Trail and Camp-Fire 



twenty-five years ago caribou were very numer- 

 ous on the southern and western watersheds, 

 but owing to the enormous areas then swept 

 by fire, the caribou were practically extermi- 

 nated, either directly by the fire or indirectly 

 from the ease with which they were hunted 

 in the restricted areas of greenwoods by the 

 Indians, whose southern hunting lands were 

 destroyed, and who were obliged to hunt 

 closely in order to exist. Within a few years 

 the interior became almost wholly depleted of 

 caribou, and then the Indians died in numbers 

 from starvation owing to the failure to find 

 deer. Within the past few years the caribou 

 have been increasing throughout the interior, 

 and they will probably soon again be quite 

 numerous. At present probably the most sat- 

 isfactory hunting grounds for woodland cari- 

 bou are to be found in the southern country 

 to the west of the Saguenay, including the 

 Lake St. John, St. Maurice and Ottawa 

 regions, or along the coast of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence eastward to the Strait of Belle Isle, 

 the caribou becoming most numerous toward 

 the east. 



The barren-ground caribou (Rangifer groen- 

 landicus, Linn. ) ranges in immense bands over 



36 



