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6 CHANGES IN THE COUNTRY SINCE EARLY DAYS

Vancouver is a big city, alive with motor cars and with
its streets so busy that it is necessary to have police
stationed at all the principal crossings to direct the traffic.
And yet you have only to go a few miles out of town and
you are in the same wild forest, where game still manages
to exist, some of it even finding its way occasionally into
the outskirts of the city. Every year there are accounts
in the papers of either deer, bear or cougar being seen or
killed among the houses, and it is not so long ago that I
read the following :

““A fat black bear held up the whole of the commerce
in Burnaby (a suburb of the city) yesterday for half an
hour while it rooted round for fat grubs. During that
time a delivery truck quivered and throbbed and panted
with dread while the driver sat with his hand on the
wheel and his foot on the clutch ready to throw on power
and speed deeper into the city should Bruin endeavour to
sample the bread he was delivering.”

No; apart from small areas, the country has not changed
much in the last quarter of a century, nor is it likely, if
you had visited the coast with Captain Cook in 1788, or
crossed the interior with MacKenzie in 1798, and were
able to travel over the same route again to-day that you
would see much real change. All the changes that have
been made only cover a tiny fraction of this huge territory,
and there will be little difference for years and years to
come. The hand of man may be mighty and his works
wonderful, but it will not be in our time or that of the
next generation that he can make much impression on
this great Province.

By many people the fact that a large proportion of our
mountains are barren of mineral, timber or other resources,
except that of game and fur-bearing animals, that will
produce the almighty dollar, is deplored. Nevertheless
it is really something which we might well be thankful
for in these days when the advance of civilization and the
lack of foresight of those governing the country are so
rapidly decimating game all over the world. Our moun-