THE GAME ANIMALS OF CANADA 63 



Pike concludes his account by expressing the beHef that the 

 herds of buffalo could not have surpassed in size ''la foule" 

 of the caribou. 



J. B. Tyrrell has described an enormous herd of caribou, 

 consisting of several thousand animals — males, females, and 

 fawns — which he saw on July 30, 1893, at Carey Lake, where 

 he obtained what are undoubtedly the best photographs 

 hitherto taken of this caribou, two of which are reproduced 

 lerewith. He describes ''many great bands literally cover- 

 ig the country over wide areas. The valleys and hill- 

 sides for miles appeared to be moving masses of caribou, 

 i'o estimate their numbers would be impossible. They 

 Sould only be reckoned in acres or square miles." He 

 found, as Pike also found, that when they occur in such 

 enormous numbers they are quite tame. 

 The magnitude of the migration, both as regards numbers 

 ivolved and extent of area, has led many to assume that 

 11 the caribou migrate. But apparently this is not so, as 

 le observations of Hanbury* and others conclusively prove, 

 jarge numbers remain in the north throughout the year, 

 [anbury shot caribou along the west coast of Hudson Bay 

 id the coasts of Chesterfield Inlet during the winter, and 

 ^caribou were found on the Arctic coast during the winter 

 months. These non-migrating animals merely wander 

 about. 



Another point of interest is that, while their migratory- 

 movements are very regular in point of time, the routes 

 they take are not always the same, and they travel gener- 

 ally in a northerly or southerly direction. Their course 

 cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. They 

 seldom follow the same course in two consecutive years. 

 The Indians, such as the Yellow-knives and Dog-ribs, who 

 are dependent upon the caribou to so great an extent for 



* See "Sport and Travel in the Northland of Canada," by David T. Han- 

 bury, pp. 120 et seq. 



