skeletons of big and evidently healthy caribou scattered around the cabin and all over the tundra for miles to the north of here.”
“Don’t need to ask him that,” Mike replied with unabashed candor. “It was me killed those deer. I got fourteen dogs to feed and it takes maybe two, three caribou a week for that. I got to feed myself too. And then, I got to kill lots of deer everywhere all over the trapping country. I set four, five traps around each deer like that and get plenty foxes whenthey come to feed. It is no use for me to shoot skinny caribou. What I got to have is the big fat ones.”
I was staggered. “How many do you think you kill in a year?” I asked.
Mike grinned proudly. “I’m pretty damn good shot. Kill maybe two, three hundred, maybe more.”
When I had partially recovered from that one, I asked him if this was the usual thing for trappers.
“Every trapper got to do the same,” he said. “Indians, white men, all the way down south far as caribou go in the wintertime, they got to kill lots of them or they can’t trap no good. Of course they not all the time lucky to get enough caribou; then they got to feed the dogs on fish. But dogs can’t work good on fish—get weak and sick and can’t haul no loads. Caribou is better.”
I knew from having studied the files at Ottawa that there were eighteen hundred trappers in those portions of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and southern Keewatin which composed the winter range of the Keewatin caribou herd. I also knew that many of these trappers had been polled by Ottawa, through the agency of the fur trading companies, for information which might help explain the rapid decline in the size of the Keewatin caribou herd. I had read the results of this poll. To a man, the trappers andtraders denied that they killed more than one or two caribou a year; and to a man they had insisted that wolves slaughtered the deer in untold thousands.
Although mathematics have never been my strong point, I tried to work out some totals from the information at hand. Being a naturally conservative fellow, I cut the number of trappers in half, and then cut Mike’s annual caribou kill in half, before multiplying the two. No matter how many times I multiplied, I kept coming up with the fantastic figure of 112,000 animals killed by trappers in this area every year.
I realized it was not a figure I could use in my reports—not unless I wished to be posted to the Galopagos Islands to conduct a ten-year study on tortoise ticks.
In any event, what Mike and Ootek had told me was largely hearsay evidence, and this was not what I was employed to gather. Resolutely I put these disturbing revelations out of mind, and went back to learning the truth the hard way.
13
Wolf Talk
O OTEK HAD many singular attributes as a naturalist, not the least of which was his apparent ability to understand wolf language.
Before I met Ootek I had already noted that the variety and range of the vocal noises made by George, Angeline and Uncle Albert far surpassed the ability of any other animals I knew about save man alone. In my notebooks I had recorded the following categories of sounds: Howls, wails, quavers, whines, grunts, growls, yips and barks. Within each of these categories I had recognized, but had been unable adequately to describe, innumerable variations. I was also aware that canines in general are able to hear, and presumably to make, noises both aboveand below the range of human registry; the so-called “soundless” dog-whistle which is commercially available being a case in point. I knew too that individual wolves from my family group appeared to react in an intelligent manner to sounds made by other wolves; although I had no certain evidence that these sounds were anything more than simple signals.
My real education in lupine linguistics began a few days after Ootek’s arrival. The two of us had been observing the wolf den for several hours without seeing anything of note. It
“Don’t need to ask him that,” Mike replied with unabashed candor. “It was me killed those deer. I got fourteen dogs to feed and it takes maybe two, three caribou a week for that. I got to feed myself too. And then, I got to kill lots of deer everywhere all over the trapping country. I set four, five traps around each deer like that and get plenty foxes whenthey come to feed. It is no use for me to shoot skinny caribou. What I got to have is the big fat ones.”
I was staggered. “How many do you think you kill in a year?” I asked.
Mike grinned proudly. “I’m pretty damn good shot. Kill maybe two, three hundred, maybe more.”
When I had partially recovered from that one, I asked him if this was the usual thing for trappers.
“Every trapper got to do the same,” he said. “Indians, white men, all the way down south far as caribou go in the wintertime, they got to kill lots of them or they can’t trap no good. Of course they not all the time lucky to get enough caribou; then they got to feed the dogs on fish. But dogs can’t work good on fish—get weak and sick and can’t haul no loads. Caribou is better.”
I knew from having studied the files at Ottawa that there were eighteen hundred trappers in those portions of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and southern Keewatin which composed the winter range of the Keewatin caribou herd. I also knew that many of these trappers had been polled by Ottawa, through the agency of the fur trading companies, for information which might help explain the rapid decline in the size of the Keewatin caribou herd. I had read the results of this poll. To a man, the trappers andtraders denied that they killed more than one or two caribou a year; and to a man they had insisted that wolves slaughtered the deer in untold thousands.
Although mathematics have never been my strong point, I tried to work out some totals from the information at hand. Being a naturally conservative fellow, I cut the number of trappers in half, and then cut Mike’s annual caribou kill in half, before multiplying the two. No matter how many times I multiplied, I kept coming up with the fantastic figure of 112,000 animals killed by trappers in this area every year.
I realized it was not a figure I could use in my reports—not unless I wished to be posted to the Galopagos Islands to conduct a ten-year study on tortoise ticks.
In any event, what Mike and Ootek had told me was largely hearsay evidence, and this was not what I was employed to gather. Resolutely I put these disturbing revelations out of mind, and went back to learning the truth the hard way.
13
Wolf Talk
O OTEK HAD many singular attributes as a naturalist, not the least of which was his apparent ability to understand wolf language.
Before I met Ootek I had already noted that the variety and range of the vocal noises made by George, Angeline and Uncle Albert far surpassed the ability of any other animals I knew about save man alone. In my notebooks I had recorded the following categories of sounds: Howls, wails, quavers, whines, grunts, growls, yips and barks. Within each of these categories I had recognized, but had been unable adequately to describe, innumerable variations. I was also aware that canines in general are able to hear, and presumably to make, noises both aboveand below the range of human registry; the so-called “soundless” dog-whistle which is commercially available being a case in point. I knew too that individual wolves from my family group appeared to react in an intelligent manner to sounds made by other wolves; although I had no certain evidence that these sounds were anything more than simple signals.
My real education in lupine linguistics began a few days after Ootek’s arrival. The two of us had been observing the wolf den for several hours without seeing anything of note. It
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