IN THE VALLEY OF ELK RIVER 17 



height. Its stem is like a gigantic toothpick which rises 

 as straight and flawless as a ship's mast, and gradually 

 tapers up to infinity. The regularity of the taper of the 

 trunk, and the straightness of it, are wonderful. For 

 about fifty feet up the branches are apt to be dead, and 

 gray, and broken; but above that the fine evergreen 

 branches thrust out a little way, most carefully however, 

 in order not to be guilty of provoking a growth outside 

 of the true perpendicular. 



Where a tract of timber has been thoroughly burned, 

 in such valleys as that of the Elk, millions of young jack 

 pines spring up. If ever you are tempted to make a 

 short cut on foot through such a natural nursery, shun 

 that lovely snare. Go around it rather than struggle 

 through it. To forge directly through is a very trouble- 

 some and tiresome event. A jack pine forest through 

 which fire has recently passed, killing everything, makes 

 one think of an army of skeletons on parade. As the 

 stems lose their hold upon mother earth, and under press- 

 ure of winds from all quarters, come sweeping down, 

 they fall across each other, two, three or six deep, and 

 create obstructions to travel of a most serious character. 

 In British Columbia, " down timber " is an oft-recurring 

 curse. Often it is a nuisance of the first magnitude. We 

 saw much of down timber, before we were many days 

 older, and upon one or two members of our little party 

 it rang many changes. 



When you have travelled up the Elk Valley about 

 ten miles from the railway, to your right, across two miles 

 of valley there rises a fine mountain mass five miles long 



