[Illustration: FIG. 26. Rubbing trees: two small black spruces
(_Picea mariana_)--the larger 4 feet high--broken and barked by
Caribou in rubbing velvet off the antlers. Simons’ Lake, October
18, 1947.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27. Pile o’ Rocks, an ancient enclosure
erected as a game lookout on the summit of a hill 1.5 miles NW. of
the mouth of Windy River. June 30, 1947.]
[Illustration: FIG. 28. Adult male Western Woodland Caribou
(_Rangifer caribou sylvestris_) (No. 235361, U.S. Biol. Surveys
Coll.). Stony Mountain, about 27 miles S. of Fort McMurray,
Alberta, October 22, 1920. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)]
On October 30 tracks indicated that half a dozen Caribou had swum across
Little River near its mouth, breaking through a 10-foot rim of ice on
the near side. When a herd of 2,000 or 3,000 crossed Windy River during
an October night about 1944, as reported by Charles Schweder, they broke
three channels through the thin ice that covered the river.
Once Charles saw a buck cross the 100-yard-wide Nahiline Rapids on
Kasmere River, where it drops about 40 feet in a quarter of a mile; yet
the animal did not seem to be carried far downstream. When about 10
Caribou (mostly big bucks) crossed the Windy River at our camp on June
24, the last two, I noted, were pointing almost upstream in the 6- to
8-mile-per-hour current.
The usual formation in which a small number of Caribou cross a bay or a
quiet stretch of river is a single file, but a larger band is likely
to make the passage in several simultaneous files. The fawns, in
particular, follow as closely as possible behind their mothers.
Although the Caribou are strong and speedy swimmers, the natives are
able, in canoe or kayak, to overtake and spear them. In 1947 several
fawns were speared in Windy Bay by Anoteelik.
Other notes on swimming may be found in the sections dealing with
_Migrations_.
_References._--Back, 1836: 367; Simpson, 1843: 76, 310; Rae,
1850: 27; Richardson, 1852: 290; Schwatka, 1885: 68, 71-72;
W. J. McLean, 1901: 6; R. M. Anderson, 1913b: 503; Blanchet,
1925: 34; Birket-Smith, 1929 (1): 109-110; Seton, 1929, +3+:
107; Hoare, 1930: 27, 31; Jacobi, 1931: 216; Clarke, 1940:
88-90; Downes, 1943: 256; Harper, 1949: 227, 229, 230; Banfield,
1951a: 21.
_Shaking off moisture and insects_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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