CHAPTER IV

_OF THE FUR-BEARING ANIMALS_

[Illustration: Eskimo Boys.]

For food purposes among land animals the caribou, which closely resembles the reindeer, ranks first. These roam over the interior in great quantities, feeding on the very plentiful Iceland moss. In winter they scrape away the snow with their large cow-like hoofs to get at it. In Newfoundland they are very plentiful in the interior, and Mr. W. Tyrrell of Winnipeg told me, that on the west side of Hudson Bay he found thousands, so tame they would eat out of his hands. They migrate north in summer, and south in winter, due, says Rae, to their “sense of polarity,” but I should presume in search of food. They are difficult to find in the woods, for the colour of their skins varies with the seasons, and always closely resembles their surroundings. Unfortunately they are too far inland for the majority of settlers to reach.

The stags have magnificent antlers, which are especially fine about October, the rutting season. With these they fight fiercely, going down on their knees, and striking with the powerful brow-antlers. I have seen several pairs of “locked horns” that have been picked up, the poor creatures having got these fixed and died side by side of starvation.

A hunter this fall, having skinned a young stag he had killed, put the skin over him so that the horns, which were attached, came on his head. He then walked out towards a herd of does, over which a fine stag was keeping zealous watch as they grazed on the open marsh. They allowed him to come within range, and then the stag, mistaking him for a rival, actually charged down upon him.

Polar bears are not uncommon, and five were killed this season near Cape Chidley. Captain Blandford, of the S.S. _Neptune_, told me that, having sent some men ashore for water in a strange harbour near Cape Chidley, they returned in great haste, calling for their guns, and shouting, “Bears!” They were soon perceived from the ship to be firing, shot after shot being heard in rapid succession, and great expectations were raised of bear steak for dinner. At last the hunters returned with downcast countenances. The bears proved to be only inflated heads, which some Eskimo were using as buoys for their lines.

In one boat going out to their fish trap were seven men, six rowing, and the skipper standing on the stern seat, steering with an oar.

Suddenly a large white bear was sighted swimming close to the boat. There was no gun on board, and yet the men were loath to lose so rich a prize. Chase was therefore given, and the skipper kept hurling at the bear the large two-pronged lead “jigger,” with a stout line attached. Each time he threw it the bear warded it off, striking it a smart blow with his fore-paw. At last one jigger came fast, and then another, till the bear, who seemed only bent on escape, and was now wearied with repeated diving, was hauled near the boat, and first clubbed with an oar, and then despatched with an axe.

Black bears are very common. They are, as a rule, herbivorous, eating the wild berries, and insectivorous; but one night a settler I was staying with showed me the skin of a large bear he had just trapped. He was living at the mouth of a trout and salmon river, the entrance to which he barred with nets. Two bears happening to observe some fish struggling in the net on the surface of the water near the land were, I suppose, tempted to feloniously sample the unexpected windfall, and having once erred, continued their wild career. For the settler told me they learnt regularly to come down and haul his nets, dragging them to the land, and not only eating out the fish, but severely damaging the nets. But punishment had been meted out to one in the form of a charge of buckshot, to the other by a steel trap.

Cartwright thus illustrates the power of this bear: “We discovered this morning the damage done by a polar bear to a cask of oil. It was of strong oak staves, well secured by thick, broad hoops of birch. Yet with one blow of his tremendous paw he had snapped off the four chime hoops and broken the staves short off.”

The most valuable fur animals are the fox, otter, beaver, mink, marten, and lynx. Musk-rats, squirrel, and hares are also plentiful. The porcupine is not uncommon. One specimen I shot was larger than a sucking pig. The long black hair, which almost obscures the short quills, made it resemble a bear as it sat asleep on a bough at the top of a fir tree. A bullet through the head brought it down at once, but even when mortally wounded they will cling to the boughs, and you may have to fell the tree. I saw a dog one day worrying one. The porcupine, with its head well down, waited for the dog to come near, and then switched round his tail end, on which are most spikes, with lightning speed, hoping to leave some in his enemy’s nose. The quills are all barbed, so that they “work in.” In this way they will kill dogs, wolves, and foxes. A fox was found dead near Hopedale, its skin ruined by festering sores, which, on examination, showed the ends of the black and white quills. It is very amusing to see how easily it wards off an enemy by always turning its back to him! When the dog was tired out, the porcupine went up the nearest tree, had a good meal, and went to sleep on a bough.

Black or “silver” fox skins are very valuable. For one good black skin I have known £170 given by a Russian nobleman. The average retail value of silver fox skins is nearly £50. Now the cunning of foxes is proverbial, but Cartwright tells us a story of vulpine ingenuity in a marten. One day he was going to travel a long distance, and desired to leave a deposit of food for his return journey. He feared to bury it, because foxes would be sure to find it, so climbing a tree he hung it by a string from one of the branches. Shortly after a marten came along, and espied the dainty morsel high over his head. Whether he had watched old Cartwright climbing, or whether it was an inspiration, the tale does not say, but in any case it climbed the tree also, gnawed through the string, and then, with an appetite whetted by the exercise, had a square meal at its leisure.

[Illustration: A Beaver.]

Walking one day through thick wood we came across a regular “pathway,” the trees having been felled to make travelling easy. A glance at the stumps showed that it was a road cut by beavers, to enable them to drag their boughs of birch along more easily. The pathway led to a large house on the edge of a lake, and, fortunately for us, the beaver was at home. There were other houses on an island in the lake, and below them all a large, strong dam, some thirty yards long, built the shape of a half-moon, and below this two more complete dams across the river that flowed out. The dams were made of large tree-trunks, with quantities of lesser boughs, and were many feet thick, and very difficult to break down. The houses were built half on land, half in the water. The sitting-room is upstairs on the bank, and so is the “crew’s” bedroom, and the front door made at least three feet below the surface to prevent being “frozen out” in winter, or, worse still, “frozen in.”

The whole house was neatly rounded off, and so plastered with mud as to be warm and weather-proof. This is done by means of their trowel-like tails, which are also of great use in swimming. The house was so strong that even with an axe we could not get in without very considerable delay. In the deep pond they had dammed up, we found a quantity of birch poles pegged out. The bark of these forms their winter food, and is called “browse.” The beaver cuts off enough for dinner, and takes it into his house. Sitting up, he takes the stem in his fore paws, and rolls it round and round against his chisel-shaped incisor teeth, swallowing the long ribands of bark thus stripped off. While entering the house the stick often sets off a trap set for them. The trappers say they do this purposely. When surprised they retreat to holes in the bank, of which the entrances are hidden under water. These are called “hovels.”

Beavers always work up wind when felling trees, and cut them on the water side, so that they fall into the pond if possible, and the wind helps to blow them home. This beaver we caught proved to be a hermit—at least he was living alone. He may have been a widower of unusual constancy. They do not destroy fish, their food in summer being preferably the stem of the water-lilies. Otters occasionally kill and eat beavers. When they call the beaver has to try and be “not at home.” Of the other animals I have not space to say much. The blue-grey hare is a large animal, and like all the others turns white in winter—so wonderfully does God remember all His creatures.

The pretty little squirrel is very tame. Like a good sensible fellow he makes round holes in the ground, and hides enough berries for his “winter diet.”

The climate of Labrador is rigorous in the extreme, in spite of the fact that in summer, especially in the inlets, the thermometer sometimes registers 75° and even 80° F. Icefields from Baffin’s Bay and Davis Strait block the coast from October to June, the sea freezing entirely over all along the shore. Over this all the winter travelling is done, but sometimes the commotion below so moves the ice up and down that a team of dogs with their sledge will only move backwards when a swell arises. The average temperature all the year round is at Hopedale 27° F., at Nain 22·5° F., that is a mean average temperature of 5° and 9·5° respectively of frost. During the months the sea is open, countless islands of ice are driven all along the coast, while snowslips often make the land dangerous. A settler, his two sons, and son-in-law were ascending the slope of an island near Sandwich Bay to witness the first break-up of the ice in spring, when an avalanche of snow buried all but one son, who was a few yards behind the rest. Rushing to where he saw his father last, and tearing away the hard-frozen snow with hand and foot, he came eventually on his father’s head, four feet below the surface. Though his father heard the son searching, he could neither stir nor shout to guide him, from the weight of snow over him. This man told me the sad story. The other two lads were lost.

Storms of exceptional violence and of sudden onset occasionally visit the coast. The wind seems to blow from all quarters at once, hurling clouds of sea-water as dust, often mixed with icy spicules, far over the land. A few years ago a vessel in Black Tickle, lying at anchor near Gready, was carried up and left on the rocks twenty feet above high-water line; at the same time £4,000 of damage was done, in that one harbour alone, by all the stages with the summer’s voyage of fish and all the boats being suddenly washed away. It was then October, and snow was on the ground. All the survivors left as soon as possible. On returning next year an old man of this vessel was found dead beneath the snow, his hands crossed, his eyes bandaged. Evidently he had laid himself out for burial. On October 9, 1867, in one of these sudden gales, forty vessels were hurled on the rocks. Forty poor souls lost their lives, and fifteen hundred people were cast ashore.

Again on October 26, 1885, in a similar hurricane 80 vessels were lost, 70 lives, and 2,000 men, women, and children left on the coast. The Newfoundland Government had to send up special steamers to bring these people home.

Easterly gales especially, as the water is deep, heave in a most wonderful ground-swell. Close to the land, I have in our little steamer been so low down in these great watery valleys, that, standing on deck, we could not see even the tops of the hills over the crest of the next wave. Admiral Bayfield says, “It bursts with fury right over islands thirty feet in height, sending sheets of foam and spray, sparkling in the sunbeams fifty feet up the sides of precipices.”

One feature, however, of rare beauty is peculiar to these Arctic regions. I mean the Aurora Borealis. At times one radiant crown circles the zenith; at others, vast columns of light advancing across the heavens keep changing shape like battalions of men attacking, the varying uniforms of these flying squadrons resplendent with every shade of violet, red and gold; at others deadly pale phantoms creep ghost-like upwards from the northern horizon, till the whole space overhead is filled with quivering rays. Icebergs, till now invisible, reveal their baneful presence; but almost before the sailor has time to note their bearings, these transient glories are suddenly extinguished, and the sea and sky are once more plunged into darkness, all the more death-like for the contrast, so that men call it, “The dead at play.” The weird mirage also serves to add mystery to these regions. Often have we seen huge icebergs as if capsized, and hovering in the waves of ether over the stern realities below, as though kissing them and rejoicing in their power for evil.

[Illustration: Mountaineer Indians on the _Sir Donald_.]