The Arctic Prairies | Page 9

he swam the broad stream and hung
about at a distance. As this was twenty miles from any settlement, he
was doubtless hungry, so I left a bountiful lunch for him, and when we

moved away, he claimed his own.
At Fort McKay I saw a little half-breed boy shooting with a bow and
displaying extraordinary marksmanship. At sixty feet he could hit the
bottom of a tomato tin nearly every time; and even more surprising was
the fact that he held the arrow with what is known as the Mediterranean
hold. When, months later, I again stopped at this place, I saw another
boy doing the very same. Some residents assured me that this was the
style of all the Chipewyans as well as the Crees.
That night we camped far down the river and on the side opposite the
Fort, for experience soon teaches one to give the dogs no chance of
entering camp on marauding expeditions while you rest. About ten, as I
was going to sleep, Preble put his head in and said: "Come out here if
you want a new sensation."
In a moment I was standing with him under the tall spruce trees,
looking over the river to the dark forest, a quarter mile away, and
listening intently to a new and wonderful sound. Like the slow tolling
of a soft but high-pitched bell, it came. Ting, ting, ting, ting, and on,
rising and falling with the breeze, but still keeping on about two "tings"
to the second; and on, dulling as with distance, but rising again and
again.
It was unlike anything I had ever heard, but Preble knew it of old.
"That", says he, "is the love-song of the Richardson Owl. She is sitting
demurely in some spruce top while he sails around, singing on the wing,
and when the sound seems distant, he is on the far side of the tree."
Ting, ting, ting, ting, it went on and on, this soft belling of his love, this
amorous music of our northern bell-bird. .
Ting, TING, ting, ting, ting, TING, ting, ting, ting, ting, TING, ting--oh,
how could any lady owl resist such strains?--and on, with its ting, ting,
ting, TING, ting, ting, ting, TING, the whole night air was vibrant.
Then, as though by plan, a different note--the deep booming
"Oho-oh-who-oh who hoo" of the Great Homed Owl--was heard
singing a most appropriate bass.
But the little Owl went on and on; 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes at
last had elapsed before I turned in again and left him. More than once
that night I awoke to hear his "tinging" serenade upon the consecrated
air of the piney woods.
Yet Preble said this one was an indifferent performer. On the

Mackenzie he had heard far better singers of the kind; some that
introduce many variations of the pitch and modulation. I thought it one
of the most charming bird voices I had ever listened to--and felt that
this was one of the things that make the journey worth while.
On June 1 the weather was so blustering and wet that we did not break
camp. I put in the day examining the superb timber of this bottom-land.
White spruce is the prevailing conifer and is here seen in perfection. A
representative specimen was 118 feet high, 11 feet 2 inches in
circumference, or 3 feet 6 1/2 inches in diameter 1 foot from the ground,
i.e., above any root spread. There was plenty of timber of similar height.
Black spruce, a smaller kind, and tamarack are found farther up and
back in the bog country. jackpine of fair size abounds on the sandy and
gravelly parts. Balsam poplar is the largest deciduous tree; its superb
legions in upright ranks are crowded along all the river banks and on
the islands not occupied by the spruce. The large trees of this kind often
have deep holes; these are the nesting sites of the Whistler Duck, which
is found in numbers here and as far north as this tree, but not farther.
White poplar is plentiful also; the hillsides are beautifully clad with its
purplish masses of twigs, through which its white stem gleam like
marble columns. White birch is common and large enough for canoes.
Two or three species of willow in impenetrable thickets make up the
rest of the forest stretches.
At this camp I had the unique experience of showing all these seasoned
Westerners that it was possible to make a fire by the friction of two
sticks. This has long been a specialty of mine; I use a thong and a bow
as the simplest way. Ordinarily I prefer balsam-fir or tamarack; in this
case I used a balsam block and a spruce drill, and, although each kind
failed