Sables are chased only during the winter, betwixt the months of November and January; for at that time the skins are in the highest perfection. Such animals as are caught at any other season have their skins full of short hairs, which render them less valuable. The sable hunters frequently assemble in companies of thirty or forty, and proceed along the great rivers in boats, taking with them provisions for three or four months. They have a chief, who, when they are arrived at the place of their rendezvous, assigns to each division of his men the quarter to which they are to go. In the places which are frequented by these animals the hunters remove the snow, on particular spots, and place snares there, each hunter being able to place about twenty snares in a day. They also pitch upon small places near trees; these they surround with pointed stakes of a certain height, covering them with boards to prevent the snow from falling in, and leaving a narrow entrance, above which is placed a beam supported only by a small and light piece of wood. As soon as a sable touches this to seize the piece of meat or fish which is placed for a bait, the beam falls and kills it.
Sables are also caught by a kind of snares that are usually laid for grouse and hares, being peculiarly partial to the seeds that are employed as bait for these animals. Nets are sometimes used. When the hunter has discovered the trace of a sable in the snow, he pursues it till he arrives at the burrow of the animal, over the mouth of which he places his net, and then by smoke compels the animal to come out, when he is secured in the net. If fire-arms are used, they are loaded only with single balls, that the skins may be as little injured as possible. Sometimes, in place of fire-arms, cross-bows with very small or with blunt-headed arrows are adopted.
All the sables, as they are caught, are either delivered to the chief hunter, or concealed in holes of trees, lest the Tonguses, or other tribes inhabiting the adjacent country, should steal and carry them away. When the time appropriated to the chase is over, the hunters all assemble at the place of rendezvous, and return home.
The hardships, fatigue, and perils with which these expeditions are attended, may well be conceived when we consider the nature of the country, the season of the year, and the intense cold which the hunters have to endure. Frequently do they penetrate into the depths of immense and trackless woods, from which, they have no other mode of securing a retreat, than by marking the trees as they advance; and, if these marks should be obliterated and fail them, they must inevitably be lost; often have they to sustain the extremes of cold and hunger. Some instances have been mentioned of sable hunters, when their provisions have failed, being reduced to the necessity of tying thin boards tight to their stomachs to prevent the cravings of appetite. To all these must be added the constant peril, under which they labour, of being overwhelmed and lost in the snow.