248 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



were bull caribou, so that the meat we lived on and the fuel for 

 cooking it were of the best. 



When we are on a hunt proper we pitch our camps on the 

 tops of the highest and most commanding hills, for caribou are such 

 mobile animals that one is likely to Gee almost as many while 

 favorably encamped as while traveling from place to place. But 

 this time we were not hunting primarily, so we used to camp in 

 sheltered, sunny places beside brooks that had their banks thickly 

 covered with heather, giving both water and fuel right at hand. 



I have just mentioned that the animals we were killing for fat 

 were the oldest bull caribou we could find. People who do not 

 know caribou and who think of them by analogy with cattle, 

 imagine that the meat of a bull would not be especially palatable. 

 All experienced hunters, however, Indian, Eskimo or white, know 

 that the bulls are better eating than the cows or the calves, and 

 the more palatable the older they are. To me the main considera- 

 tion about meat is its flavor. The recommendation that meat is 

 tender is the praise of a toothless generation and one addicted to 

 such artificial cooking that we seldom get in our foods their native 

 flavors, but rather flavors conferred on them by sauces and condi- 

 ments. I prefer the terminology of our meat-eating ancestors 

 whose various idioms, which we still keep though we hardly under- 

 stand them, show that they knew meat flavors and appreciated 

 them as hunters do. Having good teeth it is of little concern to 

 me whether a piece of meat is tough or tender; what is important 

 is the taste. 



Besides, a caribou can never be tough. No one familiar with 

 their typical life history can believe that the meat will get tough 

 through age, the factor which causes toughness among domestic 

 chickens and cattle. These last under the artificial protection of 

 domesticity may grow to any age, and polar bears and ovibos may 

 live on by reason of their strength and habits. But caribou never 

 live long after they are full grown. Northern wolves in books prey 

 on fawns and yearlings, and doubtless it happens occasionally that 

 a wolf kills a calf, but this is likely to be within twenty-four hours 

 of the calf's birth. A calf is certainly not many days old when he 

 is able to run faster than his mother and faster than any other 

 member of the herd unless possibly the yearlings. The young cows 

 can run faster than the old cows and the young bulls faster than the 

 old bulls, so that when a herd is fleeing from wolves it is always 

 the oldest bulls that bring up the rear. Observers who enjoy reading 

 chivalry into the actions of animals doubtless find instances where 



