CAMP ON BEAR CREEK AFTER A HEAVY RAIN. 



trees which has been burned over and noth- 

 ing remains but the tall, charred stumps 

 lifting their mournful skeletons to the sky. 

 It is a desolate spot, but the immediate 

 surroundings are forgotten when one 

 glances North and sees the tall peaks of 

 the Saskatchewan valley, 50 miles away, 

 and dim outlines of still others beyond 

 them.. 



A few hundred yards from our camp we 

 see traces of the great grizzly of the Sas- 

 katchewan valley. This old bear has be- 

 come known to the trappers in the vicinity 

 for her enormous size and her wonderful 

 sagacity in eluding the hunter. He would 

 be an ardent sportsman who would 

 hunt very hard after gazing at the 

 enormous tracks of the beast. Beside the 

 trail we see the spot where the great 

 creature has buried the carcass of a 

 whole horse, abandoned by some pack train, 

 as a dog would bury a bone. These bears 

 run up to 1,600 pounds in weight and are 

 proportionately strong. They are hard to 

 kill, often running 100 yards after being 

 shot through the heart. Ordinarily they 

 keep to themselves and mind their own 

 business ; but woe to the unhappy being 

 who encounters a mother with cubs or is 

 unfortunate enough to slightly wound one 

 of the race, male or female. 



The weather being settled, we sleep with- 

 out a tent, wrapped in our blankets or per- 

 haps ^ neatly hidden in the folds of our 

 sleeping bag. It is truly sublime to sleep 

 out under the stars, with the great moun- 

 tains looming dimly against the sky, and 

 to be awakened early in the morning by 

 the roar of the snow falling from the gla- 

 ciers miles to our left. Creeping out from 

 our warm bed, we see the tips of the moun- 

 tains in the West tinged by the first pink 

 rays of the rising sun. Down in the valley 



all is still and no sound reaches us save the 

 distant roar of the stream and the soft 

 sighing of the trees, swayed by the morn- 

 ing wind. Already the- cook is sleepily 

 preparing breakfast of oatmeal, coffee and 

 bacon. A few minutes after breakfast to 

 smoke our pipes and talk it over ; then the 

 day is fairly started. The cook cleans his 

 dishes, while we catch and saddle _ our 

 horses and pick up our various belongings. 

 In an hour or 2 we are in the saddle, driv- 

 ing the pack horses over as hard a trail as 

 there is in the mountains. One poor horse, 

 known as "the white scut," is hopelessly 

 stupid. Again and again she leaves the 

 trail, gets wedged in among the trees and 

 tears her pack. From the burned timber 

 we get into a windfall of live timber, which 

 is scarcely better. An idea of the difficul- 

 ties of packing in that country may be 

 gathered from the fact that it often is 

 necessary for the animals to step over as 

 many as 20 fallen trees in 5 minutes. 



We are following down from its source, 

 amid the glaciers, the South branch of the 

 North fork of the Saskatchewan, better 

 known as Bear cieek. For nearly a week 

 we move along its banks and watch it grow 

 from a pretty brook into a truculent moun- 

 tain torrent. At last the trail emerges 

 from a dense growth of timber, so thick 

 and overgrown with brush that we can not 

 see 50 feet ahead. It comes out on a great, 

 flat, sandy river bottom. There, within a 

 radius of a mile or 2, 3 rivers come to- 

 gether, each from its separate valley. From 

 the North comes the North fork of the 

 Saskatchewan, from the West flows the 

 main stream, heading 20 miles away in the 

 Howse pass ; and from the South Bear 

 creek, which we have been following. The 

 last few days have been warm, consequently 

 the melting snow has flooded the streams, 



268 



