574 



Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



rabbits. He heard that buffalo roamed 

 not far north. Utah Lake he reported 

 as teeming with several kinds of fish, 

 which formed a major food of the 

 Indians. Traveling south from Utah 

 Lake, however, the party ran out of 

 food. They had difficulty in obtaining 

 even small amounts of grass seeds, 

 pinyon nuts, and fruit of the prickly- 

 pear from the Indians, and found it 

 necessary to kill a number of their 

 horses for food. Once they got a small 

 amount of dried meat of what un- 

 doubtedly was bighorn sheep. The men 

 traveled through and around country 

 that now is among the best big-game 

 hunting grounds in Utah, but no men- 

 tion is made of deer or elk, both of 

 which they noted in southwestern 

 Colorado. 



The next reports were the published 

 letters, journals, and notes of the 

 "mountain men" and explorers in the 

 1820's, but from them it is difficult to 

 determine the actual game conditions. 

 The accounts described the western 

 part of the State as devoid of game, 

 but they reported its presence in the 

 mountains, particularly in the north- 

 ern part. Buffalo and antelope appar- 

 ently were abundant in the northern 

 valleys. The book, Leonard's Narra- 

 tive, gives an account of Gapt. Joseph 

 R. Walker and a party of some 40 men 

 who journeyed westward and reached 

 the shores of Great Salt Lake in August 

 of 1833. On the advice of the Indians, 

 before starting westward they killed 

 buffalo and antelope until "in a few 

 days each man was provided with 

 about 60 pounds of substantial meat, 

 which was packed upon our horses." 



On August 22, in 1826, Jedediah 

 Strong Smith left the Great Salt Lake 

 with 15 men for southern California. 

 Smith's route was by Utah Lake and 

 southward through the valley of the 

 Sevier River in central Utah. The ac- 

 count of this trip is given by Harrison 

 C. Dale in The Ashley-Smith Explora- 

 tions. In a letter dated July 12, 1827, 

 Smith wrote, "From this lake (Utah) 

 I found no more signs of buffalo ; there 

 are a few antelope and mountain 



sheep, and an abundance of black 

 tailed hares." 



J. Cecil Alter in an article, W. A. 

 Ferris in Utah, 1830-1835, quoted that 

 trapper as follows : 



"September 4, 1834, four Indians 

 calling themselves 'Sann-pitch 5 came 

 into camp bringing to my surprise, sev- 

 eral deer skins. . . . The barrenness 

 of their country, and scarcity of game, 

 compel them to live by separate fam- 

 ilies, either in the mountains or in the 

 plains. . . . Here the women and chil- 

 dren are employed in gathering grass- 

 hoppers, crickets, ants, and various 

 other species of insetcs which are care- 

 fully preserved for food, together with 

 roots and grass seed. From the moun- 

 tains they bring the nuts ... of the 

 pine, acorns from the dwarf oaks, as 

 well as the different kinds of berries 

 and the inner bark of the pine. ... In 

 the meantime, the men are actively 

 employed in hunting small animals 

 such as prairie dogs, squirrels, and field 

 mice, and larger animals or birds, 

 which fortune sometimes places within 

 the reach of their arrows. They like- 

 wise take fish, with simple instruments 

 of their own invention. . . ." 



Ferris' camp was pitched near what 

 is now the geographical center of the 

 State. 



The year 1847 saw the entrance of 

 the Mormon pioneers into the valley of 

 the Great Salt Lake and the establish- 

 ment of the first white settlements. 

 Contemporary writers recounted the 

 hardships the pioneers endured and 

 their difficulty in obtaining enough 

 food to survive, but they seldom men- 

 tioned big game. 



Capt. Howard Stansbury in his book, 

 Exploration and Survey of the Valley 

 of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, re- 

 ported : "During the winter and spring 

 (1847-48) the inhabitants (of Salt 

 Lake Valley) were much straightened 

 for food ; and game being very scarce in 

 the country, they were reduced to the 

 necessity of digging roots from the 

 ground, and living upon the hides of 

 animals which they had previously 

 made use of for roofing their cabins, 



