CARIBOU-LAND AT LAST
On the morning of August 1 we launched on Artillery Lake, feeling, for the tenth time, that now we really were on the crowning stretch of our journey, that at last we were entering the land of the Caribou.
Over the deep, tranquil waters of the lake we went, scanning the painted shores with their dwindling remnants of forest. There is something inspiring about the profundity of transparency in these lakes, where they are 15 feet deep their bottoms are no more obscured than in an ordinary eastern brook at 6 inches. On looking down into the far-below world, one gets the sensation of flight as one skims overhead in the swift canoe. And how swift that elegant canoe was in a clear run I was only now finding out. All my previous estimates had been too low. Here I had the absolute gauge of Tyrrell's maps and found that we four paddling could send her, not 3 1/2, but 4 1/2 or 5 miles an hour, with a possibility of 6 when we made an effort. As we spun along the south-east coast of the lake, the country grew less rugged; the continuous steep granite hills were replaced by lower buttes with long grassy plains between; and as I took them in, I marvelled at their name—the Barrens; bare of trees, yes, but the plains were covered with rich, rank grass, more like New England meadows. There were stretches where the herbage was rank as on the Indiana prairies, and the average pasture of the bleaker parts was better than the best of central Wyoming. A cattleman of the West would think himself made if he could be sure of such pastures on his range, yet these are the Barren Grounds.
At 3 we passed the splendid landmark of Beaver Lodge Mountain. Its rosy-red granite cliffs contrast wonderfully with its emerald cap of verdant grass and mosses, that cover it in tropical luxuriance, and the rippling lake about it was of Mediterranean hues.
We covered the last 9 miles in 1 hour and 53 minutes, passed the deserted Indian village, and landed at Last Woods by 8.30 P. M.
The edge of the timber is the dividing line between the Hudsonian and the Arctic zones, It is the beginning of the country we had come to see; we were now in the land of the Caribou.
At this point we were prepared to spend several days, leave a cache, gather a bundle of choice firewood, then enter on the treeless plains.
That night it stormed; all were tired; there was no reason to bestir ourselves; it was 10 when we arose. Half an hour later Billy came to my tent and said, "Mr. Seton, here's some deer." I rushed to the door, and there, with my own eyes, I saw on a ridge a mile away four great, Caribou standing against the sky.
We made for a near hill and met Preble returning; he also had seen them. From a higher view-point the 4 proved part of a band of 120.
Then other bands came in view, 16, 61, 3, 200, and so on; each valley had a scattering few, all travelling slowly southward or standing to enjoy the cool breeze that ended the torment of the flies. About 1,000 were in sight. These were my first Caribou, the first fruits of 3,000 miles of travel.