430 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
accepted as its southern boundary, whilst the musk ox seems — 
capable of existing very far north, as some are recorded to have 
been killed on Grinnell Land, latitude 82° 27’, within a mile of 
the winter quarters of H.M.S. ‘ Alert,’ in July 1876, but I can 
find no record of any having been seen in Greenland. 
Now, all these places are necessarily hard of access, and to 
make a successful musk-ox hunt means spending many months 
in northern latitudes, and undergoing the hardships and risks 
which Arctic explorers have found only too plentiful in cross- 
ing the Barren Ground. A mistaken theory exists among the 
officers of the Hudson Bay Company, that the musk ox come 
into the woods in the winter ; but as a matter of fact the Indians 
have to push out far beyond the timber, hauling wood for fuel 
on their dog-sleighs, and as the robes are not prime till the snow 
has fallen and the cold is intense, it will be easily understood 
that the difficulty of getting out to the musk-ox country, find- 
ing a band, and hauling in the robes, is a thing to be well 
considered before starting. In addition to this, it must be 
remembered that if a party of men and dogs fail to find their — 
game when they are far from timber, the chances are ten to — 
one that nobody will reach the woods alive, as the caribou — 
which roam the Barren Ground in vast herds during the summer 
seek the better shelter of the thick forest directly the winter 
sets in, and it is perfectly impossible to haul sufficient provi- 
sions for men and dogs in addition to fuel. 2 
My personal experience of the musk ox is derived from two — 
expeditions, one in the autumn and early winter and the other — 
in summer, which I made with some half-breeds from Fort — 
Resolution, a Hudson Bay trading post on the south shore ~ 
of the Great Slave Lake. We left with canoes in the middle — 
of August, and after travelling 150 miles towards the north-east 
end of the lake, portaged over a range of mountains on the © 
north shore, and passing through a chain of small lakes reached ~ 
the end of the dwarf timber by the middle of September. At 
this point, roughly three hundred miles from Resolution, we — 
established a permanent camp, and, reduced to four in number, ~ 
