Listen to its Song— the Sheep River By Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.
In the beginning, there was ice and the earth had no visible form. With snowfall, the glacier grew and gravity bore the ice mass downslope. This was not pristine ice suitable for a highball. Instead, it was permeated with bits of mountain the glacier had ground up. Like a great kitchen grater, the glacier gouged out the valley that in the fullness of time the Sheep River would flow through, delivering the melted remnants of that ice mass.
The Blackfoot and Stoney First Nations named the river after bighorn sheep, still found in the headwaters and canyon walls. Peter Fidler, from the Hudson’s Bay Company, on his 1792/93 trek made reference to the Sheep River in his journals. The river has a rich history.
From the headwaters to its confluence with the Highwood River, as the crow flies is about 107 km. But the river twists back and forth, in torturous turns not unlike the response of a garden hose when the tap is cranked full-on, so the distance is an underestimate.
The Sheep River has its origins in the protected landscapes of Kananaskis Country, Bluerock Wildland Park, and Sheep River Provincial Park. Avalanche slopes roar with meltwaters coursing down drainages more vertical than horizontal. Headwater streams have a constant rumble as rocks are propelled downstream with the racing flow. It is as if a colossal, elemental cement mixer is at work endlessly agitating and grinding the edges from frost-shattered rocks, making them rounder and more easily moved. This process of turning big rocks into little ones becomes especially relevant to downstream water storage in alluvial gravels, shaded by a luxuriant riparian forest.
Downstream of Gibraltar Mountain the river starts to incise, forming a steep-sided canyon often over a hundred meters deep that persists until just upstream of Turner Valley. As it carves its way downwards, there are places where the backbone of the mountains will not break. This includes Sheep Falls and Triple Falls, but there are numerous other bedrock infringements on a river’s rights. The river has patience on its side, sandpapering and polishing the bedrock. Resistance is futile but the bedrock budges minimally, over the kind of time we cannot fathom.
It is here the river is loudest, complaining of the hoops it has to jump through to deliver water downstream. A colleague, who worked at the nearby Gorge Creek biological station, recalled hearing the grinding and clashing of large boulders driven downstream by the turbulent spring flows.
The Sheep River canyon holds some unique memories for me. I worked one spring with colleagues to electrofish the canyon, in search of mountain whitefish thought to overwinter in deep pools. Entering the dark canyon, only minimally lit by the spring sun seemed like a trip into the bowels of the earth. We caught a handful of mountain whitefish, dispelling the theory the canyon was their overwintering lair.
The native fish complement, in addition to Mountain Whitefish, was Bull Trout, Westslope Cutthroat Trout, longnose suckers, and white suckers. Early sportsmen, with European roots, lobbied for trout stocking, mostly of non-native Rainbow Trout to shore up what they believed were population declines. The unique genetic adaptation of native cutthroats was overwhelmed with Rainbow Trout genes. The “Johnny Appleseed” mentality pervaded and from 1928 onward until the early 1970s Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Brook Trout, and non-native Cutthroat Trout were stocked in the watershed.
Ironically, it was in Gorge Creek, where Dr. R. B. Miller, an early fisheries researcher, investigated the madness of stocking hatchery trout in streams already home to native populations. Miller found hatchery trout, not used to the rigors of a stream environment, mostly died, often within days of stocking. Still, the idea that streams needed hatchery help took a while to die.
Bull trout populations, elsewhere doing poorly, seem to be rallying in the Sheep River. Jay Jones, an avid angler has noted an expansion of the area where they spawn, signaling a population increase. Bow River Rainbow Trout migrate into the Sheep to spawn in a reach through Okotoks. But Jim Stelfox, a retired provincial fisheries biologist points out excessive water withdrawals create low flows, and coupled with increased water temperatures and treated sewage releases this leads to periodic and chronic fish kills. A failing grade is given for trout kills.
What trout need to survive are stream habitats that are cold, clean, connected, and contain complex elements. The presence and abundance of trout populations is a metric of watershed health and a report card on the way we manage land uses in a watershed.
In a prior administrative life, the Sheep River headwaters was part of the original great sweep of Forest Reserves of the Eastern Slopes. Although set aside for watershed protection, there was logging and coal mining, but at relatively minor scales.
Selective logging with a minimal footprint was the order of the day, using axes, crosscut saws, man, and horsepower. Contrast that with todays’ industrial-scale operations (on tributaries like Wolf and Coal creeks) where timber is mown down like wheat in a field, leaving great expanses of the forest denuded and subject to erosion.
No environmental regulations were in place during the discovery and development of oil and gas resources from 1914 through to 1946. One can only speculate on the materials flushed into the river and petrochemical contamination may be an enduring legacy of the boom period.
The breezes no longer stink with the smell of unrestrained exploitation, and only ruffle the leaves of cottonwoods in the wider valley of the Sheep starting near Turner Valley. The river becomes braided, with multiple channels and a riparian fringe of treed summer greenery. Here the river murmurs over gravels, the former boulders, and rocks from the mountains ground down to size. The valley of the Sheep has a deep, wide bed of gravel and the river flows on the surface, beside the channel, and beneath it. No wonder the water-loving cottonwoods, willows, red-osier dogwoods, and saskatoons across the floodplain prosper. Coincidentally, amid the traffic noise is a cacophony of summer bird song, for those inclined to listen.
Unsurprisingly, humans have always gravitated to the places where wood, water, and shelter made survival possible. Once there, as Chris Mills, an Okotoks resident observes: “We have chaffed at the warnings and restrictions imposed by the river”. In flood, the river roars with a voice not to be ignored and sweeps away the puny attempts to constrain it. In drought years, the supply of water does not equate to thirsty wishes. It would be better if we recognized limits and learned to bend with the river.
Trying to bend the river to our wants is costly, it sacrifices much of the amenity and ecological values of the valley and, in the final analysis, is futile. Big rock (Okotoks) is a fine name for a town, but piled on the river banks—hardly! A mountain of boulder and concrete rip-rap now covers almost seven kilometers of the riverbank from Turner Valley to the mouth. An observant colleague points out there are two types of bank armoring—the type that has failed and the type that will.
Straightening and straight jacketing the channel and covering the floodplain with roads, buildings, and parking lots compound problems of flooding. Intact floodplains absorb and store floodwater, dissipate energy, reduce erosion and add to groundwater storage, invaluable for future thirsty times.
Fitting communities to the river, especially for flood protection suggests the best way to protect people from floods is to protect floodplains from people. Rivers know a secret—pay no attention to boundaries. In every flood the river delivers the same, time-worn message—stay out of my way. The question becomes, is there anyone listening?
On this, Mike Murray, from the Bow River Basin Council provides a valuable perspective: “Watershed stewardship groups coalesce around the thought a community of interests can help direct a course for a shared landscape, providing vision, support, and cooperation”. With such engaged individuals, rivers and their watersheds develop a voice and friends.
John Scott Black, an early southern Alberta media broadcaster (and avid angler) once told me what is ignored and overlooked is something doomed. With the announcement of the construction of a dam that would drown three rivers, the Castle, Crowsnest, and Oldman, he bemoaned the fact these rivers lacked enough friends to thwart their eventual demise. In a similar way, if the Sheep River lacks friends, visible champions and visionary bureaucrats, local and provincial politicians, it is in a dangerous position.
Canadian folk artist Connie Kaldor sings of going up the Sheep to climb a mountain, cool her feet in its flow, and breathe the Rocky Mountain air. The song is a poignant memory of the Sheep River, because as she croons, “I’ll be there if only in my dreams”. Dreams can be evocative bookmarks but alone do not guarantee the persistence of the reality that created them. The Sheep River as it once was, maybe still is, may slip away unless there is awareness, knowledge, and the will to ensure it continues to inspire and provide its other gifts to us.
The Sheep River has a song rich with layers of meaning and expression. If you listen and have taken the time to hear, the song has a complex message. The message is eons old and as new as today. It says a river is a unified, integrated system, upstream to downstream, channel to riparian and visible water to subsurface flow—it cannot be divided into parts and expected to function.
The river sings to us, about us. It speaks to what changes and what stays the same. What we need and what we don’t. What is precious, what is lost and what is gained. How we can be washed away in ignorance, hubris, and greed. Mostly, the song reminds us why we should care for a river that provides so much and requires some respect in return.
Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish, and Wildlife Biologist, and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary.
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