Petowanquad: Hunting Michigan Elk in 1844
By Colonel R.B. Marcy
In the autumn of 1844 I made a hunting excursion upon the peninsula of Michigan, in the vicinity of Saginaw Bay. That part of the country was then perfectly in a state of nature, and probably continues so to this day, as it is a cold, barren region, covered with heavy pine and tamarack trees, growing upon a miserable soil, illy adapted to the purpose of the agriculturist. ln this wild and lonely section there were at that time a good many elk, and I started out for the purpose of trying my skill in hunting the noble beast, which I had then never had the pleasure of seeing. I engaged for a guide an old Chippeway Indian named "Petowanquad" who had passed the greater portion of his life in hunting moose, elk, bears, and deer in that very locality, and was perfectly well acquainted with the haunts and habits of those animals.
He told me that, many years before this, he was hunting here in the winter season at a time when the snow was so deep that he was obliged to use snowshoes; that during the course of his hunt he struck the tracks of seven moose, which he followed until he came within rifle range, and succeeded in killing two of them. The other five made their escape for the time, but he proceeded on the trail until he killed another; and thus he went or for three days, bivouacking at night upon the tracks, and at the expiration of this time he had killed the entire gang, with a large black bear which he encountered during the time. He then returned home and called out a sufficient number of Indians to go with hand-sleds and bring in the meat.
After we had reached the hunting-ground we made our bivouac in the woods, and prepared to try our luck the following morning.
Petowanquad, who was "master of ceremonies upon the occasion, cautioned us against firing our guns or making other noise, as he said the sense of hearing in the elk was so very acute that at the slightest unusual noise they would take alarm and run away.
At daylight the next morning Petowanquad and myself shouldered our rifles and started out with two dogs in leash, and we had not gone far before I saw some tracks which to me appeared fresh, but the Indian said they were made the day previous, and that the animals then were probably far off. We soon saw others, which he said had been made during the past night but these were not sufficiently fresh to answer his purposes. Afterward we came to others, which he decided to have been made some three hours before; but still he did not seem inclined to follow them. and so we travelled on until it got to about ten o'clock, when we struck the tracks of five elk, which the Indian, in a low tone of voice, informed me had just passed, and were in all probability close by us at that time, whereupon we unleashed the dogs, who instantly bounded away upon the tracks into a dense thicket of brush, and in a very few minutes we heard them giving tongue most vociferously on the other side, and rapidly making their way up the ban of a small creek. The Indian was nearly as much excited as I was myself, and we started in pursuit at the top of our speed. After we had run about a half a mile my ardor began to abate somewhat; I became thoroughly blown, and seated myself upon a log to rest, telling the Indian to follow the sound of the dogs, and keep them within hearing until they brought the animals to bay, but under no circumstances to fire at them, as I was ambitious to have the honor of killing them myself. He proceeded on, and in a few minutes I heard him call to me. On joining him he informed me that the dogs had brought a large buck elk "to bay" in the creek just above where we then were, whereupon I approached the sound of the dogs' voices, and saw an immense elk, with antlers at least five feet long, standing in the bed of the creek, with his head erect, and the two dogs jumping up and biting his nose and ears, at the same time keeping up furious barking. I leveled my rifle and placed an ounce of lead directly back of his shoulder, at which he trotted off, but the excellent dogs brought him to bay again directly, when with the Indian's rifle I gave him another shot near the same place, but it was not until I had fired another ball into his head that I brought him down. He was a magnificent fellow, weighing at least five hundred pounds, and his horns were so large that they were a full load for the Indian in returning to our camp. This was my first elk, and, as may be imagined, I felt very proud of the exploit.
The main object I had in view in describing this hunt here was to show the great accuracy which the Indian hunter will at a glance, from the appearance of a track, approximate to the time when the game passed. I endeavored to learn from the Indian the secret of this wonderful faculty; he could not, however, enlighten me, saying that it was in his head, but he could not explain it; I am therefore convinced that a knowledge of this art can only be attained by long-continued practical application and experience.
From our camp to the point where we struck the fresh elk track was some eight or ten miles in a direct line, over a densely timbered, flat country, without a single hill, stream, or other landmark to break the monotony of the surface. I noticed, in passing over it in the morning, that the Indian would occasionally kick up some dry leaves with his feet, and, in returning, I observed that we passed near some of these places; but my astonishment was very great when he stopped suddenly and requested me to fire off my rifle, which I did, and immediately our companions in the camp called out to us but a short distance off. Although I considered myself a tolerably good woodsman, yet I had not the slightest conception we were then any where near our camp that we had left in the morning. There was so much sameness in the appearance of this section that one of our young Indians got lost on the same day, and did not find his way back until he went to the lake and followed out our trail.
This tale originally appeared in Colonel R.B. Marcy's Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border, published in 1866. Marcy wrote with remarkable prescience in this book's foreword:
"If any excuse were needed for the publication of sketches somewhat desultory and disconnected as these will prove, I am persuaded that excuse may be found in the simple fact that all these subjects of my description -- men, conditions of life, races of aboriginal inhabitants, and adventurous hunters and pioneers -- are passing away. A few years more, and the prairie will be transformed into farms, the mountain ravines will be the abodes of busy manufacturers, the aboriginal races will have utterly disappeared, and the gigantic power of American civilization will have taken possession of the land from the great river of the West to the very shores of the Pacific. The wild animals that abound on the great plains today will soon be as unknown as the Indian hunters who have for centuries pursued them. The world is fast filling up. I trust I am not in error when I venture to place some value, however small, on every thing which goes to form the truthful history of a condition of men incident to the advance of civilization over the continent -- a condition which forms peculiar types of character, produces remarkable developments of human nature -- a condition, also, which can hardly again exist on this or any continent, and which has therefore especial value in the sum of human history."
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File: Elkhunt.htm 11/27/2001