Fourteen Days in Passing.
Frank Russell, who passed the winter of 1893-94 at Fort Rae on the north arm of Great Slave lake, says, concerning the Barren Ground caribou:—“A few years ago they were often killed from the buildings and throughout the winter might be found near the post. In 1877 an unbroken line of caribou crossed the frozen lake near the fort. They were fourteen days in passing and in such a mass that in the words of an eye witness ‘daylight could not be seen through the column’. They were now seldom seen within several miles of Rae.” During the winter he spent there only one small band crossed the lake towards the west.
Mr. W. J. McLean states that in 1899 the caribou arrived in the neighbourhood of old Fort Reliance, at the extreme east end of Great Slave lake, on August 12.
Doctor J. M. Bell states that on his trip eastward along the north shore of Great Bear lake, in 1900, he first met with caribou sixty miles west of Fort Confidence late in July, and later found them fairly numerous between Fort Confidence and the lower Coppermine.
Actual Value of the Caribou.
As to the actual value of the caribou to the country, Mr. J. B. Tyrrell stated in his paper before the British Association:—“Their flesh is excellent eating, and the animals will doubtless furnish an important food-supply for explorers and pioneers in that country. Whether they can be tamed, and thus brought permanently into the service of man or whether they must disappear like most of the other denizens of the wilderness, remains to be seen; but even if they should be doomed to disappear, it seems quite possible that they might be replaced by tame reindeer from Lapland who would feed in summer on the vast grassy plains, and in winter would take kindly to a diet of Canadian lichens.”
Mr. J. W. Tyrrell considers the Barren Ground caribou “is the same as the reindeer of Lapland.” He states in his book “Through the Sub-Arctics of Canada”:—“As a source of venison it cannot be excelled, especially in the autumn season, when it is in prime condition. During September and October the males are rolling fat, and as food their flesh is then equal to the finest beef. Of all the meats I have ever tasted certainly reindeer tongues takes the first place for daintiness and delicacy of flavour.”
Captain Back, writing in 1835, stated of the reindeer or caribou:—“It furnishes food and clothing to the Dogrib and Copper Indians, the Chipewyans, the Swamp or Coast Crees, and to the Esquimaux, but none of the American tribes have domesticated it like the Laplanders. Every part of the animal is eaten, even to the contents of its stomach, and the half-dried tongue when roasted is perhaps the greatest delicacy that the fur countries afford. Reindeer meat, when in the best condition, is not only superior to that of the moose deer and bison, but, in my opinion, it surpasses the best mutton or English-fed venison.”
Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton, lecturing on his trip to the Barren Lands in 1906, stated while in the region of perpetual day or night, his party had a caribou at hand whenever they wanted one for a meal. When they pitched tents near trail, the shaggy animals loped along during the night and tripped over the guy-ropes.
“Cutting in half the estimates of explorers who went before me, and making a most conservative estimate there are not less than