Man The Fat Hunter

Then came the day when I was the only male left in camp. One corner of my sled had been partially broken off by striking against a tree, and I had been obliged to repair the damage before setting out with the other hunters. Just as I was standing there in the act of binding it up with babiche, the old squaw came racing down the hillside as fast as her legs would carry her, waving her arms and howling at the top of her lungs: " E-then! E-then! " In a flash, women and children poured out of the tepees and began gaping out over the lake. Far out, there was a band of some twenty caribou. What a disturbance then took place! Before I could utter a word, I was surrounded by a regular crowd of squaws. One tugged at my right arm and begged me for two caribou heads, another grabbed my left arm and put in her reservation for three. Then I felt an iron grip on my shoulder and was jerked sharply about face by the heavyweight, Phresi, demanding tongues and half a caribou carcass, as a mere detail, to go with them. At length even little Kachesy ingratiatingly fingered my jacket and made the whole thing even more difficult. All in all, these women demanded of me more meat than a hunter, under ordinary circumstances, would be able to shoot in the course of a week. I attempted to make a few meek objections, but was silenced at once. And, after all, what reply could I make, surrounded by all these women and children who looked trustingly upon me as the only available man and who were giving expression to such blind faith in my prowess as a hunter? 

Since my sled was laid up, I put on my snowshoes, the entire party of women meanwhile stationing themselves on a hilltop from whence they could view the hunt. Whether it was this gallery of the fair sex that disturbed my mental poise and caused my hand to shake, I cannot say for sure. Suffice it to mention that I took uncertain aim at long range and succeeded in but slightly wounding one buck. Terrified by the shot, it raced off down the lake, mile after mile, pursued, unfortunately for me, by all its fellows. In a short time they all appeared as pin-pricks on the horizon. As they were fleeing, I sent a few pot-shots flying after them, but not a single creature fell. 

My return to camp was anything but triumphant. I had contemplated sneaking up to my tent in silence, but nothing came of this notion. The massed ranks of the women stood in my path. Their scorn was unendurable. One asked me how many animals I had slain, another asked me for the head I had promised her, a third stated that she was already boiling the water for the tongues I said I would bring her, so now I could give them to her, she said. Only Phresi was well-meaning in her way; she took me aside and, in a motherly voice, explained to me the reason why I had failed to bring down any game: it was because I had remained behind while the hunters were off on an expedition. " For it is something which everyone knows, that he who hangs back in camp and shows too much interest in the women loses his luck as a hunter." I accepted this criticism without opening my mouth. 

The cloud of opprobrium which hung over my head was not soon dispelled. To disgrace oneself as a hunter is, in this Indian society, no less serious than scandal affecting lawyer, doctor, or priest in a civilized community. There is no defense of one's failure; there are no extenuating circumstances, absolutely none. That the caribou had been within range and that not one had been slain were two hard, cold facts, which were highly aggravated by a third: the whole affair had taken place just when there was something of a food shortage. Such was the judgment I suffered. Furthermore, it had not been pronounced by a court of law; worse than that, it was made known in the insulting attitude of these Indians toward me and in the painful allusions they made to me. This was their form of justice. In the end there was only one thing for me to do: I would have to make amends. So I harnessed up my dogs and departed into the forest, with the determination that I would keep going until I had felled some kind of game, even were it to take me a week. I would not return until I could do so with my sled loaded down with meat, my name and prestige re-established. 

I knocked about for two days without coming within range of a single wild creature. The few I sighted dashed off in mad flight as soon as they saw my sled. I then adopted a new stratagem, often chosen by the Indians on biting cold days when it is downright impossible to creep up on one's game. I established myself on an island, in the vicinity of a narrow sound through which the caribou would be likely to pass, and prepared to wait them out. 

During the afternoon they arrived — four powerful bucks! Sighting the smoke from my fire, they started a bit, but continued, undaunted, along their chosen course. I brought down three of them. The fourth was wounded, but I followed it on snowshoe in through the woods and at last, after an exciting chase, got home a shot. So far as I could determine, all four of these deer were woodland caribou, which have a more lofty crown of antlers and are considerably larger than the Barren Ground caribou. If so, these were the first of this species I had shot in this region. 

It was pleasant indeed to return home to the camp that evening. Proudly seated on my load, I swung up in front of the tepees, and shouted such an imperious " Whoa! " to the dogs that the occupants of even the remotest tents appeared. With that, I threw the meat out of the sled and arranged it in a large pile, making no great ceremony of the act, and, as casually as I possibly could, I said that there were two or three more carcasses out in the woods and suggested that it would be wise to cart them in before the wolves got at them. 

That evening there was a banquet at the home of Tijon. Two tallow candles were lit, and we all sat about in a wide circle. The choicest morsels were then passed round: first, the marrowbones and the roasted heads of the beasts I had slain, then round patties made of dried meat chopped up and mixed with fresh fat, a large wooden bowl of fried marrow, a pile of selected dried meat, inch-thick slabs of dried fat, and a bark cup full of otter-fat. 

When the meal was over, Isep began to beat on his tomtom. Immediately everyone picked up whatever object he could reach — knife, pipe, or snowshoe — and began to hammer out the rhythm on the stove-pipe, frying-pans, or meat-kettle, whilst they all burst out at the top of their lungs with that wild, monotonous festival song with its refrain of " Hi-hi~he, hi-hi-he-ho, hi-yi," uttered in screeches in every pitch and in every key. A most weirdly intricate orchestra of sound. 

Then followed the dance. I remained in the background, for I could do nothing with this Indian dance. Furthermore, the roof was too low for my head. Great slabs of dried meat hung in rows from the tent-poles and I had to bend almost double every time I wished to cross the floor. But when the Indians crowded around me and insisted, I took my life in my hands and threw myself into the dance. 

The effect was as I had feared. I leaned over so far that my back ached, I ducked my head like a boxer, but no matter which way I turned, I ran afoul of dried meat. Dried meat cuffed at my neck, dried meat came raining down from above, and dried meat lay beneath my tramping feet. At length there were but a few slabs left hanging in their place, while on the floor there must have been the flesh of many a carcass. Then I threw up both hands and quit. But it was a long time before the Indians recovered from their hearty laugh. They simply lay down on their caribou blankets, held their sides, and roared. Oh, the white man!... 

It was late in May, and spring was at hand. The caribou were trekking far off to the east in the direction of the Barren Lands, and in our section of the country there were very few of them left. Were a man to be dependent upon his luck in the field, it would not be long before he would find himself in dire straits. It happened that one hunter was without game for eight full days. On the other hand, some hunters might spasmodically run into a streak of splendid luck. Thanks be to the socialistic basis on which the Indians governed their society, we were able to keep going. We shared all we had and, although we lived no life of luxury, we did not experience any immediate want.

I carefully set up my tent on the very spot where the buck had stood, crept into my sleeping-bag without any supper, and fell asleep. Early next morning I was up prowling through the woods. Yes, there had been caribou here, thousands of them. Everywhere I found the marks of their hoofs. But had they all forsaken these parts? It appeared so. 

After pottering around for half a day without glimpsing a living thing, I clambered up a barren ridge and sat down for a consoling smoke. It was a sparkling autumn day. Far off in the distance lay the subdued green of the forest, alternating with the glittering surface of small lakes. Beneath where I sat, white birches were growing in the lee of the ridge, the sunlight dancing in and out amongst those snowy trunks and caressing with its rays their foliage of pure gold. 

I thought at first that my eye had fallen upon two huge caribou bucks, but then I saw that they were moose. Sedately they were stalking along through the birches. I threw myself down on the ground, crawled forward and fired. One moose tumbled head over heels. On my running up to it, the other simply stood there looking at me, so I shot it, too. 

An enormous quantity of meat. It was almost unbelievable. Here was food for hungry dogs, and here were marrowbones, fat, kidneys, tongues, and all manner of good things — enough so that I could eat as much as my belly would hold. Had I suddenly inherited a fortune, I could not have felt more wealthy. Fate, in spite of everything, had kept a friendly eye upon this solitary trapper, wandering about through the wilderness. 

I immediately moved my camp over to the place where I had felled my game. This marked the beginning of a busy time for me, for to transform two moose carcasses, each weighing approximately nine hundred pounds, into dried meat required slightly more than a wave of the hand. Day after day I sat outside my tent and cut off slab after slab of meat. The piles grew. The knack of cutting the meat off in broad thin slices I had acquired from my friends amongst the Caribou-Eaters. First you must cut the muscles, one by one, then, grasping each one in turn in the left hand, roll it over the wrist whilst a large meat-knife cuts it loose from the flesh. It is otherwise with the rib meat, which must be cut off and dried in its entirety. 

Outside the tent I had erected a good stout scaffold from which I hung the meat to dry over a slow fire. The hides I stretched as tight as a drum across two four-cornered frames made from spruce poles, at once proceeding to flesh them and prepare them for tanning. It was my thought to get some of the Indians to tan them for me later, a service they would gladly perform in return for half the finished leather. Moose hide is both warmer and stronger than caribou.

Sixty-five years ago I sold my thriving lawyer's practice in Norway and made for the Canadian wilderness of the Northwest Territories. For four years (1926—30) I lived as a trapper in the isolated region north-east of Great Slave Lake. I had decided to realize a dream that had always been with me: a primitive life in northern, practically uncharted wilds, in a region where the lives of the natives still largely followed their ancient traditions. 

The wilderness north-east of Great Slave Lake proved to be what' I had been looking for. After a long voyage by canoe, my partner Hjalmar Dale and I lit upon an enormous stretch of land with forests and tundras, extending to the Arctic Ocean in the north. A few groups of Indians, of Chipewyan stock, had their hunting grounds here. They were known as the Caribou-Eaters, a name they had received because their lives were utterly dependent on the caribou. At that time there were still great numbers - probably several hundred thousands — of caribou in the Northwest Territories. But the migrations of the caribou herds are mysterious. The Indians have a saying: "They are like ghosts; they come from nowhere, fill up all the land, then disappear." When thousands of these animals poured over the land, the Indians and the few white trappers there were filled with joy; when the animals disappeared, hunger and famine followed in their wake — at times, people starved to death. 

These were years of many long dog-sled journeys through forests and over the Barrens — they took me to the upper Thelon River and to other uncharted regions. The trappers were convinced that there were more wolves, more white foxes, in the far-off distances on the blue horizon, that it was there that the greatest riches were to be found. 

We lived off the land. Practically all of the caribou was eaten: meat, fat, marrow, brain, liver, kidneys, blood - sometimes we ate the contents of the stomach as well. I did well on this entirely meat diet and never missed bread, potatoes, salt, or sugar. I was never ill during the long winters, and my teeth were perfect. 

For a year I lived with a group of Indians ("CaribouEaters") in the inland forests, and I was the only white man there. I often think of these people with whom I shared everything for so long, and who became my good friends. It felt strange to become part of the world of the Indians, where so much ancient tradition was still alive. I imagine that most of these Indian friends of mine are dead by now, but I shall always remember them. The year I lived with them was not quite an easy year — but even though there were few caribou, we managed quite well, thanks to the Indians' skills and their principle of the hunt: the catch was shared by all. But the fate of three men who spent the year north of us was tragic — they all starved to death. 

Forty years later a Canadian friend visited me at home in Norway. He showed me a Canadian map, and to my great surprise I saw that a small river south-east of the southern part of Artillery Lake had been named after me. I had lived alone with my dogs in these parts by the very edge of the Barrens for a year, hunting and trapping wolves. From my tent I only needed to walk up a hill to see the endless Barrens. This was a good year, with plenty of caribou. And I had music almost every evening — on the hills around the wolves used to howl, and they were soon joined by the howling of my dogs. Quite an orchestra ... 

Today, the foreboding which I describe on the last page of this book has come true: civilization has invaded the Northwest Territories. When I was there, air traffic was only just starting. During all the years I was there, I saw only two small planes — today there are planes everywhere, there are oil wells, there are mines, there is commercial fishing and much else connected with modern life. At Snowdrift, that beautiful place by Great Slave Lake where the Hudson's Bay Company had a small trading post and where we trappers raised our tents together with the Indians, enjoying the light summer after the hardships of a long and cold winter, there are many houses now and alcohol is a danger. The polar dogs are largely being replaced by noisy snowmobiles. I am glad to have been born at a time when silence reigned in the wilderness, when dog teams and canoes were the only means of transport.

Suddenly we were over another lake. "Raven Lake (Tulugaq)," Andy said laconically and laid the plane over. We were going down.

As we steered in toward the bank, I caught a glimpse of a cluster of tents up on the slope. People came running at full speed out of the mist. Before we reached land they were all by the water, a small party of skin-clad Eskimos on a beach. 

I landed, and met smiles and curious loks from hunters, women, and a pack of children of all ages. I greeted each of them separately. They were tall, strong people with the wiry agility characteristic of mountain dwellers. Open, friendly faces; gleaming white teeth. The children croweded round me without shyness and chattered away in Eskimo with a boldness I rarely saw in the half-civilized Eskimo children on the coast. They were all dressed in caribou-skin anoraks, splendidly edged with the skin of wolf and wolverine.

....

We were met by a vast number of dogs straining at their chains, barking and yelping full-throatedly. Here were the tents, a dozen in all, queer dome-shaped habitations shaped like snow huts. Smoke rose into the air from crooked chimneys. In the neighbourhood of each tent were stagings of willow sticks, where hides and large slabs of caribou meat were hanging out to dry. Several heavy sledges stood about in the heather. 

We stopped at one of the tents, and Paniaq held open the door--a large hanging bearskin. I sat on the floor, and the tent was soon crammed full. 

There was plenty of room in the tent, and it was very pleasant there, with sweet-smelling willow boughs, and caribou skins on the floor and everything in good order. Apart from these things, there were so many new impressions that I could not take in all the details. I noticed the curious construction of the tent, the many curved stakes on which the caribou skins rested, the pale eyes in a caribou head flung down by the stove, a face or two which stood out from the rest, a girl's smile. And I wondered what the Eskimos were thinking.

A man appeared in the doorway with one fist full of caribou tongues. I was told that he had just come back from hunting and that the tongues were a present for me by way of welcome.

It was clear that nothing was to be said about my affairs for the present. First we must eat. The tent was filled with a strong odour issuing from the cooking-pot on the stove. The meat was laid on a plate, and we attacked it. I felt myself at home; there was much to remind me of the years in which I lived among Indian caribou hunters in northern Canada. 

A dirty rag was passed round, and we wiped the fat from our hands. One or two of the hunters began to clean their teeth by drawing sinews through them. 

Now, I thought, it's time, and I said that I had come into the mountains to live with them through the winter, perhaps till next summer; I wanted to get an idea of the Nunamiuts' life now and in former times. 

After my words had been translated, there was silence for a few moments. Then Paniaq said genially: "This is the first time a white man has wanted to spend the winter with us. But it's all right. We Eskimos are not the sort of people to turn anyone away. You can pitch your tent here, and when the winter comes I'll lend you dogs and a sledge." 

It gave me a pleasant feeling that I was welcome.

Soon we were talking of hunting and of caribou, the beast that is always in their thoughts. 

The Brooks Mountains are a world of their own, almost untouched. One may wander far and wide through valleys and gorges, along rivers and lakes, and enjoy the fine flavour of the land's virginity. One can meet mountain sheep or bears which stand rooted to the ground at the sight of a man, because they have never seen such a thing before. Giant trout swim in the lakes, multiply, and die of old age. And in the heart of the mountains is a little band of men. 

The Nunamiuts in the Brooks Mountains are divided into two groups, the Raven people (Tulugarmiut) and the Killik people (Killermiut). The people have little knowledge of the world outside. 

Between the Nunamiuts and the outer world there is such a wide, tangled wilderness that communication has to be by plane. The main prop of their existence is, as I have said, the airman Sig Wien. Sevele times a year he or one of his men flies in with a quantity of simple things such as ammunition, tobacco, coffee, a little cotton material for the women, knives, sauce-pans, etc., and takes their wolfskins in exchange. What the Eskimos thus obtain from outside is very modest in quantity, for they are poor and transport is expensive.

There is thus a dash of civilization in the Eskimos' material culture, but in essentials their life takes the same shape as that of their ancestors. Caribou hunting is vital to them now as before; from it they obtain food, clothes, tents, sewing thread, rope, etc. Caribou meat is, generally speaking, served at all meals. They live a nomad life in the caribou's tracks. If luck is with them, and thousands of beasts stream over the country-side in the neighbourhood of the settlement, there are rejoicings and festivities among the mountain people. But it may happen that the barren country is empty, with not a living creature in sight. The last time the caribou failed, many Nunamiuts died of starvation. 

Of civilized food there is barely a trace. The Killik people, who were unlucky with their wolf hunting the year before, have practically nothing. One or two of the Raven people have some coffee, a scrap of sugar, and a little tobacco. The small quantity of bought food is just a dash of luxury to vary the caribou meat which is the universal food.