Let us look for a moment at these gaps which Nature has formed through this mighty barrier. Twenty miles north of the boundary-line the Kootanie Pass traverses the Rocky Mountains.
The waters of the Belly River upon the east, and those of the Wigwam River on the west, have their sources in this valley, the highest point of which is more than 6000 feet above sea-level.
Fifty miles north of the Kootanie, the Kananaskiss Pass cuts the three parallel ranges which here form the Rocky Mountains; the height of land is here 5700 feet. Thirty miles more to the north the Vermilion Pass finds its highest level at 4903; twenty miles again to the north the Kicking Horse Pass reaches 5210 feet; then comes the House Pass, 4500 feet; and, lastly, the pass variously known by the names of Jasper’s House, Tête Jeune, and Leather Pass, the highest point of which is 3400 feet.
From the House Pass to the Tête Jeune is a little more than sixty miles, and it is a singular fact that these two lowest passes in the range have lying between them the loftiest summits of the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean.
The outflow from all these passes, with the exception of the one last named, seeks on the east the river systems of the Saskatchewan, and on the west the Columbia and its tributaries. The Tête Jeune, on the other hand, sheds its dividing waters into the Athabasca River on the east, and into the Frazer River on the west.
So far we have followed the mountains to the 53° of N. latitude, and here we must pause a moment to glance back at the long-projected line of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. As we have already stated, it is now nearly twenty years since the idea of a railroad through British America was first entertained. A few years later a well-equipped expedition was sent out by the British Government for the purpose of thoroughly exploring the prairie region lying between Red River and the Rocky Mountains, and also reporting upon the nature of the passes traversing the range, with a view to the practicability of running a railroad across the continent. Of this expedition it will be sufficient to observe, that while the details of survey were carried out with minute attention and much labour, the graver question, whether it was possible to carry a railroad through British territory to the Pacific, appears to have been imperfectly examined and, after a survey extending us far north as the Jasper’s House Pass, but not including that remarkable valley, the project was unfavourably reported upon by the leader of the expedition.
The reasons adduced in support of this view were strong ones. Not only had the unfortunate selection of an astronomical boundary-line (the 49th parallel) shut us out from the western extreme of Lake Superior, and left us the Laurentian wilderness lying north of that lake, as a threshold to the fertile lands of the Saskatchewan and the Red River; but far away to the west of the Rocky Mountains, and extending to the very shores of the Pacific, there lay a land of rugged mountains almost insurmountable to railroad enterprise.
Such was the substance of the Report of the expedition. It would be a long, long story now to enter into the details involved in this question; but one fact connected with “this unfortunate selection of an astronomical line” may here be pertinently alluded to, as evincing the spirit of candour, and the tendency to sharp practice which the Great Republic early developed in its dealings with its discarded mother. By the treaty of 1783, the northern limit of the United States was defined as running from the north-west angle of the Lake of the Woods to the river Mississippi along the 49th parallel; but as we have before stated, the 49th parallel did not touch the north-west angle of the Lake of the Woods or the river Mississippi; the former lay north of it, the latter south. Here was clearly a case for a new arrangement. As matters stood we had unquestionably the best of the mistake; for, whereas the angle of the Lake of the Woods lay only a few miles north of the parallel, the extreme source of the Mississippi lay a long, long way south of it: so that if we lost ten miles at the beginning of the line, we would gain 100 or more at the end of it.
All this did not escape the eyes of the fur-hunters in the early days of the century. Mackenzie and Thompson both noticed it and both concluded that the objective point being the river Mississippi, the line would eventually be run with a view to its terminal definitions, the Lake of the Woods and the Mississippi. In 1806, the United States Government sent out two Exploring Expeditions into its newly-acquired territory of Louisiana; one of them, in charge of a Mr. Zebulon Pike of the American army, ascended the Mississippi, and crossed from thence to Lake Superior. Here are his remarks upon the boundary-line. “The admission of this pretension” (the terminal point at the river Mississippi) “will throw out of our territory the upper portion of Red River, and nearly two-fifths of the territory of Louisiana; whereas if the line is run due west from the head of the Lake of the Woods, it will cross Red River nearly at the centre, and strike the Western Ocean at Queen Charlotte’s Sound. This difference of opinion, it is presumed, might be easily adjusted between the two Governments at the present day; but delay, by unfolding the true value of the country, may produce difficulties which do not now exist.”
The italics are mine.