the sides of the cheeks and then turn up with sharp points.  The musk ox once ranged right across the northern world, from England and Scandinavia, through Germany, Russia, and Siberia, to Alaska and North America.  Many thousands of years ago, during one of the Glacial periods, it inhabited southern England.  At the present day it is extinct everywhere, excepting in the eastern parts of Arctic America, not going west of the Mackenzie River nor south of Labrador.  It is also found in Greenland.]

“The musk ox, when full grown, is as large as the generality of English black cattle; but their legs, though thick, are not so long, nor is their tail longer than that of a bear; and, like the tail of that animal, it always bends downward and inward, so that it is entirely hid by the long hair of the rump and hind quarters.  The hunch on their shoulders is not large, being little more in proportion than that of a deer.  Their hair is in some parts very long, particularly on the belly, sides, and hind quarters; but the longest hair about them, particularly the bulls, is under the throat, extending from the chin to the lower part of the chest between the fore legs.  It there hangs down like a horse’s mane inverted, and is fully as long, which gives the animal a most formidable appearance.  It is of the hair from this part that the Eskimo make their mosquito wigs (face screens or masks).  In winter the musk oxen are provided with a thick fine wool or fur that grows at the root of the long hair, and shields them from the intense cold to which they are exposed during that season; but as the summer advances this fur loosens from the skin, and by frequently rolling themselves on the ground it works out to the end of the hair, and in time drops off, leaving little for their summer clothing except the long hair.  This season is so short in these high latitudes, that the new fleece begins to appear almost as soon as the old one drops off, so that by the time the cold becomes severe they are again provided with a winter dress.”

According to Hearne, the flesh of the musk ox does not resemble that of the bison, but is more like the meat of the moose or wapiti.  The fat is of a clear white, “slightly tinged with a light azure”.  The calves and young heifers are good eating, but the flesh of the bulls both smells and tastes so strongly of musk as to be very disagreeable; “even the knife that cuts the flesh of an old bull will smell so strongly of musk that nothing but scouring the blade quite bright can remove it, and the handle will retain the scent for a long time”.

Bisons of the “wood” variety are (or were) found far up the heights of the Rocky Mountains and in the regions south-west of the Great Slave Lake.  These “wood buffaloes” delight in mountain valleys, and never resort to the plains.  And higher than anything, of course, range the great white mountain goat-antelopes (Oreamnus montanus) from northern Alaska to the Columbia River.