THE CARIBOU 
apply to hunting the Great Slave Lake herd and most of the deer about 
the Porcupine and the plateaux at the head of the Yukon tributaries and 
Cassiar. In any case this fall hunt is a rush and he is a lucky man who can 
find three or four first-class heads in a fortnight’s hunting and make good 
his retreat. Certainly the finest caribou come from Labrador, Alaska, 
and North British Columbia, but few men care to risk the long journey 
and the great expense it involves, to say nothing of accidents to river and 
sea steamers, which are frequent, and the perils of canoe journeys and 
exposure in inhospitable regions. But on the other hand these are journeys 
for men of the best type, and we trust such are still numerous in England. 
The various drawbacks to this distant hunting for caribou are in the 
main the excuse why so many sportsmen go to Newfoundland to get their 
caribou heads. Here hunting is easy and pleasant, and if a man has just 
a little originality it is nearly always successful. Even in that small island 
it is absolutely necessary to break a fresh trail if the hunter desires to get 
specimens above the ordinary, for the best stags know that they will be 
shot at if they accompany the mass of migrating animals, and keep apart 
from them in the centre or north of the island where there are always 
many stationary deer. Twenty years ago a man had not to go far to kill a 
good stag, for numbers were always found amongst the rutting herds on 
migration, but the case is altogether different now. Practically no super - 
heads travel, and a friend who has been for four seasons on the line of the 
migration and has seen tens of thousands of caribou admits that he has 
never once seen a first-class head. In the course of four journeys into the 
interior, on two of which I spent several months on the island, being occu- 
pied with mapping fresh districts, I was granted special permission by 
the Government to kill what I required for food for my men. I was careful 
never to shoot a deer unless it was absolutely necessary or carried an 
exceptional head. In the four seasons I shot fifty-two males and four 
females, and obtained heads with 49, 45, 44, 40 and 35 points, four of 
these being magnificent specimens. Only on one occasion did I fail to get 
a head I desired and then the stag, which was travelling at dawn, got our 
wind from the camp and galloped away, so I only obtained a very difficult 
running shot at 250 yards. Needless to say the animal in question was a 
wonderful one. 
All my best stags were found coming to drink at the rivers at dawn or 
sunset, passing from the dense forests across certain well-worn paths 
made by themselves on their route to feed, or frequently high plateaux 
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