Westward from Banff the main range of the Rockies is crossed at an
elevation of fifty-three hundred feet, the Continental Divide. The Bow
River Valley is followed up to Mount Stephen, which is encircled to
the northward. This splendid duomo-like mountain rises thirteen
thousand two hundred feet, being named after George Stephen, Lord
Mountstephen, the first president of the railway. In approaching,
there are passed scores of towering snow-clad peaks. At Laggan, among
them, at more than six thousand feet elevation, are three gems of the
mountains, the Lakes of the Clouds--Louise, Mirror and Agnes. At the
summit of the pass a rustic signboard bears the words "The Great
Divide," marking the backbone of the Continent, whence tiny rills flow
alongside the railway in both directions, a little brook leading
eastward down to the Bow, whose waters go out to Hudson Bay and the
Atlantic, while to the westward another diminutive stream is the head
of Wapta River, flowing into the Columbia and thence to the Pacific.
Three pretty green lakes start the Wapta or Kicking Horse River, its
northern branch coming from a huge glacier nine miles long, and its
volume expanding from a hundred cascades and brooks tumbling down from
the snowbanks and ice-fields all about. Then it crosses the flat floor
of a deep valley, which soon develops into a series of terrific
gorges, as with rapids and cataracts the stream suddenly drops into an
abyss and foams and roars deep down in an impressive canyon. The
railway repeatedly crosses this stupendous chasm in getting down the
Kicking Horse Pass, giving grand views of high mountains all around,
and after a scene of true alpine magnificence it comes out at the
broad valley of the Columbia. This river goes northward between the
Rockies and the Selkirks, the next western range, and turning westward
penetrates them and flows southward on their western flanks into the
United States.
Our railway route next goes up the Beaver River gorge to cross the
Selkirks through the Rogers Pass at forty-three hundred feet
elevation, where Mount Sir Donald guards the Pass. It traverses a
region displaying grand scenery, mounting high above the streams, the
gorge filled with giant trees between Mounts Sir Donald and Hermit,
with frequent airy bridges thrown across the subsidiary ravines, down
which come sparkling cataracts. This narrow gorge has frequent
avalanches, so that much of the road is covered by ponderous
snow-sheds. This is the Rogers Pass, displaying savage grandeur, and
was first entered by white men from British Columbia under Major
Rogers in 1883, when the railway route was surveyed. It is also
reserved for a Canadian National Park. The Hermit Mountain overlooks
the pass from the north, while on the south side a range extends
westward to the ponderous and lofty pyramidal top of Mount Sir Donald,
rising ten thousand seven hundred feet, named for Sir Donald Smith,
Lord Strathcona, President of the Bank of Montreal. Alongside is the
great glacier of the Selkirks, whose waters flow into the deep valley
of the Illecillewaet River, the "Dancing Water," by which the railway
goes westward out of the mountains. Having crossed the summit of the
pass, the railway makes a short curve into this valley, and gives a
grand view of the great glacier covering all of its head. Here is the
Glacier House, on a flat surface of delicious greensward alongside the
line, having a silvery cascade pouring for a thousand feet down the
opposite mountain. Beyond, the Illecillewaet descends rapids and the
railway has a difficult task in getting down the steep and contorted
gorge by startling loops until, finally emerging from the mountain
fastness on the western slope of the Selkirks, it comes a second time
to the open Columbia Valley, the river now flowing with greater volume
southward towards the United States. Across the Columbia is the Gold
range, the third mountain ridge to be crossed. This is done by the
Eagle Pass, less difficult than the other passes through the Rockies,
the crossing being made at two thousand feet elevation, and the route
descending westward along Eagle River and several pleasant lakes that
make its source and cover the floor of the higher valley. This stream
leads into the Great Shuswap Lake, the largest body of water in
British Columbia, spreading its sinuous arms like an octopus among the
mountain ridges. This lake has over two hundred miles of coast-line,
and is drained westward by Thompson River. To the southward it has a
tributary flowing out of the long and slender Okanagan Lake, a sheet
of water among the mountains extending seventy miles and having
fertile shores.
The Coast range of the Rockies is still beyond us, the fourth and last
ridge of these wonderful mountains, through which the Canadian Pacific
makes its way by going down the remarkable canyons of Thompson and
Fraser Rivers for nearly three hundred miles. At the junction of the
two forks of the Thompson is the town of Kamloops, its Indian name
meaning "the confluence." It is in a good ranching district, and like
all the settlements in British Columbia has quite an elaborate
"China-town." Beyond Kamloops the Thompson canyon is entered, a
desolate gorge almost without vegetation, through which a rapid
torrent rushes, the high steep shores being composed of a rotten rock
which water and frost have moulded into strange and fantastic shapes,
while the stream constantly burrows more deeply into it. The
mud-colored banks are thus carved into massive turrets, cones and
pyramids, with groups of impressive columns standing on high, having
colossal ranks of ghostly statues looking down from above. In one
place a grand semicircular group of cowled and hooded monks with their
backs to the river are kneeling apparently around a gigantic altar.
Almost every conceivable form has been wrought by the running waters
on these precipitous bluffs. Not a tree is seen, and all seems bleak
desolation. At the Black Canyon the scene is mournfully terrific, the
walls composed of an almost black sand, wherein the whirling river
rapids have scooped out immense amphitheatres mounting almost
perpendicularly for a thousand feet. Then a change comes, the steep
and barren walls developing varieties of color, being streaked with
creamy white, red, purple, yellow, maroon, dark brown and black in
richest form, as the waters have run the different hued soils over
them from top to bottom, the rushing river below being a bright
emerald. It is a picture of parti-colored desolation, the gaudy hues
and strange forms of these precipitous cliffs being the gorgeous
exhibition of a most beautiful desert. This remarkable canyon is
followed nearly a hundred miles until the Thompson flows into the
Fraser River.
The Fraser Canyon is deep, and carries a larger river among higher
mountains. Its shores are steep, but are composed of firmer rocks,
along which the railway is constructed largely on galleries, with
frequent tunnels. Deep in the fissure are Indians spearing for salmon,
and an occasional Chinaman may be seen on a sand-bar washing out the
silt to find gold, as both these rivers bring down gold-bearing sands.
The rocky development of the Fraser and the magnitude of its canyon
increase as it plunges deeper among the higher Coast range mountains.
For thirty miles below North Bend, a place where enough flat land is
left on a terrace for a little railway station, is the most impressive
portion, and the final scene of grandeur on this route through the
Rockies. Almost perpendicular enclosing mountains tower above, and the
river is compressed by high walls of black rocks, so steep that the
road is placed upon a shelf hewn out along them. Through this deep,
contracted canyon the river winds, at times confined into such narrow
crooked straits that the water rushes in swiftly-moving massive
billows like the Niagara rapids. Tunnels pierce the jutting cliffs,
bridges and walls carry the railway along, and at intervals wild
cascades leap through fissures down the mountain sides. The
ever-present and industrious Indians are seen in most perilous
positions down by the river catching the bright-colored salmon, which
they hang upon rude drying-poles among the crags. There is a brief
little village, now and then, along this dreary canyon, where there
may be a sparse bit of flat terrace, enabling a few white people to
live in company with Indians and Chinamen, the "Joss House" of the
Celestial and his queer-looking cemetery, with its tall poles and
streamers to keep away the dreaded birds and evil spirits, being
conspicuous. Thus the river forces its passage through the Coast
range, until at Yale the mountains recede, the canyon gradually
broadens into a flat intervale between distant ridges, and there are
farms and pastures. As the railway emerges from the mountains, the
gleaming white dome of the isolated snow-capped Mount Baker is seen
glistening under the sunlight sixty miles away just beyond the United
States border. The Fraser River finally flows into the Gulf of
Georgia, after a course of six hundred miles through the mountains
from the northward, the chief river of British Columbia. It was named
for Simon Fraser of the Northwest Fur Company, who explored it to its
source amid incredible hardships and difficulties in 1808. The finest
timber grows throughout this region. The railway terminates at the
city of Vancouver, on Burrard Inlet, a fine harbor of the Gulf of
Georgia, founded in 1885, and having eighteen thousand people, with
considerable manufactures and an extensive trade. The lower Fraser
River is a great salmon-canning region, the shores having many
canning-factories, while at New Westminster, the chief town, are
large sawmills, the two products of this district being fish and
lumber, and the Chinese, who are numerous, doing most of the labor.