The Descent—Summit Lake—The Kicking-Horse River—Singular Mountain Storms—An Engineering Party—A Beaver Meadow—A Dizzy Walk.
We were up at half-past five, and it was a cold, sharp morning. At six, Mr. Dunbar had said good-bye and turned eastward. When breakfast was over the pack-train arrived, and by nine we had started for the River Columbia. It was a rugged and broken path which we entered upon. To our right two conspicuous twin summits were standing out in the range. The water of the streams which we were following was more heard than seen, for the trail exacted all our attention. Our horses were moving among sharp broken granite rocks and fallen trees. In about half an hour we passed by the side of Summit Lake. The northern mountains were now concealed from view by a forest of spruce, through which we were passing. To the south the landscape is more magnificent than ever; a bold, rocky bluff rises thousands of feet directly in front of us, while mountains of great height, in groups, tower above it to the right and left. Some of them have crater-shaped peaks filled with snow. Our progress is slow and much interfered with by the pack-horses getting continually off the trail and losing part of their load.
We pass the second mountain lake, and about four miles from our morning camp we reach the third and largest lake, about a mile in length. We cross the path of a great snow slide, an avalanche divided into two forks, one about fifty yards and the other about one hundred and fifty yards wide. Thousands of trees, two and three feet in diameter, have been broken into shreds by it, and roots, trunks and branches, in a tangled mass, have been swept away, and, with a multitude of boulders of all dimensions, hurled into the lake, to form a promontory of which three or four hundred feet still remain. To the south, beyond the lake, the eye rests upon a mighty mountain, streaked by snow-filled crevices, and reflected in the bright, glassy lake, presenting to our eyes a most striking picture. We cross the outlet by fording a stream some forty feet wide and about sixteen inches in depth. I looked upon it with no little interest for it is the stream we are to follow for some days. There is often a history lying behind the nomenclature of these waters and peaks, and in the present instance it is said that Dr. Hector, who accompanied the Palliser expedition, was kicked not far from this spot. The Indians have translated it Shawata-nowchata-wapta—Horse-Kicking River.
As we ascend the steeper and southern bank we obtain a grand view of the lofty twin mountains seen from our last camp, and it struck me that it was from the lower heights that the avalanches must have descended. A mile of bad trail brought us to Walton’s camp, where we delivered the mail which had been entrusted to our care. We were now six miles from our morning’s starting point. By George’s account we are about entering the worst five miles of road before us, and bad enough it proved to be. Dave declared that there were places further on far more trying. We moved at a snail’s pace, but our progress, if slow, was sure. The scramble on the rugged path, through the boulders, rocks and ragged surface, was a constant effort to the poor horses. In many places they had to be dragged up almost perpendicular heights. Three packs rolled off, and one of the horses fell down a side hill, accomplishing a complete somersault. No doubt the creature was saved from injury by the pack, firmly secured to his back. He was soon released by George and Dave unfastening the pack ropes and lifting him to his feet. We are seldom in the saddle, for it is safer to walk. Now and then we catch a glimpse of the stream passing along in foaming rapids, with an inclination apparently from 1 in 5 to 1 in 8. By this rapidity of current the water is churned into a liquid in colour like weak whitewash. It gathers its volume from so many side tributaries that although its source is a mere brook, yet four miles below when the water is high the stream seemingly attains a width of nearly a thousand feet. Even at the present time its volume is so great that it is only with difficulty it can be forded.
We descend the mountain side to the bed of the river and follow the gravel banks. Before we reach our night’s camping ground we meet with some remarkable scenery. Looking upwards to the south at about an angle of sixty degrees, we can see high, in the clear air, a mountain peak which, lighted up by the sun, presents in its horizontal strata various colours, and assumes the form of a mural crown. Separated from this height by a great depression rises a sister peak singularly striking, both undoubtedly rising to a vertical mile above the river. A great glacier on the second mountain overhangs a precipice with a face of hundreds of feet in thickness: at the base debris has gathered for countless centuries to form an immense deposit sloping down the mountain. We cross its base, and accept the first place suitable for a camp which we reach. Grass for the horses is the first requirement, water we can always count upon. Our saddle horses have travelled twelve miles, the journey of the pack-horses has been seventeen. It was still early in the afternoon, but the strain upon the poor animals had been severe. The last six miles had taken four hours and a half to pass over; and then there had been no mid-day halt and feed. There cannot be a doubt that one of the secrets of driving a horse long continuous distances is to let him take his own pace and feed him regularly. Any one who has had any experience with horses well knows that the creature will by a hundred ways let you know when he looks for his food should you neglect to give it him. There is everything to show that he suffers in strength if there be great irregularity in this respect.
We learn that there is no pasture in our front for a long distance, so we camp on the gravelly beach. The ground we are on, at high water, is covered, and a few rods from us the river is winding on its rapid, rolling course. The horses are provided for in a gully near by. Close to us rise four massive, lofty mountains, and as we turn to their summits the eye is raised from forty to fifty degrees. A blue sky looks down between these heights through an atmosphere free from smoke. These high peaks rising directly from the valley form the points of a quadrilateral figure, the longest side of which does not exceed three miles. There are no foot hills, no intervening eminence between us and these mountains, rising 5,000 feet above where we stand. The sun sets behind the western heights. I have often felt the calm of evening, but I do not recollect so perfect a picture of quiet and repose as that which reigned in this amphitheatre of nature in the first twilight, when everything was marked and distinct, but with subdued colour, with no high lights, and presenting a solitude so vast that one for the time loses all consciousness of the existence of an outer world.
Two families of Stoney Indians were encamped near by. They belonged to the christianized tribe at Morley, and consisted of a father, three handsome sons, two squaws and a number of children. They had with them some of the spoils of the chase, mountain sheep and goats.
Towards night a party of the locating engineers arrived wet to the middle from fording streams. Their pack-horses had not come up, so they were without dry clothes or tents, but they made the best of the situation. They were all cheerful, and indulged in that “chaff” by which men work themselves up to make a molehill of what is often a serious hardship, accepting what is inevitable with perfect stoicism. They made a huge fire to dry their wet clothes, by which they passed the night without tents or blankets. For our part we had some days’ serious work before us, and were not sorry to seek repose, and we soon were lulled to sleep by the roar of the rapid which ran within fifty yards of us. We are now fairly up to our work. We rise about five; then breakfast, an important element at the start; then see to the packing of the animals, an operation which takes a good hour’s time. We say good-bye to the Indians and to the engineering party, none of whom seem the worse for their night’s experience, and we start. Often during the hour are the names of the horses shouted in those valleys, occasionally with no feeble echo; especially of the pack animals, and we soon know them one and all. There is always a wonderful link between the man and the horse, and the kinder the man the more gentle the quadruped. The names of our horses are Black, Coffee, Blue, Calgary, Coaly, Buck, Pig, Bones, Strawberry and Steamboat, and each creature knows perfectly the reproof or the cheering cry addressed to him.
We follow the bed of the river, which is of considerable width, for five miles, and leaving it we turn to a trail over low ground to return to the stream some distance down. We find it considerably increased in volume and it would be impossible to ford it fourteen miles from our morning camp. The valley has widened out, the river now flows in a well defined channel with banks six feet above the water level. We stop and take our mid-day meal; the horses, too, must have rest and be fed. The atmosphere has again become smoky, not a pleasant indication, for we may be approaching forest fires, and it is the last situation in which one desires to be placed, for when the fire is around you there is no extrication. We advanced, however, but took the wrong trail, which led to a cul-de-sac, where Mr. Davis was encamped, and his trail was the best defined. We made our way back and fortunately met two gentlemen, Messrs. Hogg and Shaw, connected with the engineering staff, returning from an exploration to the Selkirk Range; they spoke of the travel as of the roughest description as far as they had gone, and it was as far as it was possible to go. They held that the continuance of the route on which we were bound was impracticable; there was no path or track of any description beyond the point at which they turned back and nothing to mark the way; in fact, no one had been through to the western slope of the Selkirks. I must add that, however little I said, I had some very serious reflections on what I heard from these gentlemen.
We halted about twenty miles from the last camping ground; the horses, owing to the detour at Davis’, had travelled about twenty-three miles and had little to eat since we first started. It was six o’clock in the evening, and on examining the grassy plain we discovered it was a beaver meadow with the beaver works in excellent condition. One beaver house was twelve feet in diameter by six feet high, formed of sticks, and each stick showed the marks of the beaver’s teeth. We found a number of underground passages through which the water flowed; here and there were vertical openings twelve or fifteen inches in diameter; the passages crossed and recrossed each other like the underground passages made by moles. The dam was, generally, in good preservation, but the water had found a way for itself at some points. We pitched our camp on the edge of the beaver meadow; the horses could not have better pasture. Our beds, too, were a shade in advance of last night’s quarters on the gravelly beach, for they were of hemlock boughs, and if well laid who would ask a daintier resting place. Certainly we were all asleep at half-past nine. What a sound sleep it is after a day’s ride or march over a bad road!
As we started on our next day’s journey a high mountain frowned down upon us; but not from its lofty summit, for its peak is hidden by rain clouds. Yesterday the smoke interfered with our landscape, for we could only dimly see the outline even when the glaciers were gleaming in the sunlight. Our last night’s camp was half a mile distant from the river, but we heard the roar of the water; the heavy atmosphere, the lowering clouds and the loud echo of the rapid river warn us to prepare for rain, and we do so as best we can. We ride onward, leaving the pack animals to follow, for I am desirous of reaching Major Hurd’s camp, a few miles distant. We were unfortunate on our arrival, for Major Hurd had left for the Columbia about an hour and a half before we appeared. As it was possible to overtake him we hurried forward; the trail winds through old windfalls up and down the elevations in our path. We were in hopes of meeting him at Island Camp, but on our reaching the place we found that he had stopped and fed, but that he had left before we arrived. Our horses were tired, his were fresh, and we had been told that for the next thirteen miles there was no food for the animals, so we remained there for the night. By this time it commenced to rain; we made a good fire and toasted the slices of bacon we had brought for luncheon. The pack-horses came up and there was good feed for them on the island in the river.
The clouds shortly rolled away. We could see that snow-covered mountains lay directly in our front; indeed at all points of the compass, and especially from the direction we had come, there were magnificent lofty peaks. As we sat at our early supper a cloud appeared and swept rapidly down the mountain side with a mighty rush of wind. Heavy rain commenced to fall and everything about us which we could not gather up got so drenched that we had some trouble in drying our things. We retired in good time, to prepare for an early start, for we well knew that we had a hard journey before us on the morrow.
It was cold during the night, and on rising there was a dense fog, with the prospect of a wet day. The mist hung like a thick curtain, concealing everything not directly near the camp fire. But we start; the six pack-horses in front with their loads standing out from their backs, giving the creatures the appearance of so many dromedaries. Dave rides ahead with the bell-horse, then the pack-horses follow, and the horsemen bring up the rear to see that none stray behind. Our journey this day was over exceedingly rough ground. We have to cross gorges so narrow that a biscuit might be thrown from the last horse descending, to the bell-horse six hundred feet ahead, ascending the opposite side. The fires have been running through the wood and are still burning; many of the half-burnt trees have been blown down, probably by the gale of last night, obstructing the trail and making advance extremely difficult. The delays are frequent; ascending a long slope by a narrow path, the footing of one horse gave way and the poor animal fell, rolling over a dozen times. Our fear was that Calgary was killed, or at least seriously injured, and that he would have to be left behind. The first thought is to prepare the rifle to put him out of agony, but Dave and George unfastened the load and soon had him again on his feet at a depth of some fifty yards below the trail. After some delay the poor brute takes his place in the pack-train as if nothing had happened.
The road does not improve as we advance, and we have many miles of burnt woods to pass through. Fortunately there was no wind. The air was still and quiet, otherwise we would have ran the risk of blackened trunks falling around us, possibly upon the animals or ourselves, even at the best seriously to have impeded our progress, if such a mischance did not make an advance impossible, until the wind should moderate. We move forward down and up gorges hundreds of feet deep, amongst rocky masses, where the poor horses had to clamber as best they could amid sharp points and deep crevices, running the constant risk of a broken leg. The trail now takes another character. A series of precipices run sheer up from the boiling current to form a contracted canyon. A path has therefore been traced along the hill side, ascending to the elevation of some seven or eight hundred feet. For a long distance not a vestige of vegetation is to be seen. On the steep acclivity our line of advance is narrow, so narrow that there is scarcely a foothold; nevertheless we have to follow for some six miles this thread of trail, which seemed to us by no means in excess of the requirements of the chamois and the mountain goat.
We cross clay, rock and gravel slides at a giddy height. To look down gives one an uncontrollable dizziness, to make the head swim and the view unsteady, even with men of tried nerve. I do not think that I can ever forget that terrible walk; it was the greatest trial I ever experienced. We are from five to eight hundred feet high on a path of from ten to fifteen inches wide and at some points almost obliterated, with slopes above and below us so steep that a stone would roll into the torrent in the abyss below. There are no trees or branches or twigs which we can grip to aid us in our advance on the narrow, precarious footing. We become more sensible to the difficulties we encounter each step as we go forward. The sun came out with unusual power; our day’s effort has caused no little of a strain, and the perspiration is running from us like water. I, myself felt as if I had been dragged through a brook, for I was without a dry shred on me. About three miles from the mouth of the Kicking-Horse Valley we met Major Rogers and Major Hurd. At the same time we obtained the first uninterrupted look upon the Selkirk range. From this point to the Columbia the trail improved, but it still ran at a great height. We had not, however, got out of our difficulties, for we came upon a hornets’ nest. The leading horses were stung and darted forward. To have been attacked by the whole colony on so narrow a path might have caused serious disaster, so we abandoned the trail and traced a new route for ourselves to avoid that which we were following, and thus escaped the dilemma.
The Kicking-Horse Valley turns into the valley of the Columbia River, which at the junction is some twelve miles wide from peak to peak. Our train has now travelled through the whole valley of the Kicking-Horse from its summit to the flats of the Columbia, a distance of about fifty miles, with a descent of 2,700 feet; the average fall is about fifty-seven feet to the mile, the first six miles however, give a descent of twelve hundred feet, being two hundred feet per mile; the last ten miles the river falls at an average of sixty feet per mile, leaving on the intervening thirty-two miles an average fall of thirty feet per mile.
Arrived at Major Rogers’ camp, I own I was weary and foot-sore after our frightful march of many miles over rough ground high up on the mountain side, over a path every step of which was a renewed difficulty. I was somewhat indemnified by knowing that the horses had travelled without a mishap. I thought of the Mauvais-pas at Chamouni, which, extending only a few hundred yards, is thought to be a feat in its way, even with a special guide leading the traveller, holding his hand; but the Mauvais-pas of the Kicking-Horse Valley extended for miles, and they were only passed over from the very desperation of our circumstances. Having entered on the journey we could not turn back and we had to face the difficulties in our front cost what it would.
We were all tired and weary, men and horses, and all equally hungry. A sponge down with cold water, fresh, dry clothing and a good supper are always the best of comforters, so in a few hours I had been able to discuss our future progress with Major Rogers, and one of the first arrangements to which we came was that to-morrow both men and horses would take a day’s rest.
