CHAPTEE VL 



CARIBOO HUNTING. 



The cariboo of the British provinces is only to be 

 approached by the sportsman with the assistance of a 

 regular Indian hunter. In old times the Indians pos- 

 sessed and practised the art of calling the buck in Sep- 

 tember, as they now do the bull moose, the call-note being 

 a short hoarse bellow; this art however is lost, and at 

 the present day the animal is shot by stalking or 

 " creeping " as it is locally termed, that is, advancing 

 stealthily and in the footsteps of the Indian, bearing in mind 

 the hopelessness of success should sound, sight or scent 

 give warning of approaching danger. As with the moose, 

 the latter faculty seems to impress the cariboo most with 

 a feeling of alarm, which is evinced at an almost in- 

 credible distance from the object, and fully accounted for, 

 as a general fact, by the size of the nasal cavity, and the 

 development of the cartilage of the septum. As the 

 cariboo generally travels and feeds down wind, the 

 wonderful tact of the Indian is indispensable in a forest 

 country, where the game cannot be sighted from a dis- 

 tance as on the fjelds of Scandinavia, or Scottish hills. 

 Of course, however, on the plateaux of Newfoundland 

 and Labrador, and on the large cariboo-plains of Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick, less Indian craft is brought 



