When you see a mountain goat standing tall on an alpine ridge, his long white winter coat rippling in the gusting wind, you know why the mountain goat has to be the best symbol of our region.

The mountain goat spends all its days close to rock cliffs at the top of our world, the only safe escape from wolves, bear and the odd wolverine.

Tough, the ultimate survivor, mountain goats can withstand minus 40 degree C temperatures and 40 km winds as long as there are enough freeze-dried sedges and grasses to eat along high open ridges where the cold wind scours the snow clear.

Predators can catch a goat in the open but starvation is a bigger threat if goats can't paw through deep or crusted snow . Avalanches and rock slides can end a goat's life, and bears patrol the bottom of avalanche chutes in the spring to find the frozen remains of any goats that were swept off the mountain.

In summer, life is easier except for the lightening strikes that threaten goats standing in the open. Three days after birth at the end of May, new-born mountain goats leave the safety of a rock ledge to follow the nanny up and down the mountain. On hot sunny days, they move up to the cool air at the top of the mountain. They move down on stormy days to the edge of the timber or under a rock ledge to keep out of a soaking rain.

Mountain goats are only found in BC, the Yukon and several of the northern US states along the Rocky Mountains. BC has the largest mountain goat population in the world. Their true name is Oreamnos Americanus. The oldest fossils of the species ever found are in BC and are 90,000 years old.