Among the Canadian Alps

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Burpee Lawrence Johnstone. Among the Canadian Alps

PREFACE

I. THE LURE OF THE MOUNTAINS

II. THE NATIONAL PARKS OF CANADA

III. IN AND ABOUT BANFF

IV. THE CANADIAN MATTERHORN

V. INCOMPARABLE LAKE LOUISE

VI. THE VALLEY OF THE YOHO

VII. AROUND THE ILLECILLEWAET

VIII. THE CAVES OF NAKIMU

IX. MOUNTAIN CLIMBING AND CLIMBERS

X. CLIMBING IN THE SELKIRKS

XI. AFIELD IN JASPER

XII. OUT OF THE WORLD

XIII. THE MONARCH OF THE ROCKIES

XIV. ON THE MOOSE RIVER TRAIL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MAPS

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WHAT is the peculiar charm of that mighty, snow-capped sea of mountains, whose stupendous waves tossed far into the heavens seem ever about to overwhelm the level wheat-fields of Western Canada? The lure of the mountains defies analysis, but it is surely there with its irresistible appeal to all in whom the spirit of romance is not quite dead. It stirs the blood strangely when, far out on the plains of Alberta, you get your first glimpse of the Canadian Alps – a line of white, glittering peaks just above the horizon, infinitely remote and ethereal, something altogether apart from the prosaic world about you of grain and cattle, neat farm-house and unsightly elevator.

As you follow the course of the sun, the peaks loom gradually up into the sky and dominate the scene, but still retain the atmosphere of another world. The rolling foothills in the foreground, like spent waves from the storm-tossed sea, seem tangible and comprehensible, but beyond and above the dark ramparts of the outer range, the towering outer wave of the mountains, float silvery outlines that seem to be the fabric of some other and purer world. Doubt may come with the marvellously clear and hardening light of the western day, but at sunrise, and peculiarly at sunset, the last shreds of uncertainty are swept away. Not of this earth is that dream of fairyland poised mysteriously in the upper air, glowing in exquisite tints, soft as a summer cloud; a realm of the spirit to which one might hope to journey over the path of a rainbow.

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Another little-known narrative is that of Sir George Simpson's expedition of 1825. Sir George Simpson was then Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and like Jehu he drove furiously. He travelled in what was known as a light canoe, manned with picked boatmen famous for speed, skill and endurance; they were off at daylight or earlier, and did not camp before nightfall. In his journeys across the continent, by the great water routes of the fur-trade, the Governor's canoe bore about the same relation to the regular brigades that the Twentieth Century Limited does to a freight train.

One of the most fascinating of the narratives of this period is Paul Kane's Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America. Kane was a Toronto artist, who travelled across the continent studying the manners and customs of the various tribes, and making a series of most delightful sketches of them and of their country. His comments on the natives and their habits are shrewd and entertaining, and if written to-day would sometimes be thought much too frank for publication. Kane crossed the Athabaska Pass in 1846, and returned the same way the following year.

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