THE CARIBOU 
(T. r. osborni) at the head of the Macmillan and Stewart Rivers, Alaska, 
but here again the hunting season is very short and a road has to be cut 
from the river and the outfit carried up on men’s backs, before the hunting 
ground is reached on the high plateaux. Both in this region and Cassiar 
caribou are by no means numerous, yet if a hundred animals can be viewed 
in the course of a fortnight’s hunting one at least is sure to be a remarkable 
trophy. 
Although in most cases the capture of a fine caribou head is merely a 
matter of patience, there are times when caribou are difficult to secure 
both in the woods and in the open hills. The American races are, like their 
more severely hunted cousins, the European reindeer, subject to sudden 
panics, and may start to travel without warning, at the same time alarming 
all the other herds in the neighbourhood. 
“ I have had to howl like a Dervish to keep masses of caribou from 
running over me,” writes Mr Jack Lee, “ when I did not want to kill 
any, and I have seen thousands of them on the bare hills and couldn’t get 
within range when I did want to kill some. And I have killed moose, bear 
and caribou in all ways between both extremes.” This very correctly 
sums up the peculiar tameness or shyness of the reindeer. 
In early autumn when caribou males are river and wood frequenters, 
the hunter must be gifted with an equable temperament, superior to the 
bites of insects, and with endless patience. He must be possessed of dogged 
self-confidence in knowing that, sooner or later, the big bull that uses 
that well trodden “ lead ” must come into view some morning or evening. 
Time is of no object, for “sitting on a log ” often secures a better trophy 
than is achieved by miles of weary timber tramping. Few hunters care 
for this mode of killing the caribou, but it has its charms for a man who 
likes contemplation. 
When caribou live on the high mountain plateaux the mode of hunting 
is all activity. The band has to be found after miles of walking and then 
it may not be in a favourable situation, so that it is necessary to wait all 
day until the evening when the deer rise to feed and wander off to some 
open place where the winds are not tricky. This they nearly always do. 
I always think that the best, as well as the most exciting, stalk I ever had 
at caribou was in the mountains of Cassiar in September, 1908. After an 
unsuccessful visit to the plateaux south of Dease Lake I was returning 
homewards, being ill with pleurisy and bronchitis, but a sudden change 
in the weather brought an improvement in my health, and a fresh desire 
277 
