THE CARIBOU. 77 



Forrester has described hunting the Woodland Caribou in 

 the following terms: 



As to its habits, while the Lapland or Siberian Eeindeer is the tamest and 

 most docile of its genus, the American Caribou is the fiercest, fleetest, wildest, 

 shyest, and most untamable; so much so that they are rarely pursued by white 

 hunters, or shot by them, except through casual good fortune, Indians alone 

 having the patience and instinctive craft which enables them to crawl unseen, 

 unsmelt — for the nose of the Caribou can detect the smallest taint upon the air, 

 of anything human, at least two miles up-wind of him — and unsuspected. If 

 he takes alarm, and starts on the run, no one dreams of pursuing. As well 

 pursue the wind, of which no man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it 

 goeth. Snow-shoes against him, alone, avail little; for, propped up on the 

 broad, natural snow-shoes of his long, elastic pasterns and wide-cleft, clacking 

 hoofs, he shoots over the crust of the deepest drifts* unbroken, in which the 

 lordly Moose would soon flounder, shoulder-deep, if hard-pressed, and the 

 graceful Deer would fall despairing, and bleat in vain for mercy. But he, the 

 ship of the winter wilderness, outstrips the wind among his native pines and 

 tamaracks — even as the desert ship, the Dromedary, out : trots the red simoom 

 on the terrible Sahara; and when once started, may be seen no more by human 

 eyes, nor run down by the fleetest feet of men — not if they, pursue him from 

 their nightly casual camps unwearied, following his trail by the day, by the 

 week, by the month, till a fresh snow effaces his tracks and leaves the hunter 

 at last as he was at the first of the chase, less only the fatigue, the disappoint- 

 ment, and the folly. 



While we have no historical record of the Woodland 

 Caribou ever having been found in any considerable num- 

 bers on the south shore of the Ottawa, I think there can be 

 little doubt of its having been quite plentiful on the north 

 side of the stream, within a few miles of its banks, in the 

 past. As mentioned before, stray members of the family 

 have been, to my own knowledge, seen on the south side of 

 the Ottawa, one having been killed at L' Original about 

 twenty -five years ago. 



The Caribou migrates in herds of from ten, to one, two, 

 even five hundred; and it is a notable fact that a concealed 

 hunter, with the wind in his favor, if he does not show 

 himself, has ammunition enough, a good rifle, and the man 

 behind it is the right man in the right place, can slaughter 

 a whole herd. Under ordinary conditions, the Woodland 

 Caribou is the most difficult to approach of all the Deer 

 genus; but when accidentally encountered, under circum- 

 stances such as I have mentioned, the animals seem to be 



