We are soon well into the foot-hills, those grassy rounded slopes, which are the first rising ground from off the prairie, and which lead up to and end in the Rocky Mountains. The blue Bow river flows merrily in the valley; there are hundreds of horses and cattle feeding on these river terraces, for there are ranches lying up to and under the foot of the Rockies.
The great amphitheatre of mountains, which has been coming nearer by leaps and bounds, is beginning to impress us with its barren purple scars, and just as we are entering among them our guard stops the train, and takes us out to see the Kananaskis Falls in the Bow river. We hear their dull and distant thunder before we see the clear mountain torrent, sliding down over ledges of rock, forming a long white-flecked rapid, before taking a final leap over a precipice. The conductor then invites us to climb up into the caboose, and scrambling up, we are perched inside the turret of the van, where there are windows that command the view on all sides. We share this elevated position with the brakesman, who is ready to run along the platform on the top of the waggons, and turn on the brakes, for each waggon has a separate one, connected with a wheel at the top. We subsequently discussed whether to give this amiable conductor a tip, but came to the conclusion that it was superfluous, on learning from the car attendant that his salary, calculated at three cents a mile, gave him an income of 500l. a year.
We are now breaking through the outer barrier of the Rockies, and penetrating deeper into the mountains by a valley. The railway is challenging the monarchs, for they rise up on every side and could so easily crush us, as we wander through the green valley by the side of the Bow river, our travelling comrade for many days to come. Its waters are pale emerald green now, but later on will be milk-blue with the melting snow and ground-up moraine, brought down by its mountain tributaries.
Kananaskis Falls.
We shoot "the gap," described as "two vertical walls of dizzy height." It would be truer to say that the line turns sharply round a projection of rock, whilst a mountain approaches from the other side. It is a fraud! At Canmore we rest an hour. As we get out of the cars, the intense stillness of the valley strikes us. We look up to, and are covered by the shadows of the three well-defined slanting peaks of the Three Sisters and the Wind mountain. When we start again the mountains continue to increase in grandeur, though I think that Baroness Macdonald's rhapsodies quoted in the Annotated Time Table, exaggerate the beauty of this part of the Rockies. It is curious to notice the remarkable difference between the two ranges we are passing through. Those to the left are fantastically broken into varied shapes and forms penetrated by crevasses, full of deep blue and purple-red shadows. Whilst the range to the right is formed of grey and white hoary-headed peaks, and look brilliantly cold and white, in the strong sunlight.
Cascade Mountain.
We approach the Cascade Mountain. "This enormous mass seems to advance towards us and meet us." It entirely blocks our further progress, and the train seems to be going to travel up it. We appear to touch it, but in reality it is many miles away. This Cascade Mountain gives you more idea than anything else of the colossal proportion of the mountains, which you lose by proximity, and by their uniformly large scale. It also shows you the deception caused by the clearness of the atmosphere. For the silver cascade which we see falling down its side is ten feet across, and yet it looks like a thread of cotton. The mountain we could well-nigh touch is five miles or more away. It is a striking sensation.
