With its upper cascading waterfalls and meltwater beginnings, thickened with the fine-particle "rock flour" of glacier-scraped bedrock, the Kicking Horse River gradually settles into a more sedate "U-shaped" valley or "glacial trough." The flat valley bottom, with its steep side walls, was formed when ancient grinding glaciers crowded their way into existing river valleys.

In its lower reaches, however, untouched by the glacier's fist, the river's valley resumes its narrow V-shape. Water alone has been left to carve out the wild and rugged Kicking Horse Canyon, savagely sculpting a narrow corridor to the river's final confluence with the Columbia River. In summer months, when glacial meltwaters reach their peak, the whitened waters of the Kicking Horse River become the crashing, careening, supremely challenging whitewater of the Kicking Horse Canyon.

The Wandering Wolverine
When it comes to food, the wolverine is like a creature obsessed. In its single-minded quest for its next meal, it will travel hundreds of kilometres through rocky, rugged territory, brave the wrath of wolves and mountain lions for a mouthful of scavenged carrion, scale an overhanging branch to swoop down and snatch supplies, and set to work to gnaw and claw its way through a well-stocked country cabin. Head of a moose? Haunches of a caribou? Frozen, rock-hard carcass? No problem: the wolverine's powerful jaws make short work of every bone and sinew.

In its steadfast, dogged determination to satisfy its appetite, the wolverine has developed a somewhat undeserved reputation for ferocity and gluttony. In fact, it eats no more than other animals in its 12 - 18 kilogram size range, and is truly aggressive only when threatened with danger or starvation. Although a hungry wolverine will prey on marmots, ground squirrels, and snowshoe hares, and will even kill an animal many times its size — including moose and caribou — it avoids confrontation, and prefers to dine on leftovers. It avoids people, other animals, and — except for brief periods of mating and rearing of kits — other wolverines.

Solitude Seeker: In fact, like its wilderness neighbour, the grizzly bear, the wolverine likes nothing better than to be left alone. In its dual quest for food and solitude, a male wolverine will roam a range of up to 1,000 square kilometres; in the far north, territories of up to 3,000 square kilometres have been identified. The range of the wolverine is much larger than that of other mammals of its size, and its density is much lower, with only 1 wolverine for every 400 - 800 square kilometres. Density is closely linked to the ungulate population: the more moose, caribou and elk carrion available, the more wolverines an area will support.

"Skunk Bear": Shaggy-haired, chocolate-brown in colour and encircled with distinctive blonde bands extending from shoulder to hip, the wolverine has the broad face of a bear (for which it is sometimes mistaken) and the stature of a medium-sized dog. Though it belongs to the weasel family, its sturdy body bears little resemblance to the long, lean profile of the mink, marten, fisher, badger or otter. The wolverine is powerfully built; its skull is strong and robust, its neck and shoulder muscles are well-developed, and its semi-retractable, curved claws can be used for climbing and digging. Like other mustelids, the wolverine secretes a fluid known as musk from its anal glands. While some musk-producing animals use the substance to mark their territories and communicate with other members of their own species, the wolverine appears to use its secretions mostly for defensive purposes. Rare human encounters with wolverines are likely to be scented with the pungent musk of the wolverine.

Accelerated Growth: Accustomed to a life of constant wandering, female wolverines pause only briefly to rear their young. They rarely have more than 3 kits (and none at all if food supplies are low). After a brief nursing period of 9 or 10 weeks—during which the kits are often left alone—the young wolverines are expected to keep up when their mother resumes her peripatetic pace. The wolverine's choice of denning habitat, however, appears to be a major concession to responsible parenthood: the vulnerable kits are well-protected in an underground cavity, buffered by a long and complex series of tunnels topped by rocks, boulders and deep snow cover. Wolverines go to extreme measures to protect their offspring; however, any breach of den security—including human intervention—is a trauma that will cause a mother to abandon her post and her kits.

Wolverine Conservation Status
• The wolverine's habitat is confined to isolated backcountry mountain ranges and alpine tundra. It is found in limited numbers in all northern regions of the globe, including Canada, Russia, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and Asia.

• The wolverine has largely disappeared from its historical range in the southwest and mid-west of the United States, and from the maritime provinces of Canada. It is extremely rare in Ontario and Quebec, limited in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and in Alberta, is now found only in the Rocky Mountains and remote northern areas. More robust populations occur in mainland British Columbia, the Yukon, mainland North West Territories and Alaska. In Eurasia, highest population densities occur in western Siberia and extreme eastern Russia.

• Wolverines in western Canada, including at Yoho National Park, are listed as a species of concern by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), and are recognized as a species at risk by the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia.

• The wolverine's glossy, frost-resistant coat has made it a favoured target of trappers. Historically, the wolverine has been exterminated because of its tendency to damage traplines while scavenging.

• Urban development, resource extraction (logging and mining), roads (such as the Trans Canada Highway in the Kicking Horse Pass wildlife corridor) and backcountry recreational activities (such as skiing and hiking), can threaten wolverine survival. Backcountry visitors in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse River watershed can assist wolverine monitoring efforts by reporting any wolverine tracks they observe.

• Wolverines seek solitude and isolation. Do not follow wolverine tracks, and do not approach a wolverine den!

Kicking Horse Wildlife Notes
Spanning 4 eco-regions on the western slopes of the Canadian Rockies, including interior cedar hemlock (wet valley, wet forest), montane (drier valley bottom grasslands), sub-alpine (fir, lodgepole pine and spruce snow forest) and alpine (above treeline), and connecting the watersheds of the Bow River and the Columbia River, the Kicking Horse River Valley acts as an important wildlife corridor. In addition to moose, mule, white-tailed and red deer, porcupines, coyotes, black bears, snowshoe hares, Rocky mountain goats, bighorn sheep, caribou, lynx, wolverine and puma, bald and golden eagles, grey jays, mountain bluebirds, rock pipits and harlequin ducks, notable mammals and birds of the area include:

• Grizzly Bears - Like the solitary wolverine, the large, heavy-bodied grizzly bear roams hundreds of square kilometres through the Rocky Mountain landscape, feeding in montane and sub-alpine zones in spring, and moving above the treeline in the summer. Avalanche paths on south-facing slopes provide winter-kill carrion and an early-season source of green shoots and wild legumes such as Indian Potato (Hedysarum). (Contrary to popular belief, omnivorous grizzlies are overwhelmingly plant-eaters. Animal prey such as elk, moose, deer, caribou, marmots and ground squirrels make up less than 20% of the grizzly's diet.) As the season advances, grizzlies follow the avalanche chutes up the mountains, feeding on emerging vegetation and roots, and later on a wide variety of berries. In winter, grizzlies den at higher elevations, but do not hibernate. Grizzly bears are shy and sensitive animals, with a low tolerance for human interference. In Yoho National Park, the West Slopes Bear Research Project is assessing grizzly bear population size, movements, habitat and human impact in order to develop sound management policies for areas such as the Kicking Horse Corridor. How to tell a grizzly bear from a black bear? Look for white, silver or cream-tipped ("grizzled") shaggy fur, a pronounced hump over the front shoulders, a dish-shaped, concave face, small, rounded ears set well apart, and tracks that show closely-spaced toes and faint claw marks set well ahead.

• Wolves - During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the robust Rocky Mountain Wolf, 35-55 kilograms in weight and 80 centimetres in height, was nearly eliminated by wolf control programs on both public and private lands. But the wolves began re-colonizing the central Rockies in the early 1980's, and are now present in the lower elevations of the Kicking Horse River watershed. Radio collar ("telemetry") tracking programs in Kootenay and Yoho National Parks suggest that wolf packs in the Rocky Mountains require large territories of up to 1,000 square kilometres; field investigations of wolf kill sites reveal that the animals prey primarily on moose and elk. Wolf populations in the area remain tenuous: ungulate food sources are declining, and road and rail collisions are taking a heavy toll. Visitors to the area's parks are advised to obey speed limits, to avoid approaching a wolf, and to report wolf sightings to park information centres.

• Hoary Marmots - Sightings of this rotund, whimsical member of the squirrel family, shaped like a groundhog, and about the size of a domestic cat, never fail to bring smiles to the faces of Rocky Mountain wildlife watchers. Gentle and social, marmots occupy rocky outcroppings and bolder-strewn slopes of sub-alpine and alpine zones, living in underground colonial burrows and feeding on alpine grasses. The Hoary Marmot is known for its long, shrill whistle, used to warn other marmots and small mammals, such as pikas, of impending danger. They are also known for their long hibernation period, up to 8 months of the year.

· Northern Pikas - Squeaking and squealing, the beguiling little Northern Pika, a pint-sized rabbit relative with big ears, lots of whiskers and no tail, clambers through the rock piles of the Rocky Mountains. Unlike its friend, the Hoary Marmot, the Pika does not hibernate. Instead, it stockpiles stacks of dried plants and grasses to see it through the winter, and grazes in tunnels under the snow.

The Cambrian Explosion: Famous Fossils of the Burgess Shale
With Emerald Lake and the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the background, the setting of the famous fossil quarries of the Burgess Shale, near the town of Field on the Kicking Horse River, could hardly be more spectacular. The majesty of the site's location is matched by its pre-eminent position as the world's most significant assemblage of Middle Cambrian-era fossils. Like a photograph snapped at the height of the party, the Burgess Shale captures the teeming diversity of ocean life of over half a billion years ago. Minute anatomical details of life forms that no longer exist have given rise to keen speculation and sustained controversy, challenging Darwinian notions of a continuous "march of life." Adding to the drama of the Burgess Shale is the presence of a primitive vertebrate, the first recorded member of human ancestry.

Burgess Shale Essentials
• The Burgess Shale (named for nearby Mount Burgess) is a Cambrian-era rock formation located in the watershed of the Kicking Horse River, near Field, British Columbia in Yoho National Park. It occurs within the Stephen Formation in Burgess Pass on the southwest side of the ridge between Mount Wapta and Mount Field. The site is divided into the "Walcott Quarry," the "Raymond Quarry," and the "Mount Stephen" Fossil Beds.

• The Burgess Shale was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, and is now part of the UNESCO Rocky Mountain World Heritage Park, designated in 1984.

• The Burgess Shale is considered to be the authoritative, snapshot-like picture of life in the Cambrian geological period. It contains fossils of marine organisms that lived about 530-540 million years ago.

• Burgess Shale fossils are representative of the "Cambrian Explosion," a relatively sudden surge in species diversity and complexity, during which multi-celled organisms made their first appearance.

• The fossils are found in former underwater banks known as "phyllopod beds," and are the result of sudden death of the organisms, thought to have been caused by suffocation due to underwater 'slumps," or mud slides. An absence of oxygen prevented natural bacterial decay and protected the organisms from scavengers.

• Unlike more commonly occurring fossil units, which contain only remnants of hard shells or exoskeletons ("hard parts"), the Burgess Shale also contains fossils of soft-bodied organisms and delicate soft body parts, such as gills, limbs, and inner organs. The site is known for its exceptional level of "soft-bodied preservation."

• In addition to their high level of preservation, the Burgess Shale organisms were buried at all angles, revealing a variety of positions and orientations, and providing many different anatomical views.

• More than 120 species of marine invertebrates are represented in the Burgess Shale. About 40% of the fossils are of non-trilobite arthropods. The most abundant of these is "marrello," or "lace crab," an organism that swept along the sea floor. Other organisms include invertebrates that resemble modern-day sponges, jelly fish, starfish, mollusks and crustaceans. Marine worms and other burrowing animals are particularly well-preserved.

• Of great interest to scientists is that 15-20 Burgess Shale species, including the exotic and mysterious "Hallucigenia," are unrelated to any living forms and cannot be classified in any known modern phylum, or species group. The species diversity of the Burgess Shale exceeds the diversity of invertebrate life in modern oceans, challenging evolutionary assumptions of steadily increasing diversity, and suggesting that diversity has in fact declined.

• One of the most significant fossils of the Burgess Shale is the chordate "pikaia," ancestor of the phylum that includes all vertebrates, including humans.

• The fossils of the Burgess Shale were discovered in 1909 by paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who was investigating reports of "stone bugs" (trilobite fossils) discovered by Canadian Pacific Railway construction workers. Walcott collected 65,000 specimens from the Walcott Quarry from 1910-1924. Since then the location has been studied extensively by Percy Raymond of Harvard University (1930), the Geological Survey of Canada (1966-1967), the Cambridge University team of Simon Conway Morris, Derek Briggs and Harry Whittington (1971-1985), and Dr. Desmond Collins of the Royal Ontario Museum (current). In 1989, the Burgess Shale was made famous by the popular book "Wonderful Life," by Stephen Jay Gould.

• Burgess Shale fossils are excavated by dissolving rock in dilute acetic acid (vinegar), and by using ultra-violet light to pin-point fossil location and shape.

• The term "Burgess Shale" refers to the Rocky Mountain location, but is also used to describe the type of fossil assemblage (soft-bodied, multi-cellular organisms) found at the site. Other "Burgess Shale" fossils have been discovered in China, Greenland, Siberia, Australia, Europe and the United States.