Among the Canadian Alps

by Lawrence J. Burpee

Exasperating as the cayuse can be on many occasions, no one who has any sense of humour or any appreciation of animal intelligence can fail in time to grow very fond of a horse that has been his companion on many wild mountain trails, that has carried him safely through raging torrents, and sometimes shared his meal beside the camp fire. A good pony will follow unerringly a trail that is indistinguishable to even an experienced guide; he will carry an able-bodied man, or a much heavier pack, all day over a trail that would kill an eastern horse; he will pick his way through a tangle of fallen timber with an instinct that is almost uncanny; and he will do all this on the uncertain feed of mountain camps. He is a true philosopher, a creature of shrewd common sense, pluck, endurance, and rare humour, a good fellow, and a rare friend.

Green made the first attempt to scale Mount Sir Donald, the splendid peak that almost overshadows Glacier House. He selected what proved to be an impracticable route, and was forced to return without reaching the summit. The mountain has since been repeatedly climbed, and is now with Mount Stephen in the Rockies the most popular peak for mountain-climbers in the Canadian parks. Thanks to the Swiss guides who are stationed here throughout the season, any one of reasonable endurance and with a head for dizzy heights or depths, can now make his way to the summit of Sir Donald, 10,808 feet above the sea, and be rewarded with a view that will more than compensate him for the fatigue.

Although mountain-climbing in the Canadian Rockies has been singularly free from accidents, there have of course occasionally been narrow escapes, and one of these is graphically described in Among the Selkirk Glaciers. Green and a companion had climbed to the summit of Mount Bonney, a great peak some miles west of Sir Donald, and were returning, when they made the usual mistake of trying a short cut to avoid a tedious piece of climbing. There seemed to be a way down a very steep snow slope, and Green went ahead on the rope to test it, while his companion anchored himself as firmly as possible in the snow above. They were of course "roped" in the usual mountaineering fashion.

"I turned my face to the slope," says Green, "and holding on to the rope kicked my toes in and went over the brink. I took the precaution, too, of burying my axe up to its head at every step. Just below the brink there was a projecting crag. This I thought would give a firm footing before testing the snow slope. I got one foot on to it and was taking it as gently as possible when the rock gave way, a large piece of snow went with it and fell on the slope twenty feet below.

A. Knechtel THE HIGH FRONTIER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

A. O. Wheeler ON THE SUMMIT OF SIR DONALD

"I stuck my knees into the snow, but felt my whole weight was on the rope. Then I heard a swishing noise in the air, and glancing downwards saw that the whole snow slope had cracked across and was starting away down towards the valley in one huge avalanche. H. hauled cautiously but firmly on the rope, and getting what grip I could with toes, knees and ice-axe I was quickly in a safe position, and the two of us standing side by side watched the clouds of snow filling the abyss below and the huge masses bounding outwards. We listened to the sullen roar which gradually subsided and all again was quiet."

It was probably this same stout rope by which Green pulled himself back to safety, of which he elsewhere gives the history, quite an eventful one, though sadly ignoble in its latter days. "Its first good work was to save the lives of some of our party in a bad slip, near the summit of the Balmhorn on the Bernese Overland. It was next used as the mizzen topping-lift of a fifteen-ton yawl. It was my tent-rope in the New Zealand Alps. It was the bridle used on a deep-sea trawl that went down to 1000 fathoms beneath the surface of the Atlantic. It trained a colt. Now it was in our diamond hitch; and I regret to say that its old age was disgraced by its being used for cording one of my boxes on the voyage home."

Compared with Rocky Mountains Park and Yoho Park, Glacier Park at present is somewhat deficient in roads and trails, those that have been opened all radiating from headquarters and extending not more than six or eight miles in any direction. This, however, will be remedied in a few years, the park being still very young, and in the meantime it is not an unmixed evil to those who care to get off the beaten track. Old Indian trails follow all the rivers and creeks throughout the park, and though these will be more or less obliterated and blocked with fallen timber, a competent guide can always be relied upon to take you to any corner of the park, and when you have found a good camping ground, with feed for the horses, a sparkling stream at your feet, and a circle of noble peaks smiling down upon you, you will, if you are the right sort, thank your stars that railways and hotels and roads lie far away in another world beyond the mountains. To really enjoy this sensation of out-of-the-worldness, however, you must have brought with you a sufficient supply of worldly eatables.

Of the available trails, one leads up to Rogers Pass, at the summit of the Selkirks, with Mount Macdonald on one side and Mount Tupper on the other. These two great peaks were named after the famous Canadian statesmen, Sir John Macdonald and Sir Charles Tupper. The latter, after watching the growth of Canada from a group of weak and scattered colonies to a strong and ambitious Dominion, is still alive in England in his ninety-third year.