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Sometimes it alarms and startles the game, while the hunter is crawling up to it; and I have known it to bother myself for a while of a day, when I was after grouse. It's a great favourite with the Indians though as it often guides them to deer, or musk-oxen, by its flying and screaming above where these animals are feeding. "Just in the same way it guided me.
Once, clambering up steep, bare heights, the travellers met a herd of a hundred musk-oxen scrambling over the rocks with the agility of squirrels, the spreading, agile hoof giving grip that lifted the hulking forms over all obstacles.
The officers carried such a portion of their own things as their strength would permit; the weight carried by each man was about ninety pounds, and with this we advanced at the rate of about a mile an hour including rests. In the evening the hunters killed a lean cow out of a large drove of musk-oxen; but the men were too much laden to carry more than a small portion of its flesh.
We reached the northern land beyond the ice-cap, but the condition of the country did not allow much exploration, and after killing a few musk-oxen we started on June 1 to make our return. We had one sledge and nine dogs. We reached Anniversary Lodge on June 25, with one dog.
He had gratified his ambitions in shooting musk-oxen, but he had not killed a single polar bear. At Etah there were two boys, Etookahshoo and Ahpellah, boys about sixteen or seventeen years old, who had been with Dr. Cook for a year, or ever since he had crossed the channel to Ellesmere Land and returned again. These boys are the two he claims accompanied him to the North Pole.
Their cooking utensils are made of pot-stone, and they form very neat dishes of fir, the sides being made of thin deal, bent into an oval form, secured at the ends by sewing, and fitted so nicely to the bottom as to be perfectly water-tight. They have also large spoons made of the horns of the musk-oxen.
An important consideration, is the variety of food obtainable in the arctic regions. We need not particularly classify the creatures found in the two seasons of summer and winter, but may enumerate the principal together. Of animals fit for food are musk-oxen, bears, reindeer, hares, foxes, &c. Of fish, there is considerable variety, salmon and trout being the chief and never-failing supply.
Ah! if you said reindeers or musk-oxen it would be a different thing." "But it appears those, too, are found in troops in Melville Island," replied the doctor; "that is much further south, I grant you; when Parry wintered there he always had as much game as he wanted." "We are not so well off," said Bell; "if we could only get plenty of bear's flesh I should not complain."
The Netchilliks also kill a few reindeer in this way. In the summer and fall these people catch great quantities of salmon and cow-e-sil-lik, a species of fish peculiar to this country, and in the neighboring hills kill a few musk-oxen. Their main dependence, however, is upon fish from Back's and Harris's rivers.
In the evening two musk-oxen, being seen on the beach, were pursued and killed by our men. Whilst we were waiting to embark the meat the Indians rejoined us and reported they had been attacked by a bear which sprung upon them whilst they were conversing together.
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