The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1879-08-16
OUR STORY TELLER.
OYER THE BORDER.
Sports and Strange Sights in Canada A
NO5sleuaam's Experiences.

Sports and Strange Sights in Canada a
Noblenhan's Experiences
Lord Dunraven has an article in the
NinteeRth Century about Canada. In
describing moose hunting he says:
The moose may also be run down in
winter time on snow-shoes. This may
be called partly legitimate and partly
an illegitimate mode of killing the
animal If the snow is not very deep
the moose can travel, and to come up
with him requires immense endurance
on the part of man, but no skill except
that involved in the art of running on
snow-shoes. You simply start the ami
NAL and follow after him for day, or
sometimes two or three days, when you
come up with him and walk as close as
you like and shoot him.
If the snow lies very deep in early
spring, moose may be slaughtered with
ease. The sun thaws the surface, which
freezes up again at night and forms an
icy crust strong enough to support a
man on snow-shoes, or dog, but not
nearly strong enough to support moose.
Then they can be run down without
trouble. You find your moose and start
dog after him. The unfortunate moose
founders helplessly in the snow, cutting
his legs to pieces, and in very short
time becomes exhausted and you can
walk up to him, knock him on the head
with an axe or stick him with knife,
as you think best. Hundreds and hun
dreds of moose have been slaughtered in
this scandalous manner for their hides
alone. The settlers also dig pits for
them and snare them both of which
practices, l need hardly say, are most
nefarious. There is nothing sportsman
like about them and they involve waste
of good meat, because unless a man
looks to the snare every day-which
these men never do-he runs the chance
of catching a moose and finding the
carcass unfit for food when he revisits
the place. / shall not describe the
method of sharing a moose, for fear
some reader who has followed me thus
far might be tempted to practice it, or
lest it might be supposed for moment
that / had ever done such a wicked
thing myself.
Many men prefer cariboo hunting to
moose hunting, and / am not sure that
they are not right The American
cariboo is, l believe, identical with the
reindeer of Europe, though the American
animal grows to much larger size and
the males carry far finer horns. The
does have small horns also. | believe
the cariboo is the only species of deer
marked by that popularity Cariboo
are very fond of getting out on the
lakes as soon as the ice will bear and
feeding around the shores. They feed
entirely on moss and lichens, principally
on the long gray moss locally known as
"old mems Boards" which hangs in
graceful festoons from the branches of
the pines, and on the beautiful purple
and cream-colored cariboo moss that
covers the barrens. They are not very
shy animals and will venture close to
lumber camps to feed on the moss which
grows most luxuriantly on the tops of
the pines which the ax-men have felled.
Cariboo cannot be run down, and the
hunters rarely go after them. They
must be stalked on the barrens and
lakes, or crept up to in the woods
precisely IN the same manner as the
= moose. -
Such isa brief outline of some Canadian
sports. Life in the woods need not be
devoted entirely to hunting, but can be
varied to great extent by fishing and
trapping. The streams and lakes TEEN
with trout and the finest salmon fishing
In the world is to be found in New
brunswick and on the north shore of the
gulf In Lower Canada there is still a
good deal of fur to be found. In New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia beavers are
almost extinct, and martin, mink, lynx,
otter and other valuable fur-bearing
animals are comparatively scarce. It
would be hard, / think, for a man to
spend holiday more pleasantly and
beneficially than in the Canadian woods
Hunting leads him into beautiful
scenery; his method of life induces a
due contemplation of nature and tends
to wholesome thought. He has not
much opportunity for improving his
mind with literature, but he can read
out of the great book of Nature and find
books Ill the running brooks, sermons
in stones and good in everything If
he has his eyes and ears open he cannot
fail to take notice of many interesting
circumstances and phenomena; and if he
has any knowledge of natural history,
every moment of the day must be sug-
costing something new and interesting to
him.
A strange scene, for example, which
came within my observation last wear,
completely puzzled me at the time and
has done so ever since. / was in Nova
Scotia in the fall when one day nv
Indian told me that in a lake close by
all the rocks were moving out of the
water-a circumstance which I thought
not little strange However, l went
to look at the unheard-of spectacle, and
sure enough, there were the rocks ap-
parently all moving out of the water on
to dry land. The lake is of considerable
extent, but shallow and full of great
masses of rock. Many of these masses
appear to have travelled right out of the
lake and are now high and dry some
fifteen yards above the margin of the
water. They have ploughed deep and
regularly defined channels for themselves.
You may see them of all sizes, from
blocks Of, say, roughly speaking, six or
eight feet in diameter, down to stones
which a man could lift. Moreover, you
find them in various stages of progress,
some a hundred yards or more from
shore and apparently just beginning to
move; others halfway to their destina-
ton, and Others again, as / have said.