A HUNTER'S CAMP-FIRES 



narrow lakes, and an hour after dark reached our main camp 

 on the shores of Birchy Lake. This body of water is about a 

 mile in width and four miles in length, and is situated on the 

 height of land, a portage of two miles from one end of the lake 

 connecting with continuous water to the eastern coast of the 

 island. Back of our camp, on the southern shore of the lake, 

 black spruce ridges extended southward until they terminated 

 in bare, gray peaks. One of these, named Mount Seymour, 

 towered high above the surrounding mountains. Beyond the 

 hills to the north continuous barrens extended to the northern 

 peninsula of Newfoundland, where the hosts of caribou spent 

 the summer months. 



Our camp was located on a spruce-covered point, and con- 

 sisted of three tents sheltered from the fierce winds of this 

 season of the year by a wind-break of felled tree-tops. The 

 two guides, Tom and Will Webb, and the cook, John, were very 

 pleasant and thoroughly efficient Newfoundland trappers with 

 a mixture of French and Micmac blood. Our only neighbors 

 were a party of ten native fishermen, who had laboriously rowed 

 two whale-boats up to the lake from Hall's Bay, on the eastern 

 coast of the island. They were now camped on a point a mile 

 and a half from us, with the expectation of taking the same 

 heavy toll from the migrating caribou herds as they had taken 

 from the same stand for sixteen successive years. The first 

 few days after my arrival at the lake passed uneventfully, on 

 account of the weather being warm, and consequently the 

 caribou were not travelling. However, we secured fresh meat, 

 and our neighbors killed a number of cows and calves, as well 

 as one bull with a very fair head. As a large portion of the 

 island is covered with water, it is necessary that the caribou 

 swim numerous lakes and rivers during the annual migration. 

 These animals have been known to cross even as extensive a 

 body of water as Grand Lake, where at times they were almost 

 out of sighc of the land. They travel across streams and lakes 



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