CHAPTER VI 



WINTER TRAVEL 



THE Caribou Hunt. Vague rumors had reach Fort Rae con- 

 cerning the whereabouts of the "deer" during the last 

 week of October, but it was not until the first of November 

 that a party left the post to hunt them. 



A few years ago the Barren Gound caribou appeared about 

 the fort regularly upon All Saints day. They were often killed 

 from the buildings, and throughout the winter might be found 

 near the post. In 1877 an unbroken line of caribou crossed 

 the frozen lake near the fort; they were fourteen days in pass- 

 ing, and in such a mass that, in the words of an eyewitness, 

 "daylight could not be seen" through the column. They are 

 now seldom seen within several miles of Rae. 



The " Fort Hunter," Tenony, with seven of his followers, 

 was just starting upon a seventy-five mile journey toward the 

 north on the evening of the first, when I learned of his inten- 

 tions, and after I had agreed to furnish a few skins of flour, 

 tea, and tobacco, and to pay a skin a day for a dog driver, it 

 was settled that I might accompany them into the hunting 

 grounds where the chief, Naohmby, had objected to my going 

 three months before, on the ground that all the game would 

 desert the country if pursued by a naturalist. 



I loaded my sled with thirty whitefish, three days' provision 

 for the dogs, and fifteen pounds of dried meat for the boy; 

 during the trip I shared alternately with each, the rank, hung 

 fish driving me to dried meat, and the leathery slabs compelling 

 me to return to the fish. 



As the "brigade" only intended getting clear of the fort that 

 evening, I preferred to remain and make an early start the next 

 day. We left the fort at daylight on the second, Yahty running 

 before the dogs. Our course was northward for twelve miles, 



