io6 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



tion sash about his waist, a caribou-skin capote on his 

 back, and a fancifully ornamented and betasselled " Tom- 

 my Atkins ''' cap on his head, and the Northland express 

 is complete and at its best. Indeed, there is no combina- 

 tion more sprightly than a dog brigade, with its brilliant 

 and many-hued tapis, its nodding pompons and streaming 

 ribbons, and its picturesquely costumed driver. There is 

 no sensation more exhilarating than running with the 

 dogs on snow-shoes and a good track, to the jingling of 

 the bells; when storm obscures the pompons, and wind 

 drowns the jingle, and there is nothing in the sledge to 

 eat, the sensation is not so enlivening. 



These dogs are certainly notable travellers, from the 

 best fed down to the puniest of the Indian species, which 

 are contemptuously called giddds by the half-breeds, and 

 are not a great deal larger than a big fox. They draw a 

 heavier load, at a faster pace, on less food, and for a greater 

 length of time than one would believe without seeing. 

 The usual number to a train is four, and tandem is the 

 mode of hitching them to the sledge, which is about 

 seven feet long by fourteen inches wide, and made of 

 either two or three birch slats held together by cross-bars, 

 and turned over at the head like a toboggan. These four 

 dogs will haul four hundred pounds on a fair track from 

 twenty-five to thirty-five miles a day. In the woods where 

 the snow is deep and the trail must be broken the day's 

 trip will be fifteen to twenty miles. On a good lake or 

 river track, drawing a cariole (a passenger sledge), they will 

 go forty to fifty miles a day, and keep it up several days, 

 and this on two white-fish weighing about three pounds 

 apiece, and given to each dog at night. I saw Gaudet's 

 train bring into Resolution five hundred pounds of cari- 

 bou meat, which remained after supplying two men and 

 four dogs during a four- day trip on Great Slave Lake. 



