A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE 327 



McKinney joined us there. A club reserve 

 such as this, with weather-proof cabins scat 

 tered here and there beside the lakes, offers 

 the chance for women of the outdoors type, 

 no less than for men no longer in their first 

 youth, to enjoy the life of the wonderful north 

 ern wilderness, and yet to enjoy also such sub 

 stantial comforts as warmth, dry clothes, and 

 good food at night, after a hard day in the 

 open. 



Such a reserve offers a fine field for observa 

 tion of the life histories of the more shy and 

 rare wild creatures practically unaffected by 

 man. Many persons do not realize how com 

 pletely on these reserves the wild life is led under 

 natural conditions, wholly unlike those on small 

 artificial reserves. Most wild beasts in the true 

 wilderness lead lives that are artificial in so 

 far as they are primarily conditioned by fear 

 of man. In wilderness reserves like this, on 

 the contrary, there is so much less dread of 

 human persecution that the lives led by such 

 beasts as the moose, caribou, and beaver more 

 closely resemble life in the woods before the 

 appearance of man. As an example, on the 

 Tourilli game reserve wolves, which did not 

 appear until within a decade, have been much 

 more destructive since then than men, and have 



