394 
FOREST AND STREAM 
September, 1921 
NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU (RANGIFER TERRA ENOVAE, BANGS). 
Wild stag, photographed, 1902, on a Newfoundland barren, 
by Charles D. Cleveland, and reproduced by permission. 
A NEWFOUNDLAND CARIBOU HUNT 
RECORDING A TRIP INTO THE BARRENS NEAR GRAND LAKE WHERE 
MANY ANIMALS WERE SEEN AND THREE GOOD HEADS SECURED 
N ewfoundland, lying at the 
entrance of the great opening be- 
tween Nova Scotia and Cape 
Breton Island on the south and the 
peninsula of Labrador on the north, is 
chiefly noted for its fogs, salmon and 
great herds of caribou. The fogs are 
found everywhere, the salmon abound 
in the rivers and the caribou, although 
they are scattered throughout the isl- 
and, have regular migrations in great 
herds from the north to the south of 
the island in the Fall, returning the 
next Spring. Its inhospitable shores 
of abrupt rocky ledges are the terror 
of shipping in time of storms. Only 
a few good harbors are to be found 
on the island, and it was into one of 
these, Port-au-Basques, that we steamed 
on the fine ship “Bruce” on August 
28th, 1901. 
From the steamer the land appeared 
quite hilly, but the shore was low and 
very rocky. The harbor is well shelt- 
ered and affords a safe place in time 
of storm. There were four of us in 
our party and we had set out from 
home with the hope of being able to 
go some place where it would be pos- 
By HARRY L. FERGUSON 
sible to both fish for salmon and to 
hunt for caribou. The Custom House 
formalities were soon over and, after 
procuring our licenses, we boarded the 
train and started for Bay St. George, 
where we had arranged to meet our 
guides. 
The trip on the train was not es- 
pecially attractive, as the sparks from 
the engines had set fire to all the near 
lying woods, which made an unsightly 
vista of dead and fallen timber. In 
the distance, however, this dead look 
disappeared and the whole effect was 
rather pleasing. 
At Bay St. George we landed from 
the train and went to Butts Hotel, 
where our head guide, Maxim Young, 
met us. He was quite an old man, a 
typical Newfoundlander, but in spite 
of his age we found later that he could 
do a day’s work as well as the next 
man and was a nice old fellow to be 
with in camp. 
Our plans had been made to go to 
Fischels Brook, but Maxim had been 
told that caribou were very scarce in 
that neighborhood, so we decided to go 
to Grand Lake and give up our idea 
of getting salmon and to spend our 
time after caribou. It was necessary 
to have boats of some kind to go down 
Grand Lake to the territory where the 
caribou were to be found, so we rented 
an old dory and purchased another, and 
the next morning started out on the 
train. 
We were waiting at the little sta- 
tion with our dories and provisions and 
duffle bags lying about us when with 
a defiant whistle the train steamed by 
us and on up the track. We stood 
there speechless with astonishment, and 
then as the train was seen to falter 
and stop about a mile beyond at a 
water tank, my brother raced after it. 
Running on railroad ties is no easy 
work, but at last he reached the train 
breathless, and in time to explain that 
we had been left. The conductor be- 
ing very accommodating backed the 
train to the station, where we loaded 
our outfit onto a flat car and climbed 
aboard. 
As the day was warm and the sun 
shining, we spent most of the five hours 
that the ride consumed in sitting in our 
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