Anca 29, 1902.T 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
247 
LOUCHEAUX WINTER CAMP, 
Mr. Stone's work in the north is in no sense a local 
•ork. He has begun, and will continue, a zoological ex- 
iloration covering all of Arctic and sub-Arctic America, 
s far north as the mainland extends. "This is his field, 
lis purpose is to make known the character of the animal 
ife of this region, and to render possible the description 
nd classification of the forms which inhabit it. 
No one who has not journeyed in the north can have 
ny conception of the difficulties, the privations and 
he hardships which attend passage through that coun- 
ry. Only experitnee can give an adequate idea of the 
oil of passing o\cr the land, of the dangers and diffi- 
lulties of travel bv water, of the labor of carrying all 
applies on the bnck. of the cold, of the storms, the heat, 
he mosquitoes, or of the thousands of obstacles to be 
n'ercome by a toil which continues day after day, and 
hat is never over until the journey is at an end. To 
mccessfullv carry ( n such a work as has-been Mr. Stone's 
me must he full cf resources, strong in mind and body, 
'amiliar with the conditions that constantly confront the 
■.raveler, possessed of good judgment, quick to decide, and 
ibove al! tilings, full of pluck and determination to suc- 
:eed. Mr. Stone's achievements show him to be pos- 
sessed of these qualities. . , 
The methods of transportation in the north are primi- 
tive, and conditions may make it necessary at any mo- 
ment to change cne for another. Where a man cannot 
travel by boat, cr with dog sledges, natives must be 
iiired to* carry eq lipment and specimens, and one must 
-travel cn foot. It is necessary to wade streams, to im- 
provise rafts, to build boats; but, by whatever means 
progress is to be made, the word is ever forward, and 
nothing must be allowed to come between the traveler 
and the work which he has to do. 
As an example of Mr. Stone's readiness of resource, 
may be given the story of his crossing the Carcajou 
River, which he tells in the following words: 
"In the summer of 1898 I left Fort Norman, in 65 
degrees nortb latitude, with three Indians in a birch 
bark canoe, and, after travel : ng down the Mackenzie 
about seventy-five miles, landed on the west bank at 1 
o'clock in the morning. We slept til! S, and after a 
hurried breakfast, cached our birch canoe in the bushes, 
and putting about eight pounds of flour and two pounds of 
bacon in a little bag, lashed it with a stout cord. One of 
the Indians then cut a square of bark from a birch 
tree, made a hole in the center just large enough to ad- 
mit the cord, and bending the bark down on two sides in , 
the shape of a roof— to protect the flour from the rain- 
he climbed a tree and made it fast to a limb. 
"It was fifty miles across a muskeg country to the 
foot of the mountains that I wanted to hunt, and the 
Indians said that to reach the mountains required two 
sleeps, or three days' hard travel. After making the 
little cache of provision for our return, we had only 
two days' provision left. When this was done we must 
get our living from the country or starve. _ 
"I was in the best of training, hard as a rock, and with 
the wind of a fox hound. I took my pack, consisting of 
a change of clothing, my blankets, my 5 x 7 camera and 
six double plate holders, all in sole leather cases, eleven 
dozen 5x7 plates, rifle and ammunition, knives and whet- 
stone and a few other small items, and my companions 
carried salt for skins and our little camp outfit. The 
traveling was so bad that it was impossible to walk up- 
right, and the mosquitoes were so thick that there was 
no such thing as rest. . • 
"Away we went, plunging and falling through the mire 
and over hummocks and brush, through swamps and shal- 
low lakes, the mosquitoes gnawing my very vitals. I set 
the pace, and I kept it, and in the evening of the second 
day, my face and neck swollen almost beyond recognition 
and covered with blood from the wounds of insects, we 
passed out of the swamp on to the bed of the Carcajou 
River. 
"Before me was a stretch of sand and gravel about a 
mile in width, and beyond this rose abruptly the northern 
Rockies. As Ave proceeded over the bed of sand a cooling 
breeze came from the mountains that swept the insect 
life away and instilled me wkh fresh life. The river was 
very low, and had subsided into a few narrow channels, 
which we waded. We camped at the foot of the moun- 
tains for the night, and the next morning we ate the. 
last morsel of food we had, with the exception of a 
little tea. 
"All day long we climbed back into the mountains. At 
the end of the day's travel every one was very weak from 
hunger and exertion. We pitched camp and made some 
tea. I then took my rifle and prospected for game, find- 
ing considerable sign, but no game. I returned to camp, 
and after three hours' sleep and another cup of tea we all 
started out again. _ One of the Indians played out, the 
other two stayed with me. 
"After about twenty-four hours of hunting, three large 
rams were located on a very high mountain ridge, I 
secured one of them with my own rifle, and the accom- 
plishment of this feat would furnish material for pages. 
Just forty-six hours from the time we breakfasted on 
.the banks of the Carcajou at the foot of the mountains I 
provided camp with our first food. 
"I remained several weeks, and made a magnificent col- 
lection of specimens in a country far removed from that 
in which any such work had ever been done. 
"During our stay in the mountains the rains were fre- 
quent and heavy, and on our return I found the Carcajou 
River over half a mile wide, a roaring, rapid stream full 
of floating material that endangered navigation. We only 
had a little fresh meat to live on until we could reach 
our cache on the Mackenzie, and speedy action was my 
seventeen were successfully brought out. Not at this 
time, however, for they were placed in a secure cache 
made of logs, and lined with stones, so as to be secure 
from the prowl'ng wolverine; but six months later, in 
winter, the Hudson's Bay Company sent dog sledges 
and brought out the material obtained with so much 
difficulty. 
The work done in this country and among these ani- 
mals is not the work of the hunter, but of the naturalist. 
Animals must be hunted, of course— that is to say. they* 
must be approached and secured, but before being col- 
lected, they must be watched and studied. It is not the 
ioy of securing rare game, nor the excitement of the 
chase that leads Mr. Stone to undergo these hardships, 
He goes as an investigator, not to prove any theory, but 
to discover new things. The journeys are made m order 
to learn this animal life as it actually is; to establish the 
geographic position and range of the various species ; to 
know in what character of country a species is found at, 
all seasons of the year; what it eats, and what are its 
habits. Nor is It enough to know what the animal does, 
and how it does it; the naturalist wishes to know also 
why it does it. . 
It is not enough to study a species in one locality 
alone; the effort is made to study it in many localities; 
to compare the animals of one region with their relatives 
in another region, and thus to check observations back- 
ward and forward, in order that the fullest knowledge 
may be had of the ways of the species. Closely connected 
with the life of many of the animals of the north is the 
flora of the country, the plants upon which many o£ 
these animals subsist ; and, in the same way, the study of 
the natives, the most important enemies of many species, 
has a bearing on the questions to be examined. 
An interesting and important part of this work is 
photographic. When specimens are killed, photographs 
are taken of the animal as a whole, of its head, legs and 
sometimes of other portions of the body, and from several 
points of view. Such photographs are of the greatest 
assistance to the naturalist, who is to study or describe 
the specimen, as well as to the taxidermist, who may 
have occasion to mount it. Very .few taxidermists know 
anything about the appearance in life of the animals which 
they prepare. They must either evolve their outlines and 
modeling from their own inner consciousness, or must 
trust to pictures in natural history works which may 
or may not be correct. Mr. Stone's photographs supply 
precisely the information that the taxidermist requires. 
Photography plays an important part, too, in the study 
of the environment of the various animals. Beside show- 
ing the natural features and giving a general idea of 
the vegetation found there, large photographs of char- 
acteristic plants are taken which are interesting and use- 
ful. Mr. Stone has one series of pictures of vegetation 
taken at short range on the mountains inhabited by the 
white sheep. The pictures begin at the base of the moun- 
tains, and are taken at short intervals as the ascent is 
made, and thus give a very clear idea of the changes in 
the plant life at greater and greater altitudes. 
In the years 1898 and 1899 Mr. Stone made a journey 
by dog sledge along the Arctic coast, covering about 
3,000 miles. This is believed to be the longest sledge 
trip ever made in the Arctic, the next in length, perhaps, 
having been that made by McClintock, which was some- 
thing over 1,600 miles. 
Among the specimens at the American Museum of 
Natural History collected by Mr. Stone are many of the 
THE WAY I CACHED MY SPECIMENS. AT THE FOOT OF THE ROCKIES, WEST OF THE MACKENZIE. 
only dependence. I told my Indians to^ bring me some 
green poles quick, 'All the same make skin boat.'^ 
"We lashed these together in a crude way with such 
string as we happened to have in our pockets, bent on 
willow brush for ribs, spread oat our 12 x 18 light drill 
fly. placed the frame on top of this and brought the cloth 
up at the ends and tied it in bunches with strings. Then 
we placed the boat on the water, put in our packs and my 
valuable photographic outfit, picked up driftwood sticks 
for paddles and climbed in. _ In less than two hours from 
the time we reached the river we were continuing our 
journey on the opposite side." 
Here twenty-two white sheep were Killed, of which 
giant moose of Alaska, which not long ago was described 
as a new species. It is well known that this animal is 
characterized by an enormous spread of horns, and that 
it is larger than the moose of the East. Its legs are 
much darker than those of the Eastern moose, tan color 
or smoky brown, while those of the moose of the East 
are whitish. Two species of caribou, one called R. mon- 
tanus, from the Cassiar country in northwestern Brit- 
ish Columbia, and the other, R. stonei, from the Kenai 
Peninsula in Alaska, are characterized by a dark wood- 
brown belly in the male, while in the female the belly 
is light, nearly white. In the newly discovered R. granti, 
from the western part of the Alaska, Peninsula,, the malf, 
