THE MOOSE AND WAPITI OF MANITOBA 



A PLEA FOR THEIR PRESERVATION 



do not see the same favorable state of 

 things existing. In the matter of 

 game protection it has long been felt 

 that we have been far more success- 

 ful than our neighbors to the south, 

 but the time has arrived for us also to 

 seriously consider the wapiti and its 

 future outlook. If we do not take 

 prompt measures for its further pro- 

 tection, the day is not far distant 

 when we will be unable to include it 

 among the wild animals not only of 

 Manitoba, but u£ Canada. 



Though often termed the "prairie 

 province," Manitoba in reality only 

 embraces within its boundaries about 

 one-half of its total area in prairie 

 country. Roughly speaking, this pra- 

 irie belt is the eastern extremity of 

 the great prairie of the Canadian 

 West, which enveloping the south- 

 western half of the province, gradually 

 dies away as it approaches the valley 

 of the Red River and the southern and 

 western slopes of the Riding and Duck 

 Mountains. Bluffs and belts of decidu- 

 ous trees lie irregularly scattered over 

 this broad expanse, or follow the many 

 winding courses of the rivers and 

 streams, and in some localities the 

 country assumes a rough and hilly 

 character, where isolated growths of 

 evergreens — outriders of the great, 

 coniferous forest of the north — replace 

 the unvarying monotony of the wind- 

 swept prairies. Over the northeastern 

 half of the province, and in marked 

 contrast to this matchless land of farm 

 industry and plenty, the silent, thinly- 

 settled forest stretches away in all its 

 wild, untrammeled grandeur; and 

 though showing the ravages of forest 

 fires and the bite of the woodman's 

 axe, it still defies the outer world and 

 holds aloof the persistent tread of set- 

 tlement. Far back from the encroach- 

 ment of the steel-shod roads of com- 

 merce, and the little, frontier towns 

 lies the wilderness — where the poor 

 remnants of the persecuted redman 



still find freedom, and where the 

 magnificent, wild animals of the north, 

 still roam in the threatened security 

 of their natural haunts. Here in one 

 of the finest game-lands of the mod- 

 ern day, though threatened by the 

 march of modern time, the mighty 

 moose and lordly wapiti 



Still Live and Thrive. 

 Over this little-known regio i of the 

 northern forest, Nature seems to have 

 run riot in a bewildering chaosi of 

 muskeg and ridge, rock and swamp- 

 in summer a forbidding, fly-infested 

 land palpitating with wild life, in win- 

 ter a huge, frozen solitude— and to 

 have thrown down in careless disorder 

 tangles of forest errowt^c, made the 

 more inextricable by the destructive 

 elements of fire and storm. Deep-fur- 

 rowed heaps of storm-tossed trunks 

 lie piled in countless confusions of de- 

 cay .while from the tangled rootsi and 

 wreckage underneath, the youny. 

 straight-stemmed forest of the second 

 growth springs un. Or where the for- 

 est fire has swept along great, lonely 

 wastes of bare, blackened tamaracs 

 ear their sullen stumps above the 

 spongy iswamps. Here and there be- 

 tween the dense belts of forest lie 

 broad, park-like ridges free of under- 

 brush, over whicl the iackpines grow 

 planted and spaced off by Nature's 

 hand with wonderful exactness. Gro-es 

 of poplar, spruce and birch, hazel and 

 willow thickets, tamarac and cedar 

 swamps, clothe the land in an endless 

 succession of vast, silent forest which 

 3'tretehesi far away to the north to- 

 ward the "land of little sticks." 



Through most of the length fnd 

 breadth of this forest region and rea- 

 sonably distant from the settlements, 

 moose are plentiful. Penetrnt~ it in 

 winter almoist where you will, and you 

 will find their tracks leading back and 

 forth from one feeding ground to an- 

 other. Everywhere you go you will cee 

 the willow and birch growths shorn of 

 their upper branches as with a scythe, 



