Canada’s Serengeti of the North stands as a model for mixed-use conservation

By Ken Bailey – Outdoor Canada

My first up-close look at B.C.’s famed Muskwa-Kechika wilderness was through the ears of a horse winding up Gathto Creek, a tributary of the Muskwa River. That was roughly 30 years ago during a 12-day elk hunt, but I still remember the diversity and abundance of game our party saw—despite only exploring a tiny part of the vast 6.4 million-hectare landscape.

Riding above the treeline one morning, for example, we encountered a group of nine bull moose and eight cows; I still don’t understand how or why they were together like that. In the end, my friend and I each took a mature bull elk—I lost much of mine to a marauding bear—while the two B.C. residents in our party were successful in taking mature Stone’s rams.