ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. 125

The American reindeer is characterized by two particularities: its migratory
habits and its gregariousness. In midsummer the cows return from the Arctic
Ocean to meet the bulls in the Barren Grounds, and they are then also joined
by other caravans from the westward, when their herds become simply enormous.
Tyrrell and Pike, during their respective journeys to that land of desolation,
saw herds of them that should have been counted by the thousand.

It is at this time of the year that they fall victims to the avidity of the
Deénés. But their stay is short, their passage rapid, and once gone they may
not be seen again for a whole year.

C. Whitney estimates the average weight of the full grown Barren Ground
cariboo or reindeer bull at something between 150 and 200 pounds, whereas
the woodland or common cariboo probably averages 100 pounds more.
According to the same authority, the woodland cariboo (Rangifer caribou,
Linn.) is much darker in colour, especially in the markings on the neck and
belly, and its antlers are shorter, heavier and with larger palmations. Generally
speaking, they range between the 50th and the 67th degrees of latitude on
cither side of the Rocky Mountains. Though gregarious to a degree and also
more or less migratory, they are never found in anything like the immense
herds of their Barren Grounds cousins. In fact they seldom go more than 30
or 40 together. Within British Columbia and Alaska the mountains, generally
above the timber limits, are their favourite haunts.

Another and even larger kind of deer which often contributes towards
the sustenance of the northern Déné is the moose (Alces americanus). Mt.
James Lockhart reports having seen on Peel River and at Fort Yukon two
monstrous specimens whose meat alone weighed over 1000 pounds}. These
animals are not gregarious as the two species of cariboo just mentioned, and
they are liable to be found anywhere within that area. Roderick Macfarlane
observed tracks of some near Wilmot Horton River, in the Barren Grounds,
by about latitude 69° N. and longitude 126° 30’ W.2. Nay, Sir Robert McClure
saw as far north as 71° lat. three animals which he firmly believed to be
moose. Of late they have become quite plentiful in the country of the western
Nahanais, and correspondingly scarce east of the Rockies, especially along the
Athabasca, Peace and lower Liard.

The moose is economically speaking a most valuable animal to the
Dénés, as the large size and thickness of its skin allow ofits being used to
greater advantage in the preparation of tents or lodges, carrioles or toboggans,
shirts, tunics and trousers. Some skins are also cut up for pack cords and
others turned into parcliment for the manufacture of large travelling bags or
used in lieu of window panes.

* Proc. U. S. National Museum, vol. XIII, p. 307.
* “Notes on Mammals”, by Rod. Macfarlane, wbi supra, vol. XXIII, p. 667.