American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
History
American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club
Big game hunting -- United States
The region of the upper Ottawa and Lake Kippewa has been in recent years
the best moose country in the east. The moose from this district average
much heavier and handsomer antlers than those of Maine and the Maritime
Provinces. However, the moose are now rapidly leaving this country and
pushing further north. Twenty-five years ago they first appeared, coming
from the south, probably from the Muskoka Lake country, into which they
may have migrated in turn from the Adirondacks. This northern movement
has been going on steadily within the personal knowledge of the
writer. Ten years ago the moose were practically all south and east of
Lake Kippewa, now they are nearly all north of that lake, and extend
nearly, if not quite, to the shores of James Bay. How far to the west of
that they have spread we do not know; but it is probable that they are
reoccupying the range lying between the shores of Lake Superior and
James Bay, which was long abandoned. Northwest of Lake Superior,
throughout Manitoba and far to the north, is a region heavily wooded and
studded with lakes, constituting a practically untouched moose country.
No moose, of course, are found in the plains country of Assiniboia,
Saskatchewan, and Alberta; but east in Keewatin, and to the north in
Athabaska, northern British Columbia, and northwest into Alaska we have
an unbroken range, in which moose are scattered everywhere. They are
increasing wherever their ancient foe, the Indian, is dying off, and
where white hunters do not pursue too persistently. In this entire
region, from the Ottawa in the east to the Kenai Peninsula in the far
west, moose are retiring toward the north before the advance of
civilization, and are everywhere occupying new country.
[Illustration: ALASKA MOOSE HEAD SHOWING UNUSUAL DEVELOPMENT OF
ANTLERS--KENAI PENINSULA. Kindness American Museum of Natural History,
New York.]
Wary and keen, and with great muscular strength and hardihood, the moose
is pitting his acute senses against the encroaching rifleman in the
struggle for survival, and it is fair to believe that this superb member
of the deer family will continue to be an inhabitant of the forest long
after most other members of the group have disappeared.
The moose of Maine and the Maritime Provinces occupy a relatively small
area, surrounded on all sides by settlements, which prevent the animals
from leaving the country when civilization encroaches. In this district
their habits have been greatly modified. They do not show the same fear
of the sound of rifle, of the smell of fire, or even of the scent of
human footsteps, as in the wilder portions of the country. In
consequence of this change of habit, it is difficult for a hunter, whose
experience is limited to Maine or the Maritime Provinces, to appreciate
how very shy and wary a moose can be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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