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

READY TO MARCH.

Thus for several miles we enjoyed easy and rapid travelling. The weather was mild and pleasant, and my men seemed pleased at the prospect of another month or so in camp.

In the course of a few miles we came to the house of an old prospector. As this was the farthest outpost of civilization, and the old man was reported to be an interesting character, I entered the log-house for a brief visit. The prospector’s name was Hunter. I found him at home and was cordially welcomed. Here, in a state of solitude and absolute loneliness, with no lake or stream to entertain, and surrounded by a bristling maze of bleached bare sticks looking like the masts of countless ships in a great harbor, this man had spent several years of his life, and, moreover, was apparently happy. On his table I saw spread about illustrated magazines from the United States and Canada, newspapers, and books. The house was roughly but comfortably finished inside, and furnished with good chairs and tables evidently imported from civilization.

This isolated dwelling and its solitary inhabitant reminded me somewhat of Thoreau at Walden Pond. Like this lover of nature, Hunter enjoys his hermit life, which he varies occasionally by a visit to the village of Laggan. Hunter had the better house of the two men, but Thoreau must have had much more to entertain him, in his garden, and the beautiful lake with its constant change of light and shadow, and the surrounding forests full of well-known plants and trees, where his bird and animal friends lived in undisturbed possession.

No sooner had we taken leave of this interesting home of the old prospector, than the trail plunged into the intricacies of the burnt timber, and our horses were severely tried. Peyto and another man had been at work on this part of the trail for two days, very fortunately for us, as without some clearing we should not have been able to force our way through.

The fire had run through after the tote-road was built, so that the fallen timber now rendered it nearly impassable in many places. The forest fires have been much more frequent since the country has been opened by the whites, but it would be a great mistake to conclude that before the arrival of civilized men the country was clothed by an uninterrupted primeval forest. When we read the accounts of Alexander Mackenzie, and the earliest explorers in the Rocky Mountains, we find burnt timber frequently mentioned.

However, these accounts only cover the last one hundred years, and records of geology must be sought previous to 1793. Dr. Dawson mentions a place near the Bow River where forest trees at least one hundred years old are growing over a bed of charcoal made by an ancient forest fire. Another bank near the Bow River, not far from Banff, reveals seven layers of charcoal, and under each layer the clay is reddened or otherwise changed by the heat. Thus the oldest records carry us back thousands of years. The cause of these ancient fires was probably, in great part, lightning, and possibly the escaping camp fires of an aboriginal race of men.

Forest fires in the Canadian Rockies only prevail at one season of the year—in July, August, and September,—when the severe heat dries up the underbrush and fallen timber. Earlier than this, everything is saturated by the melting snows of winter, while in autumn the sharp frosts and heavy night dews keep the forests damp. According to the condition of the trees, a forest fire will burn sometimes slowly and sometimes with fearful rapidity. When a long period of dry, hot weather has prevailed, the fire, once started, leaps from tree to tree, while the sparks soar high into the air and, dropping farther, kindle a thousand places at once. The furious uprush of heated air causes a strong draught, which fans the fire into a still more intense heat. Sometimes whirlwinds of smoke and heated air are seen above the forest fires, and at other times the great mass of vapor and smoke rises to such a height that condensation ensues, and clouds are formed. In the summer of 1893, a forest fire was raging about five miles east of Laggan. Standing at an altitude of 9000 feet, I had a grand view of the ascending smoke and vapors, which rose in the form of a great mushroom, or at other times more like a pine tree,—in fact, resembling a volcanic eruption. Judging by the height of Mount Temple, the clouds rose about 13,000 feet above the valley, or to an altitude of 18,000 feet above sea-level. It was a cumulus cloud, shining brilliant in the sunlight, but often revealing a coppery cast from the presence of smoke. The ascending vapors gave a striking example of one of the laws of rising air currents. The tendency of an ascending column of air is to break up into a succession of uprushes, separated by brief intervals of repose, and not to rise steadily and constantly. The law was clearly illustrated by this cloud, which, at intervals of about five or six minutes, would nearly disappear and then rapidly form again and rise to an immense height and magnitude.

In the course of a few years after a forest fire has swept along its destructive course, the work of regeneration begins, and a new crop of trees appears. Sometimes the growth is alike all over the burnt region, young trees springing up spontaneously everywhere, and sometimes the surrounding green forests send out skirmishers, and gradually encroach on the burnt areas. Curiously enough, however, a new kind of tree replaces the old almost invariably. Out on the prairie the poplar usually follows the coniferous trees, but in the Rockies, where the poplar can not grow at high altitudes, the pines follow after spruce and balsam, or vice versa. The contest of species in nature is so keen that the slightest advantage gained by any, is sufficient to cause its universal establishment. This is probably due to the fact that the soil becomes somewhat exhausted in the particular elements needed by one species of tree, so that when they are removed by an unnatural cause, new kinds have the advantage in the renewed struggle for existence. Thus we have a natural rotation of crops illustrated in the replacement of forest trees.