Hunting Caribou in Nova Scotia Cobequid Mountains, Near Westchester, Nova Scotia September 8th, 1873. Dear Editor Forest and Stream: — Thanks to some instructions given by you to me, as to time and locality, while in your city in June last, I have had the satisfaction of killing my first caribou. As I had informed you, when last I had the pleasure of seeing you, I was not unfamiliar with hunting this animal, having killed three caribou in 1871, and two last year in New Brunswick. My traps I had sent to a friend in Halifax about the middle of August, and I found them in good order on arrival. At Halifax I stayed a day, and bought a Hudson Bay frieze coat, an admirable protection for bad weather. This with two rubber blankets, a bag or so of buck shot, and a special kind of camp hatchet, made for me deftly by a clever Irish blacksmith, completed my list of purchases. Early next morning after an admirable breakfast at the Halifax House, I took the Inter-Colonial railway to Truro, stopping there at the Prince of Wales Hotel, kept by the most jovial of hosts and Scots, Mr. McKenzie. Truro is a charming little village at the head of an arm of the Bay of Fundy, and is much visited, being the best place to see the wonderful tidal action of the water, known as the Bore. Every fine day hundreds of people drawn from all parts of the world assemble on the bridge which spans the Salmon River, awaiting the coming of the huge tidal wave. Sometimes when wind and tide favor, it rises like a wall, ten feet high, and sweeps on up the Sound. I know of no phenomenon which impresses one more vividly with the idea of the grand, rhythmic power of nature, and I fancy if Herbert Spencer had ever seen it, he would have used it as an illustration. I took some pains to measure accurately the absolute rise of the tide. Taking my sea tackle and sinker, and letting it fall until it touched the bottom, at low water, landing the sinker fast in the mud, and marking the length of the line afterwards, where it was just on the top of the water, the difference I found to be sixty-four feet, eleven inches. Its approach is heralded by a deep, sullen roar. At Truro I remained all day, having to make arrangements for the hiring of horse and buggy for a week or so, not only to carry me and my traps to Purdy's, some thirty-five miles distant, but to facilitate any movements I might desire to make. Next morning, with a very good horse, and a rough but strong vehicle, furnished me by McKenzie, I started on my way, my road having been quite thoroughly explained to me. The country I passed through was magnificent. Dark, umbrageous spruce woods, sombre in character, were relieved occasionally by the brighter colored maples. Sometimes gloomy gorges, hardly wide enough for the buggy to pass through, were almost sepulchral from the heavy shadows of the mountains. In one place the road led along a mere shelf of rock, the Londonderry, a noble stream, rushing along below me. It was a rough road, so that it was almost nightfall before I reached Purdy's. There I found myself in admirable quarters. To the kindness of the host, Mr. Purdy, was added the more delicate attentions of the Misses Purdy, three very handsome and highly educated women. As Purdy's was to be my base of operations, I immediately commenced getting together my supplies, and the question of guides was paramount. I had the choice of several excellent men. Following the advice of my host, I chose George Beesewanger, a native of the place, and secured his services, agreeing to pay him $1.50 a day and to find him. My second guide I was instructed to find later. At Purdy's I laid in the heavy rations, such as pork, tea, coffee, flour, Indian meal, etc...T here never was such a glorious view as I had from my window when I rose next morning. Far, far below me were interminable forests of spruce, huge billows of green leaves, surging to and fro with the breeze, and away beyond lay placidly the dark blue waters of the Bay of Fundy. I tarried here fully three days — days of delightful laziness, pure days of sensuous enjoyment pretending, it is true, to perfect my arrangements, just breathing in the fragrance of the glorious woods, perhaps a little indifferent as to caribou. At last Beese (the final "wanger" to his name I shall drop in the future as quite superfluous) said to me at dinner that "he thought matters were now in good trim, and that he felt it was caribou weather, and that it was time to go to Castlereagh. " In Castlereagh dwelt John Gamble, a famous moose and caribou hunter, who tilled a farm there. Taking horse and buggy, well laden down with provisions, we left Purdy's, and reached Castlereagh, a sparsely peopled settlement, at about dusk. Gamble I found at prayers. There was something inexpressibly solemn in the picture I saw there. In the small rough house were assembled the family, and by the flickering fire Gamble was reading to them the prayers, in deep, sonorous language. I hesitated almost to tell my errand. The last amen was pronounced with unction, when I told him the purpose of my coming. "I was for caribou, and would he join me for ten days or so." He quickly assented, and seemed pleased to go. A more wild place than Castlereagh, as to topography, I never saw. It is the ideal of a spot where civilization ends and a wilderness begins. The people who live here, some forty souls all told, are scattered over an area of about fifty miles. They are all Scotch-Irish, were among the early settlers of the island, and are strictly religious and trustworthy. Their honesty may be shown by the fact that a lock on a door is unknown. Their ideas are primitive, and their language Scotch-English, with a dialect of their own. With but few wants, ignorant of the world or its surroundings, many of them, perhaps, have never, save when hunting, gone out of the shadows of their woods. Everything was arranged for an early start. My party had now an addition George Gamble, a highly intelligent lad of sixteen, with the pseudonym of "Dandy," going with us. Gamble had located a lodge for moose and caribou some six miles from the settlement, which was our objective point. Next morning, before dawn, we started, dividing the buggy-load between us, the horse and vehicle remaining at Castlereagh. My battery consisted of a Remington, a Ballard, and a smooth bore No. 10. My guides told me that it would be a long and tedious tramp, uphill all the way, and so it proved to be. Bass river, quite a brawling stream, waist deep, was forded; no easy task for me, "heavily accoutred" as I was, and, after a scramble up its steep, rocky banks, at last we struck the woodlands. Here we visited what Dandy called Porcupine Den, when Dandy soon ousted a porcupine, which he slew. Here we halted, took a bite, and started again after some ten minutes' rest, and, skirting the woods, a half hour before sundown reached Gamble's lodge, just on the edge of the caribou barren. The lodge was well built; three of the walls were of logs, the other made of piled stones. The floor had been well rammed down, and it was sweet and clean. Near it gurgled a limpid spring. What struck me most about these Nova Scotia woods was the intense, almost painful stillness. Nature must take her kief here, to awaken later, when, in a paroxysm of passion, with icy blasts she lays low the majestic trees. Beese, Gamble, and Dandy in a trice had everything in military order. Of cooking paraphernalia, a kettle and a frying pan made up the catalogue. Of fragile china or stronger delf had we none. In a half hour, with pliant birch bark and threads of withewood, cups, dishes, and plates were improvised, quite as useful and more durable than those made by the potter's wheel. Fresh spruce boughs of aromatic fragrance, so excellent for consumptives, were spread on the floor. Dandy had killed four grouse as we left Castlereagh, and a good supper was assured us. Gamble was desirous of having variety in the menu, and on his assuring me that there was a stream positively not more than forty yards off, I thought I would try for a trout, though I was terribly tired out. With line in hand, cutting a pole as I went, baiting my hook with some white grub picked from a dead tree, in ten minutes I had some dozen trout. They were small ones, scarcely half pound fish, but gamey and pleasant to catch. With Gamble as chef de cuisine, I watched the way he cooked them. The fish were cleaned, not scaled; heads and tails and fins were all left on. Each one was dipped into a birch bark dish, filled with meal, inside a piece of fat bacon was inserted, a place was made for it in the hot coals, and in ten minutes the fish was withdrawn, done to a turn. The grouse were stuffed with wild cranberries, hung from the ceiling with a bit of twine, put before the fire, and Dandy was set to basting them. How good a pottage de Porcupine is I do not know, but I must confess that maple sugar as a condiment to a porcupine, though original, is not to be despised. A famous pot of tea was then brewed, and we had bread from the settlement. Hardly was tea swallowed, our pipes smoked, and the least nip of rum taken, than I got drowsy, and think I must have tumbled on the spruce bough covered floor just as I was, for in the morning, between the last word I had spoken or heard, and the song Dandy was singing (some quaint old stave) outside the lodge at daybreak, there seemed to have been but the interval of a second. Looking at Beese, who was still sleeping, I noticed he held his pipe tightly clutched between his teeth. I ran to my trout stream, took a single refreshing dip, and strolled about some little, and arrived just in time for a glorious breakfast. Our first day was one simply of prospecting and finding out the lay of the land. A caribou barren (we were on the verge of one) may be described as a plateau, covered with a thick grey moss two or three inches thick, on which grows the cr
