160 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



tively short time, it is able to move about and soon becomes 

 quite active. Suckling is supposed to continue for two or 

 three months. When in good condition and stalked, the 

 flesh of the moose is excellent eating, and, on the whole, 

 more tender and luscious than the venison of the red deer 

 or either species of caribou ; but animals killed after a long 

 chase on snow, or during or after the rutting season 'are 

 far from palatable, owing to a strong and very rank flavour 

 then acquired. The skins are dressed by native women and the 

 resulting smoked leather is made into tents or lodges, mocca- 

 sins, tunics, shirts, and trousers for winter and summer use 

 by the resident population of the interior. Some skins are 

 also cut up for pack cords and others turned into parchment 

 for the requirements of the Hudson's Bay Company and 

 others. Hunters assert that hermaphrodites and barren 

 females are sometimes met with, and that these imperfect 

 examples almost invariably attain a larger size and heavier 

 weight than their fertile kindred. Chief Trader H. J. Mo- 

 berly, an experienced officer, hunter, and woodsman, confirms 

 the truth of this statement from his own personal observa- 

 tion. In his "North-West Passage," Doctor Armstrong men- 

 tions that Capt. Sir Kobert IMLcClure, one of a small party 

 of explorers sent out in the spring of 1851 from Her 

 Majesty's ErankJin Search-expedition ship Investigator, then 

 wintering in Prince of Wales Strait, said that he saw three 

 animals which he firmly believed to be moose in about lati- 

 tude 71° north and longitude 114° west. I think this is the 

 first and only record of this animal having been met with on 

 the lands lying to the north of the American continent. 



Chief Trader James Lockhart has recorded that " the 

 moose down at Peel Kiver and Eort Yukon are much larger 

 than up this way [Great Slave Lake and Eort Simpson]. 

 There I have known two cases of extraordinary moose hav- 

 ing been killed [probably one or both were obtained at Peel 

 River] , the meat alone of each of them weighing over 1,000 

 pounds. The Loucheux have a superstition that the Indian 



