CHAPTER I 



HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT CARIBOU 



From childhood I have been a hunter of animals from 

 rabbits to wolves and antelope, from partridges to swans 

 and cranes. When I went to the Arctic I had a good 

 opinion of myself as a hunter, but most of that was soon 

 talked out of me. The theory was in the air everywhere 

 that a white man could not be a good hunter. On my 

 trip down the Mackenzie River, two or three of the Hud- 

 son's Bay traders had told me that the best white hunters 

 were better than the best Indian hunters, but the great 

 majority of the traders were of the opinion that ability 

 to hunt was an inborn gift with Indians and Eskimos and 

 that no white man could be really good at it. When I 

 came to the arctic coast I found this opinion universal. 

 The whalers had much to tell of the uncanny prowess of 

 the Eskimos and of the misadventures of such white men 

 as had thought they were able to hunt and had tried it. 

 According to the stories, the white men not only failed to 

 kill game, but they used to get bewildered whenever they 

 got beyond sight of ships and habitations. Sometimes 

 they wandered back to their own camp or hit upon some 

 other camp by accident; sometimes they had to be rescued 

 by Eskimos who went out in search of them; in many 

 cases they starved or froze to death. 



This was the view of white men as hunters which I got 

 almost unanimously from the whalers. There were only 

 two or three who disagreed. But what impressed, me 



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