March, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
145 
IK* 
WWlM 
With the glasses we located a fair sized ram and four small ones some distance away on the cliffs 
(Photograph by Worden, Wrangell) 
and tributaries for a distance of five or six 
hundred miles in order to spawn. Salmon 
are hatched in fresh water and at once 
make their way down the streams to the 
salt water. They return in four or five 
years to spawn and, having done so, die 
in the fresh water. At Shesley these 
salmon will take the fly and the angler 
can get all the thrills in contest with them 
he may desire.' 
There are many lakes along the trail, 
some quite large, and some of the basins 
are much like the Madison Basin in Mon¬ 
tana. The lakes are well stocked with fish 
and there are many ducks around them. 
Our Indians had never been out of this 
region and had never seen a railroad train, 
street car or automobile. I asked one of 
them why he did not go to Vancouver 
some time to see the sights and he an¬ 
swered : “Enough to do in my own coun¬ 
try ; poison out there.” Upon another oc¬ 
casion, after a hard day’s travel, the wran¬ 
gler threw himself upon the ground and 
said: “I guess I smoke now; cool day; 
travel fast; I swear every step.” He had 
been too busy to smoke. 
We saw some fresh beaver cuttings of 
large cottonwood and aspen trees, their 
houses and slides; the tracks of grizzlies 
along the creek where they sought salmon, 
but still no game trails such as one sees 
in the Rockies in Montana and Wyoming. 
The reason for the absence of game trails 
is that our western Indian was a horse¬ 
man and his horses followed and helped 
maintain the game trails, but the northern 
Indians use dogs instead, and dogs and 
moccasins leave no permanent trail. 
Heart Mountain, with an altitude of 
5 ,ioo feet, is the one landmark of this 
trail and you almost circle it on the way to 
the sheep mountains near Nahlin. 
At Nahlin Ned. for the first time in his 
life, made use of the telephone. The In¬ 
dian wife of the operator at the next sta¬ 
tion talked with him, and though Ned 
thought it wonderful that they could con¬ 
verse with each other when forty miles 
apart, he was most impressed with the 
'j'HE first part of Mr. Bannon’s 
-* story of hunting in the Cassiar 
game fields, which appeared in the 
February issue of Forest and Stream, 
contained many practical and valu¬ 
able suggestions about how to get 
there, outfitting for a big game hunt, 
weather conditions, legal formalities, 
etc. The closing article will appear 
in the April issue; it describes meth¬ 
ods of hunting mountain goat, cari¬ 
bou and moose. The information 
contained in these articles is inter¬ 
esting to all sportsmen and of great 
value to the prospective hunter of 
big game in this district. [Editors.] 
fact that they could converse in either In¬ 
dian or English over the same telephone. 
Hunting Fannin Sheep 
T HE Indian does not go as far as the 
big game hunter for the purpose of 
hunting for himself as the distance 
The guides and a Fannin ram 
from Telegraph Creek is too great and he 
has no horses with which to carry his 
game home. Lacking the means of trans¬ 
portation he must content himself with the 
moose and caribou which are nearer his 
home. The moose is to the northern In¬ 
dian what the buffalo was to the western 
Indian. So these remote game fields are 
the preserve of the big game hunter. 
The sheep of Cassiar, like the Ovis Can¬ 
adensis, are separated with respect to the 
sexes at this time of the year. The. ewes, 
lambs and an occasional yearling are at 
the lower altitudes, the large rams near 
the summit, and occasionally between these 
two classes one sees bands composed of 
one large ram with a few small ones. 
The air was cool and crisp when I started 
on the hunt up the mountain. The alti¬ 
tude of these mountains is not much over 
four thousand feet, so during the sheep 
hunt the same degree of exhaustion is not 
suffered as in climbing to the high altitudes 
in Montana and Wyoming. The hunter 
can climb easier and walk faster than in 
our western mountains and as I can neither 
climb well or fast, this factor proved of 
great advantage to me and it is one of 
the chief factors entering into the success 
of hunters in the Cassiar country. 
Billy Fan and I got to the summit in 
about two hours but I fell injuring my 
knee badly. From then on I took my time 
and went slowly. With the glasses Billy 
located a large and small Fannin ram, but 
the wind and location were such that we 
could not approach to within reasonable 
range. He also located a fair-sized ram 
and four small ones some distance away 
and on the opposite side of another ridge. 
We decided to try a long shot at the single 
one and then go to the others. The two 
rams scented us as we approached and 
away they went. I missed, but the bullets 
went so close I was tempted to and did, 
without success, empty the magazine. We 
then crossed over to the four rams and 
crept up to a little bench about two hun¬ 
dred yards from them. They looked mighty 
(continued on page 173) 
