Camping in the Canadian Rockies / an account of camp life in the wilder parts of the Canadian Rocky mountains, together with a description of the region about Banff, Lake Louise, and Glacier, and a sketch of early explorations.

by Walter Dwight Wilcox

It would be impossible to describe our feelings at this sight, which at length, after several days of severe marching, now suddenly burst upon our view. The shouts of our men, together with the excitement and pleasure depicted in every face, were sufficient evidence of our impressions. After a short pause, while we endeavored to estimate the height and distance and gain some true idea of the mountain, all moved on rapidly through alternating groves and meadows to our camping place. This was at length selected about a half mile from the place where we first saw Mount Assiniboine. Here was a lake nearly a mile long, which reached up nearly to the base of the mountain, from which it was separated by a glacier of considerable size. Our camp was on a terrace above the lake, near the edge of a forest. A small stream ran close to our tent, from which we could obtain water for drinking and cooking purposes. The lake was in the bottom of a wide valley, which extended northwards from our camp for several miles, and then opened into another valley running east and west. The whole place might be described as an open plain among mountains of gentle slope and moderate altitudes, grouped about Assiniboine and its immediate spurs.

Our camp was 7000 feet above sea-level, and this was the mean height of the valley in all this vicinity. On mountain slopes this would be about the upper limit of tree growth, but here, owing to the fact that the whole region was elevated, the mean temperature was slightly increased, and we found trees growing as high as 7400 or 7500 feet above sea-level. Nevertheless, the general character of the vegetation was sub-alpine. Many larches were mingled with the balsam and spruce trees in the groves, and extensive areas were destitute of trees altogether. These moors were clothed with a variety of bushy plants, mostly dwarfed by the rigor of the climate, while here and there a small balsam tree could be seen, stunted and deformed by its long contest for life, and bearing many dead branches among those still alive. These bleached and lifeless limbs, with their thick, twisted branches resisting the axe, or even the approach of a wood-cutter, resembled those weird and awful illustrations of Doré, where evil spirits in the infernal regions are represented transformed to trees.

Summit Lake, near Mount Assiniboine.

Curiously enough, the trees in the groves were more or less huddled together, as though for mutual protection. The outlying skirmishers of balsam or spruce were undersized, and often grew in natural hedges, so regular that not one single branchlet projected beyond the smooth surface, as if sensitive of the wind and cold. The vegetable world does not naturally excite our sympathy, but this exhibition of, as it were, a united resistance against the elements was almost pitiable.

Snow banks surrounded our camp and appeared everywhere in the valley. The lake was not entirely free of ice, and large pieces of snow and ice, dislodged from the shores, were drifting rapidly down the lake, driven on by a strong wind and large waves. The whole picture resembled a miniature Arctic sea, where the curiously formed pieces of ice, often T-shaped and arched over the water, recalled the characteristic forms of icebergs.

It was at first impossible to explain where this never-failing supply of ice came from. What was our surprise, on making an exploration of the lake, to find that it had no outlet and was rapidly rising! The snow banks and masses of ice near the glacier were being gradually lifted up and broken off by the rising water, and so floated down the lake.

We remained at Camp Assiniboine for two weeks. During this time we ascended many of the lesser peaks in the vicinity, and made excursions into the neighboring valleys on all sides. The smoke only lasted one day after our arrival, but, unfortunately, the weather during the first week was very uncertain and fickle. A succession of storms, very brief but often severe, swept over the mountains and treated us to a grand exhibition of cloud and storm effects on Mount Assiniboine. Sometimes the summit would be clear, and sharply outlined against the blue sky, but suddenly a mass of black clouds would advance from the west and envelope the peak in a dark covering. Long streamers of falling snow or rain would then approach, and in a few moments we would feel the effects at our camp. During these mountain storms the wind blows in furious gusts, the air is filled with snow or sometimes hailstones, while thunder and lightning continue for the space of about ten minutes. The clouds and storm rapidly pass over eastward, and the wind falls, while the sun warms the air, and in a few minutes removes every trace of hail or snow. Thus we were often treated to winter and summer weather, with all the gradations between, several times over in the space of an hour.

It seemed impossible to ascend Mount Assiniboine, guarded as it was by vertical cliffs and hanging glaciers. Only one route appeared on this side of the mountain, and this lay up the steep snow-covered slope of a glacier, guarded at the top by a long schrund and often swept by rocks from a moraine above. It might be possible, having gained the top of this, to traverse the great névé surrounding the rock peak of Mount Assiniboine. From the snow fields the bare rock cliffs rise about 3,000 feet. The angle of slope on either side is a little more than fifty-one degrees, a slope which is often called perpendicular, and, moreover, as the strata are horizontal, there are several vertical walls of rock, which sweep around the entire north and west faces, and apparently make impassable barriers.