26 The Musk-ox 



sional spots at the water's edge, but may not be 

 depended upon for fuel. From Great Slave Lake 

 north to the timber's edge is about three hundred 

 miles; beyond that is a stretch of country per- 

 haps of another hundred miles, suggestively 

 called the Land of Little Sticks by the Indians, 

 over which are scattered and widely separated 

 little patches of small pine, sometimes of an acre 

 in extent, sometimes a little less and sometimes a 

 little more. They seem to be a chain of wooded 

 islands in this desert that connect the main tim- 

 ber line (which, by the way, does not end abruptly, 

 but straggles out for many miles, growing thinner 

 and thinner until it ends, and the Land of Little 

 Sticks begins) with the last free growth; and I 

 never found them nearer together than a good 

 day's journey. About three or four days' travel 

 takes you through this Land of Little Sticks and 

 brings you to the last wood. The last wood that 

 I found was a patch of about four or five acres 

 with trees two or three inches in diameter at their 

 largest, although one or two isolated ones were 

 perhaps as large as five or six inches. Here you 

 take the fire-wood for your trip into the Barrens. 

 I have been often asked why the periods of 

 starvation experienced in musk-ox hunting could 



