Impressions of Mount Robson

Impressions of Mount Robson

By W. Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, March 1913. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec. 2015.

Mount Robson, said to be the highest peak yet discovered in the Canadian Rockies, is perhaps the most talked of mountain in America at the present time, and withal one of the least known. Until the new transcontinental railway, the Grand Trunk Pacific came within sight of it during last summer this spectacular peak was almost a myth to the general public. Even yet only about a score have been in at its base, and but one expedi­tion of two men has managed to reach its cloud-capped peak. From a distance of ten miles it overlooks the new railway through the Yellowhead Pass, and those few who have explored around its base declare that it is the centre of a new world of wonders. Regarding it as a mountain of impressions, Mr. Amy has endeavoured to present its effect upon him.—Editor

MOUNT Robson is essentially a mountain of impressions. From the craggy massiveness of its imposing base to the filmy clouds that con­ceal its peak, it is built for effect, a forcible suggestion of stability and omnipotence. To see it in its usual dress of veiled retirement is to camp humbly at, its feet, praying for a change of mood. To look on its peak and sides bathed in the splendours of a British Columbia sunset is to re­turn quietly to civilisation, still humble, but proud that in its might the mountain saw fit to uncover its head to you.

The towering mass of rock and snow and ice is a living personality. It is a king, an emperor, a god. Its natural state is dignified privacy. Its moments of unveiling are as the thriceloved smiles of kindly regal grace.

Our special train of government and railway officials was creeping slowly down the steep grade of the Fraser canyon on the way to a huge engineering difficulty in the Tete Jaune Valley. The warning had been given out by the superintendent that just ahead of us, around a mountain spur that pushed to the edge of the river, Mount Robson would come into view, and every face was turned to­wards the monster of the Yellowhead Pass. No faster than a man’s walk, we gingerly crawled down the moun­tain rails of recent construction, the rushing Fraser hundreds of feet be­low, and mountains crowding the car windows on the other side.

It was too slow a pace for approach to the storied mountain, and the min­utes passed wearily. The superin­tendent came from his private com­partment and we complained of the delay in Mount Robson’s appearance. The official glanced through the win­dow for a landmark. Then he lean­ed in close to the glass and looked up, far up, and pointed. “There,” he said. And the tension of the mo­ment threw into the voice of this workaday man the thrill of a drama­tic climax.

Up higher we looked, higher and higher. There, far above where any eye in the car had been searching gleamed dimly a whiteness of serrat­ed shades, a patch of dreamy solidity in a garment of fleecy clouds. Over the very car top it seemed to hang, so high was it; and yet to that peak was ten miles of air line.

In its frame of clouds it was like the pictured Yuletide dream of a hungry child. It was an intangible, implacable, ununderstandable spot in the heavens—something created for the eye of faith alone, a filmy revelation of promise and conviction, a lowering from Heaven of a touch of unknown glories.

Its effect on the group of watchers was but a sigh—the sincerest homage in man’s vocabulary. Even Mount Robson smiled. The clouds began to roll slowly aside, or rather to melt, as if the mountain had withdrawn them within itself as too intimate for dis­persion.

The spot of whiteness enlarged into less of vapour and more of gleam. The bright sunlight in which we bath­ed swung up and softly for a moment touched the peak. Then the moun­tain recovered its head but in ack­nowledgment of reverence pushed the lower clouds down until a black ridge came through the snow; then another and another, until in hard lines and spots of gray rock and black shadow the lower reaches came to view.

But always around the peak float­ed that vapour. Mount Robson was not prepared to come wholly forth. Its face was too much glory for a first view. Men have waited weeks for a glimpse of its peak and been forced to leave unsatisfied. Humble admir­ers have travelled for months for Mount Robson alone, and the peak has rebuked their worship by holding itself secluded. But one Power can melt those clouds—and man never forgets it in sight of the king of the Pass.

Gradually the train swung into line with the Grand Forks valley that leads to the very base of Mount Rob­son, and for miles we gazed back the rift over the tree tops to the rugged sides and shoulders that opened up in succession. The train stopped where a mountain stream had foiled the best efforts of the engineers; but only three men left the car to consi­der the problem.

One thought had come into mind at the moment the snowclad peak had peeped through the clouds. Awe was there—scorn for the puny things of men. And with it came almost a blush for the two men who dared to breast that height. Kinney shows to the world an intrepid mountain climber, a man of iron nerve and muscle and daring. But that first thrill of awe drove away even respect for the man who would break through those clouds, drive his hob nails into that virgin snow, glory in violating the mountain holy of holies. It was temerity, not bravery.

Mount Robson was not created to be climbed. Its purpose is fulfilled in the silent thoughts it brings, in the reverence it compels for that which is above man and his handiwork.

Mount Robson is the St. Sophia of mountaindom, earth’s contact point with Heaven.

At Tete Jaune we dropped the en­gineers; and in the evening the car, with but five aboard climbed the- grade for the little switch in the mountains where it would lie all night. It was a clear bright evening, as clear as only mountain air ean be, and on the platform of the car back­ing shakily upward we anxiously awaited Mount Robson’s mood.

Under any condition Mount Rob­son is grand. But there is nothing in man’s experience to prepare him for what broke forth around the curve as the car swung into line with the Grand Forks valley. For once, the only time in an extended visit, the mountain stood forth clear to the last inch of its peak. And then was vis­ible the reason for its position among mountains.

Veiled, it is the symbol of dignity and distinction. Awe and reverence and silent applause are its by right divine. Unclouded and clear there is almost the same grandeur; but in the watcher there is little awe, little humility. Instead of a sigh,, there breaks forth an exclammation of praise and wonder. The giant is still dignified, cold, superior; but it is the borrowed dignity of a May Queen, not of a god; the superiority of a cab­inet minister, not of a king.

In the picture Mount Robson was a piece by itself. The other moun­tains shrank aside to leave it the cen­tre of the stage. The highest peaks around were bare of snow, but Mount Robson was white to the waist. Down its gleaming sides splashed three glaciers, solid lines of white, ending in glistening bulbs that tried to reach out to the valley at its feet. The sun threw into relief every hollow and line in its craggy side. As reverence lessened the mountain glowed and obtruded like a crude splotch in a tremendous painting.

Mount Robson open to its top over­does the thing. It is bizarre, unusual, spectacular, a queen of the tender­loin. But always it is immutable, immovable, heavy, imposing. Its mood of dazzling brilliance is not its best. Its reluctance to unveil is know­ledge. One would not miss that blaze of radiance for all the wonders of the Pass; but it is happiness complete to look on it but once.

Man may push his way over the pathless wilds to the mountain’s foot, and there stand beneath a clifflike side that climbs thousands of feet straight above one’s head. He may listen in there to the roar of a thous­and avalanches where not even a tremble is seen. In cloud and sun­light, in snow and rain, in daylight and moonlight he may wait and watch for Mount Robson’s varying moods. But never will leave him the memory of that feeling of respect and humility that surged over him as his eyes went up and up from the car window to where there was thought of nothing but sky and Heaven.

Mount Robson’s feet are there to sit at. And sufficient for man is the world of wonders she unfolds for his delight and admiration. But Mount Robson’s peak is for man to guard as he would his religion. Man’s petty ambitions should not be sated up there where the clouds from above settle into fields of ice that bring down to earth the splendours of glacier and torrent and fall. Mount Robson’s feet, like rain, may be en­joyed without intruding on the workroom whence they spring.

Edmonton Casually

Edmonton Casually

By W. Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, April 1913. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, December 2015.

“THE East is East, and the West is West” in spite of the politicians, and it requires more than party and patriotism to line up a Western town according to Eastern ideas: but it is to its credit that in some of its heterodoxy the West has reverted to the original simplicity of childhood.

For instance, a Western town has an expression. It laughs or grouches, or invites, or frowns with anxiety and haste, or glowers with disappointment and disapproval—just like the face of a healthy child that has not learned to hide its feelings. In the East the face of a town is like that of a mummy, dead, masklike, uninteresting; or, like Toronto, it presents a cold profile of dignity, indifference and snobbishness. Every citizen, whether in East or West, reads into his town his own thoughts, but it takes the stranger to read the expression aright.

Take Edmonton. From the open arms of its wide streets to the frank interest of its pedestrians there is invitation. It is the invitation of friends and home and happiness. Calgary—if it is possible to bring the two cities thus close without a breach of the peace—Calgary is different; and that does not detract from the virtues of the southern city.

Calgary shows its profile, Edmonton its full face. Calgary is too much concerned in the future—not doubtful, but expectant—even to glance a welcome. You see, Calgary is busy every minute of its life making its future; Edmonton’s is there spread out before it. Edmonton can lie abed in the morning and watch itself grow. Nothing short of hari-kari can stop it; and even then its successor would arise within a few miles to the north.

It wasn’t always thus. Time was when Edmonton bit its finger nails and growled in impotent wrath at the southern city. When a Calgary paper reached the end of the railway northward the bars had to be closed to modify the riots. A few Edmonton papers travelled back, but Calgary has always had such supreme confidence in itself and its parts that nothing essential could appear in an outside paper. Edmonton papers came to town only as exchanges in the newspaper offices, where they were used as a text for to-morrow’s red-ink editorials. When The Edmonton——and The Calgary——had exchanged about two editorial remarks, the dictionary had to be combed for novelty of epithet.

But that was at least three years ago; and six months in Western Canada is a cycle. Now the representative baseball teams sometimes commence to play before the ambulance arrives, and through tickets are purchased from city to city without criminal proceedings. Each has discovered that its future rests with itself. Calgary is there to stay and stay big and important. And Edmonton looks away north and west and smiles contentedly. Once it was like the father of a large, young family, and had to hustle hard to make both ends meet. Now it can afford to smoke good cigars and let the family look after its dad.

About both cities there is infinite attraction. Calgary citizens are always rushing to a fire, and you simply have to get in on the excitement. Edmontonites are merrily skipping along to a rugby match, joyous, expectant, beckoning, contagiously laughing; and you can’t and don’t want to resist.

“Smile, damn it, smile,” says a card in a real estate window. There, that’s Edmonton.

The constituents of the city are as follows: Three real estate offices and a cafe, three real estate offices and a cafe, three real estate offices and a store. The figures may not be exact, but the principle is correct enough to show anxiety for the truth. They may not be the only ingredients of a universal appetizer, such as Edmonton, but they are the unpatented features and probably essential.

To the visitor the real estate office in Edmonton is not a cobweb with a seductive centre too enticing to be healthy, but a place that revels in window display. The Edmonton land office that confined itself to blue prints and maps would be only a restaurant next week. Dry goods and toy shops and clothing emporiums take second place in window dressing. One of three of the real estate offices fills the space with a meshed paper anaglyph of the site for sale. Stores, streets, rivers, bridges, railways with trains, steamboats, and even people, are there for inspection, and there arises in you an ambition to be one of them. In one window a few dollar bills protrude from a bit of the landscape, and it’s hard to resist the appeal of the growing money. Whirligigs, revolving wheels and lights, demand consideration. An unrushed passage down a street is punctuated by a pause before every other window to see more of that which has caught the eye.

The real estate agent of Edmonton is a brand-new brand of genius. But then Edmonton has mapped out its own scheme of existence from the first.

Even the employment agencies are different. A doorway would mean delay. Therefore, the agent sits on the sidewalk and hands out work as a soup kitchen does steaming bowls—no questions asked, and room for all. Edmonton has a waiting hand to grasp every loose labourer and to place him at work before he has a mind to make a selection. There is an opening somewhere within the rays of Edmonton for enough workmen to stop the factories of Ontario—and then there’d be room still for the unemployed employers.

Things up there are growing so fast that the place is always getting too big for its clothes.

On the streets is definiteness rather than rush. On the way to Strathcona a short train of a dozen cars holds up a score of rigs in its crossing of the roadway; but there is no swearing or disturbance. Every driver knows the time ahead of him. It takes more than a train to interfere with his destiny Each individual pedestrian is not an imminent menace; rather, he is a part of a steadily moving bulk, heavy, resistless, but following a definite course like a train. Only the street cars start and stop with a jerk, but that’s because there is not yet sufficient outlet for the over-supply of energy generated in that, vast northland.

There is no impression of dress. In the crowd mingles everything from the freshly shined tans to the hobnailed boots. There are many of the latter, for all the north radiates from Edmonton. A khaki shirt and prospector’s boots attract no more attention than a loose vest button. Everyone is a part of the whole, a part of a strong chain whose links are every nationality in the world, and every style of dress and appearance.

The life is disconcerting. A raw girl rides astride along the main street leading a red and white cow at the end of a rope; and you’re the only one to stop and look at her. Just a mile back her father is plowing a farm worth three thousand dollars an acre. Next year it will bring four, and he knows it. Two men in overalls and soiled shirts drive past in a phaeton of the early nineties. They are returning from the purchase of a block or two just off Jasper Avenue. The driver of the brick wagon is wondering whether he ought to sell now or wait until spring. The newsy on the corner has just made his last payment on a couple of lots and is willing to stop and talk subdivisions with authority.

You can’t tell in Edmonton by the hang of a coat or the grime on a face what the paper value of the owner may be. Driving a delivery waggon, or finding the appendix is his business only for the moment. Vocations are but the clothes. Inside, the clerk and the surgeon have the same real estate dreams—and usually the same realisations. Next year they’ll be racing automobiles and laughingly paying the fine. Even the bellboy at the hotel is a burgess.

Sunday is a day lost—to those who observe it. Edmonton does not need rest; a thoughtful moving body like that does not wear out its energies. Not that Edmonton breaks the Sabbath. Oh, no! Such tireless, complacent force as Edmonton never breaks anything. It just pushes it aside by sheer weight. The stores are closed, the “movies” quiet, but that force cannot be stopped. It gets out on the streets of a Sunday and tramps, tramps, tramps. It is there impressive as ever but more quiet and dignified. Laws cannot reasonably stop Edmonton and smelters on the seventh day. So the city moves on, principally along the heights, and looks across to Strathcona.

That is where Edmonton possesses an advantage over any other Western town. It has a view. Were there no other reason for Edmonton, that drop to the Saskatchewan justifies its location. The poolrooms and bars and other dens decried by reformers may be filled; but along the height is a greater crowd, enjoying in innocence the monopoly of the city at the northwest corner of civilisation. Some time, when real estate relaxes, Calgary will set out to deride that view, just as Toronto treats Hamilton’s mountain. Derision is a popular covering for jealousy.

Edmonton is sure of itself. Geography, experience, eyesight and common sense teach content.

A married daughter, leaving her father at the Edmonton station, begged a return visit next year. “No,” he said stubbornly, “I’ll not leave till I sell out.” He kicked the edge of the platform a moment thoughtfully before he went on “And then I’ll never go back to Ontario.”

He was recalling the expressionless mask of an Eastern town, and it had no attraction for him after Edmonton’s smile of welcome.

By Car and Cowcatcher Part 2

By Car and Cowcatcher

Part II.

From Murray’s Magazine, 1 February 1887, VOL. I., NO. III. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, Dec. 2015.

This is an interesting article, penned by the wife of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Miniter. It is often referred to but I believe this is the first time it is posted on the web!!! Just as a note, when she refers to 'cars', the reference is to a train car./drf

From Calgary to Laggan I had travelled in the car of the engine, accompanied by a victimized official. Perched on a little feather bench, well in front, and close to the small windows, I had enjoyed an excellent opportunity of seeing everything. Besides this, I had gained a great deal of useful information about engines, boilers, signals, &c., which may come in “handy” some day. During our stoppages the engineer and firemen had not failed to explain these things, and I had even ventured to whistle “caution” at a “crossing.” The signal went very well for an amateur, but the Chief’s quick ear had detected a falter and at the next halt he sent a peremptory message, desiring me “not to play tricks,” which, addressed to a discreet matron, was really quite insulting. I had even questioned the engineer as to the probable effect of a bad collision while I occupied this post. He promptly suggested, “most likely killed;” and added reflectively, as he carefully oiled an already dripping valve, “which would be a bad job”!

When I announced my desire to travel on the cowcatcher, Mr E—seemed to think that a very bad job indeed. To a sensible, level-headed man as he is, such an innovation on all general rules of travelling decorum was no doubt very startling. He used many ineffectual persuasions to induce me to abandon the idea and almost said I should not run so great a risk; but at last, being a man of few words, and seeing time was nearly up, he so far relented as to ask what I proposed using as a seat. Glancing round the station platform I beheld a small empty candle-box lying near, and at once declared that was “just the thing.” Before Mr. E—could expostulate further, I had asked a brakesman to place the candle-box on the buffer-beam, and was on my way to the “Jamaica” to ask the Chief’s permission. The Chief, seated on a low chair on the rear platform of the car, with a rug over his knees and a magazine in his hand, looked very comfortable and content. Hearing my request, after a moment’s thought, he pronounced the idea “rather ridiculous,” then remembered it was dangerous as well, and finally asked if I was sure I could hold on. Before the words were well out of his lips, and taking permission for granted by the question, I was again standing by the cow­catcher, admiring the position of the candle-box, and anxiously asking to be helped on.

Before I take my seat, let me try, briefly, to describe the “Cowcatcher.” Of course every one knows that the buffer-beam is that narrow, heavy iron platform, with the sides scooped out, as it were, on the very fore-front of the engine over which the headlight glares, and in the corner of which a little flag is generally placed. In English engines, I believe, the buffers proper project from the front of this beam. In Canadian engines another sort of attachment is arranged, immediately below the beam, by which the engine can draw trains backwards as well as forwards. The beam is about eight feet across, at the widest part, and about three feet deep. The description of a cowcatcher is less easy. To begin with, it is misnamed, for it catches no cows at all. Sometimes, I understand, it throws up on the buffer-beam whatever maimed or mangled animal it has struck, but in most cases it clears the line by shoving forward, or tossing aside, any removable obstruction. It is best described as a sort of barred iron beak, about six feet long, projecting close over the track in a V shape, and attached to the buffer-beam by very strong bolts. It is sometimes sheathed with thin iron plates in winter, and acts then as a small snow-plough.

Behold me now, enthroned on the candle-box, with a soft felt hat well over my eyes, and a linen carriage-cover tucked round me from waist to foot. Mr. E—had seated himself on the other side of the headlight. He had succumbed to the inevitable, ceased further expostulation, disclaimed all responsibility, and, like the jewel of a Superintendent he was, had decided on sharing my peril! I turn to him, peeping round the headlight, with my best smile. “This is lovely,” I triumphantly announce, seeing that a word of comfort is necessary, “quite lovely; I shall travel on this cowcatcher from summit to sea!”

Mr. Superintendent, in his turn, peeps round the headlight and surveys me with solemn and resigned surprise. “I—suppose—you—will,” he says slowly, and I see that he is hoping, at any rate, that I shall live to do it!

With a mighty snort, a terribly big throb, and a shrieking whistle, No. 374 moves slowly forward. The very small population of Laggan have all come out to see. They stand in the hot sunshine, and shade their eyes as the stately engine moves on. “It is an awful thing to do!” I hear a voice say, as the little group lean forward; and for a moment I feel a thrill that is very like fear; but it is gone at once, and I can think of nothing but the novelty, the excitement, and the fun of this mad ride in glorious sunshine and intoxicating air, with magnificent mountains before and around me, their lofty peaks smiling down on us, and never a frown on their grand faces!

The pace quickens gradually, surely, swiftly, and then we are rushing up to the summit. We soon stand on the “Great Divide” 5300 feet above sea-level—between the two great oceans. As we pass, Mr. E—by a gesture, points out a small river (called Bath Creek, I think) which, issuing from a lake on the narrow summit-level, winds near the track. I look, and lo! the water, flowing eastward towards the Atlantic side, turns in a moment as the Divide is passed, and pours westward down the Pacific slope!

Another moment and a strange silence has fallen round us. With steam shut off and brakes down, the 6o-ton engine, by its own weight and impetus alone, glides into the pass of the Kicking Horse River, and begins a descent of 2800 feet in twelve miles. We rush onward through the vast valley stretching before us, bristling with lofty forests, dark and deep, that, clinging to the mountain side, are reared up into the sky. The river, widening, grows white with dashing foam, and rushes downwards with tremendous force. Sun­light flashes on glaciers, into gorges, and athwart huge, towering masses of rock crowned with magnificent tree crests that rise all round us of every size and shape. Breathless—almost awe-stricken—but with a wild triumph in my heart, I look from farthest mountain peak, lifted high before me, to the shining pebbles at my feet! Warm wind rushes past; a thousand sunshine colours dance in the air. With a firm light hand grasping the iron stanchion, and my feet planted on the buffer beam, there was not a yard of that descent in which I faltered for a moment. If I had, then assuredly in the wild valley of the Kicking Horse River, on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, a life had gone out that day! I did not think of danger, or remember what a giddy post I had. I could only gaze at the glaciers that the mountains held so closely, 5000 feet above us, at the trace of snow avalanches which had left a space a hundred feet wide massed with torn and prostrate trees; on the shadows that played over the distant peaks; and on a hundred rainbows made by the foaming, dashing river, which swirls with tremendous rapidity down the gorge on its way to the Columbia in the valley below.

There is glory of brightness and beauty everywhere, and I laugh aloud on the cowcatcher, just because it is all so delightful!

We have left the North-West Territories, and are now in the Province of British Columbia. Field—Ottertail—Leanchoile flit past us. Steam has been up for ten miles now; we have left the Kicking Horse Pass behind us and are gliding into the wide Columbia Valley, full of rich, new beauty, of green tall waving grass and blue water. A lower range of the Rockies, streaked and capped with snow, stretches away on either side. The road­way is very level, and the rails gleam before us, narrowing in a distant point to a silver thread. I hear the engineer piling in fuel, and whistle with shrillest note. Then, with trebly quickened pace, we dart along in the sunshine. For a second only I feel a quickening of the heart-pulse, and a hot colour mounts to my face, but it is gone in a moment, and I am none the worse for that “spurt” at the rate of fifty miles an hour.

Halted at Palliser. The Chief and his friends walked up to the cowcatcher to make a morning call. I felt a little “superior” and was rather condescending. Somewhat flushed with excitement, but still anxious to be polite, I asked “would the Chief step up and take a drive?” To the horror of the bystanders he carelessly consented, and in another moment had taken the place of Mr. E—, the latter seating himself at our feet on the buffer-beam. There was a general consternation among our little group of friends and the few inhabitants of Palliser—the Chief rushing through the flats of the Columbia on a cowcatcher! and, worse still, possibly even among the wild Selkirk Mountains—those mountains of which scarcely three years before, in his charming book, ‘From old Westminster to New,’ my friend Mr. Sandford Fleming had said, “no one has been through the western slope of the Selkirks”! Every one is horrified. It is a comfort to the other occupant of the buffer to find some one else wilful, and as we steamed away towards Donald, at the eastern base of the Selkirks, I felt not so bad after all!

The Columbia Valley is very charming, heavy clumps of trees breaking its cool, green surface. A quiet little paradise it looks, lying clasped between two mountain ranges. The Columbia River said to be 1200 miles long, rises in the Rockies, passes through the levels between the two mountain ranges, and finally flows southward into American territory. It is crossed by the C. P. R. nine or ten times.

Our days now begin to seem “always in the afternoon.” We have gained three hours since arriving at Port Arthur, on the eastern end of Lake Superior; and my travelling clock, which is still Ottawa time, is now three hours slow. It was set by eastern standard time, which extends to Port Arthur. Central standard time is then in use, with its added hour, for 694 miles to Broadview. There, by mountain standard time, we gain another hour, and enjoy it for 759 miles to Donald. At Donald we feel our lives are perceptibly lengthening by the arrival of Pacific standard time, which gives us a “last hour” until we reach the sea.

But still further liberties have been taken with old Father time, hitherto considered so inexorable. Discarding the old-fashioned A.M. and P.M. the officials and time-tables of the Canadian Pacific count their hours as numbers go, so that 1 P.M. is Thirteen o’clock, 2 P.M. Fourteen o’clock—reaching twenty-four o’clock at midnight. It is very convenient, and far more expressive than the old figures, which oblige one to stop and think—is it morning or evening? But I must confess the “Jamaica’s” cook, little John, looked decidedly astonished when I first ordered dinner at sharp 20 o’clock.

To secure for our party an uninterrupted view of the country through which the Canadian Pacific passes from Winnipeg to Vancouver, arrangements had been made by which our Special remained stationary at night. It was also kindly managed that a Superintendent always travelled with us, and though we had sorrowfully parted with Mr. E—at Donald, he had been well replaced, and his successor agreed to our plan of travelling from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. An early cup of tea left us good appetites for a very substantial breakfast at 11.30, during an hour’s halt, when the railway “hands” dined at some station to which their supplies had been telegraphed for, or from their own com­missariat arrangements in the baggage car. Between 5 and 6 o’clock we always managed to tarry for afternoon tea, and when comfortably settled on a siding for the night, dinner was announced about 8.30. Our small porter, who, though hardly five feet high, was full of energy and skill, kept the table very well provided. He foraged for supplies on every occasion, was always greatly distressed when anything lacked, and required consolation instead of reproof when matters went wrong in the cooking department.

To resume the journey. Our destination to-night is Revelstoke, at the western base of the Selkirks, 78 miles from Donald at the eastern base. Towards Revelstoke we are now travelling, and as the train nears the valley or pass by which the mountains are entered, we find their towering outlines in some degree obscured by the smoke of forest fires which, owing to the unusually dry season, have burned unchecked for some weeks past. The spark from a passing engine, a “Smudge” or small smoky fire, lit by railway labourers to keep off mosquitoes, or a neglected camp-fire, spreads so rapidly among the brushwood, twigs, and fallen leaves in these vast forests, that large tracts of magnificent woodland are destroyed in a short time, and the atmosphere becomes smoky and dull for miles and miles around.

Leaving the north branch of the Columbia we strike sharply westward, and enter the “Beaver” pass, which leads towards the summit of the Selkirk Range. A prospect wildly magnificent lies before us as we ascend. Impressions formed on a buffer-beam are difficult to convey; I almost despair of conveying mine. Imagine thundering along upon the front of a railway engine, in the heart of a stupendous mountain range! Hundreds of feet above us, forest-covered heights tower grandly; forest-filled valleys lie hundreds of feet below. Looking upwards and beyond these masses of darkly wooded mountains, I see near me glaciers glittering in sunlight, and ranges of cliffs, streaked, tipped or outlined with snow around them. Looking far away below and still onward, I see trackless valleys stretching to the sunset between gigantic mountains—the soft afternoon light crimsoning the mist that floats about them. In the sky, on every side rise tall serrated peaks, from which glaciers slope and pinnacles gleam with strange, unearthly beauty. As the train winds sharply round the mountain sides, always along a steep precipice, every possible sense of fear is lost in wonder and delight.

We are now 5000 feet above the sea-level, in Rogers’ Pass—so called from the discoverer, Major Rogers. His explorations, carried on only about five or six years ago amid incredible hardships, and with undaunted perseverance, proved that a practicable pass led from the valleys of the Beaver and a small stream called the Bear over the summit of the Selkirks, and down the western slope through the valley of the Ille-cille-waet River. Perhaps no part of the line is more extraordinary, as evincing daring engineering skill, than this Pass, where the road-bed curves in loops over trestle-bridges of immense height, at the same time rapidly descending. In six miles of actual travelling the train only advances two and half miles, so numerous are the windings necessary to get through this canyon.

As I sit looking forward down the Pass I can see long trestle-bridges below, and yet on a line with the one we are crossing at the moment! They show above the forest, sharply distinct, so far below, that for a moment my heart beats quickly as I feel the brakes tighten, and the engine bear on with a quiet, steady, slower rush round and down and over, while I look through the trestle-beams into the hurrying foam of waters 150 feet below.

Over Surprise Creek the trestle is 180 feet high, but I peeped down into it quite unconcernedly, not without a certain satisfaction to find I had such a “good head.” At Stoney Creek the trestle is 286 feet above a most glorious ravine. The effect was here much heightened by huge, vapoury smoke-clouds hanging in fantastic shapes about the immense valley, and a certain vagueness of distant misty outline which, in the warm tender evening light, was inexpressibly beautiful. At no spot did we find anything more magnificent than the view before us at Stoney Creek. Truth compels me to say I crossed this trestle on foot—from no nervous reluctance, however. A hundred feet or so make no difference after a little experience in looking through and over trestle-bridges from a cowcatcher? The Chief wanted to inspect this bit of work, and the train halting for the purpose, some of the party walked over, of whom I was one.

Our journey through these passes was full of pleasant little incidents, too numerous to mention here. “Construction” being hardly yet finally completed through the Selkirks, gangs of labourers were still at work. Some of their temporary homes, in stationary railway cars on sidings built for the purpose, were not so picturesque as the hamlets inhabited by others where log cabins nestled under tall cedars, and tents were pitched by rippling streams.

It was pleasant to see the warm welcome given to the Chief by these “dwellers in the wilderness.” As the Special passed, and the Chief was observed sitting on the end platform, the echoes rang with their lusty cheers. Expecting his arrival (the Special was of course telegraphed from station to station), they were generally found standing by twenties and thirties on their car roofs, in angles of rock, and even in overhanging trees, saluting him with loud huzzas. In some places the labour-gangs, busy on the road-bed, gave kindly welcome by standing in line, waving pick and shovel in default of flags, and in quieter spots two or three solitary workmen would run together on some high bank above us, and cheer vociferously.

A new feature in the landscape hereabouts were the camps of Chinese labourers—a certain air of neatness about them; their poor tents carefully pitched and closed; their tin cooking-vessels, sand-rubbed and shining, generally arranged on rustic tables just outside. We saw large numbers of these singular-looking people working in gangs under a white superintendent, not only on the road-bed, but in building snow-sheds, which are found necessary for winter travel. We were told that an ingenious railway superintendent had suggested taking the summer line outside the snow-sheds, so that the scenery might not be hidden from view, which bright idea is, I believe, to be carried out forthwith.

These Chinese navvies, all ridiculously alike in form and feature, wearing queer little blue-and-white gowns, baggy trousers, wooden shoes, and thick flat straw hats, give a foreign air to the scene. Standing mute, wide-eyed and expressionless, their shovels all held at the same angle, ready to begin on the gravel the instant we had passed, they had a curious effect, as of some mechanical apparatus with an awful semblance of humanity. And yet we know theirs is the oldest civilization in the known world! How fortunate it is that all nations do not express civilization in the same way!

As we go onward, smoke increases around us; the smell of burning wood grows disagreeable, and as evening falls we can see tall trees in the distance glowing with flame, and tracts of level ground hotly smoking. It was sad to behold what had been lofty cedars prostrate in charred masses, and fire steadily advancing among the bright blueberry patches, the tall bracken covers, and the tangled growth of wild flowers and fern.

Near one of these places we had a little adventure. As we swept into a narrow valley, almost overhung with trees, the smoke seemed to grow dense before us, and in the centre of the track appeared a little red flag. I knew enough of “flagging” signals to understand this meant “Danger,” and in an instant after I felt the brakes tighten. Clutching the friendly iron bar closely lest I should be “spun off” by the impetus of a halt, I peered forward as we “slowed,” and beheld distant flame reddening the. gloom beyond. A signalman appeared as we came to a standstill. He was one of a small gang told off to watch the fires and prevent them spreading to the sleepers, or in any way injuring the track. Telling the engineer that, a little farther on, fire had advanced quite near the line, he ran back to his post. Here was a delightful opportunity for a new sensation! One of our party was by my side on the cow­catcher, and agreed to face the rush. The engineer went on to inspect, and returned very dubious about the safety of our position at all events; but I succeeded so well in impressing him with an idea of our safety, that he made preparations to go forward. And a very new and very hot sensation it certainly was to fly through a bush-fire on a cowcatcher, as we did, with bent heads and closely gathered skirts, to avoid breathing the heated air or catching fire.

Since the time of our journey, however, the road has been entirely completed, and so large a space cleared on either side the line, that fallen trees or flames at close quarters are impossible.

The wild and magnificent canyon of the Ille-cille-waet is now leading us to Revelstoke, at the second crossing of the Columbia. This river, rising in Rogers’ Pass, pours through a grand defile in wild rapids, enclosed by majestic mountains, surging past rocky and gravelly shores, as it leaps and foams onward through a tangled mass of vegetation. We cross and recross the stream several times. Everywhere, as usual, lovely snowy peaks, crests, walls and slopes, tower above forest, river, and wild gorge, and rest against the sky. The evening shadows that shroud the canyon, darken the water, and creep up the mountain side, leave these delicious outlines untouched; they only seem to grow dim, as the stars come out and encircle each fading tip with gems.

The gloom is profound after nightfall; but we are very happy at Revelstoke “on the siding.” Little John, the porter, has provided a splendid dinner, spite of his dejection caused, I believe, from seeing no prospect of getting fresh eggs for breakfast!

I was glad when we moved out next morning, and left Revelstoke to her smoky solitude. The weather was clear and cool. Above the mist I could see the sky pearly blue, and the air was fragrant with the odour of pine and spruce.

Following the valley of the Eagle River, we wind gaily through the cedar forests of the Gold Range, gemmed with lakes blue and shining, its tall, darkly clothed summits often lit by small cascades gleaming through the trees. Crossing and recrossing the Eagle River seven or eight times, we reach the Sicamous Narrows, into which its dark hurrying waters are emptied. We presently sweep into an immense valley, through which, for many miles, the line skirts beautiful stretching lakes—grand sheets of blue water, glacier fed, lying in the folds of the Gold Range, These lakes close, as it were, into the. south branch of the Thompson River. Many tunnels lie in our way as we rush by them, and during a halt I am told one of the tunnels is “wet.” This being interpreted, means that the arching rock is full of springs, which pour on the train as it passes. An umbrella and waterproof are therefore necessary for me,—now sole occupant of the cowcatcher; and with praiseworthy economy I take off my hat, tuck it safely under my wraps, and prepare to encounter the “wet” tunnel thus equipped! We plunge into a few moments’ darkness,—water splashing and dripping on every side; and as we emerge into sunlight again, and stop just beyond the tunnel, I see a party of young English sportsmen standing near the roadside. They have evidently just climbed the bank, guns in hand, leaving a large canoe with two Indian paddlers on the lake below. Fine, tall young Saxons they are, in sporting attire somewhat the worse for long travel, but very conventional in style notwithstanding. Just imagine the feelings with which these well-regulated young men beheld a lady, bareheaded, and with an umbrella, seated in front of an engine, at the mouth of a tunnel in the Gold Range of British Columbia! I am sorely afraid I laughed outright at the blank amazement of their rosy faces, and longed to tell them what fun it was; but not being “introduced, you know,” I contented myself with acknowledging their presence by a solemn little bow—which was quite irresistible under the circumstances!

A somewhat similar incident occurred next day during our journey in the valley of the Fraser River. The Special stopped at a station where a mule train was just starting for some distant gold mines, laden with miners’ supplies. It was very interesting to see the sturdy animals all packed and ready, standing in regular order, waiting for the word of command from their driver, which they instantly obeyed, all filing along at equal distances with the air of quadrupeds of superior intelligence, who had made up their minds to avoid hurry or confusion. It chanced to be one of our halts at tea-time, and, as usual, my cup of tea and slice of bread-and-butter were brought to the buffer-beam. I had just been presented with two large bouquets which lay in my lap. While I leisurely sipped my tea, there suddenly appeared before me a very thin, tall, melancholy-looking American, having something to do with the pack train now slowly winding off through the mountains. Never shall I forget the expression in that man’s face as he steadily regarded me, seated com­posedly on the cowcatcher, surrounded with flowers, a plate of bread-and-butter on a candle-box near by, taking afternoon tea. To remain silent was impossible.

“Good evening,” I said.

The man nodded, and drew a long breath.

“Have you came far?” he asked, after a long pause.

“From other side of the Rockies,” I answered carelessly, as if speaking of a stroll round a village—“three hundred miles or so.”

“Did you come that way down the Thompson?” he next asked, a little anxiously.

“O yes—and I am going to the sea.”

“You ain’t afraid likely?” he continued, looking more melan­choly than ever.

“Not at all.”

“Now, look here,” he said, pausing between each word, “it’s real dangerous. I would not do this thing for a lot of money!” then, thrusting his hands into his pockets with a civil, “Good evening, Missis,” he disappeared round the engine!

But I must now go back to the Special, which has by this time reached Kamloops, where the north branch of the Thompson joins the branch we have been travelling near, and they flow to­gether—one beautiful Thompson!—to join the Fraser at Lytton.

Ninety-four miles of the C. P. R. lie between Kamloops and Lytton. At Kamloops the scenery changes abruptly and entirely. From thence through the canyon of the Thompson to Lytton, where we strike the canyon of the Fraser, we seem in a different world. Huge sand-hills, almost devoid of grass, roll in uniform succession on either side the wide, rapidly flowing river. Some of these hills are thinly covered with short coarse bunches of greyish grass; a peculiar kind of red pine-tree clothes others from base to crown. These trees stand apart in curious rows, as if they had been set in line, and, mounting the steep hillsides, all leaning one way, have the effect of a large army toiling upward and around the mighty canyon’s fold as far as eye can see.

Remarkable contrasts of colour make these parts very striking. The country sloping away before me in billowy sandhills, which wear every tint of brown from pale to chocolate, is brightened only by the Thompson’s brilliant green waters, and arched over by a sort of dull China-blue sky. At some distance above Kamloops we had passed over green park-like flats ex­tending to the water on the right. Through these we had made good time, and pleasant it was to be flying across that new country in warm sunlight!

In this section of the canyon rain scarcely ever falls, which, accounts for the remarkable brown tint visible everywhere. There are indeed very green fields—large emerald patches—which are irrigated at great cost from the heights above. The diligent Chinamen own most of these bright spots, to which a new charm is added by their brown surroundings. We were told at a station near Kamloops that only two heavy showers of rain had fallen in nine years, which I felt to be another injustice to poor Ireland, who has so many more showers than are good for her!

Never to be forgotten is that ride, all alone, on the cowcatcher down the valley of the Thompson! Though strong of nerve and will, the sight of those slender rails—always on a heavy down grade—gleaming on the precipice brink as far as I could see ahead, was somewhat startling—not a bush or blade to break the edge of the stern declivities, or to soften the dull-coloured steeps that rose from the ledge we travelled on. How­ever, no failing of heart—no reeling of brain must be allowed. No human succour could come near—no cry could be heard, no sign seen—but then! how glorious was the feeling of daring risk, the thrill of shooting downwards with the flashing of sunlight and the glancing of water before me, and that immense shadowless expanse at my feet!

At Lytton we enter the Fraser canyon, and pass from green to dark-brown waters, rolling fiercely with tremendous impetus through mountains and gorges that in dim evening light look positively awful!

We stay an hour at Lytton, a small place where we are gazed at by many Chinese, and proceed to North Bend, at which being a divisional point, we stop for the night.

Having lingered, too long at Lytton, we soon find darkness closing around us in that tremendous canyon which for twenty-seven miles holds the Fraser in its depths, and along the side of which we now travel, mere specks in that vast solitude of mountain-precipice, black with wild rugged rocks, and awful with immense shadows. The train proceeds slowly. A lookout man sits with me on the buffer-beam, and the Comptroller, unmindful of his interesting young family at home in Ottawa with an admirable sense of duty, shares with us the risks of that night-ride along the Fraser!

Our present Superintendent, who joined us at Kamloops, exhausted a dictionary of entreaty that I would abandon the buffer-beam, and has now retired, in useless indignation, to the comforts of his private car. I am perfectly aware it is exceedingly dangerous, and that the smallest jar from a stone on the track, a too sudden curve, or the slightest giddiness or loss of strength, will almost certainly end my mortal career; but the wild spell of the moment is strong upon me, and I sit watching the stars gleam out over the mountain crests and the foam flash white 150 feet below, with a moved and swelling heart! How mysterious it all is—how awful in its silence as we stop midway, and I stand erect on the cowcatcher to look at the grand shadow-covered outlines that soar into the night sky!

“Just here,” says a voice at my elbow, “Bill Jones went clean over.”

This is very sepulchral, but I know the speaker is the look-out-man, and ask anxiously, “What happened?”

“Bill was running a gravel train,” the voice goes on,—“left the car at North Bend, and was bound for Lytton—full tilt with the engine right along here.” I see a hand point to the wooded precipice 100 feet down:—“She took a jump, and went down head first into the river—Bill and all. The brakesman, he jumped off; but Bill was awful shook.”

“Not killed?”

“Oh, no; he’s living down in Yale, serving out drugs—all right, only his broken leg ain’t so long as the other.”

Pondering on this remarkable story, and wondering at Bill’s good luck in escaping so well, I travel a mile or two further, enjoying the soft night wind as it rushes against my face, the odour of dewy leaves, the sound of rushing water, and the beauty of that starry strip of sky above, in contrast with the dark mountain’s edge—when suddenly, a series of sharp, pistol-like shots burst around us, and I feel the brakes clasping. Another instant and we are enveloped in a fog, as it seems to me, which rises all round us after a mysterious sound of rushing, that has hardly ceased when we stop. A signal man comes forward out of the gloom, holding his lamp aloft. The conductor is before us in an instant. “What is wrong?” he asks. Only a little landslip, bringing gravel and stones on the track, which have to be cleared before we can go on our way, but telling only too plainly of possible danger to passengers on the cowcatcher, should one of the larger stones, dislodged from the mountain side, throw our engine from the track.

Pleasant was the warm brightness of the “Jamaica,” as I entered it at North Bend, very hungry, somewhat tired, but triumphant. The Chief was much interested in my account of the “front view,” as we sat talking; but I grew drowsy in the middle of my story, and found myself wandering on about Bill Jones engine, and the stars above the mountain, in a confused sort of way that suggested it was time for tired travellers to go to bed.

Our last day’s journey, from North Bend to Port Moody, is most interesting as well as wild, varied, and very beautiful, 117 miles of canyon, valley, level meadow and soft, rolling wood­land,—all charming in bright sunlight, under a brilliant sky.

The constant succession of fine days and clear nights during our trip, which occupied exactly a fortnight, is nothing remarkable in these latitudes. The heartbreaking “wet summers” which are so common in Great Britain seem unknown here; and during my 600 miles on the cowcatcher, except occasionally when the sun shone hotly at midday, I never experienced any inconvenience from heat or cold.

From Lytton to Port Hammond we follow the Fraser. As I write here in my quiet room, those grand gorges unfold before me again as they did on the day I saw them, full of soft cloud-shadows moving over mountain sides, of massive cliffs rising a hundred feet from the road-bed, crowned with forest, of dashing wild waters hissing among huge boulders in depths below. A softer landscape now lies before me, as I dream of graceful hill­sides, sloping to green meadows, and woodland glorious with the magnificent foliage of British Columbia—of a great lake with park-like clumps of trees decking its green islands,—of deep bays set in sylvan beauty, where tranquil water reflects white cloudlets floating in the blue above, and toys with the delicate foliage that rests on its fair bosom!—Just at such a spot we killed a pig. This was how it happened. Having been told that one of my chief dangers on the buffer-beam was the possibly sudden arrival of an animal’s body killed by the cowcatcher and thrown into my lap, I was always on the look-out for such a catastrophe, and much consoled to find that when, as in the valley of the Thompson, cows persisted in crossing our way, the engineer slackened speed, and whistled until they disappeared. But this pig, evidently of a coy and shrinking nature, did not reveal himself until death was close at hand. With the “Secretary” on my “guest’s” candle-box, I was enjoying the beauty of the scene just described, when the roadway immediately before us swarmed with little black pigs, which had darted from bushes growing near the track. There was a squeak, a flash of something near, and away we went, leaving one poor little sacrificed beauty lying dead on the road behind us. The Secretary averred that the body had struck him in passing; but as I shut my eyes tightly almost as soon as the pigs appeared, I cannot bear testimony to the fact.

Yale beautifully situated on the Fraser. So near and precipitous are the mountains here, that in twenty-one miles after leaving Yale we pass through eighteen tunnels. Every turn was a picture, and every picture was new. The morning air was sweet and pure; dew sparkled everywhere, and my only grief was the prospect of ending our journey.

We passed many hamlets, chiefly composed of miners’ houses, and many Chinese camps, on the gravelly shores of the Fraser far below, where the Celestials were washing sand for gold, or drying salmon on queer racks made of branches and logs, thrust into the lock crevices. Some of these “curing” places were on a large scale, and hundreds of salmon, cut open and pressed flat, dangled over the water.

At Harrison Lake and Ruby Creek the scenery is especially beautiful. I think it was near the former that, as we rounded a curve, Mount Baker suddenly appeared on the horizon—14,000 feet of snowy shoulders, pink in sunlight, with peaks like frozen breath rising straight into the sky.

Now nearly 3000 miles from our starting-point, Ottawa, we are nearing Port Moody on Burrard Inlet, where, alas! I must bid good-bye to candle-box and cowcatcher, and content myself with an easy-chair on the deck of a steamer bound for Victoria.

The Canadian Pacific line was not completed beyond Port Moody at the time I write of. Now it has been carried forward fourteen miles further to its real terminus—and no fairer spot can be found anywhere, I think, than the site of the infant city of Vancouver.

On we go, speeding forward to the coast, meeting the sweet breath of ocean mingled with rich scent of pine boughs, then delicate tips waving welcome as we pass—on, on, steadily, swiftly down to the sea! More speed, and we fly forward, past rock and river, slope, grass-land, and lakelet; more speed, and the blending of forest colours grows bewildering in the summer air; still more, and it is all one line of mingled blues and greens as we sweep down to the sparkling beauty of that distant ocean, and see the flash of its bright waters on the red sands of a bay below!

Agnes Macdonald.