The Stickeen River 



Near Glenora, on the northeastern flank of the 

 main Coast Range, just below a narrow gorge called 

 **The Canon/' terraces first make their appearance, 

 where great quantities of moraine material have been 

 swept through the flood-choked gorge and of course 

 outspread and deposited on the first open levels be- 

 low. Here, too, occurs a marked change in climate 

 and consequently in forests and general appearance 

 of the face of the country. On account of destructive 

 fires the woods are younger and are composed of 

 smaller trees about a foot to eighteen inches in diam- 

 eter and seventy-five feet high, mostly two-leaved 

 pines which hold their seeds for several years after 

 they are ripe. The woods here are without a trace of 

 those deep accumulations of mosses, leaves, and de- 

 caying trunks which make so damp and unclearable a 

 mass in the coast forests. Whole mountain-sides are 

 covered with gray moss and lichens where the forest 

 has been utterly destroyed. The river-bank cotton- 

 woods are also smaller, and the birch and contorta 

 pines mingle freely with the coast hemlock and spruce. 

 The birch is common on the lower slopes and is very 

 effective, its round, leafy, pale-green head contrast- 

 ing with the dark, narrow spires of the conifers and 

 giving a striking character to the forest. The "tam- 

 arac pine" or black pine, as the variety of P. contorta 

 is called here, is yellowish-green, in marked contrast 

 with the dark lichen-draped spruce which grows above 

 the pine at a height of about two thousand feet, in 

 groves and belts where it has escaped fire and snow 

 avalanches. There is another handsome spruce here- 



[49] 



