SHEEP, MOOSE AND CARIBOU 



ground, between the mouth of the McKenzie 

 and Pt. Barrow, and drift south. The first 

 snows drift in there so deep that they can't paw 

 it from the tundra and muskeg, and they drift 

 to the better feeding grounds below. So down 

 they come in hundreds of thousands, passing in 

 their southern flight the head of Peel River, 

 head of Stewart River, head of Klondike, Pelly 

 and McMillan, as far south as Lake Atlin. This 

 drive usually follows the same route, covering 

 in the migration a space about twenty miles 

 wide. There are other bands of caribou inhabit- 

 ing the northwest part of Alaska (say, north of 

 the Kyukuk range) that migrate similarly to the 

 mainland just mentioned, and that cross the 

 Yukon River at different points, and that have 

 been seen by the thousands traveling thru Circle 

 City, Fairbanks and Fortymile. They go south 

 of Fairbanks and begin to return, as do the big 

 band, about April or May. They calve in June, 

 right in the tundra. They don't always return 

 by the same route, but generally so, and go in a 

 slow, straggling, unorganized manner as com- 

 pared to that which characterizes their southern 

 journey, when they go fast, each bunch appar- 

 ently trying to get ahead of the other. The 

 Hudson Bay Company used to ship before the 

 Klondike rush from 1,800 to 2,000 barrels of 

 "deer tongue" (caribou) annually to Great 

 Slave, Lesser Slave Lake, etc., from there to 

 be shipped to Canada and England. 



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