
Typical duck country—marshes and sloughs 
ORTHERN Alberta is a place 
N particularly suited to ducks, and, 
in a lesser degree, to the men 
who hunt them. From Sullivan Lake 
north to Lesser Slave Lake is a good 
territory for sportsmen. Not that the 
lakes stop there, though. Beyond Les- 
ser Slave the country is dotted with 
little lakes, muskeg pools, and creeks, 
where the ducks breed in thousands. 
But the region north of Lesser Slave 
is comparatively inaccessible. The 
favorite shooting area extends from 
the Hay Lake district in the south to 
Big Egg Lake, near Morinville, in the 
north. This leaves Edmonton, the cap- 
ital of the province, as a centre of oper- 
ations. Radiating out from Edmonton, 
like knots on the spokes of some ill-made 
wagon wheel, are hundreds of lakes, 
varying from bodies of water fifteen to 
twenty miles long to little potholes not 
twenty yards across, places where the 
fat mallards feed in the early mornings 
of fall. Immediately around the city 
the shooting is poor, but a ride of from 
ten to twenty miles puts the hunter in 
good duck territory. 
But woe to the man who wanders on 
to a forest reserve! The game guard- 
ians are watchful, and the very act of 
carrying a gun on such land constitutes 
an offense. In the duck area are Elk 
Island Park and the Cooking Lake For- 
est Reserve, stretches of muskeg coun- 
try, sand hills, and open bottom land 
dotted with marshes, where the ducks 
breed undisturbed except by their 
natural enemies. These two reserved 
areas form a strip eighteen miles long 
and about eight miles wide, and in- 
clude three big lakes, as well as a num- 
ber of smaller ones. East of the re- 
serves, and in shooting country once 
more, is Beaverhills Lake, one of the 
most famous habitats of water birds in 
Western Canada. Almost every type 
of inland water bird is to be found 
there, from the tiny Limicolae to great- 
winged geese and bitterns. 
Of all the ducks of this teeming region 
the two most prized by the hunter are 
the canvasback and the mallard. The 
former are not very plentiful. They 
breed in the lakes of this region, but 
seem for some unknown reason to be 
searce. Not so with the mallards. 
Great flocks of these come down out of 
the north every fall, to settle and feed 
for two months or so on the lakes of 
Northern Alberta before resuming their 
flight to the country where water does 
not freeze in the winter. 
ARLY in the fall they light in the 
smaller ponds and potholes, feed 
there, and spend their nights where they 
fed. Then is the time for the hunter 
who is fond of walking. I know of no 
more exciting sport than to rise before 
dawn, and start on the long tramp from 
pothole to pothole. Perhaps you find 
the first one empty. You go on, a little 
doubtful as to whether you will have 
any luck this morning. You come to a 
little dip in the ground, brim full of 
morning mist. Through the mist you 
catch a glimpse of water at the bottom 
of the depression. Suddenly there is a 
quacking and splashing, and out of the 
mist break half a dozen mallards, climb- 
ing for the sky. If you can shoot fast 
and straight you get one or two. If 
not, you should not try pothole shoot- 
ing. 
Later in the fall the freezing of the 
potholes drives the ducks to the larger 
lakes. There is where the great flight 
shooting is to be had. The sportsman 
takes his stand on a narrow neck of 
Wild - fowling 
in Northern 
Alberta 
Ducks and Geese Breed Here 
in Vast Numbers and the 
Shooting Is Excellent 
By K. H. BROADUS 
land between two small lakes, or else, 
as at Beaverhills Lake, he goes out on a 
narrow promentory stretching far into 
the lake. Over this neck of land fly 
the big fellows on their morning way 
to open water, or making their evening . 
pilgrimage to the grainfields round 
about. 
HE hunter builds himself a blind 
down in the reeds or, in the even- 
ing, he “digs himself in” in a shock of 
grain. Then they come, great tawny- 
ruffed mallards, fast losing the dull 
markings of their eclipse plumage. 
They circle lower and lower or, if fly- 
ing between two lakes, go low overhead 
at tremendous speed: if the hunter is 
a good shot, he takes heavy toll of the 
flight. And the mallard is a hard bird 
to hit, or, if hit, a hard bird to kill, by 
the time he is out of his eclipse plum- 
age. By late fall the birds are so 
heavily feathered that it takes a hard- 
hitting load to pierce the protective 
layers. Most sportsmen are satisfied 
with No. 6 shot and a 3% load for 
early fall shooting, but these are too 
weak for the later part of October. By 
that time the only charge that is satis- 
factory is a 3% or 3%, and No. 4 or 
No. 5 shot. Many sportsmen of late 
years have taken a fancy to a load con- 
sisting of an ounce of heavy shot, and 
an extra heavy powder charge. They 
claim as an advantage of this type of 
shell, that the charge has a much higher 
velocity than that of the average am- 
munition, and that in addition the small 
load of shot makes for a smaller pro- 
portion of cripples. Either the load 
gets there, or the duck goes safely on 
his way. It is certainly true that the 
higher velocity given by a large powder 
charge is a great help when the birds 
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