The Young Voyageurs | Page 2

the name of "settlement." The only signs of civilisation

to be seen are the "forts," or trading posts, of the Hudson's Bay
Company; and these "signs" are few and far--hundreds of
miles--between. For inhabitants, the country has less than ten thousand
white men, the employes of the Company; and its native people are
Indians of many tribes, living far apart, few in numbers, subsisting by
the chase, and half starving for at least a third part of every year! In
truth, the territory can hardly be called "inhabited." There is not a man
to every ten miles; and in many parts of it you may travel hundreds of
miles without seeing a face, red, white, or black!
The physical aspect is, therefore, entirely wild. It is very different in
different parts of the territory. One tract is peculiar. It has been long
known as the "Barren Grounds." It is a tract of vast extent. It lies
north-west from the shores of Hudson's Bay, extending nearly to the
Mackenzie River. Its rocks are primitive. It is a land of hills and
valleys,--of deep dark lakes and sharp-running streams. It is a
woodless region. No timber is found there that deserves the name. No
trees but glandular dwarf birches, willows, and black spruce, small and
stunted. Even these only grow in isolated valleys. More generally the
surface is covered with coarse sand--the debris of granite or
quartz-rock--upon which no vegetable, save the lichen or the moss, can
find life and nourishment. In one respect these "Barren Grounds" are
unlike the deserts of Africa: they are well watered. In almost every
valley there is a lake; and though many of these are landlocked, yet do
they contain fish of several species. Sometimes these lakes
communicate with each other by means of rapid and turbulent streams
passing through narrow gorges; and lines of those connected lakes
form the great rivers of the district.
Such is a large portion of the Hudson's Bay territory. Most of the
extensive peninsula of Labrador partakes of a similar character; and
there are other like tracts west of the Rocky Mountain range in the
"Russian possessions."
Yet these "Barren Grounds" have their denizens. Nature has formed
animals that delight to dwell there, and that are never found in more
fertile regions. Two ruminating creatures find sustenance upon the

mosses and lichens that cover their cold rocks: they are the caribou
(reindeer) and the musk-ox. These, in their turn, become the food and
subsistence of preying creatures. The wolf, in all its varieties of grey,
black, white, pied, and dusky, follows upon their trail. The "brown
bear,"--a large species, nearly resembling the "grizzly,"--is found only
in the Barren Grounds; and the great "Polar bear" comes within their
borders, but the latter is a dweller upon their shores alone, and finds
his food among the finny tribes of the seas that surround them. In
marshy ponds, existing here and there, the musk-rat (Fibre zibethieus)
builds his house, like that of his larger cousin, the beaver. Upon the
water sedge he finds subsistence; but his natural enemy, the wolverene
(Gulo luscus), skulks in the same neighbourhood. The "Polar hare"
lives upon the leaves and twigs of the dwarf birch-tree; and this,
transformed into its own white flesh, becomes the food of the Arctic fox.
The herbage, sparse though it be, does not grow in vain. The seeds fall
to the earth, but they are not suffered to decay. They are gathered by
the little lemmings and meadow-mice (arvicolae), who, in their turn,
become the prey of two species of mustelidae, the ermine and vison
weasels. Have the fish of the lakes no enemy? Yes--a terrible one in the
Canada otter. The mink-weasel, too, pursues them; and in summer, the
osprey, the great pelican, the cormorant, and the white-headed eagle.
These are the fauna of the Barren Grounds. Man rarely ventures within
their boundaries. The wretched creatures who find a living there are
the Esquimaux on their coasts, and a few Chippewa Indians in the
interior, who hunt the caribou, and are known as "caribou-eaters."
Other Indians enter them only in summer, in search of game, or
journeying from point to point; and so perilous are these journeyings,
that numbers frequently perish by the way. There are no white men in
the Barren Grounds. The "Company" has no commerce there. No fort
is established in them: so scarce are the fur-bearing animals of these
parts, their skins would not repay the expense of a "trading post."
Far different are the "wooded tracts" of the fur countries. These lie
mostly in the southern and central regions of the Hudson's Bay
territory. There are found the valuable beaver, and the wolverene that
preys upon it. There dwells the American hare, with its enemy the

Canada lynx. There are