26 



THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



Hurons,"^^ This may be freely translated by 

 saying that moose were found in great numbers 

 in the country north of the lower St. Lawrence 

 River, but were very rare in the district between 

 Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario. 



In the latter half of the seventeenth century 

 Peter Esprit Radisson, a French trader who 

 wrote an account of his travels in English, made 

 extended journeys to Hudson Bay, and to the 

 upper Mississippi Valley. Telling of a season 

 spent in the region southwest of Lake Superior 

 he wrote: "The spring approaches, w''^ [is] 

 the fitest time to kill the Oriniack. A wildman 

 and I w*^ my brother killed that time above 600, 

 besides other beasts." Perhaps moose were a 

 little less numerous than Radisson's statement 

 would imply. Most of us will question, at any 

 rate, whether their antlers were as heavy as he 

 would have us believe. Writing about 1660 he 

 says: "I have scene of their homes that a man 

 could not lift them from of the ground. They 

 are branchy & flatt in the midle, of w""^ the wildman 

 makes dishes y* can well hold three quarts." 



Denys wrote in 1672 that moose, which formerly 



- Histoire du Canada (Paris, 1636), p. 749. 



36 Voyages (Boston, 1885), p. 220. Collections of the Minnesota 

 Historical Society, vol. x., part ii. (St. Paul, 1905), pp. 502-505. 

 3 7 Voyages, p. 156. 



