46 
tributed their quota to the food resources of the aborigines. Starva- 
tion might seem hardly possible in a land that teemed with so many 
forms of life. 
Unhappily this was not the case. The density of game was by 
no means the same in all regions. In northern Ontario and Quebec^ 
for example, the animals were so scattered that sometimes even the 
best hunters failed to keep starvation from their homes. ^ Many of 
the fish, animals, and birds appeared at certain seasons only. The 
buffalo of the plains, and the caribou of the barren grounds, moved 
northward every spring to new grazing-grounds, and southward again 
in the autumn, not always following the same routes. In the 
autumn, too. most of the birds flew southward to winter in warmer 
climes. The salmon, which seldom entered the rivers before June, 
completed their migrations about September, and the cod and halibut 
fluctuated from one month to another. At certain seasons some ani- 
mals, like the caribou during their spring migration, were too lean to 
possess much food value. Thompson found the salmon spawning on 
the upper Columbia river so poor that they were scarcely edible, and 
his party preferred horse flesh.- Moreover, game was difficult to 
track in certain months. In winter moose could be run down on 
snow-shoes and speared with a lance, bears could be attacked in their 
dens; but it was not easy to approach either of these animals in sum- 
mer or to kill them with a stone or bone-pointed arrow'. Similarly, 
beaver w'ere captured most readily in the late autumn w'hen the ice 
was still thin, and rabbits and hares were snared in the winter when 
their runways were visible in the snow'.*'^ 
The seasonal character of the food supply and the habits of the 
fish and animals greatly affected the daily life of the Indians. They 
compelled the various bands to move from one fishing or hunting 
ground to another as soon as the first began to slacken in its yield. 
These endless migrations evoked adaptations in dwellings and house- 
hold furniture, and the invention of appliances like tumplines and 
1 C/. Thompson. D. ; Op. '■it,, pp. 76-77. "The Work.s of Sannu'I de Champlain”; erlited hy IT, P. 
Bififfar, voL ii, p. 46. The Ciiamplain Society (Toronto, 1925). 
2 Ihif}., p. 377. 
3 It is intcrestinc to note that some of the fiir-beariiif' ntiimnls now most hitjhly cstet'med were 
of little value in pre-European days. The fox. marten, mink, lynx, and land-otter added nothing to 
the foo'l supply, and their furs, though sometimes used for clothing, were either inferior to other 
furs for everyday use, nr regarded as luxuries rather tlian necessities. Lesearbot says that the Micmac 
scorned e^'cn I he beaver, and made hats of its fur only after the coming of the French. Lesearbot, 
Marc: “The History of New France”; edited by W. I.. Grant, lii, p. 117, The Champlain Society 
(Toronto, 1907). 
