My men started at five o’clock in the morning with ropes and a pole to bring down the game. It was a fine young male, and we found the meat a most pleasing addition to our ordinary fare. Goat meat has always had a bad reputation among campers and explorers, by reason of its rank flavor. This, however, probably depends on the age and sex of the animal, or the season of year. In all those that I have tried there was merely a faintly sweet flavor, which, however, is not at all apparent if the meat is broiled or roasted, and it is then equal to very fair beef or mutton.
The mountain goat inhabits the cliffs and snowy peaks of the Rockies, from Alaska to Montana and Idaho, and thence southward in certain isolated localities. Both sexes are furnished with sharp black horns curving gracefully backwards. The muzzle and hoofs are jet black, but the wool is snow-white, long, and soft, making a beautiful rug if the animal is killed in winter. Then the hair becomes very long, and the soft thick wool underneath is so dense as to prevent the fingers passing through.
Though these strange animals resemble true goats to a remarkable degree, and the old males sometimes have beards in winter, they are really a species of antelope, closely related to the chamois of Switzerland. They do not resemble those animals in wariness and intelligence, but are rather stupid and slow in getting out of danger. They are, however, pugnacious, and, when brought to bay, will often charge on the hunter and work fearful damage with their sharp horns. The legs are exceedingly stout and so thickly covered with long hair as to give the animal a clumsy appearance. Their trails are almost always to be found traversing the mountain sides, far above the tree line, at the bases of cliffs, and often passing over the lowest depression into the next valley. These goat tracks are so well marked that they often help the mountaineer, and sometimes lead him over places where without their guidance it would be impossible to go. The gait of the animal when running is a sort of gallop, which appears rather slow, but when one considers the nature of the ground they traverse, it is very rapid. The most inaccessible cliffs, frozen snow fields, or crevassed glaciers offer no barriers to these surefooted animals. I have seen a herd of several goats bounding along on the face of the cliffs, where it did not appear from below that there could be any possible foothold.
Head of Rocky Mountain Goat.
Shot July 18th, 1895.
When a herd of goats come to a gorge or passage of any kind where loose stones are liable to be dislodged on those below, these skilful mountaineers adopt the same plan of progress practised by human climbers. While the herd remains below, under the protection of the cliffs, one goat climbs the gully, and upon arriving at the top another follows, and thus, one by one, all escape danger.
‘HAUNT OF THE MOUNTAIN GOAT.’
The mountain goat is difficult to hunt by reason of the amount of climbing necessary to get near them, or above them. They are far less wary than the chamois of Switzerland, or the Rocky Mountain sheep. Nevertheless, they seem to be endowed with a wonderful vitality, and are very hard to kill. A goat not fatally wounded will often jump from a cliff on which he is standing, and survive a considerable fall. A friend of mine shot a goat near Lake Louise, which, after the first bullet, rolled down a cliff more than thirty feet high and landed on its feet at the bottom, where it proceeded to walk off as though nothing unusual had happened. The animal I shot near Mount Assiniboine fell 125 feet, and then rolled 200 feet farther, and was still alive when I reached him half an hour later.
These animals are by far the most numerous of the big game in the Canadian Rockies, and are said to be increasing in numbers. Their habits of frequenting high altitudes and inaccessible parts of mountains will tend to preserve them for many years from the relentless hunter.