112 degrees)
not less than 2,000,000 Caribou travelling southward; he calls this
merely the advance guard of the great herd. Colonel Jones (Buffalo
Jones), who saw the herd in October at Clinton-Colden, has given me
personally a description that furnishes the basis for an interesting
calculation of their numbers.
He stood on a hill in the middle of the passing throng, with a
clear view ten miles each way and it was one army of Caribou. How
much further they spread, he did not know. Sometimes they were
bunched, so that a hundred were on a space one hundred feet square;
but often there would be spaces equally large without any. They
averaged at least one hundred Caribou to the acre; and they passed
him at the rate of about three miles an hour. He did not know how
long they were in passing this point; but at another place they
were four days, and travelled day and night. The whole world seemed
a moving mass of Caribou. He got the impression at last that they
were standing still and he was on a rocky hill that was rapidly
running through their hosts.
Even halving these figures, to keep on the safe side, we find that
the number of Caribou in this army was over 25,000,000. Yet it is
possible that there are several such armies. In which case they
must indeed out-number the Buffalo in their palmiest epoch. So much
for their abundance to-day. To what extent are they being destroyed?
I looked into this question with care.
First, of the Indian destruction. In 1812 the Chipewyan population,
according to Kennicott, was 7,500. Thomas Anderson, of Fort Smith,
showed me a census of the Mackenzie River Indians, which put them
at 3,961 in 1884. Official returns of the Canadian government give
them in 1905 at 3,411, as follows:
Peel . . . . . . . . . . 400
Arctic Red River . . . . . . 100
Good Hope . . . . . . . . 500
Norman . . . . . . . . . 300
Wrigley . . . . . . . . . 100
Simpson . . . . . . . . . 300
Rae . . . . . . . . . . 800
Liard and Nelson . . . . . . 400
Yellowknives . . . . . . . 151
Dogribs . . . . . . . . . 123
Chipewyans . . . . . . . . 123
Hay River . . . . . . . . 114
- - -
3,411
Of these the Hay River and Liard Indians, numbering about 500, can
scarcely be considered Caribou-eaters, so that the Indian population
feeding on Caribou to-day is about 3,000, less than half what it
was 100 years ago.
Of these not more than 600 are hunters. The traders generally agree
that the average annual kill of Caribou is about 10 or 20 per man,
not more. When George Sanderson, of Fort Resolution, got 75 one
year, it was the talk of the country; many got none.
