260 THE ARCTIC PRAIRIES 



Of these the Hay River and Liard Indians, number- 

 ing about 500, can scarcely be considered Caribou- 

 eaters, so that the Indian population feeding on Cari- 

 bou to-day is about 3,000, less than half what it was 

 100 years ago. 



Of these not more than 600 are hunters. The traders 

 generally agree that the average annual kill of Caribou 

 is about 10 or 20 per man, not more. When George 

 Sanderson, of Fort Resolution, got 75 one year, it was 

 the talk of the country; many got none. Thus 20,000 

 per annum killed by the Indians is a liberal estimate 

 to-day. 



There has been so much talk about destruction by 

 whalers that I was careful to gather all available in- 

 formation. Several travellers who had visited Her- 

 shell Island told me that four is the usual number 

 of whalers that winter in the north-east of Point Bar- 

 row. Sometimes, but rarely, the number is increased 

 to eight or ten, never more. They buy what Caribou 

 they can from Eskimo, sometimes aggregating 300 or 

 400 carcasses in a winter, and would use more if they 

 could get them, but they cannot, as the Caribou herds 

 are then far south. This, E. Sprake Jones, William 

 Hay, and others, are sure represents fairly the annual 

 destruction by whalers on the north coast. Only one 

 or two vessels of this traffic go into Hudson's Bay, and 

 these with those of Hershell are all that touch Caribou 

 country, so that the total destruction by whalers must 

 be under 1,000 head per annum. 



The Eskimo kill for their own use. Franz Boas 

 ("Handbook of American Indians") gives the number 



