File:The continent we live on (1961) (20061853444).jpg

Title: The continent we live on
Identifier: continentweliveo00sandrich (find matches)
Year: 1961 (1960s)
Authors: Sanderson, Ivan Terence, 1911-1973
Subjects: Physical geography; Natural history
Publisher: New York : Random House
Contributing Library: New College of California
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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merge with them are choked with solid stands of aspens; the somber dark green spruce stand upon the slopes; while here and there some of the more exposed hillsides are devoid of trees but are instead clothed in mosses and lichens of a most strange soft olive-green-gray color. Upon these soft faces there are also often great swaths of those stunted bushes common to the upland muskegs which are of an intense rust-red color. As yet, there is but one road that penetrates this land, and it migh^ appear to anyone tearing along its gravel surface, enveloped in a cloud of dust, that these forests are indeed lifeless and almost of a oneness throughout. But if you walk into them you will find they are quite otherwise. Before the coming of the airplane most
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The American Marten or Sable, famous for its valuable fur, is a large relative of the weasels and of the Mink, Fisher, and Pine Marten of Europe. travel was, of course, by water, but how anybody could find his way through that maze of wandering channels and connecting lakes is almost incomprehensible. The Hudson's Bay Company and Catholic missionaries, however, did so over a century ago. and there are considerable outposts all along the bigger rivers and around the great lakes. Four of these lakes- the Great Bear, Great Slave, Athabasca, and Winnipeg—are miniature inland seas with long stretches of narrow sandy beach on which the little cold waves break in miniature foamless surf. These look singularly "dead" though they teem with fish. Most of the wild- life gathers in the mouths of the rivers that pour into or flow out of them, and a number of these are often black with ducks of all kinds. HUNTERS IN THE SKY The second most noticeable group of birds in this province are sea gulls. It is, of course, absurd to be startled at the sight of these birds far from oceanic coasts and in the middle of a large continent, but I must admit to experiencing a considerable shock when I come across them standing on rocks in deserts, pecking about on prairies, perching on fir trees in mountain gorges, or especially tearing up a dead hare on a muskeg slough in a spruce forest five hundred miles from the nearest seacoast. Pattering about the roofs of log cabins and paddling about the smaller tree-girt ponds in the depth of the taiga spruce they seem alto- gether out of place. It makes one wonder whether gulls have always been as prevalent inland as they are today or as wide- spread. It is certain that they have within the memory of man considerably extended their ranges inland in many areas, but if they have done so in the sub-Arctic, man has had nothing to do with the matter. The commonest gull in this territory is the Her- ring Gull, but there do occur a few Black-backed, and occasionally some lone individuals of the great white Glaucous Gull of the Arctic. The gulls seem to maintain a somewhat precarious existence in this area, having two armies of rival killers and scavengers to contend with. On the one hand are really extraordinary num- bers of eagles and hawks (in the wider sense of that word) several of which get their living principally along the rivers and the shores of the lakes; on the other are even vaster battalions of ravens of really startling size. We look upon the Raven as a comparatively rare bird throughout large parts of the United States, and it is almost everywhere regarded as a lone fellow and as keeping to the more rugged and out-of-the-way places. In the sub-Arctic they are perhaps the commonest birds, at least among those that are readily seen, and in the Northwest Territories their numbers are fantastic and, very unexpectedly, they operate in large flocks like crows. They are enormous creatures with huge gorgets that splay out from their chests way beyond their folded wings when at rest. How so many manage to maintain a living not even the local Amerindians can explain satisfactorily. While it is true that all manner of carrion-eaters tend to gather along roads on which many animals are customarily killed by human traffic, I have passed along a two-hundred-mile stretch and never been out of sight of a flock, one batch after another rising before me at intervals of a few hundred feet. When, however, we traveled even far away from any road by water or on foot, we encountered the same multitudes in every open place. Ravens will kill anything they can catch and overcome, but for the most part they have to rely on the carrion left by predators, and although they are omnivorous, they thrive most on flesh. Just who kills enough of what animals in that country to maintain these hungry hosts is more than 1 would attempt to explain. Golden Eagles are common all over, as far as 1 have been able to ascertain from bush pilots, the police and others who spend their lives traversing this country; but there are places, especially among rocky outcrops or gorges, where they positively swarm. The bird called the "Osprey" in North America (namely, Pandion haliaetus) is also found in this region but rather in the eastern areas around the Hudson Bay. The variety and aggregate numbers of other birds of prey is equally astonishing. Possibly due to being unused to man as a whole or, contrarily, having over millennia come to a sort of understanding with the local Amerindians, these birds usually behave in a most surprising manner. They will sit on the ground, on a rock, or a bough at low level and just blink at you until you almost touch them, and those perched on the tops of trees often have to be literally shaken off before they consent to glide to the nearest available vantage point. This gives one a splendid opportunity to observe them at the closest ranges but leads to many frustrating experi- ences because of the long list of species all resident together, all of which seem to vary widely in both general tone and arrange- J

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