Among the Canadian Alps Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: JASPER LAKE. _R. C. W. Lett_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIDDLE CREEK CANYON. _R. C. W. Lett_]

XII

OUT OF THE WORLD

Chatting one evening with the genial Superintendent of Jasper Park, into whose sympathetic ear we had been pouring our ardent desire to see some portion of the mountains that was at least comparatively unknown, he replied: "I know the very place you want--Maligne Lake, off to the south of here. I can get you a good guide and outfit to-night, and you can start in the morning." The name did not sound very inviting; rather suggested that some one had seen the lake and condemned it. It appeared, however, that the name was really given to the river by which the waters of the lake are carried down to the Athabaska, and that the Indians had their own good reasons for p.r.o.nouncing it "bad." We lived to commend their verdict. As for the lake, it would be as reasonable to call it "Maligne" as to give such a name to a choice corner of paradise. That, however, is getting a little ahead of the story.

The following morning the guide and his helper with the outfit were waiting for us on the other side of the Athabaska. We and our packs were punted across, the pack-horses were loaded, we climbed on our ponies and started off for the undiscovered country, as it pleased us to call it, with mountains smiling down upon us, a radiant sky overhead, and unutterable joy in our hearts.

The trail--it is painful to admit that there was a trail, and an excellent one at that--led up the valley of the Athabaska to Buffalo Prairie, where we made our first camp after an easy day's journey.

Buffalo Prairie is a beautiful meadow set among the rolling hills that break the level of the long valley, with that first consideration to those who travel in the mountains, an abundance of feed for the horses, and with wonderful views of the great guardian peaks, Geikie, Hardisty, the Three Sisters, and a great company of glittering giants as yet unnamed. To one who comes from the east where every little hillock has its name, it is startling to find oneself gazing reverently at a majestic pyramid of rock and ice soaring a mile or so into the sky, and learn from the indifferent guide that it is merely one of the thousand nameless mountains.

The following morning we were off early, to the infinite disgust of the horses who were revelling in the good feed of the prairie. There was a long day's journey ahead up to and over Bighorn Pa.s.s, and a good deal of uncertainty as to where we might find any sort of a camping ground on the other side of the mountains. For a time we continued our way up the valley of the Athabaska, and then began the long slow climb up to the pa.s.s, over 8000 feet above the sea. As we topped one hill after another, sometimes travelling through patches of jack pine, sometimes up the dry bed of a mountain stream, there opened up new and ever more glorious views of the great ranges on either side. High up on the trail we had to turn aside to make room for a long pack train on its way down to Jasper. Hideous confusion would result if the two outfits were allowed to get entangled, only to be made right after much expenditure of time and pungent language. Finally the last pack-horse went by with a picturesque packer jogging along in the rear, and we began the last and heaviest grind up to the pa.s.s. The trail wound into the pa.s.s, and up and ever up, until we must get off the plucky little beasts and lead them the final stage, puffing and panting as we stumbled along through the heavy loose shale until at last we stood on the summit, and with a last glance back at the peaks off toward Athabaska Pa.s.s turned down through an alpine meadow, and in the midst of a swirling snowstorm, toward the valley of the Maligne.

For hours we toiled around the shoulders of hills of loose shale, or through miles of muskeg, or fallen timber, sometimes mounted, oftener on foot leading our hard-worked ponies, until at long last with the sun below the horizon we found on a steep hillside a little feed for the horses, and water for our kettles. The tent had to be pitched on the trail, the only relatively clear spot that could be found, and we trusted to Providence not to send another outfit along in the middle of the night to walk over us. It had been a long heavy day's travel, and after our supper of bannocks and bacon and a pipe we turned in and slept as only those may sleep who travel on the wilderness trail.

Our tent has been spoken of, but it was more properly a tepee--not the tepee that you see in pictures of Indian life, made of skins neatly sewn together and perhaps ornamented with rude drawings--but a modern compromise, of the old Indian form but made of strong cotton. Some of the guides in the mountains much prefer the tepee to the tent in any of its familiar forms. Others will have none of it. Our own experience led us to the conclusion that the tepee is without a rival in a good tepee country, that is one where suitable tepee poles are abundant, but there are occasions when you have to camp in a district where poles are as hard to find as needles in a haystack, and the resources of the language seem ludicrously inadequate as you limp about the camp in an ever-widening circle hunting for something that will support the thrice-d.a.m.nable tepee for the night.

If you are fortunate enough to find a sufficient number of long, straight, slender poles among the fallen timber (in the parks you are not permitted to cut down trees for the purpose), it is a matter of but a very few minutes to stack them in position, stretch the cotton over the frame, and lace the front with a handful of small twigs, leaving an opening at the top. Then you make the beds around the circle, and build your camp fire in the middle. On a cold night, and particularly on a cold, rainy night, one blesses the Indian who first invented the tepee. Instead of shivering outside around a fire that will not burn, you have your fire with you in a large roomy tent, and can cook your meals and eat them in comfort. And who that has experienced it can forget the evening around the tepee fire, resting tired bodies on luxurious beds, smoking the pipe of peace, and swapping yarns until it is time to roll up in the thick, warm Hudson Bay blankets and sleep until dawn, or until the smell of frying bacon awakens one to another day's adventures.

This morning on the hillside overlooking the Maligne Valley proved to be a Red Letter day in our calendar. The sun had been rather unkind since we left Jasper, but now as we scrambled out of the tepee, we looked up into a cloudless sky. Far below a noisy little creek hailed us cheerily as it hurried down from the mountains to join the Maligne.

In the distance we had glimpses of the river itself, and beyond uprose an extraordinary wall of rock a thousand feet or more in height, shutting in the valley and running on one side toward Maligne Lake and on the other far off into the hazy distance toward the Athabaska.

Our plans were to climb up the valley to Maligne Lake, take advantage of the kindly sun to secure a few pictures, and then make our way back to last night's camp and down the valley to Medicine Lake. East of Medicine Lake we had heard of a wonderful little body of water called Jack Lake, famous not so much because of its beauty as for the extraordinary abundance of its trout.

A ride of an hour or so, up and down hill, through fallen timber, muskeg and acres of boulders, with finally a most delightful gallop through a piece of virgin timber, brought us unexpectedly out on to a point of land overlooking Maligne Lake. We had read Mrs. Schaffer's enthusiastic description of the lake, but were hardly prepared for the perfectly glorious sight that lay before us: a lake of the most exquisite blue, mirroring on one side a high ridge clothed to the water's edge in dark green timber, and on the other a n.o.ble range of mountains climbing up and up in graceful towers and pinnacles sharply outlined against a cloudless sky. Beside us was an ideal camping ground, and then and there we vowed to come back to this spot some day, with several weeks to the good, and really make the acquaintance of Maligne Lake, if one must call anything so gracious and beautiful by such an inappropriate name.

Among the trees by the lake side we caught a glimpse of a tent, but the owner was nowhere in sight. We afterwards learned that he was one of the forest rangers, who rejoiced in the picturesque name of Arizona Pete. How Arizona Pete had wandered so far from the land of alkali plains and canyons no one seemed to know, but it was apparent that he had acc.u.mulated in his travels a fund of hair-raising stories of which Pete was the hero. If one heard of a riotously impossible exploit, and it was not attributed to that mythical hero of the northwest, Paul Bunion, one knew at once that it must be one of the adventures of Arizona Pete.

Turning our backs most reluctantly on Maligne Lake, we rode back to our deserted camp, and north toward Medicine Lake following what by courtesy was called a trail but was actually nothing but a few blazes pointing the way through a perfect wilderness of fallen timber. How the ponies, with all their marvellous intelligence and matchless endurance dragged themselves and us through the miles of hopelessly tangled logs that covered ridge and valley nearly every foot of the way to Medicine Lake, none of us could ever understand. However, we did at last reach the mouth of the river where it emptied into the lake.

Our proposed camping ground was in sight, a little cove on the eastern side of the lake, with feed of sorts for the horses, and the prospect of poles for the tepees; but we had still to cross the river and the situation looked discouraging. There was said to be a ford here, but the water had risen within the last few days and the sagacious ponies sniffed at it disapprovingly. We tried one place after another, until finally as a last resource the guide mounted the pluckiest and most sure-footed of the bunch and coaxed him out into the raging stream.

Step by step they won their way to the other side, and the rest, having seen that the thing could be done, followed willingly enough.

We all got over with nothing worse than a wetting, and the precious provisions escaped even that. Twenty minutes brought us to the camping ground, and our troubles were over for that day.

A plunge in the icy waters of Medicine Lake the following morning, followed by a hasty breakfast, and we were off for Jack Lake eight or ten miles to the east. The guide knew that the trail led off from a creek near the camp, but we must hunt for the exact spot where it began. It sounds simple enough, but in reality it was not at all simple. The trail had not been much used, and the creek from which it started ran through a dense thicket of alder. There was nothing to do but circle around until we found it. So we did, sometimes ploughing through the bush, sometimes splashing up the creek, until at last a cry from the guide told us that the elusive trail was found, and we could get on our way.

A few hundred yards brought us to the edge of the timber, and we plunged from bright sunlight into the shade of the primaeval forest, where ancient cedars with venerable beards rose on every side from a carpet of deep, emerald moss. On we jogged for several miles, winding through the forest, now and then crossing a clear woodland stream, and climbing gradually up into a pa.s.s through the mountains. Presently we emerged from the trees with bold cliffs rising on either side carved into fantastic shapes. We dropped down into a secluded valley, with an emerald lake in the centre surrounded by velvet meadows, dark green timber beyond stretching up to the foot of white cliffs which rose abruptly on every side. Except for an eagle soaring far above there was no sign of life in the valley, and the silence was so absolute that one unconsciously lowered one's voice as if on the threshold of some awe-inspiring temple.

The trail led down the valley, skirting the sh.o.r.es of the lake, wandered through a bit of wood and brought us out on the sh.o.r.es of another lake, finally into the timber again, and up out of the valley through a gap in the mountains. Then for an hour or two we were lost in the forest, following the trail as it wound about and about in the seemingly casual and aimless fashion of wood trails. It did not appear at the moment very important that it should lead anywhere. The air was fragrant with the smell of pine and cedar and of a temperature that left absolutely nothing to be desired; the great trees were far enough apart to afford delightful vistas down long avenues whose mossy carpet was kissed by sunbeams filtering through the evergreen branches far above; the trail was clear and unenc.u.mbered, in wonderful contrast to our experience of the previous day; and we were quite content to jog along care-free and at peace with the world.

Finally a flash of blue through the trees warned us that we were drawing near Jack Lake. We followed its sh.o.r.e for a mile or so, or rather climbed along the face of the steep hillside that did duty for sh.o.r.e on this side, and rounding the eastern end came out on a broad meadow, with a new log shack in the foreground, a fringe of trees in the middle distance, and a n.o.ble range of mountains filling in the background. The owner of the shack, a young forest ranger, rushed out to welcome us with the almost pathetic exuberance of one who had not had anybody but his dog to talk to for several weeks.

When we had satisfied for the time his hunger for news of the outside world, we produced our rods and requested him to produce his trout. He grinned at the rods, and showed us his own--a stout stick with a heavy cord tied to one end, and at the end of the cord a bent horseshoe nail. "The bull trout here," he said, "don't like fancy rods." One of us stuck manfully to his treasured equipment; the other borrowed the ranger's stick and attached to it his heaviest line. Our hooks we learned were much too delicate for the purpose, but finally we managed to dig up a heavy pike hook for one line and a spoon for the other.

With a lump of fat pork for bait, we followed the ranger down the banks of a creek running out of the lake, until we reached a deep, still pool. He pointed silently to the pool, and we gasped. The pool was literally alive with big trout from two to four or five pounds.

The lines barely touched the water before there was a fierce rush. The trout were fighting for the bait. A huge fellow on each line, a brief struggle, and both were safely landed. Within ten minutes we had more than the party could eat in the next two or three days, and were throwing back all but the largest fish. The climax came when we ran out of pork, and one of us half jokingly made a cast with the spoon and no bait, and landed a 4-pounder on each naked hook. After that we gave it up, and tried the lake, hoping for trout that would give us something a little more like sport; but there for some reason or other, probably because the water in sh.o.r.e was shallow and we had no way of getting out into the lake, we ran to the other extreme, and had not a nibble in an hour's fishing. Although the story of our experience on the creek is absolutely authentic, we feel sadly enough that it is useless to hope that any one who has not visited Jack Lake will credit the story. The world is full of Doubting Thomases, and fish stories are fish stories. Nevertheless, this one is true.

The following morning we retraced our steps to Medicine Lake, and after several hours' most painful scrambling along its precipitous banks--where some enemy had told us there was a trail--we reached its northern end, and camped for the night. Maligne Lake and Medicine Lake drain into the Athabaska by Maligne River, but at the northern end of the second lake, where one would expect to find a considerable stream flowing out, the sh.o.r.e runs around smoothly to the western side without a break. The lake empties through a subterranean channel, and reappears in springs some miles down the valley, where the Maligne, hitherto a small creek, suddenly develops into a respectable river.

We had been advised to return to the Athabaska by a direct trail from Jack Lake, but our evil genius prompted us to try the Maligne River route which would bring us out near Jasper. Never did the shortest way round prove more conclusively the longest way home. For nine long hours we toiled down that interminable valley without rest or food, crossing the river back and forth innumerable times, scrambling up banks so steep that we had to go on hands and knees with our faithful little nags struggling up after us, and then finding in disgust that we had to slide down again to the rocky bed of the river, worrying through miles of fallen timber, miles of muskeg, miles of wiry bushes that slapped us viciously in the face as we forced a way through, and ripped our clothing until we looked more like stage tramps than fairly respectable travellers. The expected trail proved to be nothing but a few experimental blazes on the trees; experimental surely, as we found more than once to our cost, following the blazes to a standstill in a blind lead, and turning back in our tracks for perhaps half a mile to where the "trail" branched off to the other side of the valley. That day we became temporary converts to the theory that the pathless wilderness was no place for sane mortals.

However, every lane must have its turning, and at last we hailed with shouts of joy the familiar gorge of the Maligne, which we had visited from Jasper some time before. From the gorge over to the Athabaska we had a good trail, a boat ferried us across after our swimming horses, and we were back again at the Hotel Fitzhugh, raiding the neighbouring store for tobacco, our last pipeful having been smoked two days before. Probably this had more than a little to do with our gloomy impressions of the Maligne River trail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JACK LAKE. _H. W. Craver_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MALIGNE LAKE. _H. W. Craver_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREAKING CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS. _A. Knechtel_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAKING A TRAIL THROUGH FALLEN TIMBER. _A. Knechtel_]

XIII

THE MONARCH OF THE ROCKIES

Waving a glad farewell to Jasper, the ugly little outpost of civilisation, we threw our bags on the west-bound train the following morning and were off for Mount Robson. A few miles' easy grade and we were at the summit of Yellowhead Pa.s.s, the continental divide. Behind us was Alberta, ahead British Columbia. We had left Jasper Park, and were entering Robson Park.

Sliding down the long slope of the Fraser valley, with the blue waters of Yellowhead Lake on our left hand, Mount Fitzwilliam above us to the south, and the loftier peak of Geikie gradually opening up beyond, we began to realise that there was much yet to be seen both at our feet and up in the clouds. Another ten or fifteen miles, and we were travelling along the north sh.o.r.e of Moose Lake, with the Rainbow Mountains on one side and the Selwyn Range on the other. Moose Lake was left behind, and we crowded out on to the rear platform of the train to get our first glimpse of the Monarch of the Rockies, Mount Robson. Almost without warning it came. We rounded the western end of the Rainbow Mountains and looked up the valley of the Grand Fork. "My G.o.d!" some one whispered. Rising at the head of the valley and towering far above all the surrounding peaks we saw a vast cone, so perfectly proportioned that one's first impression was rather one of wonderful symmetry and beauty than of actual height. Then we began to realise the stupendous majesty of the mountain, and recalled the words of Milton and Cheadle half a century ago, "a giant among giants, immeasurably supreme." Now, as then, its upper portion was "dimmed by a necklace of light feathery clouds, beyond which its pointed apex of ice, glittering in the morning sun, shot up far into the blue heaven."

It is interesting to know that David Douglas was not the only scientist who made a wild guess at the height of a Rocky Mountain peak. Douglas absurdly over-estimated the elevation of Mount Brown and Mount Hooker. Alfred R. C. Selwyn quite as absurdly under-estimated the height of Mount Robson, and he was at the time Director of the Geological Survey of Canada. Selwyn made an expedition to the upper waters of the Fraser in 1871, and in his official report says of Robson: "It rises with mural precipices to a height of two or three thousand feet above the river." As a matter of fact the summit of the peak is about ten thousand feet above the river, and something over thirteen thousand feet above the sea. There is comfort for the rest of us in the fact that such an eminent scientist as the late Dr. Selwyn could make such an extraordinary mistake.

We escaped from the train at a little station named after the great mountain, and after several miles' tramp reached the base camp of the Alpine Club of Canada, which was then holding its annual meeting in the Robson district. There we spent the night, and before the sun went down were fortunate enough to get an un.o.bstructed view of the peak, the last wisp of cloud driving off to the east leaving the mountain outlined from base to summit and glowing with unearthly radiance in the light of the setting sun. It is only at long intervals that such a view is to be obtained, the peak retiring for weeks at a time behind its curtain of clouds, or perhaps revealing its vast base and extreme summit while the upper slopes are hidden.

When we set out in the morning for the main camp of the Alpine Club by the sh.o.r.es of Berg Lake, on the north side of the mountain, Robson had vanished completely, so completely that a stranger coming here for the first time would not know that the impenetrable wall of cloud at the head of the valley hid anything more remarkable than the rugged hills on either side.

Our way lay for a time over the level ground covered with small timber; then the trail began to climb up the valley, and the next eight or ten miles developed into an almost continuous ascent, sometimes on easy grades, sometimes winding up the sides of a hill as steep as a high-pitched roof. At last beautiful Lake Kinney came in sight, with Robson rising in stupendous slopes and precipices and b.u.t.tresses from its sh.o.r.es. Our way lay around the north sh.o.r.e of the lake, over a pebbly flat, around the shoulder of the mountain and into the Valley of a Thousand Falls--an enchanted valley, and we who had invaded it were nothing but dream-folk, wandering spell-bound among scenes more gorgeous than those of Sinbad the Sailor. Here was colour in riotous profusion, and form, of flower and tree, of sombre cliff and glittering snow-field and remote summit, music of mountain stream and waterfall, of waterfalls innumerable, and with it all a sublime spirit of rest and peace. What did it matter in this Vale of Content that beyond the outer mountains men were sweating and struggling for Dead Sea fruit. Here at least one could forget for the moment that he was one of the same folly-driven race.

Out of the valley at last we climbed, up and up past the Falls of the Pool and the Emperor Falls, up to the sh.o.r.es of Berg Lake whose sapphire waters are dotted with white craft launched from the eternal snows of the King of Mountains. Here at the end of a long day's journey, a journey overflowing with experience, we sat down to rest among the tents of the Alpine Climbers. Here, also, we listened to the story--surely one of fine pluck and endurance--of how George Kinney and Donald (popularly known as "Curlie") Phillips against all possible odds fought their way to the supreme peak of Robson. Let us hear it in their own words (_Alpine Club Journal_, 1910), only premising that this first ascent of the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies was made in August, 1909, after two unsuccessful attempts in 1907 and 1908, and that the final ascent was only accomplished after twenty days of continuous struggle, during which they were repeatedly driven back from the peak by impossible conditions.

"At last," says Mr. Kinney, "the weather began to clear up, and Monday, August 9th, we again climbed the rugged north shoulder.

Crossing the difficult shale slope, we pa.s.sed the camp spots of our former trips, and with our heavy fifty-pound packs struggled up those fearful cliffs till we reached an alt.i.tude of nearly ten thousand five hundred feet." Here they ran into a blizzard, and after a short, hopeless struggle, had to clamber down again to their base camp. Their provisions were almost exhausted, and they were many long miles from any possible source of supply. For three days it stormed, and they lived on birds and marmot. Finally on the 12th it cleared, and they again climbed to the top of the west shoulder. "Here, at an alt.i.tude equal to that of Mount Stephen, we chopped away a couple of feet of snow and ice, and feathered our nest with dry slate stones. We shivered over the little fire that warmed our stew, and then, amid earth's grandest scenes, we went to bed with the sun and shivered through a wretched night.

"Friday, August 13th, dawned cold and clear, but with the clouds gathering in the south. Using our blankets for a wind-brake we made a fire with a handful of sticks, and nearly froze as we ate out of the pot of boiling stew on the little fire. Then we laid rocks on our blankets so they would not blow away, and facing the icy wind from the south, started up the west side of the upper part of the peak. The snow was in the finest climbing condition, and the rock-work though steep offered good going. Rapidly working our way to the south, and crossing several ridges, we had reached in an hour the first of two long cliffs that formed horizontal ramparts all around the peak. We lost half an hour getting up this cliff.

"The clouds that came up with a strong south wind had gradually obscured the peak, till by the time we reached the cliff they were swirling by us on our level, and at the top of the cliff it began to snow. For a moment I stood silent, and then turning to my companion said: 'Curlie! my heart is broken.' For a storm on the peak meant avalanches on that fearful slope, and there would be no escaping them, so I thought that we would have to turn back, and our provisions were now so low that we would not have enough to make another two-day trip up the mountain. It meant that this was our last chance; but, to my surprise, it did not snow much, the clouds being mostly a dense mist.

In a few minutes I said, 'Let us make a rush for the little peak,'

meaning the north edge of the peak which was directly above us. 'All right,' said Curlie, from whom I never heard a word of discouragement, and away we started, keeping to the hard snow slopes. Though these were extremely steep, the snow was in such splendid condition that we could just stick our toes in and climb right up hand over hand.

"By the time we had conquered the second of the long ramparts of cliffs that form black threads across the white of the peak, we concluded that it was not going to snow very hard, as the clouds were mostly mist and sleet. Swinging again towards the south, we headed directly for the highest point of the mountain, which we could see now and then through the clouds. Small transverse cliffs of rock were constantly encountered, but they were so broken that we could easily get up them by keeping to the snow of the little draws.