MOOSE-HUNTING IN CANADA 



Moose-hunting, if it has no other advantages, 

 at least leads a man to solitude and the woods, 

 and life in the woods tends to develop many 

 excellent qualities which are not invariably pro- 

 duced by what we are pleased to call our civilisa- 

 tion. It makes a man patient, and able to bear 

 constant disappointments ; it enables him to 

 endure hardship with indifference, and it produces 

 a feeling of self-reliance which is both pleasant 

 and serviceable. True luxury, to my mind, is 

 only to be found in such a life. No man who has 

 not experienced it knows what an exhilarating 

 feeling it is to be entirely independent of weather, 

 comparatively indifferent to hunger, thirst, cold, 

 and heat, and to feel himself capable not only of 

 supporting but of enjoying life thoroughly, and 

 that by the mere exercise of his own faculties. 

 Happiness consists in having few wants and being 

 able to satisfy them, and there is more real 

 comfort to be found in a birch-bark camp than 



