Chief Marlo has not cut his hair like the others, for he is a member of the old school. Black and straight, it falls down over his shoulders. How old he is, not even he himself knows. " When I little, big battle, Dead Men's Island," he says. Now he is too feeble to join in the hunt. He remains indoors most of the time, smoking his pipe and giving advice. In a face of wrinkled parchment shine a pair of fun-loving eyes, and it may well be, as it is said, that he can still draw as fine a bead on a fleeing caribou as anyone. 

Each evening when the sun is setting over Great Slave Lake, Mario emerges from his tent and totters down to the beach. There he sits for a long time. On one occasion I sit down beside him. Not a word has passed between us when he nods toward the sun, just as it is slowly slipping down into the water in an orgy of red, and " Who you think make sun? " he asks. 

" Who do you think? " I parry. 

"Jesus — mebbe so," he says hesitantly. Just how sincerely he believes this to be true is pretty hard to know, for he immediately begins talking about how the sun, from the very first, has been the all-powerful god of the Indians. He flings out his arms to it and says: " First all water, then sun." 

But when Marlo begins to talk about his people, he is bitter and terse: "My rich country. Caribou, musk-ox, fish, much food. Before, Indians all over. Great hunters. White man come, Indians die, all-a time die." He points off toward the north where the woods melt like a bluish mist into the distance behind which lie the Barren Lands, and then he quietly adds: "When caribou come from Land without Trees, Indians choose new chief." 

I object by saying that he certainly has a number of years left to live. But Marlo shakes his head conclusively, as though he is positive of his statement. "When caribou come," he repeats, knocks the ashes from his pipe, and totters back up to his tepee.

Bison bison athabascæ Rhoads. Wood Bison. 

According to the estimates made by Major W. H. Routledge, R.N.W.M.P., who was in charge of the Buffalo protection at Fort Smith in 1908, there are probably not more than three hundred left. The number of Buffaloes in the region is difficult to estimate, as they range in small scattered bands west of the Slave River, from Salt River on the south to Hay River on the north. This remnant of the once great herds is pretty thoroughly protected now, although the wolves are said to kill a good many. 

Ovibos moschatus (Zimmermann ). Musk-ox. U -miñ -mŭk (Es kimo). Et-jir -er (Slavey Indian, Great Bear Lake). 

No living Musk - oxen have probably been seen in Alaska at a later date than 1860-1865, although horns, skulls, and bones in a good state of preservation are to be found in various places from Point Barrow to the Colville River. None have been seen west of Liverpool Bay within the past twenty-five years. Around Franklin Bay, Langton Bay, and the lower part of Horton River, Musk-oxen were fairly common until about 1897. The first vessel that went into Langton Bay to winter (fall of 1897) saw Musk-oxen on the hills, looking from the deck of the ship. During 1897–1898 four ships wintered at Langton Bay, and over eighty Musk-oxen were killed, mainly by Alaskan Eskimo hunting for the ships. Some of the meat was hauled to the ships, but most of the animals were killed too far away for the meat to be hauled in, and the bulk of the robes were left out too late in the spring thaws, so that very little use was made of anything. Since that time no traces of living Musk-oxen have been seen in the region, either by natives who occasionally hunt there, or by our party during nearly three years. In March, 1902, a party of Alaskan Eskimo made an extended journey to the southeast and east of Darnley Bay and killed twenty-seven . This was without doubt the last killing of Musk-oxen by Eskimo west of Dolphin and Union Straits. In the summer of 1910 Mr. Stefánsson and his Eskimo found numerous Musk-ox droppings of the previous winter around the Lake Immaëřnrk, the head of Dease River. We spent the greater part of the winter of 1910–1911 on the east branch of Dease River and eastern end of Great Bear Lake, but saw no recent signs of Musk-oxen. That same winter the Bear Lake Indians made an unsuccessful hunt to the northeast of Great Bear Lake. Two or three years before they had made a big hunt in this region and killed about eighty. In February or March, 1911, the Indians killed three Musk -oxen near the end of Caribou Point, the only specimens seen in the whole region that winter. Apparently the Musk-ox is seldom if ever found in the region of western Coronation Gulf around the mouths of Rae River, Richardson River, or the lower portion of the Coppermine River. Quite a number of Eskimo hunt in this region, and they say that the Musk -oxen are all farther to the east. Some old men in the Rae River region had never seen a Musk-ox . The number of Musk-oxen now living west of the lower Coppermine River is very small and probably confined to the rather small area of high, rocky barrens comprised in the triangle whose apices are Darnley Bay, Coronation and the north side of Great Bear Lake. From all the information we could get from the Coronation Gulf Eskimo, Musk-oxen are seldom if ever seen near the mainland coast less than seventy - five miles east of the mouth of the Coppermine River. It seems probable from in formation which Mr. Stefánsson received from numerous groups of Eskimo in Coronation Gulf, Dolphin and Union Straits, and Prince Albert Sound, that no Musk-oxen at all are found in either the southern or central portions of Victoria Island (i.e. Wollaston Land, Victoria Land, Prince Albert Land). Some of these Eskimo remember of the former occurrence of the Musk-ox around Minto Inlet and Walker Bay, but say there are now none in that region. It is their belief, however, that Musk-oxen are still found near the north coast of Victoria Island. Musk-oxen are said to be still common on Banks Island. The Musk-oxen are so readily killed, often to the last animal in a herd, that the species cannot hold its own against even the most primitive weapons, and the advent of modern rifles means speedy extinction .

General [ Comment). The Sound people are evidently the most prosperous Eskimo we have seen; they are the most " travelled ” and the best informed about their own country (Victoria Island) and its surroundings. While they have been to the Bay of Mercy on north Banks Island and west beyond Nelson Head on south Banks Island they do not seem any of them to have been across the [ Dolphin and Union) straits to the Akuliakattak summer hunting grounds ( near Cape Bexley on the mainland) , or to the sea anywhere on south Victoria Island except among the Haneragmiut and Puiblir miut. Those who have been to a little west of Uminmuktok have come from the east to it as visitors of the Ahiagmiut in most cases ( Hanbury's Arctic Coast Huskies? ). Hitkoak, about the most travelled of any, has been at the Bay of Mercy, well west of Nelson Head, to Uminmuktok and into Bathurst Inlet, and to the Arkilinik ( near Chesterfield Inlet]. He looks not over thirty -five. He says he has ceased travelling, for he has seen “ many places and none are so good as the [ Prince Albert] Sound country.” He told us that he and some other families with him killed not a single seal last winter - lived on polar bears alone. They got seal oil to burn from others in trade for bear fat and meat. Honesty seems on a higher level among them than among any other people we have seen except the Akuliakattagmiut and Haneragmiut. Their clothes are far the best, their tents the largest. They use far more copper than any other people — doubtless because it is more abundant [in their country ).

The Kogluktogmiut [of the Coppermine River] are very eager for metal rods for the middle piece of the seal spear. They never make any of copper, no doubt because copper is too scarce. Their ice picks are small : their seal hole feelers are all of horn or iron. In the Sound ( on the other hand] the copper ice picks are in some cases three quarters by one and a quarter inch and fifteen inches long. Most seal spears have middle pieces of copper the rest have iron (from McClure's ship? ). The seal hole feelers are most [ of them ) of copper. Some of their tent sticks are of local driftwood, some are round young spruce which they get from the Puiblirmiut who get them from our neighbors of last August. Some sleds come from Dease River; some from Cape Bexley, but in either case they have been bought of the Puiplirgmiut or the Haneragmiut. Their stone pots are said to be all from the Utkusiksialik or Kogluktualuk ( Tree River). Some they got from the Puiplirgmiut by the road Natkusiak and I came last week, some around the point [ Cape Baring) from the Hanerag miut by the road we are taking now. Their fire stones [iron pyrite for striking fire) are some from the Haneragmiut, some picked up in the mountains north of the Sound. The copper is all from the mountains northeast of the bottom of the Sound. They say some [detached ] pieces of pure copper (in those mountains) are as high as a man's shoulder and as wide as high; others project out of the hill side and are of unknown size. East of Prince Albert Sound (on the Kagloryuak River) they use willows chiefly for fuel in summer these are four to five feet high in places. Heather [for fuel] is also abundant. The musk oxen are confined to the unpeopled sections of north and northeast Victoria Island and to Banks Island. They think there are a few deer in north Victoria Island in winter but none in south Victoria Island. The charms that starved the Banks Island people ( see above] deprived that country (sea and land both ) of food animals for a time, but these have gradually increased and are Banks Island has again become a good country. Nevertheless people never hunt there summers. There is plenty driftwood along the south shore of Prince Albert Sound, some along the north shore. There is plenty (drift ]wood northwest of Nelson Head [ Banks Island) and considerably east of it, but it is hard to find in winter. There are plenty of macu roots (polygonum bistontum) on the Peninsula between the Sound and Minto (Inlet] — and elsewhere. People eat plenty of them. Many good fishing places here and there, but they do not live to nearly such an extent on fish as do the Ekalluktogmiut, who eat fish all winter, as well as seal.

These macu roots form on the mainland the chief food of the marmot and the grizzly bear, both of which are absent from Victoria Island. All Eskimo known to me use this root as food —the Alaskans extensively , but the Victorians to a negligible extent only.

"That night for the first time I ate at the same meal caribou, seal, frozen fish, and musk-ox. The caribou was excellent, especially after it had been smoked during the summer. The fish, too, despite the fact that it was frozen so hard that it could not be chewed. Seal meat was less to my taste, and as for musk-ox, I never want to eat it again. Chewing its fat is exactly like chewing tallow."