THE LAKES AMONG THE CLOUDS
Who thinks the Rockies only of a forbidding magnificence, of a
grandeur always dark and fierce? Let him go to Lake Louise. The
only phrase I know that fits it is that German one--_märchenhaft
schön_--lovely as a scene of fairyland. Coming upon it suddenly, on
a moonlight night, it seems so unlooked-for, so exquisite, that one
says to oneself, 'Surely it will vanish like a dream.'
[Illustration: LAKE LOUISE, LAGGAN, ALBERTA]
It is quite a little lake, shut in for the most part by hills. The
hills are wooded at their base, and wooded high up--wooded, indeed,
right into the clouds; but higher still they turn to bare walls of
rock or snow-strewn peaks, where the snow and the flowers grow side
by side. Up among the heights other little lakes lie--the Lakes in
the Clouds, they are called--and sometimes they are in the clouds and
sometimes not, and they are coloured like thick opals and moonstones,
and you can see {199} the tall, slim firs growing at the bottom as if
they were real trees and not only reflections. I think it is the
colours of these lakes that are so fairy-like. People may say of the
Rockies that they never give the contrast of white snow-fields and
deep blue sky that is so marked in the Swiss and Italian Alps, but
what of that? The colours they do yield are, in truth, far more
delicate and varied--perhaps because the Canadian skies are so much
loftier and farther away--and, if you do not believe it, go and look
at the waters of Lake Louise. They are distilled from peacocks'
tails and paved with mother-of-pearl, and into them rush those wild
blues that are only mixed in the heart of glaciers.
Across the end of the lake stretches the hotel garden--green turf
crossed by one great border of Iceland poppies, golden and orange,
fringing the water front. One other plant I should have liked to see
growing there--the opal anchusa. Its colour is so exactly the colour
of the lake, in sun and in shadow. Still, more colour is hardly
needed anywhere round Lake Louise. As I have said, the very snows
are gay when you get to them, and pied with flowers, as old English
meadows used to be when old English poets used that word, before
{200} scientific farming came in and determined that flowers were
weeds and killed them. And I had thought of these valleys as black
and frowning, full of melancholy noises among the trees, rather than
windless and radiant.
The station for Lake Louise is Laggan, and the time to arrive there
is in the evening, just before the moon rises. It does not matter if
the drive up from the station is accomplished in the dark. The road
is wooded and beautiful, but do not wish for the moon till the last
bend of it leads you suddenly on to the lake. Then wish for the moon
hard. Or, if you want to make sure of it, and the moon (though it
seems always magical in its uprising) follows laws like other things
and will not rise unless it is due to, make cold calculations some
time ahead, and be sure they are right. There never could be
anything better worth timing than moonrise on Lake Louise.
If the poppied air that was fabled to pervade certain lovely places
in the old world hung about this region, there would be no coming
away from it. You would remain gazing drowsily for ever at the lake
like the lover on the Greek urn that Keats described. But all around
are the mountains which distil an air keen and exhilarating, so that
before you know {201} it you are set walking, or riding or
climbing--in some way adventuring forth. Some people adventure forth
in a carriage, but that is rather too like going out to battle in
evening clothes.
Myself, having but two days at my disposal--which I could very well
have spent looking across the Iceland poppies at the lake--was urged
by the air and a sense of duty to take a long walk the first day and
a longish ride the second. For this second expedition I hired a
mountain pony and decided to reach the Moraine Lake, which lies at
the end of The Valley of the Ten Peaks. It was my first experience
of a Rocky Mountain pony, and I will state at once that it was an
unfavourable one. There exist, no doubt, a few excellent mountain
ponies. I bestrode one or two later in different places. But this
first one was so dispiriting that he warped my mind concerning the
whole breed. The truth is that mountain ponies, being intended for
the average tourist who seems to be not much of a rider, are both
bred and trained to go no faster, and exhibit no more spirit than a
bath-chair man. Not theirs to trot or canter, even if a smooth
stretch of road present itself. Enough if they move steadily up
mountain trails and along mountain {202} ledges and down precipitous
tracks in a manner designed to make the tourist feel that mules are
stumbling creatures by comparison. Enough in one way but not in
another, for to emulate a baser creature corrupts the best-bred pony
in the world. Ponies have that much of humanity in them. Besides,
it is not worth while to breed the best ponies for such work; and,
further and anyway, a mountain pony is, so to say, a contradiction in
species. A pony as much as a horse is a creature of the plains;
place him in the mountains and he becomes something
different--scarcely a pony at all. He is then an animal that picks
up his feet in a marvellous way, is free from mountain sickness and
the faintness that comes from high altitudes, and carries a pack or a
person on his back. But he is no longer the friend of man. He is
merely the tool of the tourist.
We started downhill--that pony and I--directly after lunch.
Words--words--words. I mounted that pony directly after lunch. The
road led downhill in the first instance. I tried to start the pony
in that direction. That is a truer description of what actually
happened. But after I had got his head set towards the Ten Peaks
Valley, he slewed it round again. We had not by any means {203}
started. 'He is frightened of the hill,' I thought to myself, and
redirected his head, encouraging him with words and reins. I had no
whip. The owners of these hired mountain ponies seem to think whips
unnecessary, and, indeed, they are very little use. I tried one cut
from the roadside some five minutes later. We had by that time made
about a hundred yards. I beat him also with his own reins and my
heels, and we accomplished about a quarter of a mile downhill, going
delicately. I said to myself, 'Patience. The descent will soon be
over. The road then rises. We shall see a different animal.'
What I saw when we came, by sideways and prolonged efforts, to the
first part of the ascent, was that, greatly as that pony hated a
down-hill grade, far more did he loathe an uphill one. We mounted it
at what seemed to be a mile an hour or less, and I groaned to think
that we had eight or nine to accomplish before we got to the lake,
and the same in returning. By late afternoon I judged we had made
the half distance and were still going weakly. I had cut two or
three different sticks by now, and encouraged the pony with different
words from those I had used at the start. He woke up once or twice
and trotted for a moment. {204} The road was not really steep for
most of the way; where it was steep I walked, dragging the pony
behind me. He did not seem to mind whether I was on his back or off,
provided no motion was required of him. I found it was cooler work
to get off and pull him than to propel him from the saddle. Always
he stood still for choice.
The road was good--good underfoot and good to observe from. On our
left lay a broad valley, and on our right the hills. I should love
to have paused voluntarily and absorbed the views, but in point of
fact I only paused in passion to cut whips; the pony, meanwhile,
grazing. He knew the road to the Moraine Lake better than I did, and
he contested every inch of it.
I think I was aware long before the Ten Peaks came into sight that I
should not reach the lake that day--or perhaps ever; but I was
determined that I would at least see where it lay, though the sun set.
We came within sight of it at last. Before then the Ten Peaks had
come into line one by one till there they stood, ten white peaks all
in a row. At their base I thought I saw the lake lying, very still
and cold among its ice-worn pebbles.
[Illustration: IN THE VALLEY OF THE TEN PEAKS. ROCKY MOUNTAINS.]
{205}
If I did not see it, if it was but a mirage, I do not greatly care.
I achieved something more that afternoon than the mere sight of a
lake. I got that pony back to the hotel almost in time for dinner.
I was pretty stiff in the arms. It was not to be wondered at.
Hauling a pony nine miles is no light work.
{206}