isios.j 



MAMMALS. 



221 



and Great Bear Lake in August I found them to be fairly common 

 throughout the region. I noted tracks on nearly all the portages, but 

 failed to see any of the animals. In several places their well-worn 

 and characteristic trails were very conspicuous. The animals were 

 feeding largely on blueberries, which were ripening abundantly in 

 the muskegs. Along the southern shores of Great Bear Lake in Sep- 

 tember we frequently saw their tracks. They were then feeding on 

 the ripe berries of Vacci7imm uUginosiim, Vitisidcea vitisidcea, and 

 E mpetrnm nigrum. Several parties of Indians, whose camps were 

 passed near the western end of the lake about the middle of Septem- 

 ber, had lately killed bears. 



^Alien we ascended the ^lackenzie in October the bears had mostly 

 hibernated and we saw no recent tracks. About December 1, how- 

 ever, James MacKinlay, while on his way to Great Slave Lake, saw 

 a fresh track near the Head of the Line, TO miles above Fort Simp- • 

 son. Three black bears were tracked and killed by Indians near Fort 

 Providence about the same time. The}^ were ver}^ thin and had not 

 hibernated. The scarcity of berries during the autumn was given 

 as the cause of the animals not being able to fatten and go into winter 

 quarters as usual. 



AATiile descending the Mackenzie in June, 1904, I saw tracks of 

 bears at several points. Xear the mouth of the Nahanni the animals 

 ajDparently were quite common. Just after running the Sans Sault 

 Rapid, 125 miles below Fort Norman, on Jime 19, we killed a bear. 

 The animal proved to be a female about 3 years old. She had evi- 

 dently never borne young. The stomach was distended with the 

 shoots of Equisetum., on which the animal was browsing when first 

 seen. We ascertained that man}^ skins are traded at Forts Norman 

 and Good Hope, and a few at Fort McPherson. AYhile we were 

 ascending the Athabaska during August, on our homeward trip, a 

 number of bears were seen and several were shot by natives accom- 

 panying the transport. 



The cinnamon or brown phase of color, though of rather common 

 occurrence in the mountains of Alberta, is rare throughout the 

 greater part of the region east of the mountains. I have never seen 

 a skin of this phase on the Athabaska or Slave rivers, but was told 

 that a ' cinnamon ' bear was killed on the lower part of Little Buffalo 

 River, near FOrt Resolution, about the middle of June, 1903. The fur 

 traders say that an occasional one is brought to Fort Resolution from 

 the eastern end of Great Slave Lake. At Fort Simpson, also, a 

 brown skin is occasionally traded. This phase was reported to be 

 very rare at Fort Good Hope. Ross, writing on the bears of the 

 Mackenzie River district about the year 1860, states that the brown 

 variety of this species is very rare.^ 



«Can. Nat. and GeoL, VII, p. 139, 1862. 



