It seemed as though with the crossing of the northern divide winter
had come. On the night we reached the George River the temperature
fell to ten degrees below the freezing point, and the following day it
never rose above thirty-five degrees, and a high wind and snow squalls
prevailed that held traveling in check. On the morning of the
fifteenth we started forward in the teeth of a gale and the snow so
thick we could not see the shore a storm that would be termed a
"blizzard" in New York--and after two hours' hard work were forced to
make a landing upon a sandy point with only a mile and a quarter to
our credit.

Here we found the first real butchering camp of the Indians--a camp of
the previous spring. Piles of caribou bones that had been cracked to
extract the marrow, many pairs of antlers, the bare poles of large
lodges and extensive arrangements, such as racks and cross poles for
dressing and curing deerskins. In a cache we found two muzzle-loading
guns, cooking utensils, steel traps, and other camping and hunting
paraphernalia.

On the portage around the last shallow rapid was a winter camp, where
among other things was a _komatik_ (dog sledge), showing that some of
these Indians at least on the northern barrens used dogs for winter
traveling. In the south of Labrador this would be quite out of the
question, as there the bush is so thick that it does not permit the
snow to drift and harden sufficiently to bear dogs, and the use of the
komatik is therefore necessarily confined to the coast or near it.
The Indian women there are very timid of the "husky" dogs, and the
animals are not permitted near their camps.