THE BUFFALO MOVE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 26 September 1925, Page 11

THE BUFFALO MOVE.

VAST HERD BEING SHIPPED NORTH.

From the wlieelhousc of the steamship Northland Echo, full 30 feet above the smooth-flowing waters of the Slave river, ffhc skipper of the stern-wheeler calls a crisp warning (writes a Canadian correspondent of The Times).

There is a clatter of hoofs on stout dcck-planking —a mass of shaggy heads, wild eyes, and tossing horns —then 200 buffalo, first of a consignment of 10,000 from tlic great natural park at Wainwright, Alberta, to be shipped north to the haunts of the wood buffalo, burst from the confinement of the scow, which has carried them down some 350 miles of river. There is a drumming of hoofs on the velvety turf—vague brown shadows dash bv in a cloud of dust—and the Wain weight buffalo are lost in the cool green woods of their final home, the Wood Buffalo Preserve at Fort Smith, in the North-West Territories. This year and for the four following years, 2000 plains buffalo from the Wainwright herd are being taken to the Far North hv train and scow, until the present herd of wood buffalo (those huge cousins of the smaller plains buffalo) lia,ve as neighbours 10,000 of the Wainwright animals, to roam a natural preserve of (50,000-square miles of as ideal buffalo country as exists anywhere on the American continent.

Fiftv years ago the once countless herds of plains buffalo that were spread over the wide prairies from the Rockies to the Mississippi and the Great Lakes had, after indiscriminate slaughter by white men and red men alike, dwindled almost to extinction. Only on the Flathead Indian Reserve, in Northern Montana, was there a herd of any size; it was'owned by one Michael Pablo, a rancher. Then the United States Government decided to offer the Flathead Reserve for sale as farm lands, and Pablo sold his herd to the Canadian Government. A huge natural park was created at Wainwright, Alberta, and hero the herd throve. In .1923 there, were 11,000 buffalo in the park, with a natural increase of many hundreds yearly, and it became necessary to find a new home for some of them.

Some years earlier the Canadian Government had established at Fort Smith, on the Slave river, a reserve for a herd of 2000 wood buffalo—the only known herd of these animals. For as long as memory serves there has been a herd of wood buffalo in the Far North, hounded in their range only by the harrier of the Since and Peace rivers. The. wood buffalo throve; there was ample grass, plenty of water, mud wallows, and salt lick. Capable rangers were in charge, guarding the herd from wolves and men. The Canadian Government quite naturally decided that, here was the ideal place to which to transplant the surplus of the plains buffalo from Wainwright. Objections by. zoologists and others oil the ground that to allow interbreeding in a ratio of five to one against the wood buffalo would me3n loss of identity in two or

BIG CANADIAN ENTERPRISE

three generations were overruled and a contract, to move the animals was given io Colonel J. K. Cornwall. Two railways are used in fhe transport, followed by 350 miles of water carriage down the Athabasca River, across Lake Athabasca, and so into the Slave River. The writer accompanied the first 200 buffalo sent from Wainwright to the corrals at the railhead at Waterways, thence aboard the river-scows, and so down the northern rivers to La Butte on the Slave River, where the animals were liberated. it, is five o’clock of a perfect prairie summer morning, Down the quiet main street of the little town of Wainwright cowboys clatter to the round-up; laughter and snatches of song float upward". Tu a wide enclosure behind the poplar bush, several hundred buffalo are hidden. The enclosure is fenced ten feet high with strong liog-wire attached to ’ sturdy tamarac poles. It narrows at one end to a wide gate leading into the largest of the corrals. Beyond, seen through a maze.of corral bars, on a spur-track, several steelribbed and specially reinforced cattle cars wait for their unusual freight.

The wiry cow-ponies step nimbly down the worn, brown paths. The green brush waves violently. Brown forms suddenly appear. Heads down, they dash wildly ahead to where the white bars of the corrals gleam in the morning sun. Danger! A wise two-yeapold whirls round. The whole line is following, hut behind them run the ponies, the cowboys yelling like madness. Up into the still morning air goes a cloud of brown dust, through which are seen dirii shapes of men, horses, and buffalo. Shoulder to shoulder run the ponies; there is nothing left but to go forward, fy'he line of buffalo straightens, then sweeps with the force of a ealavry charge, straight through the wide gate into the first corral. Through-the gate, on the heels of the herd, slip the cowboys whose task it is to herd that wild crowd of excited and nervous buffalo along the tortuous road to the cars bcvond the last line of corrals.

Round and round go the buffalo, seeking vainly means of escape into the cool, green woods. Then suddenly another gate yawns ahead of them. Behind, the cowboys yell insulting remarks. There is a mad surging to and fro in the dust—a wild chasing after two or three animals who will not follow the leaders, and the buffalo, with much less room now in which to‘start, anything,” are ready for the worst ordeal—the ‘‘squeeze,” a narrow runaway wide enough to admit but one buffalo at a time. Doors at intervals permit the buffalo to be turned into pens reserved for yearling buffalo and for two-year-olds. These, doors are worked by ropes in the hands of a nonchalant cowboy perched atop of the '‘squeeze.” From the-smaller corrals a chute leads direct to the cattle cars. The buffalo, somewhat tamed by now, are readily driven up the cliute, and’so into the cars. Thirty or so go to each ear, and then the gates are locked, and, with the warning notice ‘‘Don’t touch the buffalo” nailed to its door, the car

i is pushed along the track to make room for another. So through the heat of the day the work proceeds till seven cars arc loaded. Far down the tracks a fast westbound train signals for the "all clear” sign. 'The* seven buffalo** cars - arc hitched.to the rear of the train, and the first of the ten thousand Wainwright buffalo arc on their way to the Far North. And. so to. Edmonton and out over the Alberta and Great Waterways railway. At .Waterways, the river system begins. Here the loading process is reversed, the buffalo being turned from the cars into log corrals in the deep shade of thick woods. The corrals lead to the banks of the Clearwater Fiver, a tributary of the Athabasca,; which it Joins a few miles downstream.j ' Moored to the bank arc the buffalo 1 scows, a hundred feet long and twenty feet beam, with partitions to keep the buffalo divided for comfort in travelling, and an overhead decking for shade and to discourage any advonturuous young bull from trying a swim in the; Athabasca or the Peace. Loading in j the scows proves an easy matter, and J with her scow tied tightly ahead-—they push the scows on these north rivers, instead of towing them, because of the currents —the Echo casts off from shore, swings round, and heads upstream, fol-, lowed bv- a fussy little motor-boat, the Saskalta Queen, which soon proves unequal to the task of pushing bne of the loaded scows, and is later lashed abreast of the Echo, so that the two scows are side by side. ** ; At Fort McMurrav the entire popu-lation—-.'loo whites, Indians, and 1 half-! breeds, a thousand husky dogs, and a million mosquitoes —are waiting on the] bank to greet the buffalo. The half-? breed giris wear silk . stockings and j moccasins, and their sleek black hairs is carefully bobbed. They dance in j the Echo’s lounge, to a gramophone and 5 a mouth organ—and they dunce the very newest thing in modern steps! So downstream again, past many a lonely trapper’s shack and many an Tudian village where the natives, excited by the return of the buffalo, yell greetings.. There is a 30-mile crossing of Lake Athabasca, with its distant shores low down on far horizons. -Big seas sweep the lake in bad weather, but today it is calm as a mill-pond, and there will be no sick buffalo. Now the log buildings at l.a Butte come into view. Figures on the bank wave greetings. The long Journey is-over. How will the plains buffalo fare in their new home? How will the huge wood buffalo treat the newcomers? Will there be fierce battles to the death, there in the dark depths of the forest, between the bulls of the two .herds? What of the timber wolv'es, when the barren lands are white with snow, and the scent of. war in, red meat hangs low on the frosty air? Will* the plains buffalo remember instinctively that their ancestors fought the wolves with a ring of lowered heads and menacing . horns—cows and calves in the centre—an impregnable barrier to gleaming, snapping fangs? And. finally, tin' plains buffalo of old was a migrant. What will these buffalo of to-day do. when the leaves fall from the. poplars, and-the wild gee.se "honk” their way south, to the Everglades? Will the' old instinct send the band roving south and over south, as it did in the old days? "Thar’ll be lots of good shoot-in 1 ef they fellers startdriftin’,” said one old-timer who remembers vaguely the old buffalo days There will be losses of course,, from some or all of these, causes. But in the main the removal is approved, and there are visions of immense herds of wild buffalo roaming the woods of the Far North and the possibility of chances for the sportsman. j