i8 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



up in the ranges to the head of a "draw." Snow-shoe 

 rabbits had been extremely abundant every day. We 

 saw them jumping about the woods, and in the late after- 

 noon they were skipping and feeding near the bars, 

 where they eat the willow bark and the herbs growing 

 everywhere among the willows. Wherever the willow 

 and dwarf birch grew densely, their tops were trimmed 

 over large areas as if cut off with a knife. * This is rabbit- 

 cutting, about four feet from the ground, made when 

 the snow is deep. We saw no lynxes, although their 

 tracks were abundant on the bars. Bird life was very 

 scarce at this time, and we saw but few varieties during 

 the entire trip. 



Three miles above the canon a large branch rushing 

 from the mountains on the east joins the creek. There 

 we penetrated the main range and at last were in the 

 Ogilvie Rockies. The mountains, peaked and jagged, 

 piled up in cliffs and pinnacles, blotched with snow, 

 furrowed by canons, extended high above timber-line and 

 we realized that we were in the sheep country. The 

 course of the ranges on the east side of the creek is east 

 and west; on the west side the range nearest the creek 

 runs north and south, throwing off spurs, equally lofty, 

 east and west. In a general easterly and westerly direc- 

 tion there is a series of five or six parallel ranges up to 

 the divide, on which one could travel continuously, per- 

 haps, for hundreds of miles south along the northern crest 

 of the Rocky Mountains. The altitude of timber-line is 

 about four thousand feet, and that of the summits varies 

 from five to eight thousand feet. 



