ON THE MOOSE RIVER TRAIL
A PLEASANT evening had been spent on the shores of Berg Lake, admiring the wonderful views of Robson and its encircling glaciers, with Mount Resplendant, the Dome and the Helmet, Whitehorn Peak off to the right, Rearguard immediately over Berg Lake, Ptarmigan Peak to our left, and Mount Mumm, named after the well-known English Alpine climber, behind us; surely an unrivalled collection of gigantic ice-crowned peaks, encircling one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. A few days before two members of the Alpine Club with the Swiss guide Konrad Kain had climbed to the summit of Robson, and while we were in camp another party came down, unsuccessful, after three days spent on the peak. They had been driven back when within a few hundred feet of the summit by a dangerous snow storm. After the sun went down we walked over to the big camp-fire of the Alpine Club, and listened to the climbing experiences of the mountaineers, regretting that our plans would not permit us to join one of the parties in an attack on one of the less formidable peaks.
| R. C. W. Lett MOUNT ROBSON FROM THE NORTHEAST |
Through the good offices of the Superintendent of Jasper Park, we had been fortunate enough to secure the services of Fred Stephens to take us through the Moose River country. So much has been said about guides, that it may not be amiss to explain, for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the Canadian Rockies, that there are two quite distinct classes of mountain guides, one possessing special knowledge of the high peaks and how to get up them, the other knowing like a book the intricate wilderness that lies about their feet. The climbing guides are Swiss, trained in the Alps. Two or three of them were engaged by the Canadian Pacific Railway some years ago, when mountain climbers first began to realise the splendid possibilities of the country about Laggan, Field and Glacier. The guides spent the summer in the Rockies, and returned to Switzerland for the winter. Since then the number has steadily increased, and now many of the Swiss guides have settled permanently in the Canadian Alps, which are now rapidly becoming popular as a winter as well as a summer resort.
The trail guides are an entirely different class of men. They belong to the west, have been trained there, and know its ways. Some of them have been trappers or traders, many are hunters, and not a few have been cowboys, or miners. All know the mountains and the mountain trails, and most of them are good companions either in camp or on the trail, quietly competent when work is to be done, resourceful in the innumerable emergencies of mountain travel, and a fountain of shrewd wisdom and anecdote around the camp fire. And of all trail guides in the Canadian Rockies none is the superior of Fred Stephens, whether as guide, philosopher or comrade. We who had heard his praises sung by others, congratulated ourselves when we learned that he was to take us through the Moose River country.
Early next morning we were up and doing. Breakfast was despatched, the tents struck, the horses driven in to camp, packs made up and securely fastened to the backs of the pack-horses by means of the famous diamond hitch, our own ponies saddled, and we were off for Moose Pass, waving a reluctant farewell to our hosts of the Alpine Club as we trotted through the camp—a tent city gay with bunting, and instinct with the wholesome enthusiasm, good-fellowship, and hospitality of the mountaineers.
As we crossed the slight ridge at the foot of Robson Glacier, which at this point forms the continental divide, we paused to study for a moment the curious family history of two great water systems, born in the same glacier. From two blue ice caves in the Robson Glacier, one on either side of the ridge of the terminal moraine, flow two sparkling streams. One flows southwest into Berg Lake, the Grand Fork, the Fraser, and the Pacific Ocean; the other flows northeast into Lake Adolphus, the Smoky, Peace River, Slave River, Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie, and the Arctic Ocean. Turning our backs on the Berg Lake tributary, after wishing it a pleasant journey to the Pacific, we followed its brother down to Lake Adolphus and for some miles beyond, when we turned east up Calumet Creek toward Moose Pass.
Near the summit of the pass we found ourselves in the midst of one of the most exquisite of Alpine meadows. Imagine a great bowl of dark rock relieved here and there with patches of fresh snow, and at the foot of this bowl a soft emerald carpet, the green almost hidden by glowing patches of flowers, asters and arbutus and harebell, purple and white heather, lady's tresses and columbine, moss campion, the twin flower and the forget-me-not. Think of it, you who treasure a little patch of forget-me-nots in your garden, think of walking your horse reverently through an acre of forget-me-nots, growing so thickly that the blue of them could be seen long before one reached the place where they grew, so thickly that one was compelled to the sacrilege of treading down thousands of blossoms as we crossed the meadow. In honour of the lady of our party, whom we believed to be the first white woman to pass this way, we named this beautiful spot Merwin Meadow.