Besides The Party Constantly Employed At The House Two Men Were Appointed
To Fish And Others Were Occasionally Sent For Meat As The Hunters
Procured It.
This latter employment, although extremely laborious, was
always relished by the Canadians as they never failed to use a
prescriptive right of helping themselves to the fattest and most delicate
parts of the deer.
Towards the end of the month the reindeer began to
quit the barren grounds and came into the vicinity of the house on their
way to the woods and, the success of the hunters being consequently
great, the necessity of sending for the meat considerably retarded the
building of the house. In the meantime we resided in our canvas tents
which proved very cold habitations although we maintained a fire in front
of them and also endeavoured to protect ourselves from the piercing winds
by a barricade of pine branches.
On the 6th of October, the house being completed, we struck our tents and
removed into it. It was merely a log building, fifty feet long and
twenty-four wide, divided into a hall, three bedrooms and a kitchen. The
walls and roof were plastered with clay, the floors laid with planks
rudely squared with the hatchet, and the windows closed with parchment of
deer-skin. The clay which, from the coldness of the weather, required to
be tempered before the fire with hot water, froze as it was daubed on and
afterwards cracked in such a manner as to admit the wind from every
quarter yet, compared with the tents, our new habitation appeared
comfortable and, having filled our capacious clay-built chimney with
fagots, we spent a cheerful evening before the invigorating blaze. The
change was peculiarly beneficial to Dr. Richardson who, having in one of
his excursions incautiously laid down on the frozen side of a hill when
heated with walking, had caught a severe inflammatory sore throat which
became daily worse whilst we remained in the tents but began to mend soon
after he was enabled to confine himself to the more equable warmth of the
house. We took up our abode at first on the floor but our working party,
who had shown such skill as house carpenters, soon proved themselves to
be, with the same tools (the hatchet and crooked knife) excellent
cabinetmakers and daily added a table, chair, or bedstead to the comforts
of our establishment. The crooked knife generally made of an old file,
bent and tempered by heat, serves an Indian or Canadian voyager for
plane, chisel, and auger. With it the snowshoe and canoe-timbers are
fashioned, the deals of their sledges reduced to the requisite thinness
and polish, and their wooden bowls and spoons hollowed out. Indeed though
not quite so requisite for existence as the hatchet yet without its aid
there would be little comfort in these wilds.
On the 7th we were gratified by a sight of the sun after it had been
obscured for twelve days. On this and several following days the meridian
sun melted the light covering of snow or hoarfrost on the lichens which
clothe the barren grounds, and rendered them so tender as to attract
great herds of reindeer to our neighbourhood. On the morning of the 10th
I estimated the numbers I saw during a short walk at upwards of two
thousand. They form into herds of different sizes from ten to a hundred
according as their fears or accident induce them to unite or separate.
The females being at this time more lean and active usually lead the van.
The haunches of the males are now covered to the depth of two inches or
more with fat which is beginning to get red and high flavoured and is
considered a sure indication of the commencement of the rutting season.
Their horns, which in the middle of August were yet tender, have now
attained their proper size and are beginning to lose their hairy covering
which hangs from them in ragged filaments. The horns of the reindeer vary
not only with its sex and age but are otherwise so uncertain in their
growth that they are never alike in any two individuals. The old males
shed theirs about the end of December; the females retain them until the
disappearance of the snow enables them to frequent the barren grounds
which may be stated to be about the middle or end of May, soon after
which period they proceed towards the sea-coast and drop their young. The
young males lose their horns about the same time with the females or a
little earlier, some of them as early as April. The hair of the reindeer
falls in July and is succeeded by a short thick coat of mingled clove,
deep reddish and yellowish browns; the belly and under parts of the neck,
etc., remaining white. As the winter approaches the hair becomes longer
and lighter in its colours and it begins to loosen in May, being then
much worn on the sides from the animal rubbing itself against trees and
stones. It becomes grayish and almost white before it is completely shed.
The Indians form their robes of the skins procured in autumn when the
hair is short. Towards the spring the larvae of the oestrus, attaining a
large size, produce so many perforations in the skins that they are good
for nothing. The cicatrices only of these holes are to be seen in August
but a fresh set of ova have in the meantime been deposited.*
(*Footnote. "It is worthy of remark that in the month of May a very great
number of large larvae exist under the mucous membrane at the root of the
tongue and posterior part of the nares and pharynx. The Indians consider
them to belong to the same species with the oestrus that deposits its ova
under the skin: to us the larvae of the former appeared more flattened
than those of the latter. Specimens of both kinds preserved in spirits
were destroyed by the frequent falls they received on the portages." Dr.
Richardson's Journal.)
The reindeer retire from the sea-coast in July and August, rut in October
on the verge of the barren grounds and shelter themselves in the woods
during the winter.
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