90 On the trail of vanishing birds 



the winter. Our job was to locate that lost nesting ground, but in 

 that second summer of search (for Pettingill and Moore had 

 been over some of this ground before us) we failed to find them. 

 There were traces as far north as Hay River and Pine Point on 

 the south shore of Great Slave, but Smith and I saw no whooping 

 cranes. Not until seven years later were we to know how close 

 we had come to them on that first attempt! 



Nevertheless they were there, somewhere in that vast wilderness. 

 For they returned to Aransas in the fall, bringing six new young 

 birds with them. And the 25 birds we had counted in Texas in 

 April were now 31. In their lost and secret place they had wrought 

 magic, and we began to think that perhaps things might be just 

 as well off as they were. Still we felt we must continue the search. 

 The North is being developed rapidly. Airplane travel is changing 

 the picture, and soon every corner will be explored for ores, for 

 oil, for timber, for fish resources, for anything and everything that 

 man can use. This little legion must be found, and provisions made 

 to safeguard its future. 



Having missed our birds in the region south of Great Slave 

 Lake in 1947, we next cast our eyes still farther north, toward the 

 relatively narrow strip of lowlands between Great Slave and 

 Great Bear, and on to the river deltas of the Arctic coast. In April 

 of 1948, a flock of 28 whooping cranes left Texas for the breeding 

 grounds, 2 birds remaining on the refuge through the summer and 

 another having been lost there in March. According to plan I 

 joined Bob Smith in Canada early in June. 



We left the airport at Regina, the capital city of Saskatchewan, 

 on the third, stopping off that night at Prince Albert, where at 

 Gordon Lund's we had our first real taste of the North in the 

 form of caribou tongue sandwiches. Next day we flew into Alberta 

 and low over Watchusk and Gordon Lakes, where forest fires were 

 burning so fiercely that the great pall of smoke forced us to land 

 on the airstrip near Fort McMurray. The nearest settlement is 

 Waterways, some miles away on the Clearwater River near its 

 junction with the Athabaska, and we eventually found a car that 

 would take us there over the muddy road, although the fare that 

 he charged placed the Indian driver in the highwayman class. 



