10 
FOREST AND STREAM 
July 6, 1912 
quickly made his escape into the deep hemlocks. 
The deer was a fine healthy young buck about 
three years old. As far as we could see every¬ 
thing was in favor of the deer traveling fast— 
good bottom, about eight inches loose snow 
and slightly down grade. We took the deer 
home and showed it to a number of residents. 
Two or three of them recalled similar experiences. 
The wolves in Algonquin Park and Northern 
Ontario are the gray timber wolf. Some have 
almost black backs. They never have in my 
experience attacked any person. They will fol¬ 
low a person in the woods, keeping out of sight. 
Should a person retrace his steps, the wolf will 
retire to a respectful distance. This is not 
cowardice on their part. They are a very cun¬ 
ning animal, possessing more than the usual 
amount of caution and intelligence, and there 
is no animal that can adapt itself to the sur¬ 
roundings and conditions better than the wolf. 
He has learned by hard experience that man is 
his great enemy, hence the caution. Repeating 
rifles, traps and baits have educated the wolf 
almost beyond belief. How many times have I 
read of a howling pack of wolves driving deer 
ahead of them! I have never noticed anything 
of the kind here. 
In this land of lakes and streams if a wolf 
howled, all the deer would be ready to take 
refuge in the water, consequently the wolf in 
these parts is the most skilfull still-hunter. 
When their quarry is being pulled down and 
killed, they howl and growl much after the 
manner of many dogs. Should a deer escape 
into the water after a hard chase, the young 
wolves will howl with disappointment for a few 
I F American sportsmen enjoy being led about 
by the nose over easy portages and the ex¬ 
tremely dirty camp grounds, in a country 
that is mostly burned, then Lake Edward, 
Quebec, is the place to go. 
My experience there suggests jotting down 
a few lines on the subject of guides. We 
started out last fall taking four men, as we 
wished to travel comfortably. My wife having 
been recently ill, Rowley Bros., our outfitters, 
had promised us a good cook, but we soon 
found we had no cook at all, not even the 
pretense of one. Our crew were drunk, es¬ 
pecially the head man, but we remained cheer¬ 
ful and hoped for the best. 
After about two hours, the sky looking 
slightly gray, it was suggested that we camp in 
a mud-hole. We did not. This sort of thing 
kept up for two days, and they were might easy 
ones at that. 
On the third day we gave the outfit a rest 
and told them we wanted to start early on the 
morning of the fourth. 
Morning came, a fine, clear day. I had to 
call the men and later came down to ask where 
my oatmeal was. I was told it would be hung 
on the fire as soon as the men had finished their 
own breakfast, at which they were then busily 
moments over their great loss, then all is silent. 
Wolves do a great deal of howling during the 
mating season in early spring months. During 
this period the males fight fiercely with each 
other. We have found where they have fought 
and moved on with their band, leaving a trail 
of blood for a mile or more. We have fol¬ 
lowed these trails, fully expecting to find them 
unable to travel, but they always appear to 
travel on as though nothing had occurred. Just 
as the snow is breaking up, wolves go into the 
deer yards, and traveling on the deer paths, put 
up many does and kill them, leaving them lying 
in the cool, deep woods where the deer yard 
for winter. These are to provide food for a 
time when the young wolves leave their den. 
A female wolf usually has a litter of from five 
to nine pups. They have no regular dens in 
these parts, a bed being selected in a hollow log 
or under a root of upturned tree, or in niches 
in rocks. These places form a home for the 
little chaps for a few weeks, after which they 
follow the mother, living upon the carcasses of 
deer previously slaughtered. 
When old enough to hunt they are led by the 
mother and hunt most of the time. After the 
mating season the male usually travels alone, 
joining the packs at a kill, when they gorge 
themselves and retire to a quiet place to sleep 
until hunger calls them into action again. Deer 
is the natural food of the wolf, but they kill 
a great many rabbits, beaver, muskrat, wood¬ 
chucks, etc. Venison is about the only bait they 
will take. Sometimes, if very hungry, they will 
take a bait of beef or horse flesh. 
Every season we get many pointers from wolf 
Moose and Men 
By J. C. PHILLIPS 
engaged. I repeated my request with perhaps 
a somewhat different inflection, but a like re¬ 
sult, and then waded into their tent after the 
collar of the head man. Considerable confusion, 
much noise and the promise of a knife was the 
result, so being one to four and having my wife 
to think of, I hung on my oatmeal and swal¬ 
lowed the gall of defeat. My mouth tasted 
bitter for some time, I can tell you. In less 
than five minutes the victorious four were gone, 
bag and baggage, leaving me one canoe. My 
wife and I shook hands and began to have a 
good time. For myself I never was so glad to 
see the last of any crew I ever traveled with. 
Right here let me say that Joe, the head of 
this crew, was immediately re-engaged b|y the 
Rowley Bros, and sent on another trip. 
One of our men, however, turned out to be 
a fine fellow after all. Incidentally, he had 
never worked for the Rowley Bros, before. 
He took no part in the trouble and came back 
with two other men. His name was Olesime 
Nepton (or something close to it), a fine type 
of trapper breed from the Indian reserve at 
Roberval. He spoke no English and was better 
for it. Of the other two he brought, one was 
a boy, also from the reserve, a trapper raised 
in the woods and a strong and willing packer. 
hunters who claim great success for their 
methods, but we have found nothing to equal 
venison and strychnine, and have given all rea¬ 
sonable methods a fair trial. I have taken great 
care not to handle bait except with gloves pre¬ 
pared for the work; then I have taken a single 
bait and carried it in my bare hand to where 
I wished to set it, handled it carelessly and have 
had it taken at once by the wolves, while the 
other baits were untouched, and vice versa. 
Last season rangers killed forty-seven wolves 
in Algonquin Park that were accounted for. 
Fully as many more must have fallen victims to 
poison from the amount of bait taken. Two- 
thirds of the number brought in were females. 
This season, to date March 15, about thirty-five 
pelts, mostly of males, have been brought in. 
During the early part of the winter the park was 
almost clear of wolves, owing to the unceasing 
efforts of the rangers to destroy them. Poison 
baits are the most effective method of destroy¬ 
ing the wolf. These have to be set with care 
only during winter months, or many other ani¬ 
mals would be destroyed. 
Trapping is proving to be quite effective, but 
like setting bait requires considerable experi¬ 
ence and patience to accomplish anything like 
success. About Christmas one of our rangers, 
a most reliable man, counted over fifty wolf 
tracks entering the park from the headwaters of 
the Magnetawan River, and only two tracks 
going out. Within the park is an abundance of 
deer, and where the deer are the wolf will go. 
This shows what Superintendent G. W. Bartlett 
and his staff have to contend with, and that they 
are capable their record shows. 
The other, Tom Tremble by name, was a regu¬ 
lar railroad Indian. He looked as if he had 
been leaning up against the station for a 
month, and the whole back of his waistcoat 
fluffed in the wind, worn off probably on the 
shingles. Tom got lost on the first portage and 
we had to go and look him up. He walked di¬ 
rectly by a lake that was not twenty yards from 
the trail. This sort of thing was a common 
habit of his. We finally lowered him to menial 
duty and gave him the job of mail carrier, and 
he made a pretty plain menial at that. 
None of our men had been in that section 
before, but we shook the dirty camp grounds, 
had a good trip and enjoyed ourselves, es¬ 
pecially when we could invent a pretex to send 
Tom away. We would give him a gun and tell 
him to get us a partridge. He was apt to get 
about one, which he usually hung in a bush, 
and forgot to bring back with him. It took 
longer to find that bush next day than it did to 
shoot a pair of fresh birds. However, perhaps 
he was smiling in his sleeve all the time. 
One night soon after Tom’s arrival, and 
before we had penetrated the depths of his 
uselessness, he had the luck to call down four 
moose by a series of the most doleful sounds 
ever emitted by the mouth of man or mammal. 
