... Soon the Rivière de Violon was heard brawling round the base of Roche à Perdrix and rushing on like a true mountain torrent to the Athabasca. We stopped to drink to the Queen out of its clear ice-cold waters, and halted for dinner in a grove on the other side of it, thoroughly excited and awed by the grand forms that had begirt our path for the last three hours. We could now sympathise with the daft enthusiast, who returned home after years of absence, and when asked what he had as an equivalent for so much lost time—answered only "I have seen the Rocky Mountains." ...
There was a delay of three hours at dinner because the horses, as if allured by the genii of the mountains, had wandered more than a mile up the valley, but at four o'clock all was in order again and the march resumed in the same direction. A wooded hill that threw itself out between Roches à Perdrix and à Myette had first to be rounded. This hill narrowed the valley, and forced the trail near the river. When fairly round it, Roche à Myette came full into view, and the trail now led along its base....
As we passed this old warder of the valley, the sun was setting behind Roche Suette. A warm south-west wind as it came in contact with the snowy summit formed heavy clouds, that threw long black shadows, and threatened rain; but the wind carried them past to empty their buckets on the woods and prairies.
It was time to camp, but where? The Chief, Beaupré, and Brown rode ahead to see if the river was fordable. The rest followed, going down to the bank and crossing to an island formed by a slew of the river, to avoid a steep rock, the trail along which was fit only for chamois or bighorn. Here we were soon joined by the three who had ridden ahead, and who brought back word that the Athabasca looked ugly, but was still subsiding, and might be fordable in the morning. It was decided to camp on the spot, and send the horses back a mile for feed. The resources of the island would not admit of our light cotton sheet being stretched as an overhead shelter, so we selected the lee side of a dwarf aspen thicket, and spread our blankets on the gravel, a good fire being made in front to cook our supper and keep our feet warm through the night. Some of us sat up late, watching the play of the moonlight on the black clouds that drifted about her troubled face, as she hung over Roche Jacques; and then we stretched ourselves out to sleep on our rough but truly enviable couch, rejoicing in the open sky for a canopy and in the circle of great mountains that formed the walls of our indescribably magnificent bed chamber. It had been a day long to be remembered.
[ 50. THE DESTINY OF CANADA (1873).]
Source.—Ocean to Ocean. (Cf. 49.)
From the sea-pastures and coal-fields of Nova Scotia and the forests of New Brunswick, almost from historic Louisbourg up the St. Lawrence to historic Quebec; through the great province of Ontario, and on lakes that are really seas; by copper and silver mines so rich as to recall stories of the Arabian Nights, though only the rim of the land has been explored; on the chain of lakes, where the Ojibbeway is at home in his canoe, to the great plains, where the Cree is equally at home on his horse; through the prairie Province of Manitoba, and rolling meadows and park-like country, equally fertile, out of which a dozen Manitobas shall be carved in the next quarter of a century; along the banks of
A full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,