XXVII 



THE -303 AND BEARS 

 1898 



ON May 2, 1898, I arrived in search of bears at Kelowna 

 (Indian for grizzly), a small town on the Okanagan Lake, 

 having previously secured the services of that well-known and 

 able guide and hunter, Aeneas MacDougall. Aeneas, if called 

 an Indian, would probably be greatly oifended, for his grand- 

 mother had been a French Canadian, but white blood seemed 

 scarce even in the veins of his father, while he himself has the 

 broad Mongolian face and dark colouring of a true Siwash Indian. 

 The family lives on a native reserve on the opposite shore of the 

 beautiful mountain-girt lake, and subsists by agriculture, fishing, 

 and trapping. The male members take shooting parties in 

 spring and autumn into the surrounding country, and in return 

 pocket goodly sums. Their name as reliable guides has long 

 since been made, and fees are correspondingly large. 



We, Aeneas, his brother as cook, I, and six horses, were 

 bound for the mountains drained by the Mission Creek which 

 enters Okanagan Lake close by a Mission station the oldest 

 white settlement in the country. 



We passed many small ranches all doing well in this fertile 

 valley. We crossed a range of treeless hills and mounds over 

 which Nature had lavishly spread a gorgeous carpet of brilliant 

 gold, a sheet of dwarf marigolds in full bloom, the blossoms so 

 close together as almost to hide entirely the silvery grey leaves 

 of the parent plant a lovely picture in this brilliant sunshine and 

 a pasture greatly appreciated by our horses, who every moment 

 stopped to raise the flowers, but utterly disdained the leaves. 

 Indeed, our ponies enjoyed themselves thoroughly during that 



