A single false stroke and the whole thing would have failed; driven
headlong down the torrent, another attempt would have to be made to
gain this rock-protected spot, but now we lie secure here; spray all
around us, for the rush of the river is on either side, and you can
touch it with an outstretched paddle. The Indians rest on their paddles
and laugh; their long hair has escaped from its fastening through their
exertion, and they retie it while they rest. One is already standing
upon the wet, slippery rock, holding the canoe in its place; then the
others get out. The freight is carried up, piece by piece, and deposited
on the flat surface some ten feet above; that done, the canoe is lifted
out very gently, for a single blow against this hard granite boulder
would shiver and splinter the frail birch-bark covering; they raise her
very carefully up the steep face of the cliff and rest again on the top.
What a view there is from coigne of vantage! We are on the lip of the
fall; on each side it makes its plunge, and below we mark at leisure the
torrent we have just braved; above, it is smooth water, and away ahead
we see the foam of another rapid. The rock on which we stand has been
worn smooth by the washing of the water during countless ages, and from
a cleft or fissure there springs a pine-tree or a rustling aspen. We
have crossed the Petit Roches, and our course is onward still.
Through many scenes like this we held our way during the last days of
July. The weather was beautiful; now and then a thunder-storm would roll
along during the night, but the morning sun, rising clear and bright,
would almost tempt one to believe that it had been a dream, if the
pools of water in the hollows of the rocks and the dampness of blanket
or oil-cloth had not proved the sun a humbug. Our general distance each
day would be about thirty-two miles, with an average of six portages. At
sunset we made our camp on some rocky isle or shelving shore: one or two
cut wood, another got the cooking things ready, a fourth gummed the
seams of the canoe, a fifth cut shavings from a dry stick for the fire;
for myself, I generally took a plunge in the cool, delicious water;
and soon the supper hissed in the pans, the kettle steamed from its
suspending stick, and the evening meal was eaten with appetites such
as only the _voyageur_ can understand.
Then when the shadows of the night had fallen around and all was silent,
save the river's tide against the rocks, we would stretch our blankets
on the springy moss of the crag, and lie down to sleep with only the
stars for a roof.
Happy, happy days were these,--days the memory of which goes very far
into the future, growing brighter as we journey farther away from them;
for the scenes through which our course was laid were such as speak in
whispers, only when we have left them,--the whispers of the pine-tree,
the music of running water, the stillness of great lonely lakes.
A FINE SCENIC ROUTE.
HENRY T. FINCK.
[From Henry T. Finck's "The Pacific Coast Scenic Tour" we
select the following description of the Canadian Pacific
Railway route, which is acknowledged to possess a long
succession of grand and beautiful scenery, unequalled by any
other railroad route in America. The description is too long a
one to be given in full, and for further acquaintance with it
the reader must be referred to the book itself.]
After leaving Vancouver, and before reaching Westminster, the train for
some time runs along Burrard Inlet, on which is situated Fort Moody,
another town which had hoped to be chosen as terminus, and actually did
enjoy that privilege for a short time. The shores of the inlet are
beautifully wooded, and some of the trees are of enormous size. At the
crossing of Stave River a fine view is obtained of Mount Baker, looking
forward to the right; and the bridge over the Harrison River, where it
meets the Frazer, also affords a picturesque view. For the next fifteen
or sixteen hours the train follows the banks of the Frazer River and its
tributaries, and this is one of the grandest sections of the route.
At the first the Frazer is a muddy, yellow river, about the size of
the Willamette above Oregon City, but more rapid and winding, and an
occasional steamer may be seen floating along with the current, or
slowly making headway against it. In some places the railway runs so
close to the precipitous bank of the river that a handkerchief might be
dropped from a car window into the swirling eddies, fifty feet below.
At other places it leaves room--and just room enough--for the old
wagon-road between the track and the river; but it would take a cool
driver, with much confidence in his horses, to remain on his wagon here
when a train passes. At last the road itself becomes frightened and
crosses the river on a bridge, whereupon it winds along the hill-side
above the opposite bank, at a safe distance.
This road was made during the Frazer River gold excitement in 1858, when
twenty-five thousand miners flocked into this region, and wages for any
kind of work were ten to eighteen dollars a day. To-day the metal no
longer exists in what white men consider paying quantity; but Chinamen
may still be seen along the river, washing for remnants, their earnings
being about fifty cents a day. There is also a "Ruby Creek" in this
neighborhood, and some Indian habitations and salmon-fishing places.
Shortly before reaching Yale, which for a long time was the western
end of the road, there is a slight intermission in the scenic drama,
represented by some rich, level, agricultural lands, as if to give the
passengers a moment's rest before the wonders of the Frazer Canyon begin
to monopolize their bewildered attention, till darkness sets in and
drops the curtain on the superb panorama.
Yale, which is so completely shut in by high, frowning mountain walls on
every side that the sun touches the village only during part of the day,
has lost its importance since it ceased to be a terminus, and seems at
present to be inhabited chiefly by Indians and half-breeds. The train is
invaded by a bevy of half-breed girls with baskets of splendid apples
and pears, which could not be beaten for size and flavor in any of our
States, and indicate a possible use for these mountain regions in the
future. And now the train plunges into the midst of the series of
terrific gorges which constitute the Frazer Canyon, and which make this
railway literally the most gorge-ous in the world. Here were appalling
engineering difficulties to overcome, which no private corporation
without the most liberal government support could have undertaken. Yet
the builders had to be thankful even for this wild and rugged canyon dug
out by the Frazer River, without which the Cascade range would have been
impassable.
The palace cars of the Canadian Pacific, which contain all the best
features of the Pullman cars, with home improvements, have a special
observatory, with large windows, at the end of the train, whence the
canyon should be viewed; but to see it at its best one must sit on the
rear platform, so as to see at the same time both of the wild and
precipitous canyon walls, between which the river rushes along as if
pursued by demons. At every curve you think the gorge must come to an
end, but it only grows more stupendous, and the river, lashed into foam
and fury, dashes blindly against the rocks which try to arrest its
course. These rocks, ten to thirty feet wide and sometimes twice as
long, form many pretty little stone islands in the middle of the
torrent, and are a characteristic feature of the canyon scenery. Numerous
tunnels, resembling those on the Columbia River, are built through
arches seemingly projecting over the river. The train plunges into them
recklessly, but always comes out fresh and smiling on the other side,
although it seems that if the bottom of the tunnel should by any chance
drop out, the train would be precipitated into the river below.
Once in a while the river takes a short rest, and in these comparatively
calm stretches hundreds of beautiful large red fish can be seen from
the train, in the clear water, struggling up-stream. With their dark
backs and bright red sides they form a sight which is none the less
interesting when you are told that they are "only dog salmon," which
are not relished by whites, though the Indians eat them.
[A night now passes, during which much fine scenery is missed.
But the best is reserved for the next day.]
Scenic wonders now succeed one another with bewildering rapidity
throughout the day. This second day, in fact, represents the climax of
the trip, and the attention is not allowed to flag for a second. However
much such a confession may go against the grain of patriotism, every
candid traveller must admit that there is nothing in the United States
in the way of massive mountain scenery (except, perhaps, in Alaska) to
compare with the glorious panorama which is unfolded on this route.
Within thirty-six hours after leaving Vancouver we traverse three of
the grandest mountain ranges in America,--the Cascades, Selkirks, and
Rockies,--all of them the abode of eternal snow and glaciers, and all of
them traversed through by canons which vie with each other in terrific
grandeur.
[Illustration: MEMORIAL MONUMENT TO SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, FOUNDER OF
QUEBEC]
Before the Selkirks are reached the train passes the Columbia or Gold
range, through the Eagle Pass, so called because it was discovered by
watching an eagle's flight. Eagle's Pass is a poetic and appropriate
name, and yet I think it would be well to re-name this mountain pass and
call it Mirror Lake Canyon, because that would call the attention of
tourists to what is its most characteristic feature, which may otherwise
be overlooked. There are four lakes and many smaller bodies of water in
this valley, in whose placid surface the finely-sloped mountain ridges
and summits of the pass are reflected with marvellous distinctness, so
that here, as in the Yosemite Mirror Lake, the copy is more lovely than
the original. Some of the mountain-sides reflected in these mirrors are
naked rocks, others are covered with living evergreen trees, and others
still with dead trees. In the mirror these dead forests look hardly less
beautiful than the living ones; but in the original the eye dwells with
more pleasure on the green forests which here, and almost everywhere in
British Columbia, grow with the rank luxuriance of a Ceylon jungle. The
soil under these dense tree-masses, consisting of decayed pine- and
fir-needles, a foot deep, and always moist, makes a paradise for lovely
mosses and ferns. Here, also, is the home of the bear, and one would not
have to walk far in this thicket to encounter a grizzly, black, or
cinnamon bruin.
On emerging from the Mirror Lake Canyon, a great surprise awaits the
passengers. The Columbia River--to which they had fancied they had said
a final farewell when they were ferried across it on the way from
Portland to Tacoma--suddenly comes upon the scene again, as clear and
as picturesque as ever; and even at this immense distance from its mouth
still large enough to require a bridge half a mile long to cross it. A
few hours later the train again crosses the Columbia, at Donald, where
the river has become much smaller than it seems that it should in such a
short distance.
To get an explanation of this circumstance, it is interesting to glance
at the map and notice what an immense curve northward the Columbia has
made in this interval in order to find a passage through the Selkirk
range; and in thus encircling the snowy Selkirks it has, of course,
added to its volume the contents of innumerable glacier streams and
mountain brooks. Its real sources are southeast of Donald, on the summit
of the Rockies, separated by but a short distance from springs which run
down on the eastern side and find their way through the Mississippi into
the Gulf of Mexico. Thus do extremes meet. It would be difficult to find
anything so curious in the course of any other river as this immense,
irregular parallelogram which the Columbia here describes from its
sources to Arrow Lake....
The snow-peaks of the Selkirks are now looming up on all sides, and the
atmosphere becomes more bracing and Alpine as the train slowly creeps up
the mountain-side, doubling up on itself in a loop. The Glacier House is
reached before long, and here every tourist who has time to spare should
get off and spend a day or two, since next to Banff, in the National
Park, this is the finest point along the whole route, scenically
speaking, while the air is even more salubrious, cool, and intoxicating
than at Banff, owing to the nearness of the glacier. It would be
difficult, even in Switzerland, to find a more romantic spot for a hotel
than the location of the Glacier House. High peaks rise up on every
side, so finely moulded, so deeply mantled with snow, and presenting
such various aspects from different points of view, that we forget our
disgust at the fact that, as usual in the West, these grand eternal
peaks have been named after ephemeral mortals,--Browns, Smiths, and
Joneses. The Grizzly and Cougar Mountains are more aptly named, as these
animals will long continue to abound in the impenetrable forests which
adorn these peaks below the snow-line. Looking from the hotel towards
the glacier, to the left is a peak which looks like the Matterhorn, the
most unique mountain in Switzerland, and, what is still more striking,
at its side is another smaller peak, which is an exact copy of the
Little Matterhorn....
The principal difference between the Swiss Alps and the Selkirk range
lies in the aspect of the mountain-sides below the snow-line. These, in
Switzerland, are green meadows dotted with browsing cows, and presenting
one unbroken mass of dark green, except where an avalanche has
tobogganed down and opened what seems at a distance like a roadway, but
is found to be a battle-field strewn with the corpses of cedars three
and four feet in diameter.
The most imposing view of such a mountain forest unbroken by a single
avalanche path is obtained from the snow-sheds just above the hotel.
Sitting outside these sheds and looking towards the left, you see a vast
mountain slope covered with literally millions of dark-green trees. Why
has none of the world's greatest poets ever been permitted to gaze on
such a Selkirk forest, that he might have aroused in his unfortunate
readers who are not privileged to see one emotions similar to those
inspired by it? But I fear that neither verse nor photographs, nor even
the painter's brush, can ever more than suggest the real grandeur of
such a forest scene. This mountain is not snow-crowned in September, but
its wooded summit makes a sharp green line against the snow-peaks beyond
and above. From this summit down to the foot stand the giant cedars, as
crowded as the yellow stalks in a Minnesota wheatfield. But in place of
the flat monochrome of a wheatfield, our sloping forest presents a most
fascinating color spectacle. The slanting rays of the sun tinge the
waving tree-tops with a deeply saturated yellowish-green, curiously
interspersed with a mosaic of dark, almost black streaks and patches of
shade, due to clouds and other causes, and the whole edged by the
dazzling snow.
If we descend and enter this forest, a cathedral-like awe thrills the
nerves. Daylight has not the power to penetrate to the ground hidden by
this dense mass of tree-tops rising two hundred to three hundred feet
into the air,--except that an occasional ray of sunlight may steal in
for a second, like a flash of lightning. And the carpet on which this
forest stands! In America we rarely see a house, even of a day-laborer,
without a carpet; why, then, should these royal trees do without one?
The carpet is itself a miniature forest of ferns and mosses, luxuriating
in riotous profusion on an ever-moist soil, the product of thousands of
generations of pine-needles. Nor is this carpet a monochrome, for the
green is varied by numerous berries of various kinds, most of which are
red, as they should be,--the complementary color of green. But there are
also acres of blueberries as large as cherries; and if you will tear off
a few branches of these and bring them to the young bear chained up near
the Glacier Hotel, he will be very grateful, and you will find it
amusing to watch him eating them.
There is music, too, in this Forest Cathedral, which is heard to best
advantage from the elevated gallery occupied by the snow-sheds. It takes
a trained ear to distinguish the steady, rippling _staccato_ sound of a
snow-fed mountain brook from the prolonged _legato_ sigh of a pine
forest, swelling to _fortissimo_, and dying away by turns. In the
romantic spot we have chosen these sounds are blended, the music
of the torrents being caught up by the sloping forest as by a huge
sounding-board, and increased in loudness by being mingled with the
mournful strains of the tree-tops, as orchestral colors are blended by
modern masters. Those err who say there is no music in nature. It is not
in "Siegfried" alone that the _Waldweben_ is musical, that leaves sing
as well as birds, while the thunder occasionally adds its loud _basso
profundo_. The aesthetic exhilaration which we owe to these poetic sights
and sounds is intensified by the salubrious breezes which waft this
music to our ears. Born among the clouds and glaciers, they are perfumed
in passing across the forests, warmed by the sun's rays in passing over
the valley; and every breath of this elixir adds a day to one's life. It
is not surprising that mountains should make the best health-resorts;
for do they not themselves understand and obey the laws of health? They
keep their heads cool under a snow-cap, their feet warm in a mossy
blanket, and their sides covered with a dense _fir_ overcoat....
For the greater part of the two hours which the train requires to go
from Donald to Golden City it passes along the bank of the Columbia
River; and there is, perhaps, no part of the whole route where grandeur
and beauty are so admirably united as here, especially in the autumn.
The grandeur lies in the snowy summits which frame in this Columbia
valley--the Selkirks on one side, the Rockies on the other. The beauty
lies in the river itself and in the young trees and bushes along its
banks, dressed in fall styles and colors, some as richly yellow as a
golden-rod, others as deeply purple or crimson as fuchsias or begonias,
the yellow predominating. These colored trees occur in groups and
streaks along the river, and in isolated patches on the mountain-sides,
where they might be mistaken for brown mosses or lichen-colored rocks.
There may be as beautifully colored trees in our Eastern forests, but
they are not mixed, as here, with young evergreen pines, nor have they a
framework of snow mountains, like these, to enhance their beauty.
High up on the ridges there is another variety of trees of a beautiful
russet color set off by a deep-blue sky. Talk of color symphonies. Here
they are--miles of them--long as a Wagner trilogy, and as richly
orchestrated. Even the masses of blackened logs and stumps--if one can
set aside for the moment all thought of pity for the poor charred trees,
so happy before the fire in their green luxuriance, and of the sad waste
of useful timber--enhance the charm of this scene by contrast.
I have said that the time-table of the Canadian Pacific Railway is
so arranged that the finest scenery is passed in daylight, in both
directions; but of course there must be exceptions, and, as a matter of
fact, as long as the road crosses the three great mountain ranges of the
Cascades, Selkirks, and Rockies, there is hardly a mile that does not
offer something worth seeing. Consequently, as darkness again closes in
soon after leaving Golden, east-bound passengers must resign themselves
to lose sight of the Kicking Horse Canyon, the Beaverfoot and Ottertail
Mountains, the large glacier on Mount Stephen, etc.,--which is all the
more provoking as they have to sit up anyway till midnight, when Banff
is reached; for, of course, every tourist who is in his right senses and
not a slave to duty gets off here to spend a few days in the Canadian
National Park.
[The description of this park we can give only in summary.]
Summing up on the Canadian National Park, we may say it has not so many
natural wonders as the Yellowstone Park,--no geysers, steam-holes,
gold-bottomed rivulets, paint-pots, nor anything to place beside the
Yellowstone Canyon and Falls. But the Minnewonka Lake may fairly
challenge comparison with the Yellowstone Lake, and the mountain scenery
is grander in the Canadian Park, and the snow and glaciers are nearer,
though not so near as at the Glacier House, where the air is in
consequence cooler and more bracing in summer than even at Banff. As
the Canadian Park is only twenty-six miles long and ten wide, while the
Yellowstone Park is about sixty-two by fifty-four miles, the former can
be seen in much less time than it takes to do justice to the latter.
When we get ready to leave Banff we have to take the midnight train, so
there is no chance to say good-by to the mountains. But we have seen so
much of them since leaving Vancouver, that we have felt almost tempted
to cry out to Nature, "Hold, enough; less would be more!" Now we get
ample opportunity to ruminate in peace over our crowded impressions.
When we get up we are on the prairie; we go to bed on the prairie, after
traversing a territory larger than a European kingdom; again we rise on
the prairie, and again go to bed on it; and not till Lake Superior is
approached does the scenery once more become interesting....
As a general thing, it is no doubt wiser to take the Canadian Pacific
Railway westward than eastward, as the scenic climax is on the western
side. However, it is quite possible to avoid the feeling of anti-climax
on going east, if we conclude the trip with the Thousand Islands and the
Rapids of the St. Lawrence, together with Montreal; or with Niagara
Falls and the Hudson River. The Pacific slope, no doubt, is scenically
far more attractive than the Atlantic; still, there are some things in
the East which even California would be proud to add to her attractions.
SOUTH PASS AND FREMONT'S PEAK.
JOHN C. FREMONT.
[Captain John Charles Fremont, one of the earliest government
explorers of the Rocky Mountain region and the Pacific slope,
was born at Savannah, Georgia, in 1813. Becoming a civil
engineer in the government service, in 1842 he explored the
South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, ascending in August the
highest peak in the Wind River range. This has since been known
as Fremont's Peak. In the following year he explored Great Salt
Lake. In 1845 he led a third expedition to the Pacific, and
during the Mexican war was instrumental in securing California
for the United States. He led subsequent expeditions westward,
was Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1856, served
during the war, and in 1878-82 was governor of Arizona. He died
in 1890. We subjoin his account of the crossing of the South
Pass and discovery and ascent of Fremont's Peak.]
The view [of the Wind River Mountains] dissipated in a moment the
pictures which had been created in our minds by many travellers who have
compared these mountains with the Alps in Switzerland, and speak of the
glittering peaks which rise in icy majesty amidst the eternal glaciers
nine or ten thousand feet into the region of eternal snows.
[Continuing their course, they encamped on August 7 near the
South Pass, and the next morning set out for the dividing
ridge.]