Ungava Bob: A Winter's Tale

by Dillon Wallace

Foxes prefer meat or fish that is tainted and smells bad, and the more decomposed it is, the better it suits them. Bob had no tainted meat now, so he used what he had, in the hope that it might prove effective. A few drops of perfumery, or "scent," as he called it, would have made the fresh meat that he used more attractive to the animals, but unfortunately he had none of that either.

As he left the marsh and crossed from a neck of woods to the lake shore he saw two moving objects far out upon the ice. He dropped behind a clump of bushes. They were caribou.

His gun would not reach them at that distance, and he picked up a dried stick and broke it. They heard the noise and looked towards him. He stood up, exposing himself for the fraction of a second, then concealed himself behind the bushes again. Caribou are very inquisitive animals, and these walked towards him, for they wanted to ascertain what the strange object was that they had seen. When they had come within easy range he selected the smaller one, a young buck, aimed carefully at a spot behind the shoulders, and fired. The animal fell and its mate stood stupidly still and looked at it, and then advanced and smelled of it. Even the report of the gun had not satisfied its curiosity.

It would have been an easy matter for Bob to shoot this second caribou, but the one he had killed was quite sufficient for his needs, and to kill the other would have been ruthless slaughter, little short of murder, and something that Bob, who was a true sportsman, would not stoop to. He therefore stepped out from his cover and revealed himself. Then when the animal saw him clearly, a living enemy, it turned and fled.

Bob removed the skin and quartered the carcass. These he loaded upon his toboggan and hauled to his tilt. The meat was suspended from the limb of a tree outside, where animals could not reach it and where it would freeze and keep sweet until needed. A small piece was taken into the tilt for immediate use, and some portions of the neck placed in the corner of the tilt where they would decompose somewhat and thus be rendered into desirable fox bait. The skin was stretched against the logs of the side of the shack farthest from the stove, to dry. This would make an excellent cover for Bob's couch and be warm and comfortable to sleep upon. The sinew, taken from the back of the animal, was scraped and hung from the roof to season, for he would need it later to use as thread with which to repair moccasins.

Now there was little to do for two or three days, and Bob began for the first time to understand the true loneliness of his new life. The wilderness was working its mysterious influence upon him. It seemed a long, long while since Bill had left him, and he recalled his last Sunday at Wolf Bight as one recalls an event years after it has happened. Sometimes he longed passionately for home and human companionship. At other times he was quite content with his day to day existence, and almost forgot that the world contained any one else.

Early the next week he visited the traps. In one he found a Canada jay that had tried to filch the bait. In another a big white rabbit which had been caught while nibbling the young tops of the spruce boughs with which the trap was enclosed. A single marten rewarded him. The pelt was not prime, as it was yet early in the season, but still it was fairly good and Bob was delighted with it.

The fox traps had not been disturbed, but a fox had been feeding upon the caribou head and entrails, where they had been left upon the ice, and one of the traps was taken up and reset here. The others he also put in order, and returned to the tilt with the rabbit and marten. The former, boiled with small bits of pork, made a splendid stew, and the skin was hung to dry, for, with others it could be fashioned into warm, light slippers to wear inside his moccasins when the colder weather came.

The marten pelt was removed from the body by splitting it down the inside of the hind legs to the trunk, and then pulling it down over the head, turning it inside out in the process. In the tilt were a number of stretching boards, that Douglas had provided, tapered down from several inches wide at one end until they were narrow enough at the other end to slip snugly into the nose of the pelt. Over one of these, with the flesh side out, the skin was tightly drawn and fastened. Then with his knife Bob scraped it carefully, removing such fat and flesh as had adhered to it, after which he placed it in a convenient place to dry.

Bob felt very much elated over this first catch of fur, and was anxious to get at the real trapping. It was only Tuesday, and Bill would not be at the river tilt until Friday of the following week, but he decided to start back the next morning and set all his traps. So on Wednesday morning, with a quarter of venison on his flat sled, he turned down over the trail.