"In the early summer the black bears swim up and down the northern
rivers with their mouths open, swallowing the immense number of water
insects which have come into being at that season." Hearne goes on to
state that bears which have subsisted on this food for some days, when
cut open emit a stench that is intolerable, and which taints their
flesh to a sickening degree. The insects on which they feed are mostly
of two kinds: one a sort of grasshopper with a hard black skin, and
the other a soft, brown, sluggish fly. "This last is the most
numerous. In some of the lakes such quantities are forced into the
bays when the wind blows hard, that they are pressed together in dead
multitudes and remain a great nuisance. I have several times, in my
inland voyages from York Fort (Hudson's Bay), found it scarcely
possible to land in some of those bays for the intolerable stench of
those insects, which in some places were lying in putrid masses to the
depth of two or three feet." It is more than probable that the bears
occasionally feed on these dead insects. After the middle of July,
when they take to a diet of berries, they are excellent eating, and
continue to be so to the end of the winter.
The Arctic foxes of this region when young are sooty black all over,
and gradually change to a light ash-grey in colour, with a dark,
almost blue, tint on the head, legs, and back.
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