Mr. E. A. Preble states in his report:—“This famous ruminant within historic times ranged over the entire extent of the Barren Grounds, from the mouth of the Mackenzie to Churchill. It has now become extirpated over large areas at the eastern and western extremities of this range, but still exists in great numbers in the less accessible parts of its habitat.”
Captain Back records on July 13, 1834, while descending the river which now bears his name, he noticed two or three hundred deer, and, apart from them, herds of musk-oxen were either grazing or sleeping on its western banks, which there (above Beechey lake) looked green and swampy, and were all more or less cloven by inconsiderable ravines, with a clayey surface. Back mentions that his party killed a musk-ox on Montreal island, off the mouth of Backs river, August 3, 1834. While ascending that river on his return trip, on September 1, Back near Lake Pelly noticed a herd of musk-oxen and a few straggling deer quietly feeding on the sand-hills, “and many of the white, brown, and laughing geese were flying about, and seemed to be collecting for their southerly migration.”
The Meat of the Musk-Ox.
Back states that the musk-ox “feeds, like the reindeer, chiefly on lichens, and the meat of a well-fed cow is agreeably tasty and juicy, but that of a lean cow and of the bull is strongly impregnated with a disagreeable musky flavour, so as to be palatable only to a very hungry man.”
In his evidence before the select committee of the Senate in 1888, Hon. William Christie, formerly Inspecting Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, stated that the company at that time got a few—a very few—musk-ox hides at Churchill and Fort Rae. This animal kept pretty well in the open country along the Arctic coast. Witness was four years at Churchill, and was asked by a friend to get a musk-ox robe for him, and was two or three years before he obtained it.
Hon. Frank Oliver informed the same committee that Mr. Murdoch McLeod, a retired Hudson’s Bay Company’s official, told him that a musk-ox bull which he helped to kill weighed fourteen hundred pounds, dressed, and the robe measured fifteen feet from nose to rump. The musk-oxen were found generally in bands of ten to forty. Some winters they were more scarce than others, which could not be explained.
Mr. D. T. Hanbury, writing of the original exploration by him of Thelon and Hanbury rivers, states:—“After ascending the main Ark-i-linik (Thelon) river for about thirty-five miles, musk-ox tracks commenced to get very numerous. The muddy shores in places were so ploughed up with their tracks as to give the idea that a drove of cattle had passed along.” In this vicinity the explorer saw several herds of musk-oxen.
A Musk-Ox Preserve.
In another place in his book “Sport and Travel in the Northland of Canada”, Mr. Hanbury writes:—“On the main Ark-i-linik (Thelon) river there is a stretch of country about eighty miles in length into which no human being enters. The Eskimos do not hunt so far west, and Yellow Knives and Dog Ribs from Slave lake do not go so far east. To penetrate this country in the dead of winter would be simply to court starvation. Then the deer have all departed, and to depend on finding musk-oxen at the end of the journey would be risky indeed. Thus there remains the spot in this Great Barren Northland which is sacred to the musk-ox. Here the animals remain in their primeval state, exhibiting no fear, only curiosity. I approached several herds within thirty yards, photographed them at my leisure, moving them round as I wished, and then retired, leaving them still stupidly staring at me as if in wonder. When the deer were not procurable a musk-ox was killed. The height of a large bull which I killed in 1896 at a spot about fifty miles farther north was fifty-five inches; horns twenty-seven inches.”
A Midnight Musk-Ox Hunt.