We spent two nights winter camping in the hope of tracking down some Central Mountain Caribou (an ecotype of Rangifer tarandus caribou). After seeing fresh footprints in the snow the day before we finally located some of these amazing animals on the morning we were due to head home. Mountain Caribou of Northern BC have been in a steep decline since the 1990’s. Their decline is a result of direct habitat loss along with increased predation associated with ecosystem change from land alteration. While they are listed as threatened federally in Canada the Federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) has recommended that mountain caribou be listed as endangered. This particular herd was counted via aerial survey at 120 in 2007 and had dropped to 45 by 2012. It seems the implementation of a caribou management plan in 2013 has potentially stabilised the population; however there has yet to be any significant increase with the herd being counted at 50 in 2015. Northern British Columbia, Canada.
The Murray River as it plunges an incredible 70m (229 ft) down the majestic Kinuseo Falls. First documented on a western map in 1906, Samuel Prescott Fay provided the first description of the falls in 1914 as part of a scientific expedition. He named the falls “Kinuseo”, which was fish in the native Cree language, due to the abundance of trout he observed above and below the falls. A second expedition in 1927 recorded “Kapaca Tignapy” as a traditional Cree name for the falls translating as “falling water”. Monkman Provincial Park, Northern Rockies, British Columbia, Canada.
Spring slowly breaks winters frozen hold on Medicine Lake. While the Maligne River pours into the lake from the south, the lake is actually a geological anomaly as there is no visible exit to the lake. In spring the river cuts a path through the ice across the lake towards the North Western ends abruptly at this pool where it is thought to drain through the soluble limestone rock below. It does not surface again for 16km where Maligne Canyon improbably cuts its way out of the ground. The sinking river system is thought to be one of the largest inaccessible cave systems anywhere in the world. Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
