Back mentions the fact that while at Artillery lake on September 5, 1833, “impending storms were threatened by the cackling of hundreds of geese, which at an immense height were winging their flight to the southward. Ranged according to their families, the grey, or bustard, the white and the laughing geese came past in quick succession, vying in swiftness, as if anxious to escape from the wintry horrors of the north.”
Speaking of his exploration of Thelon and Hanbury rivers, Mr. Hanbury (“Sport and Travel in the Northland of Canada”), referring to feathered game along the route, states:—“Ptarmigan are very numerous in the willow beds all along the river. Excellent sport might be had by any one with time and ammunition to spare. On a journey small game is not interfered with unless other meat and fish give out. The ptarmigan were very handsome at this time of year (summer). But for a few white feathers in the wings, they might easily have been mistaken for grouse, the colour, flight and call (both in the early morning and when flushed) exactly resembling that of the red grouse. The young birds were strong on the wing, fully forward as grouse in the north of Scotland about the middle of August.”
Inspector Pelletier states that when he descended the Thelon waterfowl were seen only on Baker lake, and then only a few, while on the other lakes and rivers none were seen. Ptarmigan were fairly plentiful in places all along the lower stretch from Schultz lake down.
Inexhaustible Supplies of Fish.
The resources of the Barren Lands in the way of fish are tremendous. We know that the salt, tidal waters which lave the eastern and northern shores of this huge area teem with fish and that the same can be truthfully said of the lakes and rivers which have been explored and are indicated on the map. We also know that the country is dotted with innumerable lakes and drained by many rivers and streams which have never been visited by white men, and which consequently find no places on any map. And these too contain fish.
Hearne’s journal contains many references to the fish supply of the region he travelled through in 1771 between Churchill, the mouth of the Coppermine, Great Slave lake, and Lake Athabaska. One of the pioneer explorer’s fish stories is particularly interesting. At pages 158, 159 and 160 of his book he relates that his party, in retreating up the Coppermine after the brutal massacre by his Indians of the Eskimos at Bloody falls (as he called the spot after the massacre), saw an old woman, almost blind, “sitting by the side of the water, killing salmon, which lay at the foot of the fall as thick as a shoal of herrings.” Hearne proceeds:—“It may appear strange, that a person supposed to be almost blind should be employed in the business of fishing, and particularly with any degree of success, but when the multitude of fish is taken into account the wonder will cease. Indeed they were so numerous at the foot of the fall, that when a light pole, armed with a few spikes, which was the instrument which the old woman used, was put under water, and hauled up with a jerk, it was scarcely possible to miss them. Some of my Indians tried the method, for curiosity, with the old woman’s staff, and seldom got less than two at a jerk, sometimes three or four. Those fish, though very fine, and beautifully red, are but small, seldom weighing more (as near as I could judge) than six or seven pounds, and in general much less. Their numbers at this place were almost incredible, perhaps equal to any thing that is related of the salmon in Kamschatka, or any other part of the world. It does not appear that the Eskimos have any other method of catching the fish unless it be by spears and darts, for no appearance of nets was discovered either at their tents, or on any part of the shore. This is the case with all the Eskimos on the west side of Hudson bay; spearing in summer and angling in winter are the only methods they have yet devised to catch fish, though at times their whole dependence for support is on that article.”
Captain Back mentions having observed grayling rising to flies at the outlet of Pelly lake on Backs river, July 15, 1834. Back also mentions that while descending Backs river in July, 1883, his party met a party of Eskimos who were camped at the foot of a fall below Pelly lake, where they had come to get a supply of fish. Thousands of whitefish and small trout, caught in the eddy below the fall, lay about, split, and exposed to dry on the rocks.
Back’s party caught an inconnu (which he calls Salmo Mackenzii) with a number of other fish in the eastern arm of Great Slave lake August 14, 1833.
The Arctic Salmon.
Before the Senate committee of 1888, Mr. Christie, Chief Inspector of the Hudson’s Bay Company, stated that salmon were found in large numbers on the Churchill, as soon as the ice cleared out of the river, about the middle of July. They entered the river and went out of it with the tide. They did not run up the river to spawn. He thought these salmon quite as large as those he had seen in Scotland.