CHAPTER IX. 



CARIBOU-HUNTING IN TIMBER AND BRUISE. 



THRESH from the barrens and open marshes of Newfound- 

 ]i land, I must acknowledge that the features of the country 

 where I first hunted in Lower Canada came upon me in the 

 nature of a surprise and a disappointment. It was a region 

 of dense forest-land thick timber, green timber, spruce, 

 pine, balsam, maple so close-grown that an average pace 

 of about a mile to a mile and a half an hour was the most 

 one could hope for, and through which the view rarely 

 extended for a hundred yards in any direction. Even the 

 shores of the beautiful lakes were wooded to within ten feet 

 of the water. 



At the outset it seemed that in so blind a country, suc- 

 cess or failure must be a matter of good or ill fortune. Silent 

 moccasins and straight powder alone must fail (even if one 

 attained the momentary possession of both), without that 

 " beginner's luck " which so often places the novice on a 

 plane with his betters. However, caribou were certainly 

 somewhere in that tangle of trees, deadfalls and moss, and 

 it remained but to try and find them. 



The determination to hunt the woodland caribou of 

 Lower Canada first came upon me in the shop of a taxi- 

 dermist, whither we had made a pilgrimage to examine 

 some moose trophies, and where I saw specimens of New 

 Brunswick and Quebec caribou. There is undoubtedly to 



