Silver-Tip Surprises 
north of the Tetons as anyone then available. 
At the lake we received a hearty greeting 
During a Hunting Trip for Big Game with the 
Camera on the Upper Yellowstone River 
By GEORGE SHIRAS, 3d 
I T has come to the knowledge of some of 
the readers of Forest and Stream, and 
especially to its editor, via the redoubtable 
Billy Hofer, of Montana, that last year I had 
some rather lively and amusing experiences in 
an effort to ascend the Upper Yellowstone River 
into Wyoming by canoe. 
I am glad to respond to r 
the request for the 
story, the more so be¬ 
cause I am preparing to 
make another trial in 
August, and it is usually 
well to put on record 
the results of one trip, 
if interesting, before un¬ 
dertaking a second one 
to the same place. 
In my many hunting 
trips with the camera 
and flashlight, covering 
some twenty years, I 
had never succeeded in 
getting any good pic¬ 
tures of bears or of a 
big bull elk. For a long¬ 
time I had my eye on 
that portion of the map 
covering -the country ly¬ 
ing northeast of the 
Tetons in Wyoming and not many miles south 
of Yellowstone Park. This seemed a likely 
place for several varieties of big game as yet 
by me unpictured. 
Late in July I left my summer camp on Lake 
Superior, with my old Norwegian guide, John 
Hammer, and after reaching Gardiner we made 
up our outfit—including a large canvas canoe— 
and in a spring wagon entered the park. 
At the Mammoth Hot Springs military post 
the party was registered for Wyoming via the 
park, and it then and there developed that some¬ 
where in my outfit there was a little .32 caliber 
revolver, and to the request that it be produced 
and sealed I demurred, simply because I had 
no idea where it was and the search for it 
might mean the removal of everything from- the 
wagon. A few minutes later I looked up my 
old friend, General Young, the superintendent, 
and after making the proper stipulations, he 
directed that the outfit be passed just as it was. 
What effect the carrying this unsealed revolver 
had later on must be judged by the readers. 
The next day we reached Yellowstone Lake 
and here, with the assistance of Billy Hofer, 
the controlling spirit in a boat company recently 
granted privileges for public transportation on 
YOUNG PELICANS ON MOLLY ISLANDS. 
Photographed by Geo. Shiras, 3d. 
the lake, I arranged that one of the larger 
electric launches should convey me to the south¬ 
east corner of this beautiful body of water 
where I expected to ascend the Upper Yellow¬ 
stone to Bridger Lake, in Wyoming. 
Before leaving for the West I had made in¬ 
quiry through the appropriate department in 
Washington for information regarding the navi¬ 
gable character of the Upper Yellowstone and 
had received assurances there, as well as from 
the authorities at the park, that the upper river 
was without falls or rapids, and carried suffi¬ 
cient water for a heavily laden canoe. Whether 
the current was swift or not no one seemed to 
know, for boat or canoe had never ascended it 
so far as reported. 
Besides my Lake Superior guide I took with 
me George Ferrell, of Gardiner, who for twenty- 
five years had been a hunter, guide or park 
attache and who was believed to have about 
as much local knowledge of the country lying 
from Billy Hofer, who was found in the act 
of opening a package of Roman candles to be 
used in firing at the bears, whose ever-increas¬ 
ing depredations made the running of an out¬ 
fitting store an unprofitable undertaking. That 
night I slept in one corner of a canvas-covered 
storehouse and, noticing a large ragged hole in 
the wall, I told Hofer there seemed to be no 
trouble about ventilation, when he said: “I 
think not, and you may have more before morn¬ 
ing, because that hole was made by a black bear 
night before last, when he butted in and went 
off with one of my biggest hams.” My Michi¬ 
gan guide thought we ought to sleep on an 
upper shelf, but John ’never had much use for 
bear on the hoof. 
Though my trip was 
primarily in pursuit of 
bear, and with not very 
good prospects of suc¬ 
cess at the place we 
were going, it was nev¬ 
ertheless r e m a r k a ble 
how tame and plentiful 
were the bears about the 
various hotels. Camping 
in the neighborhood 
were two big-game pho- 
tographers, one of 
whom had made a spe¬ 
cial effort to photograph 
bears in the State of 
Washington, but . had 
never had much luck. 
But here they were bom¬ 
barding bears, big and 
little, by daylight and 
flashlight, with every 
prospect of using up 
several hundred plates in a few days. Such 
a collection, when taken by experts, ought to 
be valuable and interesting to the general pub¬ 
lic, if not to sportsmen. But, after all, this is 
simply photographing bear with the camera, and 
not hunting them with the camera. 
Some Ethics in Camera Hunting. 
While a sportsman from youth and especially 
: 
a hunter of big game, I had no idea, when I 
substituted the camera for the gun, of follow¬ 
ing any other ethics of sportsmanship than the 
hunting of wild life under conditions precisely 
similar to those pursued in hunting with fire¬ 
arms. To be sure one might photograph game 
out of season or train his lenses upon rare birds 
and animals not ordinarily classed as game, but 
in most other respects the rules of the contest 
should be the same. Therefore—except in the 
case of some elk naturalized on a large island 
in Lake Superior—I had always avoided photo- 
