100 THEOUGH THE MAjOKENZIE BASIN 



chase, by some of the party, of an old pair of moulting gray 

 geese with their young, all, of course, unable to fly. It was 

 pitiful to watch the clever and fearless actions of the old 

 birds as decoys, falling victims, at last, to parental love. 

 Indeed, they were not worth eating, and to kill them was a 

 sin. But when were there ever scruples over food on Peace 

 River, that theatre of mighty feats of gormai^dism? 



I have already hinted at those masterpieces of voracity 

 for which the region is renowned; yet the undoubted facts 

 related around our camp-fires, and otherwise, a few of which 

 follow, almost beggar belief. Mr. Young, of our party, an 

 old Hudson's Bay officer, knew of sixteen trackers who, in 

 a few days, consumed eight bears, two moose, two bags of 

 pemmican, two sacks of flour, and three sacks of potatoes. 

 Bishop Grouard vouched for four men eating a reindeer at a 

 sitting. Our friend, Mr. d'Eschambault, once gave Oskin- 

 nequ — " The Young Man " — six pounds of pemmican, who 

 ate it all at a meal, washing it down with a gallon of tea, and 

 then complained that he had not had enough. Sir George 

 Simpson states that at Athabasca Lake, in 1820, he was one 

 of a party of twelve who ate twenty- two geese and three ducks 

 at a single meal. But, as he says, they had been three whole 

 days without food. The Saskatchewan folk, however, knovTn 

 of old as the Gens de Blaireaux — " The People of the Badger 

 Holes " — ^were not behind their congeners. That man of 

 weight and might, our old friend, Chief-factor Belanger — 

 drowned, alas, many years ago with young Simpson at Sea 

 Falls — once served out to thirteen men a sack of pemmican 

 weighing ninety pounds. It was enough for three days ; but, 

 there and then, they sat down and consumed it all at a single 

 meal, not, it must be added, without some subsequent and 

 just pangs of indigestion. Mr. B. having occasion to pass 

 the place of eating, and finding the sack of pemmican, as he 

 supposed, in his path, gave it a kick ; but, to his amazement, 

 it bounded aloft several yards, and then lit. It was empty ! 

 When it is remembered that, in the old buffalo days, the daily 



