66 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



north to realize what hunting and camping out in midwinter 

 there is. You must try to realize the thermometer going down 

 to 32° below Zero (64 degrees of frost), the rivers not only 

 frozen over but in some places frozen solid, the ground covered 

 with snow in some places 12 or 15 feet deep or more, and days of 

 what in Scotland we used to call " blin drift." 



You leave your comfortable and warm house and burning 

 fires, to go off in the woods 40 or 50 miles back from the 

 furthest settlement of any kind, you make your own camp, you 

 cook your own food, and you may see no human face but your 

 Indian's for the whole month. Yet it is a glorious work if you 

 can stand it. 



I used to generally go out in the early winter when game is 

 in better condition. Of course you walk on snow shoes, you 

 are supposed to have learned that accomplishment before you 

 think of going out winter hunting, and you must haul the 

 whole of your worldly goods, provisions, guns, buffalo robes, 

 blankets &c, from the furthest settlement or lumber road in 

 taboggans to the place where you mean to camp. 



As to equipment you wear mocassins put on over at least two 

 and often three pairs of very thick woollen socks or hose and 

 sometimes a piece of blanket wrapped round besides. Mocassins 

 are of several kinds — the two most in use are made of moose 

 hide, one kind of soft hide tanned or cured by the Indians, 

 and like very very thick strong chamois skin — the other is the 

 skin of the hock of the moose, cured with the hair on, drawn 

 on like a boot. They are must comfortable, giving free circula- 

 tion to the blood, a matter of absolute necessity in such severe 

 cold, but they would hardly compare in point of elegance with 

 the sharp pointed, exquisite little " monstrosities " of the ' mashers' 

 of the Ball Room which seem year by year to become more 

 like the foot gear of the typical Chinese lady. Thick woollen 

 under garments, strong knickerbockers, a thick lined flannel shoot- 

 ing jacket, and, in great cold, a blanket overcoat with a hood 

 which will pull right over your head, and a fur cap which 

 will turn down over your ears and neck, completes your dress. 

 Of course with a belt in which is slung your axe, hunting knife, 

 ammunition, cvc. 



I ought not to omit the covering for the hands, an important 

 thing, for you have got to remember that if you touch the steel 

 barrel of your rifle, in an extreme cold frost, with an uncovered 

 finger, you may burn the bit out — not of your rifle but of your 

 finger — and you will find that if j r ou get your fingers frost 

 bitten there is an end to your shooting for the time. I found 

 the best thing was a pair of thinish leather or kid gloves, thinly 

 lined with wool or flannel ; and with which you could with ease 



