The caribou has very wide, heavy horns, and they are almost always circular—that is, the main part or trunk of each horn curves outward from the skull and then inward towards the point, in an almost true semicircle. They are more or less branched, but both the general shape of the whole horns and of the branches is such that when the head is thrown up and back they aid the animal's flight by presenting what may be called the point of a wedge towards the saplings and limbs and small forest growths through which the beast runs, parting and spreading every pair of obstacles to either side, and bending every single one out of the way of his flying body. The caribou of North America is the reindeer of Greenland; the differences between the two are very slight. The animal's home is the arctic circle, but in America it feeds and roams farther south than in Europe and Asia. It is a large and clumsy-looking beast, with thick and rather short legs and bulky body, and, seen in repose, gives no hint of its capacity for flight. Yet the caribou can run "like a streak of wind," and makes its way through leaves and brush and brittle, sapless vegetation with a modicum of noise so slight as to seem inexplicable. Nature has ingeniously added to its armament, always one, and usually two, palmated spurs at the root of its horns, and these grow at an obtuse angle with the head, upward and outward towards the nose. With these spurs—like shovels used sideways—the caribou roots up the snow, or breaks its crust and disperses it, to get at his food on the ground. The caribou are very large deer, and their strength is attested by the weight of their horns. I have handled caribou horns in Canada that I could not hold out with both hands when seated in a chair. It seemed hard to believe that an animal of the size of a caribou could carry a burden apparently so disproportioned to his head and neck. But it is still more difficult to believe, as all the woodsmen say, that these horns are dropped and new ones grown every year.
It is not the especial beauty of Frederic Remington's drawings and paintings that they are absolutely accurate in every detail, but it is one of their beauties, and gives them especial value apart from their artistic excellence. He draws what he knows, and he knows what he draws. This scene of the electrically exquisite moment in a hunter's life, when great game is before him, and the instant has come for claiming it as his own with a steadily held and wisely chosen aim, will give the reader a perfect knowledge of how the Indians and hunters dress and equip themselves beyond the Canadian border. The scene is in the wilderness north of the Great Lakes. The Indian is of one of those tribes that are offshoots of the great Algonquin nation. He carries in that load he bears that which the plainsmen call "the grub stake," or quota of provisions for himself and his employer, as well as blankets to sleep in, pots, pans, sugar, the inevitable tea of those latitudes, and much else besides. Those Indians are not as lazy or as physically degenerate as many of the tribes in our country. They turn themselves into wonderful beasts of burden, and go forever equipped with a long, broad strap that they call a "tomp line," and which they pass around their foreheads and around their packs, the latter resting high up on their backs. It seems incredible, but they can carry one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds of necessaries all day long in the roughest regions. The Hudson Bay Company made their ancestors its wards and dependents two centuries ago, and taught them to work and to earn their livelihood.
V
BIG FISHING
In October every year there are apt to be more fish upon the land in the Nepigon country than one would suppose could find life in the waters. Most families have laid in their full winter supply, the main exceptions being those semi-savage families which leave their fish out—in preference to laying them in—upon racks whereon they are to be seen in rows and by the thousands.
Nepigon, the old Hudson Bay post which is the outfitting place for this region, is 928 miles west of Montreal, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and on an arm of Lake Superior. The Nepigon River, which connects the greatest of lakes with Lake Nepigon, is the only roadway in all that country, and therefore its mouth, in an arm of the great lake, is the front door to that wonderful region. In travelling through British Columbia I found one district that is going to prove of greater interest to gentlemen sportsmen with the rod, but I know of no greater fishing country than the Nepigon. No single waterway or system of navigable inland waters in North America is likely to wrest the palm from this Nepigon district as the haunt of fish in the greatest plenty, unless we term the salmon a fresh-water fish, and thus call the Fraser, Columbia, and Skeena rivers into the rivalry. There is incessant fishing in this wilderness north of Lake Superior from New-year's Day, when the ice has to be cut to get at the water, all through the succeeding seasons, until again the ice fails to protect the game. And there is every sort of fishing between that which engages a navy of sailing vessels and men, down through all the methods of fish-taking—by nets, by spearing, still fishing, and fly-fishing. A half a dozen sorts of finny game succumb to these methods, and though the region has been famous and therefore much visited for nearly a dozen years, the field is so extensive, so well stocked, and so difficult of access except to persons of means, that even to-day almost the very largest known specimens of each class of fish are to be had there.
If we could put on wings early in October, and could fly down from James's Bay over the dense forests and countless lakes and streams of western Ontario, we would see now and then an Indian or hunter in a canoe, here and there a lonely huddle of small houses forming a Hudson Bay post, and at even greater distances apart small bunches of the cotton or birch-bark tepees of pitiful little Cree or Ojibaway bands. But with the first glance at the majestic expanse of Lake Superior there would burst upon the view scores upon scores of white sails upon the water, and near by, upon the shore, a tent for nearly every sail. That is the time for the annual gathering for catching the big, chunky, red-fleshed fish they call the salmon-trout. They catch those that weigh from a dozen to twenty-five or thirty pounds, and at this time of the year their flesh is comparatively hard.
Engaged in making this great catch are the boats of the Indians from far up the Nepigon and the neighboring streams; of the chance white men of the region, who depend upon nature for their sustenance; and of Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, and others who come from the United States side, or southern shore, to fish for their home markets. These fish come at this season to spawn, seeking the reefs, which are plentiful off the shore in this part of the lake. Gill nets are used to catch them, and are set within five fathoms of the surface by setting the inner buoy in water of that depth, and then paying the net out into deeper water and anchoring it. The run and the fishing continue throughout October. As a rule, among the Canadians and Canada Indians a family goes with each boat—the boats being sloops of twenty-seven to thirty feet in length, and capable of carrying fifteen pork barrels, which are at the outset filled with rock-salt. Sometimes the heads of two families are partners in the ownership of one of these sloops, but, however that may be, the custom is for the women and children to camp in tents along-shore, while the men (usually two men and a boy for each boat) work the nets. It is a stormy season of the year, and the work is rough and hazardous, especially for the nets, which are frequently lost.
Whenever a haul is made the fish are split down the back and cleaned. Then they are washed, rolled in salt, and packed in the barrels. Three days later, when the bodies of the fish have thoroughly purged themselves, they are taken out, washed again, and are once more rolled in fresh salt and put back in the barrels, which are then filled to the top with water. The Indians subsist all winter upon this October catch, and, in addition, manage to exchange a few barrels for other provisions and for clothing. They demand an equivalent of six dollars a barrel in whatever they get in exchange, but do not sell for money, because, as I understand it, they are not obliged to pay the provincial license fee as fishermen, and therefore may not fish for the market. Even sportsmen who throw a fly for one day in the Nepigon country must pay the Government for the privilege. The Indians told me that eight barrels of these fish will last a family of six persons an entire winter. Such a demonstration of prudence and fore-thought as this, of a month's fishing at the threshold of winter, amounts to is a rare one for an Indian to make, and I imagine there is a strong admixture of white blood in most of those who make it. The full-bloods will not take the trouble. They trust to their guns and their traps against the coming of that wolf which they are not unused to facing.