The Remote Canadian Back Country
It’s a beautiful fall morning in a remote Canadian back country camp nestled on the edge of a small lake. Sun shines through the stand of spruce trees behind camp, casting kaleidoscope-like shadows onto the frosty ground. Reflections of the mountains across from camp glisten on the lake’s surface like a mirror until a small trout breaks the surface to catch a midge for breakfast. The peaceful sound of horse bells are broken by a distant rumbling of the float plane coming over the horizon; on board is an eager American ready to fulfil his dream.
After some quick introductions over a pot of coffee, backpacks are donned and the hike to the top of the mountains across the lake is underway. The horses get some well-earned time off for this hunt and are free to graze the lush meadows to their hearts content while we slog it out on foot for the next 10 days in search of majestic Mountain goats. Our camp up on top was very open and consisted of a couple of pup tents situated near a tarn with nothing but a small hill to provide some shelter from any Sou’wester that may blow through. But with good weather forecast for the next week and a half we were in good stead.
The first few days turned up a lot of animals, there was an abundance of nannies and kids with groups holding upwards of 30 animals, but despite this, not one mature billy had been spotted. On the morning of day seven, we found ourselves face to face with of a group of ewes and lambs, providing some great photo opportunities and a great pick me up for our somewhat dejected client. After watching them for a while we decided to back out to avoid spooking everything on that part of the hill and check another basin instead. No sooner had we crested the brow to look over into a hanging basin, did we spot a little white dot walking along the edge of the bushline. It was too far away for us to clearly identify whether it was a billy or a nannie, but it was alone and appeared to be relatively big bodied so that was a good start. By now it was getting to be too far on the day to start a stalk over there so we decided to watch the animal until dark and devise a plan for the following day.
Over dinner we made a plan to pack up enough gear and food to get over to the other side of the basin, and potentially camp out the next night if we needed to. We knew there were plenty of tarns over there so finding a place to camp near water wouldn’t be hard but physically getting over to that side of the mountain would be. We had to drop right down to the valley floor and climb back up the other side, which was a lot to ask of our client considering we didn’t know for certain that that animal would be a worthy taker. But this was our last chance to find a trophy before we had to make a move back to the lake for a pick up so naturally our client was full of enthusiasm at the idea. We broke camp and went to our vantage point from the previous night to lay eyes on the goat again. We quickly located it at the top of the bluffs and in a great place for us to execute a stalk provided it didn’t move far. The day had turned out to be quite hot by the time we’d made it to the valley floor, and with a big climb ahead of us it was an easy bet to guess a fair amount of gravy was going to be lost!
A couple of hours later and we found ourselves on the tops and bee-lining for a tarn we knew of to dump some gear and go off in search of the lone goat. Although finding that tarn proved more difficult than we anticipated, as every time we thought we were in the right area there was no water to be found. And the more we searched the more we realised that none of the tarns held any water anymore, the last two weeks of hot weather had rendered them dry. And with only 1.5 litres combined water between the three of us our plans changed again. That wasn’t going to be enough water to allow us to stay the night on the hill so we decided to push on in search of our quarry for the rest of the day and make our way back to our original camp that night. We carefully stalked our way around to where we had last seen it, bumping a handful of young rams along the way. As we crept around the farthest ridge, having searched high and low along the way, we couldn’t locate the goat. With all three of us feeling well and truly deflated we decided a little rest stop was needed. While admiring the view a white figure revealed itself at the bottom of the bluffs below us. That was our goat! It didn’t take long to get a spotter out and determine it was a big bodied nannie and unfortunately not an animal worthy of taking home with us. After sitting and watching it a little while we made the inevitable call to head back to camp.
It was a sombre hike back, we had pushed our client to his absolute limit and unfortunately he hadn’t been rewarded for his efforts. That was until we were about to drop back down to the valley floor. Across the other side, on a grassy slope not far below last night’s lookout point, lay the animal we’d been searching for. The goat of our client’s dreams…
About Kate Bryant
From the time I could walk and talk I was tugging at Dad’s swanni to take me with him on his hunting trips. That eagerness to be out in the hills hasn’t subsided and, if anything, it has only intensified with age. I turned my passion for hunting into a profession, guiding both here in New Zealand and in British Columbia, Canada.
