SEA-OTTER 3

one that not only needed a number of Indians to work in
conjunction, but also the expenditure of considerable time
and energy, which, if it had required any other sort of
energy than that of paddling canoes, would not have
been altogether popular. Their method was as follows:
A watch was kept until an otter was sighted. Then a
signal would be given and as many Indians as were avail-
able rushed to their canoes, taking with them their muskets,
which were charged with powder only. The canoes
would scatter all over the sea in the vicinity of the spot
where the otter was last seen to dive, and as soon as he
came up to breathe the occupant of the canoe nearest
to him would fire a shot. Immediately the otter would .
dive. As soon as he broke the surface again, bang would
go another shot, and down he would go once more without
having time properly to fill his lungs with air. Time after
time this performance would be repeated until the un-
fortunate otter became more and more exhausted and
his dives of shorter and shorter duration, Then the
canoes would gradually close in on him until finally the
poor brute could dive no more, when he would be dis-
patched by a blow on the head from a club.

As soon as the sea-otter became less plentiful the trade
changed to deer and bear skins, and then to beaver, which
from that time until now has been one of our most im-
portant furs. So numerous were beaver in those days
that when the Hudson’s Bay Company began to trade
the old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles with the Indians,
they used to make enormous profits out of them, as an
Indian would part with everything he possessed to
purchase one.

It was astonishing what experts the Indians soon
became with these archaic weapons, in spite of their
clumsiness and crude sights; they would use either shot
or ball in them, and when a charge of shot was fired
at an unsuspecting flock of ducks the execution was
terrible. My initial efforts to kill bear and deer in this
country were made in company with an Indian who still
used one of these muskets, and the rapidity with which

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