486 
FOREST AND STREAM 
September, 1920 
Where earth and sky meet on a wonder plain of beauty 
horses, and caused the Indians to cut 
many capers not comporting- with their 
usual dignity. The yellow- jacket is the 
tabasco sauce of life on the trail. 
Before we reached the Klappan River 
other hunting parties with whom we 
traveled had left the main trail by vari- 
ous side trails and our party, alone, 
crossed the Klappan a short distance 
northeast of Ehallueh Lake. The pla- 
teau just west of the Klappan crossing 
has an elevation of about 4000 feet but 
there is a sharp descent to the crossing 
which is at an elevation of 2700 feet. 
In crossing the Klappan the packs and 
men were ferried over in a boat and 
the horses swam across. 
Approaching our first hunting camp 
at timber line there was a marked change 
in all things. Here were the tracks of 
moose, caribou and grizzly bear. An oc- 
casional goat was seen on the cliffs and 
a herd of caribou feeding on the moun- 
tain side. The clouds cleared away, 
there was a decided drop in the tem- 
perature and fair weather seemed to have 
come to abide a while. 
From the Indians I gathered the latest 
stories about the game. Eight goats were 
killed in the spring by a snow slide on 
Ball Creek, a tributary of the Iskut 
River. There is no doubt that snow 
slides in the north country cause a loss 
of much wild animal life and indeed 
they often cause the loss of human life. 
A man who is unusually observant and 
who has lived in these mountains for 
more than twenty years, gives an inter- 
esting statement of the cause of the snow 
slides. Since to know the cause is to be 
fore-warned it is well to learn it. Briefly 
stated, a snow slide is caused by the 
shifting of new snow upon settled snow. 
To illustrate: a fall of three feet of 
snow will settle down, or pack under the 
pressure of its own weight, to about a 
foot or sixteen inches. If a fall of light 
snow two or three feet in depth comes 
on top of this settled, or packed snow, the 
new snow will shift and slide upon the 
packed snow in steep places. It may 
start with a small shift but such a shift 
withdraws the support necessary to sus- 
tain the snow above it and so on until 
an extensive slide is the final result. 
When the conditions are right for snow 
slides the experienced winter hunter and 
trapper is very careful as to where he 
goes in the mountains. 
Some moose perished during the win- 
ter in a most unusual" manner. For shel- 
ter from a severe storm they took refuge 
at the head of a precipitous canyon. The 
snow drifted in high behind them, there- 
by cutting off their way out. Without 
food, starvation so weakened them that 
they succumbed to the cold. 
I N Cassair the mountain ram is the first 
game sought by the hunting parties. 
The reason for this is that those ani- 
mals frequent the high altitudes and 
places difficult of access and it is de- 
sirable to secure them before rough 
weather sets in. 
While we were eating breakfast on the 
morning of the opening of the season we 
saw goat, caribou and a small sheep. 
This looked as though we would secure 
game, but a hard hunt from early in the 
morning until late at night brought no 
result but we had an interesting time. 
The mountains in which we spent the 
day are excellent for caribou but there 
were no sheep. Bull caribou were stand- 
ing on the many snow banks, but their 
antlers were still in the velvet. All had 
their heads hung low as though the 
weight of the antlers bore the head to 
the earth. Some times they moved about 
slowly, and occasionally they would roll 
on the snow. 
The theory of the Indian is that the 
caribou stands on the ice and snow to 
keep cool ; that as the bull caribou is very 
fat in September this condition causes 
his body to be very hot and he seeks the 
ice and snow to cool himself. 
Others believe that the caribou seeks 
the ice and snow to avoid the black flies 
and other insect pests. Such pests are 
not so plentiful over the ice as over the 
grass. I have seen caribou, while feed- 
ing along, shake their heads vigorously 
and frequently for the apparent purpose 
of ridding themselves of insects. And it 
is for that purpose that they roll on the 
snow and run from one snow bank to 
another. 
There may be something, though, in 
the theory of the Indian. An incident 
coming under my observation would 
seem to justify it. One afternoon, when 
the thermometer registered 80°, and the 
sun was unusually bright, I was crossing 
an extensive bank of snow. On the snow 
the air was cool and comfortable, but as 
I came close to the line of slide rock 
bordering the snow it seemed as if, in an 
instant, I had stepped into a current of 
heated air. The change was so sudden 
it was startling. The slide rock had been 
warmed by the sun and gave off heat, but 
of course this could not be the case with 
the snow. So a caribou may go to the. 
snow at mid-day to cool himself as well 
as to avoid his tormentors. 
We saw two coyotes loping off so far 
in the distance that they) appeared sha- 
dowy. In the evening a black wolf sat 
on his haunches at sky line, and a small 
bull caribou trotted up to within twenty- 
five yards of us, took a good look, shook 
his antlers and then made away at his 
most stylish gait. 
It was interesting to observe the dif- 
ference in the tracks made by the horse 
and the caribou in the wet mosses. The 
hoofs of the horse would sink deep ami 
Route of the Klappan Hunt 
