Bruin: The Grand Bear Hunt

by Mayne Reid

The Old She Surrounded.

They had been for some days on the lookout for a white bear; and had made several excursions from the Port—going as far as the mouth of the Seal river, which runs into Hudson’s Bay a little farther to the north. On all these excursions they had been unsuccessful; for, although they had several times come upon the track of the bears, and had even seen them at a distance, they were unable in a single instance to get within shot. The difficulty arose from the level nature of the ground, and its being quite destitute of trees or other cover, under which they might approach the animals. The country around Fort Churchill is of this character—and indeed along the whole western shore of Hudson’s Bay, where the soil is a low alluviom, without either rocks or hills. This formation runs landward for about a hundred miles—constituting a strip of marshy soil, which separates the sea from a parallel limestone formation further inward. Then succeed the primitive rocks, which cover a large interior tract of country, known as the “Barren Grounds.”

It is only on the low belt adjoining the coast that the polar bear is found; but the females range quite across to the skirts of the woods which cover the limestone formation. Our hunters therefore knew that either upon the shore itself, or upon the low alluvial tract adjoining it, they would have to search for their game; and to this district they confined their search.

On the fifth day they made a more extended excursion towards the interior. It was now the season of midsummer, when the old males range up the banks of the streams: partly with the design of catching a few freshwater fish, partly to nibble at the sweet berries, but above all to meet the females, who just then, with their half-grown cubs, come coyly seaward to meet their old friends of the previous year, and introduce their offspring to their fathers, who up to this hour have not set eyes on them.

On the present excursion our hunters were more fortunate than before: since they not only witnessed a reunion of this sort, but succeeded in making a capture of the whole family,—father, mother, and cubs.

They had on this occasion gone up the Churchill river, and were ascending a branch stream that runs into the latter, some miles above the fort. Their mode of travelling was in a birch-bark canoe: for horses are almost unknown in the territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company, excepting in those parts of it that consist of prairie. Throughout most of this region the only means of travelling is by canoes and boats, which are managed by men who follow it as a calling, and who are styled “voyageurs.” They are nearly all of Canadian origin—many of them half-breeds, and extremely skilful in the navigation of the lakes and rivers of this untrodden wilderness. Of course most of them are in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company; and when not actually engaged in “voyaging” do a little hunting and trapping on their own account.

Two of these voyageurs—kindly furnished by the chief factor at the fort—propelled the canoe which carried our young hunters; so that with Pouchskin there were five men in the little craft. This was nothing, however, as birch-bark canoes are used in the Territory of a much larger kind—some that will even carry tons of merchandise and a great many men. Along the bank of the stream into which they had now entered grew a selvage of willows—here and there forming leafy thickets that were impenetrable to the eye; but in other places standing so thinly, that the plains beyond them could be seen out of the canoe.

It was a likely enough place for white bears to be found in—especially at this season, when, as already stated, the old males go inland to meet the females, as well as to indulge in a little vegetable diet, after having confined themselves all the rest of the year to fish and seal-flesh. The voyageurs said that there were many bulbous roots growing in those low meadows of which the bears are very fond; and also larvae of certain insects, found in heaps, like anthills—which by Bruin are esteemed a delicacy of the rarest kind.

For this reason our hunters were regarding the land on both sides of the stream, occasionally standing up in the canoe to reconnoitre over the tops of the willows, or peering through them where they grew thinly. While passing opposite one of the breaks in the willow-grove, a spectacle came before their eyes that caused them to order the canoe to be stopped, and the voyageurs to rest on their oars.

Alexis, who had been upon the lookout, at first did not know what to make of the spectacle: so odd was the grouping of the figures that composed it. He could see a large number of animals of quadrupedal form, but of different colours. Some were nearly white, others brown or reddish-brown, and several were quite black. All appeared to have long shaggy hair, cocked ears, and large bushy tails. They were not standing at rest, but moving about—now running rapidly from point to point, now leaping up in the air, while some were rushing round in circles! In all there appeared to be thirty or forty of them; and they covered a space of ground about as large as a drawing-room floor.