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A MOOSE HUNT. 



In the spring of 1833, the Moose were remarkably abundant in the 

 neighbourhood of the Schoodiac Lakes ; and, as the snow was so deep in 

 the woods as to render it almost impossible for them to escape, many of 

 them were caught. About the 1st of March 1833, three of us set off on 

 a hunt, provided with snow-shoes, guns, hatchets, and provisions for a 

 fortnight. On the first day we proceeded fifty miles, in a sledge drawn 

 by one horse, to the nearest lake, where we stopped for the night, in the 

 hut of an Indian named Lewis, of the Passamaquody tribe, and who has 

 abandoned the wandering life of his race, and turned his attention to 

 farming and lumbering. Here we saw the operation of making snow- 

 shoes, which requires more skill than one might imagine. The men ge- 

 nerally make the bows to suit themselves, and the women weave in the 

 threads, which are usually made of the skin of the Karaboo deer. 



The next day we went on foot sixty-two miles farther, when a heavy 

 rain-storm coming on, we were detained a whole day. The next morn- 

 ing we put on snow-shoes, and proceeded about thirteen miles, to the 

 head of the Musquash Lake, where we found a camp, which had been 

 erected by some lumberers in the winter, and here we established our 

 head- quarters. In the afternoon an Indian had driven a female moose- 

 deer, and two young ones of the preceding year, within a quarter of a 

 mile of our camp, when he was obhged to shoot the old one. We under- 

 took to procure the young alive, and after much exertion succeeded in 

 getting one of them, and shut it up in the shed made for the oxen ; but 

 as the night was falling, we were compelled to leave the other in the 

 woods. The dogs having killed two fine deer that day, we feasted upon 

 some of their flesh, and upon Moose, which certainly seemed to us the 

 most savoury meat we had ever eaten, although a keen appetite is very 

 apt to warp one's judgment in such a case. After supper we laid our- 

 selves down before the huge fire we had built up, and were soon satisfied 

 that we had at last discovered the most comfortable mode of sleeping. 



In the morning we started off on the track of a Moose, which had 

 been driven from its haunt or yard by the Indians the day before ; and, 

 although the snow was in general five feet deep, and in some places much 

 deeper, we travelled three miles before we came to the spot where the 



