60 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



Siberia hy trading-vessels. The significance of these facts is 

 surely too plain to require conunent. 



Doctor Anderson reports that from Franklin Bay to Dol- 

 phin and Union Strait there is an uninhabited stretch with 

 little game. In the Victoria Island and Coronation Gulf 

 region caribou are found to be fairly common in the summer, 

 supplying food and winter clothing for a considerable na- 

 tive population. The caribou largely migrate to the main- 

 land in November, returning to the north again in April 

 and May, although Mr. Stefansson informs me that cari- 

 bou may be found in the western part of Victoria Island 

 during the winter, and along the shores of Prince Albert 

 Sound. The centre of the crossing place of the caribou from 

 western Victoria Island is in the region of Bernard Harbour, 

 and here the Hudson's Bay Company established a trading- 

 post in 1916.* 



In their migrations south the caribou reach Fond-du-lac, 

 at the east end of Athabaska Lake. They travel as far 

 south as Reindeer Lake in northern Saskatchewan. Nearly 

 every year they come down to Fort Smith, which would 

 appear to be the southwestern limit to their migration. 



In the Yukon Territory fairly large herds of caribou are 

 still to be found. Mr. George Black, commissioner of the 

 Yukon, has informed me that a large herd of several thou- 

 sand annually visits the region adjoining Dawson, Yukon. 

 Osgoodf states that these Alaska- Yukon caribou "scatter 

 widely in the summer and in the fall collect in herds, often 



* Later advices from the Coronation Gulf region give the information that, 

 from 1917 to 1919, trading-posts were established at the mouth of the Copp>er- 

 mine River, Tree River, and on Kent Peninsula, and that practically all the 

 natives have been suppUed with rifles. A considerable portion of the Copper 

 Eskimos have also been induced by the traders to give up winter sealing and 

 to live on the land in winter, trapping foxes and shooting caribou. This un- 

 precedented change of habits was particularly noted around Dease Strait and 

 the Kent Peninsula, which is the main crossing-place for the caribou from the 

 eastern portion of Victoria Island. — R. M. A. 



t"The Game Resources of Alaska," by W. H. Osgood. Yearbook, U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, 1907, pp. 469-482. 



