A Five-Day Pack Trip That Went Sideways in Alberta

A long horseback trip into the Alberta backcountry started as a rodeo of half-broke horses and unfamiliar stock. Then it opened into grizzly, moose, and a mess of mountain goats for two couples who had driven a long way to get there. What follows is the story of how that trip went wrong at the trailhead and right in the high country.

The outfit belonged to Bert Dalglish, a hunter and cook out of Hazelmere, Alberta, who ran his operation from a ranch there with his wife Jean doing the cooking back at the ranch house. The account of the trip, titled “Stinky Creek,” ran in Outdoor Life’s December 1954 issue. That first evening, the party raised its tents among a stand of quaking aspen.

Who Made the Trip

The hunting party was two couples: Mac and Ede McCormick, and the narrator and his wife Ethie. This was Ede McCormick’s first hunt, and both couples came prepared in their own ways. Ede had stood small goat cutouts in her garden, and between batches of cake she kept her rifle within reach and dry-fired at them. Mac looked after a pair of horses in a corral out back, feeding and bedding them daily to ready both the animals and himself. Ethie went at her preparation hard too. She mounted a high-voltage Tennessee walker to toughen up for the trip, and the horse threw her into a tree.

The group also practiced at a rifle range in Redlands, California. They punched 200- and 300-yard groups and worked the running-deer target before they ever left home. All of that preparation mattered once they reached the country. None of it prepared them for the horses waiting at the trailhead.

The Drive North and the Outfitter

Getting to Dalglish’s ranch meant a long haul. The party drove north through Banff, Jasper, and Edmonton to Grande Prairie, Alberta, then overnighted at Beaverlodge on the way to Hazelmere. Dalglish met the hunters at a cracker-box hotel in Grande Prairie that was smothered behind a high, yellow, false front.

Dalglish sold the trip on the country he could reach. He wrote that he could put clients onto grizzly, moose, and plenty of goat, and promised that most came home satisfied. He also leaned hard on the kitchen side of his work. He called himself the cook for the trip, with four Indian guides to take care of the hunters, and figured a good hunt rides as much on what you eat as on what you shoot. To back that up, he spent money on new tents and stoves for the trip.

The Horses That Nearly Wrecked It

The trouble started with the stock. Dalglish had to rent some of the horses because of a shortage, and the bunch had never traveled together before. Most of them had gone a full year without a saddle, which is a hard way to begin a pack trip into rough country. The string was large — the trip used 28 horses — and keeping that many half-ready animals moving in the same direction was a job in itself.

The worst of them was a wild bay that had never worn a packsaddle. It raised so much hell that Bert finally lashed the sheet-iron stoves on it. The lead mare was a huge black horse named Nellie, and the narrator rode a roan Morgan mare named Ruby with a white spot on her forehead. The guides started out at 3 o’clock in the afternoon with strings of haltered horses, and the party pitched camp at 6 p.m. The guides handling the stock included Leo and Steve. Steve drew Mac. He stood twice Leo’s height, a mountain of muscle. Leo moved in a crouch, the way a man walks when his horse has just been pulled out from under him, and he wore a black 10-gallon hat. Leo told the narrator they would pack for five days before hunting at Stinky Creek.

Down to the Wapiti and On to the Country

Once the string settled and the trip got underway, the going turned scenic. The long line of horses picked its way down an aspen-yellowed slope and out onto the flat that borders the Wapiti River. The party departed the ranch on August 28, timing that put them in the high country when the goats were where Dalglish promised they would be.

The country matched the pitch. Dalglish had promised grizzly, moose, and goats, and the trip that began as a wild-horse rodeo opened into the kind of high-country hunting the couples would remember for the rest of their lives.

How the High Country Has Changed

The story carries a reminder about how much the high country has changed. Sheep numbers in the 1950s and 1960s ran far higher than they do now. That shaped the kind of hunting that was possible then, and the expectations hunters carried into the mountains. The era produced its own legends of travel-light hunting. An old-time sheep hunter known as Bill, recalled on Outdoor Life, carried a 25-pound pack and dressed head to toe in wool. He skipped rain gear. He carried only a sheet of Visqueen, something to curl up in once the light went.

Gear has moved the other direction since. Where Bill cut weight by carrying almost nothing, today’s backcountry hunters cut it with better equipment. Replacing a Nalgene with soft plastic reservoirs and trading a Steripen for a soft-sided filter water bottle together save close to a pound. Different means, same aim: carry less, move faster, stay longer.

Why the Worst Trip Became the Best

The Stinky Creek hunt earned both titles honestly. The rented, unfamiliar, long-unsaddled horses turned the first leg into a fight, and the wild bay packing the stoves made clear how close the whole thing came to coming apart. But Dalglish’s country delivered on the pitch. Two couples who had trained hard, practiced at the range, and driven across the continent reached the high country Dalglish had promised would hold grizzly, moose, and goats. The worst hunt can turn into the best one when the country delivers after the plan falls apart.

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