Vo!. LXXXVII 
SEPTEMBER, 1917 
No. 9 
OUTFITTING FOR BIG GAME IN THE ROCKIES 
A PRACTICAL ARTICLE ON HOW, WHEN, AND WHERE TO GO, 
THE MISTAKES THAT ARE MADE AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 
T HE writer of the following notes lays 
no claim to authorship; it would be 
strange if he did, since his life from 
youth up to the half century mark, has been 
spent in hunting and trapping with neither 
time nor inclination to use a pen. There¬ 
fore if he has failed to express himself 
clearly to sportsmen readers, they will un¬ 
derstand the reason why. 
To write of British Columbia as a whole 
—from a sporting point of view—would 
require a volume of matter in detail, in fact 
it would be impossible, so vast are its half 
explored solitudes of 395,000 square miles 
of territory, all of which offer more or less 
unlimited opportunities for the securing of 
big game trophies. I will therefore con¬ 
fine these notes to one particular district 
which, with the exception of the Cassiar 
and Pacific . Coast, will cover the whole 
Province. 
This district is the East Kootenay, which 
lies in the South-East corner, and has been 
selected for the following reasons—because 
it carries more species of big game than 
any other known territory on the conti¬ 
nent; offers first-class trout fishing on 
stream and lake; with a canoe trip of, 
roughly, 250 miles down one river and 
back down another to within 30 miles of 
starting point, all the way through the 
heart of big game, fishing and wild-fowl 
shooting, sections. It was from these facts 
during the early days that it formed the 
chief hunting grounds of the Indians, many 
battles being fought for its possession by 
different tribes. Also it has the strongest 
Radium Hot Springs at present known to 
man, with several Ochre Mud Springs at 
the head of Paint Pot Creek, which were 
resorted to by Indians many days distant 
for war paint purposes, hence the name. 
And finally, it lies nearest to all Eastern 
and South-Eastern points and so within 
reach of sportsmen of all calibers. Many 
parts of it are still unmapped and un¬ 
known to anyone but a few trappers. 
The man who enters the Rockies for the 
By UBIQUE 
first time in pursuit of its large and varied 
fauna, will have entered a new world; and 
if he has been accustomed to hunting, 
broadly speaking, in the flat, forested, lake 
besprinkled game sections of the East, it is 
strongly suggested here that he leave his 
experience at home—with his guide, as the 
conditions of terrain, fauna, mode of travel 
and hunting, equipment and guides, are en¬ 
tirely opposite. Outside of making a canoe 
trip down a fast mountain stream or on 
placid lake for the mere pleasure of canoe¬ 
ing, all game is explored for and shot on 
foot in the face of such natural obstacles 
as: Criss-crossed down timber on moun¬ 
tain sides, climbing over jagged masses of 
rock and through tangled underbrush, up 
boulder-strewn ravines, across “loose shale 
and slide rock” at and above timber-line 
“Who Goes There” 
in a rarified atmosphere, that will be ad¬ 
mitted, calls for physical soundness as a 
sine qua non. 
On the other hand it must be remem¬ 
bered that these natural obstacles are what 
has protected a magnificent head of game 
from many enemies of various kinds—in¬ 
cluding the ubiquitous Redman—down the 
long centuries to the present day, and will 
continue to protect them in the future from 
half civilized whites, despite the make- 
belief, but don’t-care—inefficient efforts of 
puny legislators. 
All travel from and back to outfitting 
points is done in the saddle over rough pack 
and game trails, that lead up and through 
passes, across marshes, rapid creeks and 
swift rivers, and in some cases clean up 
to timber-line, where camp may be pitched 
in one of the many beautiful park mead¬ 
ows 7,000 feet above sea level. From this 
and other similar camps the modus op- 
erandi of exploring for and stalking the 
various species will be on foot, as for ex¬ 
ample: From one to three thousand feet 
above camp for—Sheep and Goat; in the 
grassy basins, ravines and scrubby timber 
around camp for—Grizzly, Black Bear, 
Cougar, Mule Deer, (and in Sept.) Bull 
Moose; below camp in the heavy timber 
for—Wapiti; while still lower until the 
river bottoms are reached for—Virginian 
Deer, (and in Oct. and Nov.) Bull Moose 
again. 
These nine varieties have their habitat 
in both Ranges running parallel with the 
Kootenay in the first 75 or 80 miles of its 
course, while the tenth—Caribou—has its 
habitat in the Selkirk Range which runs 
parallel with the Columbia River. These 
two rivers will be described later on. 
A great lawyer once said that genius is 
simply perspiration. Probably; but the big 
game hunter who wants to become suc¬ 
cessful will have to tack on time and pa¬ 
tience in front of the lawyer’s simple rem¬ 
edy or go home empty-handed: These two 
simple rules, time and patience, if closely 
