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

In the meantime Dr. Hector made a branch expedition which has some incidents of interest in connection with it. He was accompanied at first by the indefatigable botanist, M. Bourgeau, and by three Red River men, besides a Stoney Indian, who acted as guide and hunter for the party. Eight horses sufficed to carry their instruments and necessary baggage, as it was not considered necessary to take much provision in those parts of the mountains which he intended to visit.

Some reference has already been made to Dr. Hector’s experiences in the vicinity of Banff, and we shall only give one or two of the more interesting details of his later travels. He left the Bow River at the Little Vermilion Creek, and followed this stream over the Vermilion Pass. The name of this pass is derived from the Vermilion Plain, a place where the ferruginous shales have washed down and formed a yellow ochre. This material the Indians subject to fire, and thus convert it into a red pigment, or vermilion.

Perhaps the most interesting detail of Dr. Hector’s trip is that which occurred on the Beaverfoot River, at its junction with the Kicking Horse River. The party had reached the place by following down the Vermilion River till it joins the Kootanie, thence up the Kootanie to its source, and down the Beaverfoot. Here, at a place about three miles from where the little railroad station known as Leanchoil now stands, Dr. Hector met with an accident which gave the name to the Kicking Horse River and Pass. A few yards below the place, where the Beaverfoot River joins the Kicking Horse, there is a fine waterfall about forty feet high, and just above this, one of Hector’s horses plunged into the stream to escape the fallen timber. They had great difficulty in getting the animal out of the water, as the banks were very steep. Meanwhile, Hector’s own horse strayed off, and in attempting to catch it the horse kicked him in the chest, fortunately when so near that he did not receive the full force of the blow. Nevertheless, the kick knocked Hector down and rendered him senseless for some time. This was the more unfortunate, as they were out of food, and had seen no sign of game in the vicinity. His men ever after called the river the Kicking Horse, a name that has remained to this day despite its lack of euphony.

FALLS OF LEANCHOIL.

To the transcontinental traveller, one of the most beautiful and inspiring points along the entire railroad is the descent of the Kicking Horse Pass from the station of Hector to Field. Here, in a distance of eight miles, the track descends 1000 feet, in many a curve and changing grade, surrounded by the towering cliffs of Mount Stephen and Cathedral Peak, while the rich forests of the valley far below are most beautiful in swelling slopes of dark green. Certainly, whoever has ridden down this long descent at breakneck speed, on a small hand-car, or railway velocipede, while the alternating rock cuts, high embankments, and trestles or bridges of dizzy height fly by in rapid succession, must feel at the same time a grand conception of the glories of nature and the triumphs of man. In striking contrast to this luxury of transportation was the old-time method of travelling through these mountains. The roaring stream which the railroad follows and tries in vain to descend in equally rapid slope is now one of the most attractive features of the scenery of the pass.

When Dr. Hector first came through this pass he had an adventure with one of his horses on this stream. They were climbing up the rocky banks of the torrent when the incident occurred. The horses had much difficulty in getting up, and in Hector’s own words, “One, an old gray, that was always more clumsy than the others, lost his balance in passing along a ledge, which overhung a precipitous slope about 150 feet in height, and down he went, luckily catching sometimes on the trees; at last he came to a temporary pause by falling right on his back, the pack acting as a fender. However, in his endeavors to get up, he started down hill again, and at last slid on a dead tree that stuck out at right angles to the slope, balancing himself with his legs dangling on either side of the trunk of the tree in a most comical manner. It was only by making a round of a mile that we succeeded in getting him back, all battered and bruised, to the rest of the horses.”

That night they camped at one of the lakes on the summit of the pass, but were wellnigh famished. A single grouse boiled with some ends of candles, and odd bits of grease, served as a supper to the five hungry men.

The next day they proceeded down the east slope and came to a river that the Indian recognized as the Bow. About mid-day the Stoney Indian had the good fortune to shoot a moose, the only thing that saved the life of the old gray that had fallen down the rocky banks of the Kicking Horse River, for he was appointed to die, and serve as food if no game were killed that day.

Here we shall take leave of Dr. Hector and the Palliser expedition, and only briefly say that Hector followed the Bow to its source and thence down the Little Fork to the Saskatchewan and so out of the mountains. The next year Dr. Hector again followed up the Bow River and Pipestone River to the Saskatchewan, and thence over the Howse Pass to the Columbia, where he found it impossible to travel either west or northwest, and was forced to proceed southward to the boundary.