314 s? Musk -Ox Hunt. 



that musk-oxen would be found, and if they proved to be plentiful 

 they were willing to undertake the journey. Accordingly, a prelim- 

 inary reconnaissance as far as Wager River was made by me in 

 January, 1879, and although no musk-oxen were actually seen, we 

 found abundant traces of them. These facts overcame the objections 

 of the natives, who now readily assented to accompany us. Our 

 party was well armed with the finest breech-loaders and magazine 

 guns, and carried an ample supply of fixed ammunition. The hunt- 

 ing force of the party consisted of four full-grown Eskimo men, and 

 three Eskimo boys, ranging from twelve to eighteen, and the four 

 white men. 



We left North Hudson's Bay on the first day of April, 1879, and, 

 by the 8th of the month, were, according to our natives, in what 

 they termed the musk-ox country, the locality in which they had 

 been accustomed to hunt these huge monsters during winter trips 

 from the sea-coast, where the natives live the greater part of the 

 year. But the musk-cattle of the Arctic are so sparsely distributed 

 that they form only a small part of the game necessary to furnish 

 these northern nomads with their yearly supplies, and they place 

 very little reliance upon them. The annual musk-ox hunt, however, 

 is looked forward to with much interest, and is long in advance the 

 burden of their conversation, while housed in their little snow huts. 

 It is in the sport and excitement of the chase that they find the 

 greatest reward, and not in the meat secured, nor in the half-worth- 

 less robes that are thus obtained. These robes are almost of no 

 value to them unless they be near some trading station or whale- 

 ships wintering in the ice. To us, however, their huge carcasses 

 were, as food for our three teams of dogs, of great importance com- 

 pared with that of the reindeer or any other game that we would be 

 likely to fall in with. 



On April 9th, we came upon a large trail of musk-cattle. The 

 sign was tolerably old, some six or seven days at least ; but one of 

 the peculiarities of the animals is that they will travel very slowly 

 when undisturbed and in good grazing country, and this same herd, 

 so the Eskimo believed, was not far off. They tried to persuade me 

 with all the vehemence of savage logic to remain a day or two in the 

 vicinity and hunt them, but the larder was still too full to warrant 

 any such delay, and we pushed on. 



