This Pack Animal Is Nothing To Spit At
MIDDLE CANADA –The majestic llama, one of Canada’s greatest animals, is a popular sight at fairs, exhibitions, and events around the country. But in the Rockies they are still an essential part of the mountaineer’s setting.
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Pickup trucks and SUVs may have removed many of the tasks once assigned to this native beast, but cowboys, climbers, and poachers still rely on their favourite llama when the tracks get too steep for their vehicles.
There has been a resurgence in recreational llama riding, as city dwellers head to the hills to enjoy the wind on their faces, and the feel of soft fur under their buttocks. Week-long vacations planned for bare-back llama riding are replacing traditional horse riding and dude ranch retreats. The renewed interest is in no small part due to the RCMP’s distinguished Llama Corps, an elite group of llama riders that put on amazing synchronized displays for tourists and politicians.
The Rocky Mountain Llama is one of several species of ruminant mammals native to the Rocky Mountains. Other species have included the Great Northern Guanaca and the Shaggy Spitting Llama–although the guanaca was hunted to extinction by superstitious natives, thinking it was a demon. Mounds of bones can still be seen at Neck-Caved-In, a once-popular Neolithic hunting spot.
The Rocky Mountain and the “Spitter” are the two survivors. While the Rocky Mountain llama is the taller and more impressive of the two, the Spitter makes for a sturdy–if annoying–herding animal.
Although isolated herds of wild llama still exist, the animal is best known as a domestic beast of burden. Used as a convenient pack animal during the years of the Yukon gold rush, the idea of riding the llama was born when a goldminer’s wife complained so much of tired feet that the man threw her on top of a spare pack llama, just to shut her up. A brief golden age of llama riders ensued with the Postal Llama Express, llama rickshaws, and the Canadian Alpaca Armada, a military detachment of smaller Peruvian beasts that were cousins to the llama.
For a time, it seemed everyone had a llama.
Llama breeders tried selling llamas as pets during the seventies, but they didn’t realize the beasts would grow up to eleven-feet high. Many llamas were released in city parks, and can still be seen performing tricks for handouts of popcorn and hotdogs.
Llamas are related to camels although they are easier to saddle–as they don’t have those damned inconvenient humps on their backs. Llamas are long-haired, like poodles, and their wool is prized, much like poodle fur. Typically, Canadian llamas are shaved in the autumn season, and are given simple woolen blankets to keep them warm in the winter–as llama blankets are much too expensive.
Canadian Hinterland articles provide you with interesting knowledge about Canada’s improbable animal residents
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