The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1883-03-08

Lieut. Freak SchWatka is contribute
ing to the New York Forest and Stream
series of papers descriptive of his
hunting adventures while on his Arc
tic Franklin Search Expedition. He
gives this account of the EsquimauX
mode Of hunting reindeer:
Another plan much followed by those
natives throughout the Arctic not pro-
vided with firearms is to establish a
line of stone monuments at about fifty
to a hundred yards interval along the
crest of some prominent ridge, often
two and three miles in length, which
runs obliquely toward and terminates
in the waters edge of some large lake
or wide river. A sharp lookout is kept
from. some available point, and if a
herd of reindeer is found feeding or
walking within the acute angle formed
by the shore line and ridge bristling
with stone cairns, the natives engaged
in the chase deploy into a skirmish
line sufficiently long to close the
mouth of this angle and walk slowly
toward the reindeer, their bows and
arrows or spears and their kidks IIght
skin canoes) being carried along or
concealed in some convenient place
near the waters edge. The herd, see
ing the slcy approach of their enc
mics, tret leisurely away until they
come within sight of the rock monu-
ments, which have been made to imi-
tate the human form as far as possible,
when, believing themselves to be sur
rounded on the land side, they take to
| the water as the only means of escape
left them. No sooner is the herd fairly
in, than the agile natives are in hot
pursuit, with theirkidks flying through
the water, and rapidly overtaking the
bewildered animals, they dispatch
| them with arrows and spears, and
| haul their carcasses on shore to be
butchered.
This sport is not without its dangers,
as oftentimeS wounded animal or q
belligerent buck seeing flight impos-
sible, with swinging horns and plung-
ing hoofs, turns so swiftly on his pur-
suer that he succeeds in tearing the
fragile hidk to pieces, and the wrecked
Esquimau, unable to swim, browns il
he is not promptly rescued 10y some
near neighbor, or manages to float on
the wreck of his boat until help ar
rives. 1t is singular fact that herd
of reindeer, so the natives say, will re-
peatedly Craze right through this line
of cairns without any further notice
than few suspicious glances at them
as they pass by, but the minute NOV
ing figures force them against these
stationary ones their suspicion j.
raised to pitch high enough te make
them prefer the water rather than to
trust them. Yet this is not very hard
to comprehend if one knows the al.
most half amphibious nature of the
Arctic deer. | have seen them when
taking up a line of march, wade and
swim right through deep lake that
interposed itself in their direct course
rather than to go around it, although
this would not have eXacted marked
detour, which fact, l imagined must
have been as patent to the deer "a il
was to myself. And the EsquimauS
tell me of even bolder deeds. When
pursued and ''cornered' on some OF
the long narrow tongue of land pre-
.jecting into Hudson's Bay, they have
known the deer to take to the sea and
swim directly outward, until they
were lost to vision, and whether they
were thereby drowned or not could not
tell.