We camped on the West Branch of the Moose, about a mile above its junction with the East Branch, having again made twenty miles from our last camp. Once more we camped by the river's side, with a fine range of mountains opposite, and a splendid view of the Reef Glaciers at the head of the valley. Resplendent and Robson were off to the west, but hidden behind intervening ridges. We had been hoping all day to see mountain goat, but found nothing but a wisp of wool on a bush above a salt lick.
The following morning we started down the Moose, with a succession of beautiful views up and down the valley. A deep creek which had been roughly bridged with logs gave us some trouble. One of the pack-horses—not the unfortunate Buckskin—went through, and it needed the united exertions of four men to get him out. The other horses, who had seen the accident and were still on the wrong side of the stream, refused to have anything to do with the bridge, and even after we had repaired it they were only with the utmost difficulty coaxed across one at a time.
| R. C. W. Lett SWIMMING THE ATHABASKA |
|
R. C. W. Lett
MAKING CAMP |
Finally we topped the last ridge, and looked down into the valley of the Fraser. The railway track, looking like a thread in the distance, seemed utterly unfamiliar after our few days on the trail. We had made a wide circle around Robson, starting from Robson station, and coming back to the railway at what was known to the construction gangs as "Mile 17." We had supper in Reading's Camp, near the mouth of Grant Brook, and took the eastbound train back to Jasper.
A day or two later we turned our faces toward the east, leaving behind more than one friend that we had learned to know and appreciate in the simple, human life of trail and camp-fire; and carrying with us eternal memories of this region of glorious mountains and pine-scented valleys, lakes of turquoise and emerald, rushing crystal streams, waterfalls innumerable, glaciers and snow-fields, rugged cliffs and green-clad slopes, rock-strewn ridges and flower-bedecked meadows, and of the marvellously clear and intoxicating air of the mountains lifting the soul out of the mire and attuning it to a purer and more noble outlook. We had had glimpses of these wonderlands of the Canadian West, and we were resolved that another day should see our footsteps once more turned toward the beckoning hills.
To-day, with the "storm-winds of autumn" rushing by from the east, we feel like saying, with Matthew Arnold:
| "Ye are bound for the
mountains— Ah, with you let me go Where your cold distant barrier, The vast range of snow, Through the loose clouds lift dimly Its white peaks in air— How deep is their stillness! Ah, would I were there!" |