On the Roof of the Western World

ON THE ROOF OF THE WESTERN WORLD.

By Julia W. Henshaw.

From The Wide World Magazine, 1908,

Digitized October 2017 by Doug Frizzle for Stillwoods.Blogspot.Ca

Mrs. Henshaw is a well known mountaineer, and in this article she describes the first ascent of one of the mighty peaks in that paradise of the climber, British Columbia, where hundreds of summits remain untrodden by human foot. Mrs. Henshaw illustrates her narrative with some impressive photographs.

Julia W. Henshaw also wrote the article, Vancouver a twelve year old city.(1898)

THE Rocky and Selkirk Ranges, which separate British Columbia from the rest of Canada, form without doubt the finest untrodden field for the Alpinist in the Western world. I say untrodden advisedly, for in spite of the records achieved by such eminent men as Mr. Edward Whymper, Dr. J. Norman Collie, Mr. James Outram, and other intrepid Britishers, only the merest fringe of these glorious ranges of mountains has as yet been explored. Every climber knows the pride of a “first ascent,” and in Western Canada there are hundreds of unconquered peaks, each awaiting its Napoleon of the ice-axe to build the “stone man” on its summit.

Just north of fifty-two degrees north latitude, at an elevation of ten thousand feet, lies the vast Columbia ice-field, two hundred square miles in extent, forming the central source of many important rivers, and probably the largest glacier in the world outside of the Arctic Circle. This particular ice-field heads the long list of those which lie within the boundaries of British Columbia, for even the most cursory survey of the region forces upon the attention of the traveller the fact that a wonderful wealth of névés and glaciers gleams and glitters like a priceless parure of diamonds upon the mighty breast of the Western hills.

The variation in the scenic setting of the mountain pictures is extremely fascinating. The strong contrasts which exist between the warm, flower-strewn valleys; the deep green, conifered slopes, cleft by many a vagabond rill; and the terrific cliff's and snowy crests, bring with them a new surprise at every turn; while the beauties of snow-crest, wood, and water entrance the sight and inspire the mind with high and happy thoughts. Whether you are an expert climber or only an ardent lover of the out-of-doors, the joy of a summer holiday spent among the Canadian Rockies brings an equal appeal. There are several excellent climbing centres in the Rocky and Selkirk mountains, where chalet hotels form the basis of operations and offer comfortable accommodation to travellers, and where climbing and camping outfits and the services of expert Swiss guides are obtainable. Each locality offers special attractions of its own. At Glacier, in the Selkirks, Sir Donald (10,645ft.), named after Lord Strathcona, formerly Sir Donald Smith, and now High Commissioner for Canada in London, is a capital climb, offering a variety of experiences on rock-work, glacier, snow-slope, arête, and couloir; while near by Mount Bonney (10,625ft.), Mount Fox (10,000ft.), Mount Purity (10,100ft.), Mount Dawson (10,800ft.), and The Hermit (9,222ft.) are all delightful ascents in which more or less difficulties are encountered, and from which all danger is eliminated under the splendid guidance of the Swiss. As its name denotes, there are many ice-fields in the vicinity of Glacier, the chief ones among them being the Great Glacier and the Asulkan, and from the summit of Mount Sir Donald alone one hundred and twenty-five ice-fields are visible.

At Kield, in the Rockies, the choice of ascents is unlimited—Mount Stephen (10,428ft.), The Chancellor (10,400ft.), Mount Vaux (10,600ft.), Goodsir (11,400ft), Cathedral Mountain (10,100ft.), Mount Collie (10,500ft.), and Mount Assiniboine (11,860ft.) all being fine climbs, while dozens of other first-rate peaks which have been climbed, and hundreds of peaks which have not been climbed, rise up on every side.

But it is the Lake Louise district in particular that I set out to describe in this article. The turquoise lake, whose waters are like fluid light, lies cradled in the arms of magnificent mountains; at one end stands the chalet, a fleck of human civilization amid a world of Nature in her most majestic mood; at the other rises Mount Victoria, on whose ledges rests a glacier green and grim, cloaked by a glittering névé. At either side stand ranks of fir trees, and about the shore the shrubs of the Labrador tea and white rhododendron shelter masses of blue-eyed veronicas, saxifrages, and purple garlics. Lake Louise is a spot of matchless beauty, one of those perfect pictures painted by Nature upon the canvas of the world, in colours borrowed from the rainbow. Artists and poets have sung its praises, men have marvelled and admired, but no one has ever wearied of the peace and perfection of the scene.

It is to this place that many people journey in the golden days of summer, to climb thence the glorious peaks whose ice-architraves and snow-domes, guarded by frozen gates, form temples fit for the gods. Only those who have stood on the topmost pinnacle of a hitherto unclimbed crest can fully realize the feeling of exultation and pride which fills the breast of the enthusiast who achieves a “first ascent.” This is the reason why the Rocky Mountains form such a favourite playground for Alpinists. Switzerland has been so thoroughly exploited that there is little or nothing left in that land to tempt adventurous spirits in search of fresh fields to conquer. But in British Columbia mountain after mountain rears its untrodden heights to heaven, and offers to the traveller the lure of the most magnificent scenery in the world.

Having spent a few days at the Lake Louise Chalet, and got into good training by means of long scrambles up Mount St. Piran, the Beehive, and the stiff crags of Mount Aberdeen, our party set out early one morning, accompanied by two Swiss guides, bound on a mountain-climbing expedition. It was our intention to ride as far as was feasible along the mountain trail, and to camp for the night on the shore of a small lake some fifteen miles distant, so as to make the desired ascent thence with comparative ease on the following day. The cavalcade was, in consequence, a long one, headed by four pack-ponies carrying a couple of tents, food, blankets, and the minimum of personal impedimenta, and driven by a “packer,” mounted on a splendid black cayuse, whose duty it was to look after the horses and to “make camp.” A few yards behind him the travellers ambled lazily along on their comfortable Mexican saddles, allowing the ponies to set the leisurely pace, for the trail, which ran steeply up and down hill, cross­ing numerous gullies and streams, occasionally rose to a great height in order to cross some projecting shoulder of the cliffs. My own outfit consisted of a flannel shirt, a short tweed skirt and knickerbockers, heavy nailed boots, puttees, and a soft broad-brimmed hat, while from the horn of my saddle hung a woollen sweater and a pair of good field-glasses. The men, too, wore strong, serviceable clothes, nailed boots, puttees, and soft felt hats. In the rucksack slung across the shoulders of one of the guides lay a folding Kodak, a compass, aneroid, and smoked glasses, while the other guide carried the ice-axes; the Manila rope being safely stowed away in one of the pack-saddles.

So we jogged along the narrow stony trail, winding up through thickly-forested ravines and down the beds of brawling brooks, catching here and there, between the trees, exquisite vistas of the Valley of the Bow and the snow­capped range of the Ten Peaks beyond.

Having covered some five or six miles, we crossed a large creek, pausing for a while to water the horses and to enjoy a glorious glimpse up Paradise Valley, flanked by the crags and peaks of Hungabee, Aberdeen, and Mount Temple, and hemmed in at the upper end by the Horseshoe Glacier. Then began a long ascent up grassy slopes, where the pine trees grew sparsely, and the cotton-woods were already turning to gold, until, presently, the high Alpine meadows, gay with flaming castilleias, vetches, and columbines, were reached, and, turning sharply to the right, we espied the lake lying five hundred feet below us, like a tiny turquoise clasped in the golden setting of the sun-steeped valley. Who could ever forget the first glimpse of that lovely pool sheltered amid the oppressive solitude of the hills? Its warm, waveless waters, fringed with tall larkspurs, are fittingly named the “Mirror of the Flowers.”

Down the narrow trail cut out of the precipitous hillside we rode, where the crumbling path was scarcely a foot wide, and where to round each cliff one seemed fairly to launch out into space above the tree-tops of the valley below, until in half an hour the shore of the lake was reached, just in time to allow a catch of a dozen fine trout to be made before supper.

While the packer “hobbled” the horses, turned them out to graze, and made camp the guides reconnoitred the locality with a view to the ascent on the morrow, and presently the whole party turned in to sleep as one can only sleep pillowed on fragrant pine-boughs and sentinelled by the stars.

“Four o’clock and a fine morning!” The cry of the guide awakened everyone to the importance of the day, and an hour later all of us had breakfasted, after first stowing away our belongings beyond the reach of thieving porcupines; then, leaving the packer to take care of the camp, we started out rich in the hope of conquest. One guide put the lunch, Kodak, and field-glasses into his rücksack, the rope being coiled about the shoulders of the other man, so that we climbers “travelled light,” carrying only our ice-axes, and tying our sweaters by the sleeves around our waists.

Clouds of crimsoned mist were drawn like curtains around the helmet-shaped snow summit of the peak which was our goal, for the sun lay somewhere behind the rim of the horizon and crowned the head of each mountain monarch with a shining nimbus. One guide led us; the other brought up the rear. No words can describe the patience, good humour, and skill of these Swiss; their quick eyes see every danger, their prompt actions avert it; when “on the rope ” one has a feeling of perfect security, and on steep arétes and rotten ice, on crumbling rocks and abrupt precipices, one has implicit confidence in their strength, judgment, and endurance. Bidden to jump, I have lightly crossed crevasses and rock-rifts, aided by a firm hand or a steady pull on the rope, which, had I been alone, I should have shrunk from in terror and dismay. With sobbing breath and set muscles I have scaled perpendicular cliffs, roped to and encouraged by a guide, which, in his absence, I would have deemed as difficult to conquer as all the tasks of Hercules combined. That these guides possess a sixth sense is indisputable; one might almost call it “acute premonition,” for it warns them in advance of all dangers incident to mountaineering, and, combined with a marvellous dexterity and an intrepid courage, serves to avert calamity and ensure success.

Through the woods we wended our way upward, hope high in our hearts and the smell of the pines in our nostrils. Soon the route lay across a scree slope, where stonecrops grew, and a wonderful vision of blue gentians met the gaze. Then, suddenly, a golden ball shot up from the horizon, and the world awakened in the smile of the sun. The earth began to pulse with light and life. Marmots whistled shrilly from behind the boulders, a pica ran across the trail and, with a melancholy squeak, disappeared in terror beneath some stones; a few butterflies flitted past, and the Lyall’s larches shook their feathery branches in the strengthening breeze to tell that “tree line” was reached — the spot where green gives place to grey and the bounds of foliage are set.

Here we paused to rest for a few moments and to take some observations and photographs before attacking the steep rock-work which lay ahead of us, and which was likely to prove a nasty climb, while sliding stones and insecure boulders might render the task both difficult and dangerous. At times a single step would send a shower of scree hurling down into the valley, or dislodge some huge rock which crashed away with terrific force and noise, only to be lost in the desolate gorge below. Extreme caution on the part of the guides, who tested and tried each foothold in advance, saved us from all accident, however, and after several hours of ceaseless effort we stood on the pass between two mountains, at a considerable height, and paused to gaze westward, where a grand view of Hungabee, Biddle, Victoria, Lefroy, Temple, and the Ten Peaks lay stretched out, gilded by the level rays of the sun. The haggard outlines of the hills, crisp-etched against the blue, looked cruel in the morning light, but where the fir trees fringed the warm, wet valley flowers and shrubs grew in abundance, their sweet odours floating up to the cliffs above.

Here we “roped up,” and for the next thousand feet picked our way up steep ravines, across shale banks, and among great grey rocks —a wild and desolate climb. It was now that the gallant fibre of the guides bore with perfect equanimity and patience the strain of our stumbling steps, our occasional timidity, and our sudden jerks on the rope, as if their nerves were woven of steel.

If I faltered, a steady encouraging pull, a cheery “Houp,there!” poured the red wine of courage into my veins; did the man slip, the rope held taut gave him certainty of safety, so that fear and fancies were left far behind, and success came ever nearer step by step.

The edge of eternal snow! What a thrill it gives one to stand on the Rubicon and watch the bulwarks of the stone bastions hemming back a mighty rolling sea of ice and snow! There Nature’s last outposts sentinel the great white land, a place of awful purity, a clear, cold, calm country.

Only about seven hundred feet now lay between us and the summit. A long snow-field, agleam on the eastern face, sloped up to the top of the mountain and by cutting steps here and there in the steeper angles the ascent was at length accomplished with comparative ease, and we stood conquerors on the summit.

What a panorama greeted our eyes! We beheld crest upon crest sparkling under an azure tent, range upon range of grand and glorious peaks, snowy domes and frosted valleys, and Alpine streams weaving silver webs from the crystal outpourings of a hundred glaciers.

To the north stood the giants Columbia (14,000ft.), Bryce (13,500ft.), Forbes (14,000ft.), and Saskatchewan (12,500ft.); to the south, Assiniboine (11,830ft.); to the east, Cascade and the Banff district; and to the west, the Lake Louise, Field, and the Yoho Valley districts, the whole forming a sea of mountains unsurpassed anywhere else in the world, a scene of matchless beauty.

On the actual summit where we stood, some slanting rocks, coated with dangerous verglas, protruded in places freshly powdered with light, loose snow. Others were completely windswept, while all around was flung a thick, frozen mantle fringed with glaciers great and small. The wind blew keenly and bit to the bone, so we hastened to build the traditional “stone man ” and to plant a tiny Union Jack (brought for the purpose) on its crown; then, after securing some photographs and recording a few important observations, we started downwards to seek a warmer temperature and shelter for lunch. A magnificent glissade brought us to the beginning of the rocks, where we soon found a nook screened from the wind and, ensconcing ourselves behind a big boulder, began to eagerly devour sandwiches and chocolate, washed down with whisky and water. Never did bread, butter, and beef taste so good, and never was John Barleycorn a truer friend than on this occasion, for the long climb in the crisp Alpine air had whetted our appetites to a keen edge.

After lunch some more photographs were taken, and then the descent began in real earnest. A long scramble over the rocks was followed by another short glissade. Then came a bad bit of precipice where the guides were forced to lower us one at a time from ledge to ledge, and afterwards a long plunge down the shelving shale banks. Next came a halt in the flower-strewn meadows, and, finally, a tramp along the forest trail beneath the sweet-scented pines brought the tents into view.

As hour after hour passed by that night our camp lay asleep beneath the star-spangled sky, enfolded in the peace of the purple hills, while we tired climbers dreamed of our conquest “On the Roof of the Western World.”

Through New Ontario on a Jigger Part2

Through New Ontario on a “Jigger.”

Part 2 of 2     (Link to Part 1)

By Richard A. Haste.

From The Wide World Magazine, 1908. Vol. xxi.-31.

Digitized by Doug Frizzle October, 2017 for Stillwoods.Blogspot.Ca

An account of an unconventional trip over the new Canadian Northern Railroad, which runs for five hundred miles through what is practically an uninhabited wilderness — a country of magnificent lakes, mountains, and forests, and one of the finest game reserves on the face of the earth.

 

This image came from the web -it is a "Jigger"

FROM Rainy River to Fort Francis the road holds to the valley, never very far from the river. For fifty miles there is scarce a curve, and but a slight up-grade. Whenever we approached the river we came upon evidences of civilization—small farms tucked in between the woods and the river-bank, and hamlets with side-tracks and new depot buildings on one side, on the other the river, with the steamboat landing.

About five o’clock there came into the cleared roadway from my right a black bear with three cubs. The evident intention of Mrs. Bear was to cross the track to the thicket on the north side. At the rate I was going it looked as though a collision would shortly occur, unless one of us should apply the brakes or take a switch. I was engaged in speculating upon the probable result when the old bear saw me, and, evidently not relishing a mix-up with so formidable a machine, changed her course and ran up the right of way between the track and the woods. She seemed determined not to return to the thicket out of which she had come. The cubs could not keep up with their mother, the logs and brush bothering them sorely. Like little children, they called to her to wait, which she did from time to time, looking back and giving them encouragement by variously modulated grunts, the while keeping an eye on the approaching jigger. It was during one of these pauses that Forde secured a snap-shot.

It was three o’clock next afternoon when, our supplies having been stocked and our jiggers loaded, we started east. Before us lay two hundred and thirty miles of wilderness. An hour brought us to the “Narrows,” where the railroad crosses the lake on high trestles built from island to island. These islands, so runs the Indian legend, were placed there by a giant who used them for stepping-stones. Forde stopped here to secure views of the island-studded lake while I amused myself catching pike with bacon rind for bait. The sun was low when we were again on the track, rattling over the hollow trestles toward the pine forest of the north shore.

We had reckoned on reaching Bear’s Pass, a telegraph station, before dark and camping there for the night. But in the very middle of a swampy tract I felt my jigger pass over a torpedo (detonator) and in a moment came upon a train, loaded with ties, on the main track. To go on was impossible; there was but one thing to do—take the back track until a camping place with water could be found. We found the water, side-tracked our machines, and while I prepared supper Forde pitched the tent and made up the bed. It was here in the wet and the dark that Forde and I came to an understanding. Nothing was said, but a mutual respect was born which on my part developed into something very closely akin to admiration. When we sat down on a wet log to fresh fish, bacon, and fried potatoes, Forde began to thaw, and when he asked for a second cup of coffee he melted sufficiently to remark, “Well, you can make coffee.” The ground was soggy with recent rains, but when I found a bed of brush six inches thick, better than any hair mattress, I realized that Forde was more than a photographer—he knew the relations of man to the wilderness, and that was a great deal.

During the night, sometime, a locomotive rushed by us screeching a salute; then, in a few minutes, it came thundering back with the train. The track was clear.

Why the place is called Bear’s Pass does not appear, unless it be here that bears pass the winter. A more quiet place for hibernating either in winter or summer Nature never created. Bear’s Pass consists of a side-track, a water tank, a telegraph office, and a “public-house” built of logs and kept by John Goodall, if I remember his name aright. Mr. Goodall seemed to fit the niche which he had appropriated for himself. He acted as mine host, farmed a little, and served as guide to such sportsmen as chanced to penetrate thus far into the unexplored. He was a cross between a hunter and a trapper, with the instincts of a scientist. The delight of his life was his menagerie—his family he called them, and so he treated them. Bear cubs, woolly and lovable; a young wolf, restless and sinewy; a silver-grey fox and two of his red cousins; a family of porcupines, mother and two babes, innocent of quills; a bull moose, who was rapidly reverting to the habits of the wild; a deer that after two weeks of captivity and kindness would stand on its hind legs and eat from its master’s hand; a calf moose, the personification of humorous awkwardness; and a half-grown panther, in a wooden cage, constituted the four-footed contingent of the collection; and, in addition, there was an eagle who looked with lordly contempt upon the half-dozen loquacious crows who had joined the colony for revenue only. The lack of fear exhibited by the wild animals of this region is a revelation. Mr. Goodall told me that the deer became so accustomed to the presence of the construction crews of the railroad that they would climb the steps of the cook-car for bits of bread and sugar. This I can well believe from my own subsequent experience.

From Bear’s Pass to Steep Rock Lake the railroad follows the general course of the Seine River. It is a rugged road, but full of pleasant surprises.

The surveying engineers seem to have exhausted the possibilities of curves. Curves double and triple, simple and compound, skirt the water, or hug the projecting promontories of basaltic rock.

A camp at Loon Lake closed the day—a day of severe toil. My muscles had become some­what hardened, but Forde’s were still soft, and the exertion began to tell on his spirits. He grumbled about his jigger, and wondered how he had ever lent himself to such a foolish expedition. Why two sane men should ever agree to pump themselves for five hundred miles over a track so crooked that a snake would break its neck trying to follow the rails was beyond his comprehension.

When 1 awoke in the night with the muscles of my arms and back stiff and sore—so sore that sleep was impossible—I was constrained for the moment to agree with Forde and pro­nounce the expedition a “fool’s errand.” But when I left the tent for the canopy of the stars, and on the beach listened to the multitudinous voices of the dark; listened to the lonesome call of the loon across the slumbering waters; to the cry of sleepy birds disturbed by some night prowler; and harkened to the faint rustle in the bushes where the curious, fear-born children of the wild watched, I felt the thrill of the great forest, and the mysterious witchery of the night wrapped me like a mantle. What are toil and fatigue when we may sit face to face with Silence, the Night, and Nature?

At seven o’clock we were on the track again, and I led off at a pace that soon left Forde far in the rear. The morning was glorious, the air filled with the odours of lake and woods. My spirits had regained their wonted tension; the previous day, with its heat and up-grades, seemed a long way off. For an hour I reeled off curve after curve, passing through numberless rocky cuts, where a collision either fore or aft would have been fatal — at least to my jigger. I had scarcely entered upon a mile stretch of straight track when, hearing a whistle, I looked over my shoulder. There, not forty rods away, and coming at full-speed, was a special! To apply the brake and derail my machine was the work of the fraction of a minute. As the locomotive passed me I involuntarily looked at the pilot for pieces of Forde or his outfit, for I could not conceive how a collision could be avoided among those curves and cuts. I waited ten, twenty, thirty minutes, and was getting nervous, when around the last curve came Forde, leisurely pumping his machine as if nothing had happened.

“Well, I’m glad to see you. I was beginning to think I should have to go back for the remains. How did you do it?” said I.

“I did it all right, but I didn’t hear the thing until it got right on me.”

“What did you think it was?” I asked, irrelevantly.

“Huh! I thought it was the fool-killer coming.”

Evidently Forde’s muscles were still sore.

Steep Rock Lake is near the head-waters of the Seine River, at the centre of the Rainy Lake gold region. 'Ten years ago large sums of money and a vast deal of energy were spent in prospecting and in attempts to develop certain favourable locations. The almost universal failures that attended these ventures were due not so much to the lack of gold quartz in paying quantities as to a lack of transportation facilities. Everything taken in or out of that gold region, from a pound of bacon to a stamp mill, had to be boated and packed over the portages. The coming of the railroad, therefore, had temporarily revived the interest in gold-mining. The Elizabeth Mine, a gold proposition located on Steep Rock Lake, was attracting some attention. The management was putting in a ten-stamp mill, so we put it on our list for investigation. As to location, we were told it was on Steep Rock Lake—that was all.

The railroad skirts the south shore of the lake, and a spur had been put in to accommodate such freight as might be billed to that point.

Arriving about ten o’clock a.m., we began to cast about for some means of reaching the mine. Beside the side-track and a single freight-car there were no signs of human habitation visible to the naked eye. On the beach, how­ever, we found an abandoned canoe. If was rotten and leaked like a sieve, but it was a canoe. The holes Forde caulked with moss, improvised paddles out of two pieces of board, and, loading the large camera (boxed), we shoved off, I in the bow, Forde in the stern. Steep Rock Lake, be it understood, consists of a chain of lakes connected by links of small streams more or less navigable for canoes. These geographical facts we had to discover. After circumnavigating the first lake we were about to give up the job, when we noticed bent and broken reeds. These gave us a hint. We followed the way they pointed, and were led to an inlet well hid with foliage, up which we paddled to a larger lake. Midway between the lakes we came suddenly upon two moose standing belly-deep in the marsh, not ten feet from the creek channel.

Here we were in a rickety canoe, with the camera securely boxed and with not even a Kodak to get a snap-shot at a spectacle that one does not see twice in a lifetime! Forde is not profane—he is altogether too sparing of words to employ vain speech—but 1 thought I heard something from the stern paddle that it would not do to print.

We were getting uncomfortably near, and I was measuring the depth of the water with my eye, when the lumbering beasts, with little or no concern, turned and splashed out of the open into the thicket. There was silence for the space of two minutes—then my companion observed, more to himself than to me, “Don’t that beat everything?”

By following the reed sign-boards we crossed another lake, entered a secluded bay, and there, looking south from a sunny slope, were the neat log houses of the mining company. Back a mile from the shore were the mine and the quarters of the men.

It was past noon when we arrived. With the cordial hospitality of all camps, we were ushered into a large room filled with long tables, where we sat down to a dinner I shall remember as long as my stomach craves food. It consisted of moose steak—tasting like a cross between venison and the tender porter­house of a young steer — dried apple sauce, great bowls of it, and pie—real pie, such as you get only in logging and mining camps. And then, to wash all this down, we had cups of that delicious Canadian tea. The hunger sauce we brought with us may have had something to do with it, but that feed with the gold miners of Steep Rock Lake I now remember with as clear a gastronomic vision as I do the hot biscuit and new maple syrup of my early boyhood.

We finally reached the railroad yards at Port Arthur, sunburned, dirty, and tired. We had arrived at the lake, but the end of our journey was not yet.

Among the wildest parts of North America within reach of civilization is that portion of Minnesota and Ontario adjacent to this boundary line. Into this wilderness as far as Gunflint Lake, a distance of a hundred miles to the south-west, a logging railroad had been built. This road was acquired by the Canadian Northern, and made a part of the system. It consisted of little more than the road-bed and the iron; there were no telegraph-wires and no station-houses. It ran nowhere and ended in the forest, but it was the way into the greatest game preserve west of Nova Scotia.

Forde had been over the line and warned me that, on account of the grade and other physical conditions, an attempt to make the outward run on our jiggers would be little less than suicide. Yes, we could come back easily enough; in fact, we would have to apply the brakes.

I called on the assistant superintendent. Yes, they were running log trains out to the end of the line every other day. I explained our dilemma, and he agreed to make up a special to leave at nine o’clock the next morning to take us and our jiggers to Gunflint Lake and bring back a load of logs.

It was a few minutes before nine when a locomotive and four flat cars, with a caboose, pulled up before the station. I had the jiggers loaded, and was getting the tent and kit and a part of Forde’s paraphernalia into the caboose, when I observed that it was nine o’clock, and Forde had not shown up.

Forde never did anything until the time came—and then it must be his time. The train was in charge of a young conductor, fresh to his work, and full of the “orders-is-orders” enthusiasm.

The instant nine o’clock came the conductor gave the signal to start.

“Wait a minute; here comes Forde!” I yelled.

“Can’t do it—orders to leave at nine,” replied the conductor. And off went the train, with a part of our stores, and Forde coming leisurely along half a mile away.

The train-dispatcher’s office was upstairs. I sought that official, and made a few remarks, more or less pointed. Without a word he turned to an instrument, click-clacked it a little, and then, without looking up, remarked, “I’ll catch him at Fort William and bring him back.”

Fifteen minutes later the train backed into the station, and a madder young man than that conductor I never saw. But he had to contain his wrath and be civil. It was good discipline for him, for he was young and headstrong. As the imperturbable Forde and I took our seats in the caboose it was an open question with me whether I would prefer to be a millionaire or a train-dispatcher.

From the Height of Land to Lake Superior the distance varies from forty to one hundred miles. The rivers of that slope, therefore, are rapid and turbulent. The erosive work of ages is seen in the vast canyon beds and the now wooded valleys that lead to the lake. Up one of these ancient river courses, now marked by a chain of long, quiet lakes connected by short river-links, runs the railroad.

At three o’clock in the afternoon our puffing old locomotive came to a stop near Flint Lake, or Gunflint Lake as it is marked on the maps. We were now on the boundary line. The road extends six miles farther into Minnesota, but Forde refused to make the run, for fear, as he said, that the grass along the track would clog the jigger wheels.

One reads much in the magazines about hunt­ing the moose in the wilds of Maine. The literature of the sportsmen, written in the East, of necessity deals with the game haunts of the East. Their relative importance, therefore, becomes greatly magnified in the public mind. All the available hunting-grounds of Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia would not make a back-yard for the moose country of the Canadian North-West.

Gunflint Lake is in the very heart of the moose haunts of Northern Minnesota and New Ontario. The region can be reached only from Port Arthur or from Ely. 'The country is particularly inaccessible; the professional game-killer has not as yet invaded it. Moreover, the Indians are on reservations and the game laws are strictly enforced.

The effect of this protection is seen, not only in the quantity of game, but in the disposition of all animal life toward mankind. From the squirrel to the moose you encounter curiosity rather than fear. Along the railroad and by the shores of the lakes are runways beaten by unshod hoofs, like cow-paths about a pasture. Mother Grouse was out with her family in the open sunny patches along the railroad, for it was September. They scurried across the track ahead of the jiggers and then peeped at us from the cover of raspberry and hazel bushes as we passed.

We pitched our tent on a grassy plot overlooking the historic lake. There was frost on the ground and a white fog hung over the water when we unrolled from our blankets in the morning and went down to the beach for a dip. The water felt warm in contrast with the bracing air. Previous frosts had visited the valley, and the woods were already clothed in the fantastic mourning of autumn. The gold of the birch and poplar and the crimson of the northern ivy and an occasional maple, accentuated by the dark green of the ever-present spruce, afforded a colour scheme that Nature alone produces— and that only in the Northland.

It was a pleasant run down the sunlit gorge in the crisp air of the early autumn, along the shores of placid lakes, silent and blue, by winding brooks that play hide-and-seek with the scarcely less winding track. Here we stopped at an abandoned lumber camp, with its reminders of a hardy life. The inquisitive raspberry, that half-civilized child of the open forest, looked in at the windows; the owl sat blinking on the upper bunks, and on the floor were evidences of the hedgehog’s nightly revels.

Some of these camps are to be fitted up, I understand, for station-houses and the accommodation of sportsmen. It would be a shame to introduce modern structures to mar the beauty of this land of silence and peace.

My watch showed six o’clock when we crossed the bridge over the Kaministiquia and slowed down at Stanley Junction. Here we locked our jiggers, put our tent and kit into the freight-house, billed to Winnipeg, and went to the hotel for the night. In the morning we secured reserved seats on a gravel train bound for Port Arthur.

“How about specials West?” I inquired, when I got there.

“There will be one in the morning to take the Hon. X—, member of the Dominion Cabinet, over the line.”

“Good; I’ll take it,” I said.

I bade my friend Forde good-bye with real regret. I had learned to like him, and the interest seemed to be mutual. I was glad the “fool-killer” had not got him before our paths crossed. From the outlook of a plunging caboose (I was not invited to a seat in the private car with the Hon. X—, member of the Dominion Cabinet) I reviewed the scenes of our toil. Well, it was worth it. My muscles were like iron. I felt that I had worked myself to muscle and bone, but the scales said I had gained eight pounds in four weeks.

Through New Ontario on a “Jigger”

Through New Ontario on a “Jigger”

By Richard A. Haste.

From The Wide World Magazine  1908. Vol. xxi.—21.

Originally published in 2 parts

Digitized by Doug Frizzle, October 2017 for Stillwoods.Blogspot.Ca

A Railway Tricycle or "Jigger"

An account of an unconventional trip over the new Canadian Northern Railroad, which runs for five hundred miles through what is practically an uninhabited wilderness—a country of magnificent lakes, mountains, and forests, and one of the finest game reserves on the face of the earth.

NEW ONTARIO is the name applied to that portion of King Edward’s dominions lying north and west of Lake Superior, east of Manitoba, and south of Kewatin. It is a region of rivers and lakes and granite hills, wild and picturesque—the haunt of moose and elk a

nd deer. Here, too, are found the large timber wolf and the black bear; while along the creeks of the remoter forests the beaver still builds his home. The region contains workable veins of gold and silver, and is supposed to harbour vast deposits of iron ore; moreover, it is rich in historic incident, for from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg lay the route of the Voyageurs and the Courier des Bois of the North.

I had promised myself a canoe trip from Grand Portage, where the international boundary line dips into Lake Superior, to the Lake of the Woods, along the very course blazed by these men of iron. But for one reason and another I had been unable to fulfil the promise. So when, in the summer of 1892, I was asked to secure a photographer and make the trip from Winnipeg to Port Arthur on a “jigger,” over the then new line of the Canadian Northern Railroad, I readily accepted the commission.

This was not exactly the expedition of my dreams. The birch canoe had vanished, and in its place stood the “jigger.” Instead of the broad lakes and winding rivers set with rapids, there were the parallel lines of steel. And a photographer, with tripod and camera, was to take the place of the silent Indian guide. There was, however, one saving circumstance— the railroad line conformed, as closely as a rail­road line can conform, to the Dawson Road, and that did not depart much from the route of the old Voyageurs.

Although the last spike had been driven, the railroad line had not been opened to general traffic—no regular trains were running. The five hundred miles lay mostly through the heart of an uninhabited wilderness. I was to take a camping outfit and do the distance by easy stages, making side excursions to points of interest along the line as my fancy or inclination might suggest.

A “jigger,” in railroad parlance, is a tricycle made to run on the rails when propelled by human power. It is an innocent-looking machine, and most deceiving.

Only one jigger being available, it was fitted with a double seat, and a tray to accom­modate a tent, a “war bag,” and the photographic outfit. Stillwell, the photographer I had engaged, looked the affair over as it was brought from the shops, and asked if I had had any experience with jiggers. When assured that I was as innocent as a tadpole so far as jiggers were concerned he made no comment, but went back to his hotel. We were to start the next morning, but in the morning he was ill —too ill to go. I had my suspicions then, but they were not confirmed until later. That man was not ill; he had crossed the Rockies on a jigger, and he knew the breed. He knew that a bucking broncho can’t be more vicious than an overloaded jigger.

Obviously the expedition could not proceed without a photographer. I appealed to the traffic manager.

Yes, he knew of a first-class photographer— an artist, a man by the name of Forde, living in Port Arthur, at the other end of the line.

“Wait a minute.” He touched a button and the chief clerk appeared.

“Mr. Cooper, is there a special coming West this week?”

“Yes, sir; the general superintendent is expected here on Friday.”

“Wire Forde, Port Arthur, to take first train and meet Mr. Haste at Warroad. Bring complete photographic outfit.” Then, turning to me, he continued: “You can make the run to Warroad alone. There isn’t much to photo­graph between here and there, anyway.”

It was one o’clock in the afternoon when, having loaded my camp-kit and supplies, I moved gaily out of the yards at Winnipeg, across the bridge to St. Boniface, and struck boldly to the south-east over twin lines of steel that led without a curve or a break to the verge of the horizon.

I had scarcely left the outskirts of the city, with its fringe of new-built shacks, when my troubles began.

A strong wind was blowing from the south. Now a jigger is as sensitive to atmospheric movements as an unladen birch-bark canoe; but there the similarity ends. I worked and pumped and perspired, but scarcely held my own. Whenever I stopped for breath the thing would try and sneak back home. I urged and coaxed it, swore internal oaths, and then got off and led the beast with a rope. For three immortal hours I counted the ties and cursed the fiend who invented the infernal machine. And then the wind veered to the west. My load suddenly became light, my tow-line hung slack, and soon the jigger was nipping at my heels. I took the hint, got aboard, and during the next three hours reeled off thirty miles of flat prairie.

In the midst of a grassy reach I passed St. Anne, the hithermost outpost of the Red River Settlement, calmly basking in the sun, much as it was eighty years ago when the foundations of its solitary church were laid, and when the chimes in the single tower broke the primeval silence of earth and sky.

On an open plot within a mile of the forest, that extends in an unbroken reach of two thousand miles to the Atlantic, I made my first camp. My hands were blistered and my muscles sore. I was a physical wreck, but I was happy. I had had my first encounter with a jigger, and was alive to tell the story.

Supper! Was there ever such bacon and fried potatoes? And the coffee! He who has known life and fatigue in the wilderness will understand.

I pitched my tent, spread my blanket, and was soon fast asleep.

At midnight or thereabout I was awakened by a most diabolical serenade. Confused barkings, as of a disturbed kennel of a hundred curs; staccato yelps, ending in screams of rage like the cry of an angry child; doleful howls, long-drawn-out to a weird wail, changing into outbursts of demoniac laughter, seemed to come from every side. There would be absolute silence for half a minute, when a single whimper would set the whole chorus off again.

To admit that the hair on my neck began to creep is to admit nothing unusual under the circumstances. I cautiously opened the flap of the tent and peered out. There, in the light of a waning moon, sat my entertainers—coyotes. I could count only four; there were probably as many more on the other side of the tent, but, had I not relied on the witness of my own eyes, I should have sworn there were forty. For full fifteen minutes I watched them at their antics; the show was well worth the price of admission. I had no gun, and would not have used one if I had. At last I stepped before the curtain, thanked them for the entertainment, and bade them begone. They respected my feelings and vanished instantly. Nor did they return, so far as I know. Later in the night I fancied I heard a sniffing about the tent, but that may have been imagination or the wind. The east was red when I awoke, sore and stiff, to another day. A piece of bacon rind I had left on the outside was gone, and my frying-pan had travelled some distance. There were no other traces of my nocturnal visitors.

Before the sun was up I was on the road, and the click-clack, click-clack of the jigger wheels indicated a pace of ten miles an hour. At that rate I could cover the sixty-seven miles to Warroad with comparative ease before night. There was no wind, but I soon began to feel the drag of an up-grade. The railroad was leaving the bed of ancient Lake Agassiz and rising to the level of the Lake of the Woods. I had left the great Western plains and was enter­ing the forest that extends unbroken from Kewatin to Labrador. Open pine “barrens,” warm in the sun, dark swamps, dank and fragrant with moss and balsam, and ridges of upland covered with poplar and silver birch lined the narrow lane through which I urged my now obedient jigger.

A noonday meal with red raspberries for desert, and a delicious rest amid the soothing silence of an abandoned tie camp, made me forget the toil of the previous day. A leisurely run of four hours through a tangle of sweet-smelling woods brought me to the station at Warroad in time for supper.

Warroad is an American village. The railroad in passing around the foot of the Lake of the Woods is compelled to traverse some fifty miles of the State of Minnesota. The town site is on the lake at the mouth of Warroad River, where there is a natural harbour, recently improved by the expenditure of a forty-thousand-dollar United States Government appropriation.

Warroad has ambitions. It is the only “seaport” on the American side of the Lake of the Woods. And as Mr. Moody, the enthusiastic father of the town, assured me, it occupies the same strategic position in regard to the Canadian North-West that Chicago does to the north-west of the United States.

The name Warroad had its origin in a great event of Indian history.

Before the advent of the white man the lake country of New Ontario and what is now the northern part of Minnesota was the choice hunting-ground of the Chippewas. The woods were full of game, the lakes were full of fish. Moreover, this favoured region was within easy striking distance of the buffalo-covered plains of the Red River. These hunting-grounds the Sioux—the Arabs of the Western plains—had long coveted. With commanding strategy they planned to seize the Lake of the Woods, it being the key to the vast interior region reached by the network of streams and lakes of which Rainy River is the outlet.

The Chippewas, learning of the proposed invasion, determined to force the fight on their own ground. Selecting a position on a river that flowed into the south-west extremity of the lake and directly across the trail which the enemy must take, they erected fortifications and then awaited the approach of the invaders. From this place of ambush to their base on the lake they opened up a broad road to be used in case of retreat. The battle which ensued raged for six days. The invaders were defeated with great slaughter. Five hundred scalps were taken, and for ever after the Chippewas were left in peaceful possession of their lands. The trail along the river from the lake to the battle-ground became known as the War Trail—in English the War Road, after which the river and the town are named.

There is a legend of an ancient chief, not many years dead, who for nearly a hundred years made annual pilgrimages over the War Trail from the Indian village on the lake to the battle-ground, and there, fasting for six days, he fought over again and again this last great battle of his people with their fierce enemy the Sioux.

The Lake of the Woods has a history. It has figured in more treaty stipulations and diplo­matic correspondence than any other portion of our international boundary.

It is not generally known that long before the era of national expansion which opened with the purchase of Alaska—in fact, from the very inception of the original confederation, of States —the United States possessed a section of noncontiguous territory north of the forty-ninth parallel—a territory that could be reached only by passing over foreign soil. This territory is included in what has become known as the North-West Angle.

In the treaty of 1873, wherein Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, it was stipulated that the northern boundary should follow the Great Lakes and the water communications from Lake Superior to the most north-west point of the Lake of the Woods—and thence west to the Mississippi River. This provision was based upon the assumption that the waters from the Lake of the Woods flowed east into Superior, and that the source of the Mississippi was north and west of the “most north-west point” of the Lake of the Woods. This clause, calling for at least one impossible boundary line, opened a veritable Pandora’s box of diplomatic controversy.

The purchase of Louisiana by extending the western boundary line of the United States to the “Stony Mountains,” and the subsequent determination of the source of the Mississippi, simplified to some extent this mathematical puzzle. The forty-ninth parallel was accepted as the dividing line between the possessions of Great Britain and the United States west from the Lake of the Woods to the “Stony Mountains.” But the most north-west point of the Lake of the Woods, the starting base, was found to be about twenty-four degrees north of the agreed parallel. To make the boundary continuous, therefore, it was necessary to provide by treaty that from the most north-west point of the Lake of the Woods a line drawn south to an intersection with the forty-ninth parallel should form the connecting link. Such was the origin of the North-West Angle.

A glance at the map will show the inter­national boundary line extending from the mouth of Rainy River in a north-westerly direction across the southern lobe of the Lake of the Woods to the head of a bay supposed to be the most north-west point of the lake. From here a north and south line intersects the forty-ninth parallel somewhere in the open lake about five miles from shore. This is not the end, but the beginning of the practical complications. This line cuts off and gives to the United States a peninsula containing one hundred and fifty square miles, the only territory of the original domain north of the forty ninth parallel.

On my arrival at Warroad I fell in with a corps of United States surveyors on their way to the North-West Angle, to examine and correct the recent Government surveys of that isolated bailiwick. They were waiting for their canoes and I was waiting for Forde. Why not employ the interim in visiting this historical territory— this piece of the earth’s surface that had been honoured by a distinct clause in nearly a dozen treaties and conventions?

The first difficulty encountered was one of transportation. There were thirty miles of lake to cross, and the only seaworthy craft in the village belonged to a half-breed fisherman, but his shanty was locked and his dog had not been seen on the steps of Big Pete’s saloon since early morning. He might come back and he might not, we were told; he was often away for days. Next morning the hut was still locked and the dog was not sitting guard at Big Pete’s. A brisk wind was blowing from the south-east. There was no time to lose, so we “commandeered” the boat and in ten minutes were out of the harbour. The boat was a thirty-foot, flat-bottomed craft with a centre-board and an abundant spread of canvas. We hoisted every stitch, perched ourselves on the gunwale, and struck out boldly across the “Grand Traverse.” The wind held strong, and before noon we had rounded the eastern elbow of American territory, entered the bay, and were at the hub of the universe—the North-West Angle. All about us was a low swamp, with here and there low islands covered with green caps of spruce and poplar. Here we found the ruins of an old dock, built to accommodate the line of steamers that was to form one of the connecting links in the Dawson Road, the first line of commercial communications between Lake Superior and the Red River Settlement. Here also are the remains of a one-time flourishing Hudson Bay Company’s trading post.

Why so much diplomatic ink was spilled over a few square miles of sand ridges and tamarack swamps, interspersed with low marshes, is explainable only when we remember that those wily diplomats knew less of the physical features of the country about which they were contending than they did about the canals of Mars. The whole one hundred and fifty square miles contained within the North-West Angle is worthless, and interesting only as a geographical curiosity.

Fortunately for us, the wind had changed, and under a fair breeze from the north we left the bay, rounded the peninsula, and headed for Buffalo Point, on the south-west shore of the lake. This point, lying mostly in Manitoba, is high and well wooded. It figures in early history as the place where Verandrye built a fort and established a trading post in 1732. The post was abandoned in 1763, but was known among subsequent fur-traders as “the Old French Fort.” It is now occupied as a reserve by the Powawasson Indians.

It was nearly sundown when we reached Buffalo Point. I should have enjoyed a day instead of half an hour in this historic spot; but twelve miles of wind-lashed water lay between us and the reed-grown harbour at Warroad. We could scarcely expect to reach it before dark—and there were no harbour lights. It was half-past nine when, under a single fore-sail, running before the wind, we struck and threaded the channel and tied up at the little dock. The shanty was dark—French Louis had not returned.

I found a telegram awaiting me, stating that the “special” would not come West until the next Tuesday.

I had become convinced that my jigger, in its most amiable moods, would not carry double without protest. Fifty-four miles farther on was the town of Rainy River, a divisional point, where I fancied it might be possible to obtain another jigger. I concluded to make the run to that place, and intercept Forde as he came through.

The railroad from Warroad east to Rainy River, where it crosses into Canada, traverses a low, level country which was once a part of the lake bed. It rises gradually to the south, and merges into those immense muskeg swamps adjacent to the source of the Mississippi River.

Evidences of the homesteader were on every hand. New board shanties and line fences showed that the American pioneer had followed the steel rails into this wilderness and staked out his claim under the free land laws of the Government.

Although it was scarcely seven o’clock when I started out, I passed groups of berry-pickers— Indian women and children, shy as rabbits, but more curious. An invitation to ride was accepted by a young squaw amid whispered protests and vigorous pantomime on the part of the family, who no doubt took me for an up-to-date Lochinvar seeking the hand of their fair Ellen. A half-mile spin was enough for the young lady, who, in good English, asked to be put down. For this daughter of the wild it was an experience—an experience that would make her the object of special interest in her world for a day. She had been for a brief time an integral part of the “white man’s burden.”

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when I crossed the international bridge and side-tracked myself at the station. Rainy River is a new town, with its streets recently cut through the hardwood forest. Although on Canadian soil the town is decidedly American. It is full of ambition and the smell of pine lumber. I asked for an hotel and was directed to an unfinished building on the edge of the woods. The rooms had been lathed but not plastered. To afford some degree of privacy, paper had been tacked on to the laths. My request for a room with a private bath being ignored, I took my bath in a bowl.

The Indian is much in evidence in the vicinity of Rainy River. On the American side Baudette is in a reservation occupied by the Chippewas, and reserves, as they are called in Canada, occupy the choicest locations along the lakes and rivers.

The influence of the fur-trader and the mission schools have had a marked effect upon the Ontario Indians. They have to a large extent adopted modern dress, and many of the young men can be found at work in the sawmills and as river-drivers. The women, too, manage to keep step with their lords in this march toward civilized appearances. I have seen moccasined feet peeping from beneath the folds of velvet gowns of royal purple. On the bank of Rainy River I came upon a com­munity of wigwams and tepees. About an open fire crouched three old hags, filthy and hideous. But in the door of a tepee not ten feet away stood a young squaw—perhaps a daughter of one of the hags—doing her hair with a curling-iron. The humour of the occa­sion appealed to me, and I paused to watch the process. The dusky Juliet, as if appreciating the incongruity of the situation, gave me a sheepish smile and hid away the implement of civilized vanity.

My first view of Fort Francis, at the head of Rainy River, was of two white buildings against a background of green — the Hudson Bay Company’s post (since burned), standing on the bluff at the head of the last long reach of the river.

Fort Francis is beautifully situated. On the east is Rainy Lake, studded with islands. Then come two miles of beautiful water, half lake, half river, and then the falls boiling and seething at the very feet of the town. To the west, and forty feet below the plateau on which the town stands, is a four-mile sweep of river. To the north for three thousand miles stretches the unsurveyed wilderness.

Immediately across the falls from Fort Francis is the American town, Kouchiching. A more ambitious little hamlet of five hundred souls one must go far to find—and a more wicked one. Here, a hundred years ago, the American Fur Company, the institution that laid the foundation of the Astor fortunes, maintained a post and competed with the Hudson Bay factory across the river for the goodwill of the Indians and the fur trade of the Rainy River district.

For a number of years Kouchiching has had dreams of railroads and future greatness. The railroad dreams are about to be realized, for within a year from this writing two railroads —one from Duluth, another from St. Paul—are likely to have their northern termini at this place with the romantic name—a name which the United States Post Office has changed to International Falls. Notwithstanding the official edict, the original name, with its barbarous grouping of vowels, still stands and will remain.

When the “special” at last arrived, a man with a close-cropped beard and a photographic outfit got out of the superintendent’s private car. It was Forde, my promised photographer. I had secured a requisition for another jigger. Armed with this order, I confiscated one in the possession of a party of linemen, much to their disgust.

“I don’t know how we shall get along, but orders is orders,” was the only comment of the foreman as he delivered over the machine.

It was 1:30 p.m. when the “jigger special,” in two sections, was ready to move. I tried my best to thrust upon Forde the honour of lead­ing, but he modestly, respectfully, though firmly declined. The reason became clear as we pro­ceeded. My neck was of less importance to him than his precious instruments. If one jigger was to be sacrificed in a head end collision with a construction train or a “wild” engine, I was to offer that sacrifice in order that the Kodaks and plates might be saved. I regarded this view of comparative values as most uncomplimentary to me, as well as indicating an abnormal selfishness in Forde.

(To be concluded. End of part 1) (Link to part 2)