THE GAME ANIMALS OF CANADA 95 



western trading-posts, owing to the great expense entailed 

 in fitting out the Indians to hunt them at so great a dis- 

 tance away in the interior, but from the Arctic coast on 

 the north and the Chesterfield Inlet region on the east, the 

 Eskimos, better equipped, and able to travel through almost 

 any country, were reported to be attacking the remaining 

 herds. 



Distribution. — The most recent account of the present 

 distribution of the musk-ox, and the extent to which its 

 extermination is proceeding, is given in the following re- 

 port, which has been kindly prepared at my request by 

 Doctor R. M. Anderson, who has had unequalled oppor- 

 tunities for collecting information on the subject as chief of 

 the southern party of the Canadian Arctic Expedition 

 (1913-1916), and on his previous sojourn in the Arctic in 

 1908-1912. Doctor Anderson states: 



The musk-ox has been greatly reduced in numbers during the last 

 few years. The last musk-ox was killed in the region around Franklin 

 Bay about eighteen years ago, and the last records near the coast, west 

 of the Coppermine River, were not later than sixteen years ago, in the 

 Darnley Bay region. No musk-oxen are left on Banks Island, accord- 

 ing to Mr. George H. Wilkins, who has recently returned after spend- 

 ing considerable time in 1914, 1915 and 1916, in traversing the greater 

 part of Banks Island with the Northern Party of the Canadian Arctic 

 Expedition. There were formerly numbers of musk-oxen on Banks 

 Island, as is evidenced by skulls and skeletal parts seen frequently 

 on the land. According to Mr. Wilkins, Melville Island, which is not 

 normally inhabited, has a good many musk-oxen left, and the Western 

 Eskimo hunters who were taken north to Winter Harbour to establish a 

 base for 1916-1917, were killing a good many musk-oxen in the spring 

 of 1916. 



The Indians have within the past few years practically exterminated 

 the species around the east of Great Bear Lake. Three to my knowl- 

 edge were seen and killed by the Indians there in the winter of 1910-1911, 

 and they were said to have finished off a herd of eighty almost com- 

 pletely a few years before that. Inspector C. D. LaNauze, R.N.W.M.P., 

 reports that the Indians saw a few musk-ox tracks on the north side of 

 Great Bear Lake in the summer of 1915. No musk-oxen have been seen 



