CHAPTER IX. 



CARIBOU-HUNTING IN TIMBER AND BRULEE. 



FRESH from the barrens and open marshes of New- 

 foundland, I must acknowledge that the features of 

 the country where I first hunted in Lower Canada 

 came upon me in the nature of a surprise and a dis- 

 appointment. It was a region of dense forest-land 

 thick timber, green timber, spruce, pine, balsam, maple 

 so close-grown that an average pace of about a mile 

 to a mile and a half an hour was the most one could 

 hope for, and through which the view rarely extended 

 for a hundred yards in any direction. Even the shores 

 of the beautiful lakes were wooded to within ten feet 

 of the water. 



At the outset it seemed that in so blind a country, 

 success or failure must be a matter of good or ill 

 fortune. Silent moccasins and straight powder alone 

 must fail (even if one attained the momentary posses- 

 sion of both), without that " beginner's luck " which so 

 often places the novice on a plane with his betters. 

 However, caribou were certainly somewhere in that 

 tangle of trees, deadfalls and moss, and it remained 

 but to try and find them. 



The determination to hunt the woodland caribou of 

 Lower Canada first came upon me in the shop of a 

 taxidermist, whither we had made a pilgrimage to 

 examine some moose trophies, and where I saw speci- 

 mens of New Brunswick and Quebec caribou. There 



