246 THE DRA.MA OF THE FORESTS 



applies to hunting the caribou, except that the hunter never 

 tries to ' call ' the caribou. But now I recollect that there is 

 one thing about moose hunting that I forgot to tell you and it 

 apphes also to himting the caribou. In some localities bar- 

 riers are still in use, but nowadays they seldom make new 

 ones. In the old days whole tribes used to take part in bar- 

 rier hunting and sometimes the barriers would stretch for 

 fifteen or twenty miles and were usually made from one part 

 of the river to another, and thus they marked off the woods 

 enclosed in a river's bend. Barriers are made by felling trees 

 in a fine; or, in an open place, or upon a river or lake, placing a 

 fine of httle trees in the snow about ten paces apart. Small 

 evergreens with the butts no thicker than a msui's thumb were 

 often used; yet an artificial line of such brush was enough to 

 turn moose or caribou and cause them to move forward in a 

 certain direction where the hunters were hiding. Even big 

 clumps of moss, placed upon trees, will produce the same 

 effect. Frequently, too, snares for deer are set in suitable 

 places along the barrier, and while the snares are made of 

 babiche the loops are kept open with blades of grass. 



" There is stiU another thing I forgot to tell you about moose 

 hunting — ^my son, I must be growing old when I forget so much. 

 While my Indian cousins in the East use birch-bark horns for 

 calhng moose, my other cousins in the Far North never doj 

 yet they call moose, too, but in a different way. They use 

 the shoulder blade of a deer. Thus, when a bull is approaching, 

 the hunter stands behind a tree and rubs the shoulder blade 

 upon the trunk or strikes it against the branches of a neigh- 

 bouring bush, as it then makes a sound not unlike a bull thrash- 

 ing his horns about. Such a sound makes a bull beheve that 

 another is approaching and ready to fight him for the posses- 

 sion of the cow, and he prepares to charge his enemy. At 

 such a moment the hunter throws the shoulder blade into 

 some bushes that may be standing a httle way off, and the 



