HUNTING THE WHITE CARIBOU 



S. C. T. 



In October last I was invited by Frank 

 Seaman, him of the Gramophone and the 

 big advertising agency, to go to Newfound- 

 land to hunt caribou. We left New York on 

 the night of the 14th, via the New York 

 Central to Montreal, thence by the Inter- 

 colonial Railway to North Sidney, Nova 

 Scotia; thence by the steamship Bruce to 

 Bay of Islands; thence over the Newfound- 

 land Railway System to Deer lake. There 

 we were met by George and William 

 Nichols, who live at that station, and whom 

 we had engaged as guides. 



They took us across Deer lake to their 

 farmhouse, where we arrived at 10 o'clock 

 at night, in a drenching rain. When we 

 got up next morning it was still raining, 

 and as a certain weather reporter once said, 

 ''Was cloudy all over, clear down to the 

 edges." It looked as if it might rain a 

 month, and as our time on the hunting 

 grounds was limited to a few days, we 

 pulled out at once. Our course lay up the 

 Humber river, a magnificent rtream aver- 

 aging 100 to 150 yards in width. The 

 guides stored our duffle in 2 log canoes, 

 manned by George and William. Their 

 brother Ed was also placed in William's 

 canoe as helper. 



At noon we went ashore at the foot of 

 the first rapid. 6 miles above Mr. Nichol's 

 place, and lunched. The making of a fire 



was a slow process, but George cut down 

 a dead spruce, split up a portion of it, and 

 with a handful of birch bark as a starter, 

 finally had a blaze. The rain continued to 

 come down in a steady drizzle, and our 

 lunch was a dreary affair. After an hour's 

 rest, Seaman and I walked around the 

 rapids and the boys pushed the canoes 

 bravely through them. At the head of this 

 rapid we went aboard and from there to 

 the next we hud 3 miles of comparatively 

 still wa , or as the natives term it, "an- 

 other stidy." 



The Humber river forks about 4 miles 

 above Mr. Nichols' farm, and the bit of 

 still water from there to the first rapid 

 was originally called "Willow stidy," on 

 account of the clumps of willows growing 

 along the banks. Gradually this name was 

 applied to the entire left branch of the 

 Humber, which is navigable for canoes a 

 distance of 70 miles above the fork. The 

 term is entirely wrong, however, for thi> is 

 much the larger and more important arm 

 of the Humber and should be known as 

 the West branch. 



Beginning 3 miles above where we land- 

 ed there is a rapid 3 miles long, in the 

 course of which the river makes a horse- 

 shoe bend. Seaman and I portaged our- 

 selves across this and met the men at the 



UP THE HUMBER RIVER. 



427 



