The Extermination of the American Bison | Page 9

TERRITORIES (British).--At two or three points only did the buffaloes of the British Possessions cross the Rocky Mountain barrier toward British Columbia. One was the pass through which the Canadian Pacific Railway now runs, 200 miles north of the international boundary. According to Dr. Richardson, the number of buffaloes which crossed the mountains at that point were sufficiently noticeable to constitute a feature of the fauna on the western side of the range. It is said that buffaloes also crossed by way of the Kootenai Pass, which is only a few miles north of the boundary line, but the number which did so must have been very small.
As might be expected from the character of the country, the favorite range of the bison in British America was the northern extension of the great pasture region lying between the Missouri River and Great Slave Lake. The most northerly occurrence of the bison is recorded as an observation of Franklin in 1820 at Slave Point, on the north side of Great Slave Lake. "A few frequent Slave Point, on the north side of the lake, but this is the most northern situation in which they were observed by Captain Franklin's party."[17]
[Note 17: Sabine, Zoological Appendix to "Franklin's Journey," p. 668.]
Dr. Richardson defined the eastern boundary of the bison's range in British America as follows: "They do not frequent any of the districts formed of primitive rocks, and the limits of their range to the eastward, within the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, may be correctly marked on the map by a line commencing in longitude 97��, on the Red River, which flows into the south end of Lake Winnipeg, crossing the Saskatchewan to the westward of the Basquian Hill, and running thence by the Athapescow to the east end of Great Slave Lake." Their migrations westward were formerly limited to the Rocky Mountain range, and they are still unknown in New Caledonia and on the shores of the Pacific to the north of the Columbia River; but of late years they have found out a passage across the mountains near the sources of the Saskatchewan, and their numbers to the westward are annually increasing.[18]
[Note 18: Fauna Boreali-Americana, vol. 1, p, 279-280.]
Great Slave Lake.--That the buffalo inhabited the southern shore of this lake as late as 1871 is well established by the following letter from Mr. E. W. Nelson to Mr. J. A. Allen, under date of July 11, 1877:[19] "I have met here [St. Michaels, Alaska] two gentlemen who crossed the mountains from British Columbia and came to Fort Yukon through British America, from whom I have derived some information about the buffalo (Bison americanus) which will be of interest to you. These gentlemen descended the Peace River, and on about the one hundred and eighteenth degree of longitude made a portage to Hay River, directly north. On this portage they saw thousands of buffalo skulls, and old trails, in some instances 2 or 3 feet deep, leading east and west. They wintered on Hay River near its entrance into Great Slave Lake, and here found the buffalo still common, occupying a restricted territory along the southern border of the lake. This was in 1871. They made inquiry concerning the large number of skulls seen by them on the portage, and learned that about fifty years before, snow fell to the estimated depth of 14 feet, and so enveloped the animals that they perished by thousands. It is asserted that these buffaloes are larger than those of the plains."
[Note 19: American Naturalist, xi, p. 624.]
MINNESOTA AND WISCONSIN.--A line drawn from Winnipeg to Chicago, curving slightly to the eastward in the middle portion, will very nearly define the eastern boundary of the buffalo's range in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
ILLINOIS AND INDIANA.--The whole of these two States were formerly inhabited by the buffalo, the fertile prairies of Illinois being particularly suited to their needs. It is doubtful whether the range of the species extended north of the northern boundary of Indiana, but since southern Michigan was as well adapted to their support as Ohio or Indiana, their absence from that State must have been due more to accident than design.
OHIO.--The southern shore of Lake Erie forms part of the northern boundary of the bison's range in the eastern United States. La Hontan explored Lake Erie in 1687 and thus describes its southern shore: "I can not express what quantities of Deer and Turkeys are to be found in these Woods, and in the vast Meads that lye upon the South side of the Lake. At the bottom of the Lake we find beeves upon the Banks of two pleasant Rivers that disembogue into it, without Cataracts or Rapid Currents."[20] It thus appears that the southern shore of Lake Erie forms part of the northern boundary of