Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"Well, son, that's one of the things that we have often talked over, but it's a pretty hard thing to prophesy about. There's one thing sure, all big animals are going to be killed off, except those that are found in parks like that Yellowstone Park we came through two years ago. I expect that there, elk and deer and sheep and antelope may be found for a long time. But people are going to come into this western country, thicker and thicker, and, of course, they are not coming here for their health, they're coming here to make money. One man will start a band of cattle, another will have a bunch of sheep, another will farm along the creek; ten to one, mines will be found all over these mountains, and the first thing any of us know the country will be full of people and towns and railroads and factories. Of course, you don't need me to tell you that there can't be any game when the country gets full of people."

"I suppose that's just what will happen, Hugh. I suppose a time will come when there won't be any more buffalo, and maybe when there won't be any elk or even deer. I'm glad that I was born in time to see something of these wild animals."

"Yes," said Hugh, "you are lucky to get to see them, because I believe that they're not going to last many more years. I wouldn't be surprised if twenty or twenty-five years saw them pretty much all wiped out. I expect that I'll be dead before that times comes, but likely you'll be alive all right."

Jack sat thoughtfully staring into the fire as though he were contemplating the death of all game, and of Hugh as well.

Presently Hugh went on: "Now, about the birds, it's a little different. They've got wings, and can fly, and do fly long distances. They don't have to stop in one place, and, of course, away up north there is a whole lot of country yet that the people haven't got into, and I expect a good many of the birds that used to breed in Illinois and Ohio, as you were saying just now, don't stop any longer in that country, but keep on going to the north.

"I've seen Hudson Bay men that came down from that northern country who say that in some of the lakes and big rivers up there the natives at the right time of the year kill a powerful lot of fowl. There must be dead loads of them there, and then when molting season comes and they lose their wing feathers and can't fly, the natives take after them in their canoes and kill them with sticks and spears, and then dry them. I believe that's a regular part of their living up there."

"There must be an awful lot of ducks and geese that breed in that great country up there, Hugh. It's almost the whole width of the continent, is it not? and a thousand or fifteen hundred miles north and south?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "it's an awful big country, and mighty few people in it. You know, don't you," he went on, "that the food of a number of the Hudson Bay Posts, during certain seasons of the year, is dried or frozen fish, and dried or smoked geese? They kill the geese spring and fall, as they are passing back and forth, and so many of them that they store them up for the winter and summer food."

"My," said Jack, "what a place that would be to go shooting in!"

"Don't fool yourself, son. When you kill game regularly for the food it yields, it stops being fun to hunt and it becomes real work. I know it's so because I've done it."