From this time until the harvest had been gathered in, Tokulki’s people, and most of the others, did not stray far from town. In October was a sacred ceremony called the “Polecat dance,” and afterward the people began to scatter rapidly for their fall hunting. Some proceeded to their camps overland, the women serving as beasts of burden; but the greater number, including Tokulki’s family, had their hunting lodges near the rivers and reached them by means of canoes made of single trees, fire-felled and fire-excavated. Some parties went as many as seventy-five or a hundred miles from home, especially when they desired to hunt the woodland bison. This season was devoted especially to the preparation of quantities of dried venison against the coming of winter.