SOME of the most notable exploits in mountain-climbing in the Canadian Rockies have been by officers of the Dominion Government, such as J. J. McArthur and A. O. Wheeler, merely as incidents to their serious work of topographical surveying. The advent of the mountaineer as such, and the development of the region as a mountaineer's paradise, dates from the visit of William Spotswood Green in 1888. Probably his book, which appeared two years later, did as much as anything else to bring others to the Canadian mountains. At any rate, in 1890, members of the English and Swiss Alpine Clubs, and the Appalachian Mountain Club of Boston, visited the Selkirks, and returned with enthusiastic accounts of the new field available to mountain climbers.
The visit of Professor Charles E. Fay, of the Appalachian Club, led to the formation of an Alpine section of that club, and later to the organisation of the American Alpine Club. The Alpine Club of Canada came into being in 1906, and since that date, under the notable leadership of A. O. Wheeler, has rapidly gained strength and influence, drawing into its fold an ever-increasing number of those who find keen pleasure and a widening and strengthening of all their faculties in the splendid sport of mountain-climbing, or in the mere dwelling from day to day in the companionship of some of the most noble works of Nature.
The earlier explorations of mountain-climbers, following that of Green, were confined pretty well to the Selkirks, but as interest spread the great peaks of the main range were attempted, and one after another succumbed to the attacks of such notable climbers as Outram, Fay and Parker; Collie, Stutfield and Woolley; Abbott, Eggers, Weed and Thompson, and the prince of all mountain-climbers, Whymper. A brief account will now be given of some of these ascents in the Rockies, leaving the Selkirks to another chapter.
| Byron Harmon THE ASSAULT | Byron Harmon VICTORY AT LAST |
Dr. Fay made an attempt upon Mount Goodsir in 1901, with Outram and Scattergood, and the veteran Swiss guide Christian Häsler, but owing to the exceptionally dangerous condition of the snow near the summit the party were forced to turn back at the foot of the final peak. Two years later this superb peak of the Ottertail Range was again attacked by Dr. Fay, accompanied this time by Professor Parker, and the guides Christian Kaufmann and Häsler. Dr. Fay has described both climbs in the Canadian Alpine Journal, 1907, from which the following account is taken.
The party camped at the foot of the mountain, in 1901, and set out at daybreak the following morning. A stiff climb brought them to the base of a steep cliff beyond which rose the final peak. "Before us," says Dr. Fay, "rose this beetling face of dark rock, with little snow patches here and there revealing possible stations, between which only cracks and slight protuberances offered scanty holds for foot and hand." With great care, however, they finally reached the top of the cliff. Here, however, they were brought to a standstill.
"A most ominous situation revealed itself. The final peak was before us, and its summit hardly three hundred feet distant—a great white hissing mass,—a precipice on the hidden left side, a steep snow-slope of perhaps 65 to 70 degrees on the right. Under the July sun its whole surface was seemingly in a state of flux, slipping over the underlying mass with a constant, threatening hiss. A second narrow arête led across to this final summit. This, too, was corniced, and in a remarkable way. The swirl of the wind had produced an unusual spectacle. At the beginning and at the end, the cornice hung out to the right; in the middle, a reversed section of it overhung the abyss on the left.
"The two similar ones could doubtless have been passed. To cross the middle section meant trusting ourselves to the sun-beaten slope already in avalanching condition. Indeed, while we studied it, and as if to furnish the final argument to our debate, the snow on our right impinging against the cornice broke away, and down went a well-developed avalanche a couple of thousand feet over that much-tilted surface, and vanished in a sheer plunge that landed it perhaps three thousand feet below that. It was a suggestive and persuasive sight. Feeling sure that we had seen enough for one day we beat a careful retreat."