684 
FOREST AND STREAM 
December, 1918 
The location which the Museum plans to reproduce as a background for the group 
end of the car a small coal stove heated 
the entrance. A pungent odor of coffee 
came from the stove at the rear, while on 
the other end a meal of fish was frying. 
Camping outfits, together with trunks 
and chests, were piled high on the empty 
seats. Tiny log-burning camp stoves were 
in evidence everywhere, while stacked up 
on vacant benches stood an assortment of 
guns the like of which could not be found 
in a Mexican revolution. They ranged from 
the single barrel smooth-bore shotgun, 
shooting a large lead slug, to a decidedly 
dangerous looking type of Spanish Mauser 
rifle. 
The conductor on this train acted as bag¬ 
gage master, switchman, telegraph operator 
and policeman. He smoked long, black 
cigars continuously, and when not engaged 
in lifting tickets he stood by and directed 
passengers how to load their own trunks 
and baggage. This method of handling 
freight proves advantageous to both the 
company and the passengers, as it allows 
the train to make better time. 
A BOUT ten o’clock at night we un¬ 
loaded our outfit at what was called 
a station, although I failed to find 
one. There was no shed, platform, post 
or cinder path—just the rails beside a river 
and a dark dreary swamp toward the north. 
We pitched our tent, ate a light supper 
and soon were all sound asleep. At the 
first signs of daylight we loaded the canoes 
and proceeded down the river to Grand 
Lake, a sheet of water well worthy of the 
name. Its length is fifty-six miles, and it 
contains an island twenty-three miles 
long. Newfoundland is dotted with innu¬ 
merable lakes and thousands of unnamed 
ponds. The island is said, indeed, to be 
three-quarters water, and this certainly 
seems true wherever one travels, for even 
on the high barrens a vast series of 
marshes are encountered where sealskin 
boots are the only protection against con¬ 
tinually wet feet. 
The northern shores of Grand Lake are 
as wild today as when the Boethick Indians 
used it as their favorite camping ground 
to intercept and hunt the countless herds 
of caribou that roamed across this great 
marshy prairie on their annual migration 
south. But the last native red man has van¬ 
ished from the Island and his place is taken 
by a more formidable foe of the caribou— 
the local “meat hunt¬ 
er.” By law he is al¬ 
lowed to kill three 
caribou — two stags 
and one doe. As a 
matter of fact he 
kills does, fawns, or 
anything that comes 
along, and the in¬ 
criminating evidence 
is easily disposed of 
with the knife. 
A two-mile trip by 
canoe brought us 
across the northern 
end of Grand Lake. 
Here we unloaded 
our outfit again and 
carried our luggage 
a short distance to a 
trapper’s cabin where 
we remained for the 
night, the two guides 
and myself sleeping 
on the floor. We were 
quite comfortable, 
however, and at sun¬ 
rise we resumed the 
journey, engaging the 
trappers to carry out 
two extra loads as 
our material was 
quite heavy. Our in- 
dividual loads 
weighed from sixty 
to eighty pounds, ex¬ 
cept that John Pen¬ 
nell must have shoul¬ 
dered a pack of one 
hundred pounds and often better without 
visible signs of fatigue. 
The trail led first southeast over a 
series of wooded hills, then east through 
sparsely timbered swamps, finally emerg¬ 
ing into the country known as Hinds 
Plains. In stopping for one of our fre¬ 
quent rests (as we had already carried 
our packs about six miles), evidences of 
caribou were very apparent. We passed 
several men carrying out carcasses which 
often furnish the only fresh meat that the 
native sees the year round. He surely 
earns this meat as far as labor is con¬ 
cerned, for three caribou weigh about six~ 
hundred pounds, and when one has carried 
this load on his shoulders for a distance 
of seven miles to the railroad, it seems 
like a man-sized job. 
About one o’clock in the afternoon of 
October 27 we pitched our tent in a large 
grove of spruce. Everything was wet and 
soggy from the heavy rains that had re¬ 
cently fallen. However, our duffle was 
dry and we were soon comfortably installed 
in the camp which was to be our head¬ 
quarters for the next twenty days. While 
travelling by rail and steamship I had con¬ 
tracted a severe cold, and one would im¬ 
agine that sleeping above the damp ground 
on only a scant mattress of evergreen 
boughs would tend to aggravate this con¬ 
dition, yet at the end of three days’ camp¬ 
ing in the open my cold had vanished and 
a normal, healthy condition prevailed until 
the homeward journey when I encoun¬ 
tered the foul air in railway trains and 
stuffy habitations. 
The doe which now appears as leader of the mounted group 
