Chapter XVIII: The Grand Cañon of the Colorado (9)

As the steamer enters Lynn and Glacier bays, the scenery becomes truly Arctic, as well as the climate, and overcoats are in demand. Vast snow-fields are visible in every direction, and the frozen rivers or glaciers which represent their drainage all creep down to the water’s edge, in some cases presenting a front of several miles. As the steamer moves on, the panorama constantly changes, showing the mountains and glaciers from every point of view without involving the slightest fatigue on the part of the tourists; and as soon as one ice-river is out of sight, another shows its edge, and gradually stands revealed in all its grandeur. One never gets over the surprise that the snow-line should be so low—that the snow in the crater-like dug-outs on the mountain sides should be so near the level of the ocean in midsummer.

On entering Glacier Bay, another Arctic surprise awaits the tourist. Icebergs of all shapes and sizes begin to float about the steamer, some just large enough to fill the steward’s depleted ice-box, others, the size of a steamer, compelling the _Olympian_ to moderate her speed. As the great glacier is in sight two hours before the steamer reaches it, though headed directly for it, the passengers have ample time to admire the exquisite blue and white tints of these icebergs, and note their odd forms and resemblances to the hull of a steamer, various geometrical figures, a bundle of logs, a fairy grotto, or a sphinx, etc. Some of them are entirely covered with scores of gulls, which fly away with harsh cries as the steamer approaches.

It appears incredible that the surface of the glacier which lies a few miles ahead should be more than two hundred feet above the water; it seems no more than twenty; but the apparent height constantly increases until the steamer brings up suddenly within a few hundred feet of the icy wall. Then there is a chorus of ohs and ahs, and the Bishop of Rochester (England), who is one of the passengers, dogmatically pronounces it the grandest sight in the world.

Imagine a wall of solid ice, two hundred and twenty-five feet high, extending for about a mile to right and left, the upper portions white and broken up into the most fantastic crags and pinnacles, like the rocks of the Yellowstone Cañon; the lower portions of a deeper and deeper blue, according as the increased pressure from above and from the sides has squeezed out the air and changed the solid snow into pure ice, producing near the centre a grotto of more than celestial blue. Imagine, furthermore, that there are eight hundred feet more of this wall under the water, that even if it is true that the Muir Glacier moves thirty or forty feet a day, instead of only two or three, like those of Switzerland, the portion of ice now visible to the eye represents snow that fell perhaps hundreds of years ago, and has been slowly creeping down with the ice-river ever since—and the meaning of the word “sublime” will perhaps become clearer than any metaphysical definition could make it.

Every ten or fifteen minutes the spectator is startled from his reveries by an explosion, followed by an aggravated multitudinous echo, and caused by the fall of a portion of the ice-wall into the bay, where it floats away as an iceberg. As it splashes into the sea, the water flies up as in a geyser, and a wild wave dashes over the rocks, tosses about the steamer, and threatens to land it high and dry on the beach.

After this spectacle has grown familiar, the boats are lowered, and every one goes ashore to climb up the side of the glacier and get views of its rugged surface, resembling a stormy ocean suddenly frozen with all its white-caps. Here also can be seen the dozen or more tributary glaciers which combine to make the Muir, and the semicircle of snow-mountains whose sides they adorn. The amateur photographers have brought their apparatus along, and take groups of the passengers with this picturesque background; and then the steamer’s whistle summons all back to embark for Sitka.

As the steamer slowly gets ready to depart, one notices what in the excitement had previously escaped notice,—the grooved and polished rocks, at least a thousand feet up the mountain side, indicating how high the glacier must have been formerly. A century ago Glacier Bay was not navigable, and according to Indian tradition the Muir Glacier has receded five miles in three generations; but this need not alarm tourists, as it still has a reserve to last a few thousand years longer. On leaving Glacier Bay we were so fortunate as to see the giants Crillon and Fairweather outlined against a perfectly clear sky, illuminated by one of the most gorgeous sunsets I have ever seen, and the glories of which did not fade till ten o’clock. It is a superb mountain group, bearing a distant resemblance to the Mönch-Eiger-Jungfrau group, as seen near Mürren, which Mr. Tyndall does not stand alone in regarding as the finest in Switzerland.

XVI.

ACROSS THE CANADIAN PACIFIC.

ADVANTAGES OF AN AUTUMNAL TRIP—ENGLISH ASPECT OF
VICTORIA—VANCOUVER A “BOOM TOWN”—THE FRAZER RIVER AND CAÑON—EAGLE
PASS—REAPPEARANCE OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER—MOUNTAIN-SIDE
FORESTS—COMPARISON WITH SWITZERLAND—CONSTRUCTION OF
SNOW-SHEDS—BANFF AND THE NATIONAL PARK—THE BOW RIVER—DEVIL’S HEAD
LAKE—SULPHUR MOUNTAIN—WINNIPEG AND LAKE SUPERIOR.

The dense smoke from forest fires, which, by obscuring the grand mountain scenery of Oregon and Washington during July and August, so often makes summer travel in those States an illusion and a disappointment, also extends into British Columbia, as far east as Banff, the Canadian National Park, sometimes called the Yellowstone Park of Canada. Tourists who, on their return from Alaska, wish to proceed to the East via the Canadian Pacific Railway, will therefore do well to postpone this trip till after the middle of September, unless there have been some heavy rains earlier to put out the fires and lay the smoke. Rain on the coast means snow in the mountains, and no one need be told that half the beauty, grandeur, and apparent height of the three great mountain chains which this railroad traverses, depends on a new cloak of magnifying snow. And an autumnal trip has this further advantage, that the foliage along the banks of the upper Columbia River will wear its most brilliant tints of red and gold, which constitute one of the greatest charms of this tour, contrasting delightfully with the snow-capped peaks on every side.

Although Vancouver is really the Pacific terminus of this Canadian railroad, the project of making Victoria the terminus by building bridges over the chain of islands which in some places almost connect the mainland with Vancouver’s Island, having been abandoned, Victoria practically remains the starting-point; for a boat leaves this city early in the morning to connect with the daily east-bound train; and most tourists make it a point to spend a day in the capital of British Columbia before starting, not only because Victoria is interesting on account of its fine location, but because here many Americans for the first time get a glimpse of English life. For Victoria is English to the backbone,—as English as Montreal, or more so, because the similarity of the climate of Vancouver’s Island to that of Southern England (due to the effects, respectively, of the Japan Current and the Gulf Stream) enables the English in this Pacific city to surround their houses as at home, with fine lawns and trees, and gardens in which flowers are in bloom all the year round, snow being almost as unknown as in Southern California. Built on gently undulating ground,—such as is characteristic of old England,—the very location of Victoria differs from that of the “American” cities on the Sound, with their sloping hills and precipices. Nor are the streets laid out with the geometrical regularity so universal in the United States. The ladies on horseback, the numerous churches, the animated streets on Saturday evening, the abundant beef markets, the pirated American novels in the book-stalls, the substantial appearance of the houses and many other things remind one of the fact that here we are in America indeed, but not in the United States. But the most utterly utter anglicism in Victoria is the fact that if you want to leave a valise or parcel at the steamship office or elsewhere, you get no check or receipt for it, but have to rely on the receiver’s memory to see that no one else carries it off. At the present rate of progress it will take another century or two to get the idea of a numbered brass check, so simple, rapid, and convenient, through the British skull.

After inspecting the sights of Victoria, including Chinatown and the naval station at Esquimalt, we seek our cabin on the elegant steamer which leaves very early in the morning for Vancouver. The parting whistles wake us up, and for a while we gaze at the scenery from our bed, through the window. The shores are here more mountainous and higher than in Puget Sound, and gradually, indeed, the scenery becomes so Alaskan in character that we jump out of bed and dress hastily at this unseemly hour, lest we miss some fine effects; and well it is that we did so, for straight ahead are some superb mountain forms which look coal-black in the dim, semi-foggy atmosphere. The island of Vancouver (three hundred miles in length, with mountains nine thousand feet in height, and still largely unexplored) gradually disappears in the distance, and the city of Vancouver, on the mainland, comes into view. Its location reminds one again of Tacoma or Seattle, and in other respects, too, this brand-new city seems much more American than Victoria. While Victoria, as a town, was incorporated almost thirty years ago (1862), and has grown steadily to its population of twelve thousand, Vancouver is a “boom town” of the most ultra-American fashion. In 1886, its site was a dense forest, and to-day it has a population of ten thousand—a growth almost equal to that of Tacoma, and for similar reasons,—Oriental trade, lumber, fisheries, etc. Subsidized steamers run hence every few weeks to Japan, China, and Australia; and this circumstance alone would suffice to make of Vancouver a city which will run a close race with Seattle and Tacoma.

A European could hardly be made to believe that this city of ten thousand had grown up in four years in the midst of a gloomy forest of firs. What strikes the observer is not so much the number of the buildings as their appearance,—solid, substantial granite and brick buildings four to five stories high, and many of them of real architectural merit and individuality,—buildings such as are usually only seen in cities of one hundred thousand inhabitants. But this anomaly will disappear in a few years with the growth of the city, together with the still more striking anomaly presented by the numerous blackened stumps which still stand everywhere between the superb stone buildings, as no one has had time yet to remove them. Usually clearings are made for wheatfields by farmers, but here the forest was cleared away for a metropolis—and in the eager hurry the stumps were left standing.

A striking peculiarity of Vancouver is the very large size and number of windows, both in public buildings and private residences,—evidently suggested by the necessity of getting as much light as possible during the many cloudy days which this mountainous region is responsible for; but that sunshine also is abundant is attested by the fact that pumpkins and even tomatoes ripen in the gardens. English influence is shown in the astounding number of churches already built, and others in process of erection. Everybody carries a prayer-book on Sundays, and all the stores are closed. Finally, mention must be made of the fact that the Canadian Pacific Railway has built here a magnificent hotel, equal in every respect to the fine Tacoma Hotel built some years ago by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and to the new Hotel Portland in Oregon’s chief city. The scenery embraces the Cascade range, with Mt. Baker, the Olympic mountains, and the peaks of Vancouver Island; and the city has good wharfage, water, and electric light. With such advantages it will continue to eat its way rapidly into the dense surrounding forest.

The Frazer River, almost as widely famed as the Columbia for its abundant salmon and its superb scenery, enters the Sound about ten miles from Vancouver, at New Westminster, which had hoped to be the terminus of the railway, but now has to content itself with being the headquarters of the salmon-canning and lumber export trade. It is connected by a branch road with New Westminster Junction, a station on the transcontinental road, and is reached at 13.30 o’clock by our train which had left Vancouver at 12.45. The Canadian Pacific Railway has very sensibly adopted the custom of naming the hours from noon to midnight, 13 to 24 o’clock. Passengers unused to this method need only subtract 12 from those figures to feel at home; and after a day or two, 20 o’clock will seem as natural to them as 8 P.M. Nor is this the only thing in which this Canadian road could teach our American roads a useful lesson, as we shall see later on.

After leaving Vancouver, and before reaching Westminster, the train for some time runs along Burrard Inlet, on which is situated Fort Moody, another town which had hoped to be chosen as terminus, and actually did enjoy that privilege for a short time. The shores of the Inlet are beautifully wooded, and some of the trees are of enormous size. At the crossing of Stave River a fine view is obtained of Mt. Baker, looking forward to the right, and the bridge over the Harrison River, where it meets the Frazer, also affords a picturesque view. For the next fifteen or sixteen hours the train follows the banks of the Frazer River and its tributaries, and this is one of the grandest sections of the route. At the first the Frazer is a muddy, yellow river, about the size of the Willamette above Oregon City, but more rapid and winding, and an occasional steamer may be seen floating along with the current, or slowly making headway against it. In some places the railway runs so close to the precipitous bank of the river that a handkerchief might be dropped from a car window into the swirling eddies fifty feet below. At other places it leaves room—and just room enough—for the old wagon road between the track and the river; but it would take a cool driver, with much confidence in his horses, to remain on his wagon here when a train passes. At last the road itself becomes frightened and crosses the river on a bridge, whereupon it winds along the hill-side above the opposite bank, at a safe distance. This road was made during the Frazer River gold excitement in 1858, when twenty-five thousand miners flocked into this region, and wages for any kind of work were ten to eighteen dollars a day. To-day the metal no longer exists in what white men consider paying quantity; but Chinamen may still be seen along the river washing for remnants, their earnings being about fifty cents a day. There is also a “Ruby Creek” in this neighborhood, and some Indian habitations, and salmon-fishing places. Shortly before reaching Yale, which for a long time was the western end of the road, there is a slight intermission in the scenic drama, represented by some rich, level, agricultural lands—as if to give the passengers a moment’s rest before the wonders of the Frazer Cañon begin to monopolize their bewildered attention till darkness sets in and drops the curtain on the superb panorama.

Yale, which is so completely shut in by high, frowning mountain walls on every side that the sun touches the village only during part of the day, has lost its importance since it ceased to be a terminus, and seems at present to be inhabited chiefly by Indians and half-breeds. The train is invaded by a bevy of half-breed girls with baskets of splendid apples and pears, which could not be beaten for size and flavor in any of our States, and indicate a possible use for these mountain regions in the future. And now the train plunges into the midst of the series of terrific gorges which constitute the Frazer Cañon, and which make this railway literally the most gorge-ous in the world. Here were appalling engineering difficulties to overcome, which no private corporation without the most liberal government support could have undertaken. Yet the builders had to be thankful even for this wild and rugged cañon dug out by the Frazer River, without which the Cascade range would have been impassable. The palace cars of the Canadian Pacific, which contain all the best features of the Pullman cars, with home improvements, have a special observatory, with large windows, at the end of the train, whence the cañon should be viewed; but to see it at its best one must sit on the rear platform, so as to see at the same time both of the wild and precipitous cañon walls, between which the river rushes along as if pursued by demons. At every curve you think the gorge must come to an end, but it only grows more stupendous, and the river, lashed into foam and fury, dashes blindly against the rocks which try to arrest its course. These rocks, ten to thirty feet wide and sometimes twice as long, form many pretty little stone islands in the middle of the torrent, and are a characteristic feature of the cañon scenery. Numerous tunnels, resembling those on the Columbia River, are built through arches seemingly projecting over the river. The train plunges into them recklessly, but always comes out fresh and smiling on the other side, although it seems that if the bottom of the tunnel should by any chance drop out, the train would be precipitated into the river below.

Once in a while the river takes a short rest, and in these comparatively calm stretches hundreds of beautiful large red fish can be seen from the train, in the clear water, struggling up stream. With their dark backs and bright red sides they form a sight which is none the less interesting when you are told that they are “only dog-salmon,” which are not relished by whites, though the Indians eat them.

The train stops for supper at North Bend, and here we are once more impressed with the fact that although we are in America, we are not in the United States. At our own stations, as soon as the train stops, there is a grand rush for the dining-room, the waiters dump half-a-dozen small dishes before each passenger, who attacks them nervously, with one eye on the door and his ears pricked up for the bell. It would be useless to extend the dining-time more than fifteen or twenty minutes, for in five minutes most of the small dishes are empty and in ten or twelve minutes not a soul is left at the tables, though the _restaurateur_ has called out repeatedly, “Plenty of time,” “Departure of the train will be announced.”

How differently they manage things on British soil! There passengers sit down, unfold their napkins leisurely, while the waiter-girl brings on the soup. There is a regular _menu_, of so many courses, each of which is brought on separately. The conductor, after disposing of his share of the feast, waits at the door till the last passenger has of his own free will left the table, picking his teeth, and then calls out “All aboard.” Time, forty-five minutes; and at other stations similar scenes are enacted, with never less than half an hour for a meal. Yet the train is always on time.

It must be admitted that it is not very difficult to be on time when the average speed for the first day is only seventeen miles an hour. There is danger from the boulders which may roll on the track from the steep cañon sides, and occasionally you see a sign along the track telling the engineer to “GO CAUTIOUSLY—FOUR MILES AN HOUR.” All the dangerous ground, however, is covered by walkers, who go over the track an hour before each passenger train.

During the night east-bound passengers will inevitably miss the fine scenery along the Thompson River, with the Thompson and Black cañons; but it should be stated that the time-table in both directions has been so arranged that the best part of the route is traversed in the daytime; and that consequently no radical change will perhaps ever be made. Passengers who are willing to get up at six may still see part of the Thompson River and get some fine views of Shuswap Lake as the train skirts its shores. Here, obviously, would be the place for lovers of sport to get off, for vast flocks of ducks and geese rise from the water as the train rushes past. About ten o’clock the train arrives at Craigellachie, which is notable as the spot where the rails from the east and west met, and where the last spike on this great continental road was driven in, on November 7, 1885.

Scenic wonders now succeed one another with bewildering rapidity throughout the day. This second day, in fact, represents the climax of the trip, and the attention is not allowed to flag for a second. However much such a confession may go against the grain of patriotism, every candid traveller must admit that there is nothing in the United States in the way of massive mountain scenery (except perhaps in Alaska) to compare with the glorious panorama which is unfolded on this route. Within thirty-six hours after leaving Vancouver we traverse three of the grandest mountain ranges in America,—the Cascades, Selkirks, and Rockies,—all of them the abode of eternal snow and glaciers, and all of them traversed through by cañons which vie with each other in terrific grandeur.

Before the Selkirks are reached the train passes the Columbia or Gold range, through the Eagle Pass, so called because it was discovered by watching an eagle’s flight. Eagle Pass is a poetic and appropriate name, and yet I think it would be well to re-name this mountain pass and call it Mirror Lake Cañon, because that would call the attention of tourists to what is its most characteristic feature, which may otherwise be overlooked. There are four lakes and many smaller bodies of water in this valley, in whose placid surface the finely sloped mountain ridges and summits of the pass are reflected with marvellous distinctness, so that here, as in the Yosemite Mirror Lake, the copy is more lovely than the original. Some of the mountain sides reflected in these mirrors are naked rocks, others are covered with living evergreen trees, and others still with dead trees. In the mirror these dead forests look hardly less beautiful than the living ones; but in the original the eye dwells with more pleasure on the green forests which here, and almost everywhere in British Columbia, grow with the rank luxuriance of a Ceylon jungle. The soil under these dense tree-masses, consisting of decayed pine and fir needles, a foot deep and always moist, makes a paradise for lovely mosses and ferns. Here, also, is the home of the bear, and one would not have to walk far in this thicket to encounter a grizzly, black, or cinnamon bruin.

On emerging from the Mirror Lake Cañon, a great surprise awaits the passengers. The Columbia River—to which they had fancied they had said a final farewell when they were ferried across it on the way from Portland to Tacoma—suddenly comes upon the scene again, as clear and as picturesque as ever; and even at this immense distance from its mouth still large enough to require a bridge half a mile long to cross it. A few hours later the train again crosses the Columbia, at Donald, where the river has become much smaller than it seems that it should in such a short distance. To get an explanation of this circumstance, it is interesting to glance at the map, and notice what an immense curve northward the Columbia has made in this interval in order to find a passage through the Selkirk range; and in thus encircling the snowy Selkirks it has, of course, added to its volume the contents of innumerable glacier streams and mountain brooks. Its real sources are southeast of Donald, on the summit of the Rockies, separated by but a short distance from springs which run down on the eastern side and find their way through the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. Thus do extremes meet. It would be difficult to find anything so curious in the course of any other river as this immense, irregular parallelogram which the Columbia here describes from its sources to Arrow Lake.

Fortunately, railroad builders are not quite as dependent as rivers on deep cañons for getting over mountain barriers; hence our train is not obliged to follow the Columbia in its great sweep around the Selkirks, but proceeds comparatively straight across this range towards the Rockies proper, via the Albert Cañon, at an elevation of 2845 feet, in which the train makes a brief stop to enable passengers to look down into a flume in which the river, narrowed by the walls to twenty feet, rushes along three hundred feet directly beneath them.

The snow-peaks of the Selkirks are now looming up on all sides, and the atmosphere becomes more bracing and Alpine as the train slowly creeps up the mountain side, doubling up on itself in a loop. The Glacier House is reached before long, and here every tourist who has time to spare should get off and spend a day or two, since next to Banff, in the National Park, this is the finest point along the whole route, scenically speaking, while the air is even more salubrious, cool, and intoxicating than at Banff, owing to the nearness of the glacier. It would be difficult, even in Switzerland, to find a more romantic spot for a hotel than the location of the Glacier House. High peaks rise up on every side, so finely moulded, so deeply mantled with snow, and presenting such various aspects from different points of view, that we forget our disgust at the fact that, as usual in the West, these grand eternal peaks have been named after ephemeral mortals,—Browns, Smiths, and Joneses. The Grizzly and Cougar mountains are more aptly named, as these animals will long continue to abound in the impenetrable forests which adorn these peaks below the snow-line. Looking from the hotel towards the glacier, to the left is a peak which looks like the Matterhorn, the most unique mountain in Switzerland; and what is still more striking, at its side is another, smaller peak, which is an exact copy of the Little Matterhorn.

The greater part of the Selkirk region is still entirely unexplored; and good mountain climbers who scorn to reascend the Swiss peaks, which have long since all been measured, named, and labelled, may here have their pick of first ascents. But they will miss the conveniences of the Swiss Alps,—well-informed guides, and hotels with all modern conveniences. Not even a satisfactory map has existed heretofore, and an Englishman, W. S. Green, who published a book called “Among the Selkirk Glaciers” (1890) was obliged to make his own map which is added to his volume. It is tantalizing to read of Alpine paradises, “which no being higher than a bear had entered before” Mr. Green and his companion, and of “a perfect ocean of peaks and glaciers,” etc., which they could see on elevated points. Who knows but that a hundred years hence there will be as many visitors to the Selkirks every summer as now crowd into Switzerland?

The Glacier Hotel will always remain a popular point, because it is so near a great glacier of almost Alaskan dimensions. It is only about a mile thence to the foot of the glacier, which has the moraine of huge boulders, the gaping crevasses, the stream at the end, and all the other accessories of ice-rivers. At noon, on a warm day, when the ice melts rapidly, the roar of the glacial stream can be distinctly heard far away; but as the sun sinks lower, the water flows more scantily, and at night the brook is silent or merely whispers.

The principal difference between the Swiss Alps and the Selkirk range lies in the aspect of the mountain sides below the snow-line. These, in Switzerland, are green meadows dotted with browsing cows; while here they consist of superb forests of giant cedars, with bears in place of cows, and presenting one unbroken mass of dark green, except where an avalanche has tobogganed down and opened what seems at a distance like a roadway, but is found to be a battle-field strewn with the corpses of cedars three and four feet in diameter.

The most imposing view of such a mountain forest, unbroken by a single avalanche path, is obtained from the snow-sheds just above the hotel. Sitting outside these sheds and looking toward the left, you see a vast mountain slope covered with literally millions of dark green trees. Why has none of the world’s greatest poets ever been permitted to gaze on such a Selkirk forest, that he might have aroused in his unfortunate readers who are not privileged to see one, emotions similar to those inspired by it? But I fear that neither verse nor photographs, nor even the painter’s brush, can ever more than suggest the real grandeur of such a forest scene. This mountain is not snow-crowned in September, but its wooded summit makes a sharp green line against the snow-peaks beyond and above. From this summit down to the foot stand the green giant cedars, as crowded as the yellow stalks in a Minnesota wheatfield. But in place of the flat monochrome of a wheatfield, our sloping forest presents a most fascinating color spectacle. The slanting rays of the sun tinge the waving tree-tops with a deeply saturated yellowish green, curiously interspersed with a mosaic of dark, almost black streaks and patches of shade, due to clouds and other causes, and the whole edged by the dazzling snow.

If we descend and enter this forest, a cathedral-like awe thrills the nerves. Daylight has not the power to penetrate to the ground hidden by this dense mass of tree-tops rising two hundred to three hundred feet into the air—except that an occasional ray of sunlight may steal in for a second, like a flash of lightning. And the carpet on which this forest stands! In America we rarely see a house, even of a day-laborer, without a carpet: why, then, should these royal trees do without one? The carpet is itself a miniature forest of ferns and mosses, luxuriating in riotous profusion on an ever-moist soil, the products of thousands of generations of pine needles. Nor is this carpet a monochrome, for the green is varied by numerous berries of various kinds, most of which are red, as they should be—the complementary color of green. But there are also acres of blueberries as large as cherries; and if you will tear off a few branches of these and bring them to the young bear chained up near the Glacier Hotel, he will be very grateful, and you will find it amusing to watch him eating them.

There is music, too, in this Forest Cathedral, which is heard to best advantage from the elevated gallery occupied by the snow-sheds. It takes a trained ear to distinguish the steady, rippling _staccato_ sound of a snow-fed mountain brook from the prolonged _legato_ sigh of a pine forest, swelling to _fortissimo_, and dying away by turns. In the romantic spot we have chosen, these sounds are blended, the music of the torrents being caught up by the sloping forest as by a huge sounding-board, and increased in loudness by being mingled with the mournful strains of the tree-tops, as orchestral colors are blended by modern masters. Those err who say there is no music in nature. It is not in “Siegfried” alone that the _Waldweben_ is musical, that leaves sing as well as birds, while the thunder occasionally adds its loud _basso profundo_.

The æsthetic exhilaration which we owe to these poetic sights and sounds is intensified by the salubrious breezes which waft this music to our ears. Born among the clouds and glaciers, they are perfumed in passing across the forests, warmed by the sun’s rays in passing over the valley; and every breath of this elixir adds a day to one’s life. It is not surprising that mountains should make the best health resorts; for do they not themselves understand and obey the laws of health? They keep their heads cool under a snow-cap, their feet warm in a mossy blanket, and their sides covered with a dense _fir_ overcoat.

In comparing the Alpine scenes of British Columbia with those of Switzerland, I should have noted one more advantage in favor of the former, namely, the rows and groups of giant cedars through the spaces between which glimpses of the snow ridges and peaks, and of the green slopes leading up to them, are caught. This always adds a lovely frame to the picture, and gives infinite variety. Even the stumps and fallen trees in the foreground, whether they are the result of an avalanche or left there by the builders of the railroad, add an element of wildness and desolation which harmonizes better with Alpine scenery than meadows, cows, and dairy huts.

But we must not linger too long at the Glacier House and amid the Selkirks, for another range of the Rockies, equally grand, awaits us beyond. I have mentioned the curve on which the snow-sheds are built, just above the hotel, whence such a fine view of peaks and forests is to be obtained. We who have been able to stop over a day have had time to enjoy this view at leisure. But those who are unable to interrupt their journey would have missed one of the finest sights in America had it not been for the most commendable wisdom and liberality which prompted the builders of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to construct a second track outside of the snow-sheds, which is used in summer, so that every passenger can, for a moment at least, feast his eyes on this incomparable scene. Of all commendable features of the Canadian road which I have had occasion to praise, this one most merits imitation on some of our “American” railways, unless an exception be the delightfully convenient “Time-Table,” in form of a forty-four page booklet, which is given free to passengers, and which contains brief notes on all the stations and principal scenic points, while the hour at which the train arrives at each is printed in the margin, both for east-bound and for west-bound trains.

On passing the snow-sheds it is interesting to study their appearance and note with what an apparently lavish waste of timber they have been constructed. But it must be remembered that timber is more than abundant here, and that the trees that had to be cut down to make room for the track more than sufficed for all the sleepers, sheds, and other protective bulwarks against snow, landslides, or avalanches. The log-remnants, lying about on both sides of the track, will soon be covered with mosses and ferns and add a new element of loveliness to the scene. And there is another way in which the railway atones to the vegetable kingdom for the damage caused by passing through the forests. As the train speeds along, its suction whirls into the air, like snowflakes, the light-winged seeds ripening along the track; and thus it becomes a great distributer of herbs and flowers.

Twenty minutes after leaving the Glacier House the train reaches its highest point on the Selkirks,—4275 feet. Then the descent begins, and we leave the vicinity of the glaciers, though the snow-peaks that give rise to them continue for hours to gladden the sight. What had seemed more or less isolated peaks near by, are now seen to be merely the highest points of a vast conglomeration of mountain ridges, which are thrown into ever-new groups as the train winds along the mountain sides. In rapid succession several bridges are passed, built over brooks several hundred feet below. To the right, far below us, is a long, narrow valley, painted a mellow golden yellow by the setting sun (it sets here at three); and winding through it is the Beaver River, which from this height looks as small as if it were seen through an inverted spy-glass. Glimpses of the Rockies are now caught, and at 16.45 o’clock Donald is reached, where we once more cross the Columbia, which starts out hence for its grand curve around the Selkirks. The river here is about as large as the Rhine at Schaffhausen, and yet the passengers discover to their amazement that even here it is navigable, and that if they wish to make a hundred-mile trip, which is said to equal in grandeur any part of the Columbia River, they need only stop over at Golden City, two hours beyond Donald, and take the small weekly boat which runs from that station up the river, charging six dollars for the round trip. Golden City owes its name to a former mining excitement, but its present appearance suggests that Golden Fizzle would be a more appropriate name.

For the greater part of the two hours which the train requires to go from Donald to Golden City it passes along the bank of the Columbia River; and there is, perhaps, no part of the whole route where grandeur and beauty are so admirably united as here, especially in the autumn. The grandeur lies in the snowy summits which frame in this Columbia valley—the Selkirks on one side, the Rockies on the other. The beauty lies in the river itself and in the young trees and bushes along its banks, dressed in fall styles and colors, some as richly yellow as a golden-rod, others as deeply purple or crimson as fuchsias or begonias, the yellow predominating. These colored trees occur in groups and streaks along the river, and in isolated patches on the mountain sides, where they might be mistaken for brown mosses or lichen-covered rocks. There may be as beautifully colored trees in our Eastern forests, but they are not mixed, as here, with young evergreen pines, nor have they a framework of snow-mountains, like these, to enhance their beauty. High up on the ridges there is another variety of trees of a beautiful russet color set off by a deep blue sky. Talk of color symphonies! Here they are—miles of them—long as a Wagner trilogy, and as richly orchestrated! Even the masses of blackened logs and stumps—if one can set aside for a moment all thought of pity for the poor charred trees, so happy before the fire in their green luxuriance, and of the sad waste of useful timber—enhance the charm of this scene by contrast.

I have said that the time-table of the Canadian Pacific Railway is so arranged that the finest scenery is passed in daylight, in both directions; but of course there must be exceptions, and, as a matter of fact, as long as the road crosses the three great mountain ranges of the Cascades, Selkirks, and Rockies, there is hardly a mile which does not offer something worth seeing. Consequently, as darkness again closes in soon after leaving Golden, east-bound passengers must resign themselves to lose sight of the Kickinghorse Cañon, the Beaverfoot and Ottertail mountains, the large glacier on Mt. Stephen, etc.,—which is all the more provoking as they have to sit up anyway till midnight, when Banff is reached; for of course, every tourist who is in his right senses and not a slave to duty gets off here to spend a few days in the Canadian National Park.

It was Goethe, I believe, who spoke somewhere of the pleasure of arriving at a place famed for its beauty, in the darkness of night, thus reserving for the morning hours, when our senses are refreshed by sleep, the first impressions of the scenery. Passengers who have not “read up” on the subject, would little imagine, as the midnight coach takes them to the Canadian Pacific Railway Hotel, as it is called, that they are in some of the finest mountain valleys in the world, and that the hotel itself is as picturesquely perched on top of a hill as any castle on the Rhine. But no castle on the Rhine boasts a view comparable to that which is spread before them in the morning. The best place to enjoy it is in the open rotunda built behind the hotel, just over the precipice. Far below, the clear and rapid Bow River winds along in graceful curves, forming on the left a series of turbulent cascades terminating in a fall which is visible from the rotunda, though of course at this distance less effective than from the river-bank. Below the falls the river hastens on in the direction of the Peechee Mountain, which forms the boundary wall of the valley east of the hotel and, with the wide ridge on the right, is the most interesting sight in the whole Park. This ridge seldom presents the same appearance on successive days, and hardly two photographs of it are alike, owing to the fact that the melting snow, after a storm, constantly stripes and mottles it in different patterns. Though the ridge, which is several thousand feet wide, seems to be absolutely perpendicular, the snow still clings to it and paints it white, except in one section, near the summit, where a black, snowless streak runs across horizontally, dividing the snow-wall into two sections.

To the right of the hotel are some sharp-pointed peaks inclining over each other, somewhat like the Three Brothers in the Yosemite Valley, “playing leapfrog”; and to the left is the massive Cascade Mountain. The most important excursions for those whose time is limited to a day, are a trip by boat up the Bow River, as far as Vermilion Lake, in the morning, and a drive to Devil’s Head Lake in the afternoon.

The Bow River excursion, which is made on a little steam-launch whenever a party is ready for it, has only one drawback,—the ugly, bristling corpses of charred pines on both sides of the river, the effects of a recent most deplorable forest fire. Arrangements have been made with lumbermen for the removal of these charred trunks, but it will take years to finish the job, as there are thousands of them. Fortunately there is already a new undergrowth, and in a few years the vigorous young trees will have covered up the stumps. In many places, however, the green trees have been spared, and in these sections matchless views of the surrounding mountains may be obtained through the loveliest green foregrounds. Winding about as it does, the Bow River shows all the mountains included in the Park, and many others, with endless changes of the point of view and grouping. Among the most imposing peaks two will be specially impressed on the memory,—Mt. Edith, a sharp, bare, rocky formation, apparently inaccessible, and the extremely interesting Copper Mountain, shaped like a heart, whose two sides, as seen from the upper Bow River, are surprisingly symmetrical. In the centre is a rocky projection of a regular shape.

There are a few shallow places where one can see logs and dead trees lying at the bottom; but generally the small river is wonderfully deep, so that it seems more like the arm of a lake than a mountain stream. Below the falls, however, it becomes too shallow and turbulent for navigation, and this suggests the theory that the cascades and falls were caused by a landslide, or rather a rockslide, which blocked up the river and deepened the part above this obstruction.

The water of the Bow River comes direct from the Rocky Mountain glaciers and springs, and is, therefore, as clear as a crystal, and if you want a delicious drink, you need only dip your cup into the water and help yourself. What a boon such a copious mountain stream, free from the faintest suspicion of microbes, would be near a large city! There are fish in this water, as a matter of course, and wild ducks can be seen swimming about on it every day, from the hotel rotunda. The part of the river below the falls is also well worth a visit. The Spray River, almost as wide as the Bow, and even more turbulent, enters the Bow just below the falls; and for those who are fond of listening to the music and the babble of brooks, a finer spot than this could not be found. Below the bridge, over the Spray, is a mountain side rapidly crumbling away, and here a stone avalanche may be heard and seen every five minutes. All around are groups and groves of straight, slender mountain poplars, with smooth, pale olive bark and golden autumn leaves. There is something fresh and delightfully healthy in the appearance of these young mountain trees, suggestive of trout bred in icy brooks. It is impossible to walk a hundred steps without being arrested by the really thrilling beauty of these tree-groups,—the blackish green pines encircling the poplars and birches, whose leaves are resplendent in the deepest dyes, representing their transition from fresh, light green, through a dozen shades of greenish yellow, till a deep golden yellow is attained as the climax. While the leaves are mostly yellow, the numerous kinds of berries—bunchberries, mountain-ash, sweet-brier, etc.—are red, and one of the most exquisite bits of color is contributed by the scarlet leaves of the wild gooseberry. The berries of the sweet-brier are much larger than in Oregon, though the bushes are only a foot in height, while in Oregon they are eight to ten, and with their thousands of roses or berries form a most lovely sight.

Forest symphonies like these are also to be seen in abundance on the way to Lake Minnewonka, better known as Devil’s Head Lake. An excellent carriage road has been constructed by the government, the distance being nine miles. For the most part the road runs along the foot of precipitous palisade-like mountains, in measuring which the famous Hudson River palisades might be used as a yard-stick, or standard of measure. These mountain sides are beautifully striped and mottled with snow, in a manner that seems to be peculiar to this region, and is repeated on a still grander scale on the steep cañon walls which form the sides of Lake Minnewonka. Before reaching the lake, a most imposing range of the Rockies—a wild jumble of snow-peaks—is seen on the right, beyond the river. Altogether, this drive to the lake is one of the finest in the world, and the lake itself forms a fitting climax. It is a curiosity among mountain lakes, being fourteen miles long and only one to two miles wide, both its sides being steep and beautifully formed mountains. It might in fact be described as a cañon filled with a lake—as the Yosemite Valley is supposed to have been at one time. Its average depth is only forty feet, but owing to its peculiar oblong shape and its vertical sides, it is greatly subject to mountain “draughts,” which are likely, without a moment’s notice, to assume the form of wild and sudden squalls. In the morning the surface of the lake forms a perfect mirror of the surrounding peaks, and at certain hours and states of the wind it is tinted with the most exquisite shades of green, blue, purple, and violet. In this surface iridescence it resembles Lake Tahoe; but in another respect there is a remarkable difference between these two lakes; for although Tahoe has an altitude of almost two thousand feet above Minnewonka, and is also surrounded by snow-mountains, its waters never freeze, even though the snow on its shores be ten feet high; while the Canadian lake does freeze to a depth of two to four feet in February, and then forms an admirable surface for ice-boats and for skating. The lake is full of large trout which are still quite abundant, as they were not fished for till about four years ago.

The government is so proud of this lake that it has appointed a keeper to prevent it from being stolen. He keeps an inn on the end nearest to Banff, and he says that so far the best catch made by a tourist in one day was eighteen trout, weighing seventy-eight pounds. The Vanderbilt party, in 1889, caught one weighing twenty-eight pounds, and in 1888 the keeper said that he and the cook caught one weighing fifty-three pounds, which was probably served _cum grano salis_. (Please remember that I am merely repeating what was told to me.) The incident will probably recall to the reader the story of the heathen whose budding faith was nipped when a missionary told him the story of Jonah and the whale. “When it comes to fish stories,” he remarked subsequently to a friend, “no one can be trusted.” I must add, however, in justice to the keeper, that a fifty-three-pound mountain trout, abstractly considered, is not impossible. Very large hooks are used to pull these lake trout in, and though they cannot be young, their firm pink flesh is of delicious flavor and not at all toughened by age. The keeper sneered at those tourists who come from the Canadian Pacific Railroad Hotel, and fish from noon to five o’clock,—a time when no self-respecting trout will bite,—and then go away growling that there are no fish in the lake. He also said that there was at present no road around the lake, except an Indian trail, but that a road was projected, as was the placing of a small steamboat on the lake.

Besides the drive to this lake (which passes through the village of Banff, about a mile from the hotel), there are other excellent roads in several directions, notably those to the Lower and the Middle and Upper Sulphur Springs. The Canadian National Park bases its claim to the attention of the travelling public on the curative properties of its sulphur springs quite as much as on its scenic attractions. On approaching the Lower Springs, the fumes bring back memories of Yellowstone Park, as do the curious, gray, brittle stones and the aspect of the soil. Bathers can have their choice of a subterranean plunge in a dimly lighted grotto or cave, which might have been the abode of a mountain nymph, or in an open pool, framed in by the bath-house on one side, and on the other by rocks, from which the plunge may be made. The temperature of the grotto is 80°; of the open pool, 92°. In the latter the hot water bubbles up from a hole in the bottom, and the boys dive down, put an arm into it, and bring up a handful of very coarse-grained quicksand. Hours can be agreeably spent here, and the sulphur odor is not unpleasantly noticeable; but after the bath one smells for hours like a walking parlor-match. In front of the bath-house is a fountain, the water in which is so strongly impregnated that soap cannot be used in washing in it: yet the ice which forms on it in winter is pure from all mineral matter. Animals are fond of this water. I saw a dog drink it (in Oregon I saw a dog drinking sea-water, for that matter), and the keeper of the bath-house says that the cows and horses often come up from the valley to drink it, although there is abundant pure water below.