Richardson writes (“1825”: 330) of the Woodland Caribou: “In the beginning of September, vast numbers of this kind of deer pass near York Factory . . . on their journey towards the north-west.”
And again (1829: 250):
“They cross the Nelson and Severn Rivers in immense herds in the month of May, pass the summer on the low, marshy shores of James’ Bay, and return to the northward, and at the same time retire more inland in the month of September. . . . I have been informed by several of the residents at York Factory that the herds are sometimes so large as to require several hours to cross the river in a crowded phalanx.”
The implication is that the herds passed southward in May. It should be borne in mind that these were apparently not personal observations of Richardson’s; and in his belief that the Barren Ground species did not go south of Churchill, he may have merely assumed that the animals in the York Factory region were the Woodland species.
“Near York Factory, in 1831, this propensity [Indian destructiveness] . . . led to the indiscriminate destruction of a countless herd of reindeer [sp.?], while crossing the broad stream of Haye’s River, in the height of summer. . . . The deer have never since visited that part of the country in similar numbers.” (Simpson, 1843: 76).
Referring to the York Factory region in 1837, John McLean writes (1932 [1849]: 195). “Not many years ago this part of the country was periodically visited by immense herds of rein-deer; at present there is scarcely one to be found.”
A later account of Richardson’s (1852: 290) is somewhat ambiguous as to the species to which it refers:
“The reindeer that visit Hudson’s Bay travel southward toward James’s Bay in spring. In the year 1833, vast numbers of them were killed by the Cree Indians at a noted pass three or four days march above York Factory. They were on their return northward, and were crossing Hayes River in incredible multitudes.”
Pike writes (1917 [1892]: 50) that “within the last three years [i.e., about 1888] the [Barren Ground?] caribou have appeared in their thousands at York Factory . . . where they have not been seen for over thirty years.”
Preble (1902: 41) quotes Dr. Alexander Milne as thinking, after 14 years’ residence at York Factory, that the small bands of “Woodland Caribou,” found between Churchill and Cape Churchill, form the “northern fringe of the bands which migrate to the coast in spring, the great majority of which in their journey cross to the south of Nelson River.” At that time, however, Preble (1902: 42), like Richardson before him, seems to have regarded the Churchill River as the southern limit of the Barren Ground species, and thus he may not have considered the possibility of the animals of Cape Churchill and the Nelson and Hayes rivers belonging to the same species.