66 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 
that effect have already been made in my memoranda and 
addresses to the Commission of Conservation.* 
The wholesale trading in caribou skins must be checked. 
The extermination of the caribou in northern and north- 
western Alaska was brought about by the trade in summer 
skins, and the sale of meat to whalers. In this region some 
of the Eskimo hunters used to kill as many as 500 caribou 
in a single summer for their skins; and the carcasses were 
usually left to rot. This practice is becoming common in 
Canadian territory, where skins are taken for the purpose 
of barter, and the result is that many more skins are taken 
than are required by the Eskimos for their personal use. 
Unless this wasteful practice is discontinued—and we hope 
it will be—any other effort to conserve the caribou will have 
little effect. It is interesting to note that some of the 
Eskimo tribes entertain the belief that the caribou are sent 
to them by the spirit world to kill, and that unless they kill 
every caribou they meet, whether they require it or not for 
food or clothing, the spirit world will not send them any 
more. Such a belief naturally leads to wasteful slaughter 
on the part of the Eskimos, and it is to be hoped that mis- 
sionaries and others will endeavour to dispel such a per- 
nicious idea. 
To recapitulate, the economic reasons for the conserva- 
tion of the barren-ground caribou are as follows: first, the 
necessity of preserving so essential a source of food and 
clothing for the Indians, Eskimos, and other present and 
future inhabitants of the north; and second, the desirability 
of developing so important a natural resource for the benefit 
of the Dominion as a whole, inasmuch as it would provide 
a source of meat of incalculable value, and skins that could 
be utilized in the manufacture of many articles of clothing 
and commerce. 
* “Conservation of Fish, Birds, and Game.”’ Comm. Conservation, 1916, pp. 
146-147; and Seventh Annual Report, Comm. Conservation, pp. 32-38, 1916. 
