Trees have, however, all the qualifications of living forever. There is no reason why a tree should ever die, were it not for some unnatural cause, such as the fury of a storm, the rending power of lightning, or the destructive influence of insects and parasites. In California, in the Mariposa Grove, some of the giant redwood trees are twenty-five hundred years old. They began to grow when Solon was making laws for the ancient Greeks. These wonderful groves of California are, however, exceptional, and have survived by reason of the clemency of the climate and the fact that the aromatic redwood is avoided by insects. In most forests, the laws of chance and probability rarely allow the sturdiest trees to run the gamut of more than a few hundred years, and if they attain a thousand years, it is their “fourscore—by reason of strength.”
In the Selkirks, one sees the ground covered with huge tree trunks in all stages of decay, slowly moldering away into a newer and richer soil; some have yielded to the natural processes of decay, others to accident or forest fires, while in some places winter avalanches have cut off the tops of the trees forty or fifty feet above the ground, and left nothing but a maze of tall stumps where once stood a noble forest.
The Selkirk forests are dense and sometimes almost magnificent in their luxuriance, and vastly surpass the forests of the eastern range in the variety of species, the size of the trees, and the luxuriant rankness of vegetable growth. At the same time they do not approach the almost tropical vigor and grandeur of the Pacific Coast forests, where a green carpet of moss covers the trunks and branches of the huge trees, and even ferns find nourishment in this rich covering, aided by the reeking, humid atmosphere, on branches forty or fifty feet above the ground. In such a forest, the ferns and brakes reach a height of six or eight feet above the ground, the various mosses attain a remarkable development, and hang in long, green tresses, a yard in length, from every branch, and exaggerate the size of the smaller branches, while the beautiful tufts of the Hypnum mosses appear like the fronds of small ferns, so large do they become.
The forests of the Summit Range, the Selkirks, and the Pacific Coast are almost perfect indexes of the humidity of the climate. The Selkirk forests are less vigorous than those of the Pacific coast, but more so than the light and comparatively open forests of the Summit Range, where the climate is much drier.
CHAPTER IX.
Mount Assiniboine—Preparations for Visiting it—Camp at Heely’s Creek—Crossing the Simpson Pass—Shoot a Pack-Horse—A Delightful Camp—A Difficult Snow Pass—Burnt Timber—Nature Sounds—Discovery of a Beautiful Lake—Inspiring View of Mount Assiniboine—Our Camp at the Base of the Mountain—Summer Snow-Storms—Inaccessibility of Mount Assiniboine.
Great interest was aroused among tourists in the summer of 1895, by the reports of a remarkable peak south of Banff named Mount Assiniboine. According to current accounts, it was the highest mountain so far discovered between the International boundary and the region of Mounts Brown and Hooker. Besides its great altitude, it was said to be exceedingly steep on all sides, and surrounded by charming valleys dotted with beautiful lakes. The time required to reach the mountain with a camping outfit and pack-horses was said to be from five to seven days.
The romance of visiting this wild and interesting region, hitherto but little explored, decided me to use one month of the summer season in this manner. By great good fortune I met, at Banff, two gentlemen likewise bent on visiting the same region, and on comparing our prospective plans, it appeared that mutual advantage would be gained by joining our forces. In this way we would have the pleasure of a larger company, and at the same time the opportunity of separating, should we come to a disagreement.