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[Illustration: Cover]


THE BARREN GROUND OF NORTHERN CANADA


[Illustration: Ready for Tracking]


THE BARREN GROUND OF NORTHERN CANADA

by

WARBURTON PIKE







[Illustration]

New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Avenue

Published, 1917,
By E. P. Dutton & Co.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION


In many of the outlying districts of Canada an idea is prevalent,
fostered by former travellers, that somewhere in London there exists a
benevolent society whose object is to send men incapable of making any
useful scientific observations to the uttermost parts of the earth, in
order to indulge their taste for sport or travel. Several times before I
had fairly started for the North, and again on my return, I was asked if
I had been sent out under the auspices of this society, and, I am
afraid, rather fell in the estimation of the interviewers when I was
obliged to confess that my journey was only an ordinary shooting
expedition, such as one might make to the Rocky Mountains or the
interior of Africa, and that no great political reformation depended
upon my report as to what I had seen.

In talking with officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, many of whom had
been stationed for long periods in the Athabasca and Mackenzie River
districts, I had often heard of a strange animal, a relic of an earlier
age, that was still to be found roaming the Barren Ground, the vast
desert that lies between Hudson's Bay, the eastern ends of the three
great lakes of the North, and the Arctic Sea. This animal was the
Musk-ox, but my informants could tell me nothing from personal
experience, and all that was known on the subject had been gathered from
Indian report. Once or twice some enthusiastic sportsman had made the
attempt to reach the land of the Musk-ox, but had never succeeded in
carrying out his object; specimens had been secured by the officers of
the various Arctic expeditions, but no one had ever seen much of these
animals or of the methods of hunting them employed by the Northern
Indians.

This, then, was the sole object of my journey; to try and penetrate this
unknown land, to see the Musk-ox, and find out as much as I could about
their habits, and the habits of the Indians who go in pursuit of them
every year. But the only white men who had succeeded in getting far out
into the Barren Ground were the early explorers,--Hearne, Sir John
Franklin, Sir George Back, and Dr. Richardson, while long afterwards Dr.
Rae and Stewart and Anderson went in search of the missing Franklin
expedition. With the exception of Hearne, who threw in his lot with the
Indians, these leaders were all accompanied by the most capable men that
could be procured, and no expense was spared in order to make success as
certain as possible; yet in spite of every precaution the story of Sir
John Franklin's first overland journey and the death of Hood are among
the saddest episodes in the history of the Arctic exploration.

My best chance seemed to be to follow Hearne's example, and trust to
the local knowledge of Indians to help me; and I think, as the sequel
showed, that I was right in not taking a crew from Winnipeg. The Indians
and half-breeds of the Great Slave Lake, although very hard to manage,
are certainly well up in Barren Ground travel; they are possessed of a
thorough knowledge of the movements of the various animals at different
seasons, and thus run less danger of starvation than strangers, however
proficient the latter may be in driving dogs and handling canoes.

In following out this plan I naturally passed through a great deal of
new country, and discovered, as we white men say when we are pointed out
some geographical feature by an Indian who has been familiar with it
since childhood, many lakes and small streams never before visited
except by the red man. I have attempted in a rough map to mark the
chains of lakes by which we reached the Barren Ground, but their
position is only approximate, and perhaps not even that, as I had no
instruments with which to make correct observations, and in any case
should have had little time to use them. Let no eminent geographer waste
his time in pointing out the inaccuracies in this map; I admit all the
errors before he discovers them. All that I wish to show is that these
chains of lakes do exist and can be used as convenient routes, doing
away with the often-tried method of forcing canoes up the swift and
dangerous streams that fall into the Great Slave Lake from the northern
tableland.

The success of my expedition is to be attributed entirely to the
assistance which was given me by the Hudson's Bay Company, and I take
this opportunity of thanking them for all the hospitality that was shown
to me throughout my journey; I was never refused a single request that I
made, and, although a total stranger, was treated with the greatest
kindness by everybody, from the Commissioner at Winnipeg to the engaged
servant in the Far North. My thanks are especially due to Lord Anson,
one of the directors in London, to Messrs. Wrigley and William Clark at
Winnipeg, Mr. Roderick MacFarlane, lately of Stuart's Lake, British
Columbia, a well-known northern explorer who put me in the way of making
a fair start, Dr. Mackay of Athabasca, Mr. Camsell of Mackenzie River,
Mr. Ewen Macdonald of Peace River, and most of all to Mr. Mackinlay of
Fort Resolution on the Great Slave Lake, who was my companion during a
long summer journey in the Barren Ground.

My only excuse for publishing this account of my travels is that the
subject is a reasonably new one, and deals with a branch of sport that
has never been described. I have spared the reader statistics, and I
have kept my story as short as possible. I hope that in return anyone
who may be interested in these pages will spare his comments on faulty
style, and the various errors into which a man who has spent much time
among the big game is sure to fall when he is rash enough to lay down
his rifle and take up the pen.

I have also cut out the chapter with which these books usually begin,--a
description of the monotonous voyage by Atlantic steamer and Canadian
Pacific Railway, and start at once from Calgary, a thriving cattle-town
close under the eastern foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains.

LONDON, 1891.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  Ready for Tracking                               _Frontispiece_
                                                             PAGE
  The Old Hudson Bay Post at Edmonton                           2
  The Hudson Bay Fort at Edmonton                               6
  The "Grahame" Towing Freight-scows on Lake
    Athabasca                                                  16
  Patching a Birch-bark on the Slave River                     26
  King Beaulieu                                                32
  A Dead White Wolf                                            57
  The Indians Driving Caribou                                  89
  Making Camp                                                 102
  Taking the Post Dogs for Exercise                           142
  Skins in the Post Store-room                                142
  Dog-rib Powwow at Fort Resolution                           167
  A Group of Dog-ribs                                         167
  Starting up the Peace River                                 233
  Junction of the Peace and Smoky Rivers                      248
  The Arrival of the Dog Train                                295
  Edmonton                                                    298


MAP

  A SKETCH MAP to illustrate Mr. Warburton
  Pike's journeys to the Barren Ground of
  Northern Canada                                _To face p._ 302




THE BARREN GROUND