Vol. xc 
DECEMBER, 1920 
No. 12 
CARIBOU AND MOOSE IN KLAPPAN 
CONTINUING THE STORY OF A HUNTER’S WANDERINGS IN THE WILDER- 
NESS [OF | THE CASSIAR DISTRICT IN NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA 
I N the September (1920) number of 
Forest and Stream, I wrote of the 
mountain goats and Stone sheep that 
frequent the Klappan game ranges 
south of the Stikine River. In color 
these sheep are different from any 
mountain sheep found in North Amer- 
ica. Since writing that article I have 
read Demidoff’s interesting and beauti- 
ful book, “A Shooting Trip to Kam- 
chatka.” In this book a species of sheep 
is described which appears to be much 
like the Stone sheep. Examine your 
map of the world and you will see that 
the peninsula of Kamchatka is across 
the Bering Sea from Alaska. A series 
of islands, of which the Aleutians are 
the main group, extend between Kam- 
chatka and the Alaskan Peninsula. 
Demidoff hunted the species of mountain 
sheep of Kamchatka known as the Ovis 
nivicola. His book contains photographs 
of the horns and pelt of the animal; 
also photographs of two mounted speci- 
mens of a ram and ewe. As I am 
neither a naturalist nor a zoologist, any 
comparison I might make of the Ovis 
nivicola and the Ovis stonei would lack 
authority. Nevertheless, I was much 
impressed with the similarity of the two 
species. The shape of the horns seems 
identical ; and the color of the pelts, as 
nearly as can be known from the illus- 
trations, is much the same. The Ovis 
nivicola appears to be darker than the 
Stone sheep, though, apparently not 
much darker than one that I killed on 
the Klappan hunt, which was pro- 
nounced by my outfitter (Frank Gall- 
breath) to be the darkest that he had 
ever seen. It is possible that the Ovis 
stonei and the Ovis nivicola were orig- 
inally the same, and that the North 
American species is lighter in color as 
the result of interbreeding with the Dali 
sheep. It would be well to know 
whether in fact these sheep have such 
similar marked characteristics as would 
warrant the conclusion that the Stone 
sheep came from the Kamchatka stock. 
Some one who knows more about it than 
By HENRY BANNON 
I will have to settle that. It is an in- 
teresting study of geologly, geography 
and animal life. 
O F equal interest with the sheep and 
goats of Cassiar are the caribou 
and the moose. After we finished 
the sheep hunt, described in the previ- 
ous number of Forest and Stream, the 
camp was moved to the base of Caribou 
Mountain. This name, however, means 
Ptarmigan in fall plumage 
nothing to the geographer for there are 
as many Caribou Mountains in Cassiar 
as there are Elk Creeks in Wyoming. 
This particular Caribou Mountain is 
not composed of peaks, but is ia broad, 
rolling highland, about thirty miles in 
length, lying northwest of Cold Fish 
Lake. The Stikine River runs along its 
northern slopes. Its lower sides are 
covered with green timber and quaking 
aspen; beyond the line of this timber 
there is a belt of high willow and the 
Betula glandulosa, a dwarf form of 
birch called “buck brush” by the In- 
dians; above the birch grow stunted 
willows and toward the summit grow . 
the grasses and lichen-like mosses upon 
which caribou delight to feed. Moose 
range in the green timber and willow 
at the base and along the lower side of 
the mountain, and the caribou frequent 
the summit. The older bull caribou 
were still either high up among the 
surrounding peaks, standing upon the 
snow and ice, or down in the green tim- 
ber. The velvet on their antlers was 
only beginning to be shed. 
The first day’s hunt was convincing 
that the season was still early for the 
large bulls. Many cows, young bulls 
and yearlings were seen. There were 
very few calves. Thirty-eight caribou 
were once in sight on the sky line. We 
rode into a herd of eight that trotted 
about us within easy range. Occasion- 
ally they would make graceful leaps. The 
rutting season does not begin until after 
the middle of September and, as the 
larger bulls were not with the bands 
it was evident that they were all still 
on the high places, or back in the green 
timber. I would prefer to hunt them 
in the high places, where they are iso- 
lated, but the difficulties of packing in 
and out of such regions are too great. 
We saw two moose at timber line and, 
as the antlers of one of them seemed 
good, we stalked them. On our way a 
coyote trotted ahead of us within shoot- 
ing distance, but we were not hunting 
them. The moose lay down and, witii 
the wind in our favor, we crept to with- 
in fifty yards of the smaller one. His 
antlers were decidedly inferior, so we 
wanted a look at the other fellow. As 
he was not in sight we made a little 
rustle in the grass to disturb the smaller 
bull and cause him to get up. When two 
moose are togther any action upon the 
part of one of them, showing that he 
has taken alarm, is an alarm to the 
other moose. Soon both were on their 
feet. Their antlers were very small and 
poorly formed. The guide and I lay 
Contents Copyrighted, 1920, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
