ders for their down, as is done in
Norway, instead of their extermination, the present course.

Commander W. Wakeham, of the Department of Marine, says:

No one can question the desirability of having certain areas
set apart, where wild animals may find asylum, and rest....

A few years ago, from some unusual cause, the woodland
caribou, in great numbers, visited that part of Labrador,
east of Forteau, and along down as far as St. Charles. A
large number were there killed by the white settlers--but
this was a solitary, and exceptional year. The Indians who
hunt in the interior of Labrador undoubtedly do kill a large
number of these caribou; but, when we consider the great
extent of country over which these deer migrate, compared
with the comparatively small number of Indians--and there is
a steadily decreasing number--I can hardly believe that
there is much fear of their ever exterminating these deer.
Then, could we possibly prevent these Indians from hunting
the deer wherever they meet them? I hardly think we could.
The barren-ground caribou are not hunted to any extent by
whites. During the month of August, the Eskimo of the Ungava
peninsula, as well as those in Baffin island, resort to
certain fords, or narrows where these caribou usually pass
at the beginning of the fall migration. They kill
considerable numbers--rather for the skins as clothing, than
for food. But the Eskimo are few in number, and I cannot
conceive that there is any fear of these caribou ever being
greatly reduced in number by these native hunters. Any one
who has ever met a herd of barren-ground caribou, and seen
the countless thousands of them, could hardly conceive of
their ever being exterminated. Nor would they be if we had
to deal only with the native hunters. But, with our
experience of what happened to the buffalo when the white
man took up the slaughter, we must take precaution in time.

Up to the present, very few white men have penetrated any
distance into the interior of the Labrador peninsula, and I
do not see that they are very likely to, in the near future.
But we never can tell. A few years ago we would have said
the same of the Yukon region, so that it would be a wise
precaution to have set apart a considerable section of the
Labrador, in