The approach also to this splendid range is exceptionally fine. From the east, as the traveller leaves Winnipeg and enters on the prairie, till he reaches the foot of the mountains at Morley, nearly nine hundred miles away, the broad endless spread of the open country is seen. On many this apparently desolate, never-ending expanse of rolling grassland produces a sensation of weariness. But it is like the open sea in its size, and, like the ocean, has a charm that ordinary country does not possess. Its very immensity gives a mystery to it: sometimes the air is clear as crystal, and the white clouds on the horizon seem to be touching some far-distant fold of the landscape; at others the plain dances in the heat, and great mirage lakes can be seen covering the middle distances; again, thunderstorms pass along the sky, whose piled masses of cumuli clouds send down ribbons of fire, often causing fires that sweep for miles over the open grassland. At early dawn and sunset, however, are produced the great scenic effects of the prairie, and to look down the sky from the zenith to the setting sun, a great red ball just disappearing below the horizon, and count the colours that light up the islands, bays, promontories, and continents of that marvellous cloudland, makes one forget that one is in a railway train, or has anything to do with everyday life; it is like actually seeing for the first time some fairyland that one has read of in one's childhood. Afterwards, when the full moon comes out, the distances seem almost greater, and one can lie comfortably in bed and gaze at the landscape sliding swiftly by, comparing the ease and rapidity of modern travel, which does hundreds of miles in one night, with that of the pioneers who first traversed these endless plains a century or more ago.
Near a station called Gleichen, the Rocky Mountains can be seen more than one hundred miles away, but it is not till one approaches them that it is recognised how abruptly they rise out of the prairie, like a long wall, with apparently not an opening; and, even when a few miles away, they seem an impenetrable barrier. The railway, however, follows the bank of the Bow river, which from its size must at least come down a moderate-sized valley, and just above where the Kananaskis, a side river, is crossed, a sudden bend of the line takes one through the gateway of the hills and the Bow valley is entered, which is then followed westward up to the Great Divide, or watershed, sixty miles away.
The approach to the Rocky Mountains from the Pacific coast is through country of a totally different nature. From Vancouver to the Great Divide is five hundred miles; along the whole of this distance the railway line is surrounded by the most splendid mountain scenery. At first the line runs up the great and broad valley of the Fraser river, which when seen in the light of a fine September afternoon is magnificent. For it is shut in on all sides by high mountains (one, Mount Baker, being 14,000 feet), and filled with such timber as only grows on the Pacific coast, all of it the natural forest, vast Douglas firs of giant girth, cedars, poplars, and maples, with their autumn-colouring of crimson, green, and gold, adding beauty to this lovely valley; whilst winding backwards and forwards across it, flows the vast flood of the Fraser. Certainly it is one of the finest large valleys I have ever seen. Then further up is the world-famous Fraser canyon, not so beautiful as the greater valley below, but grand and terrible in its own way. There are fiercer and bigger rivers and gorges in the Himalaya. Here it is that for over twenty miles the railway track has been hewn in many places out of the solid wall of the canyon, whilst below rush the pent-up waters of the great river, sometimes slowly moving onwards with only the occasional eddy coming up to the surface to show the depth of water, again rushing with wildest tumult between narrow walls of black rock, tossing up the spray, and foaming along, afraid that unless it hastened madly through its rock-girt channel the almost overhanging walls, hundreds of feet high, would fall in and prevent it ever getting down to the open sea. Leaving the valley of the Fraser, the railway follows the desolate gorge of the Thompson river, and after passing through a series of minor mountains, comes down to the valley of the Columbia river, which here is running almost due south. If it had been possible to have built the line up the Columbia valley to the Rocky Mountains, no doubt that route would have been followed, but the railway has been taken over the Selkirk range instead. It is whilst crossing the Selkirks that by far the most wonderful part of this mountain line is to be seen. From the Columbia to the summit there is a rise of 2800 feet, and the descent on the other side to the Columbia river again is 1775 feet in less than twenty miles. Here are to be seen the miles of snow-sheds through which the train has to go, whilst towering into the sky are all the white snow-peaks of the Selkirks, and the glaciers that almost come down to the railway itself.
From the Columbia to the Great Divide another ascent has to be made, this time of 2800 feet, and the last 1250 feet of this is done in the short distance of ten miles. It is not in any way exaggerating to say that these five hundred miles of line give by far the most extensive and varied wild mountain scenery that can be obtained from any railway train in the world. The Fraser valley, and canyon, the Selkirk Mountains, and the scenery of the Rocky Mountains, before the Great Divide is reached, are each one of them wonderfully beautiful, and each one of them possesses so much individuality of its own, that to forget the impressions they make would be impossible.
The Great Divide is at the watershed, or on the top of the Kicking Horse pass. One of the most curious features of the Canadian Rocky Mountains is the lowness of the passes, also their number. The average height of the mountains is between 10,000 and 11,000 feet, yet none of these passes are much over 6000 feet, so that the simplest way to describe the range is to take the various masses of mountains that lie between the passes.
Twenty miles south of the Kicking Horse pass lies first the Vermilion pass (5265 feet), next comes the Simpson pass (6884 feet), thirteen miles further south, thus giving three groups of mountains which can be named as follows:-
(1) The Temple group (or Bow range); and the
Goodsir group (or Ottertail range).
This group is south of the Kicking Horse
pass and north of the Vermilion pass.
(2) The Ball group, which lies south of the
Vermilion pass and north of the Simpson pass.
(3) The Assiniboine group, which lies south of
the Simpson pass.
North of the Kicking Horse pass the peaks and glaciers of the Rocky Mountains have been more carefully explored and for a greater distance than on the south side of the railway. It will be sufficient, however, only to mention the passes through the mountains which are to be found in that tract of country (120 miles long), lying south of the Athabasca pass, and north of the Kicking Horse pass. The first pass across the Rocky Mountains is the Howse pass, 4800 feet, and thirty miles north of the railway; thirty miles further north is the Thompson pass, 6800 feet; next comes Fortress Lake pass, thirty-five miles distant, and only 4300 feet high; and lastly, twenty-five miles further, still to the north, the Athabasca pass, 5700 feet. Thus if we omit the mountains north of the Athabasca pass, there are four more groups. Taking them in order, they are:—
(4) The Balfour group (or Wapta range), lying
between the Kicking Horse pass and the Howse pass.
(5) The Forbes group, lying between the Howse
pass and the Thompson pass.
(6) The Columbia group, lying between the
Thompson pass and the Fortress Lake pass.
(7) The Mount Hooker group, lying between the
Fortress Lake pass and the Athabasca pass.