The Arctic foxes of this region when young are sooty black all over, and gradually change to a light ash-grey in colour, with a dark, almost blue, tint on the head, legs, and back. In winter they usually become white all over, with or without a black tip to the tail; but it is recorded by some travellers that not all the foxes of the Canis lagopus species turn white; some keep their dark-grey colour all the year round. The common fox (C. vulpes fulvus) in Northern Canada is sometimes black, with white-tipped hairs. Wolves in these far northern regions do not seem to have been so abundant as farther south.
The deer tribe are represented (north of the Athabaska region) by the reindeer and the elk (called by the Canadians "Moose"). The wapiti or red deer (for which the common Amerindian name in the north was Waskesiu) seldom ranged farther north than the vicinity of Lake Winnipeg. The reindeer of the "barren ground" sub-species extended to the Arctic seacoast, and were at one time especially abundant in Labrador. Here they were so tame, down to a hundred years ago, that fishermen were often known to shoot many of them from the windows of their huts near the seashore. This type (Rangifer tarandus arcticus) might possibly be domesticated; not so the larger and much wilder Caribou woodland reindeer of the more southern and western parts of the Dominion, which dislikes the neighbourhood of man. The elk or moose, east of the Rocky Mountains, was not found northward of about 50° to 55°; but west of that range extended over all British Columbia and Alaska, in which latter country it grows to a giant size and develops enormous antlers.
Hearne says of the elk in northern Canada: "In summer, when they frequent the margins of rivers and lakes, they are often killed by the Indians in the water while they are crossing rivers or swimming from the mainland to islands, &c. When pursued in this manner, they are the most inoffensive of all animals, never making any resistance; and the young ones are so simple that I remember to have seen an Indian paddle his canoe up to one of them and take it by the poll without the least opposition; the poor, harmless animal seeming at the same time as contented alongside the canoe as if swimming by the side of its dam, and looking up in our faces with the same fearless innocence that a house lamb would; making use of its fore foot almost every instant to clear its eyes of mosquitoes, which at that time were remarkably numerous.... The moose are also the easiest to tame and domesticate of any of the deer kind. I have repeatedly seen them at Churchill as tame as sheep, and even more so; for they would follow their keeper any distance from home, and at his call return with him without the least trouble, or ever offering to deviate from the path."
The most northern range of the elk would seem to be the region round Lake Athabaska.
The musk ox (Ovibos) is perhaps the most remarkable beast of Arctic Canada.[3] Samuel Hearne is my principal source for the following notes as to its habits and appearance: The number of bulls is very few in proportion to the cows, for it is rare to see more than two or three full-grown bulls with the largest herd; and from the number of the males that are found dead, the Indians are of opinion that they kill each other in contending for the females. In the rutting season they are so jealous of the cows that they run at either man or beast who offers to approach them, and have been observed to run and bellow even at ravens and other large birds which chanced to alight near them. They delight in the most stony and mountainous parts of the "barren ground", but are seldom found at any great distance from the woods. Though they are a beast of great magnitude, and apparently of a very unwieldy inactive structure, yet they climb the rocks with ease and agility, and are nearly as surefooted as a goat. Like it, too, they will feed on anything; and though they seem fondest of grass, yet in winter, when grass cannot be had in sufficient quantity, they will eat moss or any other herbage they can find, as also the tops of willows and the tender branches of the pine tree.
"The musk ox, when full grown, is as large as the generality of English black cattle; but their legs, though thick, are not so long, nor is their tail longer than that of a bear; and, like the tail of that animal, it always bends downward and inward, so that it is entirely hid by the long hair of the rump and hind quarters. The hunch on their shoulders is not large, being little more in proportion than that of a deer. Their hair is in some parts very long, particularly on the belly, sides, and hind quarters; but the longest hair about them, particularly the bulls, is under the throat, extending from the chin to the lower part of the chest between the fore legs. It there hangs down like a horse's mane inverted, and is fully as long, which gives the animal a most formidable appearance. It is of the hair from this part that the Eskimo make their mosquito wigs (face screens or masks). In winter the musk oxen are provided with a thick fine wool or fur that grows at the root of the long hair, and shields them from the intense cold to which they are exposed during that season; but as the summer advances this fur loosens from the skin, and by frequently rolling themselves on the ground it works out to the end of the hair, and in time drops off, leaving little for their summer clothing except the long hair. This season is so short in these high latitudes, that the new fleece begins to appear almost as soon as the old one drops off, so that by the time the cold becomes severe they are again provided with a winter dress."
According to Hearne, the flesh of the musk ox does not resemble that of the bison, but is more like the meat of the moose or wapiti. The fat is of a clear white, "slightly tinged with a light azure". The calves and young heifers are good eating, but the flesh of the bulls both smells and tastes so strongly of musk as to be very disagreeable; "even the knife that cuts the flesh of an old bull will smell so strongly of musk that nothing but scouring the blade quite bright can remove it, and the handle will retain the scent for a long time".
Bisons of the "wood" variety are (or were) found far up the heights of the Rocky Mountains and in the regions south-west of the Great Slave Lake. These "wood buffaloes" delight in mountain valleys, and never resort to the plains. And higher than anything, of course, range the great white mountain goat-antelopes (Oreamnus montanus) from northern Alaska to the Columbia River.
The north and the north-west were, of course, pre-eminently the great fur-trading regions, though all parts of the vast Dominion have at one time or another yielded furs for commerce with the white man. The principal fur-bearing smaller mammals of the north and north-west were wolves, foxes, lynxes, gluttons (wolverene), otters, martens (sables) and black fishing martens, mink (a kind of polecat), ermine-stoats, weasels, polar hares (Lepus timidus), beavers, musquash, lemming, gopher or pouched ground-squirrels, and the common red squirrel of North America. The grey squirrel and striped chipmunk are only found in southern Canada.
The musquash (Fiber zibethicus) is such a characteristic animal of northern Canada that it is worth while to give Hearne's description of it (I would mention it is really a huge vole, and no relation of the beaver):—