Canadian Rocky Mountains. 299 



The Indians hunting on the western slopes of this part of 

 the mountains are the Kootanies, (Kootenuha or upper 

 Kootanies) with their headquarters in the valley of the same 

 name, together with a small colony of the Shuswap Indians 

 of the Selish stock, with a village near the Columbia Lakes 

 and regarded as intruders by the Kootanies. The Kootanies 

 claim, in theory, all the mountains west of the watershed, 

 as their peculiar hunting-grounds, and in former days made 

 annual excursions for the purpose of hunting the Buffalo, 

 across the range to the Great Plains, where they came into 

 frequent collision with the Blackfoot tribes. The latter in 

 turn occasionally carried retaliatory raids across the moun- 

 tains to the Kootanie Valley, for the purpose of stealing 

 horses, and many are the tales still told among them of these 

 forays. The eastern slopes of the range and adjacent foot- 

 hills are now hunted over by the Mountain Stoneys, a 

 branch of the Assiniboines. These people are comparatively 

 recent immigrants, dating their connection with the district 

 about forty years back only. They intermarried with a tribe 

 of Eocky Mountain Crees, who formerly maintained them- 

 selves here, but have since lost their identity among the 

 Stoneys, though both languages are still commonly spoken. 

 The extraordinary paucity of local names, whether Cree or 

 Assiniboine — even in the case of important streams and 

 mountains — in this part of the region, leads me to believe 

 that the Crees themselves had not very long possessed these 

 mountains, which, it seems highly probable, at no very dis- 

 tant date, were frequented only by the Kootanies. The 

 Blackfoot tribes, being essentially plain Indians, can scarcely 

 be supposed to have inhabited this wild, and to their ideas, 

 naturally repulsive mountain country. The Crees may 

 probably have penetrated to it about the date when they 

 were first supplied with fire-arms by the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, when they are known to have been very formida- 

 ble and aggressive. 



In addition to the buffalo, the foot-hills formerly abounded 

 in other game, particularly the mule deer, wapiti and white- 

 tailed or jumping deer. With the exception of the buffalo, 

 all these animals are still to be found, but in much diminished 



