Читать книгу Canada - John George Bourinot - Страница 11

Ascending the foothills that rise from the plains to the Rocky Mountains we come to the Western region, known as British Columbia, comprising within a width varying from four to six hundred miles at the widest part, several ranges of great mountains which lie, roughly speaking, parallel to each other, and give sublimity and variety to the most remarkable scenery of North America. These mountains are an extension of the Cordilleran range, which forms the backbone of the Pacific coast, and in Mexico rises to great volcanic ridges, of which the loftiest are Popocatepétl and Iztaccíhuatl. Plateaus and valleys of rich, gravelly soil lie within these stately ranges.

The Fraser, Columbia, and other rivers of this region run with great swiftness among the cañons and gorges of the mountains, and find their way at last to the Pacific. In the Rockies, properly so called, we see stupendous masses of bare, rugged rock, crowned with snow and ice, and assuming all the grand and curious forms which nature loves to take in her most striking upheavals. Never can one forget the picturesque beauty and impressive grandeur of the Selkirk range, and the ride by the side of the broad, rapid Fraser, over trestle-work, around curves, and through tunnels, with the forest-clad mountains ever rising as far as the eye can reach, with glimpses of precipices and cañons, of cataracts and cascades that tumble down from the glaciers or snow-clad peaks, and resemble so many drifts of snow amid the green foliage that grows on the lowest slopes. The Fraser River valley, writes an observer, "is one so singularly formed, that it would seem that some superhuman sword had at a single stroke cut through a labyrinth of mountains for three hundred miles, down deep into the bowels of the land." [4] Further along the Fraser the Cascade Mountains lift their rugged heads, and the river "flows at the bottom of a vast tangle cut by nature through the heart of the mountains." The glaciers fully equal in magnitude and grandeur those of Switzerland. On the coast and in the rich valleys stand the giant pines and cedars, compared with which the trees of the Eastern division seem mere saplings. The coast is very mountainous and broken into innumerable inlets and islands, all of them heavily timbered to the water's edge. The history of this region offers little of picturesque interest except what may be found in the adventures of daring sailors of various nationalities on the Pacific coast, or in the story of the descent of the Fraser by the Scotch fur-trader who first followed it to the sea, and gave it the name which it still justly bears.

The history of the Western and Central regions of the Dominion is given briefly towards the end of this narrative, as it forms a national sequence or supplement to that of the Eastern divisions, Acadia and Canada, where France first established her dominion, and the foundations were laid for the present Canadian confederation. It is the story of the great Eastern country that I must now tell in the following pages.

[1] The first terrace, named after Lord Durham, was built on the foundations of the castle. In recent years the platform has been extended and renamed Dufferin, in honour of a popular governor-general.

[3] Sir J. W. Dawson, Salient Points in the Science of the Earth, p. 99.

[4] H. H. Bancroft, British Columbia, p. 38.