Moose -Hunting in Canada. 193 



his way to the calling place, which of course makes him more sensi- 

 tive to cold. 



So I and the Indian shouldered our packs, and started for the 

 barren, following an old logging road. Perhaps I ought to explain a 

 little what is meant by a " logging road " and a " barren." A log- 

 ging road is a path cut through the forest in winter, when the snow 

 is on the ground and the lakes are frozen, along which the trunks of 

 trees or logs are hauled by horses or oxen to the water. A logging 

 road is a most pernicious thing. Never follow one if you are lost 

 in the woods, for one end is sure to lead to a lake or a river, which 

 is decidedly inconvenient until the ice has formed ; and in the other 

 direction it will seduce you deep into the inner recesses of the 

 forest, and then come to a sudden termination at some moss-covered, 

 decayed pine stump, which is discouraging. A " barren," as the term 

 indicates, is a piece of waste land ; but, as all hunting grounds are 

 waste, that definition would scarcely be sufficient to describe what 

 a " barren " is. It means, in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, an 

 open marshy space in the forest, sometimes so soft as to be almost 

 impassable ; at other times composed of good solid hard peat. The 

 surface is occasionally rough and tussocky, like a great deal of 

 country in Scotland. 



In Newfoundland, there are barrens of many miles in extent, 

 high, and, comparatively speaking, dry plateaus ; but the barrens 

 in the provinces I am speaking of vary from a little open space 

 of a few acres to a plain of five or six miles in length or breadth. 

 There has been a good deal of discussion as to the origin of these 

 "barrens." It appears to me that they must have been originally 

 lakes, which have become dry by the gradual elevation of the land, 

 and through the natural processes by which shallow waters become 

 choked up and filled with vegetable debris. They have all the 

 appearance of dry lakes. They are about the size of the numerous 

 sheets of water that are so frequent in the country. The forest sur- 

 rounds them completely, precisely in the same way as it does a lake, 

 following all the lines and curvatures of the bays and indentations of 

 its shores; and every elevated spot of dry, solid ground is covered 

 with trees exactly as are the little islands that so thickly stud the sur- 

 face of the Nova Scotian lakes. Most of the lakes in the country 

 are shallow, and in many of them the process by which they become 

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