One of my friends on my return from this trip suggested the possibility of shipping dogs into the country; of doing, in a word, somewhat as do the pole-hunting expeditions. That might be possible to a wealthy adventurer, but, even so, I should consider it an experiment of very doubtful results, simply because of the impossibility of feeding the dogs after they had arrived in the country, or of providing for them after you had started into the Barren Grounds. There is a period in the summer at Great Slave Lake when any number of dogs could be sufficiently fed on the quantities of fish that are then to be caught in the lake; and no doubt enough fish could be stored to feed them in the season when the lakes are frozen, if the dogs remained at the post. Even so, that would keep busy a number of especially engaged fishermen. But when you started for the Barren Grounds with all these dogs, your feeding problem would be an overwhelming one indeed, for only in the midsummer, when the caribou are to be found in large herds, would it be possible to kill meat for a great many dogs; and in midsummer you would not, could not, use dogs at all; at that season the Barren Grounds are invaded by means of the chain of lakes and short portages which begin at the northeastern end of the Great Slave Lake. Even travelling along the river the question of dog feed is a serious one, and you are obliged to carry the fish which have been caught the previous summer and stored at the posts in great frozen heaps. It is obvious, therefore, that there is no easy or comfortable way of getting into the Barren Grounds. It would be impracticable to do other than rely on the resources at hand and go into the silent land just as do the Indians. It is simply impracticable to do other than to depend on the caribou and the musk-oxen for food for both men and dogs.
III
Seasons and Equipment
Midsummer is the season when the hunter may visit the Barren Grounds with the least discomfort and least danger, for at this time you go by canoe. The caribou are plentiful and the thermometer rarely goes below freezing-point. But even then trials are many, and there is considerable danger of starvation. The mosquitoes are a pest almost beyond endurance, and the caribou, although abundant, are down toward the Arctic and of very uncertain movement. Their course of migration one year may be fifty to one hundred miles east or west of where it was the preceding year. In the 350,000 square miles of the Barren Grounds one may easily go days without finding caribou even at such a time of plenty; and not to find them might easily mean starvation.
OUTNUMBERED
The most extensive trips into the Barren Grounds for musk-oxen previous to my venture had been made by two Englishmen, Warburton Pike and Henry Toke Munn. Mr. Pike (a hunter of experience whose book, “Barren Ground of Northern Canada,” published in 1892, still stands as one of the most interesting and faithful contributions to the literature of sport and adventure) spent the better part of two years in this country, and made several summer and autumn trips into the Barren Grounds. He made one summer trip solely for the purpose of killing and cacheing caribou, which he might draw upon in the next autumn musk-ox hunt when the caribou were scarce. Yet, notwithstanding all this preparation, he had a very hard time of it in the autumn hunt and was unable to accomplish all that he set out to do. He did get, however, the musk-ox he went after. On Munn’s autumn trip, although there were yet to be had some fish in the lakes, he and his party and their dogs had a starving time of it indeed. I particularize these two trips to instance the difficulties of hunting in the Barren Grounds, even when the conditions are the most favorable that may be had.