FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



285 



Wifeh the pack straps, these outfits 

 will mean about a 50-pound load for each 

 man, and will last 2 weeks, if no game is 

 •secured, to a month in a district where 

 game is plentiful. 

 The pack straps are important. My plan 

 is to make my pack 

 into an oblong shape, 

 long enough to rest on 

 the hips when the top 

 is a little above the 

 level of the shoulder. 

 Pass 2 straps around 

 the pack about 4 inches 

 from each end and run 

 a single cord around 

 longitudinally, ' taking a 

 half hitch around each 

 strap. The shoulder 

 straps should be made 

 a comfortable pack of heavy drilling stuffed 

 with cotton until they 

 are about 1% inches in diameter. To 

 each end of these, pieces of stout string or 

 buckskin should be secured, so the straps 

 can be fastened firmly to the cross straps 

 of the pack. After half an hour's travel 

 the pack settles considerably, and with this 

 arrangement any and all parts can be 

 easily tightened. The pack straps for sale 

 in stores are of little use. For one thing, 

 the points of attachment of the shoulder 

 straps are always too close together, and 

 a leather strap never adjusts itself to the 

 shape of the shoulder. Allan Brooks. 



NEWFOUNDLAND POTHUNTERS. 



"Choice venison, one cent a pound," 

 was, the legend affixed to the window of 

 every victualler's store in this city a few 

 days ago, says a St. John, Newfound- 

 land, paper. The coast steamer, Home, 

 arrived from Fortune bay with 375 car- 

 casses of caribou, all she had space for, 

 some 500 others being left behind for lack 

 of room. The weather being mild, the 

 consignees had to get rid of the meat at 

 once. Slaughter prices were therefore 

 the rule, a term appropriate enough when 

 one recalls the fact that it is to the reck- 

 less butchery of our caribou by our own 

 people that we owe this, condition. 



The caribou are hunted by local and 

 alien sportsmen during the autumn, but 

 after Christmas the indiscriminate slaugh- 

 ter of them for trade purposes begins. 



The deer, driven by their instinct, mi- 

 grate Southward in the fall from their 

 summer feeding grounds, and find shelter 

 in the forests along the Southern coast. 

 There they spend the winter, feeding on 

 the undergrowth. As soon as the marshes 

 freeze so as to become passable for dogs 

 and sleds, hunting parties are organized, 



and a slaughter of hundreds of the ani- 

 mals takes place. 



The business is controlled by the large 

 traders in these hamlets. These men en- 

 gage the ordinary fisher folk, supply them 

 with guns, powder and provisions and 

 send them off in gangs of 50 or 60 to pur- 

 sue their barbarous quest. When the 

 weather is severe the meat sometimes 

 brings 5 cents a pound, but a season like 

 this, when a mild spurt sets in, and the 

 price drops to one cent, means a heavy 

 loss. The hunters are the poorest among 

 our coast people, and the traders are uni- 

 versally denounced for farming out in the 

 manner they do the opportunities for car- 

 rying on a pursuit which, if moderately 

 and judiciously undertaken, would yield a 

 good return without threatening the ex- 

 termination of the game, as now seems 

 inevitable. 



The practice of these hunters is to ap- 

 proach and surround a likely haunt of the 

 caribou, then drive them into a large open 

 glade, and, as they flounder in the deep 

 snow, shoot them down. Not one is al- 

 lowed to escape. After paunching the 

 slain and removing the heads and hocks, 

 the carcasses are fastened on sleds and 

 taken out to the coast, where the steamer 

 finds them and conveys them to market. 



A business man from Fortune bay, 

 who came by the steamer yesterday, es- 

 timates that fully 2,500 caribou have been 

 slaughtered there this winter. The boat 

 in 3 trips has brought 1,000 carcasses here, 

 almost as many more have been kept by 

 the settlers for their own use, and the re- 

 mainder have rotted. 



These 2,500 carcasses bear slight rela- 

 tion to the total kill in the island during 

 the last shooting season, which opened 

 June 15 and closed January 31. Probably 

 another 5,000 should be added. Some 210 

 alien sportsmen took out licenses during 

 the season, to shoot 5 to 8 deer each, and 

 assuming 6 as an average, we find a total 

 of 1,260 accounted for by them alone. 



Local sportsmen would number at least 

 as many more, and kill an equal number 

 of deer, and 2,500 as a kill for all the 

 fishermen in the great Northern bays, who 

 hunt every autumn as a means of securing 

 a winter's meat supply, is not an extrava- 

 gant estimate. 



There is no doubt of the enormous val- 

 ue of our herds of caribou. It therefore 

 seems suicidal to permit the present un- 

 bridled slaughter to continue. If it goes 

 on, it must inevitably lead to the deplet- 

 ing of the herds so much that foreign 

 sportsmen will quit coming here. With 

 proper laws, the caribou should be a 

 mine of wealth to the colony and its peo- 

 ple. Last year $8,600 was received from 

 outside hunters for license fees, and prob- 



