Milk River runs along a ridge close to the Alberta-Montana border. In three days of paddling the Milk between Del Bonita and Milk River, Alberta, my wife and I saw neither human, nor tree. Cactus blooms in the hills in June, and at every turn of the river waterfowl are there training new borns. Cliff swallows buzz the sky as you pass. Deer and antelope gaze down from hilltops. Cattle graze, and the night sky has a billion stars. The Milk meanders incessantly, but the flow pushes you along. Camped by the river, you see for hours. "Hope's Last Home," the title of Tony Rees' book on the Milk, somehow fits.