Have Gun Will Travel

A Hunting We Will Go

The Canadian people hunted and trapped for thousands of years, following the migratory birds and animals; and as the immigrants began arriving to settle here, they passed much of their knowlege onto their guests. This became one of the outdoor activities that impressed visitors the most, and was mentioned in many early travellers' accounts.

Besides our honed skills, sometimes developed through hours of pot-shotting (just as it sounds); the prey was abundant, though before too long, many species were indiscriminately thinned out.  Since most birds and animals were relatively tame, they became easy targets, so if you returned from a hunting trip empty handed, then you weren't hunting; though you didn't have to go far to shoot your next meal. According to Geikie in Adventures in Canada:  "The flocks of wild pigeons that come in the spring are wonderful. They fly together in bodies of many thousands, perching, as close as they can settle, on the trees when they alight, or covering the ground over large spaces when feeding. The first tidings of their approach is the signal for every available gun to be brought into requisition, at once to procure a supply of fresh food, and to protect the crops on the fields, which the pigeons would utterly destroy if they were allowed".

The breast meat of the felled pigeons were used in pies and stews, and the rest discarded.  Similar shooting parties were organized from time to time to clear given areas of wild life, protect crops and occasionally provide fresh meat. Squirrels were cooked with corn and root vegetables to make the well-liked Brunswick Stew and later in the fall, coon hunting was organized, eventually using trained dogs: "The raccoons, usually called 'coons', were a great nuisance when the corn was getting ripe. We used to hunt them by torchlight, the torches being strips of hickory bark, or lumps of fat pine. We could have done nothing, however, without the help of our dogs, who tracked them to the trees in which they had taken refuge, and then we shot them by the help of the lights, amidst prodigious excitement and commotion. The Weirs close to us, got skins enough one autumn to make fine robes for their sleigh. I never knew but one man who had eaten raccoon and he was no wiser than he needed to be.  Meeting him one day after a hunt, in which he had got a large raccoon for his share, he stopped me to speak of it thus - 'Great raccoon that-there was a pint of oil in him-it made a most beautiful shortcake'.  I wished him joy of his taste". (Geikie) Coon fat was also rendered in the settlements and poured into saucers as a make-shift Betty Lamp,with a twisted rag used for the wick.

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