canoe trip may be had to Vermilion Lakes. The way lies up the Bow to
Echo Creek, and by this miniature waterway to the lakes. As an
afternoon's paddle nothing more delightful could be imagined, and the
fishing is excellent, but the really serious fisherman will prefer the
longer trip to Lake Minnewanka where lake trout are to be had of
fighting temper and phenomenal size. Fourteen fish of a total weight
of forty-three pounds represented one day's catch of a couple of
sportsmen in this lake; sixteen caught the following day weighed
forty-eight pounds. These, however, were pygmies beside the gigantic
trout landed by Dr. Seward Webb in 1899, which tipped the scales at
forty-seven pounds. To silence the incredulous, this monster is still
preserved in a glass case at the Minnewanka Chalet.
A drive of nine miles from Banff, skirting the base of Cascade
Mountain, lands the traveller on the shores of Lake Minnewanka. On the
way he may visit a herd of about 25 buffalo, and enjoy the view from
the rustic bridge down into the Devil's Canyon. The lake is some
sixteen miles in length, and one may explore it either in a boat or by
chartering the launch provided by the Canadian Pacific Railway. It
swings, in the shape of a great sickle, around the base of Mount
Inglismaldie, whose dizzy precipices soar some thousands of feet into
the sky, with the glorious pinnacles of Mount Peechee in the
background.
Another delightful drive leads past the Cave and Basin and around the
northern end of Sulphur Mountain to Sundance Canyon, a weird little
gorge through which Sundance Creek rushes down to its junction with
the Bow. The plateau above the gorge was at one time a favourite
Indian camping ground, and the scene of the barbaric Sun Dance.
On the northern bank of the Bow, high up above the river, stand a
number of those fantastic natural monuments called Hoodoos, an
excellent view of which may be gained by taking the drive around the
Loop to the foot of Mount Rundle.
So far we have been confined to points of interest at no great
distance from the village of Banff, and reached in each case by
well-built carriage roads. Back and forth over these roads throughout
the season drive streams of pilgrims, absorbing to a greater or less
extent the manifold beauties of mountain, lake and river, wild canyon
and sunny meadow, sombre pine woods and mountain slopes blazing with
the rainbow colours of countless wildflowers; but above all, drinking
in the glorious sunlight and revivifying air of the mountains. The
great majority will always prefer to worship nature from the
comfortable if somewhat crowded seat of a tally-ho, with a luxurious
hotel to return to in the evening, and after all why should one blame
them; but there will always be some who prefer the wild mountain
trail to the macadamized road, the cayuse with all his idiosyncrasies
to the upholstered coach, and the camp-fire to all the luxuries of a
modern hotel.
Fortunately there are to-day, and will be for some years to come, many
miles of trail for each mile of road within the confines of the
Canadian National Parks. The present policy seems to be to gradually
develop the trails into carriage roads, but one may venture the hope
that this policy will not be carried too far. The thought of driving
to the foot of Mount Assiniboine on a motor bus, and having its
glories profaned by a professional guide perhaps through a megaphone,
is too painful to admit.
The evolution of mountain roads is an interesting problem in itself.
The foundation is nearly always an Indian trail, one of those ancient
thoroughfares that run hither and thither throughout the mountains,
following the courses of innumerable streams, and winding up over
mountain passes and down again to the valleys that lie beyond. There
is a peculiar thrill of excitement in falling unexpectedly upon one of
these relics of other days. The imagination leaps back to the time
when Indian hunters followed them in search of elk and deer, mountain
goat and bighorn. With the exception of a handful of Stonies, whose
days are numbered, the Indian no longer hunts in the mountains; and
the trails he once followed are now mostly covered with underbrush or
blocked with fallen timber.
The first step in the conversion of an Indian trail into a modern road
is to cut through the down timber. Expert axemen are sent out for this
work, which varies according to circumstances from the cutting out of
an occasional log to the hewing of a path through a tangle of fallen
trees ten or fifteen feet high. Wherever possible the latter is of
course left severely alone, but it sometimes happens that no way
around the obstacle can be found and there is nothing for it but to
cut out a path. The huge game of jack-straws may cover only a few
yards, or it may extend for several miles.
Incidentally the axemen straighten the trail more or less. The
practice among the Indians, and after them the fur-traders and white
trappers, was to follow an old trail until a fallen tree blocked the
way. It would have to be a formidable obstacle to stop the average
cayuse, but occasionally even that professional acrobat was brought to
a standstill. The rider in such case never cut his way through if it
could be avoided. He followed the lines of least resistance, turned
right or left through the standing timber until he had won around the
fallen tree and back to the trail again. The next man took the new
path, until he was perhaps brought up by a later windfall and in his
turn added another twist to the devious course of the original trail.
It can readily be imagined that these forest thoroughfares did not at
any period of their history represent the shortest route between any
two points; and it may as well be admitted here that the policy of
every man for himself in trail-making is as active to-day as it was a
hundred years ago. Each one of us who has camped in unfamiliar valleys
of the mountains must plead guilty to the same selfish practice.
Hurrying along the trail, anxious perhaps to reach a certain
camping-ground before dark, the temptation to flank a fallen tree
rather than laboriously cut through it, is irresistible. The thought
is there, though we may not admit it, that we may never come this way
again, and the next man must look out for himself.
It remains for the trail-makers to unravel the tangled skein and
reduce it to something very remotely resembling a straight line.
Having cut through the fallen timber and roughly bridged the deeper
creeks, the result is a good pack trail. This is widened and cleared
from year to year; levelled, graded and provided with substantial
bridges, to convert it into a carriage road; and finally macadamized.
And as the picturesque trail is converted into the eminently modern
and respectable macadamized road, the equally picturesque pack-train
disappears and in its place we see, and smell, that emblem of the
twentieth century, the automobile.
However, let us not meet trouble half-way. There are still, thank
fortune, many miles of trail in the Canadian national parks which the
most enterprising automobile could not possibly negotiate, and many
more miles of wonderful mountain country that as yet are even
trailess. From the main road which follows the Bow River, and roughly
speaking runs southeast and northwest through the centre of the Banff
Park, good trails branch off on either side up every important valley.
Portions of some of these have been converted into roads, such as
those to Lake Minnewanka, Sundance Canyon and up Spray River. From the
Chalet at the western end of Lake Minnewanka, where the road now ends,
a trail has been opened along the north shore of the lake to its
eastern extremity, through the Devil's Gap and Ghost Valley, and
across the South Fork of Ghost River to the Stony Indian Reserve,
which lies just outside the Park.
Ghost Valley is a weird, uncanny canyon, the scene of many wild Indian
legends. It is believed to mark the ancient valley of the Bow,
Minnewanka and a couple of smaller lakes being the sole remaining
relics of the channel. No water now runs through Ghost Valley, though
mountain torrents and waterfalls dash down its precipitous sides. Each
disappears in its limestone bed, which must cover a network of
subterranean channels. The mountains end abruptly in the Devil's Gap,
from which one looks out on the plains, or rather on the border land
between plain and mountain. A few miles to the north rises a grim peak
known as the Devil's Head, and the whole country is studded with
Hoodoos and other strange natural features appropriate to such a
region.
Sir George Simpson, who entered the mountains by the Devil's Gap on
his expedition of 1841, camped by the side of Lake Minnewanka, which
he named Lake Peechee after his guide, a chief of the Mountain Crees.
Peechee is still remembered in the splendid peak which rises behind
Mount Inglismaldie. Ghost Valley was the scene of an exploit of which
Sir George Simpson tells the story.
A Cree and his squaw had been tracked into the valley by five warriors
of a hostile tribe. "On perceiving the odds that were against him, the
man gave himself up for lost, observing to the woman that as they
could die but once they had better make up their minds to submit to
their present fate without resistance. The wife, however, replied that
as they had but one life to lose, they were the more decidedly bound
to defend it to the last, even under the most desperate circumstances;
adding that, as they were young and by no means pitiful, they had an
additional motive for preventing their hearts from becoming small.
Then, suiting the action to the word, the heroine brought the foremost
warrior to the earth with a bullet, while the husband, animated by a
mixture of shame and hope, disposed of two more of the enemy with his
arrows. The fourth, who had by this time come to pretty close
quarters, was ready to take vengeance on the courageous woman with
uplifted tomahawk, when he stumbled and fell; and in the twinkling of
an eye the dagger of his intended victim was buried in his heart.
Dismayed at the death of his four companions, the sole survivor of
the assailing party saved himself by flight, after wounding his male
opponent by a ball in the arm."
Other trails lead up Cascade River from the Minnewanka road, and over
the Park boundaries to the Panther River country, connecting also at
Sawback Creek with the Forty Mile trail; and up the east bank of Spray
River, and between the Goat Range and the Three Sisters, to Trout
Lakes, connecting with the road which follows the west bank of the
Spray, and continuing on to the foot of Mount Assiniboine, just over
the Park boundaries, which on this southwestern side follow the height
of land. Another runs from the end of the Sundance Canyon road up
Healy Creek to Simpson Pass, with a branch trail to Fatigue Mountain
on the divide; while others again take you up Redearth Creek to Shadow
Lake and one of the giants of this part of the Rockies, Mount Ball,
and by way of Johnston Creek to the Sawback Range and its wonderful
glaciers. It is impossible to give any real impression of the
marvellous region through which these mountain trails lead you, of its
scores of great peaks whose turrets, spires or domes climb into the
very heavens, of its snow-fields and glaciers, bleak mountain passes
and exquisite alpine meadows carpeted with millions of flowers, its
primaeval forests and rushing torrents, sparkling waterfalls and
emerald or turquoise lakes. To appreciate the mountains, you must come
and see them at first hand, and to see them at their very best, you
must take tent and pony and provisions, not forgetting tobacco if you
are a normal man, and get well out on the trail, away from hotels and
railways and every suggestion of the artificial life you have left
behind you.
[Illustration: THE VALLEY OF THE BOW]
[Illustration: TRAIL NEAR BANFF. _Canadian Pacific Railway Company_]
IV
THE CANADIAN MATTERHORN
Mount Assiniboine lies about sixteen miles from Banff as the crow
flies, but by trail it is more than twice that distance. It is not
visible from any of the lower mountains about Banff, such as Tunnel
and Sulphur, being hidden by the intervening ranges, but if you are
sufficient of a mountain-climber to win to the summit of Mount Rundle
you will gain a view of the mighty pyramid to the south that will
alone make the climb worth while. Cascade Mountain, some miles north
of the Bow, also offers the ambitious climber an inspiring sight of
the Matterhorn of the Rockies. Sir James Outram, the famous
mountaineer, who was the first man to reach the summit of Assiniboine,
says that the view he had of the peak from the summit of Cascade
Mountain, towering over two thousand feet above where he stood, first
fired his ambition to conquer what was then believed to be an
unscalable peak.
The first mention of Mount Assiniboine is in the report of the Rocky
Mountain expedition of the late George M. Dawson, of the Canadian
Geological Survey, in 1884. It is quite possible that the peak may
have been seen by the missionary De Smet, who crossed the White Man's
Pass in 1845, but he says nothing about it in his narrative. Dr.
Dawson first saw the peak from Copper Mountain, some distance west of
Banff, and later from White Man's Pass, near what is now the southern
extremity of the Park. He named it after the tribe of Indians known as
the Assiniboines.
But although Dr. Dawson and his party of surveyors saw and admired
Mount Assiniboine from a distance, neither he nor any other white man
is known to have reached its base until 1893, when R. L. Barrett, an
American mountain-climber, with Tom Wilson of Banff, made their way to
its foot by way of Healy Creek, Simpson Pass and Simpson River. Two
years later Mr. Barrett made a second trip to the mountain by the same
route, accompanied this time by James F. Porter and Walter Dwight
Wilcox, who has since become widely known as an interpreter of Rocky
Mountain scenery. Tom Wilson outfitted the party, but was unable to
accompany them. He sent, however, one of his best men, Bill Peyto.
Wilson, Peyto and Fred Stephens are _the_ guides of the Canadian
Rockies. There are to-day scores of more or less capable guides in the
various National Parks, but these three alone are famous. One or other
of them has accompanied, or led, nearly every expedition of any note
into the unexplored parts of the mountains. Tom Wilson is not only a
competent outfitter and a splendid guide, but he is also a renowned
spinner of yarns, and a very mine of information on the Rockies. As
some one has said of him, he knows more about the Canadian Rockies
than any other man has ever yet possessed. A visit to Tom Wilson is
not the least delightful of memories that the intelligent tourist will
carry away with him from Banff. Stephens and Peyto are men of the same
calibre, unerring on the trail, delightful around the camp-fire, and
withal thoroughly good fellows. But we must leave them for the
present, and return to the Assiniboine expedition.
The first camp was made on Healy Creek, where they arrived after a
long tramp over a bad trail, soaked through from wet brush, but
nevertheless thoroughly happy. The camp-fire soon dried their clothes,
a hot supper was before them, and after that they would roll
themselves up in their blankets and sleep as only those may sleep
whose bed is of balsam boughs and who breathe the life-giving air of
the mountains. Above all, they were on the road to Assiniboine.
The next day's journey took them up the north fork of Healy Creek, and
they camped a few miles from Simpson Pass, crossing the continental
divide from Alberta into British Columbia the following morning. At
the summit the snow drifts were fifteen or twenty feet deep, though it
was the month of July, but as they turned down the southerly slope the
snow disappeared and in its place appeared immense banks of white
anemones and yellow Alpine lilies. The mossy woods through which the
trail led them the previous day had been carpeted with the
round-leafed orchid, with here and there a nodding Calypso, one of the
most daintily beautiful and fragrant of the mountain flowers.
On the northern side of the pass they had left behind a stream whose
waters eventually flow into Hudson Bay. An Indian trail now led them
through deep and sombre woods, beside the banks of a river which
empties into the Pacific Ocean. The following day they travelled
through the Simpson valley, crossing and recrossing the river or its
small branches, and camping in a high valley two thousand feet above
the river, above which again towered on either side smooth cliffs
whose dark faces were relieved with silvery waterfalls. Opposite the
camp the walls of the mountain had been carved by nature into one of
those curiously realistic representations of a mediaeval castle that is
found here and there in the Rockies. "One might easily imagine that
these sharp pinnacles and rocky clefts were ramparts, embrasures, and
turreted fortifications. But the wild goats, marmots and picas were
the sole owners of this castle."
A few hours' tramp brought them the next day to the summit of a high
pass, from which they had their first glimpse of Assiniboine, piercing
the sky beyond an intervening barrier of snowy peaks. Another day's
journey, through fallen timber, along the winding shore of a beautiful
lake, and over a rocky ridge to a second lake, brought them to the
object of their heart's desire. Assiniboine at last!
"The majestic mountain," says Wilcox, "which is a noble pyramid of
rock towering above snow fields, was clearly reflected in the water
surface. Such a picture so suddenly revealed aroused the utmost
enthusiasm of all our party, and unconsciously every one paused in
admiration while our horses strayed from the trail to graze.
Continuing once more, we traversed some open places among low ridges
covered with beautiful larches. We passed through a delightful region
which descended gently for half a mile to a treeless moor, where we
pitched camp. Behind us was a clump of trees, before us Mount
Assiniboine, and on our left a lake of considerable size, which washed
the very base of the mountain and extended northwards in the bottom of
a broad valley."
Here they remained for a couple of weeks, exploring the neighbourhood,
and obtaining photographs of the mountain, some of which are
reproduced in Wilcox's wonderfully illustrated book on the Rockies. A
couple of days were spent by Wilcox, Barrett and Peyto in a complete
circuit of the mountain, a distance as they were compelled to travel
of fifty-one miles, through a country for the most part absolutely
devoid of trails, and covered in places with a very wilderness of
fallen timber. For hours their only means of travel was along the tops
of prostrate trunks piled ten and twelve feet above the ground. They
were rewarded, however, by a magnificent view of the south side of
Mount Assiniboine, never before revealed to white men.
The fascination of this singularly noble peak and its splendid setting
of neve and glacier, lake and forest, drew Mr. Wilcox to its feet
again in 1899, accompanied this time by Henry G. Bryant and Louis J.
Steele, who made the first attempt to climb the mountain, reaching an
elevation of ten thousand feet. Approaching storms then drove them
back, and on the last ice slope they both had a narrow escape. Steele
lost his foothold and dragged Bryant with him. "There was but one
possible escape from a terrible fall. A projecting rock of
considerable size appeared not far below, and Steele with a skilful
lunge of his ice-axe swung round to it and anchored himself in a
narrow crevice where the snow had melted away. No sooner had he come
to a stop than Bryant shot over him from above and likewise found
safety. Otherwise they would have fallen about six hundred feet, with
serious if not fatal results."
An incident of the outward journey is so characteristic of one of the
innumerable phases of Rocky Mountain scenery that one may venture to
borrow Mr. Wilcox's graphic description: "Whatever interest there may
have been to learn our whereabouts was absorbed upon reaching the
ridge crest by a revelation of wild and gloomy grandeur that I have
never seen equalled. Our little band of men and horses were standing
upon a craggy ledge, where splintered rocks, frost-rent and rough,
rose through perpetual snows, making a tower of observation, whence we
looked out upon a mountain wilderness. Shifting winds were sweeping
fog-banks and clouds far above the highest trees of a forest-clad
valley, not faintly discernible through the storm. Yet they were below
the crest of our lofty pinnacle, where our storm-beaten band of
horses, steaming in moisture, stood darkly outlined against the pale
mists. No gleam of light broke through the lurid sky. The monotonous
grey of falling snow had given place to heaving bands of clouds, for
the storm was breaking. Then slowly and mysteriously beyond a dark
abyss rose a beautiful vision of mountains clad in new snow. Their
bases rested on unsubstantial fog, their tops were partially concealed
by clinging mists, and they were apparently so far away as to seem
like the highest mountains in the world."
Their route to the mountain from Banff had been by a branch of Healy
Creek to the continental divide and along this high plateau to Simpson
valley; they returned by way of the Spray. This is now the recognised
route to Assiniboine, along which the Park authorities have opened a
good trail. Mr. Wilcox describes it as the easiest, and at the same
time most uninteresting, of several possible routes; and that by way
of Healy Creek and the continental divide as the most varied and
attractive. A good trail is now available up Healy Creek to the
plateau, and no doubt in time it will be extended to Mount
Assiniboine. Another shorter route by the south fork of Healy Creek
has also been partially opened; so that in the course of a year or two
it will be possible to visit the monarch of the southern Canadian
Rockies by any one of several alternative routes.
Although popularly reputed to be unscalable, attempts were made after
that of Bryant and Steele to get to the summit of Mount Assiniboine,
first by two brothers named Walling, and later by Bryant and Wilcox,
but without success although the first record of ten thousand feet was
considerably increased. Finally, however, in 1901, Mr. (now Sir James)
Outram, with two Swiss guides, Haesler and Bohren, reached the highest
peak after six hours' climbing. The story of the climb is modestly
told in Outram's book, the following passages from which will give
some idea at least of the stupendous precipices that had to be
negotiated and the skill and daring demanded in such a climb. On the
way up Outram rested for a time near the summit of one of the spurs of
the main peak. "Here," he says, "for some moments I stood in solemn
awe, perched like a statue in a lofty niche cut in the topmost angle
of a vast, titanic temple, with space in front, on either side, above,
below, the yawning depths lost in the wreathing mists that wrapped the
mountain's base."
After a perilous ascent where nerve, sure-footedness, and quick
judgment were needed every moment, they finally reached the summit of
the mountain. "One at a time--the other two securely anchored--we
crawled with the utmost caution to the actual highest point (an
immense snow cornice) and peeped over the edge of the huge,
overhanging crest, down the sheer wall to a great shining glacier 6000
feet or more below.... Perched high upon our isolated pinnacle, fully
1500 feet above the loftiest peak for many miles around, below us lay
unfolded range after range of brown-grey mountains, patched with snow
and some times glacier hung, intersected by deep chasms or broader
wooded valleys. A dozen lakes were counted, nestling between the
outlying ridges of our peak, which supply the headwaters of three
rivers--the Cross, the Simpson and the Spray."
After resting on the summit, it was decided to descend by another
and even more difficult route--one in fact that had hitherto been
thought impossible. Outram had studied it from below, however, and was
confident that it could be negotiated.