THE KUSKO TIMES
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Entered as second-class matter Av
gust 29th, 1923, at the poatoffiee at
TTokotna, Alaska, under the Act of
March 8, 1879.
Takotna, Alaska. January J. 1928.
JFRAXK DUFRESME WRITES
OF CARIBOO MIGRATION
Forest and Strea mfor September
< contained an interesting article on the
igreat annual caribou migration of the
(Interior of Alaska, written by Frank
;Dufresne, game warden for Oss
JFourthF Division. The article is en
ititled ‘‘The Antlered Legion," as fol
lows:
To a day, almost, the antlered le
jgion reached the Yukon river in a
.skirmish line five hundred miles wide.
From Circle City, in Alaska, to Daw
son in Yukon Territory, all along the
'winding wilderness of the mighty
iriver, the caribou suddenly appeared
.aa though created by the wave of a
,magician’s wand. Then, for a month,
.they come pouring eagerly out of the
.scrub spruce to the southward, swam
.across the mile-wide river, and were
.swallowed up into the rolling birch
.hills to the north.
liardly were they across when a
.few straggling animals started back,
recen the whole herd gradually turned
.on itseelf, recrossing the river In a
.leisurely, meandering fashion and re- j
.turned once more into the mysterious/
.brooding land from which they had so
.spontaneously issued but a few weeks
i before. Thus they completed, in a
-rough, general sort of way, a loop in
itheir annual cycle of travel.
At times, during the month of Au
gust, the mountaines seemed fairly to
.crawl as the caribou legions moved
-slowly over the slopes. The Yukon
riveer, at favorite crossing places, be
.carne so thick with swimming animals
•.that you .couldn’t “throw your bat in
•without hanging it on an antler.” Be
tween each mob of surging animals
there were quieter intervals, when
ithey came dribbling through in small
bunches of a score or less each. Bat
for approximately thirtty days they
\were in sight along the river, cross
HUIL1
sh*k
ing steadily from south to north in a
wavering belt half a thousand .miles
wide, and nobody knows how long.
We watched them materialize on
one side of the river as though from a
necromancer's bat... and vanish like
will-o’-the-nri&ipa on the other side,
day after day, until we came to feel
that anything like an estimate of the
whole vast herd was impossible. It
was a mind-staggering project, involv
ing the use of so many, many cyphers
ail in a row, li-d off by any figure
from one to nine. I gave up trying
to count them.
“How many are there?” 1 asked an
old trappeer at Woodchopper. “Just
give me your idea of a fair count, on
that herd of transients.”
The object of my query dragged at
a blackened, gurgling old pipe in sil
ence for so long a time, that I was
about to repeat the question. Then
the pipe was slowly lifted from be
tween relaxed jaws, and certain other
premonitory symptoms .indicated com
ing speech.
“How many"' Humberts o’ thou
sands, 1 guess Maybe several mil- j
lions. Can’t no man livin’ give a fair
count on the number of .caribou in
Alaska and the. Yukon Territory. It
wouldn’t bee, or couldn’t be nothin’)
but a rank, undersized guess. And1
not only that, my friend’—but” puff—
“thpT^’s. mnri» nnti mnro n4* 'em ovoru
Having; liras delivered himself in j
one fell speech of the wisdom gleaner]
in three decades of “pussonal” con
tact, my gray-baarded informant
smoked stolidly on. He did not. even
deign to glance up when, a round
thousand of the "critters” in question
came sliding down the muddy slope
and took to the water-within a quar
ter of a mile from where we sat.
The bulls generally took the lead •
in water, clisely followed by the does j
and fawns. On the land they do not
form so closely as their domestic I
cousins, the reindeer, but in the water i
they moved almost as a solid body,!
the females and fawns taking advan- j
tage of the eddy created by tre lead
ing hulls. No matter which way the
matheer caribou swung, her fawn
seemed to. anticipate her every, move i
and clung like a shadown on the:
downstream side, slightly in the rear
of the parent animal.
Several timees I slowed down our
launch until its speed corresponded,
with that of the caribou and we werei
able to reach out and stroke the vel- :
vet-coated antlers, but no amount of,
familiarity could . stampede . those ;
adorable little . fawns from their!
chosen position, “right flank rear.” i
I
These caribou floated high in the
water and appeared to be faster j
swimmers than any other .of the deer
family that I had eveer encountered,
not even excepting, that aquatic mar
vel, the moose. When in a hurry they
plunged into the Yukon and swam j
straifht across to the opposite shore,
not giving an inch to the swift cur-1
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rent. A pain, during the hot days, wc
met them drifting along in mid
stream. seeming, thoroughly to enjoj
being frightened along in the rush
ing, cold waters.
The long, cellular hair of theii
warm coat appeared to lend theem
the buoyancy -of a water-fowl. No
natural enemy could hope to cope
with the min the water. So great
was their confidence in this respect
that as we came along in our launch
caribou lined up along the bank
would usually wade in and breast the
eurreent, actually at our mercy, when
u single bound would have taken
to cover.
Like the reindeer, but unlike any
oother of the deer family, both sexes
of the caribou wear antlers, which
theey cast off and renew each year.
In August, the main migration period,
the antlers were tender, growing
things, covered with a soft projettive
coat of mouse-colored velvet.
The bulls seemed weighted down by
the sensitive, cumbersome load atop
their heads and were always on
guard to keep fro mstriking them
against obstructions of any kind. The
females had an easier time of it witH
their smaller, feminine spreads, while
the fawns sported but jaunty, fur
covered stubs, were faster of move
ment in the brush than either- of the
parents.
Several times we encountered black
bears crossing the Yukon. One day I
herded an ill-tempered old black fel
low right into a herd. of swimming
caribou to see what would happen,
and the- way those old caribou bulls
trampled over surly friend Bruin
must have lifted his temper to the
blowing - off point. Square in the
middle .of the caribou he disappeared
from sight, and I did not see him
again until all that herd had-passed,
when he emerged looking like some
thing dragged out of a washing ma
chine.
The huge ^timber wolf is the cari
dou s worst enemy. 1 ms prowling
predator, in solid grays and Dlack,
and sometimes in a blend of both
colors, escorted the travelers to the
banks of the Yukon river and took
his pound of flesh for so doing. We
rarely glimpsed one of these big
wolves, but. read fchd gruesome story
in a scattering of fresh bones here or
a patch of hair there along the south
shore.
Quite a fe wof the wolves swam the
river too, rather than lose their easy
living, although it was noteworthy
that their tracks were much more
plentiful on the south than on the
north bank, of the river. It seemed
at times, as I read the story of their
encounter in the signs left on the
hills and along the river banks, as
though, it were a very unequal adjust
ment in nature’s balance. But no,w
after viewing all the evidence pre
sented for booth the defense anfl and
prosecution, and hearing the testi
mony of eye-witnesses in the matter,
[ am but citing the general opinion
>f the people in the caribou country
.vhen I say that under ordinary con
litions only the old and crippled ani
nals fall beneath the slavering jaws
>f the wolves.
The speed of a frightened -caribou
>n lund is., a tremendous and tireless
light that no wolf could ever hope to
;qual, and in the .water he is certain
y master .of his own destiny. It is
;vident, though, that if the wolves
ire allowed to increase there might
:ome a time when they would
hreaten the.caribou’s existence. But
he Indian ..and -white trapper take
^articular pleasure, in collecting the
rerritorial bounty of $15 paid on
>aph wolf, aneti'tftis serves in a good
legree to keep...the dreaded foe in
iheck.
Man’s effect -on Rhis great caribou
lerd of the interior of Alaska seems
;o be favorable rather than unfavor
ible to its continued existence. In
he first lace there is man’s incessant
warfare on. wolves, coyotes, wolver
nes and lynx. The pelts fro mthe
jacks of caribou enemies supply some
hree or fomf hundred trappers with
the sinews of .life. And as for the
caribou taken by man for food and-?
clothing, they are mostly balls,* of
which nine out ofttonutre superfluous
I in the general scheme of propaga- i
I tioxu
i All along the Upper Yukon I re
ceived the most encouraging infor
mation to the effect that of late years
the caribou multitudes were on the
increase. Not one dissenting voice
was raised to mar this good report.
“There’s more .an' more of ’em
every year,” declared the .old gray
beard at Woodcbopper. I hope he is
right, for there is not on' the seven
continentts a grander heritage of
wild life than this antlered legion of
the far North. Nor.does there ref-,
main a group of animals more fortu
nately situated to hold their-own into
the man-crowded decades ahead. ’ ,
. i !
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