Goats on Morrice Mountain

H4831

H4831

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Morice Mountain is a big, lone, dome shaped mountain rising about 6,000 feet into the air south of Houston, in central British Columbia. There are many superstitions, stories and folklore concerning it. Some of the folklore developed from true situations. One widely accepted truism was that three days before a storm came, the mountain would have a hat on it. This was because about three days before a storm came, a moist, cold low pressure area would develop and a cloud would form on the top of the mountain.
It is quite a distinct mountain. The top of it has an area of about a quarter section of land that is a grassy, pasture like terrain and nearly level. In the 1950s about twenty rocky mountain goats called it home and from the air I have counted as many as 22. Goats have to have a home mountain that is rough and rocky enough to keep predators, including hunters, from getting to them. Their hide out on Morice Mountain was on the north west corner of the mountain and extended down for about a thousand feet.
Until the era of the 1950s no hunter had ever shot a goat on Morice Mountain, because of the difficulty in getting to the goats. There were no rocky, or over steep terrain in getting to them, it was just that it was too far to come and go in a days hunt. I knew some mighty tough hunters how had tried it. I had flown foresters in the area, with two of them in a camp near by and one Sunday they took a minimum of food, started early and go up and down. Those guys who spent every working day walking in often steep terrain and tough going, were great walkers, but even they never made it all the way up!
So, anyone know if any modern day goat hunters are hunting it? Or indeed, are there still goats on the mountain?
I hope some of you know something about it.
Bruce
 
Bruce, I don't know anything about that mountain, but would love to learn more. I have a little cabin in the bush not far from Houston, we are about 80 KM SE, on the West end of Francois lake so in the neighbourhood of that mountain. i will be sure to look it up. As regular summer migratory visitors from Saskatchewan, we get to explore and learn new spots around there every year, so it's nice to have one more thing to learn about the area. thanks!
 
The west end of Francois Lake where I flew the foresters in and out of is the exact place the forestry camp was located, that I wrote of! That was the closest access to the feasible route up Morice Mountain, the south-east corner.
If they have any type of museum facility anywhere close, enquire in there. There was one particularly dedicated historical writer that had a lot of stories about Morice mountain in the local papers and magazines. If I can think of his name I'll let you know.
 
Bruce............If I were a younger man and still in my prime I think I'd have to take that as a challenge..........but alas I'm not....(Thank God), 'cause I just have this terrible love/hate relationship with goat hunting........
 
Bruce I got two Rokons that would get part way up the mountain and can be tied to the sides of a boat with the fat tires sitting in the water
My large tipi tent for base camp and a ultralight seek outside tent and gear for going up the Mounten
I'm pretty sure that with my setup c-fbmi can make it up as well and be comfortable
I would let you old timers use it if you wanted I can go and help pack I'm not Young but I'm strong and stubborn
 
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Used to drive by Goats on the way to work at the mine!
Didn't seem like all that much trouble if a guy really wanted Goat.
Mind you they have bigger specimens between Terrace and Prince Rupert which to me is way rougher and harder to get.
 
c-fbmi said:
Bruce............If I were a younger man and still in my prime I think I'd have to take that as a challenge..........but alas I'm not....(Thank God), 'cause I just have this terrible love/hate relationship with goat hunting........
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Doug you are still young ... and you need a bc goat ....
 
j_06 said:
I found a little right up on how to get to and where to see them, sounds like they're still there. Mid page on the left,
http://www.bcnorth.ca/mountaingoats/watching.asp

win%2094
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That's good that the goats are still there. As I mentioned earlier, the goats wandered all over the top of the mountain, but their escape from predators hide out was in the cliffs they mention in the article, a thousand feet down from the top. And Douglas, that last thousand feet down and the climb back up again to get home, was the clincher that made the goats safe on the mountain from hunters!
I notice in other articles there are also a lot of trails made to the cliffs, some where full mountain climbing gear and lots of experience needed to go up and down the man made trails.
In short, it is obviously a much different mountain now, than the one I knew.
Bruce
 
I read a write up from the Houston Hikers association. i appears to prove the fact that wilderness only shrinks, there is never more of it. the Morrice mountain hike is accessible from a quad trail, and it is only a short ways to the top from the end of a quad trail.
Distance From Town:
28 km or 43 km
Route Length: 3.5
Round Trip: 3-5 Hours
Difficulty: Moderate
Cellphone Coverage: Partial

kinda sad, and I like your story better Bruce, but I might go for a hike there this summer anyway.
 
The goats are definitely still there, have seen them from the air. These days that's for better or worse not terribly remote or hard to access ground.

Another neat pocket of goats is found in the Sikanni protected area, in what is otherwise flat land. A large canyon drops out of essentially muskeg over 1000' down, and hosts a small but healthy population of mountain goats and a few sheep. Always fascinating seeing them in there, if you search the mountain goat range map from Wikipedia they are the little isolated blob all alone in NE BC.
 
There are goats in the Gonokwa (I know that is not spelled correctly) creek area near the Big Onion out of Smithers. A number of years ago went sledding up the main trail up onto the flats approaching Harvey mountain. A big boy used to park there and watch sleds go by all day. Goats can be seen also from the Glacier Gulch picnic area just west of Smithers on a good day.
 
Longwalker said:
I read a write up from the Houston Hikers association. i appears to prove the fact that wilderness only shrinks, there is never more of it. the Morrice mountain hike is accessible from a quad trail, and it is only a short ways to the top from the end of a quad trail.
Distance From Town:
28 km or 43 km
Route Length: 3.5
Round Trip: 3-5 Hours

Hardly any roads (trails) in there at the time I write of. We used to fly into a little lake for really good trout fishing. Not positive, but I think it was Cummins lake. Red fleshed and fat, wow they were good.
Difficulty: Moderate
Cellphone Coverage: Partial

kinda sad, and I like your story better Bruce, but I might go for a hike there this summer anyway.
Click to expand...

Hardly any roads (trails) in there at the time I write of. We used to fly into a little lake for really good trout fishing. Not positive, but I think it was Cummins lake. Red fleshed and fat, wow they were good.
 
Well Douglas can pull his arrrrrrrrrhagow up there with is Furrrarrrittity.
He mite be y'ung 'nuff yet..
Hope there t'ain't any swamps tuh go thru.
His last arrrrahgow jerknee wuzz chit yer drawrz's funny.
 
Ardent said:
The goats are definitely still there, have seen them from the air. These days that's for better or worse not terribly remote or hard to access ground.

Another neat pocket of goats is found in the Sikanni protected area, in what is otherwise flat land. A large canyon drops out of essentially muskeg over 1000' down, and hosts a small but healthy population of mountain goats and a few sheep. Always fascinating seeing them in there, if you search the mountain goat range map from Wikipedia they are the little isolated blob all alone in NE BC.
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Ardent, I'm beginning to think that you would hardly recognize the country back then!
One thing I'm wondering is what is the oldest navigation charts, or maps, you used? I saved all my old maps and they have really turned into really hard to find artifacts. Mine go back to the early 'forties, with most of them in the 1946 to 48 range. One thing that was good is they showed any cabin the map makers knew of, and marked it with a little square with a capital C in the square. Thus, if one was going to have to land because of weather, he could look for a lake with a cabin marked on it, to hole up in.
Williston Lake wasn't formed yet, flying up the trench would mean going basically up the middle of the lake. There were no roads in the area all the way to Fort Ware and beyond, that had been made with any type of machine, or even horse, power, north of McLeod. The only road to the Germansen area was a summer trail from Fort ST. James. A winter tractor (caterpillar type) road ran from Old Hogem to Aiken Lake and beyond, to service the mining industry of the 1930s. The old Swedes and Norwegians cut mile post markers for every mile post on the road. They cut them from green trees at least a foot across and the traditional great axeman ship of those men is well shown on the markers. They became highly sought after artifacts forty years ago. I can look at mile post 64 as I type this!
Actually, I see it is mile post 47 that my son and I sawed off, with a cross cut hand saw, and brought home.
Bruce
 
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It was my understanding that Morice mtn was closed to mountain goat hunting. Flew over it in a Bell 206 a couple years back and saw lots of nannies and kids.
 
H4831 said:
Ardent, I'm beginning to think that you would hardly recognize the country back then!
One thing I'm wondering is what is the oldest navigation charts, or maps, you used? I saved all my old maps and they have really turned into really hard to find artifacts. Mine go back to the early 'forties, with most of them in the 1946 to 48 range. One thing that was good is they showed any cabin the map makers knew of, and marked it with a little square with a capital C in the square. Thus, if one was going to have to land because of weather, he could look for a lake with a cabin marked on it, to hole up in.
Williston Lake wasn't formed yet, flying up the trench would mean going basically up the middle of the lake. There were no roads in the area all the way to Fort Ware and beyond, that had been made with any type of machine, or even horse, power, north of McLeod. The only road to the Germansen area was a summer trail from Fort ST. James. A winter tractor (caterpillar type) road ran from Old Hogem to Aiken Lake and beyond, to service the mining industry of the 1030s. The old Swedes and Norwegians cut mile post markers for every mile post on the road. They cut them from green trees at least a foot across and the traditional great axeman ship of those men is well shown on the markers. They became highly sought after artifacts forty years ago. I can look at mile post 64 as I type this!
Bruce
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That's pretty neat Bruce, recorded history, as much or more in those maps as most books. I started flying in 2002 I think, would have to dig out my logbook, and my oldest maps would only be from then. Very fresh history compared to your experiences!

I do love finding / seeing old cabins. One lake in Northern BC, had an archaeological assessment done on it. The report mentioned a cabin from the 40s or 50s, I found it and it's all but collapsed now. It's an extremely remote area now and would have been absurdly so then, pretty fascinating. BC is peppered with history rotting away.

Hard for me to imagine pre-dam Williston, it's such a familiar corridor as it stands now.
 
H4831 thanks for the posts, especially the last one in this thread. I work in some of those areas pretty interesting to hear how remote they used to be.
 
I had a chance to view those pristine maps a wee time back in time.
I think flies had an awpurrtunity to enter my mouth.
No Williston Lake.
Heck, Mica Dam wasn't even in the cards yet either.
 
About 20 years ago I was moose hunting in that area.One day we saw something white in the trees about 500 yards away.Though the spotting scope we saw it was a billie,then we saw more,there was about 6-8 of them.The next day we were back in the same area so I looked over to the mountain on the other side of the valley and counted about 25 nannies and kids.
 
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