The Arctic Prairies Part 19

He said nothing to me then, but later complained to Billy, asking, "What did we come for?"

Next morning at dawn I dreamed I was back in New York and that a couple of cats were wailing under my bedroom window. Their noise increased so that I awoke, and then I heard unaccountable caterwauls.

They were very loud and near, at least one of the creatures was. At length I got up to see. Here on the lake a few yards from the tent was a loon swimming about, minutely inspecting the tent and uttering at intervals deep cat-like mews in expression of his curiosity.

The south wind had blown for some days before we arrived, and the result was to fill the country with Caribou coming from the north.

The day after we came, the north wind set in, and continued for three days, so that soon there was not a Caribou to be found in the region.

In the afternoon I went up the hill to where Weeso left the offal of his deer. A large yellowish animal was there feeding. It disappeared over a rock and I could get no second view of it. It may have been a wolf, as I saw a fresh wolf trail near; I did not, however, see the animal's tail.

In the evening Preble and I went again, and again the creature was there, but disappeared as mysteriously as before when we were 200 yards away. Where it went we could not guess. The country was open and we scoured it with eye and gla.s.s, but saw nothing more of the prowler. It seemed to be a young Arctic wolf, yellowish white in colour, but tailless,

Next day, at noon Preble and Billy returned bearing the illusive visitor; it was a large Lynx. It was very thin and yet, after bleeding, weighed 22 pounds. But why was it so far from the forest, 20 miles or more, and a couple of miles from this little grove that formed the last woods?

This is another evidence of the straits the Lynxes are put to for food, in this year of famine.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

GOOD-BYE TO THE WOODS

The last woods is a wonderfully interesting biological point or line; this ultimate arm of the forest does not die away gradually with uncertain edges and in steadily dwindling trees. The latter have sent their stoutest champions to the front, or produced, as by a final effort, some giants for the line of battle. And that line, with its sentinels, is so marked that one can stand with a foot on the territory of each combatant, or, as scientists call them, the Arctic Region and the cold Temperate.

And each of the embattled kings, Jack-frost and Sombre-pine, has his children in abundance to possess the land as he wins it. Right up to the skirmish line are they.

The low thickets of the woods are swarming with Tree-sparrows, Redpolls, Robins, Hooded Sparrows, and the bare plains, a few yards away, are peopled and vocal with birds to whom a bush is an abomination. Lap-longspur, s...o...b..rd, Sh.o.r.elarks, and Pipits are here soaring and singing, or among the barren rocks are Ptarmigan in garments that are painted in the patterns of their rocks.

There is one sombre fowl of ampler wing that knows no line--is at home in the open or in the woods. His sonorous voice has a human sound that is uncanny; his form is visible afar in the desert and sinister as a gibbet; his plumage fits in with nothing but the night, which he does not love. This evil genius of the land is the Raven of the north. Its numbers increased as we reached the Barrens, and the morning after the first Caribou was killed, no less than 28 were a.s.sembled at its offal.

An even more interesting bird of the woods is the Hooded Sparrow, interesting because so little known.

Here I found it on its breeding-grounds, a little late for its vernal song, but in September we heard its autumnal renewal like the notes of its kinsmen, White-throat and White-crowned Sparrows, but with less whistling, and more trilled. In all the woods of the Hudsonian Zone we found it evidently at home. But here I was privileged to find the first nest of the species known to science.

The victory was robbed of its crown, through the nest having fledglings instead of eggs, but still it was the ample reward of hours of search.

Of course it was on the ground, in the moss and creeping plants, under some bushes of dwarf birch, screened by spruces. The structure closely resembled that of the Whitethroat was lined with gra.s.s and fibrous roots; no down, feathers, or fur were observable. The young numbered four.

The last woods was the limit of other interesting creatures--the Ants. Wherever one looks on the ground, in a high, dry place, throughout the forest country, from Athabaska Landing northward along our route, there is to be seen at least one Ant to the square foot, usually several. Three kinds seem common--one red-bodied, another a black one with brown thorax, and a third very small and all black. They seem to live chiefly in hollow logs and stumps, but are found also on marshes, where their hills are occasionally so numerous as to form dry bridges across.

I made many notes on the growth of timber here and all along the route; and for comparison will begin at the very beging.

In March, 1907, at my home in Connecticut, I cut down an oak tree (Q. pal.u.s.tris) that was 110 feet high, 32 inches in diameter, and yet had only 76 rings of annual growth.

In the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, where I camped in September, 1902, a yellow pine 6 feet 6 inches high was 51 inches in circ.u.mference at base. It had 14 rings and 14 whorls of branches corresponding exactly with the rings.

At the same place I measured a balsam fir--84 feet high, 15 inches in diameter at 32 inches from the ground. It had 52 annual rings and 50 or possibly 52 whorls of branches. The most vigorous upward growth of the trunk corresponded exactly with the largest growth of wood in the stump. Thus ring No. 33 was 3/8 inch wide and whorl No. 33 had over 2 feet of growth, below it on the trunk were others which had but 6 inches.

On the stump most growth was on north-east side; there it was 9 inches, from pith to bark next on east 8 1/2 inches, on south 8 inches, north 6 1/2 inches, west 6 1/2 inches, least on north-west side, 6 inches. The most light in this case came from the north-east.

This was in the land of mighty timber.

On Great Slave River, the higher lat.i.tude is offset by lower alt.i.tude, and on June 2, 1907, while among the tall white spruce trees I measured one of average size--118 feet high, 11 feet 2 inches in girth a foot from the ground (3 feet 6 1/2 inches in diameter), and many black poplars nearly as tall were 9 feet in girth.

But the stunting effect of the short summer became marked as we went northward. At Fort Smith, June 20, I cut down a jackpine that was 12 feet high, 1 inch in diameter, with 23 annual rings at the bottom; 6 feet up it had 12 rings and 20 whorls. In all it appeared to have 43 whorls, which is puzzling. Of these 20 were in the lower part. This tree grew in dense shade.

At Fort Resolution we left the Canadian region of large timber and entered the stunted spruce, as noted, and at length on the timber line we saw the final effort of the forests to combat Jack Frost in his own kingdom. The individual history of each tree is in three stages:

First, as a low, thick, creeping bush sometimes ten feet across, but only a foot high. In this stage it continues until rooted enough and with capital enough to send up a long central shoot; which is stage No. 2.

This central shoot is like a Noah's Ark pine; in time it becomes the tree and finally the basal thicket dies, leaving the specimen in stage No. 3.

A stem of one of the low creepers was cut for examination; it was 11 inches through and 25 years old. Some of these low mats of spruce have stems 5 inches through. They must be fully 100 years old.

A tall, dead, white spruce at the camp was 30 feet high and 11 inches in diameter at 4 feet from the ground. Its 190 rings were hard to count, they were so thin. The central ones were thickest, there being 16 to the inmost inch of radius; on the outside to the north 50 rings made only 1/2 an inch and 86 made one inch.

Numbers 42 and 43, counting from the outside, were two or three times as thick as those outside of them and much thicker than the next within; they must have represented years of unusual summers.

No. 99 also was of great size. What years these corresponded with one could not guess, as the tree was a long time dead.

Another, a dwarf but 8 feet high, was 12 inches through. It had 205 rings plus a 5-inch hollow which we reckoned at about 100 rings of growth; 64 rings made only 1 3/8 inches; the outmost of the 64 was 2 inches in from the outside of the wood. Those on the outer two inches were even smaller, so as to be exceedingly difficult to count. This tree was at least 300 years old; our estimates varied, according to the data, from 300 to 325 years.

These, then, are the facts for extremes. In Idaho or Connecticut it took about 10 years to produce the same amount of timber as took 300 years on the edge of the Arctic Zone.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE TREELESS PLAINS

On August 7 we left Camp Last Woods. Our various specimens, with a stock of food, were secured, as usual, in a cache high in two trees, in this case those already used by Tyrrell seven years before, and guarded by the magic necklace of cod hooks.

By noon (in 3 hours) we made fifteen miles, camping far beyond Twin b.u.t.tes. All day long the boat shot through water crowded with drowned gnats. These were about 10 to the square inch near sh.o.r.e and for about twenty yards out, after that 10 to the square foot for two hundred or three hundred yards still farther from sh.o.r.e, and for a quarter mile wide they were 10 to the square yard.

This morning the wind turned and blew from the south. At 2 P. M.

we saw a band of some 60 Caribou travelling southward; these were the first seen for two or three days. After this we saw many odd ones, and about 3 o'clock a band of 400 or 500. At night we camped on Casba River, having covered 36 miles in 7 hours and 45 minutes.

The place, we had selected for camp proved to be a Caribou crossing.

As we drew near a dozen of them came from the east and swam across.

A second band of 8 now appeared. We gave chase. They spurted; so did we. Our canoe was going over 6 miles an hour, and yet was but slowly overtaking them. They made the water foam around them. Their heads, necks, shoulders, backs, rumps, and tails were out. I never before saw land animals move so fast in the water. A fawn in danger of being left behind reared up on its mother's back and hung on with forefeet. The leader was a doe or a young buck, I could not be sure which; the last was a big buck. They soon struck bottom and bounded along on the sh.o.r.e. It was too dark for a picture.

As we were turning in for the night 30 Caribou came trotting and snorting through the camp. Half of them crossed the water, but the rest turned back when Billy shouted.

Later a band of two hundred pa.s.sed through and around our tents.

In the morning Billy complained that he could not sleep all night for Caribou travelling by his tent and stumbling over the guy ropes.

From this time on we were nearly always in sight of Caribou, small bands or scattering groups; one had the feeling that the whole land was like this, on and on and on, unlimited s.p.a.ce with unlimited wild herds.