y 



154 SLED-DOGS OF THE NORTH TRAILS 



outposts of the white settler. That the finest 

 dogs are in the Far North is perhaps due to their 

 untrammelled surroundings, and to the nature 

 of their feeding, for, on the fringes of the Frontier, 

 fish, the chief dog-food, is often scarce, and in 

 demand for human food, whereas in the Far 

 North fish are plentiful and little sought in the 

 clear waters of the countless lakes and rivers 'that 

 abound in those distant places. Moreover in 

 Frontier settlements, and such Posts where 

 white and halfbreed and Indian intermingle, 

 and are unsettled by more modern enterprises 

 than the old-world, patient, plodding fur trade, 

 the sled-dogs are often outcast when their 

 winter's work is done, and remain through 

 summer no man's care, little better than thieving 

 curs, kicked and abused by everyone. 



If you are travelling north, particularly in 

 summer, it is sure to be your misfortune on the 

 early outward trail to run foul of those thieving 

 fellows, who instil in you a firm distrust of every 

 sled- dog in existence long before you have 

 cleared their unhealthy habitat. All sled-dogs 

 steal even the best of them but the untended 

 outcasts of the Posts near the edge of civilisa- 

 tion are particular vagabonds. My most memor- 

 able losses by dog-thieves memorable because 

 they seriously shortened my carefully calculated 

 food-store on a long outward canoe journey 

 between two ports was the loss of a shoulder of 

 dried moose meat, stolen from over my head at 

 night, and a week's baking of " bannock " 

 (sour-dough bread) plundered a few days later 

 from a grub box in camp during a heavy storm. 



