74 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



taboggans and such hard work was it breaking path that it was 

 1 p.m., before we reached the cariboo. The carcases were com- 

 pletely covered with the new snow and it was sometime before 

 we could find them. We hauled out three to our camp by 4 

 o'clock, so much easier is it to haul on a broken and beaten track 

 — and the weather having quite cleared up during the day and 

 there being good moonlight, after a good dinner and rest Peter 

 and the boy went back in the evening and hauled in the other 

 two cariboo getting back to camp about 10 p.m. 



Next morning we were lucky enough to get a lumber camp 

 team or " span " of horses and sled to haul them and us out to 

 the settlement. By this stroke of luck though we had been three 

 weeks without seeing a fresh track, we were able to go home 

 with a good sleigh load of six fine cariboo, besides other skins 

 (trapped) and birds. 



Referring to the severe cold in winter in New Brunswick, 

 Providence has mercifully ordained that when the cold is very, 

 intense, there is hardly ever any wind. To face a wind in the 

 open, when the thermometer is down to 30° or 40° below zero, 

 would be impossible. 



There was one day, long after spoken of in the Province as 

 the Cold Friday, when there was a strong wind with an intense 

 cold. It was in fact what has been called in later years a 

 " blizzard," and a fierce one too. In many places the settlers 

 did not dare to leave their houses even to run across the yard to 

 their barns to feed their cattle. 



Of course back in the woods, if you are in a thickly wooded 

 country you are well sheltered, and do not feel such a wind so 

 much. 



On that particular Friday I was camping out with Peter, 

 and we went out to hunt cariboo as usual, merely wearing our 

 big thick blanket over-coats which we did not generally do when 

 hunting unless it was unusually cold, and selecting a line of 

 country where we would be in thick forest all the time. We did 

 not feel it very much, and had no idea, until after we returned, 

 what a fearful day it had been out in the open settlements. 



Still, coming in thick high wood to a long narrow strip of 

 barren, certainly not 100 yards wide, which we must cross, 

 Peter suddenly, when still in the thick bush, stopped, and said 

 " now we must make a rush for it, you must run all you can 

 " across that little bit of open or we shall be frozen." He 

 made me put my hood right over my head, and tighten it right 

 round so that only my eyes and nose and little bit of cheek was 

 exposed, and did the same thing himself. We " sloped " our 

 rifles, and ran across all we knew. It was only a matter of a 

 minute or two, yet on reaching the shelter on the other side 



