ABSTRACT
For a long time I lived way out west in cowboy country. The foothills of the Rockies are rich, rolling pastures that are home to cattle, horse ranches, pine and aspen. This narrow ribbon of land stretches north–south for hundreds of miles – hemmed in on the west by snow-capped peaks and bordered on the east by flat, endless prairie of wheat and corn. Rivers run through it – the Athabasca, the North Saskatchewan, the Bow and the Old Man. And even this close to the mountains, they are already powerful as they drain the spring melt from the upper slopes. On their long journey east, they will merge to become mighty watercourses that eventually find their way into the Hudson’s Bay.
