164 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



beginning of the succeeding month of April, by placing in 

 one or more caches (built on and formed of large blocks of 

 thick ice, well protected from wolves and wolverines, the 

 chief robbers to be feared), some 30 or 40 miles from its 

 outlet in Liverpool Bay, a considerable qu&.ntity of fresh 

 venison. Early in March the female seals begin to bring 

 forth their young, and the seal then became the chief object 

 of chase by the Eskimos, who, as the days lengthened, moved 

 out seaward on the ice from their winter residences on the 

 coast to engage in the interesting task of hunting seals. After 

 reaching the aforesaid caches, the bulk of the Eskimos would 

 remain in the neighbourhood, using the meat, trapping foxes, 

 and killing a few reindeer, and making the usual prepara- 

 tions for the summer season, until the disruption of the ice, 

 when many of them would ascend the river, visit the post, 

 and spend some days in its immediate vicinity, and in due 

 time proceed to the seashore. 



When I first reached the mouth of the Anderson River, 

 early in February, 1859, instead of a village, as I was led 

 to expect, there was but one large house inhabitisd by fifteen 

 men, women, and children, while the nearest group of huts 

 was, as they informed us, at too great a distance for us to 

 visit in the very cold and stormy weather which usually 

 occurs at that season, and which, indeed, prevailed during 

 our two days' stay there. Our party comprised one Scotch- 

 man, one Swede, one Ereneh half-breed, and one Loucheux 

 Indian, with two trains or teams of three dogs each. We 

 found our quarters very warm and comfortable. Fort An- 

 derson was established in 1861, after we had made several 

 more winter trips to the same house, as well as to the spring 

 provision rendezvous on the ice, already mentioned. By the 

 autumn of 1865, however, several new huts were built at 

 intervening distances from there to within some 60 miles 

 from the post. This was done at my request, and their oceu-. 

 pants met with some success in trapping foxes and minks, 

 with a few martens, in the wooded ravines farther south. On 



