i 5 S ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



caribou, which lessened the chances of starvation on his 

 next attempt, when, in addition to the cached meat, the 

 opportunity of adding to the supply was offered by the 

 moving bands of caribou. Yet he had a very hard time 

 of it. Munn on his summer trip had the caribou and fish 

 in the numberless lakes; on his autumn trip he attempted 

 to better conditions by taking along a supply of pounded 

 dried meat, which was speedily exhausted, and, caribou be- 

 ing scarce, he and his party and their dogs had a starving- 

 time of it indeed. 



Midsummer is of course the season in which one may 

 visit the Barrens with least danger, for at that time you 

 travel by canoe, caribou are plentiful if you are lucky 

 enough to find them, for they are very uncertain in their 

 movements the thermometer rarely gets below freezing- 

 point (though you are persecuted beyond endurance by 

 mosquitoes), and the winds have lost much of their fury. 

 But in summer-time the musk-ox fur is not prime, and of 

 course musk-ox is the only excuse for visiting the God- 

 forsaken place. And so trips are confined to the spring 

 and autumn, when the trials are more severe, but the re- 

 ward greater. The Indians go in parties of from four to 

 six ; never less than four, because they could not carry 

 sufficient wood to enable them to get far enough into the 

 Barrens for reasonable hope of getting musk-oxen ; and 

 rarely more than six, because by the time they have gone 

 as far as six sledges of wood will permit, they have had 

 all the freezing and starving they can stand, even though 

 no musk-oxen have been forthcoming. 



Many parties go into the Barrens and never see even a 

 musk-ox track, and many more skirmish along the edge, 

 fearful of a plunge into the interior, yet hoping for the 

 sight of a stray ox. Wood must be carried, not for 

 warmth nor necessarily to cook meat, but to boil tea ; for 



