89 Northern search 



the north shore of Primrose. The muskegs in all this part of 

 Canada, we soon learned, are usually of two types. One type is 

 rimmed with spongy-looking sphagnum and small tamaracks; 

 the other has meadowlike borders with grass and, rarely, marshy 

 corners. Most muskegs are of the sphagnum type and appear al- 

 most sterile. There is more life in the meadow type, and we in- 

 spected all of them we came across. 



By June 16 we had searched all possibilities in Saskatchewan 

 except a few lake areas near Prince Albert. We pulled out of our 

 Flotten base, leaving my family to the tender mercies of the 

 wilderness for the next ten days while we continued the search 

 into Alberta and Northwest Territories. Eliminating lakes and 

 marshes in the provinces was relatively easy. For the most part, 

 it can be said that within those areas where we did find a suitable 

 marsh there was a logging camp nearby or an Indian village or 

 other human activity. No sign of whooping cranes and no hope 

 for them in such circumstances. The marshes around Lake Claire 

 and Chipewyan are a splendid habitat, but the local Indian popu- 

 lation can penetrate every corner of these areas in summer by 

 boat and canoe. The same is apparently true of certain parts of 

 Wood Buffalo Park, particularly near the Peace and the Slave 

 Rivers. This is not meant to imply that the whooping crane has 

 been destroyed by the Indian population, for that is not the case 

 by any means. It is very possible that whoopers nesting or attempt- 

 ing to nest in some of these areas in the past have been disturbed 

 and possibly killed by Indians, but these were probably isolated 

 cases and those particular whooping-crane populations may never 

 have been very abundant. The real damage was done years ago 

 in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota and in southern 

 Manitoba and Saskatchewan and east central Alberta. And if 

 these prosperous, well-populated farming and resort areas were 

 to be converted from wilderness to their present state, then there 

 was no way of preventing the destruction of the whooping cranes. 

 They are a real, dyed-in-the-wool wilderness species, and in these 

 circumstances they could not continue to exist. Those that survive 

 are a small remnant that still finds an irreproachable wilderness 

 in which to nest and a protected semiwilderness in which to pass 



