Winter Adventures of Three Boys in the Great Lone Land

by Egerton Ryerson Young

“But did not the thieves hide them there so that they could go and get them, and sell them when the excitement of their loss had passed over?” said Alec, who was a boy who had a habit of seeing things from different sides and liked to have all the difficulties cleared up.

Mr Ross admired this trait in Alec’s character, and always endeavoured to meet it in a way that was helpful to the lad. So to this last question his answer was:

“No Indian who wished to preserve anything of value for future use would think of putting it up in such a place. They all know the thievish, destructive habits of the wolverines, and other animals of that kind, that quickly detect and destroy everything destructible if placed in a tree in the manner in which this was done. The wonder was that this was not found out much sooner and completely destroyed.”

“Tell us, please,” said Sam, “how the hunters act toward each other in regard to their hunting grounds and furs. Have they any titles to the different places where they hunt year after year?”

“They have no written titles,” said Mr Ross, “but for generations the same families have hunted in the same localities. Then some Indians, generation after generation, are noted as famous hunters of certain animals. For example, Big Tom is noted as a successful moose hunter, and so were his immediate ancestors. Others made a speciality of the beavers, others of the otter, and thus it went. These Indian families naturally had localities where these different animals abounded, although there were seasons when other varieties of fur-bearing animals swarmed through these regions, and for a time were really more numerous than the ones there generally hunted. As might have been expected, the hunters of the moose, reindeer, black bears, and other large animals that wander over immense districts had the right of following them in any direction. The hunters and trappers of the rich fur-bearing animals, however, generally kept in certain regions year after year. Sometimes a hunter in order to reach his own grounds had to pass through what we might call the preserves of three or four different families. I once accompanied a hunter to his grounds, and we saw no less than seventy traps of other Indians on the trail as we passed along mile after mile. In one of them was a beautiful mink. My Indian companion at once stopped, and, putting his pack off his back, opened it and cut off some of his bait. Then he took the mink out of the trap and reset it, supplying it with his own bait. The mink he tied to the top of a young sapling, which he bent down for the purpose. When he let go of the young tree it sprang up so that the mink hung in the air, about fifteen feet from the ground. Here it was safe from the prowling wolverines and other animals. Then the Indian made some peculiar marks upon the tree with his axe. His pack was then again shouldered, and we proceeded on our way. I was very much interested in his proceedings, and so when he had completed his work I asked him if that trap belonged to his brother or some relative.

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘I do not yet know whose hunting ground this is, but my duty is to do as you have seen me act. Perhaps when that hunter comes along to-morrow or next day he will find another mink in that trap. Then with two instead of one he will be the more pleased.’”

“Well done, honest Indian!” shouted the boys, when they heard this. “There is a lesson for many a white man.”

“And boys, too,” added Sam.

Continuing, Mr Ross said: “This was the understood custom. It might seem a little burdensome on the man who had the farthest to go, and quite a tax on his supply of bait. But then he had the advantage when he reached his hunting grounds, in that there were fewer human footsteps, and, in all probability, correspondingly more game.”

“Were there no exceptions—none who would take a mink or otter if they had a chance from a neighbour’s trap, if they thought they could escape detection?” asked Alec.