66 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



that effect have already been made in my memoranda and 

 addresses to the Commission of Conservation.* 



The wholesale trading in caribou skins must be checked. 

 The extermination of the caribou in northern and north- 

 western Alaska was brought about by the trade in summer 

 skins, and the sale of meat to whalers. In this region some 

 of the Eskimo hunters used to kill as many as 500 caribou 

 in a single summer for their skins; and the carcasses were 

 usually left to rot. This practice is becoming common in 

 Canadian territory, where skins are taken for the purpose 

 of barter, and the result is that many more skins are taken 

 than are required by the Eskimos for their personal use. 

 Unless this wasteful practice is discontinued — and we hope 

 it will be — any other effort to conserve the caribou will have 

 little effect. It is interesting to note that some of the 

 Eskimo tribes entertain the belief that the caribou are sent 

 to them by the spirit world to kill, and that unless they kill 

 every caribou they meet, whether they require it or not for 

 food or clothing, the spirit world will not send them any 

 more. Such a belief naturally leads to wasteful slaughter 

 on the part of the Eskimos, and it is to be hoped that mis- 

 sionaries and others will endeavour to dispel such a per- 

 nicious idea. 



To recapitulate, the economic reasons for the conserva- 

 tion of the barren-ground caribou are as follows: first, the 

 necessity of preserving so essential a source of food and 

 clothing for the Indians, Eskimos, and other present and 

 future inhabitants of the north ; and second, the desirability 

 of developing so important a natural resource for the benefit 

 of the Dominion as a whole, inasmuch as it would provide 

 a source of meat of incalculable value, and skins that could 

 be utilized in the manufacture of many articles of clothing 

 and commerce. 



* "Conservation of Fish, Birds, and Game." Comm. Conservation, 1916, pp. 

 146-147; and Seventh Annual Report, Comm. Conservation, pp. 32-38, 1916, 



