Snowbirds And Ptarmigan Were Flying Briskly In The Cold Wind,
And On The Edge Of A Grove I Saw A Spruce From Which A Bear Had
Stripped Large Sections Of Bark For Food.
About nine o'clock the clouds lifted and I enjoyed another wide view
from the summit of the ridge of the vast grassy fountain region with
smooth rolling features.
A few patches of forest broke the monotony
of color, and the many lakes, one of them about five miles long, were
glowing like windows. Only the highest ridges were whitened with
snow, while rifts in the clouds showed beautiful bits of yellow-green
sky. The limit of tree growth is about five thousand feet.
Throughout all this region from Glenora to Cassiar the grasses grow
luxuriantly in openings in the woods and on dry hillsides where the
trees seem to have been destroyed by fire, and over all the broad
prairies above the timber-line. A kind of bunch-grass in particular
is often four or five feet high, and close enough to be mowed for
hay. I never anywhere saw finer or more bountiful wild pasture. Here
the caribou feed and grow fat, braving the intense winter cold, often
forty to sixty degrees below zero. Winter and summer seem to be the
only seasons here. What may fairly be called summer lasts only two or
three months, winter nine or ten, for of pure well-defined spring or
autumn there is scarcely a trace. Were it not for the long severe
winters, this would be a capital stock country, equaling Texas and
the prairies of the old West.
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