THE MUSKWA-KECHIKA: LAND OF LEGACY

COWBOY DREAMS FULFILLED IN THIS TWO-WEEK TREK THROUGH “THE SERENGETI OF THE NORTH”

BY JASON HARMAN

The impudent brute clamped down on my little sausage fingers so hard that the entire North Island was subjected to my agonized wails.

But here’s the thing: I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy. It’s the whole ensemble—the hat, the leather, the swagger— but more than all that, it’s the freedom of the hills that has always appealed to me. The horse has only ever been an object, a necessary evil, a means to an end.

Given all that, it’s somewhat surprising that I now find myself perched atop a large mountain horse, surrounded flank-to-flank by 19 other large mountain horses and eight other riders, collectively careering into one of the remotest regions in North America. It’s my first day of a 14-day horseback expedition into the Northern Rockies of British Columbia, and all I can think is, “What the hell am I doing?!”

When I first heard stories about the Muskwa-Kechika—a 6.4-million-hectare area roughly the size of Ireland and twice the size of Vancouver Island— they sent chills up my spine. There is a place, the stories said, almost entirely roadless and undeveloped, where the air and waters are clean and pure, and the wildlife is so prolific that it is known as the “Serengeti of the North”—a true wilderness. Its name, spoken with reverence in a flowing half-whisper: muskquah-ke-chee-kah.

IF YOU HAVEN’T heard of the MuskwaKechika (or M-K), you’re not alone; most British Columbians haven’t either. Yet it is the largest contiguous wilderness area on the North American continent, surpassing even the likes of the Wrangell-Saint Elias, Mollie Beattie, Noatak, and Gates of the Arctic wilderness areas. The M-K comprises 50 undeveloped watersheds and a great abundance and diversity of species, including grizzly, moose, wolf, black bear, lynx, bull trout, grayling, caribou, elk, bison, mountain goat and stone sheep.

Translated, Muskwa means “bear,” and Kechika means “long inclining river.” (They also happen to be the names of two of the largest rivers that flow through the area.) The combination of its size, intactness, geographic diversity, and biodiversity makes it a truly exceptional place.

The horse I’m riding is a draft breed— a Belgian/percheron cross—named Anna. She is a friendly mare (or so the guides tell me), but she and I aren’t getting off to a great start. She is aloof and unresponsive to my requests. We do not see eye-to-eye. So far, we have both fallen over multiple times; she has run off midway through the mounting process; she has casually rammed me into several objects, including tree branches, tree trunks and other horses; and she has stood on my toes with her immense, metal-shoed feet. But, despite all that, she has successfully hauled my 230-pound frame through knee-deep mud, across numerous creeks and rivers, over fallen logs and up a few vertigoinducing mountainous inclines. She’s a working horse, I realize, and she’s getting the job done. Plus, given my aforementioned disdain for all things equine, I recognize that the problem likely rests with me. So, I implement a new strategy: sucking up. I feed her grass at every opportunity, pet her softly and whisper sweet nothings in her ear—peace by seduction is the goal.

When we finally reach the first camp alongside the Tetsa River, I am exhausted and my butt is sore from my first-ever full day of riding, but I feel like I’ve accomplished something. As I de-saddle Anna, Alex Lepp, the head guide for the trip, comes over to talk to me. “If you really want to get on her good side, try stroking her here,” he says, moving to Anna’s side and rubbing under her armpit. “She loves it.” Sure enough, as he rubs the spot, her lip starts to curl, her eyes droop, and she lets out a soft sigh. Hamish Davidson, the other guide, walks over to join us. “I like to kiss them on the cheek,” he says, gently reaching for Anna’s muzzle and planting one on her face. “The skin there is so soft.”

I take a closer look at the guides. They’re young and tall, with free-flowing brown locks, muscular arms, and calloused hands. Alex sports a thick beard and glasses, while Hamish has a set of prominent laugh lines bordering bright, cobalt-blue eyes. They’re both accomplished horsemen and genuine ramblers: Alex is a trained farrier and has ridden every summer in the MuskwaKechika for the past 10 years; Hamish has worked as a wrangler and guide for various hunting outfitters throughout the province. They’re a pleasure to be around—with gregarious personalities and hearty laughs—and don’t seem too rattled by a greenhorn like me. I get the sense they’ve seen it all before. “You’re doing great,” says Alex, looking at me earnestly. “Just try and relax into it; it’ll get easier. And remember the advice Wayne gave you.”

WAYNE SAWCHUK IS the man at the centre of it all. His vision and commitment provided the spark and the sustained fuel that gave life to the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area, and he is the owner/operator of MuskwaKechika Adventures. Unfortunately, Wayne couldn’t attend this expedition due to an “obstreperous knee,” but he still joined us for a fireside chat the night before we took up the trail. He was charismatic and engaging, and his presence calming. He wore a cowboy hat that shaded his weathered face, gentle blue eyes, and snow-coloured goatee. When I first met him, I thought, here is a guy who has lived an honest outdoors life.

He checked in with me to see how I was feeling about the upcoming trip, and so I explained my fear of horses to him. “I can understand that,” he replied. “But remember that you’re dealing with another being. They have different minds than we do. You must be patient and learn to communicate with them; they’re individuals. Ask first, then tell.” He also gave me some riding pointers like, “Left is right, and right is wrong” (advice for mounting a horse) and “Always keep 25 percent of your weight in your stirrups” (for balance).

I sat with Wayne that night while he shared stories, effusing energy and passion. “I’ve been coming to this area, now known as the M-K, since 1984 when I was 29,” he said wistfully across the embers. Wayne grew up in the North and followed his father into a career as a logger. But day after day, as he worked the land by cutting and clearing old-growth trees, a nagging guilt started to gnaw at him from the inside out. Some days, the feeling would get so bad that he’d be physically sick. Something had to change—and so he did. He realized that this wild place needed a voice, a conduit and that he could fulfil that role.

The idea for the M-K began in 1993 with an ambitious campaign called “Northern Rockies–Totally Wild,” during a time when British Columbia was redefining its land use planning process. Wayne and fellow conservationist George Smith (then national conservation director at the Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society) rallied together with a band of unlikely allies—trappers, guide outfitters and biologists— to advocate for the creation of a new model. Six years of negotiations later, in 1998, the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area was finally legislated, and a new way of doing business in British Columbia was born. What makes the M-K approach unique in the world is that it is a “working wilderness:” a pragmatic approach that separates the land into zones and allows resource extraction only if strict environmental values are adhered to. There is also an advisory board, which Wayne has sat on since its inception. “It has not been easy, and it’s not perfect, but it works,” he said. “I think this model can, and should, be used elsewhere in the world.”

Wayne has been leading horseback expeditions into the M-K since the negotiations started in 1993, first with politicians, media and scientists, then with paying clients. Along with his wife, Donna Kane, they run the M-K Adventures ecotourism business out of their ranch in Rolla, BC.

“The main underlying focus of M-K Adventures is the conservation of the Muskwa-Kechika. If I can help by creating a business that brings people into the M-K, doesn’t harm the environment, creates employment for local people, helps to increase the area’s profile and ultimately inspires its protection—that’s my goal,” he said. “If you don’t know an area, you can’t love it. That’s why I do what I do.”

“My goal has always been for our customers to go away and tell people about the Muskwa-Kechika, and to carry it inside them. And ultimately, it may come to a point where we must fight for the Muskwa-Kechika, and I know that the people who’ve been here will put their hands up to help. They’re like a Fifth Army, you know. M-K Adventures is just a mechanism to make that happen.”

It turns out that the M-K’s “Fifth Army” includes some notable figures, like Harvey Locke, founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon initiative. In the summer of 1993, Wayne guided Harvey into the M-K on horseback. One night, inspired by the wilderness surrounding them, Harvey concocted an idea to conserve the ecological integrity of the entire Rocky Mountain ecosystem, from Yellowstone in the South to the Yukon in the North—the Y2Y corridor. The Y2Y initiative has since grown into an international organization that aims to protect and unify the Rocky Mountain landscape, to transition it from a postage stamp collection of parks to a coherent ecosystem that supports true and lasting wildlife connectivity.

THE FIRST WEEK of the trip flies by, filled with beautiful, warm days and stunning high-country panoramas. Thankfully, Anna and I work out our differences. I get used to the rhythm of her walk and my body relaxes into the saddle. (I think she is enjoying herself a bit more too.) With each mountain pass and slippery river crossing, I whisper my gratitude and stroke her neck to offer moral support. The weather holds off, and we are spoiled with kingfisher blue skies, copious butterflies and fragrant flowering vegetation of every colour and ilk. Our necks crane trying to take in the immense, omnipresent peaks and their ever-changing moods. On rest days, we swim in turquoise pools and read alongside the river; we hike to waterfalls and hang out in camp, engaged in deep conversation. The nights are cold, so we wrap ourselves in the woollen horse blankets that provide padding underneath the saddles during the day. They smell strongly of horse sweat— musky, yet sweet.

Every night we let the horses free to graze and roam and allow them a fighting chance against predators like wolves and grizzlies. They are hobbled basket hitches, diamond hitches and quick-release slip knots—and learn the names of the horses and the terminology for the various pieces of tack and camp equipment. We become a welloiled machine.

The flavours of the trip imprint on my memory: there’s the tartness of fresh dwarf blueberries, picked alongside the trail at every opportunity; the bitterness of Labrador tea, boiled for its medicinal properties; and the succulent umami flavour of lake trout, caught fresh from one of the many glacial lakes dotted along the route. I recognize these are Indigenous foods, and they make me think of the First Nations people upon whose territories we wander. As if to cement this fact, one day, Alex picks up a beautiful, angular stone on the side of the trail. It’s a spear point. We pass it around in awe, feeling connected to the past in a tangible way.

THE MUSKWA-KECHIKA lies within the traditional territories of the Kaska Dena, Treaty 8 and Carrier-Sekani First Nations. It is Indigenous land. Gillian Stavely, a member of the Kaska Dena community and director of the Dena Kayeh Institute, says that the M-K is “More than a wilderness; it’s our homeland.”

“Our community have lived there. Our babies were born there. Our people died there and are buried there. It is sacred land.”

(front legs tied) to prevent them from roaming too far and fitted with large bells around their necks that invoke the ambience of the Swiss Alps. Every morning the guides and wranglers must leave camp at 4:00 a.m. to search for them, following the horses’ tracks and listening for the ringing bells. Some mornings it can take hours to round them all up and get them back to camp. Once they return, the routine is always the same: pack up camp, saddle the riding horses and load up the packhorses. We all get proficient in knot tying—

The Kaska Dena are proposing an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) over much of the M-K, called “Dene K'éh Kusān,” which means “Always will be there.” IPCA’s are a new tool in the hands of government and First Nations that allow for greater shared decision-making within protected areas and recognize the importance of Indigenous knowledge alongside science. They are not yet common practice in British Columbia and, in contrast to the M-K model, remain relatively untested. But the Kaska Dena believe that an IPCA is an essential step for ensuring the long-term protection of the area and is critical for preserving the material, cultural and spiritual lives of the Kaska people.

OUR SECOND WEEK FLOWS much the same as the first. Time becomes irrelevant with the long northern days and the “real world” becomes abstract—a vague memory. We see several animals—moose, elk, caribou and grizzly—and are constantly surrounded by animal sign, like footprints, rubs and scat. The presence of predators keeps us honest and imparts a mindful awareness that keeps us grounded in the moment—the gift of the grizzly. I notice my legs have strengthened over the two weeks of riding, and my hands have toughened from the constant use of rein and rope. I find myself looking forward to the long, challenging rides with Anna and together we traverse the land with vigour. I finally feel like a cowboy. (Albeit one with plenty still to learn.)

On our last night, we follow the usual routine of setting up our tents, cooking dinner over an open fire and sharing red wine and whiskey as the stars come out and the moon rises. The next day, we drop down the valley and are greeted by flaming yellow aspens signalling the land’s transition to fall. It’s a strange feeling returning to the craziness of civilization; as we near the Alaska Highway, it occurs to me that I haven’t heard a vehicle for two weeks—the longest period of silence in my life.

British Columbia’s North is a wild place that binds with your soul, and the Muskwa-Kechika is the jewel in its

If You Go

M-K Management Area website: muskwa-kechika.com

Muskwa-Kechika Adventures website: mkadventures.ca

Wayne Sawchuk’s website: muskwakechika.com

Dene K’éh Kusān “Always Will Be There”: denakayeh.com/denekehkusan crown. It is a legacy for all, thanks to the commitment of a few. For those with an adventurous spirit—like the salmon that chooses to swim up the wrong river or the bird that hitches a ride on the wind—this place will feel like coming home.

Going For Gold

A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO THE TIME-HONOURED BC TRADITION OF GOLD PROSPECTING

BY LINDA GABRIS

Beautiful British Columbia is full of spectacular places to visit but some of the most thrilling destinations are the historical gold-bearing regions and ghost towns scattered throughout our province. This is especially true for folks like my husband, Sandor, and I, who have been under the spell-binding power of gold since 1970, after having panned a few lustrous specks at the gold panning display in the historic town of Barkerville. Since that memorable day, we’ve had a neverending case of gold fever.

Throughout the years, we have traced the tracks of fortune-seekers who swarmed to the province from all

BC'S RECREATIONAL GOLD PANNING RESERVES

many times the elusive dream has lured us back, we always discover riches— sometimes far greater than gold.

RECREATIONAL PROSPECTING IS a fun, rewarding hobby that can be enjoyed from spring through fall and by folks of all ages. It pairs up perfectly with other outdoor activities like fishing, camping, hiking and sight-seeing. Heading into the hills, you’ll not only get a glimpse at modern-day, largescale gold mining operations— which are still taking place in BC today—but also see evidence of what the old sourdoughs left behind, and breathe some life back into history.

Over the past 50 years, we’ve come across abandoned miner’s cabins where lively spirits still linger, and decaying sluice boxes that teased us with visions of gold. We’ve seen old workings cluttered with obsolete mining machinery, rusting away beside mountains of tailings. And in the ghost towns we’ve visited quaint little churches where the faithful history makers prayed for riches and the peaceful graveyards where they rest.

over the world during the gold rush eras. We have cashed in on almost all of BC’s noted gold-bearing regions— including the rich Fraser River gravel bars, the Cariboo goldfields, the Omineca and Atlin. And no matter how

But before taking off on your goldseeking adventure, it helps to understand a bit about the fascinating properties of the precious metal. For starters, gold originates in veins, known as the motherlode, where it is typically attached to a host material, often quartz. Recovering the metal from the motherlode is known as hard-rock mining which involves drilling, blasting and refining, definitely not a recreational undertaking!

However, thanks to erosion, gold wears free from the motherlode and once detached, due to its denseness and gravity (which is 19.3, meaning gold is 19.3 times heavier than water), natural forces draw the heavy metal downwards, travelling away from the lode.

As the free-travelling gold, known as placer gold, travels away from the lode it can become trapped on outcropping benches and ledges where it is sometimes found by prospectors. That which doesn’t get hung up continues its descending travels downward into valleys, gulches, gullies, rivers and streams where it is picked up and carried by water to further destinations. During its travels in water, gold is deposited on gravel bars, behind large boulders in the river, in bends or wherever the water velocity slows down. Gold is often swept between layers of shale and some of the richest or most concentrated deposits have been recovered from the pockets and crevices of bedrock, a layer of solid rock which gold cannot penetrate. Placer miners like myself are always on the lookout for outcropping bedrock in order to pick its pockets!

Panning for gold is the simplest and least expensive method of recovery for novice and recreational prospectors. You can pan for gold using a gold pan and shovel in any unstaked watercourse (river or stream) in BC and on Crown Lands which are not a legal staked gold claims and leases. The BC Ministry of Mines has also created a number of land reserves around the province which are open to the public for gold panning. Check out their website for maps.

As well as no gold panning (or mining in any manner) on gold claims and leases, you cannot pan for gold in parks or other protected areas such as reserves, on private property or First Nations land without permission.

Where To Pan For Gold

Panning For Gold

The equipment needed to break ground in this hobby is inexpensive and relatively easy to hunt down, with the most important item being a gold pan that can be bought online or at stores that carry hobby and outdoor supplies.

Pans come in various sizes—large, medium and small—so you can choose one that fits your frame, keeping in mind that a large pan filled with gravel is quite heavy to pack, especially when working any distance from the water. Gold pans also come in metal and plastic, plastic being lighter for toting in a packsack.

Any round-nosed shovel or garden scoop can be used for filling the pan with prospective gravel and a big sturdy spoon, a whisk and small dustpan comes in handy for digging paydirt out of pockets and for sweeping up gold-bearing material from crevices of bedrock.

You will need a poke (which is a leather pouch) or a plastic vial to hold the recovered gold, tweezers (should you need to pluck a wedged nugget out of a crevice of bedrock and for retrieving particles of gold from concentrates) and rubber gloves and boots to protect your hands and feet from the cold water. And with that, you’re good to go.

The concept of panning for gold revolves around the fact that gold is much heavier than gravel and sand. Here’s how it’s done:

FILL THE PAN ¾ full of prospective gravel, which will prevent overflow as you begin the process.

Find a calm spot in the river (or other water source) and sit your pan in the water, letting it rest on bottom.

Now using both hands, knead the gravel, breaking up any hard-packed lumps of clay and compacted gravel which may contain gold while washing the material from rocks and pieces of shale before discarding.

With the pan slightly tilted towards the water, and working with the water to keep enough in the pan to cover the material, begin rocking and shaking the pan back and forth. After three or four good shakes submerge the pan under the water, tilt it away from you, and let the water flush the top material gently out over the lip.

Repeat the actions of rocking and shaking from side to side and flushing the lighter material out over the lip until the material in the pan has been reduced to a small amount, about a handful. This material is called the “concentrates,” typically made up of black sand (which is magnetite, meaning when it is dried it can be separated from the flour or fine gold by using a magnet), small garnets and/or pyrites and, when luck is with you, gold!

To check for gold that is hidden beneath the concentrates on the bottom of the pan, put enough water in the pan to cover the pocket of condensed material. Twirl the pan in one direction in a slow, steady motion from top to bottom. As the concentrates are carried by the water to the bottom of the pan, the gold will hold its ground, remaining at the top.

Nuggets, of course, will be peeking up through the black sand and can be rescued first. After admiring their unique beauty (and once your heart returns to beating normally), you can put the nugget, or nuggets (yes, sometimes there can be several nug - gets in one shot), into your poke for safekeeping.

Finer particles of gold can be picked out with tweezers and placed in the vial—or, do as I do and empty the concentrates into a lidded container and take them home to be cleaned out later at your leisure. Because right now you want to get back and finish cleaning up the paydirt from that hidden deposit you just unearthed.

DON’T BE DISCOURAGED if there is no pay in the pan! Not every pan will contain gold, unless of course, you are on a virgin piece of ground or you have hit what I tend to call the “motherlode” or a “hot spot.” Empty pans are to be expected and this is what makes the hobby so darn captivating–the thrill of never knowing what’s in the pan until you give it the final twirl.

Metal Detecting

Nothing is more fun than metal detecting for placer gold. I bought my first metal detector years ago after I read about a million-dollar nugget found in Australia by an “electronic” prospector. The captivating article about the immense nugget got me totally hooked on metal detecting and I have unearthed some great treasures over the years—everything from worn-thin coins, an antique Chinese tobacco tin and remains of an old gold watch, to silverware and rusty nails. Yes, even some gold nuggets, which are the thrill of a lifetime when the discriminator on the detector is set to gold and the machine is beeping like crazy–you know treasure has been struck!

When I bought my detector there were not as many models or available features as there are on the market today. But regardless of what kind of detector you have, it’s important to practice with your machine at home in the yard before hitting the goldfields.

I learned how to use the discriminator (various settings for various metals) on my detector by burying a nail, a dime, nickel and penny, a sardine can and an old gold ring in the backyard garden. I then “beeped” the hidden items back out, tweaking the settings as I worked. I also played around with depths to get a feel for the strength of the detector.

The most prospective place to find gold with a metal detector is, naturally, on areas of outcropping bedrock where the gold may be hidden in cracks and crevices, and in old tailing piles where nuggets may have been washed out of sluice boxes, or too big to fall through the screens. Some of the most impressive nuggets I have beeped out have been from old tailing piles and from pockets in the bedrock on gold claims that we have leased and worked over the years.

Sluice Box

Here’s a handy piece of equipment for increasing gold production. Most experienced gold panners can pan about one cubic yard of gravel a day whereas using a small portable sluice box can process the same amount in about one hour. But you must be on your own, or on a leased claim with permission, in order to sluice for gold. You must also be aware of rules and regulations regarding sluicing.

A sluice box is a narrow box which contains a rug or mat on the bottom that is held down firmly with a screen or several screens. The rug and screens are used for trapping the gold. The sluice box is sat on an angle, prospective gravel is shoveled into the top of the box and water is poured over the gravel. As the water flows out of the box it carries away the lighter materials while leaving the gold trapped behind in the screens and on the rug.

After several hours of feeding the sluice box, it can be “cleaned out.” The screen is removed, nuggets retrieved if visible, and the mat washed in the gold pan to retrieve the flour or finer flakes of gold. It’s very exciting to clean up the rug from a sluice box that has a nice accumulation of gold, typically much more than can be retrieved in a single pan.

Dredges

I mention dredging because Sandor and I used a dredge for a number of seasons on a gold claim in the Omineca, which we leased from the owner. Dredges are expensive. The rules and regulations regarding using them can be very complicated and strict, especially regarding waters that have fish populations that must be protected.

However, on the claim we worked on, we used our dredge on an open piece of ground high above the river where the owner had worked a large area with heavy-duty equipment, clearing off the thick layers of rich paydirt from the bedrock.

As they worked the ground with machines, ground water kept seeping in preventing the operation from cleaning out the rich crevices and pockets in the bedrock. Enter the dredge, which works like a vacuum cleaner sucking up the gold-bearing material along with the water, which then goes into a built-in sluice box where the gold is trapped and the tailings make their way out. The dirty water from the dredge remains in what is called a “settling pond,” preventing it from enter- ing the river. Dredges are not intended for use by the novice gold prospector or those who do not own or lease a

WHICH TAKES US back to the gold pan, the number-one piece of gold mining equipment needed for breaking ground in this exciting hobby. So, gear up and get going. I promise you there are many riches just waiting to be discovered.