HUNTING CARIBOU FOR A MUSEUM EXHIBIT 
THROUGH THE COOPERATION OF NEWFOUNDLAND OFFICIALS THE BROOKLYN 
MUSEUM HAS ACQUIRED COMPLETE SPECIMENS OF THESE FAST VANISHING ANIMALS 
By ROBERT H. ROCKWELL, Chief Taxidermist, Brooklyn Museum 
O N the eighteenth of October, 1917, the 
Brooklyn Museum received a tele¬ 
gram from the Game and Inland 
Fisheries Board of Newfoundland author¬ 
izing the chief taxidermist to kill and col¬ 
lect six specimens of caribou to be mounted 
entire in a special exhibit as one of the 
Museum’s series of mammal groups. 
With great haste an outfit was assem¬ 
bled, and on the night of the nineteenth I 
wired my guide and began the long jour¬ 
ney to North Sidney, Nova Scotia, which 
is the point of departure for the steamship 
line connecting Newfoundland with Cape 
Breton. The voyage across Cabot Strait 
was accomplished in one night. The bare, 
rocky, wind-swept shore of Port Aux 
Basques loomed large in the early morning 
light. The rugged wildness of the coast is 
most forbidding, with moss-covered rocks 
and scant vegetation save a few stunted 
juniper trees. The town itself is little 
more than a few scattered houses perched 
up high on the most exposed positions on 
the hillside. 
Here one becomes acquainted with the 
famous Reid Newfoundland Railway, a 
narrow-gauge line running from Port Aux 
Basques to St. John’s. An eight-hour 
journey from the Port brought me to 
Curling, Bay of Islands, where I was met 
by John Pennell, who was to be my guide. 
I was favorably impressed on greeting a 
lithe, well-built man of forty-five, keen¬ 
eyed and supple as a cat—the very picture 
of a hardy hunter. My first impressions 
of Mr. Pennell were quite correct, as he 
proved to be a most efficient and reliable 
assistant. We at once got together on the 
subject of caribou. The first question 
asked was whether we would be in time to 
meet the migration, and when I was as¬ 
sured that only a small number of “deer” 
had yet passed at Howley on their journey 
south, we at once began to arrange our 
outfit and purchase provisions and supplies 
for the trip. We engaged a nondescript 
jack-of-all-trades to act as cook and pack¬ 
er. I was somewhat sceptical about hiring 
him, as my previous experience with camp¬ 
ing cooks had made me wary of their idio¬ 
syncrasies. A bad cook can upset the 
morale of the most orderly camp; he may 
be ever so expert in the culinary art, but 
if he lacks experience in the field, shun 
him as you would the smallpox. How¬ 
ever, with Pennell’s reassurance, I hired 
our Newfoundland fisherman and he 
A young caribou stag in good pelage 
proved quite handy around camp. 
Our outfit consisted of two canoes, two 
tents, blankets, cooking utensils, and pro¬ 
visions for .twenty days. This equipment, 
together with a folding tin stove, proved 
very satisfactory. A word might not be 
amiss concerning these little light stoves. 
They are made of sheet iron or tin about 
two feet long by one foot square, fitted 
with a telescope pipe which runs up 
through the tent, the roof of which is pro¬ 
tected from burning by a circle of sheet 
tin. This little log burner does not weigh 
more than fifteen pounds, and can be con¬ 
structed at a small cost. It may be used 
in the coldest weather for warming the 
tent and answers all the requirements of 
a cooking stove as well. 
O N the twenty-fifth of October we as¬ 
sembled all our luggage on the ac¬ 
commodation train, and after fasten¬ 
ing the canoes on top of the car we pro¬ 
ceeded to a station called Sandy Crossing. 
The accommodation, or mixed train as it 
is sometimes called, is a combination of 
freight cars with a passenger coach thrown 
in. It really is mixed as it is often hard 
to determine the difference between the 
freight car and the passenger coach. The 
train was supposed to be due at 9 A. M., 
but on arriving at the depot we were in¬ 
formed that it was about three hours 
late, so I went back to the hotel and had 
breakfast. I returned again and was told 
that I probably would have a chance to 
eat lunch before the train arrived. Acting 
on this suggestion, I returned to the hotel, 
had lunch, and finally boarded the train, 
which left Curling at- 2 -.30 P. M. The dis¬ 
tance between this point and Sandy Cross¬ 
ing is fifty miles and was covered at the 
alarming rate of about ten miles an hour. 
My fellow passengers were some twenty 
“meat hunters” who were travelling to the 
hunting grounds for a winter supply of 
caribou meat. They were a motley crowd 
made up of Irish, Scotch, and half-breed 
Indians or “jack-a-tars.” Clad as they 
were in heavy winter woolens with long- 
legged seal-skin boots, they presented a 
picture rarely encountered outside one of 
Rex Beach’s novels of the North Woods. 
The accommodations of the “mixed 
train” were decidedly primitive. Two 
smoky kitchen hand lamps had been im¬ 
provised as the illuminating outfit, and by 
their dim, yellow light many of the occu¬ 
pants joined in a poker game. At either 
Contents Copyright, 1918 by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
