is no grand spring-cleaning 



