headquarters of the park administration, a rudimentary town seated in
a charming valley and surrounded by mountains, with the Athabaska
sweeping by on its way down to the plains. From here we made several
short trips, to Pyramid Lake and Pyramid Mountain, the former a
characteristically beautiful tarn, and the latter a graceful peak with
a variety of colouring rarely found in these mountains, reds and
browns, blacks and greys, softly blended with the utmost perfection.
On the way we had glimpses of a couple of lovely little lakes on the
other side of the Athabaska, lying close together, one a bright blue
and the other a most brilliant emerald. Behind them rose Maligne
Mountain, with the valley of the Athabaska opening up to the
southwest, a group of great peaks in the distance, and around to the
west the majestic, snow-crowned peak, Mount Geikie.
Another day was spent in a long walk to the Maligne Canyon. We started
under heavy clouds, which presently broke in rain, that slow,
persistent sort of rain that never seems to tire. On we plodded for
hours, determined to stick it out because we had been warned that we
would certainly be driven back. And in the end we were rewarded with
the Canyon, seen under most uncomfortable and depressing conditions,
but compelling admiration for its gloomy splendour, its ebony walls so
close together in spots that one could almost jump across, not merely
perpendicular but sometimes overhanging, so that creeping to the edge
and leaning over one looked down to the centre of the stream roaring a
hundred feet or more below.
One other afternoon was devoted to a visit to Swift, the first and
only settler in the pass. Swift came here many years ago, after an
adventurous career in mining camps from Colorado to northern British
Columbia. On a hunting or trading expedition through the mountains he
discovered a beautiful little prairie, a few miles below where Jasper
now stands, and then and there determined to make it his home. He came
back, built a rude log shack, took unto himself a wife, and despite
innumerable discouragements has managed to live happily and
contentedly. To-day he owns a good farm in the heart of the Rocky
Mountains, with cattle and horses, and as both the great
transcontinental railways have had to build through his property,
Swift bids fair to end his days in wealth and prosperity. If wealth
can make him any happier, he thoroughly deserves it for his pluck and
perseverance under conditions that would have driven most men to
despair. An afternoon spent at Swift's ranch, roaming with him about
his own particular little canyon, or listening to his yarns of
mountain and plain, mining camp, trapping, and hunting, told with all
the spirit of a born story-teller, is an experience well worth
remembering.
[Illustration: JASPER LAKE. _R. C. W. Lett_]
[Illustration: FIDDLE CREEK CANYON. _R. C. W. Lett_]
XII
OUT OF THE WORLD
Chatting one evening with the genial Superintendent of Jasper Park,
into whose sympathetic ear we had been pouring our ardent desire to
see some portion of the mountains that was at least comparatively
unknown, he replied: "I know the very place you want--Maligne Lake,
off to the south of here. I can get you a good guide and outfit
to-night, and you can start in the morning." The name did not sound
very inviting; rather suggested that some one had seen the lake and
condemned it. It appeared, however, that the name was really given to
the river by which the waters of the lake are carried down to the
Athabaska, and that the Indians had their own good reasons for
pronouncing it "bad." We lived to commend their verdict. As for the
lake, it would be as reasonable to call it "Maligne" as to give such a
name to a choice corner of paradise. That, however, is getting a
little ahead of the story.
The following morning the guide and his helper with the outfit were
waiting for us on the other side of the Athabaska. We and our packs
were punted across, the pack-horses were loaded, we climbed on our
ponies and started off for the undiscovered country, as it pleased us
to call it, with mountains smiling down upon us, a radiant sky
overhead, and unutterable joy in our hearts.
The trail--it is painful to admit that there was a trail, and an
excellent one at that--led up the valley of the Athabaska to Buffalo
Prairie, where we made our first camp after an easy day's journey.
Buffalo Prairie is a beautiful meadow set among the rolling hills that
break the level of the long valley, with that first consideration to
those who travel in the mountains, an abundance of feed for the
horses, and with wonderful views of the great guardian peaks, Geikie,
Hardisty, the Three Sisters, and a great company of glittering giants
as yet unnamed. To one who comes from the east where every little
hillock has its name, it is startling to find oneself gazing
reverently at a majestic pyramid of rock and ice soaring a mile or so
into the sky, and learn from the indifferent guide that it is merely
one of the thousand nameless mountains.
The following morning we were off early, to the infinite disgust of
the horses who were revelling in the good feed of the prairie. There
was a long day's journey ahead up to and over Bighorn Pass, and a good
deal of uncertainty as to where we might find any sort of a camping
ground on the other side of the mountains. For a time we continued our
way up the valley of the Athabaska, and then began the long slow climb
up to the pass, over 8000 feet above the sea. As we topped one hill
after another, sometimes travelling through patches of jack pine,
sometimes up the dry bed of a mountain stream, there opened up new and
ever more glorious views of the great ranges on either side. High up
on the trail we had to turn aside to make room for a long pack train
on its way down to Jasper. Hideous confusion would result if the two
outfits were allowed to get entangled, only to be made right after
much expenditure of time and pungent language. Finally the last
pack-horse went by with a picturesque packer jogging along in the
rear, and we began the last and heaviest grind up to the pass. The
trail wound into the pass, and up and ever up, until we must get off
the plucky little beasts and lead them the final stage, puffing and
panting as we stumbled along through the heavy loose shale until at
last we stood on the summit, and with a last glance back at the peaks
off toward Athabaska Pass turned down through an alpine meadow, and
in the midst of a swirling snowstorm, toward the valley of the
Maligne.
For hours we toiled around the shoulders of hills of loose shale, or
through miles of muskeg, or fallen timber, sometimes mounted, oftener
on foot leading our hard-worked ponies, until at long last with the
sun below the horizon we found on a steep hillside a little feed for
the horses, and water for our kettles. The tent had to be pitched on
the trail, the only relatively clear spot that could be found, and we
trusted to Providence not to send another outfit along in the middle
of the night to walk over us. It had been a long heavy day's travel,
and after our supper of bannocks and bacon and a pipe we turned in and
slept as only those may sleep who travel on the wilderness trail.
Our tent has been spoken of, but it was more properly a tepee--not the
tepee that you see in pictures of Indian life, made of skins neatly
sewn together and perhaps ornamented with rude drawings--but a modern
compromise, of the old Indian form but made of strong cotton. Some of
the guides in the mountains much prefer the tepee to the tent in any
of its familiar forms. Others will have none of it. Our own
experience led us to the conclusion that the tepee is without a
rival in a good tepee country, that is one where suitable tepee poles
are abundant, but there are occasions when you have to camp in a
district where poles are as hard to find as needles in a haystack, and
the resources of the language seem ludicrously inadequate as you limp
about the camp in an ever-widening circle hunting for something that
will support the thrice-damnable tepee for the night.
If you are fortunate enough to find a sufficient number of long,
straight, slender poles among the fallen timber (in the parks you are
not permitted to cut down trees for the purpose), it is a matter of
but a very few minutes to stack them in position, stretch the cotton
over the frame, and lace the front with a handful of small twigs,
leaving an opening at the top. Then you make the beds around the
circle, and build your camp fire in the middle. On a cold night, and
particularly on a cold, rainy night, one blesses the Indian who first
invented the tepee. Instead of shivering outside around a fire that
will not burn, you have your fire with you in a large roomy tent, and
can cook your meals and eat them in comfort. And who that has
experienced it can forget the evening around the tepee fire, resting
tired bodies on luxurious beds, smoking the pipe of peace, and
swapping yarns until it is time to roll up in the thick, warm Hudson
Bay blankets and sleep until dawn, or until the smell of frying bacon
awakens one to another day's adventures.
This morning on the hillside overlooking the Maligne Valley proved to
be a Red Letter day in our calendar. The sun had been rather unkind
since we left Jasper, but now as we scrambled out of the tepee, we
looked up into a cloudless sky. Far below a noisy little creek hailed
us cheerily as it hurried down from the mountains to join the Maligne.
In the distance we had glimpses of the river itself, and beyond uprose
an extraordinary wall of rock a thousand feet or more in height,
shutting in the valley and running on one side toward Maligne Lake and
on the other far off into the hazy distance toward the Athabaska.
Our plans were to climb up the valley to Maligne Lake, take advantage
of the kindly sun to secure a few pictures, and then make our way back
to last night's camp and down the valley to Medicine Lake. East of
Medicine Lake we had heard of a wonderful little body of water called
Jack Lake, famous not so much because of its beauty as for the
extraordinary abundance of its trout.
A ride of an hour or so, up and down hill, through fallen timber,
muskeg and acres of boulders, with finally a most delightful gallop
through a piece of virgin timber, brought us unexpectedly out on to a
point of land overlooking Maligne Lake. We had read Mrs. Schaffer's
enthusiastic description of the lake, but were hardly prepared for the
perfectly glorious sight that lay before us: a lake of the most
exquisite blue, mirroring on one side a high ridge clothed to the
water's edge in dark green timber, and on the other a noble range of
mountains climbing up and up in graceful towers and pinnacles sharply
outlined against a cloudless sky. Beside us was an ideal camping
ground, and then and there we vowed to come back to this spot some
day, with several weeks to the good, and really make the acquaintance
of Maligne Lake, if one must call anything so gracious and beautiful
by such an inappropriate name.
Among the trees by the lake side we caught a glimpse of a tent, but
the owner was nowhere in sight. We afterwards learned that he was one
of the forest rangers, who rejoiced in the picturesque name of Arizona
Pete. How Arizona Pete had wandered so far from the land of alkali
plains and canyons no one seemed to know, but it was apparent that he
had accumulated in his travels a fund of hair-raising stories of which
Pete was the hero. If one heard of a riotously impossible exploit, and
it was not attributed to that mythical hero of the northwest, Paul
Bunion, one knew at once that it must be one of the adventures of
Arizona Pete.
Turning our backs most reluctantly on Maligne Lake, we rode back to
our deserted camp, and north toward Medicine Lake following what by
courtesy was called a trail but was actually nothing but a few blazes
pointing the way through a perfect wilderness of fallen timber. How
the ponies, with all their marvellous intelligence and matchless
endurance dragged themselves and us through the miles of hopelessly
tangled logs that covered ridge and valley nearly every foot of the
way to Medicine Lake, none of us could ever understand. However, we
did at last reach the mouth of the river where it emptied into the
lake.
Our proposed camping ground was in sight, a little cove on the eastern
side of the lake, with feed of sorts for the horses, and the prospect
of poles for the tepees; but we had still to cross the river and the
situation looked discouraging. There was said to be a ford here, but
the water had risen within the last few days and the sagacious ponies
sniffed at it disapprovingly. We tried one place after another, until
finally as a last resource the guide mounted the pluckiest and most
sure-footed of the bunch and coaxed him out into the raging stream.
Step by step they won their way to the other side, and the rest,
having seen that the thing could be done, followed willingly enough.
We all got over with nothing worse than a wetting, and the precious
provisions escaped even that. Twenty minutes brought us to the camping
ground, and our troubles were over for that day.
A plunge in the icy waters of Medicine Lake the following morning,
followed by a hasty breakfast, and we were off for Jack Lake eight or
ten miles to the east. The guide knew that the trail led off from a
creek near the camp, but we must hunt for the exact spot where it
began. It sounds simple enough, but in reality it was not at all
simple. The trail had not been much used, and the creek from which it
started ran through a dense thicket of alder. There was nothing to do
but circle around until we found it. So we did, sometimes ploughing
through the bush, sometimes splashing up the creek, until at last a
cry from the guide told us that the elusive trail was found, and we
could get on our way.
A few hundred yards brought us to the edge of the timber, and we
plunged from bright sunlight into the shade of the primaeval forest,
where ancient cedars with venerable beards rose on every side from a
carpet of deep, emerald moss. On we jogged for several miles, winding
through the forest, now and then crossing a clear woodland stream, and
climbing gradually up into a pass through the mountains. Presently we
emerged from the trees with bold cliffs rising on either side carved
into fantastic shapes. We dropped down into a secluded valley, with an
emerald lake in the centre surrounded by velvet meadows, dark green
timber beyond stretching up to the foot of white cliffs which rose
abruptly on every side. Except for an eagle soaring far above there
was no sign of life in the valley, and the silence was so absolute
that one unconsciously lowered one's voice as if on the threshold of
some awe-inspiring temple.
The trail led down the valley, skirting the shores of the lake,
wandered through a bit of wood and brought us out on the shores of
another lake, finally into the timber again, and up out of the
valley through a gap in the mountains. Then for an hour or two we were
lost in the forest, following the trail as it wound about and about in
the seemingly casual and aimless fashion of wood trails. It did not
appear at the moment very important that it should lead anywhere. The
air was fragrant with the smell of pine and cedar and of a temperature
that left absolutely nothing to be desired; the great trees were far
enough apart to afford delightful vistas down long avenues whose mossy
carpet was kissed by sunbeams filtering through the evergreen branches
far above; the trail was clear and unencumbered, in wonderful contrast
to our experience of the previous day; and we were quite content to
jog along care-free and at peace with the world.
Finally a flash of blue through the trees warned us that we were
drawing near Jack Lake. We followed its shore for a mile or so, or
rather climbed along the face of the steep hillside that did duty for
shore on this side, and rounding the eastern end came out on a broad
meadow, with a new log shack in the foreground, a fringe of trees in
the middle distance, and a noble range of mountains filling in the
background. The owner of the shack, a young forest ranger, rushed out
to welcome us with the almost pathetic exuberance of one who had not
had anybody but his dog to talk to for several weeks.
When we had satisfied for the time his hunger for news of the outside
world, we produced our rods and requested him to produce his trout. He
grinned at the rods, and showed us his own--a stout stick with a heavy
cord tied to one end, and at the end of the cord a bent horseshoe
nail. "The bull trout here," he said, "don't like fancy rods." One of
us stuck manfully to his treasured equipment; the other borrowed the
ranger's stick and attached to it his heaviest line. Our hooks we
learned were much too delicate for the purpose, but finally we managed
to dig up a heavy pike hook for one line and a spoon for the other.
With a lump of fat pork for bait, we followed the ranger down the
banks of a creek running out of the lake, until we reached a deep,
still pool. He pointed silently to the pool, and we gasped. The pool
was literally alive with big trout from two to four or five pounds.
The lines barely touched the water before there was a fierce rush. The
trout were fighting for the bait. A huge fellow on each line, a brief
struggle, and both were safely landed. Within ten minutes we had more
than the party could eat in the next two or three days, and were
throwing back all but the largest fish. The climax came when we ran
out of pork, and one of us half jokingly made a cast with the spoon
and no bait, and landed a 4-pounder on each naked hook. After that we
gave it up, and tried the lake, hoping for trout that would give us
something a little more like sport; but there for some reason or
other, probably because the water in shore was shallow and we had no
way of getting out into the lake, we ran to the other extreme, and had
not a nibble in an hour's fishing. Although the story of our
experience on the creek is absolutely authentic, we feel sadly enough
that it is useless to hope that any one who has not visited Jack Lake
will credit the story. The world is full of Doubting Thomases, and
fish stories are fish stories. Nevertheless, this one is true.
The following morning we retraced our steps to Medicine Lake, and
after several hours' most painful scrambling along its precipitous
banks--where some enemy had told us there was a trail--we reached its
northern end, and camped for the night. Maligne Lake and Medicine Lake
drain into the Athabaska by Maligne River, but at the northern end of
the second lake, where one would expect to find a considerable stream
flowing out, the shore runs around smoothly to the western side
without a break. The lake empties through a subterranean channel, and
reappears in springs some miles down the valley, where the Maligne,
hitherto a small creek, suddenly develops into a respectable river.
We had been advised to return to the Athabaska by a direct trail from
Jack Lake, but our evil genius prompted us to try the Maligne River
route which would bring us out near Jasper. Never did the shortest way
round prove more conclusively the longest way home. For nine long
hours we toiled down that interminable valley without rest or food,
crossing the river back and forth innumerable times, scrambling up
banks so steep that we had to go on hands and knees with our faithful
little nags struggling up after us, and then finding in disgust that
we had to slide down again to the rocky bed of the river, worrying
through miles of fallen timber, miles of muskeg, miles of wiry bushes
that slapped us viciously in the face as we forced a way through, and
ripped our clothing until we looked more like stage tramps than fairly
respectable travellers. The expected trail proved to be nothing but a
few experimental blazes on the trees; experimental surely, as we found
more than once to our cost, following the blazes to a standstill in a
blind lead, and turning back in our tracks for perhaps half a mile to
where the "trail" branched off to the other side of the valley. That
day we became temporary converts to the theory that the pathless
wilderness was no place for sane mortals.
However, every lane must have its turning, and at last we hailed with
shouts of joy the familiar gorge of the Maligne, which we had visited
from Jasper some time before. From the gorge over to the Athabaska we
had a good trail, a boat ferried us across after our swimming horses,
and we were back again at the Hotel Fitzhugh, raiding the neighbouring
store for tobacco, our last pipeful having been smoked two days
before. Probably this had more than a little to do with our gloomy
impressions of the Maligne River trail.
[Illustration: JACK LAKE. _H. W. Craver_]
[Illustration: MALIGNE LAKE. _H. W. Craver_]
[Illustration: BREAKING CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS. _A. Knechtel_]
[Illustration: MAKING A TRAIL THROUGH FALLEN TIMBER. _A. Knechtel_]
XIII
THE MONARCH OF THE ROCKIES
Waving a glad farewell to Jasper, the ugly little outpost of
civilisation, we threw our bags on the west-bound train the following
morning and were off for Mount Robson. A few miles' easy grade and we
were at the summit of Yellowhead Pass, the continental divide. Behind
us was Alberta, ahead British Columbia. We had left Jasper Park, and
were entering Robson Park.
Sliding down the long slope of the Fraser valley, with the blue waters
of Yellowhead Lake on our left hand, Mount Fitzwilliam above us to the
south, and the loftier peak of Geikie gradually opening up beyond, we
began to realise that there was much yet to be seen both at our feet
and up in the clouds. Another ten or fifteen miles, and we were
travelling along the north shore of Moose Lake, with the Rainbow
Mountains on one side and the Selwyn Range on the other. Moose Lake
was left behind, and we crowded out on to the rear platform of the
train to get our first glimpse of the Monarch of the Rockies, Mount
Robson. Almost without warning it came. We rounded the western end of
the Rainbow Mountains and looked up the valley of the Grand Fork. "My
God!" some one whispered. Rising at the head of the valley and
towering far above all the surrounding peaks we saw a vast cone, so
perfectly proportioned that one's first impression was rather one of
wonderful symmetry and beauty than of actual height. Then we began to
realise the stupendous majesty of the mountain, and recalled the words
of Milton and Cheadle half a century ago, "a giant among giants,
immeasurably supreme." Now, as then, its upper portion was "dimmed by
a necklace of light feathery clouds, beyond which its pointed apex of
ice, glittering in the morning sun, shot up far into the blue heaven."
It is interesting to know that David Douglas was not the only
scientist who made a wild guess at the height of a Rocky Mountain
peak. Douglas absurdly over-estimated the elevation of Mount Brown and
Mount Hooker. Alfred R. C. Selwyn quite as absurdly under-estimated
the height of Mount Robson, and he was at the time Director of the
Geological Survey of Canada. Selwyn made an expedition to the upper
waters of the Fraser in 1871, and in his official report says of
Robson: "It rises with mural precipices to a height of two or three
thousand feet above the river." As a matter of fact the summit of the
peak is about ten thousand feet above the river, and something over
thirteen thousand feet above the sea. There is comfort for the rest of
us in the fact that such an eminent scientist as the late Dr. Selwyn
could make such an extraordinary mistake.
We escaped from the train at a little station named after the great
mountain, and after several miles' tramp reached the base camp of the
Alpine Club of Canada, which was then holding its annual meeting in
the Robson district. There we spent the night, and before the sun went
down were fortunate enough to get an unobstructed view of the peak,
the last wisp of cloud driving off to the east leaving the mountain
outlined from base to summit and glowing with unearthly radiance in
the light of the setting sun. It is only at long intervals that such a
view is to be obtained, the peak retiring for weeks at a time behind
its curtain of clouds, or perhaps revealing its vast base and extreme
summit while the upper slopes are hidden.
When we set out in the morning for the main camp of the Alpine Club
by the shores of Berg Lake, on the north side of the mountain, Robson
had vanished completely, so completely that a stranger coming here for
the first time would not know that the impenetrable wall of cloud at
the head of the valley hid anything more remarkable than the rugged
hills on either side.