A NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU-HUNT 



AT midnight of October 20, 1906, the daily Intercolonial Rail- 

 i\ road train pulled into North Sydney, Cape Breton Island, 

 and transferred its passengers, including myself, to the small, 

 comfortable steamship Bruce. Then followed a rough journey 

 of nine hours across a portion of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, ter- 

 minating when the steamer entered the forbidding, black, rock- 

 bound harbor of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. After this 

 a fifteen-hour trip on the narrow-gauge railroad which crosses 

 the island landed me at the telegraph station at Grand Lake 

 at three o'clock in the morning, six hours behind the scheduled 

 time. During this trip the scenery from the car-window was 

 impressive but desolate, consisting mostly of burnt-over moun- 

 tains, lakes and barrens, and a rocky shore-line, on which a 

 heavy sea was breaking. 



The whole general tone of Newfoundland is one of gray- 

 ness and desolation. The grayish-green moss which festoons 

 the branches of the spruces, and the rain which comes down 

 almost incessantly, do not add to the gayety of a sojourn on this 

 bleak island. The interesting part of the railroad journey across 

 Newfoundland at this time of the 3^ear commences where I 

 debarked from the uncomfortable, slow-moving train. Beyond 

 this point the tracks wind continuously through extensive bar- 

 rens. When I had crossed these on the train seven years before 

 I had seen numerous caribou on their annual migration, and 

 the tents of sportsmen and native hunters*who were taking toll 



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