Hunting in the Selkirks 181 



shoes after the same game, and with the same result. 

 However, I enjoyed the trip, for the northland 

 woods are very beautiful and strange in winter, as 

 indeed they are at all other times' and it was my 

 first experience on snowshoes. I used the ordinary 

 webbed racquets, and as the snow, though very 

 deep, was only imperfectly crusted, I found that for 

 a beginner the exercise was laborious in the extreme, 

 speedily discovering that, no matter how cold it 

 was, while walking through the windless woods I 

 stood in no need of warm clothing. But at night, 

 especially when lying out, the cold was bitter. Our 

 plan was to drive in a sleigh to some logging camp, 

 where we were always received with hearty hospi- 

 tality, and thence make hunting trips, in very light 

 marching order, through the heart of the surround- 

 ing forest. The woods, wrapped in their heavy 

 white mantle, were still and lifeless. There were a 

 few chickadees and woodpeckers ; now and then we 

 saw flocks of red-polls, pine linnets, and large, rosy 

 grossbeaks ; and once or twice I came across a grouse 

 or white rabbit, and killed it for supper ; but this was 

 nearly all. Yet, though bird life was scarce, and 

 though we saw few beasts beyond an occasional 

 porcupine or squirrel, every morning the snow was 

 dotted with a network of trails made during the 

 hours of darkness ; the fine tracery of the footprints 

 of the little red wood-mouse, the marks which showed 

 the loping progress of the sable, the V and dot of 



