70 HUNTING CAMPS. 



they once were. Instead of the caribou skin coats figured 

 and painted with strange devices, some now wear a 

 summer garb of felt hat, trade shirt, and blue jean 

 jumpers. All that remains of the ancient dress are the 

 deerskin mocassins worked by their women in their 

 winter camps. Powder and ball, tea and tobacco, a 

 little bright- coloured finery for the women (whom they 

 never bring down to the east coast), form their currency, 

 and presently one morning, after a ceremonious fare- 

 well, the birch-bark canoes are loaded and their owners 

 paddle away into the wilderness and vanish for another 

 year. They are accompanied upon their journey by 

 their hunting dogs, small and quick-footed creatures 

 quite unlike the husky in appearance. 



Day after day from all the high hills I used to search 

 for the smoke of Indian fires, as for some reason that 

 year neither the Montagnais nor the Nascaupees came 

 in any numbers to the posts. During this time it was 

 bright, windy weather ; the wind never dropped, but 

 blew so fiercely that it made the eyes ache. The same 

 wind, had we known it, was preparing the way for 

 a tragedy to the south of us. It was this pitiless wind 

 which delayed the Hubbard expedition and finally 

 caused them to turn and to attempt to struggle back 

 through the long valley of the Susan River. They had 

 set out early in the season and had pushed on, hoping 

 always to find the caribou, on which they depended for 

 food, but in all their wanderings they killed but one 

 animal, so that finally, weakened by hunger and beset 

 by snows, poor young Hubbard succumbed, after a 

 most gallant struggle, while his two companions, 

 pushing on to get help, could not bring it until too 

 late. 



