INDIAN DAYS ON THE WESTERN PRAIRIES, MARIUS BARBEAU, 1974.
Formerly the buffalo covered the plains and even resorted to the forests across the mountains. Salmon so swarmed the rivers to the west of the mountains that the Indians could cross the water on their bodies. Trout and whitefish abounded the lakes. Mountain sheep and goat, deer, moose and beaver were plentiful, as well as everything that crawls, leaps or flies amid the trees of the forest.
Now it is all different. The beaver has disappeared in most places through the use of castoreum – a bait that never fails; the females and the young ones have been exterminated by the free hunters. Game has become scarce everywhere; it no longer exists wherever the white man can reach, except in the national parks. The native hunter used to husband the resources of the territory for future use just as carefully as a rancher does its cattle. But the casual sportsman who seldom visits the same spot twice cares not what happens on the morrow. He brings ruin.
You can read more about the Stoney Indians at:http://www.stoney-nation.com/history.htm
