CHAPTER II 



IN THE VALLEY OF ELK RIVER 



Fernie and Michel — Mr. Crahan and his Hotel— ^Return of Professor 

 H. F. Osborn and his Family — The Members of our Outfit — The 

 First Wild Animal — Jack Pine Timber — Sheep Mountain — "My 

 Mountain," for a Month — A Marten Trap — Fool-Hens. 



We are constitutionally opposed to long delays in 

 journeys to hunting-grounds, either on the rails or on 

 paper; but in the valley of Elk River we found so much 

 of interest it is impossible to ignore this gateway to our 

 garden of the gods. 



I have already said that a spur of the Great North- 

 ern Railway reaches Fernie, the Phoenix City of the 

 great soft-coal mining district, which incendiaries seem 

 determined to wipe off the earth by fire, but which re- 

 fuses to stay burned down. It is on the Crow's Nest 

 branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which breaks 

 through the main range of the Rockies at Crow's Nest 

 Pass about one hundred and twenty miles south of Banff 

 and the main line. At Fernie you feel that you have 

 fully arrived in British Columbia, for on all sides lofty 

 mountains loom up and frown down in rock-ribbed maj- 

 esty. One peak of commanding presence, north of the 

 town, is about to be christened Owl's Head; but the 

 name is not satisfactorily apt. The top of the peak looks 



