Canada and Newfoundland

by Frank G. Carpenter

Thirty miles west of Banff, and almost six thousand feet above the level of the sea, is the gem-like Lake Louise in its setting of dark forests and snow-clad mountains, and not far away is the famous Valley of the Ten Peaks. A few miles farther on we reach the Great Divide, which marks the boundary between Alberta and British Columbia. Here we see the waters of a single stream divide, one part going west to the Pacific and the other flowing to the east and eventually losing itself in Hudson Bay.

Between Calgary and the Great Divide the railway track climbs three eighths of a mile. It goes over the main range through the Kicking Horse Pass, more than a mile above sea level, and then drops down to the valley of the Columbia River. It rises again a quarter of a mile where it crosses the Selkirks through the five-mile-long Connaught tunnel, and then winds its way downward through the coast ranges to the great western ocean.

The Kicking Horse Pass was so named from an incident that occurred when the surveyors for the railway were searching for a route over the mountains. At this point one of the men was kicked by a pack horse and apparently killed. His companions had even dug a grave for him, but just then the supposedly dead man showed signs of life. He soon was fully recovered and the party proceeded onward. Later, his curiosity led him to revisit the scene of his narrowly averted burial, and in so doing he discovered this gap in the mountains.

The Kicking Horse was Canada’s first, and for years its only, railway pass over the Rockies. The construction of the railway through it was considered a great feat of civil engineering, but it has been much improved. In 1909 two spiral tunnels were built for the descent to the Kicking Horse River, twelve hundred feet below. Here the track, sloping downward, makes two almost complete circles inside the mountain, and the tunnels have so cut down the steep grade that the number of engines required for a train has been reduced from four to two.

Another line of the Canadian Pacific climbs over the mountains through the Crow’s Nest Pass, not far north of the United States boundary. A third gateway to the ocean is the Yellowhead Pass, west of Edmonton, by which the Canadian National lines cross the Rockies. Beyond that pass the tracks branch out, one section ending at Prince Rupert and the other at Vancouver. The Yellowhead, though the lowest of the three passes, is under the very shadow of some of the loftiest of these mountains. Near it is Mount Robson, the highest peak in Canada, which rises in a mighty cone almost two miles above the surrounding range and more than thirteen thousand feet above the sea.

The Yellowhead route passes through Jasper Park, the greatest of Canada’s western game and forest reserves. That park is almost four times the size of Rhode Island, and much larger than Rocky Mountain Park, which we saw at Banff. It contains the beautiful Lac Beauvert, on the shores of which a hotel and several lodges are operated by the Canadian National Railways. Mount Robson Park adjoins Jasper Park at the west, and farther south are Yoko, Waterton Lakes, and other great national playgrounds.

One of the most interesting of Canada’s twelve Dominion parks is that at Wainwright, Alberta. I saw something of it on my way from Saskatoon to Edmonton. There a hundred thousand acres of land is fenced in as a reserve for the largest herd of buffalo in America. The seven hundred and six animals of the original herd were purchased by the Canadian government from a Montana rancher. That was less than twenty years ago, but the herd increased so rapidly that it soon numbered between seven and eight thousand. This was more than could be provided for on the ranging grounds of the park, and it was found necessary to slaughter two thousand of the animals. Some of the meat was sold as buffalo steak, and the rest was dried and made into pemmican for the arctic regions. An animal called the cattalo, a cross between buffaloes and domestic cattle, which is noted for its beef qualities, has been raised in large numbers at the Wainwright Park.

When a transcontinental railway to the Pacific coast was first proposed, the objectors to the project sarcastically called British Columbia and western Alberta a “sea of mountains.” To-day these same mountains, once considered merely an expensive barrier in the path of the railways, have proved to be one of the largest factors in building up what is said to be the fourth industry of Canada—its tourist traffic. The business of “selling the scenery” has been developed to such a degree that it is estimated that the national parks of the Dominion yield an annual revenue of twenty-five million dollars. In a year, more than one hundred thousand people travel over the C. P. R. route alone. It is interesting to note that eighty per cent. of them are Americans, and that there are more from New York City than from the entire Dominion of Canada.

The Canadian Pacific has for years led in exploiting the scenic wonders of Canada. It carries tourists over the mountains in summer in open observation cars, and adds to their comfort by using oil-burning locomotives on its passenger trains. It has a half dozen resorts in the Rockies where one may enjoy all the comforts of a modern city hotel or the rugged pleasures of a wilderness camp. It has established a colony of Swiss mountaineers brought from the Alps to act as guides for mountain climbers. It has cut new trails through the country and has sent out geologists to map the unexplored territory.

Even the names of scores of peaks and valleys originated with the Canadian Pacific. Mount Sir Donald, one of the mightiest of the Selkirks, was so called in honour of Lord Strathcona, who was a power behind the building of the railway, and who drove the final spike uniting the east and west sections of the transcontinental line. Mount Stephen was named after the first president, and Mount Shaughnessy after a later one. The Van Horne Glacier in the Selkirks and the Van Horne Range have the same name as the famous builder of the Canadian Pacific, and Mount Hector was named after the intrepid explorer who discovered the Kicking Horse Pass.