Mountain Goat

Some of the men went hunting for mountain goats. And that’s more up towards Bute, I guess. But I remember where my grandfather and some of his relatives had gone, was up in Toba Inlet, going looking for mountain goats. And they have to go pretty far up to do that. It was only the very trained – the very fit men that went after the mountain goats. I’ve never, ever tried mountain goat. But the old-timers did. That was just something different, like the different texture I guess. And the wool was used for making things – clothing or whatever, or bedding. The hide was used for something else. And it had fat in it too that they rendered down and used. Just like the way they used the fat from the big deer. ’Cause I remember seeing that when the hunter would come home and it was a big buck and it would have a lot of fat in the stomach area of the deer. In this fine – it looked almost like a mesh net, and wrapped around I guess the stomach of the deer. So they would pull that out and dry it – hang it over something and dry it a bit. And the kids would be all excited about that. That was a real treat too. They’d take a little bit of that and wrap it around a stick and toast it over the fire. And it’s like marshmallows! [laughs]