Mount Stephen, called after the first President of the Railway, Lord Mount-Stephen, absorbs our attention next. It is certainly the most superb mountain of the Rockies. On its "swelling shoulder" is seen a shining green glacier, "which is slowly pressing forward and over a vertical cliff of great height." The cyclopean masses of rock are richly veined in red and purple. As the train humbly creeps round the base, the summit is entirely lost to us. Opposite are the swelling mountains of the Van Horne range; they touch the muddy, shingly bed of a river.
We breakfast at the pretty hotel at Field, and feel disgusted that the claims of nature must be satisfied, whilst Mount Stephen in its glorious might and strength, and its limitless surface of adamantine rock, raises its hoary zenith immediately above us. We made the greatest mistake in not staying a day here, and, by ascending a neighbouring mountain, being still more impressed with its colossal proportions.
On leaving Field, we travel between the "orderly array of peaks of the two ranges of Otter-Tail and the Beaver Foots."
At Palliser, the driver allows us to ride on the engine through the Second Kicking Horse Pass. It runs madly down into growing darkness, closer and higher the mountains draw. The boiling river disputes the narrow chasm with us, and it is a hand-to-hand struggle in which the line has frequently to give up to the river, and to cross over from side to side to gain a footing. The engine tears wildly down hill, reeling round the sharp curves at an angle of 20°, with the train doubling itself. You cannot hear yourself speak for the noise of the foaming river and the panting of the engine. As we plunge into the dread darkness of a tunnel, the engine whistles, and the echo is dying, dying, dead, to us—as we are lost in blackness. It is wonderful to see the driver control this huge, puffing, black monster by a gentle pressure on two valve handles, which it resents with an indignant snort. We emerge into light and space again at Golden. We come suddenly back to a commonplace life, as represented by this wooden mining village. It is farewell to the Rockies.
I think most people have an idea that the engineering feats of the Pacific Railway were performed in the crossing of the Rockies. They do not realize, any more than we did, that we have another and far more difficult range to surmount, before reaching the Pacific coast. The Selkirk range is more beautiful and grander. It has more snow and glacier peaks than the Rockies.
We are in a green valley, with the Selkirks dimly seen to the left, whilst the Rockies are diminishing to a low range to the right, and we have found a new river in the broad Columbia. We are reminded that we have crossed the Great Dividing Watershed, for this river is running the opposite way down to the ocean.
It is but a short breathing space, for almost at once the mountains close together, and we are in another of those lovely gorges, each one of which, would make famous any railway. Through a perfectly formed natural gateway of rock, so narrow that it can be crossed by a slender sapling, the tempestuous waters of the Beaver River hurry to join the Columbia. This is a smiling little valley, full of blue-green pines, mingling with the tender greens of young poplars, and the yellow moss and lichens covering the rocks. From this valley we pass into the heart of the Selkirks.
We have become accustomed to the line climbing up the mountain side, and we can tell how rapidly we are now doing this by the dwindling of the Beaver River, by whose side we were a minute ago, and which is now far away down in the valley. Its pale green waters trace out the most perfect curves of the letter S, and flow in a park with pine woods. And it is all so far away—down, down—and would be such a terrific fall. Immediately opposite to us are the mountains, and we are equal to about half way up them, and through the haze they appear to us so very near, and so very large. The panorama is magnificent; the detailed picture is impressive, when, from gazing down boundless depths, the eye is lifted through miles of pine forests, up to grey crags, too high for vegetation.
Growing by the side of the line there are gigantic pines, Douglas fir and cedar. They are so straight, without curve, or be knot, that one cannot help thinking what splendid masts they would make for some big ship. Many of their tops are on a level with us, whilst, by peering down, we can with difficulty see their roots. But like all these Canadian forests, the finest trees are dismembered or mutilated by burning, and their graceful, fringe-like foliage is often brown and singed.
The railway is now going to cross several deep gullies on wooden trestle-bridges. These bridges appear frail and weak for the purpose, the valleys being deep, and the trains so heavy. They creak and groan ominously as the train passes on them. Water-butts and a watcher are stationed on them, in case of fire from a spark of the engine. The Stony Creek Bridge, over a sleep V-shaped valley, is one of the loftiest railway bridges in the world; hundreds of square yards of timber were used in its construction, and it rests on three piers, 295 feet above the ravine. We have enchanting peeps up these bright green gullies, with their noisy rills jumping and scrambling down anyhow, so long as they reach the bottom of the valley, and we rush to one side of the car to be pleased by this, and then to the other, to be frightened by gazing into space.