In Nature's Realm by Michael Layland

Author:Michael Layland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchwood Editions
Published: 2019-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

Fig. 13-3 A mature male Roosevelt elk in velvet, photographed near Youbou on Cowichan Lake [image edited]. Photo © courtesy of Malcolm Chalmers Photography.

Had Compton’s memoir been published, this reference to the spirit bear would have been highly significant. It would have been one of, if not the very first, to have drawn the attention of the scientific community to what was later identified as a geographically separate subspecies of black bear, the Ursus americanus kermodei. It was not described scientifically until 1905.20 It is now British Columbia’s official animal.

Compton’s last completed paragraph of his memoir was also about bears. It included a culinary anecdote:

The flesh of the black bear when young and in the spring is very good, and I know a gentleman who not knowing what animal he was eating, made an enormous dinner off young roast bear & declared it was the best mutton he ever tasted. When properly cured the hams are excellent but the old bears meat is very strong.21

Little is known about the last few years of Compton’s life. His bible recorded the birth of a second daughter, Katherine Milecent, in December 1867. He died in Victoria in August 1879, aged 41, to be survived by his daughter for less than a year. His naval friend, Daniel Pender, commemorated Compton’s name by two geographical features on the regional chart: an island in Blackfish Sound, and a prominent point at the northern entrance to Wells Passage. Both are in the Broughton Archipelago, an area close to Fort Rupert that Compton would have known intimately.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.