The Barren Ground of Northern Canada

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Macmillan and Company, 1892 - Canada, Northern - 300 pages
An account of a journey in 1889 to the desert region of Canada between Hudson Bay and the Arctic Sea, in order to find and study the musk-ox and its Indian hunters.
 

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Page 82 - Ptarmigan came literally in thousands, while the tracks of wolves, wolverines, and Arctic foxes made a continuous network in the snow. Scattered bands of caribou were almost always in sight from the top of the ridge behind the camp, and increased in numbers till the morning of October...
Page 287 - In all, it may be stated that " while the entire area of the Dominion is computed at 3,470,257 square miles, about 954,000 square miles of the continent alone, exclusive of the inhospitable detached arctic portions, is for all practical purposes entirely unknown. In this estimate the area of the unexplored country is reduced to a minimum by the mode of definition employed. Probably we should be much nearer the mark in assuming it as about one million square miles, or between one third and one fourth...
Page 83 - In every direction we could hear the grunting noise that the caribou always make when travelling ; the snow was broken into broad roads, and I found it useless to try to estimate the number that passed within a few miles of our encampment. We were just on the western edge of their passage, and afterwards...
Page 45 - Its range," writes Warburton Pike, "appears to be from the islands in the Arctic Sea to the southern part of Hudson's Bay, while the Mackenzie River is the limit of their western wandering. In the summer time they keep to the true Barren Grounds, but in the autumn, when their feeding-grounds are covered with snow, they seek the hanging moss in the woods. From what I could gather from the Indians, and from my own personal experience, it was late in October, immediately after the rutting season, that...
Page 276 - My father, you have spoken well. You have told me that Heaven is very beautiful — tell me now one thing more. Is it more beautiful than the country of the musk-ox in summer, when sometimes the mist blows over the lakes, and sometimes the water is blue and the whippoor-will calls very often ? That is beautiful, and if Heaven is more beautiful my heart will be glad. I shall be content to rest there until I am very old.
Page 82 - La foule," and even in the lodge we could hear the curious clatter made by a band of travelling caribou. La Foule had really come and during its passage of six days I was able to realize what an extraordinary number of these animals still roam in the Barren Grounds. From...
Page 84 - I found it useless to try to estimate the number that passed within a few miles of our encampment. . . This passage of the caribou is the most remarkable thing that I have ever seen in the course of many expeditions among the big game of America. The buffalo were for the most part killed out before my time, but I cannot believe that the herds on the prairie ever surpassed in size La Foule of the caribou.
Page 46 - A month afterwards the males and females separate, the latter beginning to work their way north again as early as the end of February; they reach the edge of the woods in April, and drop their young far out toward the seacoast in June, by which time the snow is melting rapidly and the ground showing in patches. The males stay in the woods till May and never reach the coast, but meet the females on their way inland at the end of July ; from this time they stay together till the rutting season is over...
Page 284 - Area surrounded by Back's river, Great Slave Lake, Athabasca Lake, Hatchet and Reindeer Lakes, Churchill river, and the west coast of Hudson Bay, 178,000 square miles; much larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and somewhat larger than Sweden.
Page 276 - It is very commonly supposed, even in Canada, but to a greater extent elsewhere, that all parts of the Dominion are now so well known that exploration, in the true sense of the term, may be considered as a thing of the past. This depends largely upon the fact that the maps of the country generally examined are upon a very small scale, and that upon such maps no vast areas yet remain upon which rivers, lakes, mountains, or other features are not depicted. If, however, we take the trouble to enquire...

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