A NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU-HUNT 



larger head of antlers than the one killed the day before, al- 

 though it had but twenty-eight points. This completed my 

 legal allowance of three bull caribou. We spent the remainder 

 of the morning in skinning caribou heads, and about noon 

 loaded our camp outfit in the boat, which was down to its gun- 

 wales in the water, and started on our homeward trip. We 

 had to fight against a heavy head-wind, but were aided by a 

 strong current in the river, owing to the enormous amount of 

 water which had fallen in the last two weeks. On reaching 

 Sandy Lake at dark we found such a sea that to attempt to 

 cross in the small boat would have been folly. We therefore 

 camped at the inlet near the birch-bark cabin of two French 

 trappers. These men were in excellent spirits, for besides 

 securing the usual amount of ordinary fur-bearing animals they 

 had recently had the luck to trap a black and a silver fox, which 

 meant a small fortune to them. The mainstay of the few 

 trappers in this country is the red fox, which is very plentiful, 

 and is caught in snares placed on runways or on sticks across 

 small streams. 



The wind having died down by morning, we rowed across 

 Sandy Lake and down the river. We frequently passed camps 

 of sportsmen and native hunters, and the air resounded with 

 the continual crackling of firearms as these parties took their 

 toll from the migrating herds. At noon we boiled some tea 

 over a small fire in a barren at the river - bank, and inadver- 

 tently chose a place for lunching in one of the principal leads. 

 In spite of the smoke of the fire, during the three-quarters of 

 an hour we remained here fully two hundred caribou swam 

 the stream and passed within seventy yards of either side of 

 us. Unfortunately the cloudiness of the day and a continual 

 drizzle prevented me from securing an interesting series of 

 photographs. The caribou we saw this day were the last of 

 the migration, and a combination of deep snows on the northern 

 part of the island and a continuous fusillade of shots from all 



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