Mount Assiniboine.
CAMPING IN THE
CANADIAN ROCKIES
AN ACCOUNT OF CAMP LIFE IN THE WILDER PARTS OF THE CANADIAN ROCKY MOUNTAINS, TOGETHER WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE REGION ABOUT BANFF, LAKE LOUISE, AND GLACIER, AND A SKETCH OF THE EARLY EXPLORATIONS
BY
WALTER DWIGHT WILCOX
WITH TWENTY-FIVE FULL-PAGE PHOTOGRAVURES, AND MANY TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK
27 West Twenty-third Street
LONDON
24 Bedford Street, Strand
The Knickerbocker Press
1896
Copyright, 1896
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE.
The Canadian Rocky Mountains offer exceptional attractions to those who enjoy natural scenery, sport, and camp life. Few regions of the world combining mountain, lake, and forest scenery possess the additional advantage of a delightful summer climate, such as obtains in the Canadian Rockies.
The extremely wild character of this part of the Rocky Mountains, and the very short time since it was opened up to travellers, are probably, in great part, the reasons for the lack of literature and the absence of any thoroughly illustrated publication concerning this region.
During a period of four years, the author has made camping excursions into many of the wilder parts of the mountains and effected a considerable number of ascents. An excellent camera has been an almost inseparable companion in every excursion, so that photographs of the typical scenery have been obtained from every possible point of view. Moreover, throughout all the processes of photographing, no expense of time or labor has been spared in order to obtain true and artistic representations of nature. Nor have these results been obtained without considerable sacrifice, for in many cases the proper light effects on lakes and forests required hours of delay, and frequently, on lofty mountain summits, high winds made it necessary to anchor the camera with stones; while the cold and exposure of those high altitudes made the circumstances unfavorable for successful work.
A map is not included in the volume, as, owing to the wildness of the country, there are no detailed maps covering this region that are entirely satisfactory. The best map, and, in fact, the only one available, is published in Dr. Dawson’s Preliminary Report on this part of the Rocky Mountains.
The author makes grateful acknowledgment of the assistance received from many friends in the preparation of this book. Special thanks are due to Prof. J. H. Gore, of Columbian University, and to the Hon. Chas. D. Walcott, Director of the United States Geological Survey, for the valuable aid and information given by them; to M. Guillaume La Mothe for an interesting letter concerning the first exploration of the Fraser River; and to Sir William Van Horne for the many courtesies extended.
W. D. W.
Washington, D.C., July, 1896.
CONTENTS.
[CHAPTER I.] Banff—Its Location—The Village—Tourists—Hotels—Topography of the Region—Rundle and Cascade Mountains—The Devil’s Lake—Sir George Simpson’s Journey to this Region—Peechee the Indian Guide—An Indian Legend—The Missionary Rundle—Dr. Hector—The Climate of Banff—A Summer Snow-Storm—The Mountains in Winter 1-15 [CHAPTER II.] Lake Louise—First Impressions—An Abode of Perpetual Winter—The Chalet—Visitors—Stirring Tales of Adventure—Primeval Forests—Forest Fires—Mosquitoes and Bull-Dog Flies—Mortal Combats between Wasps and Bull-dogs—The Old Chalet—Morning on the Lake—Approach of a Storm—Sublimity of a Mountain Thunder-Storm—Cloud Effects—The Lake in October—A Magnificent Avalanche from Mount Lefroy—A Warning of Approaching Winter 16-35 [CHAPTER III.] Surroundings of the Lake—Position of Mountains and Valleys—The Spruce and Balsam Firs—The Lyall’s Larch—Alpine Flowers—The Trail among the Cliffs—The Beehive, a Monument of the Past—Lake Agnes, a Lake of Solitude—Summit of the Beehive—Lake Louise in the Distant Future 36-46 [CHAPTER IV.] Organizing a Party for the Mountains—Our Plans for the Summer—William Twin and Tom Chiniquy—Nature, Habits, and Dress of the Stoney Indians—An Excursion on the Glacier—The Surface Debris and its Origin—Snow Line—Ascent of the Couloir—A Terrible Accident—Getting Down—An Exhausting Return for Aid—Hasty Organization of a Rescue Party—Cold and Miserable Wait on the Glacier—Unpleasant Surmises—“I Think You Die”—A Fortunate Termination 47-64 [CHAPTER V.] Castle Crags—Early Morning on the Mountain Side—View from the Summit—Ascent of the Aiguille—An Avalanche of Rocks—A Glorious Glissade—St. Piran—Its Alpine Flowers and Butterflies—Expedition to an Unexplored Valley—A Thirsty Walk through the Forest—Discovery of a Mountain Torrent—A Lake in the Forest—A Mountain Amphitheatre—The Saddle—Impressive View of Mount Temple—Summit of Great Mountain—An Ascent in Vain—A Sudden Storm in the High Mountains—Phenomenal Fall of Temperature—Grand Cloud Effects 65-83 [CHAPTER VI.] Paradise Valley—The Mitre Glacier—Air Castles—Climbing to the Col—Dark Ice Caverns—Mountain Sickness—Grandeur of the Rock-Precipices on Mount Lefroy—Summit of the Col at Last—A Glorious Vision of a New and Beautiful Valley—A Temple of Nature—Sudden Change of Weather—Temptation to Explore the New Valley—A Precipitate Descent—Sudden Transition from Arctic to Temperate Conditions—Delightful Surroundings—Weary Followers—Overtaken by Night—A Bivouac in the Forest—Fire in the Forest—Indian Sarcasm 84-100 [CHAPTER VII.] The Wild Character of Paradise Valley—Difficulties with Pack-Horses—A Remarkable Accident—Our Camp and Surroundings—Animal Friends—Midsummer Flowers—Desolation Valley—Ascent of Hazel Peak—An Alpine Lake in a Basin of Ice—First Attempt to Scale Mount Temple—Our Camp by a Small Lake—A Wild and Stormy Night—An Impassable Barrier—A Scene of Utter Desolation—All Nature Sleeps—Difficulties of Ascent—The Highest Point yet Reached in Canada—Paradise Valley in Winter—Farewell to Lake Louise 101-118 [CHAPTER VIII.] The Selkirks—Geographical Position of the Range—Good Cheer of the Glacier House—Charming Situation—Comparison between the Selkirks and Rockies—Early Mountain Ascents—Density of the Forest—Ascent of Eagle Peak—A Magnificent Panorama—A Descent in the Darkness—Account of a Terrible Experience on Eagle Peak—Trails through the Forest—Future Popularity of the Selkirks—The Forest Primeval—An Epitome of Human Life—Age of Trees—Forests Dependent on Humidity 119-136 [CHAPTER IX.] Mount Assiniboine—Preparations for Visiting it—Camp at Heely’s Creek—Crossing the Simpson Pass—Shoot a Pack-Horse—A Delightful Camp—A Difficult Snow Pass—Burnt Timber—Nature Sounds—Discovery of a Beautiful Lake—Inspiring View of Mount Assiniboine—Our Camp at the Base of the Mountain—Summer Snow-Storms—Inaccessibility of Mount Assiniboine 137-157 [CHAPTER X.] Evidence of Game—Discovery of a Mountain Goat—A Long Hunt—A Critical Moment—A Terrible Fall—An Unpleasant Experience—Habitat of the Mountain Goat—A Change of Weather—A Magnificent Panorama—Set out to Explore the Mountain—Intense Heat of a Forest Fire—Struggling with Burnt Timber—A Mountain Bivouac—Hope and Despair—Success at Last—Short Rations—Topography of Mount Assiniboine—The Vermilion River—A Wonderful Canyon—Fording the Bow River 158-182 [CHAPTER XI.] The Waputehk Range—Height of the Mountains—Vast Snow Fields and Glaciers—Journey up the Bow—Home of a Prospector—Causes and Frequency of Forest Fires—A Visit to the Lower Bow Lake—Muskegs—A Mountain Flooded with Ice—Delightful Scenes at the Upper Bow Lake—Beauty of the Shores—Lake Trout—The Great Bow Glacier 183-204 [CHAPTER XII.] Sources of the Bow—The Little Fork Pass—Magnificence of the Scenery—Mount Murchison—Camp on the Divide—A High Mountain Ascent—Future of the Bow Lakes—Return down the Bow—Search for a Pass—Remarkable Agility of Pack-Horses—The “Bay” and the “Pinto”—Mountain Solitudes—Mount Hector—Difficult Nature of Johnston Creek—A Blinding Snow-Storm—Forty-Mile Creek—Mount Edith Pass 205-219 [CHAPTER XIII.]
HISTORICAL. Origin and Rise of the Fur Trade—The Coureurs des Bois and the Voyageurs—Perils of the Canoe Voyages—The Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company—Intense Rivalry—Downfall of the Northwest Company—Sir Alexander Mackenzie—His Character and Physical Endowments—Cook’s Explorations—Mackenzie Starts to Penetrate the Rockies—The Peace River—A Marvellous Escape—The Pacific Reached by Land—Perils of the Sea and of the Wilderness 220-236 [CHAPTER XIV.]
HISTORICAL. Captain Cook’s Explorations—The American Fur Company—First Exploration of the Fraser River—Expedition of Ross Cox—Cannibalism—Simplicity of a Voyageur—Sir George Simpson’s Journey—Discovery of Gold in 1858—The Palliser Expedition—Dr. Hector’s Adventures—Milton and Cheadle—Growth of the Dominion—Railroad Surveys—Construction of the Railroad—Historical Periods—Future Popularity of the Canadian Rockies 237-257 [CHAPTER XV.] The Pleasures of the Natural Sciences—Interior of the Earth—Thickness of the Crust—Origin and Cause of Mountains—Their Age and Slow Growth—System in Mountain Arrangement—The Cordilleran System—The Canadian Rockies—Comparison with Other Mountain Regions—Climate—Cause of Chinook Winds—Effect of High Latitude on Sun and Moon—Principal Game Animals—Nature of the Forests—Mountain Lakes—Camp Experiences—Effect on the Character 258-275 [Index] 277-283
FULL-PAGE PHOTOGRAVURES.
Page [Mount Assiniboine] Frontispiece [Banff Springs Hotel] 4 [Bow River and Cascade Mountain] 10 [Lake Louise] 18 [Mount Lefroy and Mirror Lake] 38 [Lake Agnes (In early July, 1895)] 42 [Tom Chiniquy (By courtesy of Mr. S. B. Thompson, New Westminster, B. C.)] 50 [Mount Temple, from the Saddle] 78 [Discovery of Paradise Valley] 92 [Camp in Paradise Valley] 108 [Mount Sir Donald, from Eagle Peak] 126 [Head of Rocky Mountain Sheep] 132 [North Lake] 152 [Summit Lake, near Mount Assiniboine] 154 [Head of Rocky Mountain Goat (Shot July 18, 1895)] 164 [The Waputehk Range (Looking across the range from near Hector)] 184 [Mount Daly] 192 [Upper Bow Lake (Looking east)] 196 [Upper Bow Lake (Looking west)] 200 [Source of the Little Fork of the Saskatchewan River] 206 [Storm in Little Fork Valley] 208 [Mount Hector and Slate Mountains (From summit of a mountain near Little Fork Pass, 10,125 feet in altitude)] 210 [Camp at Little Fork Pass] 212 [Upper Bow Lake (Looking south)] 270 [Emerald Lake and Mount Field] 272
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.
PAGE [Rundle Mountain and Bow River] 15 [Lake Louise (Looking toward chalet)] 31 [Anemones] 40 [A Cool Retreat in the Forest] 75 [Summit of Mount Temple] 115 [Glacier House] 120 [Peyto] 140 [Packing the Buckskin] 142 [Calypso] 143 [Approaching the Pass] 149 [North Lake (Looking northwest)] 157 [Haunt of the Mountain Goat] 165 [Mount Assiniboine (From northwest)] 167 [Lake on Vermilion Pass] 181 [Ready to March] 186 [Camp at Upper Bow Lake] 202 [The “Bay”] 214 [Falls of Leanchoil] 249
CAMPING IN
THE CANADIAN ROCKIES.
CHAPTER I.
Banff—Its Location—The Village—Tourists—Hotels—Topography of the Region—Rundle and Cascade Mountains—The Devil’s Lake—Sir George Simpson’s Journey to this Region—Peechee the Indian Guide—An Indian Legend—The Missionary Rundle—Dr. Hector—The Climate of Banff—A Summer Snow-Storm—The Mountains in Winter.
The principal resort of tourists and sportsmen in the Rocky Mountains of Canada is Banff. The location of the town or village of Banff might be briefly described as being just within the eastern-most range of the Rocky Mountains, about one hundred and fifty miles north of the International boundary, or where the Canadian Pacific Railway begins to pierce the complex system of mountains which continue from this point westward to the Pacific coast.
Banff is likewise the central or focal point of the Canadian National Park. There is so much of scenic interest and natural beauty in the surrounding mountains and valleys, that an area of some two hundred and sixty square miles has been reserved in this region by the government and laid out with fine roads and bridle-paths to points of special interest. Order is enforced by a body of men known as the Northwest Mounted Police, a detachment of which is stationed at Banff. This organization has been wonderfully effective for many years past in preserving the authority of the laws throughout the vast extent of northwestern Canada by means of a number of men that seems altogether insufficient for that purpose.
The small and scattered village of Banff occupies a flat plain near the Bow River. This large stream, the south branch of the Saskatchewan, one of the greatest rivers of North America, is at this point not only deep and swift but fully one hundred yards in width. A fine iron bridge spans the river and leads to the various hotels all of which are south of the village. The permanent population numbers some half thousand, while the various stores, dwellings, and churches have a general air of neatness and by their new appearance suggest the fact that the history of Banff extends back only one decade.
During the summer season, the permanent population of Banff is sometimes nearly doubled by a great invasion of tourists and travellers from far distant regions. Overland tourists from India, China, Ceylon, and England, the various countries of Europe and the Dominion of Canada, but chiefly from the United States, form the greater part of this cosmopolitan assemblage, in which, however, almost every part of the globe is occasionally represented. Some are bent on sport with rod or gun; others on mountaineering or camping expeditions, but the great majority are en route to distant countries and make Banff a stopping-place for a short period.
Arrived at Banff, the traveller is confronted by a line of hack drivers and hotel employes shouting in loud voices the names and praises of their various hotels. Such sights and sounds are a blessed relief to the tourist, who for several days has witnessed nothing but the boundless plains and scanty population of northwestern Canada. The chorus of rival voices seems almost a welcome back to civilization, and reminds one in a mild degree of some railroad station in a great metropolis. On the contrary, the new arrival finds, as he is whirled rapidly toward his hotel in the coach, that he is in a mere country village surrounded on all sides by high mountains, with here and there patches of perpetual snow near their lofty summits.
Though the surrounding region, the adjacent mountains, and valleys represent nature in a wild and almost primitive state, one may remain at Banff attended by all the comforts of civilization. The several hotels occupy more or less scattered points in the valley south from the village. The one built and managed by the railroad stands apart from the village on an eminence overlooking the Bow River. It is a magnificent structure capable of accommodating a large number of guests. From the verandas and porches one may obtain a fine panoramic view of the surrounding mountains, and on the side towards the river the view combines water, forest, and mountain scenery in a most pleasing manner. The Bow River, some three hundred feet below, comes in from the left and dashes in a snowy cascade through a rocky gorge, then, sweeping away towards the east, is joined by the Spray River, a mad mountain torrent deep and swift, but clear as crystal, and with cold water of that deep blue color indicating its mountain origin. The wonderful rapidity with which these mountain streams flow is a source of astonishment and wonder to those familiar only with the sluggish rivers of lowland regions. Standing on the little iron bridge which carries the road across the stream and looking down on the water, I have often imagined I was at the stern of an ocean greyhound, so rapidly does each ripple or inequality sweep under and away from the eye. Though the water is less than a yard in depth, the current moves under the bridge at the rate of from nine to ten miles an hour.
The best point from which to get a good general idea of the topography of Banff and its surroundings is from the summit of a little hill known as Tunnel Mountain. It is centrally located in the wide valley of the Bow, above which it rises exactly 1000 feet, an altitude great enough to make it appear a high mountain were it not dwarfed by its mighty neighbors. The view from the summit is not of exceeding grandeur, but is well worth the labor of the climb, especially as a good path, with occasional seats for the weary, makes the walk an easy one. The top of the mountain is still far below the tree line, though the earth is too thin to nourish a rich forest. The soil was all carried away in the Ice Age, for there are abundant proofs that this mountain was once flooded by a glacier coming down the Bow valley. The bare limestone of the summit is grooved in great channels pointing straight up the Bow valley. In some places scratches made by the ice are visible, and there are many quartz boulders strewed about which have been carried here from some distant region.
Banff Springs Hotel.
The meandering course of the Bow River, the village, the hay meadows and grassy swamps, all form a pretty picture in the flat valley below. The eastern face of Tunnel Mountain is wellnigh perpendicular. The trail leads along near the summit and allows thrilling views down the sheer precipice to the flat valley of the Bow River far below. The trees and prominent objects of the landscape seem like toys, and the adjacent plains resemble a colored map. There are no houses or dwellings in view on this side, but a drove of horses grazing contentedly in a pasture near the river, awaiting their turn to be sent out into the mountains in the pack train of some sportsman or mountaineer, gives life and animation to the scene. On either side are two high mountains, conspicuous by their unusual outlines and great altitude. The one to the south is Rundle Mountain. It rises in a great curving slope on its west side, and terminates in a rugged escarpment with precipitous cliffs to the east, which tower in wonderful grandeur more than 5000 feet above the flood plains of the Bow River near its base.
On the opposite side is Cascade Mountain, which is remarkable in being of almost identical height, and is in fact just two feet lower, as determined by the topographical survey. The name of this mountain was given by reason of a large stream which falls from ledge to ledge down the cliffs of its eastern face in a beautiful cascade. Both this and Rundle Mountain are composed of the old Devonian and Carboniferous limestones, the strata of which are plainly visible. The structure is that of a great arch or anticline which has been completely overturned, so that the older beds are above the newer. Several miles towards the east, the end of Devil’s Lake may be seen appearing through a notch in the mountains. A fine road nine miles in length has been made to this lake and is one of the most popular drives in the vicinity of Banff. The lake is very long and narrow, about nine miles in length by three fourths of a mile in extreme breadth. The scenery is grand, but rather desolate, as the bare mountain walls on either side of the lake are not relieved by forests or abundant vegetation of any kind. The lake is, however, a great resort for sportsmen as it abounds in large trout, of which one taken last year weighed thirty-four pounds. The name of the lake gives illustration of the tendency among savages and civilized people to dedicate prominent objects of nature to the infernal regions or the master spirit thereof. There is no apparent limit to the number of places named after the Devil and his realm, while the names suggested by more congenial places are conspicuous by their absence. The original name, Lake Peechee, was given by Sir George Simpson in honor of his guide.
The scattered threads of history which relate to this part of the Rocky Mountains are suggested by these names and indeed this lake has an unusual interest for this reason. In a region where explorations have been very few and far between, and where only the vague traditions of warlike events among the Indians form a great part of the history, each fragment and detail set forth by the old explorers acquires an increased interest.
Previous to the arrival of the railroad surveyors, the chief men on whom our attention centres are Sir George Simpson, Mr. Rundle, and Dr. Hector.
The expedition of Sir George Simpson possesses much of interest in every way. He claims to have been the first man to accomplish an overland journey around the world from east to west. After having traversed the greater part of the continent of North America, he entered the stupendous gates of the Rocky Mountains in the autumn of 1841. He travelled with wonderful rapidity, and was wont to cover from twenty to sixty miles a day, according to the nature of the country. His outfit consisted of a large band of horses, about forty-five in number, attended by cooks and packers sufficient for the needs of this great expedition. Nevertheless the long cavalcade of animals, when spread out in Indian file along the narrow trails were difficult to manage, and it not infrequently happened that on reaching camp several horses proved to be missing, a fact which would necessitate some of the men returning fifteen or twenty miles in search of them.
Passing to the south of the Devil’s Head, a remarkable and conspicuous mountain which may be recognized far out on the plains, Sir George Simpson entered the valley occupied by the lake. In this part of his journey he was guided by a half-breed Indian named Peechee, a chief of the Mountain Crees. Peechee lived with his wife and family on the borders of this lake, and Simpson named it after him, a name, however, which never gained currency. Dr. Dawson transferred the name to a high mountain south of the lake, and substituted the Indian name of Minnewanka, or in English, Devil’s Lake.
The guide Peechee seems to have possessed much influence among his fellows, and whenever, as was often the case, the Indians gathered around their camp-fires and gossiped about their adventures, Peechee was listened to with the closest attention on the part of all. Nothing more delights the Indians than to indulge their passion for idle talk when assembled together, especially when under the soothing and peaceful influence of tobacco,—a fact that seems strange indeed to those who see them only among strangers, where they are wont to be remarkably silent.
A circumstance of Indian history connected with the east end of the lake is mentioned by Sir George Simpson, and admirably illustrates the nature of savage warfare. A Cree and his wife, a short time previously, had been tracked and pursued by five Indians of a hostile tribe into the mountains to a point near the lake. At length they were espied and attacked by their pursuers. Terrified by the fear of almost certain death, the Cree advised his wife to submit without defending herself. She, however, was possessed of a more courageous spirit, and replied that as they were young and had but one life to lose they had better put forth every effort in self-defence. Accordingly she raised her rifle and brought down the foremost warrior with a well aimed shot. Her husband was now impelled by desperation and shame to join the contest, and mortally wounded two of the advancing foe with arrows. There were now but two on each side. The fourth warrior had, however, by this time reached the Cree’s wife and with upraised tomahawk was on the point of cleaving her head, when his foot caught in some inequality of the ground and he fell prostrate. With lightning stroke the undaunted woman buried her dagger in his side. Dismayed by this unexpected slaughter of his companions, the fifth Indian took to flight after wounding the Cree in his arm.
Rundle Mountain, which has been already mentioned and which forms one of the most striking mountains in the vicinity of Banff, is named after a Wesleyan missionary who for many years carried on his pious labors among the Indians in the vicinity of Edmonton. Mr. Rundle once visited this region and remained camped for a considerable time near the base of Cascade Mountain, probably shortly after Sir George Simpson explored this region. The work of Mr. Rundle among the Indians appears to have been highly successful, if one may judge by the present condition of the Stoneys, who are honest, truthful, and but little given to the vices of civilization. Even to this day the visitor may see them at Banff dressed in partly civilized, partly savage attire, or on rare occasions decked out in all the feathers and beaded belts and moccasins that go to make up the sum total of savage splendor.
Our attention comes at last to Dr. Hector, who was connected with the Palliser expedition. It is exceedingly unfortunate that the blue-book in which the vast amount of useful information and interesting adventure connected with this expedition is so clearly set forth should be now almost out of print. There are no available copies in the United States or Canada and but very few otherwise accessible. Dr. Hector followed up the Bow River and passed the region now occupied by Banff in the year 1858. He was accompanied by the persevering and ever popular botanist, Bourgeau. Under the magic spell of close observation and clear description, the most commonplace affairs assume an unusual interest in all of Dr. Hector’s reports. It is very evident that game was much more abundant in those early days than at present. For instance, Dr. Hector’s men shot two mountain sheep near the falls of the Bow River, which are but a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. Likewise when making a partial ascent of the Cascade Mountain, Dr. Hector came on a large herd of these noble animals, concerning which so many fabulous tales of their daring leaps down awful precipices have been told. He also mentions an interesting fact about the death of a mountain goat. An Indian had shot a goat when far up on the slope of Cascade Mountain, but the animal, though badly wounded, managed to work its way around to some inaccessible cliffs near the cascade. Here the poor animal lingered for seven days with no less than five bullets in its body, till at length death came and it fell headlong down the precipice.
Bow River and Cascade Mountain.
The climate of Banff during the months of July and August is almost perfection. The high altitude of 4500 feet above the sea-level renders the nights invariably cool and pleasant, while the mid-day heat rarely reaches 80° in the shade. There is but little rain during this period and in fact there are but two drawbacks,—mosquitoes and forest-fire smoke. The mosquitoes, however, are only troublesome in the deep woods or by the swampy tracts near the river. The smoke from forest fires frequently becomes so thick as to obscure the mountains and veil them in a yellow pall through which the sun shines with a weird light.
An effect of the high northern latitude of this part of the Rocky Mountains is to make the summer days very long. In June and early July the sun does not set till nine o’clock, and the twilight is so bright that fine print can be read out doors till eleven o’clock, and in fact there is more or less light at midnight.
In June and September one never knows what to expect in the way of weather. I shall give two examples which will set forth the possibilities of these months, though one must not imagine that they illustrate the ordinary course of events. In the summer of 1895, after having suffered from a long period of intensely hot weather in the east, I arrived at Banff on the 14th of June. It was snowing and the station platform was covered to a depth of six inches. The next day, however, I ascended Tunnel Mountain and found a most extraordinary combination of summer and winter effects. The snow still remained ten or twelve inches deep on the mountain sides, though it had already nearly disappeared in the valley. Under this wintry mantle were many varieties of beautiful flowers in full bloom, and, most conspicuous of all, wild roses in profusion, apparently uninjured by this unusually late snow-storm. I made a sad discovery near the top of the mountain. Seeing a little bird fly up from the ground apparently out from the snow, I examined more closely and observed a narrow snow-tunnel leading down to the ground. Removing the snow I found a nest containing four or five young birds all dead, their feeble spark of life chilled away by the damp snow, while the mother bird had been, even when I arrived, vainly trying to nurse them back to life.
This storm was said to be very unusual for the time of year. The poplar trees in full summer foliage suffered severely and were bent down to the ground in great arches, from which position they did not fully recover all summer, while the leaves were blighted by the frost. As a general rule, however, mountain trees and herbs possess an unusual vitality, and endure snow and frost or prolonged dry weather in a remarkable manner. The various flowers which were buried for a week by this late storm appeared bright and vigorous after a few warm days had removed the snow.
Toward the end of September, 1895, there were two or three days of exceptionally cold weather, the thermometer recording 6° Fahrenheit one morning. I made an ascent of Sulphur Mountain, a ridge rising about 3,000 feet above the valley, on the coldest day of that period. The sun shone out of a sky of the clearest blue without a single cloud except a few scattered wisps of cirrus here and there. The mountain summit is covered with a few straggling spruces which maintain a bare existence at this altitude. The whole summit of the mountain, the trees, and rocks were covered by a thick mantle of snow, dry and powdery by reason of the severe cold. The chill of the previous night had condensed a beautiful frost over the surface of the snow everywhere. Shining scales of transparent ice, thin as mica and some half-inch across, stood on edge at all possible angles and reflected the bright sunlight from thousands of brilliant surfaces. This little glimpse of winter was even more pleasing than the view from the summit, for the mountains near Banff do not afford the mountain climber grand panoramas or striking scenery. They tend to run in long regular ridges, uncrowned by glaciers or extensive snowfields.
A never failing source of amusement to the residents of Banff, as well as to those more experienced in mountain climbing, is afforded by those lately arrived but ambitious tourists who look up at the mountains as though they were little hills, and proceed forthwith to scale the very highest peak on the day of their arrival. A few years ago some gentlemen became possessed of a desire to ascend Cascade Mountain and set off with the intention of returning the next day at noon. Instead of following the advice of those who knew the best route, they would have it that a course over Stoney Squaw Mountain, an intervening high ridge, was far better. They returned three days later, after having wandered about in burnt timber so long that, begrimed with charcoal, they could not be recognized as white men. It is not known whether they ever so much as reached the base of Cascade Mountain, but it is certain that they retired to bed upon arriving at the hotel and remained there the greater part of the ensuing week.
Cascade Mountain, however, is a difficult mountain to ascend, not because there are steep cliffs or rough places to overcome, but because almost every one takes the wrong slope. This leads to a lofty escarpment, and just when the mountaineer hopes to find himself on the summit, the real mountain appears beyond, while a great gulf separates the two peaks and removes the possibility of making the ascent that day.
Banff, with its fine drives and beautiful scenery, its luxurious hotels and delightful climate, will ever enjoy popularity among tourists. The river above the falls is wide and deep and flows with such gentle current as to render boating safe and delightful. The Vermilion lakes, with their low reedy shores and swarming wild fowl, offer charming places for the canoe and oarsman, at least when the mosquitoes, the great pest of our western plains and mountains, temporarily disappear. Nevertheless, the climate of Banff partakes of the somewhat dryer nature of the lesser and more eastern sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains. There is not sufficient moisture to nourish the rich forests, vast snow-fields, and thundering glaciers of the higher ranges to the west, which in imagination we shall visit in the ensuing chapters.
RUNDLE MOUNTAIN AND BOW RIVER.
CHAPTER II.
Lake Louise—First Impressions—An Abode of Perpetual Winter—The Chalet—Visitors—Stirring Tales of Adventure—Primeval Forests—Forest Fires—Mosquitoes and Bull-Dog Flies—Mortal Combats between Wasps and Bull-Dogs—The Old Chalet—Morning on the Lake—Approach of a Storm—Sublimity of a Mountain Thunder-Storm—Cloud Effects—The Lake in October—A Magnificent Avalanche from Mt. Lefroy—A Warning of Approaching Winter.
Lake Louise is one of the most beautiful sheets of water in the Canadian Rockies. Many who have travelled extensively say it is the most charming spot they have ever beheld. The lake is small, but there is a harmonious blending of grandeur and quiet beauty in the surrounding mountains which in some way makes a perfect picture out of lofty snow peaks in the distance and dark forested slopes near at hand.
The lake is a little more than a mile long and about one fourth of a mile wide. The outline is remarkably like that of the left human foot. Forests come down nearly to the water’s edge on all sides of the lake, but there is a narrow margin of rough angular stones where the ripples from the lake have washed out the soil and even undermined the trees in some places. The water is a blue-green color, so clear that the stones on the bottom and the old water-logged trunks of trees, long since wrested from the shores by storms and avalanches, may be discerned even in several fathoms of water. The lake is 230 feet deep in the centre, and the bottom slopes down very suddenly from the shores.
The west shore makes a gently sinuous or wavy line, forming little bays and capes. Ever new and artistic foregrounds are thus presented, with the forest making a retreating line of vegetation down the shore. Nothing could be more beautiful than this border of the lake, rough and tangled though it is, with a strange mingling of sharp boulders and prostrate trees covered with moss and half concealed by copses of alder bushes and flowering shrubs.
I shall never forget my first view of Lake Louise. From the station, the old trail, constantly ascending as it approaches the lake, leads its irregular course through the forest. After a walk of nearly three miles, partial glimpses of the lake and surrounding mountains were obtained from among the tall spruce trees. A short rapid descent of a small ridge placed us on the borders of the lake.
It would be difficult indeed to give even a partial description of the scene. Imagine a cool morning with the rising sun just beginning to touch the surface of a mountain lake. The air is tranquil and calm so that the glassy surface of the water mirrors the sky and mountains perfectly. In the realm of sound, too, all is repose but for the call of birds near at hand among the balsam trees. From the shores of the lake on either side rise great mountains, showing cliffs and rocky ledges or long sweeping slopes of forest to the tree line. Higher still are bare slopes, crags, ledges, and scattered areas of snow. At the end of the lake a great notch in the nearer mountains reveals at a distance the wall-like, lofty mass of Mount Lefroy. This most imposing snowy mountain stands square across the gap, and with a sharp serrated cliff piercing the very vault of heaven, shuts off the view and forms the most conspicuous object of all. The lower part of the mountain is a vertical cliff or precipice where the longitudinal strata are distinctly visible. Above, rise alternating slopes covered with perpetual snow and hanging glaciers, the white-blue ice of which is splintered by deep rents and dark yawning crevasses. This mountain forms part of the continental water-shed, for on the other side the melting snows finally reach the Pacific Ocean, while on the near side the snows swept into the valleys by avalanches, and melted by the warmer air of lower altitudes, find their way at length into the Saskatchewan River and Hudson Bay.
There is something wonderfully attractive about this mountain. The pleasure grows as one continues to gaze at the immense mass; harsh and stern and cold though it be, it excites awe and wonder as though here were the rocky foundation and substratum of the globe. This is the abode of perpetual winter, where ice and snow and bleak rocks exist apart. Here all is grand but menacing, dangerous, and forbidding. And these high mountains and deep valleys, suggesting that some awful storm at sea had become petrified into colossal waves to stand at rest forever, have been carved out by rain and running water, frost and change of temperature, through the lapse of countless ages.
Lake Louise.
Our attention finally came to the quiet beauty of the surrounding vegetation, where among the scattered skirmishers of the forest are flowering shrubs, and in the more open grassy places forming the swampy borders of the lake, are many bright flowers. The white mountain anemones in several varieties, the familiar violets, the yellow columbine with beautiful pendent blossoms claiming relationship to its Eastern cousin with scarlet flowers, the fragrant spiranthes, and orchids with pale-green flowers, resembling insects on a leafy stem, may all be seen in profusion near the north side of the lake. These humble herbs, with their gaudy coloring, are the growth of a single season, but on all sides are copses of bushy plants which endure the long winter, some of them clad in a garb of evergreen and, like the annual plants, bearing elegant floral creations. The most conspicuous is the sheep laurel, a small bush adorned with a profusion of crimson-red flowers, each saucer-shaped, hanging in corymbs among the small green leaves. Various shrubs with white flowers, some small and numerous, others large and scattered, make a contrast to the ever present laurel, while the most beautiful of all is a species of mountain rhododendron, a large bush, the most elegant among the mountain heaths, with large white flowers in clustered umbels. In early July this bush may be found, here and there, scattered sparingly in the forest in full blossom at the level of Lake Louise, but after this one must seek ever higher on the mountain side as the advancing summer creeps to altitudes where spring is later.
The early morning visitor turns with sharpened appetite to the hotel, if we may call it such,—a little Swiss chalet of picturesque architecture built on an eminence in full view of the lake. Here the tourist may live in rustic comfort for a day, or for weeks, should he desire to prolong his visit.
Tourists come sparingly to Lake Louise. Unlike Banff with its varied attractions, there is little here outside of nature, and few have the power to appreciate nature alone. Of those who do come, only a small number really see the lake with its forests and mountains combined in exquisite attractiveness. They see the outlines of mountains, but know not whether they are near or distant, nor whether their scale is measured in yards or miles; they see the water of the lake, but not the reflections in it, the ever changing effects of light and shade, sun and shadow, ripple and calm. There are trees tall and slender, but whether they be spruce or pine, larch or hemlock, is all the same; and as to the flowers—some are differently colored from others.
A visitor to the lake once asked in good faith, apparently, if the mountains at the head of the lake were not white from chalk; another, why the water of the stream—which leads out from the lake and rushes in roaring cascades over its rocky channel toward the Bow River—runs so fast down hill.
Fortunately, however, those who are not blessed with that ever present source of pleasure, a love for nature, at least to a slight degree, are exceptional. Nevertheless, that most people lose much pleasure from a lack of close observation is often painfully evident. I have seen, altogether, several hundred tourists arrive at the lake, coming as they do in small parties, or singly, from day to day, and have found it a very interesting study to observe their first impressions as the lake bursts on their view. Some remain motionless studying the details of the scene, usually devoting their chief attention to the lake and forests, but less to the mountains, for mountains are the least appreciated of all the wonders of nature, and are not fully revealed except after years of experience. Others glance briefly and superficially towards the lake, and rush hastily into the chalet for breakfast, balancing their love for nature against hunger for material things in uneven scale. Some remain a week or ten days, but the great majority spend a single day and leave, feeling that they have exhausted the charms of the place in so short a time. A single day amid surroundings where there are such infinite possibilities of change in cloud and storm, heat and cold, the dazzling glare of noon, or the calm romantic light of a full moon, and the slow progress of the seasons, gives but one picture, a single mood from out a thousand, and it may perchance be the very worst of all.
Upon climbing the steps to the open porch of the chalet and entering the large spacious sitting-room, the eye falls at once on a fireplace of old-time proportions, and within its walls of brick, huge logs are burning, with more vigor indeed but hardly less constancy than the ancient fires of the Vestal Virgins. Round this spacious hearth visitors and guests gather, for the air at Lake Louise is always sharp at morning and evening. Indeed, frosts are not rare throughout the summer and may occur any week even in July and August. The high altitude of the lake, which is a little more than 5600 feet above sea-level, is in great part the cause of this bracing weather. On the hottest day that I have ever seen at the lake in the course of three summers the thermometer registered only 78°.
The visitors who come to Lake Louise are of the same cosmopolitan character and varied nationality as those at Banff. Often of a cold night have I sat by the large fire, our only source of light, and listened to tales of adventure told by those who have visited the most distant and unfrequented parts of the earth. Englishmen, who have spent the best years of their life in India, were among our entertainers, and while beverages varying in nature according to nationality or tastes of each were passed around, I have heard thrilling accounts of leopard and tiger hunts in the jungle, blood-curdling tales of treachery and massacre or daring exploits in the Indian wars, and rare experiences in unknown parts of Cashmere and Thibet.
Though the great majority of visitors to the lake are strangers, there are some half-dozen whose familiar faces reappear each successive season; like pilgrims they make this region the termination of a long annual journey, and here worship in “temples not built by human hands.” Among these lovers of nature, far distant England and Ceylon are represented no less than the nearer cities of the United States. The peculiar charms of this locality present an inexhaustible treasurehouse of delightful experiences that grow by familiarity. One’s impressions of the beauty of the lake increase year by year as the full meaning of each detail becomes more thoroughly appreciated.
A fact of great importance, which goes far to make up the ensemble of the surroundings of Lake Louise, is the perfect condition of the forests, which rise in uniform, swelling slopes of dark-green verdure from the rocky shores of the lake far up the mountain sides to those high altitudes where the cold air suggests an eternal winter and dwarfs the struggling trees into mere bushes. The frequent forest fires, which have wrought so much destruction throughout the entire Canadian Rockies, have not as yet swept through this valley. The great spruces and balsams of this primeval forest indicate by their size that for hundreds of years no fire has been through this region. Some large tree stumps near the chalet show hundreds of rings, and one that I counted started to grow in the year 1492, when Columbus set forth to discover the western world.
Nevertheless, on hot days after a long period of dry weather, when the air is laden with the fragrant odor of the dripping balsam and of the dry resin hardened in yellow tears on the scarred trunks of the trees, and when the dead lower branches hung with long gray moss seem to offer all the most combustible materials, one feels certain that the slightest spark would result in a terrible conflagration. Apparently, however, the past history of this valley has never recorded a fire, whether started by careless Indian hunters or that frequent cause, lightning. So far as I am aware, there are no layers of buried charcoal or reddened soil under the present forest which would indicate an ancient fire.
Some years ago—apparently more than twenty,—a fire destroyed the forest near the station of Laggan, which is less than two miles from the lake in a straight line. The fire approached within a mile of the lake and then died out. There are two causes which will always tend to preserve these beautiful forests if the visitors are not careless and counteract them. The prevalent wind is out of the valley toward the Bow valley, so that a fire would naturally be swept away from the lake. Another cause is the natural moisture of this upland region. The very luxuriance of the vegetation indicates this, while in the early morning the whole forest often seems reeking with moisture, even when there has been no rain for weeks. The chill of night appears to condense a heavy dew under the trees and moistens all the vegetation, so that the forest rarely becomes so exceedingly dry as often happens in wide valleys at lower altitudes.
Though the scenery and climate at Lake Louise seem almost ideally perfect during the summer time, nature always renders compensation in some form or other, and never allows her creatures to enjoy complete happiness. The borders of the lake and the damp woods breed myriads of mosquitoes, which conspire to annoy and torture both man and beast. They appear early in spring and suddenly vanish about the 15th or 20th of August each year. The chill of night causes them to disappear about ten o’clock in the evening, not to be seen again until the atmosphere begins to grow warm in the morning sun.
Another insect pest is a species of fly called the “bull-dog,” a name suggested by its ferocious bite. These large insects are about an inch in length and are armed with a formidable set of saws with which they can rapidly cut a considerable hole through the skin of a man or the hide of a horse. The bull-dogs frequent the valleys of the Canadian Rockies, varying locally in their numbers, and seem to prefer low altitudes and a considerable degree of heat, for they are always most voracious and numerous on hot dry days. These flies, when numerous, will almost make a horse frantic. Their bite feels like a fiery cinder slowly burning through the skin, but fortunately they do not cause much trouble to man, for they are led by instinct to seek the rough surfaces of animals and almost invariably light on the clothes instead of the hands or face. They have a most blood-thirsty and cruel enemy in the wasp, and if it were not for the inexhaustible supply of the bull-dogs, the wasps would annihilate the species. Nothing in the habits of insects could be more interesting than the strange manner in which the wasps set out deliberately in pursuit of a bull-dog fly, to overtake and seize the clumsy victim in mid air. Both insects fall to the ground with a terrible buzzing and much circling about while the mad contest goes on. Meanwhile the wasp works with the rapidity of lightning, and with its sharp powerful jaws dis-severs legs and wings, which fall scattered in the melee, till the bull-dog is rendered helpless and immovable. Last of all, the wasp cuts off the head of its victim, then leaves the lifeless and limbless body in order to continue the chase.
I have seen a wasp thus dismember and kill one of these large flies in less than thirty seconds. They seem to perform their murderous acts out of pure pleasure, as they do not linger over their prey after the victim is dead.
The water of Lake Louise is too cold to admit of bathing except in a very brief manner. The temperature of the water near the first of August is about 56°.
The old chalet, built in rustic fashion with unhewn logs, was placed near the lake shore much closer than the present building. One day in 1893, when every one was absent, the building caught fire and burned to the ground. Remarkably enough the forest did not take fire, though some of the trees were close to the building.
Usually in the early morning, before the sun has warmed the atmosphere and started the breezes of daytime into motion, the lake is tranquil and its surface resembles a great mirror. About nine o’clock, the first puffs of wind begin to make little cat’s-paws at the far end of the lake, which widen and extend until finally the whole water becomes rippled. A gentle breeze continues to sweep down the lake from the snow mountains toward the Bow valley all day long, and the water rarely becomes smooth till after sunset. This is the usual order of events in fair weather, a condition which may continue for several weeks without a drop of rain.
The approach and progress of a storm, the wonderful atmospheric changes attending it, and the ever moving clouds obscuring the mountain tops reveal the lake in the full grandeur of its surroundings. An approaching storm is first announced by scattered wisps of cirrus cloud, which move slowly and steadily from the west in an otherwise blue sky. In the course of twenty-four hours the cirrus clouds have become so thick that they often resemble a thin haze far above the highest mountains. The sun with paled light can no longer pierce this ever thickening hazy veil. The wind blows soft and warm from out the south or southwest, and generally brings up the smoke of forest fires from the Pacific coast, and renders the atmosphere still more obscure, till at length the sun appears like a great ball of brass set in a coppery sky. The trees and grass appear to change their color and assume a strange vivid shade of green in the weird light. Sometimes light feathery ashes are wafted over the high mountains south of the lake and settle down gently like flakes of snow. The falling barometer announces the coming storm, and presently another layer of clouds, the low-lying cumulus, form just above the highest peaks and settle gradually lower till they touch the mountain tops. Rain soon follows, the clouds settle till they almost rest on the water of the lake, and the wind increases in violence.
Sometimes thunder-storms of considerable fury sweep through the valley and among the mountains, one after another for several days. A violent thunder-storm at night among these lofty mountains is one of the grandest phenomena of nature. The battling of the elements, the unceasing roar of the wind in the forest, and the crash of thunder redoubled by echoes from the rocky cliffs,—all conspire to fill the imagination with a terrible picture of the majesty and sublimity of nature. From the lake there comes up a low, hoarse murmur, not the roar of ocean surf, but the lesser voice of a small mountain lake lashed to fury and beating with its small waves on a rocky shore. The noise of the forest, the sound of colliding branches as the tall trees sway to and fro in the furious wind, and the frequent crack and crash of dead forest giants overcome by the elements form the dull but fearful monotone, above which the loud rumble of thunder rises in awful grandeur. These are the sounds of a mountain storm.
The bright flashes of lightning reveal a companion picture, for in the momentary light succeeded by absolute darkness the lake is revealed covered with foamy white caps. The forests on the mountain side seem to yield to the blast like a field of wheat in a summer breeze, and the circling clouds sweep about the mountain slopes and conceal all but their bases.
Should the storm clear away during the daytime one may witness grand cloud effects. The low-hanging masses of clouds left behind by the battling elements slowly rise and occasionally reveal small areas of blue sky among the moving vapors. Gentle puffs of air sweep over the calm surface of the water, making little areas of ripples here and there, only to be succeeded by a tranquil calm, as if the storm spirit were sending forth his dying gasps intermittently. While the air is thus calm below, the circling wisps of vapor high up on the mountain, rising and descending, show that the battle between the sun and the clouds is still raging. From above the saturated forests, the rising vapors condense and increase in size till at length, caught in some counter-current, they are swept away or carried downward, while the dissolving cloud spreads out in wisps and streamers till suddenly it disappears into transparent air,—a veritable cloud ghost. At length the mountain tops appear once more, white in a light covering of new snow, and, as the great masses of cumulus rise and disappear the sky appears of that deep blue-black color peculiar to mountain altitudes, while the sun shines out with dazzling brilliancy through the clear atmosphere.
The last visit I made to Lake Louise was toward the middle of October, 1895. A very snowy, disagreeable September had been followed by a long period of milder weather with much bright sunshine. The new snow, which had been quite deep near the lake, had altogether disappeared except high up on the mountain side. It was the true Indian summer, a season with a certain mellow charm peculiar to it alone, characterized by clear sunny weather, a calm atmosphere, a low, riding sun, and short days. Most of the flowers were withered. The deciduous bushes, lately brilliant from frost, were rapidly losing their foliage, and the larches were decked in pale yellow, far up near the tree line. However, the greater part of the vegetation is evergreen, and the spruces, balsams, and pines, the heaths, ericaceous plants, and the mosses contrive to set winter at nought by wearing the garb of a perpetual summer in a region where snow covers the ground three fourths of the year.
I could not resist the temptation as the morning train rolled up to the station at Laggan to get off for the day and make another visit to the lake. The sunrise had been unusually brilliant and there was every promise of a fine day. There is rarely much color at sunrise or sunset in the mountains. The dry clear atmosphere has little power to break up the white light into rainbow colors and give the brilliancy of coloring to be seen near the sea-coast or in the lowlands. The tints are like the air itself—pure, cold, and clear. With more truth they might be called delicate shades or color suggestions. They recall those exquisite but faint hues seen in topaz or tourmaline crystals, or transparent quartz crystals, wherein the minutest trace of some foreign mineral has developed rare spectrum colors and imprisoned them forever. Oftimes the snow of the mountain tops is thus tinted a bright clear pink, beautifully contrasted against the intensely blue sky. I have never seen a deep red on the mountains or clouds at these altitudes. The effect of forest-fire smoke is to give muddy colors: the sun resembles a brazen globe, and the sky becomes coppery in appearance.
After breakfast at the station house, I set off over the hard frozen road toward the lake. I carried my camera and luncheon on my back, my only companion being a small dog which appeared ready for exercise. The air was frosty and cold; the low-riding sun had not as yet struck into the forest trees and removed the rime from the moss and leaves on the ground.
LAKE LOUISE LOOKING TOWARD CHALET.
In somewhat less than an hour, I arrived at the lake. All was deserted; the chalet closed, the keeper gone, and the tents taken down. Even the boats, which usually rested near the shore, had been put under cover. The cold air was perfectly calm, and my vapory breath rose straight upwards. The mirror surface of the water was disturbed by some wild fowl—black ducks and divers—which swarm on the lake at this season. Their splashings, and the harsh cries of the divers came faintly over the water. It seemed strange that these familiar haunts could appear so fearfully wild and lonely merely because man had resigned his claim to the place and nature now ruled alone. All at once a wild unearthly wail from across the water, the cry of a loon, one of the most melancholy of all sounds, startled me, and gave warning that activity alone could counteract the effect of the imagination.
Accordingly I walked down the right shore of the lake with the intention of going several miles up the valley and taking some photographs of Mount Lefroy. The flat bushy meadows near the upper end of the lake were cold, and all the plants and reedy grass were white with the morning frost. The towering cliffs and castle-like battlements of the mountains on the south side of the valley shut out the sun, and promised to prevent its genial rays from warming this spot till late in the afternoon, if at all, for a period of several months. In the frozen ground, as I followed the trail, I saw the tracks of a bear, made probably the day before. Bruin had gone up the valley somewhere and had not returned as yet, so there was a possibility of making his acquaintance.
I was well repaid for my visit this day, as a magnificent avalanche fell from Mount Lefroy. Mount Lefroy is a rock mountain rising in vertical cliffs from between two branches of a glacier which sweep round its base. A hanging glacier rests on the highest slope of the mountain, and, ascending some distance, forms a vertical face of ice nearly three hundred feet thick at the top of a great precipice. The highest ridge of the mountain is covered with an overhanging cornice of snow, which the storm winds from the west have built out till it appears to reach full one hundred feet over the glacier below. At times, masses of ice break off from the hanging glacier and fall with thundering crashes to the valley far below.
I was standing at a point some two miles distant looking at this imposing mountain, when from the vertical ice wall a great fragment of the glacier, some three hundred feet thick and several times as long, broke away, and, slowly turning in mid-air, began to fall through the airy abyss. In a few seconds, amid continued silence, for the sound had not yet reached me, the great mass struck a projecting ledge of rock after a fall of some half thousand feet, and at the shock, as though by some inward explosion, the block was shivered into thousands of smaller fragments and clouds of white powdery ice. Simultaneously came the first thunder of the avalanche. The larger pieces led the way, some whirling around in mid-air, others gliding downward like meteors with long trains of snowy ice dust trailing behind. The finer powdered debris followed after, in a long succession of white streamers and curtains resembling cascades and waterfalls. The loud crash at the first great shock now developed into a prolonged thunder wherein were countless lesser sounds of the smaller pieces of ice. It was like the sound of a great battle in which the sharp crack of rifles mingles with the roar of artillery. Leaping from ledge to ledge with ever increasing velocity, the larger fragments at length reached the bottom of the precipice, while now a long white train extended nearly the whole height of the grand mountain wall 2500 feet from base to top.
Imagine a precipice sixteen times higher than Niagara, nearly perpendicular, and built out of hard flinty sandstone. At the top of this giant wall, picture a great glacier with blue ice three hundred feet thick, crevassed and rent into a thousand yawning caverns, and crowding downwards, ever threatening to launch masses of ice large as great buildings into the valley below. Such avalanches are among the most sublime and thrilling spectacles that nature affords. The eye alone is incapable of appreciating the vast scale of them. The long period of silence at first and the thunder of the falling ice reverberated among the mountain-walls produce a better impression of the distance and magnitude.
I arrived at the lower end of the lake toward one o’clock. The lake was only disturbed in one long narrow strip toward the middle by a gentle breeze while all the rest was perfectly calm. This was one of those rare days of which each year only affords two or three, when the lake is calm at midday under a clear sky. The mirror surface of the water presented an inverted image of the mountains, the trees on the shore, and the blue sky. The true water surface and the sunken logs on the bottom of the lake joined with the reflected objects in forming a puzzling composite picture.
The brilliant sun had taken away the chill of morning and coaxed forth a few forest birds, but there were no flowers or butterflies to recall real summer. It seemed as though this were the last expiring effort of autumn before the cold of winter should descend into the valley and with its finger on the lips of nature cover the landscape with a deep mantle of snow and bind the lake in a rigid layer of ice. Even at this warmest period of the day the sun’s rays seemed inefficient to heat the atmosphere, while from the cold shadows of the forest came a warning that winter was lurking near at hand, soon to sweep down and rule uninterrupted for a period of nine long months.
CHAPTER III.
Surroundings of the Lake—Position of Mountains and Valleys—The Spruce and Balsam Firs—The Lyall’s Larch—Alpine Flowers—The Trail among the Cliffs—The Beehive, a Monument of the Past—Lake Agnes, a Lake of Solitude—Summit of the Beehive—Lake Louise in the Distant Future.
Among the mountains on all sides of Lake Louise are many scenes of unusual beauty and grandeur. While the lake itself must be considered the focal point of this region, and is indeed wonderfully attractive by reason of its rare setting, the encircling mountains are so rough and high, the valleys separating them so deep and gloomy, yet withal so beautiful, that the scenery approaches perfection. The forces of nature have here wrought to their utmost and thrown together in apparently wild confusion some of the highest mountains in Canada and carved out gloomy gorge and rocky precipice till the eye becomes lost in the complexity of it all. Lakes and waterfalls reveal themselves among the rich dark forests of the valleys, and afford beautiful foregrounds to the distant snow mountains which seem to tower ever higher as one ascends.
A brief description of the topography in the vicinity of Lake Louise would be now in place. Southwestward from the lake is a range of very high and rugged mountains covered with snow and glaciers. This range is the crest of the continent of North America, in fact the great water-shed which divides the Atlantic and Pacific drainage. In this range are many peaks over 11,000 feet above sea level, an altitude which is near the greatest that the Rocky Mountains attain in this latitude. While farther south in Colorado there are scores of mountains 13,000 or 14,000 feet high, it must be remembered that no mountains in Canada between the International boundary and the railroad have yet been discovered that reach 12,000 feet. Nevertheless, these mountains of lesser altitude are far more impressive and apparently much higher because of their steep sides and extensive fields of perpetual snow.
This great range, forming the continental water-shed runs parallel to the general trend of the Rocky Mountains of Canada, or about northwest and southeast. Several spur ranges branch off at right angles from the central mass and run northeast five or six miles. Between these spur ranges are short valleys which all enter into the wide valley of the Bow. Lake Louise occupies one of these lesser valleys.
The several lateral valleys are all comparatively near Lake Louise and differ remarkably in the character of the scenery and vegetation. One is beautiful and richly covered with forests; another desolate and fearfully wild. The valley of Lake Louise contains in all three lakes, of which the smallest is but a mere pool, some seventy-five yards across.
Far up on the mountain side to the north of Lake Louise two little lakes were discovered many years ago. They are now to the visitor who spends but one day, almost the chief point of interest in this region. The trail thither leads into the dense forest from near the chalet and proceeds forthwith to indicate its nature by rising steadily and constantly. The tall coniferous trees cast a deep cool shade even on a warm day. So closely do the trees grow one to another that the climber is entirely shut out from the world of mountains and surrounded by a primeval forest as he follows the winding path. Among the forest giants there are two principal trees, the spruce and the balsam fir. Each is very tall and slender and at a distance the appearance of the two trees is closely similar. The spruce is the characteristic tree of the Rockies and is found everywhere. It reaches a height of 75 or 100 feet in a single tapering bole, closely beset with small short branches bent slightly downward, as though better to withstand the burden of snow in winter. In open places the lower branches spread out and touch the ground, but in forests they die and leave a free passage between the trees. The balsam tree is quite similar but may be discerned by its smoother bark which is raised from underneath by countless blisters each containing a drop of transparent balsam. Here and there are a few tall pines rivalling the spruces and firs in height but affording a strong contrast to them in their scattered branches and larger needles.
Mount Lefroy and Mirror Lake.
The ground is covered with underbrush tangled in a dense luxuriance of vegetable life and partly concealing the ancient trunks of fallen trees long since covered with moss and now slowly decaying into a red vegetable mold.
At length, after half an hour of constant climbing, a certain indefinable change takes place in the forest. The air is cooler, the trees grow wider apart, and the view is extended through long vistas of forest trees. Presently a new species of tree, like our Eastern tamarack, makes its appearance. It is the Lyall’s larch, a tree that endures the rigors of a subalpine climate better than the spruces and balsam firs, so that it soon becomes to the climber among these mountains an almost certain indication of proximity to the tree-line.
It is not far from the truth to say that the Lyall’s larch is the most characteristic tree of the Canadian Rockies. It is not found in the Selkirk Range just west of the main range, and while it has indeed been found as far south as the International boundary, it has not been discovered in the Peace River valley to the north. Restricted in latitude, it grows on the main range of the Rockies only at a great altitude. Here on the borderland between the vegetable and mineral kingdoms it forms a narrow fringe at the tree-line and in autumn its needles turn bright yellow and mark a conspicuous band around all the cliffs and mountain slopes at about 7000 feet above sea level. Its soft needles, gathered in scattered fascicles, are set along the rough and tortuous branches, affording a scanty shade but permitting of charming glimpses of distant mountains, clouds, and sky among its gray branches and light-green foliage. It seems incapable of sending up a tall slender stem but branches out irregularly and presents an infinite variety of forms. Possibly for this reason the larch cannot contest with the slender spruces and firs of the valley, where it would be crowded out of light and sun among its taller rivals.
ANEMONES
Presently the trail leads from out the forest and crosses an open slope where some years ago a great snow-slide swept down and stripped the trees from the mountain side. Here, 1200 feet above Lake Louise, the air feels sensibly cooler and indicates an Alpine climate. The mountains now reveal themselves in far grander proportions than from below, as they burst suddenly on the view. Nature has already made compensation for the destroyed forest by clothing this slope with a profusion of wild flowers, though much different in character from those at Lake Louise. Alpine plants and several varieties of heather, in varying shades of red or pink and even white, cover the ground with their elegant coloring. One form of heath resembles almost perfectly the true heather of Scotland, and by its abundance recalls the rolling hills and flowery highlands of that historic land. The retreating snow-banks of June and July are closely followed by the advancing column of mountain flowers which must needs blossom, bear fruit, and die in the short summer of two months duration. One may thus often find plants in full blossom within a yard of some retreating snow-drift.
On reaching the farther side of the bare track of the avalanche, the trail begins to lead along the face of craggy cliffs like some llama path of the Andes. The mossy ledges are in some places damp and glistening with trickling springs, where the climber may quench his thirst with the purest and coldest water. Wherever there is the slightest possible foothold the trees have established themselves, sometimes on the very verge of the precipice so that their spreading branches lean out over the airy abyss while their bare roots are flattened in the joints and fractures of the cliff or knit around the rocky projections like writhing serpents.
More than four hundred feet below is a small circular pond of clear water, blue and brilliant like a sapphire crystal. Its calm surface, rarely disturbed by mountain breezes, reflects the surrounding trees and rocks sharp and distinct as it nestles in peace at the very base of a great rock tower—the Beehive. Carved out from flinty sandstone, this tapering cone, if such a thing there be, with horizontal strata clearly marked resembles indeed a giant beehive. Round its base are green forests and its summit is adorned by larches, while between are the smooth precipices of its sides too steep for any tree or clinging plant. What suggestions may not this ancient pile afford! Antiquity is of man; but these cliffs partake more of the eternal—existing forever. Their nearly horizontal strata were formed in the Cambrian Age, which geologists tell us was fifty or sixty millions of years ago. Far back in those dim ages when the sea swarmed with only the lower forms of life, the fine sand was slowly and constantly settling to the bottom of the ocean and building up vast deposits which now are represented by the strata of this mountain. Solidified and made into flinty rock, after the lapse of ages these deposits were lifted above the ocean level by the irresistible crushing force of the contracting earth crust. Rain and frost and moving ice have sculptured out from this vast block monuments of varied form and aspect which we call mountains.
Just to one side of the Beehive a graceful waterfall dashes over a series of ledges and in many a leap and cascade finds its way into Mirror Lake. This stream flows out from Lake Agnes, whither the trail leads by a short steep descent through the forest. Lake Agnes is a wild mountain tarn imprisoned between gloomy cliffs, bare and cheerless. Destitute of trees and nearly unrelieved by any vegetation whatsoever, these mountain walls present a stern monotony of color. The lake, however, affords one view that is more pleasant. One should walk down the right shore a few hundred feet and look to the north. Here the shores formed of large angular blocks of stone are pleasantly contrasted with the fringe of trees in the distance.
Lake Agnes.
In early July, 1895.
The solitary visitor to the lake is soon oppressed with a terrible sensation of utter loneliness. Everything in the surroundings is gloomy and silent save for the sound of a trickling rivulet which falls over some rocky ledges on the right of the lake. The faint pattering sound is echoed back by the opposite cliffs and seems to fill the air with a murmur so faint, and yet so distinct, that it suggests something supernatural. The occasional shrill whistle of a marmot breaks the silence in a startling and sudden manner. A visitor to this lake once cut short his stay most unexpectedly and hastened back to the chalet upon hearing one of these loud whistles which he thought was the signal of bandits or Indians who were about to attack him.
Lake Agnes is a narrow sheet of water said to be unfathomable, as indeed is the case with all lakes before they are sounded. It is about one third of a mile in length and occupies a typical rock basin, a kind of formation that has been the theme of heated discussion among geologists. The water is cold, of a green color, and so pellucid that the rough rocky bottom may be seen at great depths. The lake is most beautiful in early July before the snowbanks around its edge have disappeared. Then the double picture, made by the irregular patches of snow on the bare rocks and their reflected image in the water, gives most artistic effects.
From the lake shore one may ascend the Beehive in about a quarter of an hour. The pitch is very steep but the ascent is easy and exhilarating, for the outcropping ledges of sandstone seem to afford a natural staircase, though with irregular steps. Everywhere are bushes and smaller woody plants of various heaths, the tough strong branches of which, grasped in the hand, serve to assist the climber, while occasional trees with roots looped and knotted over the rocks still further facilitate the ascent.
Arrived on the flat summit, the climber is rewarded for his toil. One finds himself in a light grove of the characteristic Lyall’s larch, while underneath the trees, various ericaceous plants suggest the Alpine climate of the place.
Though the climber may come here unattended by friends, he never feels the loneliness as at Lake Agnes. There the gloomy mountains and dark cliffs seem to surround one and threaten some unseen danger, but here the broader prospect of mountains and the brilliancy of the light afford most excellent company. I have visited this little upland park very many times, sometimes with friends, sometimes with the occasional visitors to Lake Louise, and often alone. The temptation to select a soft heathery seat under a fine larch tree and admire the scenery is irresistible. One may remain here for hours in silent contemplation, till at length the rumble of an avalanche from the cliffs of Mount Lefroy awakens one from reverie.
The altitude is about 7350 feet above sea level and in general this is far above the tree line, and it is only that this place is unusually favorable to tree growth that such a fine little grove of larches exists here. Nevertheless, the summer is very brief—only half as long as at Lake Louise, 1700 feet below. The retreating snow-banks of winter disappear toward the end of July and new snow often covers the ground by the middle of September. How could we expect it to be otherwise at this great height and in the latitude of Southern Labrador? On the hottest days, when down in the valley of the Bow the thermometer may reach eighty degrees or more, the sun is here never oppressively hot, but rather genially warm, while the air is crisp and cool. Should a storm pass over and drench the lower valleys with rain, the air would be full of hail or snow at this altitude. The view is too grand to describe, for while there is a more extensive prospect than at Lake Louise the mountains appear to rise far higher than they do at that level. The valleys are deep as the mountains high, and in fact this altitude is the level of maximum grandeur. The often extolled glories of high mountain scenery is much overstated by climbers. What they gain in extent they lose in intent. The widened horizon and countless array of distant peaks are enjoyed at the expense of a much decreased interest in the details of the scene. In my opinion one obtains in general the best view in the Canadian Rockies at the tree line or slightly below. Nevertheless every one to his own taste.
The most thrilling experience to be had on the summit of the Beehive is to stand at the verge of the precipice on the east and north sides. One should approach cautiously, preferably on hands and knees, even if dizziness is unknown to the climber, for from the very edge the cliff drops sheer more than 600 feet. A stone may be tossed from this place into the placid waters of Mirror Lake, where after a long flight of 720 feet, its journey’s end is announced by a ring of ripples far below.
Lake Louise appears like a long milky-green sheet of water, with none of that purity which appears nearer at hand. The stream from the glacier has formed a fan-shaped delta, and its muddy current may be seen extending far out into the lake, polluting its crystal water and helping to fill its basin with sand and gravel till in the course of ages a flat meadow only will mark the place of an ancient lake.
There are even now many level meadows and swampy tracts in these mountains which mark the filled-up bed of some old lake. These places are called “muskegs,” and though they are usually safe to traverse, occasionally the whole surface trembles like a bowl of jelly and quakes under the tread of men and horses. In such places let the traveller beware the treacherous nature of these sloughs, for on many an occasion horses have been suddenly engulfed by breaking through the surface, below which deep water or oozy mud offers no foothold to the struggling animal.
At the present rate of filling, however, the deep basin of Lake Louise will require a length of time to become obliterated that is measured by thousands of years rather than by centuries,—a conception that should relieve our anxiety in some measure.
CHAPTER IV.
Organizing a Party for the Mountains—Our Plans for the Summer—William Twin and Tom Chiniquy—Nature, Habits, and Dress of the Stoney Indians—An Excursion on the Glacier—The Surface Debris and its Origin—Snow Line—Ascent of the Couloir—A Terrible Accident—Getting Down—An Exhausting Return for Aid—Hasty Organization of a Rescue Party—Cold and Miserable Wait on the Glacier—Unpleasant Surmises—“I Think You Die”—A Fortunate Termination.
Previous to the summer of 1894 my experiences in the Canadian Rockies had made me acquainted with but little more of their general features and scenery than has been already described. This was sufficient, however, to prove that a most delightful summer could be spent among these mountains if a party of young men were organized with some definite object in view to hold the party together. Several of us accordingly assembled at one of our eastern colleges and discussed plans for the summer. Four men were persuaded to go on this excursion after the glories of the region had been duly set forth and the evidence corroborated so far as possible by the use of photographs. We were to meet at Lake Louise, where our headquarters were to be at the chalet, as near the first of July as possible.
Though the individual inclinations of the various members of our party might seem unlikely to harmonize together, we had nevertheless agreed on carrying out a certain plan. One of the party was an enthusiastic hunter, another eager for the glories of mountain ascents, one a geologist, another carried away by the charms of photography, while the fifth and last was ready to join in almost any undertaking or enterprise whatsoever.
However, our common purpose joined us all together to a certain degree. This was to explore and survey the region immediately around Lake Louise, to ascend several of the highest peaks, to get photographs of the best scenery, and in general to learn all we could about the environment of the lake.
Three of us arrived at the lake one fine morning early in July. The beauty of the scenery seemed to make a deep impression on my friends, and fortunately the clouds which at first concealed the mountain tops lifted soon after our arrival and produced very grand effects. At that time there were two Stoney Indians at the lake, who were engaged in cutting a trail to a lately discovered point of interest. One of these was named William Twin; his surname was probably derived from the fact that he had a twin brother, whose name was Joshua. A Stoney Indian who once acted as my guide was named Enoch; and upon being asked his surname he replied, “Wildman.” These curious cases afford good examples of the origin of names. William was a fine-looking Indian. He came nearer to a realization of the ideal Indian features such as one sees on coins, or in allegorical figures, than almost any savage I have ever seen.
Tom Chiniquy was the other of the two Indians, and indeed the more important, as he is the eldest son of Chief Chiniquy, who in turn is under Bears’ Paw, the head chief of all the Stoneys. An air of settled gravity, stern and almost bordering on an appearance of gloom, betokened his serious nature. I cannot but admire these Stoney Indians, free as they are from the vices of civilization, while still retaining many of the simple virtues of savage life.
As we saw the Indians every day we soon became acquainted with them, especially as William could talk quite intelligibly in English. The very first day of our arrival at the chalet the sharp eyes of the Indians, which seemed to be ever roving about in search of game, discovered a herd of goats on the mountain side. In vain did we try to see them, and at length, by means of a pair of powerful field glasses, they appeared as small white spots without definite forms, whereas to the Indians they were plainly visible. William was disgusted with us, and said, “White man no good eyes,” in evident scorn.
With practice, our race can excel the Indians in every undertaking requiring skill, patience, or physical endurance, with the exception of two things in which they are infinitely our superiors. These are their ability to discover minute objects at great distances, and to read those faint and indefinite signs made by the passage of man or game through the forests or on the hard plains, where a white man would be completely baffled. A turned leaf, a bent blade of grass, a broken twig, or even the sheen on the grass, leads the swarthy savage unerringly and rapidly along, where the more intelligent but less observant white man can see absolutely nothing.
The Indian is said to be stolid and indifferent, while the hard labor which the squaws are compelled to undergo is always laid up against them as an evidence of their brutal character. But on the contrary this is their method of dividing labor, and a squaw whose husband is compelled to work about their camps is the subject of ridicule among the rest. The squaws do all the work which rationally centres around the camp-fire, just as our wives preside over our hearths and homes. The bucks provide the food, and should privation occur they will cheerfully share their last morsel with their wives and children, and, the more honor to them, they will do the same by a white man. The long and arduous labors of the chase, requiring the severest physical exertion, exhaust the strength, often while exposed to cold and rain for long periods of time. The bucks rightly consider their labor ended when they reach their camp, or “teepee” as they call them. Here the squaws preside and perform all the labor of cutting and cooking the meat, preserving and dressing the hides, and even gathering the firewood. They cut the teepee poles and set up their tents; and when not occupied with these more severe labors, they spend their time in making moccasins, weaving baskets, or fancy sewing and bead-work.
Tom Chiniquy.
By courtesy of Mr. S. B. Thompson.
New Westminster, B. C.
After all, the poor Indian is our brother, and not very unlike his civilized conqueror. One day William told me that the year before he had lost his squaw and four children by the smallpox, and that it had affected him so that he could not sleep. In his own simple form of expression, it was most pathetic to hear him speak of this sad event, which evidently affected him deeply. “Me sleep no more now,” he would say, “all time think me, squaw die, four papoose die, no sleep me. One little boy, me—love little boy, me—little boy die, no longer want to live, me.”
We had the satisfaction of rendering a great service to William through his child, who was a bright and handsome little fellow. By some accident a splinter of wood had become lodged in the boy’s eye. We were at length attracted by the peculiar actions of the little fellow, and upon inquiry found that he must have been enduring great pain, though without making a murmur of discontent. We took the matter in hand at once and sent him down to Banff, where, under skilful medical attendance, his eyesight, than which nothing is more dear to an Indian and which was totally gone in the affected eye and partially so in the other, was restored in a great measure. William was very grateful to us ever after, and on returning, some ten days later, delivered himself somewhat as follows: “Me say very much obliged. Three white men pretty good, I think.”
The Stoneys are a remarkable tribe of Indians. Their headquarters is at a little place called Morley, about twenty miles east of the mountains on the plains. Here they are under the religious instruction of the Rev. Mr. McDougal. So far as the Indian is capable of receiving and following the precepts of Christianity, the Stoneys seem to have equalled or surpassed all other tribes. They are said to be great Bible readers, and they certainly show some familiarity with the Old Testament history, if we may judge by their custom of adopting Bible names. They have been taught a certain arbitrary code by which they can read and write in a simple manner, while many of them talk English if not fluently at least intelligibly.
Their manner of dress is a concession to their own native ideas and those of civilization, for while they invariably cling to moccasins and usually affect trousers cut from blankets with broad wings or flaps at the sides, their costume is not infrequently completed by some old discarded coat received by purchase or gift from the white man. These Indians rarely wear hat or cap, but allow their straight black hair to reach their shoulders and serve in place of any artificial protection. On either side of the face the hair is gathered into a braid so as to do away with the inconvenience of constantly pushing back their loose hair.
Dr. Dawson says that the Stoney Indians have very few names for the mountains and rivers, and that they have only inhabited this region for about forty years. The greater part of the Indian names for various features of the country are in reality Cree or their equivalents in Stoney. The Stoneys have recently incorporated the families of the Mountain Crees with their own. According to De Smet, both the Crees and the Stoneys migrated southward from the Athabasca region a few years before 1849, and it is probable that they entered this region about that time.
I cannot conclude this digression on the Stoney Indians without quoting a few remarks from Captain Palliser’s reports. Though written nearly forty years ago these facts are no less true than at that time.
“The members of the Stone tribe are hard workers, as their life is one requiring constant exertion and foresight. They travel in the mountains or in the forests along their eastern base, in parties of six or seven families. The young men are always off hunting in search of moose or other kinds of deer, or of the Rocky Mountain sheep. The old men busy themselves cutting out the travelling tracks through the woods, while the women pack and drive the few horses they use for carrying their small supplies. They generally use skin tents stretched on a conical framework of poles, but their wigwams are much smaller than those of the Plain Indians. The women dress all the skins of the animals they kill into a soft leather, which, when smoked, is the material used throughout the whole country for making moccasins, most of the fine leather being obtained from the Stoneys. They are excellent hunters, and though as a rule small and feeble in body, are probably capable of more endurance than any other class of Indians. They make trustworthy guides, and, with a few exceptions, after some acquaintance with this tribe, you no more expect to be deceived, or told lies, as a matter of course, than you would in a community of white men.”
So much for the Rocky Mountain Stoneys, or as they are sometimes called, the Assiniboines.
The completion of our party did not take place at the wished-for time, and for more than two weeks Mr. F. and Mr. H., and I were alone at the chalet. We commenced our surveying work by measuring a very accurate base line on the lake shore, and began training by making various moderate excursions on the mountain sides. On the third day, however, after our arrival the whole plan of our party came near having a most sudden and unwished-for termination, together with results which nearly proved fatal to one of the party. The accident and its attendant circumstances proved the most exciting episode in all our experiences, and as it most clearly illustrates the chief danger of climbing in the Canadian Rockies, I shall describe it in detail.
It happened in this manner. On the 13th of July, Mr. H., Mr. F., and I started to make an exploration of the glacier that is plainly visible from the chalet and which, some two miles distant, flows down from the snow fields and hanging glaciers of Mount Lefroy. This glacier is formed from two branches, which come in from the east, and uniting into one great stream, terminate about one mile above the head of the lake. The extreme length from the snout measured to the highest part of the glacier is about three miles, while the average width is less than one third of a mile.
The object of this excursion was in great part to gain a little knowledge of the use of rope and ice-axe, which we expected would be required in much of our subsequent work. There was no difficulty in the first part of this excursion, as a good trail leads round the lake and some half-mile beyond. There we forded the icy stream which comes from the glacier and pursued our way between the moraine and the mountain side for nearly a mile on the east side of the glacier. Our next move was to ascend the moraine, which was very steep and about a hundred feet high at this point. On arriving at the sharp crest of the moraine, we saw the great ice stream some fifty feet below, and so thoroughly covered with debris and boulders that the glacier was almost totally concealed. The passage down the moraine was very disagreeable, as the loose stones all scratched and polished by their former passage under the glacier were now rolling from under our feet and starting up great clouds of dust. Just below, at the border of the glacier, the water from the melting ice had converted the clay of the moraine into treacherous pools of bluish-gray mud, veritable sloughs of despond. At length, by the use of our ice-axes, we gained the firmer ice and with it the advantage of far more pleasant walking. We found the whole surface of the glacier literally covered with sharp stones and boulders of all sizes up to those which must have measured ten feet square by twenty feet long. They represented all sorts of formations, shales, limestones, and sandstones thrown down in wild disorder over the entire surface of the ice. All this material had been wrested from the mountain side far up the valley by frost and avalanche, and was now slowly moving toward the great terminal moraine. In one place a large area of nearly half an acre was strewed with giant blocks of a peculiar kind of rock different from all the rest, which apparently had come thundering down the mountain walls in one great rock-slide many years ago. Large flat slabs of shale were seen here and there supported on pillars of ice, showing how much the general surface of the glacier had wasted away under the influence of the sun’s heat, while these pillars had been protected by the shade of the stone.
Advancing half a mile over the field of debris, we came gradually to where there were fewer stones, and at length reached almost pure ice. The question always arises where do all the boulders and pebbles that cover the lower parts of the glaciers come from? In the upper parts of the glaciers or névé regions, where the snow remains perpetual and increases from year to year, the stones from the mountain sides are covered as they fall, and are at length buried deep and surrounded by ice as the snow becomes compressed and solidified. As the glacier advances down the valley and descends to lower altitudes, a level is at length reached where the snowfall of winter is exactly balanced by the melting of summer. This is the snow line, or rather this is the best place in which to locate such a variable level. Below this line the surface of the glacier melts away more than enough to make up for the winter fall of snow, and, as a result, the stones and debris buried in the ice gradually appear on the surface. In the Canadian Rockies near this latitude the snow line on northerly exposures, as judged by this method, is about 7000 feet above the sea, which is also just about the level called tree line.
In mountainous regions, where the climate is very dry, as in Colorado or in certain parts of the Andes, there is a great belt of several thousand feet between tree line and snow line where there is not sufficient moisture to allow of tree growth nor sufficient snowfall to form glaciers at all. In the Canadian Rockies the climate is moist enough to make these lines approach, and in the Selkirk Range and regions of extreme humidity the snow line is actually lower than the tree line.
We advanced slowly over the glacier and found much of interest on every side. The surface of the ice was at first comparatively smooth and channelled with small streams of pure water which flowed along with utmost rapidity but almost without ripples, as the smooth icy grooves seem adapted to every whim of the flowing water. At length the ice became more uneven and our passage was interrupted by crevasses, around which we had to thread our way by many a turn and detour. Most of them were, however, partly filled or bridged by snow and we found no particular difficulty in pursuing our way. About one o’clock we found ourselves at the base of Mount Lefroy, a little beyond the point where the two branches unite, and we held a consultation as to the plan of our farther advance. Mount Lefroy rises from the glacier in precipitous cliffs on every side, and we were even now under the shadow of its gloomy and threatening rock wall. There is no apparent method of scaling this mountain except by a long couloir or snow slope, which rises from the glacier and ascends nearly 1000 feet to a more gentle slope above the precipice. It was our intention to ascend this mountain, if possible, some time during the summer but the results of our first exploration for a favorable route rather inclined us to give up further attempts.
The result of our consultation was the decision to climb a short way up the couloir in order to see if it were possible to reach the gentle slope above. If this proved practicable, the ascent of the mountain was almost assured, as no great difficulties presented themselves above. Accordingly we commenced the ascent, all roped together in true Alpine fashion, and soon found the pitch so steep that our ice-axes rendered us much assistance in cutting steps. A number of great schrunds or horizontal crevasses often found on such slopes appeared to block our way, but as we approached we found a passage round every one. They were boat-shaped holes in the snow some forty or fifty feet deep and about the same width. The bottom of each appeared smooth and apparently of firm snow, so that they were not in reality very dangerous obstacles, as compared with the narrow and wellnigh unfathomable crevasses of an ordinary glacier.
Nevertheless, when we had reached a point several hundred feet above the schrunds and were on a steep slope of snow, my companions advocated taking to the rock ledges on the right of the snow, as they were altogether inexperienced in mountain climbing and felt somewhat nervous. We found the rock ledges practicable and quite easy except for a great number of loose stones which went rattling down as we advanced. We were in a gloomy narrow gorge filled with snow and hemmed in on either side by cliffs which rose with almost vertical sides, here and there dripping with water from the snows above.
Whenever we paused for a momentary rest and the sliding, rattling stones ceased to fall, we were oppressed by the awful silence of this cheerless place of rocks and snow nearly 8000 feet above sea level.
It was while ascending these rock ledges that the accident occurred which came so near proving disastrous. There were a series of ledges from six to ten feet high alternating with narrow shelves where the slope was only moderately steep. The whole place was strewed with loose stones and boulders, some of which were so delicately poised that the slightest touch seemed sufficient to send them crashing down the cliff. At length a very dangerous looking stone of large size could be seen on the next shelf above us apparently just balanced in its precarious position, for the light could be seen underneath its base. H. followed me in safety around this great boulder which must have weighed more than half a ton. I was on the point of ascending the next ledge with the assistance of H. when we both heard a dull grating sound below, and turning, beheld the great boulder starting to roll over, and F. just below it and on the point of falling over the cliff. F. fell about ten feet to the next shelf where he was partially checked by the rope and prevented from falling farther. But to our horror the boulder, which had now gained considerable motion, followed after, and leaping over the ledge, for a short but awful moment it seemed to hang in mid-air, and then came down on F. with terrible force. It seemed impossible that there should be anything left of our poor friend. With a horrible crash and roar the great stone continued down the gorge, attended by a thousand flying fragments till the rocky cliffs echoed again.
After a momentary pause, unable to move and riveted to our places in horror, we hastily scrambled down to our companion who lay on the cliff insensible and bleeding. Our first efforts were to staunch his wounds with snow and then a hasty examination proved that though his hip appeared dislocated he had received probably no further serious injury. This escape appeared almost miraculous and it is probable that in the flying cloud of stones a smaller piece just happened to come under the great boulder and supported it partially at one end so that the full force of the blow was not felt. It was now half-past two in the afternoon and we were three hours’ journey from the chalet with a man on our hands absolutely incapable of walking or even partially supporting his weight. It was evident that one of us must needs hasten back to the chalet for aid, but first it was necessary to get down the long snow-slope to the glacier.
Fortunately our rope was fully sixty feet long and after tying a loop under F.’s shoulders, I anchored myself securely with my ice-axe in the snow, and then lowered him rapidly but safely the length of the rope. H. then went down to F. and held him while I descended, and thus after twelve or fifteen repetitions of this proceeding we all landed in safety on the glacier. Having selected a place on the ice which was partially covered with a few small stones, we took off our coats and placed our wounded companion on this hard cold couch.
Carrying nothing but my ice-axe, I started for the chalet at once. The first part of the journey, while threading the crevasses, was slow and somewhat dangerous without the rope, but by running whenever practicable and pushing my energies to the utmost, I reached the chalet in one hour and ten minutes, or less than half the time required by us to come up in the morning. Unfortunately no one was at the chalet except Joe the cook. I however got him started immediately to cut two long, stout poles and a piece of canvas with which to make a litter. The two Indians were on the mountain side near Mirror Lake working on the trail and Mr. Astley, the manager of the chalet, was guiding some visitors to Lake Agnes. There was no other course open than to climb up after them, though I was quite exhausted by this time. I found William after twenty minutes of hard climbing and made him understand the situation at once. One must use a simple manner of speech as near like their own as possible, so I said to him—“William, three white men go up big snow mountain. Big stone came down, hurt one man. Tom, Mr. Astley, you—all go up snow mountain, bring white man back.” William’s face was a picture of horror, and he asked in anxiety—“Kill him?” I said no, but that he must hurry and get the other men. Dropping his axe, he ran off for the others in all haste, while I returned to the chalet and gathered sundry provisions and stimulants. The rescuing party of four men was started in about thirty minutes, and taking the boat, rowed down the lake, till at last the small black speck on the water disappeared from our view as they neared the farther end.
A two-and-a-half mile ride on horseback brought me to the railroad station, where I sent a telegram to Banff for the Doctor. As there would be no train till the next morning I made arrangements for a hand-car to bring the Doctor up at once. A response soon came back that he was just about to start on his long ride of thirty-eight miles to Laggan.
Meanwhile poor F. and H. were having a miserable time of it on the glacier. The long hours rolled by one after another and no sign of aid or assistance was apparent. The days were still very long, but at length the declining sun sank behind the great ridge or mountain wall extending northward from Mount Lefroy. The glacier which imparts a chilly dampness even to the brilliancy of a mid-day sun now rapidly became cold in the lengthening shadows, and the surface waters began to freeze, while the deep blue pools of water shot out little needles of ice with surprising rapidity.
As they had seen me no more after I had disappeared behind a swelling mound of ice, they conjured up in their imaginations the possibility that I had fallen into some deep crevasse or had hurt myself on the treacherous moraine. At length, urged to desperate resolves, they formed a plan of leaving the ice by the nearest route, at whatever hazard to life and limb, rather than die of cold and exposure on the glacier. They had abundant opportunity for studying the grand phenomena of this Alpine region near at hand: the thundering avalanches from the cliffs behind them, and the cracking, groaning ice of the glacier as the great frozen stream moved slowly over its rocky uneven bed.
At length, to their great joy, they discerned by means of a field-glass which we had carried with us in the morning, the boat leaving the lake shore and slowly approaching. In half an hour the party reached the near end of the lake and were then lost to view for nearly two hours, till at length four little black dots appeared about a mile distant moving over the ice toward them.
The rescuing party did not reach them till seven o’clock, or more than four hours after the accident occurred. The return to the chalet was most exhausting to the men, especially to the Indians, whose moccasins afforded poor protection against the sharp stones and ice of the glacier.
Two section men came up from Laggan and met the party as they were returning, and afforded timely aid by their fresh strength. Poor F. was carried in a canvas litter hastily constructed and consequently not perfect in its results, as it only served to lift him a very little above the ground at the best and then where the ground was very smooth. William observed his haggard face and woe-begone appearance with concern and entertained the invalid at frequent intervals by such remarks as, “You think you die, me think so too.” The rescuing party arrived at the chalet shortly after midnight, while the Doctor appeared an hour later. Each party had been travelling for the last five hours toward the chalet, and while one was accomplishing about three miles the other covered more than forty.
Fortunately there were no injuries discovered that would not heal in a few weeks, and through the influence of mountain air and perfect rest, recovery took place much more quickly than could be expected.
CHAPTER V.
Castle Crags—Early Morning on the Mountain Side—View from the Summit—Ascent of the Aiguille—An Avalanche of Rocks—A Glorious Glissade—St. Piran—Its Alpine Flowers and Butterflies—Expedition to an Unexplored Valley—A Thirsty Walk through the Forest—Discovery of a Mountain Torrent—A Lake in the Forest—A Mountain Amphitheatre—The Saddle—Impressive View of Mt. Temple—Summit of Great Mountain—An Ascent in Vain—A Sudden Storm in the High Mountains—Phenomenal Fall of Temperature—Grand Cloud Effects.
While poor F. was recovering from his injuries, and before the two other men had arrived, H. and I carried on the work of surveying the lake, and made several interesting excursions on the adjacent mountain sides.
One fine cool morning, we went up the valley about half a mile beyond the end of the lake, and commenced an ascent of the sharp-crested ridge on the east side of the valley. This ridge forms a connection between the massive mountain on the left of the lake, known as Great Mountain, and a very high summit, crowned with a fine glacier, and named by some one Hazel Peak, which lies about two miles due south of Lake Louise. This connecting ridge we called Castle Crags, a name readily suggested by the irregular forms and outlines of the sharp needles and fingers, pointing heavenward, which adorned its highest crest, and seemed to represent the battlements and embrasures of some great castle. Several sharp columns of stone, with vertical sides, and narrow, graceful forms, rose up from this great parapet built by nature. Resembling feudal towers or donjons, they seemed by their great altitude to pierce the blue vault of heaven, and to dwarf by their proximity the snowy crest of Hazel Peak, which, in reality, is several thousand feet higher.
To ascend this ridge, and, if possible, gain the summit of one of these needles, from which we hoped to obtain a fine idea of the valley to the east, was the purpose of our excursion. The ascent proved easy almost from the start. On leaving the stream, which we crossed by means of some great trees, long since overcome by age or storm, and now serving as convenient bridges at frequent intervals, we commenced to ascend a long, even slope of limestone boulders, stable in position, and affording easy walking. The air was fresh and cool, for the morning sun was just rising over the crest of Castle Crags, while the rays of light seemed to skip from boulder to boulder, and, gently touching the higher points, left the others in shade. There were no bushes or tangled underbrush to impede our way, and so we had abundant opportunity to enjoy the beautiful flowers which cropped out in little patches among the yellow, gray, and cream-colored limestones. This was a mountain climb that proved thoroughly enjoyable, for all the conditions of atmosphere, of weather, and easy ascent were in our favor. There is a charm about the early morning hours among the high mountains. The bracing coolness of the air, as yet still and calm after the chill and quiet of night, the gradually rising sun and increasing light, the unusual freshness of the flowers and green vegetation, in their sparkling bath of dew, and the quiet calls of birds,—all seemed to herald the birth of a new day, far richer in promise than any heretofore. The afternoon, with its mellow light and declining sun, is like the calm, cool days of October, with its dusty foliage and sear leaves, brilliant in autumnal colors, but ever suggesting the approach of bleak winter, and pointing back to the glories of the past. The morning points forward with a different meaning, and hopefully announces the activity of another day, even as spring is the threshold and the promise of summer time.
As we advanced, and gradually increased our altitude, the plants and flowers changed in variety, character, and size, till at length we left all vegetation behind, and reached the bottom of a long, gentle slope of snow. The sun had not, as yet, touched the snow, and it was hard and granular in the frosty air. The first snow on a mountain climb is always pleasant to a mountaineer. To him, as, indeed, to any one, the summer snow-bank has no suggestion of winter, with its desolate landscapes and cold blasts, but rather of some delightful experiences in the mountains during vacation. These lingering relics of winter have little power to chill the air, which is often balmy and laden with the fragrance of flowers, in the immediate vicinity of large snow areas. The trickling rivulet, formed from the wasting snows of the mountain side, is often the only place where, for hours at a time, the thirsty climber may find a cold and delicious draught. Instead of destroying the flowers by their chilly influence, these banks of snow often send down a gentle and constant supply of water, which spreads out over grassy slopes below, and nourishes a little garden of Alpine flowers, where all else is dry and barren.
Arrived at the top of the long snow-slope, we found ourselves already nearly 3000 feet above the valley and not far below the crest of the ridge. A rough scramble now ensued over loose limestone blocks, where we found the sharp edges, and harsh surfaces of these stones, very hard on our shoes and hands. Upon reaching the crest, we beheld one of those fearfully grand and thrilling views which this portion of the Rocky Mountains often affords. The most conspicuous object in the whole view was the glacier, which descends from the very summit of Hazel Peak, at an altitude of more than 10,000 feet, and sweeps down in a nearly straight channel to the north, and in the course of but little more than a mile descends 4000 feet. A gloomy, narrow valley hems in its lower half, and on the side where we were, the precipice rose, in nearly perpendicular sides from the ice, far heavenward to where we stood. We launched a few large stones over the verge of the beetling precipice, and watched them descend in a few great leaps into the awful abyss, where they were broken into a thousand fragments on projecting ledges, or else, striking the glacier, continued their course till the eye could no longer follow them.
We were standing just at the base of one of the aiguilles which, from the valley, seem like sharp points of rock, but, now that we were near, proved to be about sixty feet high. This needle appeared to be precipitous and inaccessible on our first examination. But we discovered a narrow crevice or gully on the west side which apparently offered a safe method of ascent. I was soon near the top of the needle, but at the most difficult part, where only one small crack in the rock offered a good hand-hold, I was warned not to touch one side where the cliff seemed parted, and filled with loose material. Making a reconnaissance, I found the back of this same crag likewise separated a little from the solid rock, and the crevice partially disguised by loose stones and dirt, which had settled in and filled the hollow. This crag was about ten feet high and six or seven feet square, and though it seemed impossible to disturb so great a mass, I felt inclined to take the safer course and leave it entirely alone, so I scrambled up by a more difficult route.
Arrived on the top of the needle, I told H., who had remained below, to get under shelter while I should put this crag to the test. He accordingly found a projecting ledge of rock a little to one side, while I sat down and got a good brace and started to push with my feet against the top of the crag. A slight effort proved sufficient, and with a dull grating sound the great mass, which must have weighed about twenty-five tons, toppled slowly over on its base, and then fell with a fearful crash against the sides of the cliff, and commenced to roll down the mountain side like a veritable avalanche. Through the cloud of dust and flying stones I could faintly discern the features of my friend below, apparently much interested in what was going on. It was well that I had not trusted to this treacherous stone.
After I had pushed down most of the loose stones, H. came up and joined me on the summit of the aiguille. This needle had a blunt point indeed, for it proved to be a flat table about fifty feet long and ten feet wide. We were 8,700 feet above sea-level, and the wind was raw and chilly as it swept up from the valley and over this ridge. The sun had but little power to temper the air, and we soon started on our descent. In about five minutes we reached the top of the long snow-slope, where we enjoyed a glorious glissade and rapidly descended more than a thousand feet. The best manner of glissading is to stand straight up and slide on the feet, having one leg straight and the other slightly bent at the knee. Trailing the ice-axe behind as a precaution against too great speed, or to check the motion in case of a fall, the mountaineer can thus, in a few minutes, rapidly coast down long slopes which may have required hours of toil to ascend. Nothing in the experience of climbers is more exhilarating than a good glissade down a long snow-slope. The rush of air, the flying snow, and the necessity for constant attention to balance—all give a sensation of pleasure, combined with a spice of danger, without which latter almost all our sports and pastimes are apt to be tame. Do not many of our best sports, such as polo, horseback riding, foot-ball, yachting, and canoe sailing, gain some of their zest from a constant possibility of danger?
A few minutes of rapid descent down the limestone slope led us to a fine, small spring, which dashed in a score of small streamlets over some rocky ledges covered with moss and ferns. Here we sat down in the cool shade of the cliffs and ate our lunch. The air was now warm and still, because we were not far above the valley, and here, instead of seeking the warmth of the sun as we had done on the cold mountain summit, a brief three-quarters of an hour before, we now enjoyed the shade afforded by the rocks and forest near us. We reached the chalet in time for a second lunch, and, as in our mountain exercise we never found any meal superfluous, we were ready to present ourselves at the table at once.
On the 28th of July, W. arrived at the chalet, and, as A. had likewise appeared a few days previously, our party of five was now complete.
One of the first points which we decided to occupy in our surveying work was a high peak above Lake Agnes, called Saint Piran. This mountain is very easy to ascend and on several occasions we found ourselves on the summit for one purpose or another. The summit is far above tree line and, indeed, almost reaches the upper limit of any kind of plant growth. The rounded top is crowned with a great cairn, about ten feet high, which has been used as a surveying point some time in the past.
During the midsummer months this mountain summit is sparingly covered with bright flowers, all of an Alpine nature, dwarfed in size and with blossoms enormously out of proportion to the stems and leaves. There are several species of composites which rest their heads of yellow flowers almost on the ground, and a species of dwarf golden-rod about three inches high, with only two or three small heads on the summit of the stem; but the most conspicuous is a kind of moss pink, which is in reality a mountain variety of phlox. This plant grows in spreading mats upon the ground, with small, rigid, awl-shaped leaves gathered in tufts along the stem, while here and there are small bright blossoms of a pink color. Mr. Fletcher, who has spent some time in this region investigating the flowers and insects, once found a plant of the pink family on this mountain, which proved by its little joints to be more than one hundred years old.
One day I came up here alone, and on reaching the summit was surprised to find Mr. Bean, an entomologist, busily at work collecting butterflies. Mr. Bean has lived at Laggan for a number of years, and has made a most valuable collection of the insects, especially the butterflies and beetles, of all this region. Remarkably enough, it is on just such spots as this lofty mountain summit, 8600 feet above tide, that the rarest and most beautiful butterflies assemble in great numbers, especially on bright, sunny days. Here they are invited by the gaudy Alpine flowers, which have devoted all their plant energy to large blossoms and brilliant colors, so as to attract the various insects to them.
I was much interested in Mr. Bean’s work, as he is the first pioneer in this field and has made many valuable discoveries. He showed me one butterfly of small size and quite dark coloring, almost black, which he said was a rare species, first discovered in polar regions by the Ross expedition, and never seen since till it was observed flitting about on this high peak, where arctic conditions prevail in midsummer. It is wonderful how the various species vary in color, form, and habit; some of the butterflies are very wild and shy, never allowing a near approach by the would-be collector; others are comparatively tame; and while some fly slowly and in a straight course, other species dart along most rapidly, constantly changing direction in sharp turns, and completely baffle all attempts at pursuit.
From the summit of this mountain we discovered a small lake in the valley to the west, and, as no one at the chalet had apparently ever visited the lake, or even known of its existence, we decided to make an excursion to this new region. Accordingly, a few days later, three of us started by the trail toward Lake Agnes, and after reaching a point about 600 feet above Lake Louise, we turned to the right and endeavored to make a traverse around the mountain till we should gain the entrance to the other valley. Our plan was not very good and the results were worse. For about two miles, the walking was along horizontal ledges of hard quartzite rock carpeted with grass and heaths, and occasionally made very difficult by the short dwarf spruces and larches which, with their tough elastic branches, impeded our progress very much. The day was unusually warm, and we were glad to reach at length a small patch of snow, where we quenched our thirst by sprinkling the snow on large flat stones, the heat of which melted enough to give us a small amount of muddy water. The roughness of the mountain and the nature of the cliffs now compelled us to descend near a thousand feet, and thus lose all the benefit of our first ascent. We were constantly advancing westward, hoping to come at length upon some stream that must descend from the valley of the little lake. Every valley in these mountains must have some stream or rivulet to drain away the water resulting from the melting snows of winter and the rains of summer, and we were certain that, if we continued far enough, we would finally discover such a stream. After our descent we proceeded through a fine forest, densely luxuriant, and in some places much blocked by prostrate trees and giant trunks, mossy and half decayed. The air seemed unusually dry, and our thirst, which had been only in part appeased by our draught at the snow-bank, now returned in greater severity than ever.
Suddenly we heard a distant sound of water, which, as we approached, grew still louder, till it burst into the full, loud roar of a beautiful mountain stream. The water was clear as crystal and icy cold, while nothing could exceed the graceful beauty of the many leaps and falls of the stream as it dashed over its rocky bed. Here we took lunch in a shady nook, seated on some rocky ledges at the edge of the water, surrounded on all sides by deep cool forests. How wild this little spot was! Though the railroad was less than two miles distant, probably no white man had ever seen this pleasant retreat where we were resting. Had our excursion ended here, we should have been repaid for all the toil, heat, and thirst we had endured, by this single experience.
A COOL RETREAT IN THE FOREST.
Nor was our pleasure over, for the stream, we knew, would prove a certain guide to the little lake, and, with the anticipation of soon reaching some enchanting bit of scenery when we should arrive at this sheet of water, we pursued our way along the series of falls and cascades by which our new-found stream leapt merrily down the mountain slope. Such is the charm of mountain excursions in these unexplored and little known wilds, for here, nature is ever ready to please and surprise the explorer by some little lake or waterfall or a rare bit of mountain scenery.
Though we had stopped for luncheon at a place where the dashing water made several cascades and falls of exquisite beauty, we found a constant succession of similar spots, where I was often tempted to delay long enough to take photographs. As the stream thus descended rapidly, we found steep rock ledges, cut in giant steps and overgrown with thick moss till they were almost concealed from view, on either side of the mad torrent. These afforded us an easy method of ascent. The rocky formation of the stream bed revealed many different kinds of stone, conglomerates, shales, and quartzites, in clearly marked strata all gently dipping toward the south.
At length the woods opened up on either side, while, simultaneously, the slope decreased in pitch, and the stream ran over a bed of loose, rounded stones and boulders in the bottom of a shallow ravine. In a moment more we reached the lake, much more beautiful than our first view from St. Piran had led us to expect, but, also, much smaller in area. It was a mere pool, clear and deep, but intensely, blue in color and partially surrounded by a thin forest. Passing round the shores and up the valley, we found ourselves in some beautiful meadows, or rather moors, wherein streams of snow-water wandered in quiet, sinuous courses and gathered at length into the stream that feeds the lake. We came on a great number of ptarmigan—the high mountain species of grouse characteristic of this region,—which, with their young broods hardly able as yet to fly, were the most abundant signs of life that we found in this valley.
A vast amphitheatre or cirque, with lofty, bare walls nearly free of snow, formed the termination of the valley. We were not compelled, however, to return over the same route as we had come, for we found an easy pass with a long gentle slope of snow on our left. This led us over the divide and, by a long steep descent, brought us to Lake Agnes, where we took advantage of the trail down the mountain side to the chalet.
Our attention was next turned toward the exploration of the mountains and valleys to the east of Lake Louise, which seemed to offer greater possibilities of grand scenery than those on the opposite side. Accordingly, we made several visits to a high upland park or alp, which was in reality a sort of depression between Great Mountain and a lesser peak to the east. This depression and the two mountains, one vastly higher than the other, resemble in outline, a saddle with pommel and crupper and suggested a name for the place which seems eminently appropriate. A trail now leads to the Saddle, and the place has proven so popular among tourists that it is frequently in use.
The Saddle is a typical alp, or elevated mountain meadow, where long, rich grass waves in the summer breezes, beautified by mountain flowers, anemones, sky-blue forget-me-nots, and scarlet castilleias. Scattered larch trees make a very park of this place, while the great swelling slopes rise in graceful curves toward the mountain peaks on either side.
But this is only the foreground to one of the most impressive views in the Rocky Mountains. To the eastward about three miles, on the farther side of a deep valley, stands the great mass of Mount Temple, the highest peak near the line of travel in the Canadian Rockies. This mountain stands alone, separated from the surrounding peaks of the continental watershed to which it does not belong. Its summit is 11,658 feet above the sea-level, while the valleys on either side are but little more than 6000 feet in altitude. As a result, the mountain rises over a mile above the surrounding valleys, a height which approaches the maximum reached in the Canadian Rockies. All sides of this mountain, except the south, are so precipitous that they offer not the slightest possible hope to the mountain climber, be he ever so skilful. The summit is crowned by a snow field or glacier of small size but of remarkable purity, since there are no higher cliffs to send down stones and debris to the glacier and destroy its beauty. On the west face, the glacier overhangs a precipice, and, by constantly crowding forward and breaking off, has formed a nearly vertical face of ice, which is in one place three hundred and twenty-five feet thick. I have seen passengers on the trains who were surprised to learn that the ice in this very place is anything more than a yard in depth, and who regarded with misplaced pity and contempt those who have any larger ideas on the subject.
Avalanches from this hanging wall of ice are rather rare, as the length of the wall is not great and the glacier probably moves very slowly. I have never had the good fortune to witness one, though the thunders of these ice falls are often heard by the railroad men who live at Laggan, just six miles distant. They must indeed be magnificent spectacles, as the ice must needs fall more than 4000 feet to reach the base of the cliff. The compactness of this single mountain may be well shown, by saying that a line eight miles long would be amply sufficient to encircle its base, notwithstanding the fact that its summit reaches so great an altitude.
Mount Temple from the Saddle.
The strata are clearly marked and nearly horizontal, though with a slight upward dip on all sides, and especially toward the Bow valley, so that the general internal structure of the mountain is somewhat bowl-shaped, a formation very common in mountain architecture.
The surroundings of this great mountain are equally grand. Far below in the deep valley, the forest-trees appear like blades of grass, and in the midst of them a bright, foamy band of water winds in crooked course like a narrow thread of silver,—in reality, a broad, deep stream. A small lake, nestling among the dark forests at the very base of Mount Temple, is the most beautiful feature in the whole view. The distance renders its water a dark ultra-marine color, and sometimes, when the light is just at the proper angle, the ripples sparkle on the dark surface like thousands of little diamonds. On the right, an awful precipice of a near mountain looms up in gloomy grandeur, like the cliffs and bottomless abysses of the infernal regions pictured by Doré. This we called Mount Sheol.
One may ascend from the Saddle to the summit of Great Mountain in an hour. Mr. A. and I ascended this mountain in 1893, before there was any trail to assist us, and we had a very hard time in forcing our way through the tough underbrush, while below tree line.
In the course of a great many ascents of this peak I have had several interesting adventures. The view from the summit is so fine that I have made many attempts to obtain good photographs from this point. One day, after a period of nearly a week of smoky weather, the wind suddenly shifted, and, at about ten o’clock in the morning, the atmosphere became so perfectly clear that the smallest details of the distant mountains were distinct and sharp, as though seen through a crystal medium. This was my chance, and I proceeded at once to take advantage of it. I had a large 8 x 10 camera and three plate-holders, which all went into a leather case especially made for the purpose, and which was fitted out with straps, so that it rested between my shoulders and left both hands free for climbing. It weighed altogether twenty-four pounds. With lunch in my pocket, I set out from the chalet with all speed, so as to arrive on the summit before the wind should change and bring back the smoke.
I climbed as I had never climbed before, and though the day was hot I reached the Saddle in an hour, and, without a moment’s pause, turned toward Great Mountain and commenced the long ascent of its rocky slope. In fifty-five minutes more I reached the summit and had ascended 3275 feet above Lake Louise. The air was still clear and offered every promise of successful photographs, even as I was unstrapping my camera and preparing to set it up for work. Suddenly, the wind shifted once more to the south and brought back great banks of smoke, which came rolling over the snowy crest of Mount Lefroy like fog from the sea. In five minutes all was lost. Mount Temple appeared like a great, shadowy ghost, in the bluish haze, and the sun shone with a pale coppery light. Such are the trials and tribulations of the climber in the Canadian Rockies.
One day at the end of August, H. and I ascended this mountain with our surveying instruments. The barometer had been steadily falling for several days, and already there were cumulus clouds driving up from the southwest in long furrows of lighter and darker vapors, which obscured the entire sky. A few drops of rain on the summit compelled me to work rapidly, but, as yet, there was no warning of what was in store.
After all the principal points were located we packed up our instruments and commenced a rapid descent to the Saddle. The slope is of scree and loose material, which permits a rapid descent at a full run, so that one may gain the Saddle in about fifteen minutes. Arriving there I paused to get a drink at a small stream under some great boulders, fed by a wasting snow-bank. H. had gone off toward the other side of the pass to get his rifle, which he had left on the way up.
Suddenly I heard a rushing sound, and, looking up, saw a cloud of dust on the mountain side and the trees swaying violently in a strong wind. A mass of curling vapor formed rapidly against the cliffs of Great Mountain, and a dull moaning sound, as of violent wind, seemed to fill the air. The sky rapidly darkened and black clouds formed overhead, while below them the thin wisps of scud rushed along and seemed white and pale by contrast.
I was no sooner up on my feet than the approaching blast was upon me, and with such unexpected force did it come that I was laid low at the first impulse. My hat went sailing off into space and was never seen more. The first shock over, I gained my feet again and started to find H. The air changed in temperature with phenomenal rapidity, and from being warm and muggy, in the space of about five minutes it grew exceedingly cold, and threatened snow and hail.
Though everything betokened an immediate storm and a probable drenching for us, I had time to notice a magnificent sight on Mount Temple. As yet there were no clouds on the summit, but, as I looked, my attention was called to a little fleck of vapor resting against the precipitous side of the mountain, half-way between summit and base. So suddenly had it appeared that I could not tell whether it had grown before my eyes or was there before. From this small spot the vapors grew and extended rapidly in both directions, till a long, flat cloud stretched out more than a mile, when I last saw it. The vapors seemed to form out of the very air where a moment before all had been perfectly clear.
Realizing that the sooner we started the better chance we should have of escape, we flew rather than ran down the trail, and were only overtaken by the storm as we approached the lake. The temperature had dropped so rapidly that a cold rain and damp snow were falling when we reached the lake. The boat had drifted from its moorings, and was caught on a sunken log some distance from the shore. I waded out on a sunken log, where I expected at any moment to slip from the slimy surface and take an involuntary bath in the lake. The boat was regained by the time H. had arrived a few minutes later and we reached the chalet thoroughly drenched.
Such sudden storms in the Canadian Rockies are rather rare, and are almost always indicated in advance by a falling barometer and lowering sky. I have never at any other time observed such a sudden fall in temperature, nor seen the clouds form instantaneously far down on the mountain side as they had done in this storm. The sudden rush of wind, the curling vapors, and flying scud afforded a magnificent spectacle on the Saddle, and one that was well worth the drenching we suffered in penalty.
CHAPTER VI.
Paradise Valley—The Mitre Glacier—Air Castles—Climbing to the Col—Dark Ice Caverns—Mountain Sickness—Grandeur of the Rock-Precipices on Mt. Lefroy—Summit of the Col at Last—A Glorious Vision of a New and Beautiful Valley—A Temple of Nature—Sudden Change of Weather—Temptation to Explore the New Valley—A Precipitate Descent—Sudden Transition from Arctic to Temperate Conditions—Delightful Surroundings—Weary Followers—Overtaken by Night—A Bivouac in the Forest—Fire in the Forest—Indian Sarcasm.
The valley to the east of Lake Louise and parallel to it, we named Paradise Valley, on account of the elegant park-like effect of the whole place and the beauty of the vegetation. Our first entrance into this region and the discovery of the valley were partially accidental. In fact, we were making an expedition for the purpose of finding a practicable route up Hazel Peak, on the day when we were diverted from our original plan, and tempted to explore this hitherto unseen part of the mountains.
It came about somewhat in this manner. On the 30th of July, all but F., who was still lame from his accident, left the chalet carrying rope and ice-axes, with the intention of making explorations on the southern slopes of Hazel Peak. Our party, numbering four, left the chalet at a little after eight o’clock, with the intention of returning no later than five in the afternoon. Our equipment, beside our Alpine implements, consisted of a camera, a prismatic compass, and that which proved no less necessary, our lunches and a whiskey flask.
Taking the boat, we rowed to the other end of the lake, and then followed the same route as our party of three had taken on the disastrous expedition of July 13th, till we came to the junction of the two glacier streams. Here we turned toward the east, and followed the moraine of the wide glacier between Mount Lefroy and Hazel Peak.
The whole valley between was floored by a smooth, nearly level glacier, about a half mile wide and perhaps two miles long. Presently we were compelled to get on the ice as the moraine disappeared; so we put on the rope, and advanced with more caution. It was not long, however, before W., who was next to last in our line, broke through the bridge of a crevasse, despite our care, and sank to his shoulders. This member of our party was not versed in the art of snow-craft, and to him, every occurrence common to mountain experiences, and Alpine methods of procedure, were alike novel and terrible. In consequence, this accident fell more severely on him, but fortunately, he was extricated almost immediately by the use of the rope.
At the head of our valley was a remarkable, symmetrical mountain, resembling in general outline a bishop’s mitre. From the glacier and snow-fields where we were walking, there rose on either side of the Mitre, steep snow-slopes, which terminated in lofty cols about 8500 feet above sea-level. That on the north side of the Mitre was exceedingly steep, and was rendered inaccessible by reason of a great crevasse, extending from the precipices on either side, clear across the snow-slope. This crevasse must have been nearly twenty-five yards in width and of great depth. At one side there still remained a thin bridge of snow, suspended, as it were, in mid-air over the awful chasm, as though to tempt climbers on to their instant destruction, or perhaps to a lingering death from cold and hunger.
The pass on our left appeared the more propitious and seemed to offer a possible route to the summit of the divide. We were anxious to get a view into the valley beyond, even though it were but for a few moments. The unknown regions on the other side of the pass had long been for me a favorite pleasure-ground of the imagination. Some fate had hitherto denied us any idea of the place beyond the vaguest suggestions. Several ascents, or partial ascents, of mountains on all sides of this unknown valley, had revealed the outlines of the surrounding mountains, but some intervening cliff or mountain range had always, with persistent and exasperating constancy, shut off all but the most unsatisfactory glimpses. Starting from these substantial foundations of reality, my imagination had built up a wide circular valley, surrounded on all sides by curious mountains of indefinite and ever changing outline and position. The picture always appeared in a gloomy, weird light, as though under a cloudy sky, or while the sun was near totally eclipsed. By some curious analogy, this faint illumination was similar to that which we always associate with the first creation of land and water; or far back in the geologic ages, when strange and hideous reptiles,—some flying in the murky air, some creeping amid the swampy growths of cycads, calamites, and gigantic tree ferns,—excite a strange thrill of pleasure and awe combined, as though the soul were dimly perceiving some new revelation of the universe, though but vaguely. In this weird, gloomy valley I wandered careless, in my imagination, many days and at many times, among forests infested by strange, wild animals, harmless like those of Eden, and by the shores of ever new, ever changing lakes and rivers.
So strong had this picture become that I felt the most intense anxiety to succeed in reaching the top of our pass, and gain at length a view of the reality, even at the risk of shattering these pleasant air castles, and annihilating, in a single instant, one of my best mental pleasure-grounds.
There were many dangers to be risked, however, and many obstacles to be overcome before this advantage might be gained. The steep slope was rendered formidable by reason of many great schrunds, or horizontal crevasses, caused by the ice of the glacier below, moving downward. In the intense cold of winter the moving ice becomes rigid and nearly stagnant, while the drifting snows accumulate, so as partly to fill these rents in the ice and bridge them over by cornices built out from one side or the other. When the increasing warmth of summer causes the ice to become plastic and to move more rapidly, these rents grow wider and the snow-bridges melt away and eventually fall into the crevasses so as to leave impassable chasms, dangerous to approach. Fortunately, it was not so late in the season that all the bridges were broken down, else we should have been completely defeated, for, on either side, the glacier was hemmed in by dangerous rock precipices. The south side of the glacier, moreover, was subject to frequent rock falls from the disintegrating cliffs of the Mitre. As we advanced over the extensive névé, the slope increased gradually but constantly, and soon became so steep that steps had to be cut, and great care was necessary not to slip. We crossed some of the schrunds by bridges of snow, where it was necessary to proceed with great caution, and, by sliding the feet along, apply the weight gently, lest the bridge should break through. We passed round others by walking along the lower edge or lip of the crevasse, which gave us a splendid but almost terrifying view of the gloomy caverns, extending down through the snow and ice to unknown depths. The dark-blue roofs of these crevasses were hung with dripping icicles, while from far below could be heard the sound of rushing, sub-glacial streams. Three hours of this slow, toilsome work were necessary to gain 1000 feet in altitude. We were now more than 8000 feet above the sea, and the atmosphere was raw and cold. Large damp flakes of snow and granular hail fell occasionally from a cloudy sky, silently and swiftly, through a quiet atmosphere. The whole horizon was bounded by high mountains, covered with glaciers and patches of snow, altogether barren and destitute of vegetation. Not a single tree or shrub, nor even a grassy slope at the far end of the great amphitheatre of mountain walls by which we were hemmed in, relieved the stern, cold monotony of the scene. So far as we might judge by our surroundings, we might have been exploring the lonely, desolate mountains of Spitzbergen, or some distant polar land, where frost and winter rule perpetual. Our progress up the slope of the glacier was very slow, as each step had to be cut out with the ice-axe. The pitch was so steep that a misstep might have resulted in our all sliding down and making further exploration of the schrunds below. The whole party was, in consequence, more or less affected by these cheerless circumstances, and became much depressed in spirit. As, however, the condition of the body is in great part responsible for all mental and moral ailments, so it was in our case. Had we been walking rapidly, so that the circulation of the blood had been vigorous and strong, both mind and body would have been in good condition, and the cold air, the snow, and bleak mountains would have been powerless to discourage. It is always at such times that mountain climbers begin to ask themselves whether the results are worth the efforts to attain them. Any one who has climbed at all, as we learn by reading the experiences of mountaineers, at many times has said to himself: “If I get home safely this time I shall never again venture from the comforts of civilization.” The ancients, when in the thick of battle, or at the point of shipwreck, were accustomed to vow temples to the gods should they be kind enough to save them, but they usually forgot their oaths when safely home. Mountaineers in like manner forget their resolves, under the genial influence of rest and food, when they reach camp.
After many disappointments, we at last saw the true summit of our pass or col not far distant, and only a few hundred feet above us. A more gentle slope of snow, free of crevasses, led to it from our position.
Now that we were confident of success, we took this opportunity to rest by a ledge of rocks which appeared above the surrounding snow field. Here we regained confidence along with a momentary rest.
Nothing could surpass the awful grandeur of Mount Lefroy opposite us. Its great cliffs were of solid rock, perpendicular and sheer for about 2500 feet, and then sloping back, at an angle of near fifty degrees, to heights which were shut off from our view by the great hanging glacier. We could just catch a glimpse of its dark precipices, where the mountain wall continued into the unknown valley eastward, through a gorge or rent in the cliffs south of the Mitre. A magnificent avalanche fell from Mount Lefroy as we were resting from our severe exertion, and held our admiring attention for several moments. Another descended from the Mitre and consisted wholly of rocks, which made a sharp cannonade as they struck the glacier below, and showed us the danger to which we should have been exposed had we ascended on the farther side of the slope.
Having roped up once more, we proceeded rapidly toward the summit of the col, being urged on by a strong desire to see what wonders the view eastward might have in store. This is the most pleasurably exciting experience in mountaineering—the approach to the summit of a pass. The conquest of a new mountain is likewise very interesting, but usually the scene unfolds gradually during the last few minutes of an ascent. On reaching the summit of a pass, however, a curtain is removed, as it were, at once, and a new region is unfolded whereby the extent of the view is doubled as by magic.
We were, moreover, anxious to learn whether a descent into this valley would be possible, after we should arrive on the col. We were alternately tormented by the fear of finding impassable precipices of rock, or glaciers rent by deep crevasses, and cheered on by the hope of an easy slope of snow or scree, whereby a safe descent would be offered.
Proceeding cautiously, as we approached the very summit, to avoid the danger of an overhanging cornice of snow, we had no sooner arrived on the highest part than we beheld a valley of surpassing beauty, wide and beautiful, with alternating open meadows and rich forests. Here and there were to be seen streams and brooks spread out before our gaze, clearly as though on a map, and traceable to their sources, some from glaciers, others from springs or melting snow-drifts. In the open meadows, evidently luxuriantly clothed with grass and other small plants, though from our great height it was impossible to tell, the streams meandered about in sinuous channels, in some places forming a perfect network of watercourses. In other parts, the streams were temporarily concealed by heavy forests of dark coniferous trees, or more extensively, by light groves of larch.
This beautiful valley, resembling a park by reason of its varied and pleasing landscape, was closely invested on the south by a half circle of rugged, high mountains rising precipitously from a large glacier at their united bases. This wall of mountains, continuing almost uninterruptedly around, hemmed in the farther side of the valley and terminated, so far as we could see, in a mountain with twin summits of nearly equal height, about one mile apart. The limestone strata of this mountain were nearly perfectly horizontal, and had been sculptured by rain and frost into an endless variety of minarets, spires, and pinnacles. These, crowning the summits of ridges and slopes with ever changing angles, as though they represented alternating walls and roofs of some great cathedral, all contributed to give this mountain, with its elegant contours and outlines, the most artistically perfect assemblage of forms that nature can offer throughout the range of mountain architecture.
On the north side of this mountain, as though, here, nature had striven to outdo herself, there rose from the middle slopes a number of graceful spires or pinnacles, perhaps 200 or 300 feet in height, slender and tapering, which, having escaped the irresistible force of moving glaciers and destructive earthquakes, through the duration of thousands of years, while the elements continued their slow but constant work of disintegration and dissolution, now presented these strange monuments of an ageless past. Compared with these needles, the obelisks and pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Yucatan, or the temples of India are young, even in their antiquity. When those ancient peoples were building, nature had nearly completed her work here.
Discovery of Paradise Valley.
Beyond the nearer range of mountains could be seen, through two depressions, a more distant range, remarkably steep and rugged, while one particularly high peak was adorned with extensive snow-fields and large glaciers.
Almost simultaneously with our arrival on the summit of the pass, a great change took place in the weather. The wind veered about, and the clouds, which hitherto had formed a monotonous gray covering, now began to separate rapidly and dissolve away, allowing the blue sky to appear in many places. Long, light shafts of sunlight forced a passage through these rents, and, as the clouds moved along, trailed bright areas of illumination over the valley below, developing rich coloring and pleasing contrasts of light and shade over a landscape ideally perfect.
This beautiful scene, which has taken some time to describe, even superficially, burst on our view so suddenly, that for a moment the air was rent with our exclamations and shouts, while those who had lately been most depressed in spirit were now most vehement in their expressions of pleasure. We spent a half-hour on the pass and divided up our work, so that while one took photographs of the scenery, another noted down the angles of prominent points for surveying purposes, while the rest constructed a high cairn of stones, to commemorate our ascent of the pass.
Whatever may have been the mental processes by which the result was achieved, we found all unanimous in a decision to go down into the new valley and explore it, whatever might result. The cold, desolate valley on which we now turned our backs, but which was the route homewards, was less attractive than this unknown region of so many pleasant features, where even the weather seemed changed as we approached it.
It was now already two-thirty P.M. We were 8400 feet above sea-level and at an unknown distance from Lake Louise, should we attempt the new route. Another great mountain range might have to be passed before we could arrive at the chalet, for aught we knew. There were, however, fully six hours left of daylight, and we hoped to reach the chalet before nightfall.
A long snow-slope descended from where we were standing, far into the valley. This we prepared to descend by glissading, all roped together, on account of W., who was this day enjoying his first experience in mountain climbing. An unkind fate had selected him, earlier in the day, to break through the bridge of the crevasse and now doomed him to still further trouble, for we had no sooner got well under way in our descent, before his feet flew out from under him, and he started to slide at such a remarkable rate that the man behind was jerked violently by the rope, and, falling headlong, lost his ice-axe at the same time. With consternation depicted in every feature, our two friends came rolling and sliding down, with ever increasing speed, spinning round—now one leading, now the other, sometimes head first, sometimes feet first. The shock of the oncomers was too much for the rest of us to withstand, and even with our ice-axes well set in the soft snow, we all slid some distance in a bunch. At length our axes had the desired effect and the procession came to a standstill. It required some time to unwind the tangled ropes wherein we were enmeshed like flies in a spider’s web, owing to the complicated figures we had executed in our descent. Meanwhile, a committee of one was appointed to go back and pick up the scattered hats, ice-axes, and such other wreckage as could be found.
The end of the descent was accomplished in a better manner, and in less than ten minutes we were 1500 feet below the pass. A short, steep scramble down some rocky ledges, where strong alder bushes gave good support for lowering ourselves, brought us in a few minutes to the valley bottom. At this level the air was warm and pleasant as we entered an open grove of larch and spruce trees. In the last quarter of an hour we had passed through all the gradations from an arctic climate, where the cold air, the great masses of perpetual snow, and bleak rocks, made a wintry picture, to the genial climate of the temperate zone, where were fresh and beautiful meadows enlivened by bright flowers, gaudy insects, and the smaller mountain animals. Humboldt has truly said: “In the physical as in the moral world, the contrast of effects, the comparison of what is powerful and menacing with what is soft and peaceful, is a never failing source of our pleasures and our emotions.”
We followed a small, clear stream of an unusual nature. In some places it glided quietly and swiftly over a sloping floor of solid stone, polished and grooved in some past age by glaciers. A little farther on, the character of the mountain stream suffered a change, and the water now found its way in many sharp, angular turns and narrow courses by large square blocks of stone, for the most part covered by a thick carpet of moss, while between were deep pools and occasional miniature waterfalls.
Pursuing our way with rapid steps, for we were like adventurers in some fairy-land of nature, where every moment reveals new wonders, we came at length to an opening in the forest, where the stream dashed over some rocky ledges, that frost and age had rent asunder and thrown down in wild disorder, till the stream bed was fairly strewn with giant masses of sandstone. Some of these colossal fragments were apparently just balanced on sharp edges, and seemed ever ready to fall from their insecure positions. The variety and novelty of form presented by the falling water, as the streamlets divided here and united there, some over, some under, the stone bridges accidentally formed in this confusion of nature, aroused our greatest admiration.
As we advanced down the valley towards the north, the outlines of the mountains changed, and we recognized at length the bare slopes of the southern side of Mount Temple, which at first seemed to us a strange mountain. Meanwhile, we had approached very near to the base of the beautiful mountain with the double peak and the many pinnacles, and found that proximity did not render it less attractive.
The stream which we followed had been joined by many other rivulets and springs till it grew to be wide and deep. At length a muddy torrent, direct from the glacier at the head of the valley, added new volume and polluted the crystal snow-waters of the stream which we had followed from its very source.
For many hours we followed the banks of the small river formed by these two branches, and found it an almost continuous succession of rapids, constantly descending, and with a channel swinging to right and left, every few hundred yards, in a winding course.
H. and I led the way, and frequently lost sight of the others who were beginning to tire and preferred a slower pace. We waited on several occasions for them to come up with us, though it seemed as if we should no more than reach the chalet before nightfall, even by putting forth our best efforts.
About 6.30 o’clock we came to a swampy tract, where the trees grew sparingly, and gave the appearance of a meadow to an expanse of nearly level ground, covered with fine grass and sedges. Here, after a long wait for our friends, who had not been seen for some time, we decided to write a note on a piece of paper and attach it to a pole in a conspicuous place where they could not fail to see it. The mosquitoes were so numerous that it was almost impossible to remain quiet long enough to write a few words explaining our plans. On the top of the stick we placed a small splinter of wood in a slit, and made it point in the exact direction we intended to take.
Having accomplished these duties in the best manner possible, we set out for the chalet with all speed, as we did not relish the idea of making a bivouac in the woods and spending a cheerless night after our long fast. It was evident that we were now at the outlet of the valley, and that, unless we should encounter very rough country with much fallen timber, our chances were good for reaching the chalet before darkness rendered travelling impossible. It was likewise important to reach the lake on account of those at the chalet, who might think that the whole party had met with some accident on the mountain, unless some of us turned up that night.
We accordingly walked as fast as our waning strength permitted, and after surmounting a ridge about 800 feet high, which formed part of the lower slopes of Saddle Mountain, we found no great difficulty in forcing a passage through the forest for several miles, when we came upon the trail to the Saddle. We reached the lake at 8.15 P.M., and after shouting in vain for some one to send over a boat, we forded the stream and entered the chalet, where a sumptuous repast was ordered forthwith, and to which we did ample justice after our walk of twelve hours duration.
Our less fortunate friends did not appear till the next morning. They discovered our note, but decided not to take our route, as they thought it safer to follow the stream till it joined the Bow River. They had not proceeded far, however, beyond the place where we had left the note, before they became entangled in a large area of fallen timber and prostrate trees, where they were overtaken by night and compelled to give up all hope of reaching Lake Louise till the next day. In the dark forest they made a small fire, and were at first tormented by mosquitoes and, later, by the chill of advancing night, so that sleep was impossible. The extreme weariness of exhausted nature, crowned by hunger and sleeplessness amid clouds of voracious mosquitoes, was only offset by the contents of a flask, with which they endeavored to revive their drooping spirits, and cherish the feeble spark of life till dawn.
Fortunately, the nights in this latitude are short, and at four o’clock they continued their way to the Bow River, which they followed till they reached Laggan.
About six days later, a little column of smoke was observed rising from the forests towards the east, and from Laggan we learned that the woods were on fire, and that about forty acres of land were already in a blaze. A large gang of section men were despatched at once with water buckets and axes to fight the fire. The fire did not prove so extensive, however, as at first reported, and in about two days all the men were recalled.
William said to one of us: “Me think two white man light him fire”; to which our friends replied that it was impossible, as the fire had broken out nearly a week after they had been there.
William replied, with the only trace of sarcasm I have ever known him to use: “White man no light fire, oh no, me think sun light him.”
CHAPTER VII.
The Wild Character of Paradise Valley—Difficulties with Pack Horses—A Remarkable Accident—Our Camp and Surroundings—Animal Friends—Midsummer Flowers—Desolation Valley—Ascent of Hazel Peak—An Alpine Lake in a Basin of Ice—First Attempt to Scale Mt. Temple—Our Camp by a Small Lake—A Wild and Stormy Night—An Impassable Barrier—A Scene of Utter Desolation—All Nature Sleeps—Difficulties of Ascent—The Highest Point yet Reached in Canada—Paradise Valley in Winter—Farewell to Lake Louise.
Our delightful experience in Paradise Valley convinced us that a camp should be established in it near the southern base of Mount Temple, which we hoped to ascend. From this camp we intended to make branch excursions in all directions and learn something of the mountains toward the east and south. All this region, though so near the railroad, had apparently never been explored by the surveyors, and the early expeditions had of course never approached this region nearer than the Vermilion Pass on the east and the Kicking Horse Pass on the west. In all our expeditions through these lonely but grand mountain valleys, we never discovered any mark of axe or knife on the trees, any charred pieces of wood to indicate a camper’s fire, nor any cairn or pile of stones to prove some climber’s conquest.
In fact, the impenetrable barrier of mountains at every valley end dissolved the surveyor’s hopes, even from a distance, of finding any practicable pass through the maze of lofty mountains and intervening valleys blocked with glaciers and vast heaps of moraine. The lone prospector would not be tempted by any sign of gold in the streams to explore these valleys, though the Indian hunter may have occasionally visited these regions in search of bears or the mountain goat.
We first blazed a trail from the chalet to the entrance of Paradise Valley. The route followed was merely the best and most open pathway that we could find through the forests, and though not more than three miles in length, it required as many hours to reach the valley entrance. Pack horses we obtained at the chalet, but no man could be found who would consent to act as our cook or assistant in managing the horses.
Our camp was at length established by the side of a small rivulet on the lower slopes of Mount Temple, where we found the altitude to be 6900 feet above sea-level. Our experiences with pack animals were of a most exciting nature and sometimes severely trying to our temper and patience. The horses were not accustomed to this service and performed all sorts of antics, smashing the packs among the trees, jumping high in air to clear a small stream six inches wide, or plunging regardless into rivers where, for a moment, the horse and packs would be submerged in the water. There was one place about two miles within the valley entrance that might well try the patience of Job himself. On one side of the stream, was an impassable area covered with tree trunks criss-crossed and piled two or three deep by some snow-slide of former years. On the other side of the stream, which we were compelled to take, was a dense forest. Below was a tangled growth of bush, and many fallen trees, all resting on a foundation of large loose stones covered six inches deep with green moss. Between these stones were deep holes and occasional underground streams, the water of which could be faintly heard below and which had probably washed away the soil and left these angular stones unprotected. To lead a horse through this place required the greatest skill, patience, and even daring. Without some one to lead the animal with a rope, the poor beast would stand motionless, but to pick one’s way over the rough ground while leading the horse invariably ended in disaster. The very first hole was enough to frighten the horse, so that, instead of proceeding more slowly, the animal usually made a mad rush forward regardless of the leader, who invariably fled and sought the protection of a tree, while the horse soon fell prostrate among the maze of obstacles. In these frantic rushes many of us were several times trampled on by the horse, and the packs were smashed against the branches and trunks of trees, or torn off altogether. This was an exceedingly dangerous bit of ground, and it was remarkable that on so many occasions we were able to lead our horses through it without a broken leg.
One of our most remarkable adventures with a horse may indeed test the credence of the reader, but five men can vouch for its actual occurrence. We were passing along through the forest in our usual manner, which was the outgrowth of much experience. First of all, one man preceded and did nothing else but find the blaze marks and keep on the ill-defined trail as well as possible. About twenty-five yards behind came another man whose duty it was to find the pathfinder, and if possible, improve on his trail. Then came one of our party who led the horse with a long head rope, while behind the horse were two men whose duty it was to pick up whatever articles fell out of the packs from time to time, and fasten them on again.
As we were proceeding in this manner, we came to a slanting tree which leaned over the trail at an angle of about thirty degrees. It was just small enough to be limber, and just large enough to be strong. Moreover, it was too low for the horse to go under, and a little too high for him to jump over. One might travel a lifetime and never meet with just such another tree as this. In less than ten seconds this tree had brought the horse and two of our party to the ground and wrought consternation in our ranks.
As the horse approached the slanting tree, F., who was leading, saw the animal rear high in the air to prepare for a jump. He thought it best to get out of the way, but in his haste stumbled and fell headlong into a bush. Meanwhile the horse, a stupid old beast, prepared for the effort of his life, and with a tremendous spring jumped high in air, but unfortunately his fore-feet caught on the small tree, which swung forward a little and then returning like a powerful spring, turned the animal over in mid-air. The horse landed on his back some five yards farther on, and, with his four legs straight up in the air, remained motionless as death. But this was not all, for the tree swung back violently and struck H. on the nose, fortunately at the end of the swing, but with sufficient force to knock him down.
When our two friends recovered, we turned our attention to the horse, which still remained motionless on his back. “He is dead,” said F., but, on rolling him over, the poor animal got up and seemed none the worse for his experience, except for a more than usual stupidity.
We camped about ten days in Paradise Valley in a beautiful spot near the end. Here, on all sides except towards the north, the place is hemmed in by lofty mountains. We saw the valley in all sorts of weather, in clear sunshiny days, and when the clouds hung low and shut out the mountains from view. On one or two occasions the ground was white with snow for a short time, though our visit was during the first part of August.
Many kinds of animals frequented the valley, and some of the smaller creatures lived in the rocks on all sides of our camp and became quite friendly. One of the most interesting little animals of the Canadian Rockies is the little pica, or tailless hare. This small animal abounded in the vicinity of our camp and is in fact always found at about 7000 feet altitude. It is a hare about the size of a rat, which, with its round ears, it more resembles. These little fellows have a dismal squeak, and they are very impertinent in their manner of sitting up among the rocks at the entrance to their holes, and gazing at their human visitors, ever ready to pop out of sight at a sign of danger. Chipmunks were likewise abundant and visited our camp to pick up scattered crumbs from our table.
There is a species of rat with a bushy tail that lives in the forests and rocky places of these mountains and is the most arrant thief among all the rodents. Nothing is too large for them to try and carry off, and they will make away with the camper’s compass, aneroid, or watch, and hide them in some inaccessible hole, apparently with the desire to set up a collection of curios.
The siffleur, or marmot, is the largest among these rodents, and reaches the length of twenty-five or thirty inches. These animals usually frequent high altitudes at, or above the tree line, where they build large nests among the rocks and lay up a store of provisions for winter time. They are very fat in the fall, but it is not known whether they hibernate or not. Their note is a very loud shrill whistle, which they make at a distance, but they never allow one to approach very near, like the impudent picas.
We saw very few of the mountain goats, though we often came upon their fresh tracks in the mud near streams or in the snow far up on the mountain sides. On several occasions we could hear the patter and rattle of stones sent down by the movements of some herd, though our eyes failed to detect them.
Where the forests grew thick in the valley, the herbs and flowering plants were always less numerous, but in the meadows the ground was colored by mountain flowers of beautiful shades and pretty forms. The tasselled heads of the large anemones, long since gone to seed, were conspicuous everywhere, and they are always a beautiful object among the meadow grass as the summer breezes make gentle waves over these seas of verdure. Along the bare rocky margins of the streams, where all else has been forced to retire by occasional floods, two species of plants make a most brilliant coloring and dazzle the eye with discordant shades. They are the castilleias, or painter’s brush, with bright scarlet and green leaves clustered at the top of a leafy stem, and the epilobiums, with reddish-purple blossoms; these two plants were often so close together with their inharmonious color tones as to perplex the observer in regard to nature’s meaning. When nature does such things we grow to like her apparent mistakes, just as we love the bitter-sweet chords of Schumann, or Grieg’s harsh harmonies.
We made several excursions into the next valley to the eastward, and beyond that, over the water-shed into British Columbia. The valley to the east offered the greatest contrast to Paradise Valley. It was somewhat wider, the altitude was in general higher, so that a great part was above the tree line, while the awful wildness and confusion created by vast heaps of moraine and a large glacier at the foot of a range of saw-edged mountains made this place seem like a vale of desolation and death.
At the close of our camping experiences, we effected the conquest of two mountains, Hazel Peak and Mount Temple, on two successive days. We first tried Hazel Peak, and by following the route which had been previously selected, we found the ascent remarkably easy. On the summit, the climber is 10,370 feet above sea-level,—higher than the more celebrated Mount Stephen, often claimed to be the highest along the railroad,—and surrounded by more high peaks than can be found at any other known part of the Canadian Rockies, south of Alaska. In fact there are seven or eight peaks within a radius of six miles that are over 11,000 feet high.
The view is, at the same time, grand and inspiring, and has certain attractions that high mountain views rarely present. The rock precipice and snow-crowned crest of Mount Lefroy are separated from the summit of Hazel Peak by one of the grandest and deepest canyons of the Canadian Rockies, so that the distance from summit to summit is only one mile and a half. The ascent of Hazel Peak is certainly well worth the labor of the climb, as the round trip may be easily accomplished from Paradise Valley in five hours, though the ascent is nearly 4000 feet.
On the north side, from the very summit, a fine glacier sweeps down in steep pitch far into the valley below and with its pure white snow and yawning blue crevasses of unfathomable depth, forms one of the most attractive features of this mountain. The most remarkable and beautiful object that we discovered, however, was a small lake or pool of water only a few yards below the summit of the mountain. Encircled on all sides by the pure snows of these lofty altitudes, and embedded, as it were, in a blue crystal basin of glacier ice, the water of this little lake was colored deep as indigo, while over the surface a film of ice, formed during the previous night, had not yet melted away.
Camp in Paradise Valley.
We returned to camp much elated with our success but doubtful of the morrow, as no easy route had yet been discovered up the forbidding slopes of Mount Temple. The year before, Mr. A. and I had been hopelessly defeated even when we had counted most on success. Moreover, the mere fact that, though this mountain was the highest yet discovered anywhere near the railroad, it had never been ascended by any surveyor or climber, made success appear less probable, though it urged us on to a keener ambition.
The attempt by A. and myself to ascend this mountain in 1893 was probably the first ever made. During the first week of August, we started from Laggan, having with us a Stoney Indian, named Enoch Wildman, and one horse to carry our tent and provisions. The day was unusually hot, and, as we forced our monotonous and tiresome passage through the scanty forests of pine near the Bow River, we suffered very much from heat and thirst. In these mountain excursions, it is the best policy to wear very heavy clothes, even at the disadvantage of being uncomfortable during the day, for the nights are invariably cold, even at low altitudes. We did not camp until nightfall, when we found ourselves on the northern slope of the mountain, 7000 feet above sea-level, by the side of a small lake. The little lake occupied a depression among giant boulders and the debris of the mountain. At one end, a large bank of snow extended into and below the water, which was apparently rising, as there were fragments of frozen snow floating about in the lake. The banks sloped steeply into the water on all sides, and there was not a single level spot for our camp, so that it was necessary to build a wall of stones, near the water’s edge, for our feet, and to prevent ourselves from sliding into the lake during the night.
The weather was wild and stormy, and the long night seemed to drag out its weary length to an interminable extent of time, attended as it was by showers of rain and hail and furious gusts of wind, which threatened to bring our flapping tent to the ground at any moment.
Our camp-fire, which had been built on a scale appropriate to some larger race of men, was a huge pile of logs, each fully ten feet long, and twelve or eighteen inches through, but the wind blew so strong that the mass roared like a vast forge during the early hours, and then died away into an inert mass of cinders toward the chill of morning.
The light of day revealed our wild surroundings. We were under the northern precipice of Mount Temple, and so close that we could see only the lower part of this inaccessible wall. A beautiful fall dashed down in a series of cascades through a distance of about 1000 feet, and fed our little lake. Sometimes the strong wind, blowing against the cliff, or sweeping upward, would make the water pause and momentarily hang in mid-air, suspended, as it were, on an invisible airy cushion, till gathering greater volume, it would burst through the barrier and fall in a curtain of sparkling drops.