Scenic allurements are numerous in Yoho Park, which embraces five
hundred and sixty square miles of the west slope of the picturesque
Rocky Mountains, in eastern British Columbia. Fantastic shapes and
sharp points characterize it. The vegetation is rich and verdant. Many
wonderful views and interesting districts in it are easily reached.
Yoho Valley in this Park was not discovered until 1897, but its
unusual beauty at once attracted numerous visitors. Takakkaw Fall is
the thunderous spray-shrouded leap of eleven hundred feet of a glacier
torrent. The Indian name means "It is Wonderful." This valley also
possesses other beautiful falls, a remarkable ice region, and other
interesting alpine features.
Emerald Lake, admired by artists and nature-lovers, is said to have
twenty shades of green, but never one of blue, in its crystalline
mirror depths. It is reached by a straight road through dark fragrant
firs that meet overhead. A dazzling white mountain at the end of the
vista gave rise to the name Snowpeak Avenue.
The Natural Bridge is not far from Field, the main-line railway town
that serves as a center for this national playground. The Kickinghorse
River forces its way through a narrow gap in a solid wall of rock.
Rocks remaining above this boiling, seething mass of water and cloud
spray make a natural passageway across and give the formation its
name.
Millions of trilobites have been found in the extensive fossil-bed of
Mount Stephen. This probably was once the bed of an ocean. This
massive, round-topped mountain, 10,523 feet high and with curiously
marked sides, is probably the most frequently climbed peak in Canada.
It seems to rise directly over the town, is not difficult to ascend,
and affords wonderful views of the "frozen sea" of snow peaks to the
north and west.