Moose meat

“ A very thick steak of moose meat or beef may be cooked in this manner. Remember to have fire-dogs and a good back log; there will then be hot coals under the front log and flame against the back log to furnish heat for the meat in front. Turn the meat every few minutes and do not salt it until it is about done. Any sort of meat can be thus cooked; it is a favorite way of toasting bacon among the sportsmen, and I have seen chickens beautifully broiled with no cooking implements but the forked stick. ”

“ They also know, on the other hand, that moose meat when in prime condition is the finest venison in the world. The Indians were also well aware that the bulls now engaged in battle would take but little heed of any other foes. They therefore quickly gathered in with Frank and Sam to the spot where Mr Ross and Alec were hidden, and there in quiet whispers arranged their plans for the killing of the two great moose ere the fierce battle had much longer continued. ”

“ It undoubtedly would have been interesting to some people to have witnessed the battle between these two well-matched moose bulls to a finish, but the practical Indians know a thing or two about their meat, and one is that the meat of a moose that has been in battle for a couple of hours or so is apt to be so soft and spongy and full of air bubbles that a hungry dog will hardly eat it. ”

“ However, the flavour of good moose meat will survive any process that it undergoes in their hands, except smoking.
Having provided myself with some drawing materials, I amused the Indians with a sketch of the interior of the tent and its inhabitants. An old woman, who was relating with great volubility an account of some quarrel with the traders at Cumberland House, broke off from her narration when she perceived my design; supposing, perhaps, that I was employing some charm against her; for the Indians have been taught a supernatural dread of particular pictures. ”

“ Several of the men wear sickly-looking moustaches, and short, pointed chin tufts; the hair, coarse and matted, is worn long. The children look like rolls of fat, half melted on the outside. Their general employment seems to be eating moose meat, when they are not engaged in deriving nourishment from the maternal bosom. ”

“ All these tribes are excellent hunters. The moose in the south and wooded country, the reindeer in the barren lands, ducks and geese in vast numbers during the summer, and, generally speaking, inexhaustible fish in the lakes yield them their means of living. At times, one prodigious feast; again, a period of starvation.
For a time living on moose nose, or buffalo tongue, or daintiest tit-bit of lake and forest; and then glad to get a scrap of dry meat, or a putrid fish to satisfy the cravings of their hunger. While the meat lasts, life is a long dinner. ”

“ So he had invited his friends in to help eat some of the choicest parts, moose-steak in ordinary being, of course, too common for a special feast. I shall forbear entering into details of that meal, but our meat-dish was young moose-heart stuffed, roasted, with fresh Klondike river grayling as an entree. Grayling are caught in the fall when slush ice is running in the river. They are sluggishly heading for deep water. You fish for them with rod and line baiting with raw meat. When you pull one out he freezes stiff almost before you can get him off the hook. ”

“ Then he fried another slice of moose. He was aware of an unwonted glow of strength, and went out and chopped some firewood. He followed that up with a slice of meat. Teased on by the food, his hunger grew into an inflammation. It became imperative every little while to fry a slice of meat. He tried smaller slices and found himself frying oftener.
In the middle of the day he thought of the wild animals that might eat his meat, and he climbed the hill, carrying along his axe, the haul rope, and a sled lashing. ”

“ Instead of beef or no meat of any kind, as is generally the case with them when at home,—some die every winter from want of food,—they have now in every lodge real meat; meat of moose and elk and bighorn, and so are living much as they did in the days before the white men overran their country and killed off their game. ”

“ He is a worthy gentleman, the moose, and should be well esteemed. Dropped in a thicket, hunted by wolves, unprotected save by his sharp hoof, which, however, will rip anything softer than a steel plate, he ranges the forests till his antlers are full-branched, and then, at the age of three, without costing the Province or the Indian a cent, he tips the scales at a thousand pounds of meat. ”

“ Venison, moose, or bear meat, can be deliciously roasted in joints of several pounds before a good fire, using a green birch branch as a spit, and resting it on two logs, situated on opposite sides of the fire. The meat can thus be occasionally turned and propped in place by a small stick, sprinkling occasionally with salt and pepper. The above manner of making the fire is that adopted by most woodsmen. ”

“ Then, in one voice from three boats, "Mooswa!" and far beyond white man's vision the boatmen sight a moose. There is a little red tape about the ethics of taking off those precious Peterboroughs which were to make history on the map, and in the delay the moose wandered into pleasant pastures. The boatmen were very much disgruntled, as the moose is treasure-trove, the chief fresh meat that his world offers the Indian. ”

“ Of these the largest single item was fish, to be used as dog food, and with this one sledge was wholly laden. Then came flour, tea, sugar, salt, bacon, hard bread, evaporated fruit, a package of fine pemmican—which is made of dried and pounded moose meat mixed with berries and boiling fat in a rawhide bag, where it becomes perfectly solid—oatmeal, a can of baking-powder, molasses, a case of canned goods for special occasions, a quantity of reindeer-back fat, to be used in place of butter or lard, and a few pounds of tobacco for trading with Indians. ”

“ About 100 full-grown moose had been consumed during the winter months at the four posts we have lately passed, in fresh meat alone. He is a huge animal; his carcase will weigh from three to six hundred207 pounds; yet an ordinary half-breed will devour him in little more than a month.
Between four and five hundred moose are annually eaten at the forts of the Peace River; four times that number are consumed by the Indians, but the range of the animal is vast, the hunters are comparatively few, and to-day there are probably as many moose in Peace River as there were fifty years ago. ”

“ The killing of many moose was sure to follow these signs. That young boy actually killed to his own gun ninety moose. Averaging the butchered meat of each moose at the low estimate of 600 pounds, we have a gross weight of 54,000 pounds of good, wholesome food.
This section of country was in those days, I venture to say, the richest in game on the continent of America. Every little creek or lake had its beaver lodge, and even on the main routes of travel one would see beaver swimming two or three times in the course of a day's paddle. ”

“ The captain thought it wise to tarry in our present camp several days, to kill deer and dry the venison, in order that we might have a supply of meat while engaged in moose-hunting, independent of that which we might be able to kill during this period.
We had unanimously agreed that it was inexpedient to take dogs with us on the moose-chase. In this particular our experience fully confirmed the wisdom of our conclusion. The moose cannot be driven to water by deer-hounds, or any other species of dog with which I am familiar ”

“ When they are engaged in drying meat, they will throw down upon the ground a whole side of the Moose, beat it with stones, walk over it, trample upon it with their dirty feet; the hairs of men and of animals, the feathers of birds, if they have killed any, dirt and ashes,—all these are ground into the meat, which they make almost as hard as wood with the smoke. ”

“ There was a moose-hide stretched and curing on poles like ours, and quite a pile of cured skins close by. They had killed twenty-two moose within two months, but, as they could use but very little of the meat, they left the carcasses on the ground. Altogether it was about as savage a sight as was ever witnessed, and I was carried back at once three hundred years. There were many torches of birch-bark, shaped like straight tin horns, lying ready for use on a stump outside.
For fear of dirt, we spread our blankets over their hides, so as not to touch them anywhere. ”

“ The sheep, being of choicest flavor, are taken first, but the moose and caribou will not escape after the sheep become harder to get.
The absence of a supply of wild meat in Fairbanks and other interior towns will not work no hardship on the residents, for there is already a well-established trade in refrigerated domestic meat, and the dealers will readily supply all the fresh meat for which there is a demand, and at a cost little, if any, above that charged by the market hunters for game. ”

“ The Saturday night pot of beans is a favourite in Nova Scotia homes, many of which were fore-fathered by New Englanders. In the early fall, ménus are varied in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by the broiled or baked flesh of the moose which when tender is juicier and of better flavour than beef. If killed too late in the season the meat is tough and "garney." Indians like the moose liver. An author writing in 1818 recommends to epicures the upper lip of the cow moose, which "being of a consistency between marrow and gristle is a great delicacy when properly dressed." ”

“ The flesh of the deer forms an agreeable change from our salt provisions. Venison is often quite plenty. From the hare and partridge our cook serves a delicious pot-pie. The flesh of the moose and bear are very good. Were it not for the unprepossessing appearance of the latter, his flesh would be esteemed before most wild meat. The flesh of a young black bear a year old, if fat, is not easily distinguished, when cooked, from a good pork spare rib. ”

“ Moose cover themselves with water, all but noses, to escape flies. [100] About as many now as fifty years ago.
Imitated the sounds of the moose, caribou, and deer with a birch-bark horn, which last they sometimes make very long. The moose can be heard eight or ten miles sometimes,—a loud sort of bellowing sound, clearer, more sonorous than the looing of cattle. The caribou’s, a sort of snort; the small deer, like a lamb.
Made their clothes of the young moose-skin. Cure the meat by smoking it; use no salt in curing it, but when they eat it. 114
Their spear very serviceable. ”

“ It fascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle flesh of his that worked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately. Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and like a blow the realisation would strike him that this wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more than so much meat, a quest of ravenous animals, to be torn and slashed by their hungry fangs, to be sustenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had often been sustenance to him. ”

“ Standing out clear of the dead forest, and staring curiously down upon the two potato-diggers, 227 were three moose,––a magnificent, black, wide-antlered bull, an ungainly brown cow, and a long-legged, long-eared calf. A potato-field, with men digging in it, was something far apart from their experience and manifestly filled them with interest. ”

“ While the great cow was pasturing on birch-twigs, the calf rested, with long legs tucked under him, on the dry, softly carpeted earth beneath the branches of a hemlock. At this pleasant pasturage [22] the mother moose was presently joined by her calf of the previous season, a sturdy bull-yearling, which ran up to her with a pathetic little bleat of delight, as if he had been very desolate and bewildered during the days of her strange absence. The mother received him with good-natured indifference, and went on pulling birch-tips. ”

“ Here they circled widely, crouching in the coarse weeds and dodging from trunk to trunk, until they knew they were directly behind the potato-field. Then they crept noiselessly outward toward the spot where they had last seen the moose. The wind was blowing softly into their faces, covering their scent; and their dull gray homespun clothes fitted the colour of the desolation around them.
Now it chanced that the big bull had changed his mind, and wandered back among the rampikes, leaving the cow and calf at their browsing among the poplars. The woodsmen, therefore, came upon him unexpectedly. ”

“ The herd of moose was a small one—three gaunt, rusty-brown, slouching cows, two ungainly calves of a lighter hue, and one huge, high-shouldered bull, whose sweep of palmated antlers bristled like a forest. ”

“ The horns of the animal begin to sprout in April, the old pair having fallen some time before. In the middle of this month the coat is shed, when the animal for some time afterwards presents a very rugged appearance. The cow towards the end of May produces one or two calves, generally near the margin of a lake, or in one of the densely-wooded islands, where they are secure from the attacks of the bull moose, who, cruel tyrant that he is, often destroys them. Rarely more than two are born at a time.
Besides its human foes, the moose is attacked occasionally by the bear. ”

“ From the corner of her eye she saw the great black shape rushing upon her, and, with a wild cry, half the bawl of a calf, half the bleat of a young moose, she went racing, tail in air, down to the water, with the bear at her heels.
"With a terrific splashing the cow moose hurried to the rescue. She was a very big moose and she was in a very big rage; and very formidable she looked as she came plowing her way to shore, sending up the water in fountains before her. He knew well that a full-grown cow moose was an awkward antagonist to tackle when she was in earnest. ”