Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/115

 Finding great quantities of moss in the neighborhood, several large piles of it were collected, tied up into bundles and taken back with us to camp for fuel. Two varieties of this moss fuel were commonly found growing upon the stony hill-tops, the one, reindeer moss (lichen rangiferinus), being almost white, and the other, black and wiry looking, and the better fuel of the two. Either variety, of course, had to be dry in order to burn, and that was a condition in which we seldom found it, as incessant wet weather had been experienced since entering the Barren Grounds.

FRENCH-CREE HALF-BREED.

When dry moss was found, therefore, it was our custom to keep the kettles boiling all or most of the night, in order to cook enough meat to supply camp for several days.