BEAR STORIES 93 



Two good men, in a canoe, if the weather was at 

 all decent, would get from fifty to a hundred in 

 a season, that is to say, from August to the mid- 

 dle of September, about six weeks. After the 

 layer of fat was removed, the carcass used to be 

 left on the beach, when, if the weather was at all 

 warm, they would swell up with the gas from the 

 intestines and float off at high tide, getting 

 strewn about everywhere. The smell from these 

 carcasses rivalled in strength that of any high 

 class perfumery shop, and foxes, bears and other 

 animals would be attracted. One day, going to 

 the east end of the bay here, I noticed bear tracks 

 in the sand, and followed them. I found that 

 the animal was hauling off some of these carcasses 

 to the woods. The sand dune there was quite 

 steep, and about twenty feet high, yet this bear 

 a small one could climb that hill with a car- 

 cass heavier than himself. My brother and I set 

 a dead fall and we got him next day. He was a 

 yearling. 



One season late in July, I was salmon fishing 

 on the Trinity Eiver. It was a hot and bright 

 day, and we had gone over three or four portages. 

 Just above our last one there was a small stretch 

 of dead water. On laying down the canoe I 

 caught sight of a large bear. He was sitting on 

 the end of a big spruce that had fallen across the 

 river and broken in the middle. The tip of the 

 tree had been washed away, but the roots and 



