AT THE GLACIER
Snow flurries kept us close to camp all that day. The next one, the
sixteenth, was better, though still quite hopeless for movie work. After
lunch we set out on foot for the big glacier, a mile above, from which
the creek took its life. The clouds still hung too low to allow anything
of the mountains to be seen, but one had the feeling of moving in a long
narrow tunnel through which a cold jet of air was constantly being
forced. A few hundred yards above our camp was a frightful zone of riven
trees mixed with gravel and boulders. It was one of the strangest, one
of the savagest spots I ever saw. It was the battle ground of two rival
avalanches, Nixon explained, two great slides which, with the impetus of
six or eight thousand feet of run driving uncounted millions of tons of
snow and earth, met there every spring in primeval combat. No man had
ever seen the fantastic onslaught (for no man could reach that point in
the springtime), but it was certain that the remains of it made a mighty
dam all the way across the valley. Then the creek would be backed up
half way to the glacier, when it would accumulate enough power to sweep
the obstruction away and scatter it down to the Columbia.
Straight down the respective paths of the rival slides, and almost
exactly opposite each other, tumbled two splendid cascades. The hovering
storm clouds cut off further view of them a few hundred feet above the
valley, but Nixon said that they came plunging like that for thousands
of feet, from far up into the belt of perpetual snow. The one to the
east (which at the moment seemed to be leaping straight out of the heart
of a sinister slaty-purple patch of cumulonimbus) drained the Lake of
the Hanging Glaciers; that to the west a desolate rock and ice-walled
valley which was rimmed by some of the highest summits in the Selkirks.
Our road to the lake would be wet with the spray of the former for a
good part of the distance.
We were scrambling through a land of snow-slides all the way to the
glacier. For the first half mile patches of stunted fir survived here
and there, due to being located in the lee of some cliff or other rocky
outcrop which served to deflect the springtime onslaughts from above;
then all vegetation ceased and nothing but snow-churned and ice-ground
rock fragments remained. All along the last quarter of a mile the
successive stages of the glacier's retreat were marked by great heaps of
pulverized rock, like the tailings at the mouth of a mine. Only the face
of the glacier and the yawning ice caves were visible under the
cloud-pall. The queerly humped uplift of the "dragon" moraine could be
dimly guessed in the shifting mists that whirled and eddied in the icy
draughts from the caves.
Our principal object in going up to the grottoes on so inclement a day
was to experiment with our dynamite on the ice, with a view to turning
our knowledge to practical use in making artificial icebergs for the
movies in the Lake of the Hanging Glaciers. Selecting what looked like
a favourable spot at the base of what seemed a "fracturable" pinnacle of
grey-green ice, we dug a three-feet-deep hole with a long-handled
chisel, pushed in two sticks of sixty per cent. dynamite, tamped it hard
with snow after attaching a lengthy fuse, touched a match to the latter
and retired to a safe distance. The result, to put it in Roos' latest
imported slang, was an "oil can," which connotes about the same thing as
fizzle, I took it. There's a deal of kick in two sticks of "sixty per"
set off in rock, but here it was simply an exuberant "whouf" after the
manner of a blowing porpoise. A jet of soft snow and ice shot up some
distance, but the pinnacle never trembled. And the hole opened up was
smooth-sided and clean, as if melted out with hot water. Not the
beginning of a crack radiated from it. Jim opined that a slower burning
powder might crack ice, but there was certainly no hope of "sixty per"
doing the trick. It was evident that we would have to find some other
way of making artificial icebergs. We did. We made them of rock. But I
won't anticipate.
It snowed again in the night, snowed itself out for a while. The
following morning it was warm and brilliantly clear, and for the first
time there was a chance to see what sort of a place it was to which we
had entered. For a space the height and abruptness of the encompassing
walls seemed almost appalling; it was more like looking up out of an
immeasurably vast crater than from a valley. All around there were
thousands of feet of sheer rocky cliff upon which no snow could effect a
lodgment; and above these more thousands of feet solid with the
glittering green of glacial ice and the polished marble of eternal
snow. The jagged patch of sky was a vivid imperial blue, bright and
solid-looking like a fragment of rich old porcelain. The morning sun,
cutting through the sharp notches between the southeastern peaks, was
dappling the snow fields of the western walls in gay splashes of flaming
rose and saffron, interspersed with mottled shadows of indigo and deep
purple. Reflected back to the still shadowed slopes of the eastern
walls, these bolder colours became a blended iridescence of amethyst,
lemon and pale misty lavender. The creek flowed steely cold, with fluffs
of grey-wool on the riffles. The tree patches were black, dead funereal
black, throwing back no ray of light from their down-swooping branches.
The air was so clear that it seemed almost to have assumed a palpability
of its own. One imagined things floating in it; even that it might
tinkle to the snip of a finger nail, like a crystal rim.
In movies as in hay-making, one has to step lively while the sun shines.
This was the first good shooting light we had had, and no time was lost
in taking advantage of it. Long before the sun had reached the bottom of
the valley we were picking our way up toward the foot of the glacier,
this time on horseback. Early as we had started, the enterprising Harmon
had been still earlier. He was finishing his shots of the face of the
glacier and the mouth of the ice caves as we came up. He would now leave
the field clear for Roos for an hour, he said, while he climbed to the
cliffs above the glacier to make a goat-hunting picture. That finished,
he would return and, by the light of his flares both parties could
shoot the interior of the ice caves. Before starting on his long climb,
Harmon briefly outlined the scenario of his "goat" picture, part of
which had already been shot. Two prospectors--impersonated by his guide
and packer--having been in the mountains for many weeks without a change
of diet, had become terribly sick of bacon. Finally, when one of them
had disgustedly thrown his plate of it on the ground, even the camp dog,
after a contemptuous sniff, had turned his back. He had had no trouble
in getting the men to register "disgust," Harmon explained, but that
"contemptuous sniff" business with the dog was more difficult. After
their voracious Airedale pup had wolfed three plates of bacon without
paying the least heed to the director's attempts to frighten him off at
the psychological moment, they had tried thin strips of birch-bark,
trimmed to represent curling rashers. Even these the hungry canine had
persisted in licking, probably because they came from a greasy plate.
Finally Harmon hit upon the expedient of anointing the birch-bark
rashers with some of the iodine carried as an antiseptic in the event of
cuts and scratches. "If the pup ate it, of course it would die," he
explained; "but that would be no more than he deserved in such a case."
But the plan worked perfectly. After his first eager lick, the outraged
canine had "sniffed contemptuously" at the pungent fumes of the iodine,
and then backed out of the picture with a wolfish snarl on his lifted
lip.
[Illustration: Courtesy of Byron Harmon, Banff
LOOKING TOWARD THE ENTRANCE OF THE ICE CAVE]
[Illustration: Courtesy of Byron Harmon, Banff
WHERE THE HANGING GLACIER IS ABOUT TO FALL]
Then the packer registered "fresh meat hunger" ("cut-in" of a butcher
shop to be made later), immediately after which the guide pointed to the
cliffs above the camp where some wild goats were frisking. By the aid
of his long-distance lens, Harmon had shot the goats as they would
appear through the binoculars the guide and packers excitedly passed
back and forth between them. And now they were going forth to shoot the
goats. Or rather they were going forth to "shoot" the goats, for these
had already been shot with a rifle. In order to avoid loss of time in
packing his cumbersome apparatus about over the cliffs, Harmon had sent
out Conrad, his Swiss guide, the previous afternoon, with orders to
shoot a goat--as fine a specimen as possible--and leave it in some
picturesque spot where a re-shooting could be "shot" with the camera
when the clouds lifted. The keen-eyed Tyrolese had experienced little
difficulty in bringing down two goats. One of these--a huge "Billy"--he
had left at the brink of a cliff a couple of thousand feet above the big
glacier, and the other--a half-grown kid--he had brought into camp to
cut up for the "meat-guzzling" shots with which guide, packer and canine
were to indulge in as a finale. It was a cleverly conceived "nature"
picture, one with a distinct "educational" value; or at least it was
such when viewed from "behind the camera." Roos was plainly jealous over
it, but, as he had no goats of his own, and as Harmon's goat was hardly
likely to be "borrowable" after bouncing on rock pinnacles for a
thousand feet, there was nothing to do about it. He would have to make
up by putting it over Harmon on his "glacier stuff," he said
philosophically. And he did; though it was only through the virtuosity
of his chief actor.
Harmon had confined his glacier shots to one of his party riding up
over the rocks, and another of it grouped at the entrance of the largest
cave and looking in. Being an old mountaineer, he was disinclined to
take any unnecessary chances in stirring up a racket under hanging ice.
Roos was new to the mountains, so didn't labour under any such handicap.
His idea was to bring the whole outfit right up the middle of the stream
and on into the cave. The approach and the entrance into the mouth of
the cave were to be shot first from the outside, and then, in
silhouette, from the inside.
Nixon, pointing out that the roof of the cave had settled two or three
feet since we were there yesterday and that the heat seemed to be
honeycombing all the lower end of the glacier pretty badly, said that he
didn't like the idea of taking horses inside, but would do so if it
would make a better picture that way. He was quite willing to take
chances if there was any reason for it. But what he did object to was
trying to take the horses up the middle of the stream over big boulders
when it would be perfectly plain to any one who saw the picture that
there was comparatively smooth going on either side. "You can easy break
a hawss' leg in one of them _geesly_ holes," he complained; "but the
loss of a hawss isn't a patch to what I'd feel to have some guy that
I've worked with see the pictur' and think I picked that sluiceway as
the best way up."
Roos replied with a rush of technical argument in which there was much
about "continuity" and "back-lighting," and something about using the
"trick crank so that the action can be speeded up when it's run." Not
knowing the answer to any of this, Nixon finally shrugged his shoulders
helplessly and signalled for Jim to bring up the horses. There was no
need of a "trick crank" to speed up the action in the stream, for that
glacial torrent, a veritable cascade, had carried away everything in its
course save boulders four or five feet high. Nixon, in a bit of a
temper, hit the ditch as though he were riding a steeplechase. So did
Jim and Gordon. All three of them floundered through without mishap.
"Grayback" tried to climb up on the tip of a submerged boulder, slipped
with all four feet at once and went over sidewise. I kicked out my
stirrups, but hit the water head first, getting considerably rolled and
more than considerably wet. To Roos' great indignation, this occurred
just outside the picture, but he had the delicacy not to ask me to do it
over again.
Taking the horses inside the cave was a distinctly ticklish performance,
though there could be no question of its effectiveness as a picture.
Roos set up a hundred feet in from the fifty-feet-wide, twenty-feet-high
mouth and directed us to ride forward until a broad splashing jet of
water from the roof blocked our way, and then swing round and beat it
out. "Beat it out snappy!" he repeated. "Get me?" "Yep, _I_ got you,"
muttered Nixon; "you're in luck if nothin' else does."
The ice that arched above the entrance looked to me like the salt-eaten
packing round an ice-cream can as we pushed up and under it. The horses
could hardly have noticed this, and it must have been their
instincts--their good sound horse-sense--that warned them that a dark
hole full of hollow crackings and groanings and the roar of falling
water was no place for self-respecting equines to venture. It took a
deal of spurring and swearing to force them inside, and most of the
linear distance gained was covered in circles on their hind legs. It was
old "Grayback" whose nerves gave way first; he that started the stampede
back to light and sunshine. There was no question but what we "beat it
snappy."
Roos came out rubbing his hands gleefully. "That photographed like a
million dollars," he cried with enthusiasm. "Now just one thing
more...." And forthwith he revealed what had been in his heart ever
since he chanced onto that "natural shower bath" in the cave the
previous afternoon. No one could deny that it was a natural shower bath.
And since it _was_ a natural shower bath, what could be more natural
than for some one to take a shower under it? How would Nixon feel about
trying it? Or Jim? He admitted that it might be something of a shock,
but he was willing to make that all right. Would ten dollars be fair? Or
say twenty? Or why not twenty-five? He knew Mr. Chester didn't reckon
cost when it was a question of getting a high class, he might say a
unique, picture. Now which should it be? Nixon, a bit snappily, said his
rheumatism put him out of the running, and Jim was equally decided.
Money wouldn't tempt him to go even into the Columbia at Windermere, let
alone a liquid icicle under a glacier.
And right then and there I did a thing which Roos maintained to the end
of our partnership repaid him for all the grief and worry I had caused
him to date, and much that was still to accrue. "Since I've got to take
a bath and dry these wet togs out sooner or later," I said with a great
assumption of nonchalance, "perhaps the ice cave will do as well as
anywhere else. Just promise me you won't spring a flare on the scene,
and build a fire to dry my clothes by...." Roos was gathering wood for a
fire before I finished speaking. As for the flares, Harmon had not given
him any yet. It was only a silhouette he wanted--but that would show up
like a million dollars in the spray and ice. There never had been such a
picture; perhaps would never be again. I wasn't joking, was I? And
primitive....
"Go on and set up," I cut in with. "I'll be there by the time you're
ready to shoot. And don't ever let me hear you say primitive again. Oh,
yes--and you needn't remind me to 'Be snappy!' There won't be any
trouble on that score. Just make sure your lens is fast enough to catch
the action."
I've had many a plunge overboard off the California coast that shocked
me more than that "natural shower bath" did, but never a one with so
exhilarant a reaction. Stripping off my wet clothes by the fire, I
slipped into my big hooded "lammy" coat and hippity-hopped into the
cave. Roos, set up ten yards inside the splashing jet from the roof, was
already standing by to shoot. At his call of "Action!" I jumped out of
my coat and into the black, unsparkling column of water. There was a
sharp sting to the impact, but it imparted nothing of the numbing ache
that accompanies immersion in water a number of degrees less cold than
this--a feeling which I came later to know only too well on the
Columbia. Nixon had warned me against tempting Providence again by
making any unnecessary racket in the cave, but it was no use. No one
could have the fun that I was having and not holler. It was against
nature. Whooping like a Comanche, I continued my hydro-terpsichorean
revel until a muffled "Nuff" from Roos called a halt. He had come to the
end of his roll. I have been in more of a shiver coming out of the
Adriatic at the Lido in August than I was when I ambled back to dry off
by the fire and the sunshine. Glowing with warmth, I even loafed along
with my dressing, as one does at Waikiki.
"You'd make a fortune pulling the rough stuff in the movies," Roos
exclaimed, patting me on the back. "You've got everything the real
gripping cave-man _has_ to have--size, beef, a suggestion of brutal,
elemental force, primitive...." I chucked a burning brand at him and
went over to borrow Nixon's glass. A shot from far up the cliffs told
that Harmon's "goat-hunt" was in full cry. The real thrill of the day
was about to come off; rather more of a thrill, indeed, than any one was
prepared for, Harmon included.
[Illustration: MY SHOWER BATH IN AN ICE CAVE]
[Illustration: WARMING UP AFTER MY GLACIAL SHOWER BATH]
[Illustration: ROSS AND HARMON. DRAGON MORAINE IN DISTANCE (_above_)]
[Illustration: THE HORSES IN THE MOUTH OF THE ICE CAVE (_below_)]
While we had been filming our "cave stuff" Harmon had finished setting
the stage for his picture. He had two shots to make--one of his packers
firing at the goat at the top of the cliff, and the other of the body of
the goat falling to the glacier. Conrad, the Tyrolean, climbing like a
fly, had scaled the face of the cliff and was standing by for the signal
to start the goat "falling." The shot which had attracted my
attention had been the packer discharging his rifle at the goat, which
had been propped up in a life-like position, as though peering down onto
the glacier. Harmon was still cranking when I got him in focus, while
the packer had jumped to his feet and was executing a _pas seul_
evidently intended to convey the impression he had made a hit. A curl of
blue smoke from his rifle was still floating in the air. They had
contrived that effective little touch by dribbling a bit of melted
butter down the barrel before firing. Smokeless powder is hardly
"tell-tale" enough for movie work.
Harmon now moved over and set up at the foot of the cliff, apparently to
get as near as possible to the point where the goat was going to hit. As
the sequel proves, he judged his position to a hair. Now he made his
signal. I saw the flutter of his handkerchief. The goat gave a
convulsive leap, and then shot straight out over the brink of the cliff.
From where we stood I could plainly see the useful Conrad "pulling the
strings," but from where Harmon was set up this would hardly show. He
was too careful to overlook a point like that in a "nature picture." The
white body caromed sharply off a couple of projecting ledges, and then,
gathering momentum, began to describe a great parabola which promised to
carry it right to the foot of the cliff.
I had kept my eyes glued to the glass from the start, but it was Nixon's
unaided vision which was first to catch the drift of what was impending.
"You couldn't drive a six-hawss team 'tween the side o' Mista Ha'mon's
head and the trail in the air that _geesly_ goat's going to make
passing by," he said with a calculating drawl. "Not so su' you could
squeeze a pack-hawss through." Then, a couple of seconds later: "No'
ev'n a big dawg." And almost immediately: "By Gawd, it's going to get
him!"
And that surely was what it looked like, to every one at least but the
calmly cranking Harmon. He went on humping his back above the finder,
and I could see the even rise and fall of his elbow against the snow.
The dot of white had become a streak of grey, and it was the swift
augmentation of this in his finder which finally (as he told me later)
caused Harmon suddenly to duck. To me it looked as if the flying streak
had passed right through him, but he was still there at the foot of his
tripod after the Bolt of Wrath, striking the surface of the glacier with
a resounding impact, threw up a fountain of pulverized snow and laid
still. He was never quite sure whether it was the almost solid cushion
of air or a side-swipe from a hoof or horn that joggled the tripod out
of true. It was a near squeeze, for the flying body, which must have
weighed all of two hundred pounds, was frozen hard as a rock. Conrad
came staggering down with the remnants of the battered trunk over his
shoulders. Only the heart and liver were fit to eat. The rest was a
sausage of churned meat and bone splinters. There was no question about
its fall having limbered it up.
The illumination of the cave by the calcium flares was beautiful beyond
words to describe, or at least so I was told. The first one was a
failure, through the outward draught of air carrying the smoke back
onto the cameras. I had set this off in a side gallery, about a hundred
yards in from the mouth, with the idea of throwing a sort of concealed
back light. Foolishly opening my eyes while the calcium was burning, I
was completely blinded by the intense glare and did not regain my sight
for several minutes. Harmon's packer, who held the next flare set
off--this time to the leeward of the cameras--had still worse luck. A
flake of the sputtering calcium kicked back up his sleeve and inflicted
a raw, round burn with half the colours of the spectrum showing in its
concentric rings of singed cuticle. The chap displayed astonishing nerve
in refusing to relinquish his grip on the handle of the flare and thus
ruin the picture. I most certainly would never have done so myself. Roos
described the glittering ice walls as a "veritable Aladdin's Cave of
jewels," and only regretted that he couldn't have had that lighting on
my shower-bath.
That night we tried a camp-fire scene by flare. Roos set up on the
further bank of the side channel of the creek which flowed past the
tent. Between the door of the tent and the water a hole was dug in such
a way that light from it would shine on a group in front of the tent but
not on the lens of the camera. The glow from a flare burning in this
hole represented the camp-fire. I was supposed to stroll up and tell a
jovial story to Nixon, Jim and Gordon, who were to be "picked up"
already seated around the fire. I made my entrance very snappily, but,
unluckily, the blanket roll upon which I sat down spread out and let me
back against the corner of the glowing sheet-iron stove, which was set
up just inside the tent opening. Seeing I had not rolled out of the
picture, Roos shouted for me to carry on, as it was the last flare. So,
with the reek of burning wool rising behind me, I did carry on, making
plausible gestures intended to convey the idea that the bit of comedy
was just a humorous piece of by-play of my own. I carried on for
something over half a minute. The only circumstance that prevented my
carrying on my back the print of the corner of the stove for the rest of
my days was the fact that the combined thicknesses of my duffle coat,
lumberman's shirt, sweater and heavy woollen undershirt were interposed
to absorb the heat. The duffle coat was the worst sufferer, coming out
with a bar-sinister branded most of the way through its half inch of
pressed brown wool.