Finally we got into the Lowlands just before noon, having covered fully sixty-five miles of our journey. As it was yet early and the dogs appeared fresh as when they started, we decided after having a light lunch, to go on to the next stopping place seventeen miles below. The going was excellent and we did the first twelve miles in ninety minutes; but coming to rough and hummocky ice we had to bear in towards the shore to get around it. The wind had swept the rocks clean of snow. Just as we got on land some caribou appeared across our course immediately ahead. Well, talk about dogs moving! Their former speed seemed slow in comparison. They raced over the naked rocks like wolves. I remember looking behind and seeing a stream of fire flying from the steel shoeing of the sledge like a shower of sparks from a high-speed emery wheel. The caribou moved off into the valley and we had a tough job to get the team onto the ice again. Here we came in sight of more seals. Off we went again from our course and past the stopping place we had planned; so we decided to go right on to our destination. We arrived at Rigolet before 8 p.m.
The Post managers came out and greeted us warmly, remarking however that we had made slow time, arriving so late in the evening. They thought we had left the previous day. When I announced that we had left only that morning they said "like —— you did." We had lost two hours, but in the fourteen and a half hours we had been actually travelling we had covered a hundred and seven miles. I am not claiming this is a record, but it is one of the fastest trips ever made by an H.B.C. dog team with full load.
Editor's Note—Mr. James Fraser, who later became H.B.C. District Manager in Esquimaux Bay, made the trip from Rigolet to Northwest River in one day on a previous occasion, but as he lost a twenty-eight pound keg of white lead on the way up much of the glory vanished. The foregoing is the first of a series of authentic stories which The Beaver plans to carry in a regular department which may be styled the "Dog Column"—just plain DOG. Men of the Hudson's Bay: bestir your "recollection equipment" and let us know if you have a better dog story than Mr. Cotter's. Particularly are we expecting to hear from J. J. G. Rosser, of Isle a la Crosse, and Ashton Alston, of Barriere, both famous "dog skinners."
[LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HAUNTS OF CANADA'S FUR-BEARING ANIMALS]
I.
THE BEAVER
(Continued from last Issue)
They have their young during June. When one year old they have two or three only, the next year as many as six, but in after years the average number is four. The young stay with their parents for two years and in the third year they leave and make a home or mate with others who are making homes for themselves. Under the old unwritten laws of the Indians, a trap must not be set closer than two hundred yards from a house, because the young beaver never go that far away from home, therefore only the two years and older ones would be caught.
Method of Drowning Beaver