A Dog's Life in the North Woods (1948)

south of the Yukon and north of the fifty-fifth parallel lies wilderness both beautiful and terrible to all but the most expert woodsman such as the Cree Indians who make this land their home here in the early winter the tree and his family set out across the icy property River [Music] an important feature of the party is the trap all pack of dogs there of mongrel breed husky Cali and wolf extremely Hardy well-trained and most important to this expedition into the wild [Music] the horses are unpacked for beyond this point there are no trail the going is tough and travelling must be done on foot winter supplies are sorted and made into small packs only of the essentials are included where these Indians have been living off the country for centuries and even today they require a but few of the white man so-called necessities of life each pack must be evenly balanced so it will ride properly on the back of its beast of burden yes it is the dogs that carry the packs from here on this one's name is Skookum TomTom which means strong and brave in the Cree language he is the leader about 12 years old and can carry a 25 pound pack almost half his own weight the general rule is to load a dog with a pack weighing about one-third of his weight these packs must be secured so they will not slip or shift on the trail this one is Tilikum for a little friend he's just a pup and it's his first trip one by one the dogs are loaded in their packs carefully adjusted we do not normally think of dogs as beasts of burden however long before horses were introduced into North America by the earliest Spanish explorers Indians were using dogs as pack animals they are never overloaded and are quite accustomed to the work there are no trails through the snow and shadows of these deep North Woods but the Indian is at home here and the dogs follow faithfully and obediently the brief stop is made to check the pack for particularly tough going lies ahead the rest of the Indians family will soon catch up and a crude but adequate winter trapping camp will be built occasionally the little pack train emerges onto open Barrens but even here traveling is not easy Skookum is not quitting he's just sitting down for a rest for it's a long hard trip fortunately there is always an end to every day when the heavy packs are slipped off and how good it feels [Music] healthy dogs like to roll in the snow the minister pack is removed and they give their faces a good washing too just as any man does at the end of a hard day's work from daylight to dark is their usual life but once the packs are off they often have enough kept left to go bear hunting they know better however than to leave camp without their masters permission [Music] before setting out his traps the Cree makes a short trip to look over the terrain and whoever these Indians are in reading and understanding the most minut signs left on the snow or the ground by every form of animal life the big good trappers they have to be practical naturalist of the highest order they can cross a slippery log over an icy stream with a sure-footed skill of a fox [Music] with his pack of dogs trailing obediently the crease starts out to set his trapline Justices tribe has been doing for centuries the remnants of an old camp are past and so he is chopping down a green sapling with his hunting knife the first step in making his primitive trap the sapling is carried to the selected spot away from where it was cut a small but strong wire noose is attached and the sapling is skillfully put in place so that the wire noose or snare will hang in the proper position over the well used run of the fur bearing game thus as the unsuspecting links box or fissure runs along the trail its head will be caught in a wire noose and it will be held until the trappers return [Music] another snare is attached to a tree lying in a natural position across a game trail many such snares will be set throughout the area in doing this great skill of use for trapping is the principle occupation and main source of income of these Indians [Music] in caps the trapars wife is busy dressing the pine squirrels that have already been snared the skins of these animals will probably wind up as a fine fur coat on Fifth Avenue as many as 40 or 50 squirrels are caught in a single day and the sale of their stretched and dried skin will provide almost half of the family's income during the 3-month season this tree family should take enough fur to realize about $2,500 everybody traps and everybody works notice that fine black Fisher's skin hanging in the back of the lean-to and the big links the man is working on these will bring fancy prices at the Trading Post even when the snow becomes deep and the temperature drops far below zero the Cree and his dogs must go out to tend the traps all those are at times when the fur bearing animals seem to disappear then a hunt for bigger gain is necessary for hunger sometimes makes life difficult and distressing for man and dog half while though some of these dogs are they are trained to hunt mountain lion bear and moose they know that a big moose will mean plenty of food for themselves and their masters [Music] when given the word they hunt like a pack of wolves although success does not always crown their efforts [Music] all of the furs are taken for the purpose of sale or barter at the Trading Post however the skins of moose and caribou are often kept by the trapper and hand into native buckskin for the making of moccasins and other articles for family use the Indian is not a fast traveler but his steady ceaseless spotting takes him surprisingly long distances through the wild sometimes he will travel for several days to follow the trail of a moose and at night even in the coldest weather a quickly improvised crude lean-to infraction is his only shelter [Music] the dogs have sent ahead and the game is finally located there he goes occasionally a dog is killed before the Indian reaches the scene but success means food for all and lots of shoes for babies [Music] rugged and often crew the winter life maybe for both Indian and dog in the wilds of this far northwest this has been their land in their way of life for hundreds of years and they richly deserve all the rewards of their labor [Music] at the end of Leeson the dogs carry out the first a lighter load than they carried in it's a dog's life all right for both man and beast but without the beast the man could not [Music]