74 NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU 



all belief; for days at a time no living creature would 

 dare venture away from the protection of the woods which, 

 unfortunately, are not over abundant. The snow, piling 

 up from these relentless storms, covers the land to a depth 

 of many feet, so that much of the wild pasturage is lost to 

 the Caribou, except in the woods and on the ridges where 

 no snow can lay, for no sooner does it fall than the howling 

 winds pick it up and carry it headlong into the valleys. It 

 must be a wonderful thing to see these whirling snow imps 

 dancing over the bleak mountains, but for the Caribou it is 

 a sight to inspire dread, for it spells hunger. Not only is 

 the deepening snow a source of danger to them, a worse 

 one lurks about these open wastes, and to a lesser extent the 

 woods : the " glitter," as the Newfoundlander calls it, 

 freezing rain which ties everything up in its icy grip, 

 vegetation and all that goes to sustain life for the Caribou 

 is buried securely in a shroud of glistening ice too smooth 

 and too hard to be broken by the hunger-driven beasts. 

 This is a possible if not a probable reason for the 

 animals going south as the winter approaches. South to 

 where the kindly influence of the Gulf Stream tempers the 

 cold and makes life more endurable to the great herds 

 of hungry creatures. How do they know what is going to 

 happen, or that by going southward they will find better 

 conditions ? It was not learned in a day or a year, but 

 gradually, during the many hundreds of thousands of years 

 that have passed since the Caribou first wandered into 

 Newfoundland. Then it was not an island, but part of the 

 mainland, joined to what we now call Labrador, and from 

 which it is separated by the Straits of Belle Isle. 



Before the island was formed, it is more than probable 

 that the Caribou spent the summer months further north, in 

 the region where to-day we find the vast herds of the 



