FOREST AND STREAM 
471 
* 
Big Game Possibilities of the East Kootenay 
Here is a Where To Article by a Man Who Made a Careful Exploration 
of One of the Best Game Sections on the North American Continent 
1 he following letter has been written for “Forest and Stream” by a sportsman for sports¬ 
men in search of hunting territory. All information as far as possible has been given, so that 
intending sportsmen may be fully informed as to conditions to be met with. 
ROM a long experience in various 
parts of the Rockies I affirm 
confidently that in no other part 
can so many different species 
of big game trophies be found 
in the same district as the East 
Kootenay. It has been very 
little hunted in recent years and 
is therefore, generally speaking, very little known 
to alien sportsmen, and so offers splendid oppor¬ 
tunities for the securing of several trophies in 
the same district. 
That part of the East Kootenay I refer to lies 
on and about the head waters of the Vermillion, 
Simpson, Ice, Moose, Tokem and several other 
creeks and rivers—all tributaries of the Kootenay 
River, and north in the same belt of country as 
that hunted over in 1905 by the authors of “Camp 
Fires in the Rockies,” Messrs. Hornaday and 
Phillips. 
I have, in the past few years, made several ex¬ 
ploring trips as to game conditions on the above 
tributaries, and have just returned from another 
this spring (end of May). 
The new well-informed big game hunter does 
not require to be told that various species of our 
By Ubique. 
native game are becoming beautifully less and less 
broadly speaking — throughout the western 
mountains. 
Outside of National parks and a few, very few, 
wild districts, British Columbia and Alaska shel¬ 
ter the last of the big game. Although science 
has moved forward with giant strides in all de¬ 
partments in the last twenty years, little or noth¬ 
ing has been done for the better protection and 
increase of our Fauna. British Columbia is no 
exception to the rule; therefore, one may be ex¬ 
cused for expressing satisfaction on suddenly 
finding himself in the midst of a well stocked 
game country. To stand, for instance, as I did a 
couple of weeks ago, on a gravel bar at the 
forks of three creeks and through a pair of ordi¬ 
nary field glasses see five goats quietly feeding 
below timber-line, and below them on a grassy 
“slide” three bears doing the same, while by turn¬ 
ing partially around, as though on a pivot, and 
looking down stream to encounter two young 
bucks (white-tails), and below them just wading 
across the river a huge bull moose, and just below 
him again, standing quietly on a bar at a bend 
in the river, two wapiti (elk) is, I venture to 
say. a feat that cannot be repeated to-day outside 
of British Columbia or Alaska. Even in these 
two huge countries and—generally speaking—un¬ 
settled, it is very doubtful if all the following 
species of game can be found in any other dis¬ 
trict outside of the East Kootenay: 
(1) Bear—Grizzly, silver-tip, cinnamon and 
black, all fairly abundant throughout. Of the 
many hundreds of “slides” on the tributaries men¬ 
tioned, all those examined show “signs,” more or 
less, of bear, by fresh droppings, spoor, well 
padded trails, beds, feeding places on “slides," 
trees barked, and gopher burrows torn up by the 
great claws of the grizzly. 
(2) Moose—Very abundant throughout the 
northern part of Kootenay River and tributaries. 
Some good heads can be obtained on these tribu¬ 
taries, where a shot has not been fired in years. 
While hunting moose on the main Kootenay 
River last December, I saw with naked eye thir¬ 
ty-six moose (cows, calves and bulls), in three 
days within a radius of six miles, on a burnt 
“slash,” running along the mountain side. 
(3) Wapiti—Fairly numerous, as indicated by 
their droppings, spoor, battle grounds, velvet 
cleaning from horns on trees, and shed horns 
lying about. Having been on the protected list 
