The country was a network
of their trails, in the woodlands and bogs cut deep into the soft
soil, on the barren hillsides broad, dark bands converging to the
crossing place at the river.
At the time I made my journey the general movement of the caribou
was towards the east; but where they had come from or whither they
were going we could not tell. Piles of white hair which we found
later at a deserted camp on Cabot Lake where the Indians had
dressed the skins, and the band of white hair clinging to the west
bank of the George River, opposite our camp of August 15th, four
feet above the then water-level, pointed to an earlier occupation
of the country, while the deep cut trails and long piles of
whitened antlers, found at intervals along the upper George River,
all indicated that this country is favourite ground with them. Yet
whether they had been continuously in this territory since the
spring months or not I did not ascertain. The Indians whom we
found at Resolution Lake knew nothing of their presence so near
them.
Towards the end of August the following year Mr. Cabot, while on a
trip inland from Davis Inlet, on the east coast, found the caribou
in numbers along the Height of Land, and when he joined the Indians
there, though the great herd had passed, they had killed near a
thousand.
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