THE BUFFALO OR BISON 123 



for millions of immigrants and that now produce so large 

 a part of the world's staple crops. 



Time, however, will not efface the traces of the buffalo's 

 occupation of the continent. They blazed the trails that 

 later became important highways. As A. B. Hulbert, in his 

 ''Historic Highways of America," has pointed out, the buf- 

 falo selected the route through the Alleghanies by which 

 the white man entered and took possession of the Mississippi 

 Valley. They found the best routes across the continent, 

 and "human intercourse will move constantly on paths 

 first marked by the buffalo. It is interesting that he found 

 the strategic passageways through the mountains; it is also 

 interesting that the buffalo marked out the most practical 

 paths between the heads of our rivers, paths that are 

 closely followed today by the Pennsylvania, Baltimore and 

 Ohio, Chesapeake and Ohio, Wabash and other great 

 railroads." 



To-day the only wild buffalo exist in Canadian territory, 

 and it will be of interest now to discuss this herd. 



The Wild or Wood Bison 



In the area comprising a portion of northern Alberta 

 and the Northwest Territories that is bounded on the north 

 by Great Slave Lake, on the west by the Hay River, on the 

 southeast by the Peace River, and on the east by the 

 Slave River, there roams to-day the only wild remnant 

 of the former millions of buffalo that inhabited this con- 

 tinent. By their segregation they have formed a dis- 

 tinct race or sub-species known as Bison bison atha- 

 bascce Rhoads. This race is larger in size and darker in 

 colour than the typical buffalo of the plains; also, its hair is 

 said to be more dense and silky, and the horns are larger and 

 more incurved (Plate XII). 



Samuel Hearne was the first traveller to record the occur- 



