HUNTING. 167

by no means rare occurrences, and not a few Carriers, for instance, bear the
marks of its teeth and claws. True, they will never purposely seek the terrible
grizzly (U. horribilis), unless impelled by a spirit of revenge for the death
of some friend at its hands. Yet, I know an Indian who, when a mere youth
(ignorance is bliss!) killed one with a revolver; and another who, by his
fearlessness and sang-froid, put to flight a bear of that species with which
he had been sitting face to face for quite a while’. The main point in such
awkward circumstances is not to betray the least fear, and to look one’s
adversary right in the eyes. Show any degree of hesitation and you are lost.

As a rule, if they perceive the animal in time, they will rather avoid it
by a prudent circuit than court a too close acquaintance with it. During
my twenty-five years stay in the north, I have known of two Sékanais and
one Carrier who fell victims to its merciless claws and teeth, and of another
who was so belaboured by-the enraged beast he had mortally wounded, that
he was left for dead.

Bodily struggles with such monsters are out of the question. In cases
of encounters with wounded or nursing black bears, the only kinds that are
really dangerous, an absolute requisite for personal safety is to seize them
by the ears and keep them as far as possible from one’s face and throat,
tactics with which every Déné hunter is familiar.

The Barren Ground bear (U. Richardsonii), without being as plentiful as
the black species, is nevertheless found in the east, and stray specimens of
the polar or white bear (Thalassarctos maritimus, Linn.) occasionally wander
off to the confines of the northernmost Dénés’ territory.

The other fur-bearing animals sought after in the north are the marten
(Mustela martes, Rich.), the fisher (M. Canadensis), the lynx (Felis Cana-

to know personally that the former will almost invariably attack man without any provocation,
and cases of mortal encounters with simple black bears are also on record.

It is but right to remark that W. H. Dall calls our grizzly “the large brown bear of
the mountains, known as ‘grizzly’ among the Hudson Bay voyageurs’’ (“Travels on the Yukon”,
p. 183). If the animal be not the genuine grizzly, what is its scientific name? It is not the
U. arctos, which is not found in America, nor the U. Richardsonii, whose habitat is east of
the Rocky Mountains. Moreover, Dall admits almost in the same breadth that our grizzly
“sometimes reaches a length of nine feet with a girth nearly as great” (Ibid.), a pretty good
size, I should say, for a brown bear that is not a grizzly. In the work of Captain Back, who
was with Dr. R. King in the overland journey, the incidents of which both have related in
interesting books, Richardson shares so little the latter’s naive opinion as to the inoffensiveness
of that animal and Mr. Dall’s scepticism concerning its identity with the grizzly bear, that he
styles it Ursus ferox, calls it expressly grisly and says of it that “it is the most powerful of
the genus, being able to master the American bison, which forms its habitual prey. The Indian
hunter will rarely venture to attack the grisly bear unless he is very advantageously posted ;
for it does not hesitate to assail a man who, intruding incautiously upon its haunts, comes
upon it unexpectedly; and has been known to carry off a voyager from among his companions
as they were seated at supper” (“Narrative of the Arctic Land Expedition to the Mouth of the
Great Fish River”, p. 488),