PAGE [Rundle Mountain and Bow River] 15 [Lake Louise (Looking toward chalet)] 31 [Anemones] 40 [A Cool Retreat in the Forest] 75 [Summit of Mount Temple] 115 [Glacier House] 120 [Peyto] 140 [Packing the Buckskin] 142 [Calypso] 143 [Approaching the Pass] 149 [North Lake (Looking northwest)] 157 [Haunt of the Mountain Goat] 165 [Mount Assiniboine (From northwest)] 167 [Lake on Vermilion Pass] 181 [Ready to March] 186 [Camp at Upper Bow Lake] 202 [The “Bay”] 214 [Falls of Leanchoil] 249
CAMPING IN
THE CANADIAN ROCKIES.
CHAPTER I.
Banff—Its Location—The Village—Tourists—Hotels—Topography of the Region—Rundle and Cascade Mountains—The Devil’s Lake—Sir George Simpson’s Journey to this Region—Peechee the Indian Guide—An Indian Legend—The Missionary Rundle—Dr. Hector—The Climate of Banff—A Summer Snow-Storm—The Mountains in Winter.
The principal resort of tourists and sportsmen in the Rocky Mountains of Canada is Banff. The location of the town or village of Banff might be briefly described as being just within the eastern-most range of the Rocky Mountains, about one hundred and fifty miles north of the International boundary, or where the Canadian Pacific Railway begins to pierce the complex system of mountains which continue from this point westward to the Pacific coast.
Banff is likewise the central or focal point of the Canadian National Park. There is so much of scenic interest and natural beauty in the surrounding mountains and valleys, that an area of some two hundred and sixty square miles has been reserved in this region by the government and laid out with fine roads and bridle-paths to points of special interest. Order is enforced by a body of men known as the Northwest Mounted Police, a detachment of which is stationed at Banff. This organization has been wonderfully effective for many years past in preserving the authority of the laws throughout the vast extent of northwestern Canada by means of a number of men that seems altogether insufficient for that purpose.
The small and scattered village of Banff occupies a flat plain near the Bow River. This large stream, the south branch of the Saskatchewan, one of the greatest rivers of North America, is at this point not only deep and swift but fully one hundred yards in width. A fine iron bridge spans the river and leads to the various hotels all of which are south of the village. The permanent population numbers some half thousand, while the various stores, dwellings, and churches have a general air of neatness and by their new appearance suggest the fact that the history of Banff extends back only one decade.
During the summer season, the permanent population of Banff is sometimes nearly doubled by a great invasion of tourists and travellers from far distant regions. Overland tourists from India, China, Ceylon, and England, the various countries of Europe and the Dominion of Canada, but chiefly from the United States, form the greater part of this cosmopolitan assemblage, in which, however, almost every part of the globe is occasionally represented. Some are bent on sport with rod or gun; others on mountaineering or camping expeditions, but the great majority are en route to distant countries and make Banff a stopping-place for a short period.
Arrived at Banff, the traveller is confronted by a line of hack drivers and hotel employes shouting in loud voices the names and praises of their various hotels. Such sights and sounds are a blessed relief to the tourist, who for several days has witnessed nothing but the boundless plains and scanty population of northwestern Canada. The chorus of rival voices seems almost a welcome back to civilization, and reminds one in a mild degree of some railroad station in a great metropolis. On the contrary, the new arrival finds, as he is whirled rapidly toward his hotel in the coach, that he is in a mere country village surrounded on all sides by high mountains, with here and there patches of perpetual snow near their lofty summits.