Douglas Fir. which is ihi- fim-sl wood for making niasls of 

 ships, is renowned througlunit the world as "Oregon Pine"! 



The vast area of mountains back from the coast and coastal 

 range in this province is clothed up to about five thousand feel 

 in a mixed growth of coniferous trees with a noticeable number 

 of the Western White Pine (Pinus nionlicola): the presence of 

 this tree has been used by plant geographers to identify the 

 limits of the province This species grows to about 6.1 degrees 

 north latitude in the.se mountains, thus reaching to the conflu- 

 ence of the Pelly and Lewes rivers— which are the headwaters 

 of the mighty Yukon— just south of Dawson. However, if you go 

 up the Fraser River north of its junction with the Thompson, 

 you will enter a most unexpected strip of territory extending 

 all the way to Prince George and thence west up the valley of 

 the Hako River to the Babine Mountains, which mark the eastern 

 fringe of the rain forest This open grassland country, on which 

 cattle graze today, consists of even, low. hummocky hills cov- 

 ered in typical scrubland sagebrush that in some places 

 approaches the paucity of the true desert belt. This is really an 

 outlier of the Prairie Belt that, as is shown on the map, swings 

 north to the sixtieth parallel of latitude at Fort Nelson. It is a dry 

 strip and has a typical prairie fauna, with larks and other such 

 birds that come as a surprise to the visitor who sees them for 

 the first time. 



WILDLIFE 



The "pine" forests that surround this strip and fill the valleys of 

 the other inland part of this province do not support a large 

 fauna, and what there is of it is typical of the Northern Montane 

 Province, which we will meet later. The fauna of the Alpine or 

 montane tundra is an intermingling of that of southern Alaska 

 and the Northern Montane. The inner belt of this province is 

 really an extended transition zone from the sub-Arctic, bridging 

 several major belts and carrying a northern flora and fauna 

 high up into the Rockies. The fauna of the coastal rain forest, 

 on the other hand, is quite distinct from this. In some respects 

 it is merely a northern extension of that of the Pacific Coast 

 Ranges of Washington and Oregon with its woodpeckers and its 

 more than two hundred other distinctive species of birds, which 

 spread all the way up to the south coast of Alaska and even in 

 some cases over onto Kodiak Island. We have already described 

 the more notable examples of the sub-Arctic fauna, and we shall 

 meet the coastal one later. The fauna of this province is. in 

 fact, an amalgam and. apart from small mammals and some 

 lesser forms (and few enough of these), it does not have a dis- 

 tinctive wildlife. Yet there are some wonderful animals to be 

 seen here. 



LIVING SUN SYMBOLS 



One aspect of the fauna in particular strikes the visitor to 

 British Columbia; this is its aquatic life, both marine and 

 fresh water. Nor does one have to be a fisherman — amateur, 

 professional, or sportsman — to be so struck. The really surprising 

 thing is that the "fish" that are the most stunning and extraor- 

 dinary, and both typical of and unique to this province, are not 

 normally seen and are not fish per se. To find and marvel at 



A Sea Bat. one 0} many indigenous starfish that are a no- 

 table feature of the coastal life of this province. 



those, you have to go boating and do some dredging: or. If yon 

 are of less robust inclination, you may go to the delightful llltl< 

 aquarium in the city of Vancouver. 1 am speaking of sea crc ■ 

 tures commonly called starfishes. 



These belong to a group of animals arranged on a radial basis 

 of. fundamentally, five points. They are called collectively 

 Echinodermata or the "Spiny-skinned Ones" and include fivr 

 great groups of creatures: the sea lilies, which mostly grow o; 

 stalks like plants, in deep water: the sea cucumbers. ralh< 1 

 obnoxious looking, sausage-shaped, leathery bags: the sea iir 

 chins, which are ovoid or circular and often covered with spines 

 the brittle or sand stars, shaped like coins but with five long, 

 slender, vermiform limbs; and the starfish proper. These last are 

 extremely numerous and varied in form, there being no less 

 than twenty-three families of them, some containing dozens of 

 genera, many with dozens of species. Starfishes are hardy crea- 

 tures and are found throughout the seas and oceans of the world 

 from the polar regions to the equator, even in many land-lodced 

 brackish waters. They constitute food for quite a number of other 

 forms of life but are themselves terrible predators, specializing 

 in the opening of the two-valved shellfish such as clams, oysters, 

 and the like. In fact, they are a great menace to commercial 

 oyster beds and have been responsible for the bankruptcy of 

 many such enterprises, including those devoted to the culture of 

 pearls, for they may suddenly appear in great numbers and 

 totally destroy the molluskan crop. 



One may say with some assurance that more starfish are to 

 be found on sandy bottoms of shallow seas; but there are certain 

 parts of the world, notably along deeply indented coasts such as that 

 of the province under discussion, that seem to promote starfishes 

 in a big way. 1 do not know of any part of the world that rivals 

 this coast in this respect. The profusion of these animals found 

 here and their variety of size, form, and above all color, is 

 almost beyond belief. Probably the most outstanding are the 

 enormous "sun stars" (Heliaster) that look like super-soup-plate- 

 sized artificial suns designed by some primitive people. They 

 grow to three feet in diameter and have as many as forty-four 

 "arms ' or "rays." These may be of the most gorgeous colors, 

 ranging all the way from yellow through the oranges to flame, 

 reds, red-browns, brown, and even a deep purple. These creatures 

 do not look real, and it is hard to believe that they are alive 

 when seen on the dedc of a boat. 



There are now over 1750 described kinds of true starfishes 

 divided among some 300 genera. On the coast of British Colum- 

 bia there are hundreds of species of all shapes and sizes, from 

 tiny five-radial forms that bury themselves in the sand to the 

 above-mentioned enormous sunbursts: to normal-sized five- 

 fingered stars: and to more or less pentagonal creatures that 

 seem to be halfway to sea urchins, as flat as pancakes, of all 

 manner of colors, and decorated with all kinds of little spines, 

 knobs, buttons, and pimples. Their beauty of color and form is 

 seemingly endless. 



Starfish are covered with leathery skin in which are em- 

 bedded regularly arranged plates of calcium carbonate. These 

 may carry spikes, bosses, or other exotic structures, often so 

 closely adjacent that they form a sort of complete jointed 

 exoskeleton. Among the spines are scattered tiny pairs of 

 snapping jaws on pedestals called pedicellariae which work on 

 the principle of scissors or that of the jaws of a crocodile. These 

 serve to keep the upper surface of the animal clear of parasites 

 and sundry free loaders that would otherwise settle down and 

 grow on them as they do on the shells of many other slow- 

 moving marine animals. On the underside of the arms are rows 

 of multitudinous mobile structures called tube-feet, which can 



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