BIG GAME OF THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 103 



To the big-game hunter, the pursuit of the mountain sheep is prob- 

 ably the most fascinating of all sports. Not only do the regions in 

 which it is found make a powerful appeal to the imagination, but the 

 great care needed to avoid being seen in this open country, the scram- 

 bles among snow-covered pinnacles to get within range, the long, dif- 

 ficult shots sometimes necessary, all combine to make .the hunting of 

 the big-horn the foremost sport in the western mountains. It will, 

 indeed, be a calamity if this striking and characteristic animal is 

 allowed to disappear from the Canadian Rockies. 



Next in importance, though least in numbers among 

 W D V ^^^ Rocky Mountain big game, is the American elk or 



wapiti. Here we have an animal, one of the largest 

 of North American fauna, which once ranged nearly the entire con- 

 tinent in millions, now reduced so greatly that it has become pos- 

 sible to take a reasonably accurate census of its numbers. From 

 Mexico to the Peace river and from the Pacific to the Atlantic, be- 

 tween the St. Lawrence and the coast of South Carolina, was once the 

 home of the wapiti. To-day, a few scattered bands along the Rockies 

 between Colorado and the Brazeau river and some isolated herds in 

 the forests of northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, comprise the 

 entire wild elk left in North America. Probably the total does not 

 exceed 60,000 head, less than 5,000 of which are found in Canada. In 

 the Rockies the following is believed to be a very close estimate : 



Locality Not more Not less 



than than 



Oldman River drainage 300 150 



Highwood River drainage SO 20 



Brazeau River drainage IS S 



Total 365 17S 



Of these, the insignificant remnant in the valley of the Brazeau is 

 the last of the original elk herds of Alberta. Those now found in 

 the south are British Columbia elk that have migrated to the East slope 

 since the inauguration of a closed season on elk in Alberta some five 

 or six years ago. Originally an animal of the open plains and park-like 

 forests, the elk has now become almost exclusively a forest-dwelling 

 animal, but still avoids the swamps, muskegs and dense tangles of the 

 northern forests and keeps more to the open pine ridges, the dry 

 meadows and poplar groves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and to 

 the mountain glades and open, lodgepole pine forests on the East slope. 



Elk are grazing animals. They live principally on grass, weeds 

 and low brush, such as small poplar, birch and willows. This depend- 

 T 



