Moose Factory,
via Cochrane, Ont.
14th Nov., 1916.
My dear Jack,—
I was very glad to get your letter of August 30th, and must thank you for your enclosure of $5.00. I am sure you will think I have been a long while in answering your letter, but I have been over in England this summer and only returned to this part of the country about two weeks ago; it was only on my arrival here that I received your letter, and as there will be a packet out as soon as the ice is strong, I am taking the first opportunity to answer your letter.
I am now stationed here at Moose for the winter and shall be going to Albany in the spring. This is a post on the opposite side of James Bay to Fort George, but a very good place for game, especially for those birds we call “wavies.” The correct name for these birds, I believe, is “snow goose.” It is a strange thing that on the west coast of James Bay we get almost nothing but white “wavies,” with an occasional blue one in the flock, while on the east coast it is just the opposite with almost nothing but blue (grey) with a few white ones in the flock, while a short distance farther north (on the east coast) at Whale River the white reappear again in large numbers, so that they evidently cross the bay on their annual migrations.
There are lots of geese both on the east and west sides of the bay, but I believe that more pass on the east (Fort George side) than the other, as the coast is rocky with lots of islands where they can breed. We have some islands out in the bay called the “Tioms,” which are great breeding places.
The Indians who killed those tagged geese said that they seemed to be tamer than the others and came out of large flocks and down to the decoys when the rest of the band would not turn.
About three miles north of Fort George Post there is a big bay (salt water) with lots of mud and grass at low tide, and in the spring almost every flock of wavies and some geese feed in this bay on their way north. The Indians never hunt them on their arrival in this bay, but gather on a long hill on the other side and then shoot at the birds as they are going off. They generally get up in small flocks; as they have to rise considerably to clear the hill, they can be seen getting up some time before they get to the hill, and then every one runs along a path and tries to get right under where the flock is going to pass. Of course if three or four flocks get up at the same time there is shooting on different parts of the hill and the hunters are apt to spoil one another’s sport. The Indians say that once these birds leave this bay that they do not feed again till they get far north (Hudson Straits or Baffin Land). In fact a wavies’ nest is a great rarity. Strange to say they do not feed in this bay in the fall.
We have no wild rice in the bay and the birds seem to feed mostly on grass in the salt water, and in the fall they go out to the islands to feed on berries; they fly out to the islands in the mornings and back into the small bays for the nights.