BARREN GROUND CARIBOU 241 



British North America, though I am inclined to believe it 

 not so great as generally supposed by the Indians and the 

 Hudson's Bay Company officers. 



The Barren Ground caribou is very changeful in its 

 migrations. The route it may pursue to the Arctic Ocean 

 one spring may be a hundred miles east or west of that 

 followed the previous year and that will be taken the suc- 

 ceeding year, and as the Barren Grounds contain three 

 hundred and fifty thousand square miles (approximately), 

 it may be seen there is ample room for the caribou to 

 keep the Indians guessing on their whereabouts. 



It is a fact that several of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 forts originally established as meat posts and once the 

 centre of caribou migration are now many days' journey 

 to the side of it, but I incline to the belief that this is due 

 largely to the caribou being driven away from those par- 

 ticular sections. 



That their numbers have been largely decreased is un- 

 doubtedly true, for the annual slaughter visited upon 

 them by the Indians in the summer-time is as deadly as 

 it is incredible. 



In midsummer, when the cows return from the Arctic 

 Ocean and meet the bulls in the Barren Grounds, they are 

 joined by other herds from the westward, and at that 

 time the herds are simply enormous. 



Tyrell, when he made his trip through the southern 

 part of the Barren Grounds eastward to Hudson's Bay, 

 saw herds that numbered thousands. And Mr. Warbur- 

 ton Pike, in his summer trip into the Barrens, was re- 

 warded by a sight of this great caravan of moving caribou. 



It is at this time that the Barren Ground caribou falls a 

 victim to the rapacity of the Indians. 



They are then moving in vast herds of countless num- 

 bers, are stupid and easily approached, or turned in de- 

 16 



