200 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



the Company sold in London a total of 124,100 skins, or an 

 average of 4,964 a year. The three best sales were in 1856, 

 1864, and 186.9, which amounted to 10,311, 12,242 and 

 12,088 respectively, and the three lowest were in 1855, with 

 1,897, 1859 with 1,577, and 1871 with 1,805 skins. In 

 1902, 8,487 skins, and in 1903, 10,717 skins were sold at 

 the same place. 



If the Hudson Bay and Canadian Arctic blue fox be a 

 variety of Vulpes lagopus, which I certainly doulbt, the stone- 

 blue fox of the Pribilof Islands and other Alaskan islands, 

 even in originally introduced cases, is surely entitled to 

 specific rank. Blue foxes occur very sparingly on the north- 

 ern, Hudson Bay, and Labrador coasts. We secured very 

 few skins thereof at Fort Anderson. It is, indeed, a very 

 rare inland visitor. Mr. Bernard E,. Boss writes that up 

 to the close of outfit 1861 he had known of only two instances, 

 and in both the examples were secured on the verge of the 

 " Barren Grounds," situated near the eastern end of Great 

 Slave Lake. The very next season, however, after his de- 

 parture from Fort Eesolution in 1862, the same Indian tribe 

 killed one summer and three prime winter skins thereof. 

 Outfit 1872 also records another winter example. From 

 1853 to 1877 the Company had in all but 1,100 blue foxes 

 for sale in London, an average of only 44 a year. The three 

 best year's sales were in 1864 with 82 skins, 1869 with 124 

 skins, and 1873 with 90 skins. The smallest sales were 3 

 skins in 1860, and 13 skins in 1868, while the years 1857, 

 185,9,, and 1871 yielded but 15 skins each. Chief Factor 

 Eobert Campbell, one of my predecessors in charge of Atha- 

 basca District, received three skins in 1859 and two more 

 in 1862 from the most northerly Indians who resort to Fond 

 du Lac, Athabasca. During my fourteen years' management, 

 we obtained 15 skins from the same " Barren Ground " 

 quarter. It may also be mentioned that between 1862 and 

 1883 the district of Mackenzie Eiver traded 140 skins, 

 nearly all from the Eskimos resorting to Fort McPherson. 



