260 A JOURNEY TO THE 



1772. most inoffensive of all animals, never making any resistance ; 

 January. ^^^ ^^^ young ones are so simple, that I remember to have 

 seen an Indian paddle his canoe up to one of them, and take it 

 by the poll without the least opposition : the poor [257] harm- 

 less animal seeming at the same time as contented along-side the 

 canoe, as if swimming by the side of its dam, and looking up 

 in our faces with the same fearless innocence that a house- 

 lamb would, making use of its fore-foot almost every instant 

 to clear its eyes of muskettos, which at that time were remark- 

 ably numerous. 



I have also seen women and boys kill the old moose in 

 this situation, by knocking them on the head with a hatchet ; 

 and in the Summer of one thousand seven hundred and seventy- 

 five, when I was on my passage from Cumberland House to 

 York Fort, two boys killed a fine buck moose in the water, 

 by forcing a stick up its fundament ; for they had neither 

 gun, bow, nor arrows with them. The common deer are far 

 more dangerous to approach in canoes, as they kick up their 

 hind legs with such violence as to endanger any birch-rind 

 canoe that comes within their reach ; for which reason all the 

 Indians who kill deer upon the water are provided with a long 

 stick that will reach far beyond the head of the canoe. 



The moose are also the easiest to tame and domesticate 

 of any of the deer kind. I have repeatedly seen them at 

 Churchill as tame as sheep,* and even more so ; for they 

 [258] would follow their keeper any distance from home, and 

 at his call return with him, without the least trouble, or ever 

 offering to deviate from the path.f 



* The moose formerly sent to his Majesty was from that place. A young 

 male was also put on board the ship, but it died on the passage, otherwise it is 

 probable they might have propagated in this country. 



t Since the above was written, the same Indian that brought all the above- 

 mentioned young moose to the Factory had, in the year 1777, two others, so 

 tame, that when on his passage to Prince of Wales's Fort in a canoe, the moose 

 always followed him along the bank of the river ; and at night, or on any other 

 occasion when the Indians landed, the young moose generally came and fondled 



