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Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection","@language":"en"}],"Creator":[{"@value":"Robinson, Noel, 1879 or 1880-1966","@language":"en"}],"DateAvailable":[{"@value":"2016-01-05","@language":"en"}],"DateIssued":[{"@value":"[1914]","@language":"en"}],"DigitalResourceOriginalRecord":[{"@value":"https:\/\/open.library.ubc.ca\/collections\/chungpub\/items\/1.0056530\/source.json","@language":"en"}],"Extent":[{"@value":"117 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm","@language":"en"}],"FileFormat":[{"@value":"application\/pdf","@language":"en"}],"FullText":[{"@value":" AND HIS SHARE IMHE MAKING\nm 9mWsSm- of ipBB: I\nJ^ANCOUVER|\nmm and* f|_\nTHE OLD MAN HIMSELF\nPRINTED BY\nNEWS-ADVERTISER\n26 CENTS -e^'10 71\nBLAZING THE TRAIL\nTHROUGH\nTHE ROCKIES\nTHE STORY OF\nWALTER MOBERLY\nAND HIS SHARE IN THE\nMAKING OF\nVANCOUVER\nBY\nNOEL ROBINSON\nAND\nTHE OLD MAN HIMSELF\nN e w s -Advertiser\nPrinters and Bookbinders\nI *\u201e,:\nV*\n.sA\";-'^'' --- T\na& We detachments steady throwing,\nDown the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,\nConquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go the unknown ways.\nPioneers! O pioneers!\nWe primeval forests felling,\nWe the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within;\nWe the surface broad surveying, and the virgin soil upheaving,\nPioneers ! O pioneers!\n\u2014Walt Whitman.\nN all literature there is no more splendidly picturesque and\nromantic life story and none more brilliantly told than that of\nthe great builder of our Indian Empire, Warren Hastings,\nrecorded in imperishable English by Lord Macaulay. There\nare two superbly depicted scenes described in that essay, the\nfamous impeachment scene in the Hall of William Rufus and\nthat scene, so near the end of Hastings' remarkable career,\nwhen the ancient Empire-builder, emerging from the retirement\nof his beautiful country seat in Worcestershire, appeared once more before\nthe Bar of the House, a white-haired nonogenarian, and was there paid a\nnever-to-be-forgotten tribute by the members of the Mother of Parliaments.\nThe wonderful old man, bowed beneath the weight of nearly a century of\nyears, but still mentally alert, seemed to many of those to whom his remarkable life-story had been familiar in their youth to have appeared almost as\nfrom the grave, and they paid him that tribute of esteem that the Anglo-\nSaxon is always glad to pay to a life of conspicuous endeavor and high\nachievement\u2014even though that life may have been in eclipse at times, as\nwas the case with Warren Hastings.\nFROM WARREN HASTINGS TO WALTER MOBERLY.\nIt may seem, at first blush, a far cry from Warren Hastings to Walter\nMoberly, the subject of this story, and, as Mr. Moberly would himself\nadmit, it may seem also a case of placing the greater and lesser on the same\nplane, for the British race has produced few men combining the statesmanship, the conspicuous ability and astonishing energy of a Warren Hastings,\nbut it has produced, to its honor, many indomitable explorers of the Mackenzie, Fraser, Dewdney, Moberly, Cambie type\u2014to name a few outstanding names in British Columbia's roll of explorers. Yet one day, quite\nrecently, the two men to whom reference has been made were associated in\nmy mind for a particular reason. During the week a case, in which the\nDominion and Provincial Governments figured, which had, as its main\nissue, the question whether English Bay may be considered as a harbor or\nnot, loomed large in the newspapers. In the course of that case many a\nnotable British Columbian pioneer-\u2014and particularly pioneers of the sea\u2014\ngave evidence, some of these old-timers, such as a former skipper of the\nhistoric Beaver, Captain George Marchant, still hail and hearty, being\nmen who had not figured in the public view for a long time. FROM BRITAIN'S PARLIAMENT TO VANCOUVER'S COURTHOUSE.\nMr. Walter Moberly was one of these and it was when his still firmly\nknit but spare and slightly bowed figure, with its venerable head and face,\nsuggesting the pale, intellectual type of man rather than the man of action\nand the wilds, appeared in the witness box that the analogy I have suggested flashed through my mind. His likeness to the late Lord Stratheona,\nas an old man, is worthy a passing reference. And, as Mr. Moberly proceeded to tell of that day, more than half a century ago, when Commander Richards in H. M. S. Plumper (that warship the by-no-means\nimpressive name of which has been rendered permanent in the designation\nof Plumper's Pass between Vancouver and Victoria) found him with\nLieutenant Burnaby and his men digging for coal near the site of what is\nnow Coal Harbor, the period of which he spoke seemed as remote to us\npresent day Vancouverites as that period of storm and stress, of bloodshed\nand diplomacy, and juggling with native kings and princesses and their\nkingdoms, which marked the administration in India of Warren Hastings,\nmust have seemed to those men of another generation who stood to receive\nhim when he appeared for the last time in Parliament. Warren Hastings\nwas full of years and honors and living at his country seat. Mr. Moberly,\nwho has been the recipient of a few minor honors, is full of years, but a\ncomparatively ppor man, yet he, as the most notable of our pioneer pathfinders, has, with other pioneer path-finders, rendered to British Columbia\nservices which, in proportion, are as valuable to the Province as those of\nhis greater compatriot were to India and, through India, to the Empire.\nMR. MOBERLY HONORED.\nIt was inevitable that Mr. Walter Moberly should find a place in\nthis series of stories. His name has been given to several places in British\nColumbia, including a depot on the C. P. R. and a school in South Vancouver, and his explorations are among the earliest and most valuable made\nin the province. A photograph of him, framed and enlarged, has recently\nbeen hung in the Walter Moberly School, the Conservative Club and the\nVancouver Museum. Opinions do not differ as to the part he has played\nin the development of the province, and the fact that he has had the honor\nof addressing, among other public bodies, the Vancouver Canadian Club\nand the Art and Historical Society upon his explorations, is a tribute to\nthe estimation in which his services are held by his fellow citizens of Vancouver, a city the site of which he advocated from the outset as the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, a railway with the inception and\nconstruction of which his name and the names of Cambie, Dewdney and\nothers whose lives have been dealt with in the course of these stories, will\nalways be inseparably associated.\nNOTABLE TRIO.\nIncidentally I may mention that, of the large family of Moberly\nbrothers, there are still two living, besides Mr. Walter Moberly, both at\nvery advanced ages but a little younger than their Vancouver brother, one,\nMr. Harry Moberly, who (retired from the service of the Hudson's Bay\nCompany after a strenuous life in the wilds, during a brief portion of\nwhich time he traded in opposition to that famous company, and after\nwhom Moberly Lake, near Fort St. John, is named, now living in retire-\n8 ment up north; and the other, Mr. Frank Moberly, who has also been a\ngreat out-of-door man and who is at present living north of Lake Huron.\nIn 1871, when the C. P. R. started in, Frank Moberly had charge of\nthe exploratory service of that company from Winnipeg to the Kootenay\nPlains.\nBorn in 1832\u2014five years before Queen Victoria came to the throne\n\u2014at Steeple Ashton in Oxfordshire, England, Walter Moberly is the son\nof a retired post-captain in the British Navy and of a Polish lady. His\nfather fought in many battles in the Napoleonic wars, including that off\nCape St. Vincent and at Borodino. He is the nephew of an ecclesiastic\nwell known in his day, headmaster of Winchester when the family said\ngood-bye to England and, later, still better known as Bishop Moberly of\nSalisbury. As Walter was only two years of age when his father and\nmother emigrated to Canada, he has no recollections of England, though,\ncuriously enough, his pure English accent would suggest that he had recently\nemigrated from the Old Country. His first definite memories are of his\nschool life at Barrie, on Lake Simcoe, where his father bought a nice little\nplace. It was here that he first met and became well acquainted with the\nfuture Baroness Macdonald, then a girl and subsequently destined to marry\nCanada's most famous premier, Sir John A. Macdonald. Much might\nbe written about his early explorations in the Huron country (of which\nlittle was known at that time), but his life has been so crammed full with\ninteresting happenings in this province that most of this early part will have\nto be omitted, with the exception of a reference or two. After studying\nhis profession of civil engineer in Toronto and spending some time with a\nwell known Toronto firm of engineers, Messrs. Cumberland and Storm\u2014\nMr. Cumberland was chief engineer on what used to be known as the\nOntario, Simcoe a^nd Union Railroad, afterwards the Northern Railway,\nthe first railroad in Upper Canada\u2014he engaged in many strenuous and\nexciting explorations.\nSIR SANDFORD FLEMING'S PICTURES.\nDuring part of this time he was one of the assistants to Sir Sandford\nFleming, a very notable engineer, who is still living in Winnipeg. Mr.\nMoberly recalled one curious memory with reference to Sir Sandford.\n\"He was a very clever sketcher,\" he observed, \"and could sketch and\npaint in colors, and yet he could not tell one color from another. Often\nhe has asked me the color of this or that, and when he knew the color he\nwould make a beautiful picture.\" In the year 1854 Mr. Moberly secured\nmany hundreds of square miles of white pine that he had discovered, and\nhe spent a large proportion of the years 1855-57 exploring through the\ncountry north of Lakes Huron and Superior between Lake Simcoe and\nthe Michipicoten River, which discharges its waters into Lake Superior.\nUpon his return to Toronto at the end of the year 1857 he learned that\nthe Imperial Government had sent out an expedition under the command\nof Captain Palliser to explore British territory between Lake Superior and\nthe Pacific Coast, and at the same time he heard that rich deposits of gold\nhad been discovered in the valley of the Fraser River in British Columbia.\nHe decided to come out to British Columbia, and, with a letter of introduction from Sir George Simpson to Sir James Douglas, who was then at\nthe head of the Hudson's Bay Company west of the Rocky Mountains,\nhe made preparations for the change. EARLY EXPEDITION WEST OF HURON: GREAT INDIAN GATHERING.\nJust one retrospective glimpse before accompanying Mr. Moberly to\nthe founding of New Westminster. It has reference to his early experiences in the country west of Lake Huron. \"Until the early fifties of the\nnineteenth century very little was known of the country west of the Huron,\"\nhe observed, \"and it was generally supposed to be rugged, cold, inhospitable, more suitable for Indians and wild animals than for civilized settlement and commercial development. It was in the year 1 850, when I was\nemerging from boyhood, that I met in Barrie an Englishman from Kent,\nand we arranged to undertake a trip from Barrie to Sault Ste. Marie for\nthe purpose of exploring the north shore of Lake Huron and also for shooting and fishing and to be present at the village of Manitowaning, on the\nGreat Manitoulin Island, in order to witness the annual distribution of the\npresents that the government in those days gave to the Indians who then\ninhabited the country around Lakes Huron and Superior.\n\"We purchased a small bark canoe which we transported by the old\nmilitary road from Barrie to the Willow River, down which we paddled\nto the Nottawasaga River, thence down it to Lake Huron, then coasting\nalong the shore of Lake Huron to Penetanguishene, where we outfitted.\nAfter a delightful trip, during which we saw a great deal of the country\nbordering the north shore of Lake Huron, we went to see the distribution\nof the presents to the Indians. There were several thousand Indians congregated, many of them very fine looking men. War dances were innumerable, and canoe races, in which upwards of 400 canoes took part, were\norganized. We visited the Wallace copper mine on the Whitefish River\nand also the Bruce mines. We then returned to the site of an old saw\nmill about five miles from the village of Manitowaning, where raspberries\ngrew in profusion and where wild pigeons were numerous. Having shot a\ngreat many of these birds, we embarked on the old steamer Gore and proceeded to Sturgeon Bay and thence in our canoe to the Coldwater River,\nwhere we put the canoe on a wagon and transported it to Orillia, then,\nlaunching it on Lake Couchiching, we paddled back to Barrie. It was\nduring this trip that I noticed the large forests of white pine that grew\nthroughout much of that country.\"\nSLAVE TRADE IN RIO.\nMatters were quiet owing to the Crimean War, when\u2014largely owing\nto the advice of Mr. Gzowski, a widely known engineer in the east at that\ntime and father of Mr. Gzowski, a well known contractor of the Vancouver of today\u2014-Mr. Moberly decided to go west. Spending one last\nday at Niagara Falls, he departed for New York and embarked upon\nwhat was to prove- an adventurous and strenuous career. He sailed for\nRio de Janerio. Even at this length of time, when the tides of over fifty\nyears have ebbed and flowed between, Walter Moberly retains the most\nvivid impressions of the splendid harbor of Rio and the varied and picturesque scenes which the city had to show at that time, impressions which\none is tempted to set down here were it not that there is so much of interest\nto pack into a comparatively limited space before this story closes. Suffice\nit to say that Rio at that time was full of negro slaves, for the slave trade\nwas at its most lucrative stage. One slaver, a skipper, informed young\nMoberly that he had cleared $600,000 as the result of a single voyage\nbringing slaves from Africa.\n10 *These negroes were as black as ebony, and he informed me that a\nnegro in good condition would fetch from $2,000 to $3,000,\" Mir.\nMoberly explained. As far as he could judge during the few weeks he\nspent at Rio, these slaves were, in the main, fairly well treated and pretty\njolly, though he came across some sad exceptions.\nThrough the stormy Straits of Magellan and so to Panama sailed the\ngood ship in which our explorer was bound, and at Panama it was found\nthat the steamship company operating the said ship had \"gone bust.\" It\nwas quite a question as to whether they would be able to complete the\nvoyage, but the captain and the first mate decided to take the vessel to San\nFrancisco. The passengers, however, lost their passage to Victoria. Eventually, Mr. Moberly managed to get passage on another vessel to Esquimalt\nand so, late in the year 1858\u2014the same year that Colonel Moody and\nthe Royal Engineers landed in the province from England\u2014he set foot\non British Columbian soik\nCAPTAIN COOK.\nLike Captain Vancouver, Captain Cook was one \"of the first that ever burst\ninto that silent sea\" of the Pacific. He just missed discovering the Straits of\nJuan de Fuca owing to a storm. The \"silent sea\" about Vancouver would have\nremained in solitude had not such men as Cook and Vancouver been followed\nby men like Moberly and Cambie.\nWELCOMED BY GOVERNOR DOUGLAS.\nUpon presenting Sir George Simpson's letter to Sir James Douglas,\nMr. Moberly was accorded a very hearty welcome by the notable Hudson's\nBay magnate. \"He not only received me kindly, but he offered me a post\nunder the government,\" Mr. Moberly explained. \"I declined it, however,\nas it would have interfered with the objects I had in view. He gave me\na letter that would insure me a welcome and assistance at any of the Hudson's Bay forts I might visit. Until the day of his death I always found\nSir James Douglas a kind and invaluable friend, and I never experienced\nanything but courtesy and assistance from the Hudson's Bay factors and\nthose under them. At that time also I met Chief Justice Begbie, Commander Richards and Donald Fraser, W. A. G. Young and others.\"\nCOMMENCES B. C. EXPLORATIONS.\nLet it not be forgotten that Mr. Moberly made all his early explorations in B. C. quite apart from the government and entirely at his own\n11 expense. It is true that he was fond of exploratory work, but this fact\ndoes not detract from the debt of gratitude which the province owes to the\nman who, upon his arrival, spent all that he had saved in seeking to make\nknown the unknown. It was, however, to be an outstanding feature of this\nexplorer's life that, partly, it would seem, through a certain something lacking in his make-up from a business standpoint, and partly from the disinterestedness natural to him, he never emerged on the right side financially\nfrom any of the big undertakings he tackled, despite the fact that he carried\nthem through successfully.\n\"I thought I might meet Captain Palliser in Victoria and learn from\nhim the result of his explorations through the Rockies and British Columbia,\" he observed, \"but on my arrival Governor Douglas informed me that\nCaptain Palliser's party would not reach Victoria until the following\nautumn. I left Victoria after a few days' stay, and sailed for Fort Langley\nin the Hudson's Bay Company's steamer Otter, and arrived the same day\nat the old Fort Langley, where I received a hearty welcome from the Chief\nFactor, William Yale, and other officers of the company who were then\nstationed or visiting at that important fort.\nGLOOMY PROPHECIES.\n\"My explorations for a Canadian transcontinental railway through\nthe mountains of British Columbia may be fairly said to have commenced\non the day that I reached Fort Langley in the year 1858, but, allowing for\nthose I had previously made north of Lakes Huron and Superior, the explorations for such a railway really commenced fifteen or sixteen years before\nBritish Columbia was confederated with the provinces east of the Rocky\nMountains. The winter, cold, dreary and comfortless, had now set in,\nwith snow and rain. A large number of miners who had been mining in\nthe neighborhood of Forts Hope and Yale, and on the Lillooet River, were\nliving in shacks about half a mile below Fort Langley, and they spoke\ngloomily of the portion of the country I proposed to explore, dilating upon\nits difficulties and its extreme ruggedness and referring to a war between\nthe miners and the Indians which they said was going on in the canyons of\nthe Fraser, and in the course of which they said that a number of Indians\nhad been shot.\nCAPTAIN TOM WRIGHT MARINER AND PHILANTHROPIST.\n\"There was a small, stern-wheeler steamer called the Enterprise,\nowned and commanded by a most genial and kind hearted American\u2014\u25a0\nCaptain Tom Wright\u2014going up the Fraser to Fort Yale, so I proceeded\nup the river in her. The Enterprise was the pioneer steamer to navigate\nthe Fraser River to Fort Yale. Innumerable old pioneers of the Fraser\nRiver experienced much kindness from Captain Wright\u2014and it is a pleasure\nto pay a tribute to him here\u2014when they were starving and without means,\nfor he not only gave them free passages in these circumstances, but also fed\nthem when on his steamer, and he had such a pleasant way with him that\nhe made them feel that they were not under an obligation to him but that\nthey were conferring a favor upon him by travelling on his steamer. He\nwas a most amusing character and would keep the passengers in roars of\nlaughter by spinning yarns and telling amusing anecdotes.\n12\nsssagg-* A PIONEERS BOOK.\nApropos of Mr. Moberly's reference to Captain Tom Wright and\nthe pioneer steamer to navigate the Fraser River, I make no apology for\nintroducing here a few paragraphs dealing in a most interesting and entertaining way with the early navigation of the Fraser. These are culled from\na remarkably interesting book entitled \"Four Years in British Columbia\nand Vancouver Island,\" the author being Commander R. C. Mayne, R.N.,\nF.R.G.S., sometime officer on H. M. S. Hecate under Commander\nRichards. The volume was published more than fifty years ago and there\nare only a few copies now extant, among these being copies in the Vancouver and Victoria Public Libraries ana in the possession of Mr. C. E.\nTisdall, M.P.P., of Vancouver, and Mr. John Tolmie, of Victoria, two\nold-timers. It is capitally and attractively written and full of valuable\ninformation, both popular and scientific, with reference to the mainland of\nBritish Columbia and Vancouver Island, its people and characteristic\nfeatures. The author, who was clearly a man of keen observation, saw\nevery side of life here in those early days and himself went on many explor-\nj\nm\niSS\u00bbSW:\u00a5ri*5\nBBS- v-\"fliii^W^SiWl^^pi^M\n'w*X*?S;Sr*5H\nA model of the historic Beaver, the first steamship to plough the waters of\nthe Pacific. She came out from England 'round the Horn and under sail, and\nwas soon known from end to end of the B. C. coastline. This model is in the\nMuseum at Victoria.\ning expeditions, living with the Indians and enduring the usual hardships\nof pioneer life. Incidentally he brought to the writing of the book a good\neducation and a broad outlook upon life. In reading its pages in the light\nof the events and discoveries of the past half century it is very interesting\nto compare the actual development in certain places and in certain directions\nwith the prophecies here and there indulged in by Commander Mayne.\nOften these prophecies have become accomplished facts in so striking a\n' I 13 manner that the author, were he still alive, would in many instances have\nthe satisfaction of saying, \"There, I told you so.\"\nI have laid special emphasis upon the value of this book because it\nseems to me that it is well worth re-publication. Certainly it is the most\ninteresting and attractive of the books written upon British Columbia. It\nwill be seen in a moment that Commander Mayne (with whom IVJr.\nMoberly was well acquainted and of whom he speaks highly) ascended\nthe Fraser on the same boat, the Enterprise, and under the same captain,\nTom Wright.\nSTERN-WHEELER AND \"UMATILLA SNAG.\"\nThe following extract is, as will appear, in lighter vein, but, none the\nless, it gives a very vivid idea of the troubles with which the navigator of\nthe turbulent Fraser had to contend in the early days:\n\"Some fifteen miles from Westminster, Langley is reached. Here\nsteamers from Victoria are stopped by the shallowness of the river, and\ntheir cargoes, human and material, transferred to the stern-wheel steamers,\nboats and canoes which, from this point, do battle with the swift, uncertain\nstream. Stern-wheel steamers are peculiarly American. They are propelled by a large wheel protruding beyond the stern, the rudders\u2014for\nthere are generally two or three\u2014being placed between it and the vessel's\nstern. They are admirably adapted to pass between snags and close to\nbluffs, where a side wheel would be knocked away, and are affixed to flat-\nbottomed vessels drawing no more than 18 to 24 inches of water.\n'There is something very exciting in travelling in these steamers.\nStruggling up the river against the stream the greatest risk comes from\nthe overcharged boilers giving way. But tearing down the current at some\n12 or 14 knots an hour, bumping over shoals, striking against snags and\nshooting rapids is far more animated work. One snag, known as the\nUmatilla Snag, because a steamer of that name first struck it, lies in a very\nnarrow and rapid bend of the Fraser. Upon one occasion, when I was\ngoing up the river in the Enterprise, no less than three times after we had\nstruggled past that snag the strong current caught and swung us broadside\non across the stream; and it was only by running the vessel's bow into\nthe muddy bank, without a moment's hesitation, and holding her there by\nthe nose, as it were, until she recovered breath to make another effort, that\nwe escaped impalement\nAN EXCITING STRUGGLE.\n'There was something very exciting in this struggle between the forces\nof steam and water. Each time, as we hung by the bank, the engineer\nmight be heard below stoking his fires and getting up as much steam as the\nboilers could\u2014or might not\u2014bear for the next effort. The wheel-house\nin these vessels is situated forward, so that there is almost direct communication between it and the engine room. By the helm stands the captain,\nTom Wright. *Ho, Frank!' he hails down the tube; 'how much steam\nhave you?' Frank replies that he has so many pounds. 'Guess, you must\ngive her ten pounds more or we shan't get past that infernal snag,' is the\nskipper's rejoinder, and then more stoking is heard below and the unpleasant\nsensation comes over the listener that the boilers are just below his feet and\nthat, if anything should happen, his fate, at any rate, is sealed. Presently\nFrank's voice is heard again: 'All ready, Cap'n; can't give her any\n14 more.' Hie skipper loses no time. 'Stand by, then,' is his response. Then,\nto the men forward, who have made the rope fast to some stump on the\nbank to keep the boat from dropping off: 'Let go,' and she falls off for\nthe second or third time. Her bow cants out a little. 'Ting, ting, ting,'\ngoes the engine room bell\u2014the signal for full speed ahead. For a time\nthe lightly built vessel trembles. We watch the trees on the bank closely\nto see if she moves ahead. Presently she drops a little; then the stream\ncatches her on one bow. 'Stand by with the trip-pole,' is heard, and she\nswings round. 'Trip,' is shouted from the wheel-house. Into the swift,\nshallow water the heavy pole plunges and perhaps she is brought up by it\nand run into the bank again, or, if the bottom is hard and rocky or the\nwater deeper than was thought, away she flies down the river until she is\nbrought up against the bank or across a snag.\nMENDING WITH TARRED BLANKETS.\n'The perseverance of the skippers in overcoming these difficulties is\nreally remarkable. Upon one occasion I remember that, after making\nfour unsuccessful attempts to steam past the Umatilla Snag, all the men\nhad to be landed in order to drag her past the dangerous spot. Further up\nit was found necessary to again resort to the same tedious process, and the\nunited strength of the crew and passengers with difficulty got her over the\nfew hundred yards in the space of two hours, Frank below in the engine\nroom cramming on all the steam he could to help us. Nor is the composure with which the captain meets and remedies an accident less remarkable. A supply of tarred blankets is always kept handy for service and,\nif a hole is stove in the steamer's bottom, the captain cooly runs her ashore\non the nearest convenient shoal, jams as many blankets into the crevice as\nseem necessary, nails down a few boards over them, and composedly continues his voyage. He is often reduced to very serious straits. I was\nassured by a passenger aboard the Enterprise to Hope, in 1859, that he\nsaw the contents of a cask of bacon* turned onto the fires when additional\nsteam to pass a troublesome rapid was necessary.\"\nTHROUGH ICY RAPIDS TO FORT DOUGLAS.\nTo continue Mr. Moberly's story: \"When we left the steamer at\nthe mouth of the Harrison River, rain and snow were falling heavily, so\nwe pulled the goods the steamer had left on the bank into a near-by large\nIndian house, called in those days a 'rancheree,' and we also found shelter\nin it, but the smoke and stench were very disagreeable. Having on my\nway up from Fort Langley arranged with a merchant who had a general\nstore at Fort Douglas to take charge of a canoe of his loaded with goods\nand liquors, I hastily collected a crew and late in the afternoon we started\nup the Harrison River. At the rapids we had to get out into the icy water\nand pull the canoe up, and at dark we reached a large Indian house in\nwhich dwelt many Indian families. We stayed there overnight and thawed\nour clothes and half-frozen bodies. A few more miserable days, buffetted\nby strong head winds accompanied with heavy snow storms when travelling\nLake Harrison saw us in Fort Douglas, which was a small village composed of rough shacks and a few better buildings for stores and liquor\nsaloons. The place was crammed with miners, packers and others. I hired\nan Indian to pack my blankets across the twenty-nine-mile portage to Lil-\n15 looet Lake, and next morning started along a narrow trail through deep\nsnow that penetrated a dense green fir forest.\nAS FAR AS PAVILION MOUNTAIN.\n\"Difficulties and hardships crowded upon one another, but, after many\ndays spent tramping through the snow, and without a blanket to sleep in,\nfor I had thrown away my blankets the day before I had left Fort Douglas,\nas packing them through the snow delayed me very much, I managed to\npenetrate as far as Pavilion Mountain, some distance above the present\ntown of Lillooet. I tried mining near 'The Fountain,' but it was not a\nsuccess and, there not being any provisions obtainable, I was starved out\nand so retraced my way back to Fort Langley. This exploration convinced\nSir James Douglas, the first Governor of Vancouver Island and for many years\nhead of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific Coast.\nme that this route was not favorable for the construction of the eastern\nsection of a transcontinental railway. I had, however, ascertained that\nthere were no great difficulties to be overcome in the construction of wagon\nroads across the portage between Fort Douglas and what is now the town\nof Lillooet and thence up the valley of the Fraser River to Pavilion\nMountain.\nSEVERAL EXPLORATIONS.\n'I stayed for a few days at Fort Langley and then Captain Tom\nWright and I started in a canoe to explore up the Pitt River and lake to\nsee if we could find a better way into the interior than that by the Harrison\nRiver and lake. A short exploration in this direction convinced us of the\nimpracticability of this route. After this expedition I returned to Victoria\nand gave Governor Douglas an account of my explorations. He decided\nto improve the Harrison rapids in the way I suggested and also to construct\nwagon iroads across the portage, etc., that I had examined between Fort\nDouglas and Pavilion Mountain. I then proceeded to make an exploration\nthrough the canyons of the Fraser River between Yale and Lytton, which\npresented great natural difficulties, but in both direction and grades I found\nthat a good line could be obtained for either a wagon road or a railway,\nthough the work of construction in either case would be very costly.\"\n16\n.. It was upon returning to Victoria after this expedition that Mr.\nMoberly met Colonel Moody (after whom Port Moody was named, commander of the Royal Engineers who were sent out by the statesman-novelist,\nLord Lytton, an outstanding figure in early B. C. history) at Governor\nDouglas's and arranged to accompany him up the Fraser for the purpose\nof founding New Westminster. This incident\u2014quite an historic one in\nthe history of British Columbia\u2014Mr. Moberly told me with much interesting detail, as also the story of his explorations in Burrard Inlet and vicinity,\nthe visit of Commander Richards and the naming of Coal Harbor.\nIOE\n17 FOUNDING NEW WESTMINSTER.\n^HERE has for many years been a friendly argument between\nMr. Walter Moberly and Mr. J. W. Armstrong, the well-\nknown New Westminster pioneer, as to which of the twain\nwas the first white settler on the site of the Royal City. Both\nclaim that distinction. I wonder if each has sufficient faith inj\nthe goddess of chance *to* emulate the two farmers, about\nwhom Judge Bole\\told me, who, at Mr. Buchanan Sword's\nhouse at Matsqui,tmany years ago, and after the hearing of\ntheir dispute had proceeded until the luncheon hour, enjoyed lunch and then\nagreed to decide the ownership of certain cows by tossing up.\nWALTER MOBERLY MEETS COL. MOODY.\nMr. Moberly visited Governor Douglas at Victoria to report the\nresult of his expedition, for, although he had declined to enter the service\nof the government, he had promised to report the result of his explorations\nwhenever he returned to the capital. \"I was in Mr. Douglas' waiting room\nand prepared to tell the head of the Hudson's Bay Company here what\nimpressions I had gathered. While waiting I chatted with a gentleman\nwho had also come to see Mr. Douglas. I did not know who he was and\nwe did not mention names. While we were talking, the late Chief Justice\nBegbie came out of the Governor's office. I had met him at a dinner\nparty. We shook hands and then Sir Matthew introduced me to the gentleman I had been in conversation with as Colonel Moody\u2014Colonel Richard\nClement Moody, to give him his full name. Upon hearing my name the\nColonel at once said: 'I was hoping that we should meet some time, Mr.\nMoberly; I heard that you were in the province. I knew your uncle,\nBishop Moberly, well in England.\"\n\"YOU ARE JUST THE MAN I WANT.\"\nThis was the beginning of much pleasant intercourse between the two.\nThe Colonel invited young Moberly to go and see him the next day.\n\"Having given my report to the Governor later that day I went with my\nblankets to an old frame building\u2014very much of a barn\u2014somewhere near\nwhere the Bank of British Columbia now stands. I slept there that night\nin a sort of loft. Next day I was going down to the Colonial Restaurant,\nwhere there happened to be a very fine French cook and jolly good fellow\n\u2014the restaurant was afterwards named the Dryard Hotel\u2014when I met\nColonel and Mrs. Moody and their two children, and they invited me to\ndinner. They were living in a frame building pretty near the corner of\nYates and Douglas streets. As soon as we had finished dinner, Colonel\nMoody said: 'Do you understand frame buildings, how to draw plans\nand put the buildings up?' I replied in the affirmative, and he said: 'Then\nyou are just the man I want.' He then told me that he had decided to\n19 (0\n111\nh\nX\n\u20ac0\n>\nDC\n<\nIII\n111\nI\nh\nX.\nIll\nh\n(0\nz\nh\n0)\nLU\n111\nZ change the site of the future capital from Derby to Queensborough (afterwards called New Westminster). 'Be ready,' said the Colonel, 'to start\ntomorrow morning in the Beaver and we will go up the Fraser to Derby,\nwhere Captain Grant and his men are, and there we will arrange everything.\"\nBEAVER PASSES NEW CAPITAL; A CURIOUS PROCESSION.\nWhen, late the next day, the historic little steamer passed the site of\nwhat is now the Royal City\u2014\"and there was nothing but forest, not even\na shack there then,\" interpolated Mr. Moberly\u2014they were on deck, and\nColonel Moody waved his hand towards it and said: 'There is our future\ncapital.\" \"One night I stopped at Langley and then, a supply of provisions and implements having been got together, in addition to a tent and\nThe Mint, New Westminster, 1862.\na few other necessaries, next day we entered a rather leaky boat and were\nquickly towed down stream by the steamer and left by her on the site of\nthe future capital.\" So Mr. Moberly described the first landing there\u2014\nhe, at any rate, has not the least doubt that it was the first landing and\nthat there was not the slightest sign of any building, however rough, for\nmiles either way, as it was part of his duty to explore the site. 'The following day,\" he explained, \"I walked all the way up to a little stream\ncalled Brunette. I tried to get along the beach, but found that it was\nimpossible, so went through the woods. A few days later\u2014the news of\n21 !\u00bb\nthe proposed change having become common property\u2014men were floating\ndown the Fraser in boats and canoes, on rafts, and, indeed, in any mortal\ncraft they could lay hands on or make roughly and quickly to take them\nto the site of the new capital. Upon that site there were some of the\nbiggest forest trees I have seen, and it was clear that there was lots of\nstrenuous work before us.\"\n\u00ab< \u201e ,\u00bb\nALPHABET MACDONALD: A MIGHTY STUMP.\nIn response to a question as to whether he helped to survey the site\nof the new city, Mr. Moberly replied in the negative, explaining that the\nsurveyors among the Royal Engineers\u2014of whom, by the way, Mr. George\nTurner, whose story has already figured in this series, was one\u2014were\nresponsible for this work. His work, he said, consisted in the planning,\nand, with assistance, the erection of the first dwellings and offices. He\nspoke of one D. F. G. Macdonald\u2014better known at the time as \"Alphabet\nMacdonald\"\u2014the son of a notable Scotch preacher in his day and one\nwho had known Colonel Moody in Scotland. \"He was a great card,\"\nlaughed Mr. Moberly, \"and a great fellow to yarn and drink whisky.\nCochrane was another Scotchman of quite a different type. I was building\na little cottage for Mac and got in a supply of whisky and,we had some\nvery entertaining evenings. I was in charge of the building of the houses,,\nof the treasury and customs houses, and of clearing off the timber. |fff remember well there was one stump where the customs house had to go. It bulged\ntremendously big at the bottom. There were several Canadians who told\nme they were accustomed to such work and who startled me by saying they\nwould get the stump out for $30. They made a great effort, but finally,\nwhen they found that they were not making $1 a day, theyf agreed to take\nthe same wages as I was paying my men. It cost $80 to get that stump\nout.\" \u00ab-;\nI asked Mr. Moberly where that great stump and customs house\nstood. He thought for a moment, then drew his hand over his eyes with\na deprecatory gesture and said, a little sadly: \"So many of the old landmarks by which I have been able to recall places have gone from New\nWestminster that I cannot be sure, but I think it must have been very near\n'where Holbrook & Fisher's store used to be.\"\n3Q\u00bb |\n22\n\u2014 EXPLORING BURRARD INLET.\nN August, 1859, Mr. Moberly recalls the making of a trail from\nthe Camp\u2014as the first settlement at New Westminster was\ncalled for quite a while\u2014to Port Moody. \"It was a distance\nof nine or ten miles, and there was absolutely nothing there at\nthe time,\" he remarked. \"There was no white man on Burrard Inlet. About that time Lieutenant Burnaby \u2014 after whom\nBurnaby is named \u2014 Colonel Moody's private secretary, had an idea\nthat there might be coal on the Inlet. I thought even then\nthat the shores of the Inlet would one day afford a valuable site\nfor a railway and its terminus. We took some men with us and embarked\nin a canoe at New Westminster. We landed first at what is now known\nas Point Grey, and near where the Country Club is situated. Next day\nwe explored False Creek, which, at that time, was, like Burrard Inlet,\nbush right down to the water's edge. The day following we paddled\nCaptain George Vancouver, the first white man to proceed up Burrard Inlet.\nround into the Inlet itself and camped somewhere near the foot of what is\nnow Bute street. The following day we proceeded to what is now Coal\nHarbor, and set our men to work with picks and shovels digging to see if\nthey could come upon traces of coal. Meanwhile Burnaby and I explored\nright up to Port Moody, up the North Arm and Indian River, and also\nup Howe Sound.\"\n23 Figure to yourself, all of you who have enjoyed so many glorious\nexpeditions by canoe and launch and steamer upon the beautiful waters and\namidst the grand and impressive scenery of the places just mentioned, these\ntwo explorers in their little canoe paddling mile after mile through scenes\nnow familiar to all of us, but, up till that time, gazed upon by hardly a\nwhite man\u2014several of them never seen before except by an Indian\u2014since\nthe days when Captain Vancouver and his intrepid men came up Burrard\nInlet.\nH. M. S. PLUMPER ARRIVES IN INLET.\nIt was while the party was delving for coal that was not there that*\nto their surprise, Commander George H. Richards, with H. M. S. Plumper,\nsteamed through the First Narrows and, passing Brockton Point, hove into\nsight. The arrival of the little warship, Mr. Moberly explained, was the\nresult of a misunderstanding. Some white men had been murdered on the\nFraser, and Captain Louard, of the Royal Engineers, had captured on\nSea Island the Indians responsible for the crime. These Indians thought\nthey were going to be strung up at once. Now, the Indians belonged to\nthe Squamish tribe, the headquarters of which tribe were situated not far\nfrom where the exploring party had encamped, and the Squamish were in\na rather indignant frame of mind. However, there was no serious danger.\nHappening to meet an Indian and his squaw in a canoe, Mr. Moberly,\nlearning that they were for the Fraser River, bethought him of a message\nthat he wanted to send to the \"Skookum Tyee\" (as the Indians called\nCaptain Spalding, the stipendiary magistrate at Westminster) and in the\ncourse of the brief letter let fall an observation about the attitude of the\nSquamish Indians, which observation, combined with the fact that he anticipated some trouble as the result of the capture of the Indian murderers, led\nCaptain Louard to think that the party on Burrard Inlet was in much\ndanger. So a revenue boat was sent to Nanaimo to tell Commander\nRichards that he was wanted in Burrard Inlet at once. Hence the arrival\nof the Plumper.\nCAMP-FIRE PARTY: COAL HARBOR NAMED.\n\"However, the presence of the bluejackets enabled us to spend a jolly\nnight,\" observed Mr. Moberly. 'They landed, as we had done, at the\nfoot of what is now Bute street, and later brought a keg ashore. Then\nwe lit a roaring fire of logs as night came on, and our party and the English\nsailors spent one of the jolliest nights I remember. Many rollicking old\nsea songs were sung and many a rousing chorus echoed through the forest\nand many a toast was drunk.\" There! that is a little vignette which it is\nworth while remembering now that, more than half a century afterwards,\nthe face of nature has been so completely changed by man at that particular spot\u2014the foot of Bute street\u2014and now, too, that nature has taken\nto her bosom all but one of the festive party that foregathered round that\ncamp fire. Before he left next day, Commander Richards named Coal\nHarbor. While this name recalls an interesting bit of local history-\u2014and\nfor that reason, perhaps, it would be a pity to change it\u2014it must be\nadmitted that, as the name of a pretty lagoon\u2014incidentally immortalized\nby Pauline Johnson\u2014it is the reverse of pretty and might with advantage\nbe changed.\n24\nI. COAL HARBOR AS NANAIMO S COMPETITOR.\nIn Commander Mayne's book, to which reference has been made, we\nfind that the gallant officer, in the course of a description of Vancouver and\nits environment, went a little astray in his remarks upon the coal-producing\npossibilities of Coal Harbor.\nThe southernmost, and, as yet, the most important of the inlets of the\nPacific Coast, was named by Vancouver \"Bunrard,\" after a friend in the\nRoyal Navy. This inlet differs from most of the others in possessing several good anchorages. It is divided into three distinct harbors, which are\nseparated from each other by narrows, through which the tide rushes with\nsuch velocity as to render them impassable by any but powerful steamers,\nTA'.\/St\/fl $.'(.'.\nBurrard Inlet. First dry-point etching made in Vancouver (Noel Bursill).\nexcept at slack water or with the tide. The entrance to Burrard Inlet lies\nfourteen miles from the sandheads of the Fraser River. English Bay is\nthe anchorage immediately inside the entrance on the south side, and is of\nconsiderable importance to vessels entering at night or when the tide is\nrunning out through the narrows, affording them safe anchorage where they\ncan wait comfortably until the morning or turn of tide, instead of drifting\nabout the place.\n\"Two miles inside the First Narrows is Coal Harbor, where coal has\nbeen found in considerable quantities and of good quality, although the\n25 demand is not yet sufficient to induce speculators to work it in opposition\nto the already established mines at Nanaimo.\"\nPerhaps it is a little unfair to quote one of the very few paragraphs\nin the book where Commander Mayne was in error. Although he was no\ndoubt in Burrard Inlet himself more than once, that paragraph must have\nbeen penned later and after someone had been \"drawing the long bow a\nlittle about the \"considerable quantities\" and \"good quality\" of the valuable\nmineral which was to help Coal Harbor to rival Nanaimo in this natural\nproduction. Fortunately for Vancouver\u2014and one expresses the sentiment\nwithout any mental reservation\u2014coal has not been discovered on the site\nof the future Pacific metropolis\u2014or, if it has, the quantities have been so\ninfinitesimal as to make them unworthy of consideration. Had Messrs.\nMoberly and Burnaby been successful in their experiment in Coal Harbor\nfifty odd years ago, they might have become millionaires, though the chances\nare that, in Mr. Moberly's case, anyway, the spirit of wanderlust, of exploration, would have prevented him from making a success of anything else.\n3Q> *|\n26 DISCOVERY OF EAGLE PASS.\nES, I feel a strong inclination to open this third chapter of his\n,f story with the grizzly bear adventure that befell Mr. Moberly\nhigh up in the mountains above the Illecillewaet-\n-musicai name\n1\nwhen you have once caught on to the swing of its pronouncia-\ntion. No\u2014on second thoughts, that shall be left for a column\nor two later. It was quite by accident that this incident\nfound its way into our chat and, as a matter of fact, Mr.\nMoberly was just referring to it in passing as one of the to-be-\nexpected events of such an exploring trip\u2014\"somewhere near there we\nkilled a grizzly\"\u2014-and was passing on to another point in the expedition\nwhen I pulled him up with: \"You might tell me about that grizzly, Mr.\nMoberly,\" and then he did so.\nThat is the only thing I have against this veteran explorer. He is\nquite ready to describe his explorations and their effects, but, unless pressed,\nhe does not refer to adventures by the way, which\u2014to use a newspaper\ncolloquialism\u2014are often the jam of the story from the average reader's\nstandpoint. The only thing to do is to look out for a passing reference,\nand then, metaphorically speaking, level a revolver at the explorer's head,\nand insist that he delivers up that incident at once. Though an entirely\ndifferent type of man, Mr. Moberly reminds me, in one respect, of Mr.\nCambie, an equally well-known brother explorer\u2014he is very particular as\nto topographical detail. It is true that he does not go so far as Mir.\nCambie insisted upon doing whenever a question of distance arose, namely,\nmeasuring out with a rule on a map the exact distance that he covered from\na certain place to a certain place and its relation to other places, in order\nthat there might be no exaggeration, but he has insisted more than once\nupon drawing a map of a certain part of the country of which he has been\nspeaking, in order that I should have a very lucid idea of the lay of the land,\nand be able the more clearly to explain it. He introduces into these sketches\nevery little creek that he traversed, or bluff that he scaled\u2014if it bears\nupon the matter in hand\u2014and writes its name in a very small, clear\nhand, a surprisingly clear hand when one remembers that he is over eighty\nyears of age and that he has lived the strenuous life in a greater degree\nthan most men.\nLITTLE SKETCH MAPS.\nSuch a little sketch map as I have indicated lies before me as I write,\nand it tells me at a glance\u2014what I propose telling to you, in his words as\nfar as possible, in a moment\u2014the story of the discovery of Eagle Pass.\nThis discovery was the most important made by Mr. Moberly during all\nhis explorations in British Columbia more than half a century ago, and its\nvalue to the Canadian Pacific Railway is a matter of Canadian railway\nhistory. Through this pass, today, those wonderful iron horses rush almost\ndaily, awakening with their booming sirens echoes from mountain and ravine\n27 that had from time immemorial given back no echo save the cry of some\nwild animal or bird, or the dull reverberations of a storm. In order to\ntell this Eagle Pass story, it is necessary to skip several years from the\nBurrard Inlet explorations just described, and, as those years included such\nundertakings as the building of the famous Yale-Cariboo road, the driving\nof the Dewdney trail and other matters, we shall retrace our steps later.\nROUTE OF THE EXPLORATION: MT. MOODY.\nIt was in June, 1865, that Mr. Moberly, who had sat for a session\nin the Provincial Legislature as member for Cariboo West, having resigned\nhis seat upon his appointment as Assistant Surveyor-General, resumed his\nexplorations, and, six weeks after leaving New Westminster, discovered\nEagle Pass. He left New Westminster with Mr. Albert Perry, one of\nhis assistants, and accompanied also by two Indians, one of them, Victor,\nan interior Indian of whom he speaks very highly and who accompanied\nhim upon other expeditions. This was his first exploration of British Columbia east of Kamloops. The party proceeded to Yale, thence to Kamloops,\nthen by the South Thompson River, Little and Great Shuswap and Mara\nlakes and, after ascending the Eagle River a few miles, went to Seymour\nat the head of the North Arm of Great Shuswap Lake, and crossed thence\nover the Gold Range to the Columbia River, arriving on its banks at a\npoint formerly known as Kerby's Landing, about two miles below the\nDalles de Mort (Death Rapids).\nEAGLE PASS SIGHTED.\nQuickly constructing a log canoe, they ran down the Columbia River\nto Galena Bay, at the north end of the Upper Arrow Lake, then followed\nthe Columbia to Skokulei Creek (Salmon's Rest), which falls into the\nColumbia River just north of the east end of Eagle Pass. Proceeding in\na westerly direction over the Gold Range, Mr. Moberly climbed a high\nmountain\u2014which he named Mt. Moody, after Col. Moody, afterwards\nMajor-General, of the Royal Engineers\u2014north of Three Valley and other\nneighboring small lakes, from the top of which he had a magnificent view\nof most of the valley of the Eagle River and Shuswap Lake. It was\nfrom the top of this mountain that he first saw the pass that he felt confident would prove of great importance in later development, and he determined that the name of his friend Colonel Moody should be associated\nwith an important landmark near. The name of the pass itself is associated with one of the circumstances that actually led to its discovery.\nBut of that more in a moment.\nFRAGILE CANOES AND THEIR MENDING.\nWe will retrace our steps for a few minutes. The brief summary of\nthis exploration has only occupied two paragraphs, but, as a matter of fact,\nthe journey was full of incidents, most of which will have to be omitted\nhere as there is so much to follow. Part of the journey was made by\nboat, part by canoe and part on foot, packing. Mr. Moberly had been\nspeaking of a canoe accident and this led to the question as to the type of\ncanoes the party used. \"We travelled in two canoes made of spruce bark,\"\nhe explained. 'The Indians were expert at making these and they were\nyery light, not weighing, at the outside, when empty, more than one hundred\n28 in\nm\nill\nSMS\nEarliest picture extant of Government Street, Victoria, with\nHudson's Bay fort. Indians in canoe. pounds, and easily portaged by one man. They were so lightly made that,\nit Was necessary to strew the bottom with cedar bark in case one's foot\nshould accidentally go through- Of course this lightness had its disadvantages and holes were of frequent occurrence. 5^ej|i We landed we\nalmost invariably stepped into the water in order that;;|}i^cande should not\nhit with any force against the rocks. However, this typ# oi^caiio| was\nvery easily made and very quickly repaired. We always carried gum,\ncollected from a tree, and, as this was brittle, mixed some bacor* grease\nwith it. This, and some rag to paste over the hole, constituted our simple\nmending outfit.\"\nWHERE DID\/gHODODENDRONS COME FROMp\nMr*. Moberly recalled that the travelling on the Gold Range was first\nrate and through beautiful wooded country, the ground covered at that\ntime of the year with a thick, soft grass which, he observed, was something\nlike fur, and sprinkled everywhere at that season with flowers. This mention of flowers recalled another memory\u2014though not of that expedition\u2014\nwhen, somewhere not very far from Hope, he and a companion once lit\nupon a splendid clump of rhododendron bushes growing in a sheltered spot.\n\"How those came there was a mystery to us,\" he observed, laughing, \"as\nthe rhododendron is not, as far as I know, a wild flower. My friend suggested that, perhaps, an eagle had captured a barndoor fowl that had been\neating the seeds\" of the rhododendron and, carrying it off, made a meal of\nit at that particular spot, which was many miles away from any habitation.\nAnyway, it is astonishing how seeds of domestic plants get carried for\nthousands of miles sometimes.\"\nIN DEATH NOT DIVIDED.\nThis mention of an eagle recalled another memory of an eagle, which\nhas nothing to do with the particular exploration under consideration, but\nwhich, as the king of birds is closely associated with the pass that .bears\nits name, may be introduced here. \"I remember one day, not far from the\nColumbia, seeing a bald-headed eagle floating about very high up,\"\nobserved Mr. Moberly, \"and then suddenly it swooped down into the bush\nso rapidly that I hardly saw it go, almost like an arrow, and it rose into\nthe air with a rabbit in its claws. About the same time I came across a\nvery curious case in which another bald-headed eagle figured. This, too,\nwas on the Columbia. We were on the river in a canoe when we saw an\neagle floating down the stream, apparently dead. We made for it, out of\ncuriosity^ and found that it had its claws buried in a .big salmon. In some\nway one claw had become entangled in the backbone. Both salmon and\neagle were dead and had begun to decompose. They had been responsible\nfor the death of each other and were floating round and round in an\neddy.\"\n\"THE COMMITTEE'S PUNCH BOWL.\"\nSince writing the paragraph about those rhododendrons it has occurred\nto me that Mr. Moberly fixed their location near the Committee's Punch\nBowl. The location does not seriously matter, but the Committee's Punch\nBowl is worth a passing reference. \"Devil's Punch Bowls\" are fairly\ncommon, but how did this place get the singular name of the Committee's\nPunch Bowl? was a natural question. \"It used to be a great camping\n30 ground of the Northwesters,\" was Mr. Moberly's reply, \"and it was there\nthat they brought the horses over. I remember that there were dozens of\ntrees there blazed with the names of various traders\u2014some of them very\nwell known\u2014and the date of their going through. It lies between Mt.\nBrown and Mt. Hooker going up from the Boat Encampment where the\nboats used to go to meet the horses. The boats used to go up the Columbia\nfrom Fort Colville to the Boat Encampment and there take aboard the\nhorses that had been brought over from the prairie country. At this Committee's Punch Bowl there was a sort of pond about a quarter of an acre\nin extent. The water of that pond looked very dark. The Northwesters\nused to be in the habit of carrying with them a good supply of rum, and\nat this particular spot they would indulge in some pretty deep draughts\u2014\nhence the name.\"\n\"IT WAS THE EAGLES.\"\nReturning to the discovery of the Eagle Pass, I asked Mr. Moberly\nwhat it was that gave him the impression that there might be an opening\nthrough the mountains there, as the natural conformation of the country\ndoes not suggest such a pass. \"It was the eagles,\" he replied. \"I watched\nthem as they flew up the Columbia and I saw them make a big bend off.\nI knew that eagles always follow along a stream or make for an opening\nin the mountains, and I just followed the direction they took, with the\nresult that I discovered and, I think, very appropriately named Eagle\nPass.\"\nFrom the top of Mt. Moody, Mr. Moberly not only saw Eagle Pass\nbut he saw also the valley of the Illecillewaet (Rapid Water) River extending far into the Selkirk Range in the direction in which he wished to obtain\na practicable route into the valley of the Columbia River in the vicinity of\nthe western ends of the Howse and Kicking Horse Passes through the\nRocky Mountains. He descended the western side of this steep mountain\nand reached the bottom of the Eagle River Valley, near Craigellachie,\nwhere Lord Stratheona (then Sir Donald A. Smith) about twenty years\nlater drove the last spike to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway\u2014an\nincident which will be described later by Mr. Cambie.\n\"THIS IS THE ROUTE FOR THE OVERLAND RAILWAY.\"\nAt this point Mr. Moberly blazed a tree and wrote upon it with\nchalk, red or blue\u2014he forgets which\u2014these words: \"This is the route\nfor the Overland Railway.\" He returned by the Eagle Pass into the\nColumbia Valley at the Big Eddy and posted a notice reserving all the\nland in that immediate neighborhood for the Crown. He had thus passed\nback and forth through this vital opening in the mountains, provided, as\nthough by a far-seeing providence, for the express purpose of letting through\nthe bands of steel that were to guide so many thousands of trains with their\nhuman and commercial freight safely to this great western terminus.\nIt was now the fall and getting chilly, but Mr. Moberly, Mr. Perry\nand the Indians proceeded to force their way up the valley of the Illecillewaet River, heavy rain falling during much of the time. They followed\nthe North Fork to its source, where high mountains blocked the way, and\nintended to cross the Selkirks from the headwaters of the southeasterly\nbranch\u2014now known as Rogers Pass\u2014but as the winter was close at hand\n31 and the Indians could not be induced to proceed, Mr. Moberly was compelled to give up further explorations that year. Thus he left only about\nthirty miles of the whole line unexplored from the coast to the west end of\nHowse Pass. All this had been accomplished in less than five months.\nEXCITING RIVER EPISODE.\nDuring the latter part of their expedition and while in the valley of\nthe Illecillewaet, the party came across very many bear tracks and frequently saw black bear. \"But they always used to make away and it\nwas not easy to get them,\" observed the explorer. \"However, I shot and\ncaptured one in the Columbia River under rather curious circumstances,\"\nhe added with a laugh. \"We had pulled the canoe ashore and were getting\nlunch on a bar when one of the Indians called that there was a deer making\nacross the river some distance down. My rifle was not loaded at the\nmoment and I had nothing but my revolver. One of the Indians and\nmyself boarded the canoe and pushed off into the stream at once in pursuit.\nAs we approached the animal in the water we saw that it was a black\nbear. The current was swift and we saw that there might be difficulty in\ngetting our quarry, but we were seriously short of provisions and this fresh\nmeat would be a god-send if we could get it. We drew level and the\nbear turned and snapped savagely at the canoe several times and tried to\njab the bow with his paw. I leaned forward and, placing my revolver as\nnear as I could behind his ear, fired and killed the animal. But the current was swift and it looked as if, after all, we should lose him. The\nIndian steadied the canoe as much as he could and I leaned over, risking\nthe possibility of overturning, and managed to grab the bear by his hind\nleg before he was swept away from us. We came across a great pile of\ndrift and were rushed round it, but I hung on for all I was worth, realizing\nthat I had hold of quite a number of good meals. Finally we drifted upon\na bar and there we cut up, dried and smoked our capture. We dried him\nin the sun, smoked him black and got out the bear's grease.\"\nTHE GRIZZLY BEAR ADVENTURE.\n\"And now for that grizzly incident, Mr. Moberly,\" I suggested,\n\"and then you shall be released from this inquisition for a while.\" \"We\nwere high up above the valley of the Illecillewaet when we killed him,\nsomewhere near the snow line,\" replied the veteran. \"He was a splendid\nsilver-tip grizzly.\" (Mr. Moberly's eyes brightened at the recollection\nand, as he related the incident, it was clear that he lived it over again, that,\nin fact, he had almost forgotten, for the moment, where he was and found\nhimself in memory once again up that mountain side above the Illecillewaet\nValley.) 'We sighted him early one morning away up a stream that was\ncoming from a glacier, and we sneaked up under cover of the chapparele.\"\n(I queried the meaning of that word, which the narrator had used once or\ntwice before, and he said that he first heard it used among the Tierra-del-\nFuegans and it meant low brush.) 'The moment he smelt us he started\nup the mountain side. We jumped out of cover and climbed a little fourteen or fifteen-foot bluff, and Perry fired and hit the grizzly. At once he\nturned, enraged, and rushed down the mountain upon us. I have shot\nmany bears of all kinds and have seen many shot, but none of these bear\nincidents stands out in my memory like this one, the grizzly looked such a\n32 1\nmagnificent sight as he approached and quickly raised himself, fully twelve\nfeet high, upon his hind legs, furious. Seen under those circumstances a\ngrizzly is almost an awe-inspiring spectacle. Another shot broke his back\nand paralyzed his hind legs, but, even then, as he lay on the ground, he\nshowed fight. I went near him and, one after another, fired all the bullets\nfrom my heavy military revolver\u2014one which I had when I was in what\nwere known as Denison's Dragoons in Toronto\u2014against his head, but not\none entered that tough skull\u2014they all glanced off.\nMOUNTING THE HEAD: AN ORIGINAL CEREMONY.\n\"When the grizzly was dead, I discussed the possibility of taking\nthe head and skin with us and preserving them, but the Indians were very\nopposed to this, saying that we should have no luck hunting if we did, and\nI realized also that it would be by no means an easy task, as the country\nwas rough and trailless and the winter was approaching. So, regretfully,\nI gave up the idea. Thereupon the Indians tore pieces of red flannel from\ntheir shirts and decorated the head, having first cut it from the body. Then\nVictor climbed a fairly stout spruce tree, some fifty or sixty feet in height,\ncut the extreme top off, descended for the head and, with much difficulty,\nfixed it upon the top. He then cut all the branches off as he descended\nand scooped the bark off to prevent the raccoons getting at the head.'\n\"over fifty years ago.\"\nIt was with difficulty that Mr. Moberly was persuaded to tell this\nincident in any detail\u2014like Mr. Dewdney and others of these early pathfinders and hunters\u2014and like some who are path-finders and hunters today\n\u2014he has taken the adventurous side of life in the wilds very much as a\nmatter of course\u2014he leaves the tall stories to the amateur hunters and\nanglers. I am glad, however, to have been able to record this one. To\nthose of you who have read these lines and have been \"mighty hunters\nbefore the Lord\" yourselves, it will constitute a vivid mental picture and\neven with those of us who know parts of the wilds chiefly by reason of\nwhat one may term amateur hunting expeditions\u2014in contradistinction to\nhunting expeditions where a man is largely dependent upon his gun for his\nnext meal\u2014it should make the blood course faster.\n\"I wonder if that spruce tree with the grizzly's head atop still stands,\"\nsoliloquized the old explorer, more to himself than to me, as he rose to go.\n\"It is probable that no one has been there since. But you say it was an\nexposed spot,\" I hazarded. 'Yes, yes,\" he agreed, smiling a trifle sadly,\n\"and that was over fifty years ago.\"\n3Q\u00bb -SI\n33 BUILDING THE CARIBOO ROAD.\nHE CARIBOO ROAD! There is a magic, a thrill of adventure in the name, a suggestion of\u2014well, of the caribou themselves. And it is good, indeed, to know that these fine wild\nanimals are still by no means rare in the country through which\nthe present road passes, and also that much of that wonderful\nold road itself is still useable. Only the other day a pioneer here, who\nwas up there last fall, was telling me that he sighted a caribou on the\nroad then. The meeting was brief, my friend was unarmed, and the\ncaribou, which, curiously enough, did not seem particularly startled,\ndisappeared very quickly.\nTHE CARIBOO ROAD! The epic of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the defiles and canyons of this wild province\nhas yet to be written, though Pauline Johnson in her \"Prairie Greyhounds\"\nhas sung with a rhythm and a happiness of expression (which seems somehow to suggest the swing and the power that mark their progress) of those\nwonderful trains that are the counterpart on land of those \"swift shuttles\nof an Empire's loom that weave us shore to shore\" on sea.\nEPIC OF THE CARIBOO ROAD.\nThere is another epic, too, that will have to be written\u2014the epic of\nthe Cariboo Road. And though the epic of the building through of the\nbands of steel that connect ocean with ocean will be full of the atmosphere\nof wonder and work\u2014and weariness, too, sometimes\u2014that poem which\nshall tell of the making of the first great highway through the wilds of\nBritish Columbia, of the greatest piece of road-building that Canada has\never seen, of one of the most able pieces of road-building through some of\nits fastnesses that the world has seen, yes, of the forging of the Cariboo\nRoad, will be even more instinct with romance and the gospel of the strenuous life, for the making of that road marked what was really\u2014though much\nhad been done before\u2014the vital beginnings of the development of this\nprovince.\nWHAT THE MAORIS THOUGHT.\nHie conquest of any new country may be read in the history of its\nroads. That sentiment has probably found expression before. Such conquest may have been warlike or peaceful, but the roads that went with it\nare the sign manual that it has been thorough. I read in one of G. A.\nHenty's books the other day that the Marois of New Zealand\u2014among\nthe most intelligent of the native races still surviving\u2014with the advent of\nthe first settlers to their country became partially educated and learned that\nthe Romans had conquered the various wild parts of their colonial Empire\nlargely by means of the splendid roads they drove through those countries\nas they conquered them. The Maoris, failing to realize the inevitability of\nthe British conquest of New Zealand, dimly realized that this road conquest\n35 was a vital part of the settling up of the country and opposed it for \"all they\nwere worth-^-opposed such road building so strongly, indeed, that the\nshedding of much blood marked certain stages of the, in the main, peaceful\nconquest of New Zealand. The conquest of British Columbia has been\npeaceful, but nature has placed obstacles in the way, the removal of which\nin order to make access comparitively easy, has cost millions of dollars\nand untold labor\u2014aye, and many lives, also.\nGREAT ACHIEVEMENT SMALL POPULATION.\nTHE CARIBOO ROAD! It is a theme upon which any writer\nwith even an apology for an imagination could rhapsodise for a long time.\nWhat morals could be drawn from it, too. It is impossible for those who\ndo not know the wild and rugged country through which the road passes\nto realize the stupendous nature of the task which the builders set themselves,\nor for those who have not known the road itself in years that are past or\nhave not studied the road of today with an eye to what it owes to that first\nroad to realize the labor and the skill that went to its making. But those\nmen who actually built that wonderful road did not rhapsodise about it\u2014\nthey made it. They made it at a cost of about $ 1,000,000. And it was\nnearly 500 miles in length from Yale to Barkerville. And you could\nhave placed the whole populfH'on of the province of that day in the New\nWestminster of today. The population was well under 35,000.\nJust pause for a moment and think of the pluck of Sir James Douglas,\nColonel Moody of the Royal Engineers\u2014let it not be forgotten that the\nsappers and miners of that splendid body to whom B. C. owes so much\nbuilt the first eight miles of that road\u2014and the other men associated with\nthe inception and building of the road.\nTHE OLD BRIGADE.\nHie expense alone, when it is remembered that the population of the\nprovince was small, was a tremendous item and much of the money had\nto be borrowed. But the work was done and quite a percentage of it has\nlasted to this day, half a century afterwards. There were few who made\nmuch money out of the undertaking and one at least, Mr. Moberly, finished\n\"broke\" and with heavy liabilities. There are a few men associated with\nmuch money out of the undertaking and one at least, Mr. Moberly, who\nthe building of that Cariboo Road still living and of these Mr. Walter\nMoberly is the most notable. He is a veteran of over four-score, white-\nhaired and\u2014well, not feeling so young as he once did. It is not easy for us\nyoung fellows to picture him to ourselves as he looked in his prime, but he\nmust have been, like Mr. Cambie and Mr. Dewdney and Mr. John\nMcLennan and a few others of the stalwart old brigade, a stalwart man\nand a man of his hands as well as of his head. Let us, then, take off our\nhats to the Men of the Old Brigade.\nPROJECTING THE ROAD.\nHere is the story, in Mr. Moberly's own words, of the building of\nthis historic road:\n\"It was in the years 1860-61 that the existence of a very extensive and\nextremely rich auriferous portion of the Crown Colony was discovered to be\nsituated in the part of it now generally known as the Cariboo section of the\n36\n%a It\nX\no\no\nc\n.e\no\nre\na>\nto\n4>\na>\no\n3\nt-\nm\n-i\nto\n- 0 I\n< X\n0)\nre\nre\no\nIII\nQ\n<\n\u25a0o\na\n3\n-J\nDC\nm\nV\n\u2022o\nn\ni_\n\u201e,i\nGO\no\no\nui\ni\nT3\n| re\no\n\u00ab s\n3 re\nS =\nre :r\n(0 \u00a3\n3 +j\nCD re\n4)\n\u2022H (0\na>\nU)\n4) <\nss\nre to\nX\u00ab\nE\u00a3\ni k\n4)\n(o \"a\nen \u00a3\nc \u00ae\nII\n3\nO .z\na.\nC\n4> .\nDC ^ \u00b0\n< O\n\u00a3_ K\n5) 4> \"\nC 5\nS_ O\n.. 3 \u00ab\n* H o\no\na, CQ\nO)\n\u00a3_ \u2022\no Ll\n4>\n(5 \u2022\n(0 >\n\u00ab- o\n4> l_\n4>\nC Tj\n\u00b0> \u00a3\nc 9\nin g\n.: to\nre\n>\u00bb\no\nOC\nc\nre\nE\no\nre\nsz\na.\n.E\no\n10\nre\n\u25a0a\nJZ\nh country, and I decided, for the time being, to defer my further explorations\nfor a transcontinental railway and devote myself to the undertaking of constructing a great arterial highway through the central portion of the colony,\nthat would open up and develop its resources in the most effective and\nsubstantial manner.\n\"My various explorations heretofore made, through the different sections\nof the colony I had visited, had convinced me that the best route to adopt\nfor the great wagon road I projected was by the valleys of the Fraser and\nThomson rivers, although the formidable canyons along the valleys of those\nrivers presented natural obstructions that, for a country having a very small\nrevenue, were most uninviting, and appeared to be almost insurmountable.\nFrom careful observations I also felt confident that the great mineral region\nof the country would be in the belt immediately west of the Rocky Mountains. I was also satisfied that it was by the valleys of the Fraser and\nThomson rivers that the mountain section of Canada's first and greatest\ntranscontinental railway should reach the coast.\nSIR JAMES CONSIDERED DIFFICULTIES TOO FORMIDABLE.\n\"Ever since the arrival of the corps of Royal Engineers, under the\ncommand of the late Major-General Richard Clement Moody, sent out by\nthe Imperial Government in the year 1858 to maintain law and order, and\nto generally supervise and control all such measures and works needed to\nestablish the colony on a firm and lasting basis. I had been on the most\nintimate terms with Colonel Moody. I had fully explained to him my\nviews regarding the construction of a Canadian transcontinental railway,\nand also my belief that the great wagon road to develop the colony should\nbe built through the canyons of the Fraser River, etc. I also had many\nconversations with the late Sir James Douglas, who was the first governor\nof the mainland of British Columbia, but Sir James considered the physical\ndifficulties presented by the canyons of the Fraser and Thompson rivers of\ntoo formidable a nature, and for that reason he had caused to be undertaken the construction of a wagon road over the different portages between\nLake Harrison and the present town of Lillooet, on the Fraser River. This\nroute was a broken land and water one that necessitated much handling of\nthe freight passing over it, and was not at all likely to be able to accommodate and meet the coming needs and prospective commercial demands\nof the country.\n\"The rich discoveries of gold in Cariboo afforded me the opportunity\nof pushing forward my project of building the great arterial highway by\nthe valleys of the Fraser and Thompson rivers. I saw Colonel Moody and\nwe proceeded together to make a careful examination of the canyons, and\nbefore we parted he was convinced as myself that it was the route to adopt\nfor the highway. We arranged to meet the following winter in Victoria\nand press our views on Governor Douglas.\nGOLD EXCITEMENT OTHER PLANS FOR WAGON RQADS.\n'The discoveries of gold induced prominent citizens of Victoria to\ncombine in the endeavor to get roads constructed from the heads of Bute\nInlet and Bentinck Arm direct to Quesnelle mouth, in order to draw the\ntrade of the Cariboo districts away from the Fraser River route and centre\nit in Victoria. These projects I opposed and then commenced the long\nstruggle between the people of Victoria and those of the mainland to capture\nthe trade of the Cariboo districts.\n38 Old view of Victoria overlooking harbor.\n\"When I arrived in Victoria in the early part of the year 1862, I found\nthat Colonel Moody had preceded me, and that all the people of that city\nwere much excited about the gold fields of Cariboo, and the projected roads\nfrom Bute Inlet and Bentinck Arm, and that Governor Douglas was greatly\nin favor of subsidizing a wagon road, projected by the late Mr. Alfred\nWaddington, from the head of Bute Inlet to Quesnelle mouth, and that the\nGovernor was also about to grant a charter to Mr. Gustavus Blinn Wright\nto construct a toll road, assisted by a subsidy from the government, from\nLillooet to Fort Alexandra, from where Mr. Wright proposed to continue\nthe connection on to Quesnelle mouth by means of a stern wheel steamer he\nwas about to build for that purpose.\nTHE GOVERNOR CONVINCED.\n\"My project for building the Yale-Cariboo wagon road looked very\nunpromising. I saw both Mr. Waddington and Mr. Green, the latter\nOld view of Victoria showing James Bay\u2014since filled in.\n39 &\ngentleman being at the head of the project of getting a road from Bentinck\nArm, whilst Mr. Waddington, as before mentioned, was at the head of the\nBute Inlet project. I proposed to them that they should abandon their\nprojects, and all of us cobmine and get a charter for a toll road to be\nconstructed over the Yale-Cariboo route. They were too sanguine of their\nprospects to entertain my proposition, and, as they considered my proposed\nundertaking of getting a wagon road built through the canyons of the\nFraser River, etc., impracticable, they declined my proposition.\n\"After Colonel Moody and myself had had several interviews with\nGovernor Douglas we managed to convince him that the Yale-Cariboo\nroute was the best to adopt for the general development of the country, and\nthat it was imperative that its construction should be undertaken at once.\nOPPENHEIMER, MOBERLY AND LEWIS.\n\"At this time I met Mr. Charles Oppenheimer, who was at that time\nat the head of the great mercantile firm of Oppenheimer Bros., having their\nSir Joseph William Trutch (afterwards first Governor of British Columbia)\nwas in charge of the construction of the Cariboo Road from Chapman's Bar to\nBoston Bar.\nestablishments at Yale and Lytton, where they carried on a very large and\nlucrative business. Mr. Oppenheimer and a friend of his, Mr. T. B. Lewis,\nproposed to join with me in obtaining a charter for the building of this\nwagon road, provided we could obtain the right to collect very remunerative\ntolls for a series of years and a large money subsidy from the governemnt\nto assist in defraying the cost of its construction.\n'We, therefore, entered into an agreement for that purpose under the\nfirm name of Oppenheimer, Moberly & Lewis, and Mr. Oppenheimer\nwithdrew from his firm in order to devote his whole attention to the work\nwe proposed to undertake, and shortly afterwards, on the Governor's granting us the charter, which empowered us to collect very remunerative tolls\nand also to be paid a large cash subsidy as the work of construction progressed, we proceeded to the mainland to commence the work. Governor\nDouglas at that time fully expected to obtain a large loan from the Imperial\nGovernment, for which he had applied.\n40 PLAN OF CAMPAIGN NOTABLE PIONEERS.\n\"The manner in which the different sections of this road were to be\nconstructed was as follows:\nCaptain G. M. Grant, with a force of sappers and miners, together\nwith a large force of civilian labor, was to construct the section extending\nfrom Yale to Chapman's Bar.\nThe late Sir Joseph Wm. Trutch was, by contract, to construct the\nsection from Chapman's Bar to Boston Bar.\nThe late Mr. Thomas Spence was to construct the section from Boston\nBar to Lytton.\nThe firm of Oppenheimer, Moberly & Lewis was to construct the\nsection from Lytton until the road formed a junction with the wagon road\nto be built by Mr. G. B. Wright from Lytton to Fort Alexandria.\nADVANCED MONEY, FOOD AND CLOTHES.\n\"My department in this undertaking was to locate the road and supervise its construction. Mr. Lewis was to keep the books and accounts, and\nMr. Oppenheimer was to look after the purchasing and forwarding of the\nsupplies and the finances. When we arrived at Yale a large number of\nmen seeking employment on our work could not get beyond that point, as\nthey were without money, food, clothing and boots, and as they had to\nwalk from Yale to Lytton along the pack trail we were obliged to make\nthem advances of all those articles. I had already paid the fares of a large\nnumber of men from New Westminster to Yale, which cost me between\n$2,000 and $3,000. Mr. Oppenheimer had arranged before he left\nVictoria to have large quantities of supplies and tools forwarded to Yale,\nand I also sent a quantity of the same things that I had on hand to the same\nplace.\nFIFTY-FIVE CENTS A POUND TO CONVEY SUPPLIES.\n\"We now began to experience our first difficulties, as the pack trail\nbetween Yale and Lytton was only partially completed, which necessitated\nall freight between those places being conveyed partly by water through\nthe dangerous canyons and partly by pack trains, which caused very heavy\ntransportation charges and losses of supplies. Some idea may be formed\nof the cost of transportation in those days when, in many instances, it cost\nas much as fifty-five cents a pound to convey our supplies from Yale to\nLytton. There were not enough boats on the river to meet the demands\nfor transportation, and the number of pack animals was altogether inadequate, as the greater number of those engaged in packing were employed\nin the very lucrative business of conveying freight through to Cariboo, and,\ntherefore, did not find it so profitable to convey it for us over a comparatively short distance to our works. We had to employ large numbers of\nIndians to pack supplies on their backs and the high prices they charged\nenriched them. When Mr. Lewis and myself travelled from Yale to\nLytton we were compelled to walk, as we were unable to get saddle animals.\nThis journey we accomplished in two days, but owing to the extremely rough\ntrail, our feet were blistered and very sore.\nFIRST EMPLOYMENT OF CHINESE.\n\"At Lytton I made my headquarters in the court house, which Captors\nH. M. Ball, who was the gold commissioner, sheriff, etc., of the district,\n41\nI very kindly placed at my disposal. I now established my first road camp\na short distance out of Lytton, and as the men arrived I set them at work.\nA few days afterwards I established another camp at Nicomin, a small\nstream about twelve miles above Cook's ferry, which was a short distance\nbelow where Spence's bridge was afterwards built.\n\"By this time the work was going on at a great rate, but as I could not\nget a sufficient number of white men I was obliged to let a contract for the\nconstruction of the road from a \"slide\" a short distance above Nicomin to\nCook's ferry to a body of Chinese, with the exceptoin of that portion around\na rock bluff below Cook's ferry.\nA CONTEMPTABLE PROCEEDING.\n\"I had now been at work some time, and by the terms of our charter\nthere was a large amount of money overdue and but a very small sum had\nPortion of Cariboo Road, giving fine idea of the system of cribbing.\nbeen paid by the government, which hampered me very much in carrying\non the work in the most efficient manner, and necessarily caused heavy and\nunlooked for expenses being incurred. By borrowing considerable sums of\nmoney on my personal credit I managed to keep the work going on, and, at\nthe end of the third month after the charter was signed, paid all the men\ntheir wages in full. As soon as I had paid these wages, a very large number\nof the men, entirely disregarding the terms of their contract with me to work\nfor the whole season, and nearly all of them indebted for clothes and other\nnecessities I had furnished them with when they were in a destitute condition,\nleft the work, and I lost the value of what I had advanced them.\n42 1\n\"This contemptible proceeding on the part of these men, which was\nbrought about by the reports of fabulously rich deposits of gold having been\ndiscovered on Antler and other creeks in Cariboo, reduced the force of\nmen needed to ensure the prosecution of the work in accordance with our\ncontract with the government, and compelled me to employ, much against\nmy wishes, a large force of Chinese laborers. It will thus be seen that\nthe bad faith and unscrupulous conduct of the white laborers was the cause\nof the employment of Chinese labor in constructing the Cariboo wagon road.\nAll the other contractors on this road experienced the same treatment from\ntheir white laborers that befell me.\nTHE CHINESE AND THE PIGS.\n\"I found all the Chinese employed worked most industriously and\nfaithfully and gave no trouble. I may here mention an amusing incident\nthat occurred in connection with these Chinese. One day when I was on\nmy way from Cook's ferry to Lytton I stopped at the large Chinese camp,\nwhen they told me they were anxious to celebrate some festival, and asked\nme to try and get them some live pigs when I was in Lytton. I found that\nthe only pigs that had been brought so far into the interior were two small\nanimals owned by a man who was mining on the opposite side of the\nFraser River. He asked an exorbitant price\u2014if I remember correctly it\nwas $200 each\u2014so I did not buy them, and on my return to the Chinese\ncamp told them the reason why. They were bound to have the pigs at any\ncost. I gave them an order to get the pigs, and as I was so pleased with\nthe way they did their work, at the same time I gave them an order to get,\nat my expense, two kegs of the fiery whisky they drink, which cost me as\nmuch as the pigs cost them.\n\"On the day they had the celebration I went to their camp and was\nat once surrounded by the Chinamen, who provided me with a meal in which\nroast pork was the principal dish, which I enjoyed, but, on the other hand,\nI had to take many drinks of the abominable whisky which, in tin cups,\nthey held all around and pressed upon me, and would take no refusal.\nMR. MOBERLY BUYS OUT MR. LEWIS.\n\"Time passed on and unpaid for work continued to be done, when at\nlast Mr. Oppenheimer returned. He had succeeded in getting a considerable sum of money from the government, but nothing like what should\nhave been paid. Mr. Lewis got discouraged and disgusted, and was of\nthe opinion that we could not depend upon the government, and wished to\nstop the works. I, therefore, bought out Mr. Lewis's interest in the charter.\nIt was arranged between Mr. Oppenheimer and myself that he should at\nonce return to Victoria and endeavor to get some more money from the\ngovernment, and that I should put matters in as satisfactory a shape as\npossible with the money he had brought, and then be guided by circumstances as to my future proceedings.\nAN EXPLORATION.\n\"I had now got large camps of men at Nicomen, and at a point between\nthat place and Cook's ferry, another established a few miles above Cook's\nferry, and one near Ashcroft Creek, and as it was imperative that it should\nbe decided where the Yale-Cariboo road should be located in order to\n43 OS\no\nOC\no\no\ns_\nre\nO\n4)\nOi\nc\no\nre\n4) form a junction with the wagon road then in course of construction from\nLillooet over Pavilion Mountain, I took a splendid horse I had, a blanket\nand what provisions I could cram into my saddle bags, and started alone\nj to explore through Maiden Creek Valley to where the town of Clinton\nis now built, and also the valley of the Bonaparte River to the Second\nCrossing, which was so named because the old pack trail to Cariboo, over the\nLoon Lake Mountain, crossed the Bonaparte River the second time at\nthat point.\n\"I proceeded from Clinton by way of a small stream that falls into the\nBonaparte, and thence passing along the foot of Castle Mountain, which\nwas so named from its resemblance to a vast feudal castle of the Middle\nAges, I finally reached the Second Crossing of the Bonaparte, where I fully\nexpected to recruit for a day at the wayside house that in the early days had\nbeen built there.\nSUPPER OF ONIONS AND MISERABLE NIGHT.\n'The weather for the last few days during my journey had been very\nrainy, the mosquitoes and horse flies in swarms, and sleeping, or rather\ntrying to sleep, on the wet ground, made matters exceedingly unpleasant,\nand as I had only my horse for a companion I felt very lonely. My pro^\nvisions were all gone and as I was very hungry I was anticipating how much\nI would enjoy a good meal of}; bacon and beans and some hot coffee, and,\npossibly, bread. I was woefully disappointed, for when I arrived at the\nSecond Crossing I found that the house and other buildings had been burned\ndown and the place was completely deserted. Finding a few half-grown\nonions in what had been a garden, I devoured them, and then, building a\ngood fire, I dozed through a miserable night, very much pestered by\nmosquitoes and drenched with rain.\n\"A short examination of the topographical features of the surrounding\ncountry convinced me that the better route to adopt for the wagon road\nwould be the valley of Maiden Creek, and that the junction of the Yale-\nCariboo wagon road with the road being built from Lillooet over the\nPavilion Mountain should be where it is, at Clinton.\n\"HELLO, MOBERLY, IS THAT YOU?\"\n\"Having accomplished the object of my explorations I decided to\nreturn by the trail over the Loon Lake Mountain, as I had learned from\ndifferent packers that there was an abundance of good grass around Loon\nLake, which is situated on a plateau near the top of the mountain. I, therefore, ascended the steep mountain by an execrable trail through the woods,\nand, as the heavy rains had made the trail a ditch, full of stones and boulders, and the flies being indefatigable in their persecutions, travelling up this\nmountain was most unpleasant. After weary hours I at last emerged out\nof the forest, and came on a prairie covered with green grass, when, just\nas I was about to unsaddle my horse to let him have a good feed, I espied\na column of smoke at the far end of the prairie, and soon made out a large\ntrain of pack animals and packers that were encamped there. I instantly\nremounted and cantered joyfully for the fire, and, on approaching it, was\nhailed by a well-known voice with the words: \"Hello, Moberly, is that\nyou?\" to which I answered: \"Yes, Mac, have you got anything to eat in\nyour camp?\" The answer came back at once, \"Yes, and plenty to drink,\n45 too; come on, old man, and regale yourself. What the devil brings you\nhere?\" My friend was the late Captain Allan Macdonald. He was the\nson of one of the former prominent officers of the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company, and was born at Fort Colville.\nCAPTAIN ALLAN MACDONALD.\n\"I had a very sumptuous meal of the staple food of the country\u2014bacon\nand beans\u2014and an unlimited supply of the grand old creamy Hudson's\nView along the Cariboo Road.\nBay rum. I had made Mr. Macdonald's acquaintance on the steamer\nPanama, in 1858, when I was on my way from San Francisco to Victoria.\nThe next time I met Captain Macdonald was many years afterwards, when\nhe was stationed at Fort Osborne, in Winnipeg, with the military force\nunder the command of the late Colonel Osborne Smith, and the last time\nI saw him was some years ago, when on his way back to the Narrows of\nLake Manitoba, where, as Indian agent of that district, he resided.\n\"I remained over the day at this place, and, as the afternoon was fine,\nwe found that the small stream which flows out of Loon Lake abounded\nwith brook trout, so we improvised a sort of drag net out of an old horse\nblanket and managed to catch a plentiful supply of large trout, upon which\nwe feasted.\n46 \"The following day I resumed my journey along the trail, which has a\nvery steep descent, on the southwesterly side of the mountain, to the First\nCrossing of the Bonaparte River. At this point there was a small log hut\nvery extensively known through the colony at that period at 'Scotty's,' the\nowner of it being a rather quaint Orkneyman, who kept a few cows and\nwas supposed to furnish meals to travellers. I here met one of my packers,\nwhom I had instructed to be at this point in order that I could tell him where\nI proposed to establish another large camp of workmen to push forward the\nconstruction of the road along the valley of the Bonaparte, etc.\nREMARKABLE AND EXPENSIVE MEAL.\n\"Being very hungry I requested 'Scotty' to provide us with a meal,\nwhereupon he produced a frying-pan full of stale flap-jacks and a can of\nmilk. Each flap-jack was about three inches in diameter and half an inch\nin thickness. Having demolished as many of the unsavory cakes as were\nnecessary to appease our hunger, and drunk several cups of milk, I asked\n\"Scotty\" what I had to pay, when he demanded fifty cents for each cake\nand fifty cents for each cup of milk. This exorbitant charge so enraged\nmy packer, who talked in such forcible language to \"Scotty,\" that I had\ngreat difficulty in preventing a personal encounter between them. We left\nthis miserable hut as soon as possible, my packer vowing that he would get\neven with \"Scotty\" some day.\nLEGEND TOLD BY THE GOVERNOR.\n\"In one of Sir James Douglas' trip in the interior of the colony I\nhad the pleasure of accompanying him, when he told me of the origin of\nsome of the names of different places in the colony, and the following is the\nIndian legend he related regarding Maiden Creek, through the valley of\nwhich I had decided the wagon road should go:\n\"At some time in the misty past there lived at the mouth of Maiden\nCreek a very beautiful Indian girl, who had a lover living at Cache Creek,\nto whom she was engaged to be married. The lover proved false and nn*v\nried another woman, which so distracted the poor girl that she died of a\nbroken heart, and was buried near the mouth of Maiden Creek, and out of\nher breasts grew the two rounded hillocks that are to be seen at that place\nand which resemble a woman's breasts.\"\nA DREAD SCOURGE.\n\"It was in the year 1862 that the smallpox swept away great numbers\nof the Coast Indians and had been, during the summer, gradually extending\nits ravages into the interior of the colony. A few days before I left my\ncamp at Nicomin to make the long exploratory trip before mentioned, as I\nwas standing at my tent, which was on the opposite side of that little stream\nto where the large camp of my employees was situated, and who were just\non the point of sitting down to supper, I noticed an Indian leading a horse on\nwhich another Indian was seated, who had a veil over his face. Afte'\ncrossing the stream they were evidently intending to camp about fifty fee\nfrom my tent. I walked over to the Indians, and, being suspicious that\nsomething was wrong, lifted the veil from the face of the Indian wearing it\nand saw that the poor fellow was badly smitten with the smallpox. I\n47 instantly told them that they could not stay there in the vicinity of my men\nand that they must return to Lytton where the government had a doctor\nappointed to vaccinate the Indians. They told me they were without money\nand had not any food, so I went to my store tent and filled a large sack\nwith provisions, which I gave them, together with a letter to the doctor t*\nhave them properly attended to, and then compelled them to go. When I\nwas on my way to Bonaparte River I learnt from the man in charge of\nCook's ferry that these two Indians, instead of returning to Lytton, had\ncome to his house and gone on to the mouth of the Nicola Rievr, at which\nplace there was an Indian village, from which I had procured a number of\nIndians with their little horses to pack supplies between the camps above\nCook's ferry.\n'These Indians camped in a little bay on the Thompson River, about\na mile below my largest camp. On my way down from Ashcroft Creek to\nthis camp, which I did not reach until some hours after dark, I heard the\ndismal wailing of Indian women on the mountain side above the trail I rode\nalong, which was a certain indication of death having visited their community. On arriving at the camp I learnt that none of the Indians from\nthe little bay had been up for several days, and it was supposed the smallpox had reached their encampment.\nPUTREFYING BODIES OF INDIANS A CAMP OF DEATH.\n'The next day I proceeded on my way to Nicomen, and, as I rode\nalong the mountain side, I saw several Indian horses grazing on the \"bunch\ngrass\" that then grew in profusion in the valley of the Thompson River,\nand in the little bay below me the tents of the Indians, but I saw no signs\nof human life about the tents. I therefore dismounted and went to the\ntents, where I discovered the horrible sight of the putrefying bodies of the\nIndians, some in the tents and others among the rocks that lined the river\nbank, through which they had evidently tried to drag themselves to the\nriver to assuage their burning thirst, or to plunge into the river. All the\nIndians in that encampment had been dead several days.\n\"I now proceeded to the ferry and went to the Indian village at the\nmouth of the Nicola River, where the same melancholy and disgusting sight\nwas met that a few hours before I had seen at the little bay on the Thompson River, for all the Indians were dead. I hurried on to my camp at\nNicomin, fearing that the smallpox had broken out among my men, buft\nwas greatly relieved to find that such was not the case.\n*\nMEN CLAMOROUS FOR WAGES.\n\"During my absence very good progress had been made in the work\nof construction, but, as I received no news from either Victoria or New\nWestminster, and as my men were getting clamorous for their wages, I\ndemanded certificates from the government official who was in charge of the\nsupervision of the work, which he declined to give, and, on my pressing\nhim for them to enable me to draw the money now overdue, and telling\nhim that if he would not grant them, I should be compelled to stop the\nworks, he showed me a written order he had received from headquarters\ninstructing him on no account to grant certificates until further orders.\n48 'This peculiar order appeared to me to be tantamount to an effort on\nthe part of the government to force me into such a position that the government could claim that the charter was forfeited, and enable them to take\nimmediate possession of the road. I afterwards found out that it was owing\nto the Imperial Government refusing to grant the loan to the colony that\nGovernor Douglas had applied for, and the government had not any money\nto pay the amounts that any certificates it granted would call for.\n\"Cariboo Cameron,\" a noted character of the Cariboo gold excitement days.\nHe struck it rich, but subsequently lost all his money in the east and came back\nto British Columbia in his old age, a poor man. His -wife was one of the few\nwhite women at the gold diggings, and when she died he made a remarkable\njourney out of the Cariboo, dragging her body on a sleigh. Mr. Cambie has a\ndramatic memory of Cameron, of how once when travelling on a steamer on\nShuswap Lake, the language becoming profane and the company rowdy, Cameron opened his cabin door and fell on his knees praying in the doorway,\nwhereupon \"Father Pat,\" of Kootenay fame, held a religious service.\n\"I now felt certain that there was something seriously wrong at the seat\nof government about financial matters. I therefore started on horseback for\nYale, leaving Lytton in the afternoon and arriving the following morning\nat Yale, where I only stopped long enough to hire a canoe and six Indians\nto convey me to New Westminster, where I arrived at 8 o'clock the following morning. As soon as Colonel Moody's office opened I sought an\ninterview with him, when I learnt that Governor Douglas was at his house\nand that I would have to see him, as Colonel Moody declared he was not\nin any way responsible for the non-payment of the different sums of money\nas they became due, or for the order with which the government superintendent over my work had been furnished, instructing him not to grant me\nany certificate.\n49\nJ Jf^f\n$6,000 ON ACCOUNT MEN DESPERATELY HUNGRY.\n\"I saw Governor Douglas and made a new arrangement, by which the\nsum of fifty thousand dollars was to be paid to me in a few days. This\nmoney he could get from the Bank of British Columbia, which was then\ncommencing business in British Columbia. I also made arrangements for\nfuture payments, and then, knowing how important it was that I should be\nback at my works as soon as possible, I got the Governor to let me have\non account a few thousand dollars then in the treasury at New Westminster\nand in the collectorate at Yale, amounting in all to six thousand dollars,\nand, having very unfortunately left a general instead of a specific power-of-\nattorney with the Attorney-General to sign for me for the balance of the\nfifty thousand dollars, I left by steamer to return to the road camps.\n\"When I reached Yale I was surprised to meet a large number of my\nmen who had engaged to work the whole season, and others who had only\nengaged by the month. They had heard of my going down from Lytton in\na great hurry, and some irresponsible creature had circulated a report that\nI had left the country. My return astonished these men. They were\ndesperately hungry, so I took them to a restaurant and ordered a good meal\nand told them to meet me after breakfast at the office of the gold commissioner. On their arrival I paid off all those who had worked the full\ntime for which they had engaged, and after well rating those who had left\nthe work before the term for which they had engaged expired, by which\naction on their part they had forfeited all wages coming to them, I paid\nthem half their wages and obtained employment for them for the rest of\nthe season with Captain Grant, who, with the Royal Engineers and a body\nof civilian laborers, was then constructing the first section of the wagon\nroad between Yale and Chapman's Bar.\nSHERIFF INSTRUCTED TO ARREST MR. MOBERLY.\n\"The next day I proceeded on my way to the road camps, which, after\nmy arrival, I reorganized and then returned to Lytton, as I expected that\nthe $44,000 agreed to be forwarded to me by express would have arrived.\nI reached Lytton on a Saturday evening and found that the mail and\nexpress had not arrived, but I received a letter from a friend, sent by special\nmessenger, to inform me the government would not send me the money, and\nthat the day after his messenger arrived at Lytton a capias would reach that\ntown by mail instructing Captain Ball, the sheriff, to arrest me for the\namount of an account due for some supplies furnished by a party in\nVictoria, and that a writ had been obtained owing to a notice emanating\nfrom the Attorney-General that the charter, out of which I could easily have\ncleared $100,000 if the government had acted in good faith, had been\nforfeited as the work was not going on properly.\nATTORNEY-GENERAL'S BREACH OF FAITH.\n'The letter I received from my friend also informed me that Captain\nGrant had been instructed to proceed to Lytton regarding the steps to be\ntaken by the government about my works. The unfortunate general power-\nof-attorney I had given the Attorney-General, by a breach of faith on his\npart, placed it in his power to act as he did, and that power-of-attorney was\nused by him for a very different purpose to that intended when I gave it\nto him.\n50 \"This unscrupulous act on the part of the government I afterwards\nfound out was owing to the refusal of the Imperial Government to grant a\nlarge loan to the colony, upon which Governor Douglas relied for building\nthe Yale-Cariboo road and the extension of the Harrison-Lillooet road\nnortherly from Lillooet, and as I was the one to whom the largest amount\nwould have to be paid, it was decided to sacrifice me and carry the other\nScene on the Old Cariboo Road.\ncontractors through, especially as the government would gain a large and\nvery expensive portion of the constructed road I had built without paying\nanything for it, which was a very convenient and profitable thing for them,\nbut it was a disgraceful and dishonest transaction on their part.\nA DRAMATIC BREAKFAST.\n\"The day when the capias would arrive in Lytton would be a Sunday.\nI, therefore, knew it could not be served upon me until the following morning. On Sunday morning I had breakfast with Captain Ball, the sheriff,\nand as we sat at that meal his mail arrived and I saw him open a letter,\nwhich, I felt convinced, contained the ominous document, but he said\nnothing, nor did I.\n\"I was now thoroughly disgusted with the bad faith I had met with\nfrom the government, and the duplicity of the Attorney-General, and felt\ncertain I could not struggle any longer against such adverse circumstances;\nbut, as I knew what vast importance it was to the colony to get this road\n51 completed as soon as possible, I decided to take a course that would\nprevent the stoppage of the work and let my personal interest be sacrificed\nand the general interests of the country be protected, particularly as I had\nbeen the principal cause of leading Governor Douglas to undertake this\ngreat work which had placed him in a very serious dilemma.\nMR. MOBERLY MAKES BIG SACRIFICE.\n\"The following morning I went down to breakfast with the sheriff,\nwhen he served me with the writ, and was rather surprised when I read the\nletter I had received the previous Saturday by private express, advising me\nabout the capias. He said: \"Why did you not get on your horse and cross\nthe southern boundary into the United States?\" My answer to him was:\n\"That I had been the promoter of the Yale-Cariboo wagon road and I\nintended to stick to it until it was an accomplished work, no matter what\nobstacles had to be overcome.\"\n\"I was now hourly expecting the arrival of Captain Grant, whom I\nknew would be sent up by the government to act in the matter, and immediately on his arrival I borrowed a few hundred dollars from a friend and\npaid the amount off for which I had been arrested, and 'called upon Captain\nGrant, when we discussed the whole matter over in the most friendly\nmanner, and I gave him in writing my relinquishment of all my charter\nrights, and also the surrender of all supplies, tents, tools, etc., on the works\n(which had cost me upwards of $6,000), for the benefit of the government,\nand simply requested him to do his utmost to have the wages of all my men\npaid and also the sub-contracts I had let, a course to which he cordially\nassented and he afterwards compelled the government, much against their\nintention, to have this arrangement faithfully carried out.\nA RUINED MAN.\n\"Captain Grant and myself now proceeded to my different road camps,\nof which I put him in full possession, and when everything was out of my\nhands Captain Grant proposed that he should appoint me to carry on the\nworks for the government for the rest of the season. This proposition I was\nglad to accept, for I had not a dollar left, and then Captain Grant told the\nmen that from that time they would be paid their wages by the government\nand that I was in full charge of the works, and, furthermore, that he would\ndo his utmost to get their back wages paid, but he could not absolutely\npromise more, as that matter rested with Governor Douglas. Those wages\nwere ultimately paid in full; they amounted to about $ 19,000.\n'When this business was closed up at the end of the year, the country\nhad gained a large and most expensive portion of the Cariboo wagon road\nbuilt, which cost them nothing, but it left me a ruined man, with heavy\npersonal liabilities, which took all the money I could make during eight\nsubsequent years to finally pay off.\n\"As soon as Mr. Charles Oppenheimer heard of my arrest he left the\ncountry to avoid a similar fate and did not return for some years. He had\nto settle all the then outstanding liabilities of our old firm before he came\nback, which cost him a large sum of money.\n52 \"The following year, 1863, a Mr. William Hood, from Santa Clara,\nCalifornia, undertook the contract to complete the unfinished portion of the\nroad between the big rock bluff above Cook's ferry and Clinton, and he\nemployed me to superintend the work for him.\nThis same year Captain Grant, Mr. Trutch and Mr. Spence finished\nthe section of the road between Yale and Lytton, and Mr. Spence built the\nsuspension bridge across the Fraser River, which afterwards bore his name.\nBritish Columbia's first Legislative Assembly, 1864. Mr. Moberly is seen\nthird from the right. Those present, reading from left, are Henry Holbrook,\nCharles Brew, C. W. Franks, George A. Walkem, H. M. Ball, Peter O'Reilly,\nJ. A. R. Homer, W. O. Hamley, A. N. Birch, Walter Moberly, H. P. P. Crease.\nLOCATING OTHER WAGON ROADS.\n\"In 1864 I was employed by the Colonial Government as their\nengineer to go to Cariboo and locate the northerly portion of the wagon\nroad from Fort Alexandria (to which latter point Mr. G. B. Wright had\nbuilt the road the previous year) to Richfield, and to look after its construction between Quesnelle mouth and Cottonwood River, which was then\nbuilt by Mr. G. B. Wright. I constructed a temporary sleigh road from\nFort Alexandria to Quesnelle mouth, and another from Cottonwood River\nto Richfield via Lightning Creek. I also located a line for a wagon road\n53 from Cottonwood River via Willow River as far as Richfield, and I supervised the construction of a branch road into the valley of the Horse Fly\nRiver, then known as \"Captain Mitchell's Road.\" I also explored a line\nfor a proposed branch wagon road into the valley of William's Lake.\nELECTED TO REPRESENT CARIBOO IN THE LEGISLATURE.\n\"At the end of the year 1864, having been requested by the people of\nCariboo to represent them in the Legislative Council about to meet at New\nWestminster, I resigned my position as government engineer and was duly\nelected to represent the above-mentioned constituency.\n\"On the 1 3th of March, 1907, I had the honor of addressing the\nCanadian Club of Vancouver on the subject of \"Early Pathfinding in the\nMountains of British Columbia, or The Discovery of the Northwest by\nLand.\" In that address I related how I managed, during the session above-\nmentioned, to get the money granted that enabled me to complete by the\nend of the year 1865, discoveries that, in connection with extensive explorations I made from the year 1855 between Lake Simcoe and those made of\nthe extensive central portion of Canada by the expedition under the command of Captain Palletier, insured a practicable route for a great Canadian\ntranscontinental, terminating in the City of Vancouver, and as I have now\ngiven you a brief history of the Cariboo wagon road, you will be enabled\nto form an idea of the great difficulties that had to be overcome to bring\nabout the development and present prosperous condition of British Columbia.\nJOE\n54\n\u25a0i^BWMHiiiiiliHB Tl\\\nINDIAN LEGENDS\u2014A GLIMPSE IN PASSING.\n|R. WALTER MOBERLY has developed in an unusual\ndegree the sense of historical accuracy. In conversation with\nhim this is very patent to one who has had a considerable\nexperience of interviewing all sorts and conditions of men\u2014\nand women. There is a sort of instinct\u2014probably bred by\nexperience \u2014 which, almost unerringly, tells one when a man is\nromancing. A man who has played as big a part as Mr Moberly\nhas in the building of a province, and who, in the doing of it,\nhas passed through so many strange and exciting experiences,\nmight be pardoned for a little romancing, though, truth to tell, the actual\nfacts of his career are more romantic than any fiction could be. Yet it is a\nfact that in the course of the telling of these various chapters of his life's\nstory, nearly all the exciting or humorous stories have tumbled out quite\naccidentally; have, indeed, been just suggested by a word let fall casually.\nIn the main Mr. Moberly has been intent upon telling of the chief events,\nthe explorations, the building of roads and so on, and has had to be tempted\ninto the by-paths of anecdote.\nAN INTERLUDE.\nWe have nearly arrived at a period in his life which suggests an interlude!\u2014a rather strenuous and varied interlude, it is true, but still an interlude^\u2014between two notable periods. With the close of his history of the\nbuilding of the Cariboo Road, and with the telling of the discovery of\nEagle Pass, two events which subsequently played so large a part in the\ndevelopment of the province, practically ended the first important period.\nShortly afterwards the adventurer bade \"good-bye\" to British Columbia,\nand for several years roamed through different States of the Union to the\nsouth, playing a part (with other men of the Cariboo mining excitement) in\na silver and a gold excitement, visiting Utah, and having several conferences with that notable Morman, Brigham Young, in Salt Lake City, and\nfinally, with the advent of Confederation, being sent for to Ottawa by Sir\nJohn A. Macdonald as the only man who knew all about the country\nthrough which the C. P. R. would have to be built, in order that he might\nplay an important part in that\u2014for Canada\u2014epoch-making event.\nBefore proceeding with the telling of this story in consecutive fashion\nlet me gather up one or two loose ends.\nThere is one exciting experience of Mr. Moberly's life that is verbally\npretty well known, and it must certainly find a place here, namely, how he\nnearly lost his life by drowning in the Fraser River in the winter of 1861.\nI first heard of this adventure from the Hon. Edgar Dewdney (who was\nliving on the site of the recently-established city at the time), but I have\nheard it several times since from other very old-timers.\n\"Well, I was wintering in the township of New Westminster, and staying\nat what was called the Colonial restaurant\u2014it was the winter of '61,\" Mr.\n55 Moberly observed. 'The Fraser River was frozen over as I had never seen\nit before and have never seen it since. Those survivors of that period will\nbear me out in that statement. For quite a time steamers could not get\nup the river, and they used to come up Burrard Inlet to what is now Port\nMoody, and then passengers and freight would go across land to New\nWestminster, and we could drive on the Fraser right up to Langley, but I\ndo not know how much farther, as that was the farthest I went then. The\nsnow was deep, and there was splendid sleighing. It seems to me that the\nwinter climate of this part of B. C. has become much milder than in those\ndays, as I recollect other very heavy winters, though none to compare with\nthe winter of '61. ip::\nA MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.\n\"We were having a game of shinny\u2014they call it hockey now, I think\n-on the river just above New Westminster. It used to be played a great\ndeal in Canada with a ball and a crooked stick. We were playing on\nskates, because the snow just then was only a very light layer. There was\nan opening in the ice where the current was particularly strong, and it had\nbeen frozen over the night before. The ball was struck down to this place,\nand I went after it. I was at the thin ice before I realized where I was,\nand through I went. Somehow, as I fell through, I instinctively took a quick\nbreath. When I came up my head struck against the ice. Curiously\nenough, I had considered what I would do should I ever go through an ice\nsurface on the Fraser, and I turned and at once swam with all the power of\nwhich I was capable against the current. The water was ice-cold. I opened\nmy eyes and saw a little glimmer of light ahead of me, and thought that\nmust be the place I had gone through. I took a few strokes with all my\nmight and managed to get to the hole, and saw Henderson, who was purser\non the old steamer Moody, looking over. He and others seized me and\ndragged me out.\" Mr. Moberly chuckled at the recollection, but he added:\n\"I was too frozen to smile, then, as they rushed me off to the nearest shack\nwhere the warmth and a change of clothes soon put me right as rain.\"\nTHAT GRIZZLY ADVENTURE.\nNow for another loose end. Do you remember Mr. Moberly's\ngrizzly-bear adventure that took place in the mountains above the Illicille-\nwaet Valley? If you read it you will remember that, after the grizzly had\nbeen killed, Victor and two other Indians who had accompanied Mr.\nMoberly and Mr. Perry, showed a marked disinclination to attempt\u2014\nwhat the explorers first thought of attempting\u2014the taking of the head and\nskin with them on the trail, and that, finally they decorated the head with\nred flannel from their shirts, and, Victor ascending a tall tree, placed it\nfirmly upon the top, removing all bark and branches as he descended, in\norder to preserve it from the depredations of raccoons or other wild climbing animals. Mr. Moberly told me that some Indian superstition lay at\nthe back of this action, and, as a result of this information, I visited Mr.\nCharles Hill-Tout, the well-known anthropologist and farmer at Abbots-\nford up the Fraser Valley. He told me that he had read of the incident\nwith interest, and he explained the reason of the strange proceeding. This\nexplanation is such an interesting glimpse into the Indian mind that, coming,\nas it does, from an authority and one who has lived much with the Indians,\nI make no apology for introducing it here.\n56 INDIAN REVERENCE FOR THE BEAR.\n'This practice of paying respect to the animals slain by them is a very\ncommon one among our Indians,\" Mr. Hill-Tout explained, \"and it applies\nparticularly to the killing of the bear, which was one of the greatest of their\nmystery animals. Every Indian greatly desired a bear as his totem or\nfamiliar spirit. The man who possessed a bear as his totem was given\npower by the bears to hunt and slay these animals readily, but there was\nalways the obligation upon him that he should, having killed a bear, prepare\nit for food with reverence and consideration. For example, he would have\nto be very careful with the offal and not leave it for smaller animals to\nprey upon. This had to be carefully buried, or, preferably, thrown into a\nCharles Hill-Tout, author of the work upon the Indians of British Columbia in\nthe \"Native Races of the British Empire\" series.\nrunning stream, and the head must always be painted with red' paint or\nsome substitute. In the case of Mr. Moberly's Indians you will notice that\nthey tore portions from their red flannel shirts. Then they had to place the\nhead either\u2014as in the case of his story\u2014upon the top of a young tree, or\nupon some big boulder or rock where it would be out of reach of wild\nanimals. No Indian would ever dream of touching or in any way disturbing such an object.\nNaturally I questioned Mr. Hill-Tout further upon this interesting\npractice, and elicited additional information. \"In the case of the salmon,\"\nhe said, \"whenever they began to run no Indian was allowed to fish or kill\nuntil the first salmon of the season had been reverently brought to the chief\nof the tribe, who would gather all his tribesmen together a.nd bid his wife\ncook the fish in a new basket specially made for the purpose. Then he\nwould distribute a small bit to every man of the tribe who was ceremonially\n57 clean, for none who were ceremonially unclean could ever be allowed to\ntouch a bit of that first fish. After that any member of the tribe was free\nto kill salmon, but it was understood that they were always to return the\nhead and entrails back to the water.\"\nTHE LEGEND OF THE SALMON.\nQuestioned as to the reason of this practice of returning the unused\nparts of the fish to the water, Mr. Hill-Tout observed: \"It was to enable\nthe fish to come to life again, and, in this connection, there is a rather beautiful little story among the Indians, which tells us how the salmon first came\nfrom the ocean to our streams. It seems that long ago there were no salmon\nm the rivers, and Khals, the culture hero of the Indians of this coast district,\ndetermined to go out to the salmon islands in the Pacific and induce the\nsalmon people to visit the rivers and streams and allow themselves to be\ncaught by the Indians as fish. He set sail with his brothers and some\npriests of the coast tribe, and, after many days' rowing, arrived at the home\nof the salmon people somewhere in the Pacific. They were people just like\nthe Indians, and the visitors were made welcome. Just when the midday\nmeal was being prepared one of the visitors noticed that two of the young\npeople of the salmon tribe, a youth and a maiden, went down into the\nwater and disappeared. Shortly afterwards two salmon were caught, and\nwhen they were being distributed to the visitors, the chief of the salmon\npeople asked them to be very careful to keep all the bones together. After\nthe meal one or two of the young men came round and collected the bones\nleft over, and these were taken and thrown into the sea. Shortly after\nthis the young man and maiden who had entered the water were seen to\nreappear.\"\nHAD BEEN EATING THE SALMON PEOPLE.\n'This happened each day and excited the curiosity of one of the\nvisitors, who determined to put his suspicion to the test. Believing this\nentering of the water and catching of salmon to be intimately connected, he,\nat the meal next day, hid a piece of salmon bone under his blanket. Presently, when the young people came up out of the water, it was seen that the\nyouth was holding his blanket up to his jaw. The chief went forward and\nthe youth told him that all the bones could not have been returned to the\nwater because his jaw bone was missing. The chief asked the visitors if\nthey had returned all the bones. A search was made and the missing bone\nwas found thrown a little way beyond the circle, where the visitor had\nthrown it. The chief threw it into the water, the young man returned into\nthe water and came out whole. By this means the visitors knew that the\nsalmon they had been eating were the salmon people. So Khals asked the\nchief if he would visit their coast and permit his people to catch them as\nsalmon. This the chief agreed to upon certain conditions, the principal\nbeing that they would always throw the offal and bones back into the\nwater.\"\nA BEAUTIFUL BELIEF.\n\"This became a common practice even with animals. The Indians\nbelieve that the spirit part of the fish and animals is even more real than\nthe corporeal part. They believe that the destruction of other parts of his\ncarcass besides his flesh, which may be used for food purposes, would make\nthe bear very angry and that he would take his revenge upon the Indians\n58 \"^sv\nfor the indignity placed upon his remains. They believe that, if the animals\nallow themselves to be killed for food, then it is the duty of those who kill\nthem to treat with reverence what they do not use.\" Incidentally Mr. Hill-\nTout mentioned that each color has its special significance for the Indian,\nblack for war, red for ceremonial, and so on.\nAnd now to return to Mr. Moberly's story. I happened to mention\nthe building of the Dewdney trail to Wild Horse, and Mr. Moberly recalled\nthat he first met Mr. Dewdney in New Westminster at the very beginning\nof things and while he was erecting some of the first wooden buildings in\nthe forest clearings. \"I remember well how Dewdney and Lee undertook\nthat hay-making expedition on to Sea Island, about which he told you so\nentertainingly,\" Mr. Moberly said, laughing heartily at the recollection.\n\"They were going to cut and collect the wild grass for Col. Moody's horses.\nI remember that, on our way round to Burrard Inlet upon that expedition\nabout which I have told you, when Commander Richards named Coal\nHarbor, Burnaby and I called upon Dewdney and Lee and we all laughed\nover the fact that they were, in addition to the making of the hay, going\nto make their fortune out of cranberries. We also called at the big Indian\nrancheree which was situated on the north shore of the North Arm.\"\nA RATTLESNAKE STORY.\nMr. Moberly and Mr. Dewdney were associated in the building of\nthe first portion\u2014about seven miles\u2014of the road from Hope through the\ncanyons, and Captain Grant and his men of the Engineers went on with it.\nIt was intended to carry it on to Princeton in the Similkameen, but the\nCariboo excitement broke out and next year all forces were at work upon\nthe Cariboo Road. It was at the beginning of this excitement that Mr.\nMoberly first met his old friend\u2014who is still with us, hale and hearty,\ndespite the fact that he is nearly fourscore years of age\u2014Bob Stevenson,\na notable survivor of the Cariboo days, who was among those who first\nbrought out from the interior the news of the discovery of gold. Mention\nof Bob Stevenson recalled to Mr. Moberly's memory a remarkable rattlesnake story which Mr. Stevenson has made peculiarly his own and which,\nfor that reason, Mr. Moberly would not have printed here. But recollection of that story recalled a rattlesnake incident which happened to Mr.\nMoberly himself between Osoyoos Lake and Colville. \"The girth of my\nsaddle had got loose\u2014I was using one of those Mexican saddles,\" he\nexplained, \"and I dismounted to tighten it. As I was doing this I wondered\nwhat the devil was knocking at my leg. I looked down and found that\nI had stepped on a rattlesnake in such a manner that about a foot of the\nsnake was at liberty and that it was dabbing away at my leather legging\u2014\nwhich had saved my life.\"\n\"FIXING\" OLD NESQUINAULT.\nBriefly summarizing his explorations immediately following the Eagle\nPass expedition, Mr. Moberly said: \"In '66 I finished the explorations\nround the bend of the Columbia and build a trail into French Creek and\nhad some improvement work done on the Dewdney trail. I went through\nto the Kootenays and across to the Columbia, visiting the different Passes,\nin order to connect with the explorations of Palliser and Hector, who had\nexplored the Howse, Kicking Horse and Crow's Nest Passes, ending their\n59 explorations when they struck the Columbia. I went back to Wilson's\nLanding, and up to French Creek and crossed over to Shuswap Lake\nto arrange with the chief of the Indians about the reserves there.\"\nI think I must give with a little detail Mr. Moberly's story of the\nprimitive way in which the arrangement was made with that particular\nIndian chief. He laughed heartily as he said: \"Judge Cox (who was\nan Irishman and a great character) had been through before and, as far\nas I could make out then or afterwards, he had reserved the whole blessed\ncountry right through from the mouth of Cache Creek to the Rocky Mountains, and the people were driving their cattle in and there was likely to be a\nlot of trouble because the Indians were collecting toll. I had been commissioned to endeavor to come to an arrangement with the Indians. I had a\nbig talk with the Indians (they were the Shuswaps), and gave them a\ngood blow-out, and then I conferred with their chief, old Nesquinault, who\nwas a cunning old beggar. We were camped 200 or 300 feet from the\nbeach, and while the Indians were sitting round the fire at supper I asked\nNesquinault to take a little walk with me down the beach. He did so,\nand I told him, when we sat down, that we wanted the Indian reserve\nmatter settled, and I showed him where the boundary should go. I then\ntook out of my pocket $200, which I had with me in $20 pieces. I put\n$100 on each knee. The money shone in the moonlight, and I told him\nthat. I would put that in his pocket the following morning if he would\nagree. Next morning all was settled. I then told all the Indians that,\nif they would come to Kamloops, I would make them all presents, and\nthey came. Nesquinault was exceedingly fond of horses and a very good\njudge of them, so I made him a present of a very fine animal with |\nMexican saddle and silver trappings. He no sooner realized that it was\nhis than he was in the saddle.\"\nMURDER\u2014NOT DIPLOMACY.\nIncidentally Mr. Moberly spoke very highly of a young man named\nFitzgerald, who was clerk to Judge Cox at the time and who a few years\nago earned tragic fame by heroically losing his life while in charge of a\nhandful of the North West Mounted Police, who died from starvation and\nexposure in the Yukon. It was Fitzgerald who, referring to the capture\nand hanging at Quesnele of the Indians responsible for the destruction of\nthe Waddington party\u2014the story has already been told many times, and\nit will be remembered that the Indians were captured through a piece of\ntreachery and a promise that was broken\u2014remarked: \"It was a great\npiece of diplomacy, wasn't it?\" to which Mr. Moberly replied: \"No; it\nwas treachery and murder.\" Mr. Moberly holds that the Waddington\nparty of whites brought their fate upon themselves by their treatment of\nthe Indians, and that the subsequent trial and hanging of the Indians was\na blot upon all concerned.\nROW WITH ONE GOVERNOR TRIBUTE TO ANOTHER.\n\"After completing the negotiations with Nesquinault I came to Westminster and wanted to get a wagon road built through Eagle Pass and\ntrails into the Kootenay,\" the explorer observed, \"but I found that Governor Seymour had chartered a steamer to bring in immigrants from California. I told him that he had done the worst thing for the country that\nhe could, as it would result in bringing a big gang of gamblers and other\n60\ni\n\u2014 1\nm\nto\nc\nre\n\u25a0o\nc\nre\n\u00a3\n3\nO\nO\ns:\nto\n'\u00a31\nffl\nto\n4>\na undesirables into the country. We had something of a row, and he said\nhe would abolish my office of assistant surveyor-general. I said: 'You\ncan do so with pleasure, as I am going to take my passage to California\non this steamer that you have been good enough to charter to bring in\nimmigrants.' He asked me not to leave and he would put any engineering\nwork that came along into my hands, but I replied, \"There won't be any\nengineering if you don't open up the trails.' Anyway, I wanted to go\nand see what was doing in the States and where, probably, the transcontinental roads would go over there. They were just starting the California\nCentral.\nTHAT OLD BRASS KNOCKER.\n\"It was just about when I left that, Governor Douglas's term being\nup, Governor Seymour was appointed governor of both Mainland and\nVancouver Island. Governor Douglas went to Europe and I did not see\nhim again until '71, when he came back to Victoria. He was then living\nin the old house\u2014still standing, I believe\u2014next to where Dr. Helmcken\nis still living.\" Mr. Moberly added, in reply to a question, that when he\nvisited the doctor some time ago, he went and looked at the Governor's\nold house and recognized again the little, old brass knocker which he had\nraisemso many times in the days of long ago. Governor Douglas he recalls\nas a splendid looking man, very dignified, but very good-hearted and most\npopular. \"I consider that our province today owes more to him than to\nany man,\" Mr. Moberly asserted.\n[c\nIOE\n62\nVn *\\\nHOW WALTER. MOBERLY MET BRIGHAM YOUNG.\nND so it befell that, at the beginning of the year 1867, after\na number of the most strenuous years of exploration and road\nbuilding in all his varied career, Walter Moberly bade \"goodbye\" to the province of his adoption for what proved to be\nfour years wandering and excitement in California, Nevada,\nUtah, Idaho, Oregon and Washington; but, as he steamed\naway for San Francisco and saw the shores of British Columbia fade from view, he was confident that his absence would\nbe a temporary one, for he felt sure that Confederation was only a question of time and that the transcontinental railway for which he had paved\nthe way by his valuable explorations, and the realization of which was the\nlode-star of all his earlier and middle life, would then become an affair of\npractical politics.\nAS GRAIN WAREHOUSER.\n\"San Francisco was a busy city even then, nearly fifty years ago,\"\nhe recalled, \"and it was rendered very picturesque by the many clipper\nships that were loading or discharging there all the time. As soon as\nI arrived I decided to take a trip into the interior to Grass Valley in order\nto visit an old friend, a Cornishman, who was part owner of one of the\nmines. I did so, and then returned to 'Frisco. In those days a great deal\nof grain was shipped in sailing vessels. I came into personal touch with\ntwo very decent fellows, a Southerner and a Northerner\u2014this was several\nyears after the close of the Civil War\u2014-and the three of us agreed to\ntake a pretty big warehouse for the storage of grain in sacks. These two\nknew the shipping men well and we got the storage of much of their goods\nand grain, and we used to ship grain as return cargo. I managed the\nwarehouse, and the others saw to the outside business.\n'This continued for some time, but in '69 I gave it up and, it being\nthe time of what was known as the White Pine excitement, I went as far\nas Elko, just where the road used to branch off to White Pine and up the\nOwyhee River, with a view to mining. Near there Oppenheimer, who,\nyou remember, had been associated with me in the building of a portion\nof the Cariboo Road and who went away to California while that was in\nprogress, had bought a ranch. I stopped with him a short time, and it\nwas then that the White Pine excitement broke out, and I, with fifty or\nsixty others, went up there in the direction of Silver City in Nevada to\nopen a store at a silver mining camp that had sprung up into a little mining\ncity in no time and was named Mountain City.\nMOUNTAIN CITY MINING: OLD CARIBOO MEN.\n\"I arrived at the very beginning of the excitement there and, as a\ncivil engineer, was asked to lay out the city.\" The way in which Mr.\nMoberly came to be appointed deputy state surveyor in order that he\n63 could make use of his profession in Mountain City\u2014as a foreigner he was\nnot supposed to practice\u2014and how he got an American friend elected\nstate surveyor in order that the latter might appoint him his deputy and\nthat the two might share the profits, is an interesting story, but there is not\nspace for it just here. \"Anyway, both of those high-sounding titles were\nmostly sound and had not much substance,\" interjected the explorer, \"but\nour official appointments helped us somewhat financially.\"\n\"Oppenheimer opened the store and, besides laying out the place,\nI laid out mining camps and pre-emptions. There were some of the old\nCariboo mining men there, such men as Bill Hazeltine (of whom Mr.\nDewdney told you), Bill Sellers, who used to be on Beaver Lake; Frank\nLaumeister, who used to be a big merchant in the Cariboo in the early\ndays and one of whose daughters married Jim Bouie, who used to keep\nthe store at Lytton, and others. Well, this Mountain City excitement lasted\nnearly a year and then 'bust,' because the claims were not really rich.\nDuring its existence a fair amount of law and order was maintained. The\nminers formed a committee and this committee formed districts and passed\nmining laws, some of them very good ones. There was a good deal of\nclaim jumping, but I do not remember any very serious fracases.\" After\nthis experience Mr. Moberly returned to San Francisco for a brief spell\nand, when the Salt Lake mining excitement broke out, cleared off to that.\nHe went with a friend from San Francisco.\nAMONG THE MORMONS.\n\"Even then, though in its comparatively early days, Salt Lake City\nwas a fine place,\" Mr. Moberly recalled, \"and the opening up of these\nmines gave it a great impetus. I did not stop there long, but my stay was\nvery interesting and I got to know a number of leading people, as I wanted\nto find out all that I could about possible railway development. I became\nacquainted with one of the prophets, as they were called, and he proved\na very decent fellow. Indeed I formed a very favorable opinion of the\nMormons generally, as practically all I met proved kindly and hospitable.\nA great many were English, and most of the women were English or\nWelsh. This particular Mormon was the proprietor of the Salt Lake\nHouse, the principal hotel there, and it was he who introduced me to\nBrigham Young, the head of the Mormons, who I'met several times at his\nhouse and with whom I had several long conversations. He knew that I was\nanxious to gain as much information as possible about the railway possibilities, and he went out of his way to oblige\u2014which was pretty decent,\nas I was a complete stranger to him.\"\nBRIGHAM YOUNG.\nNaturally I asked Mr. Moberly to give me an idea of the impression\nthe famous Mormon made upon him and the style of his residence. \"I probably did not see him at his best, as he was suffreing from gout at the time,\"\nMr. Moberly replied, \"but he made a very decided impression upon me.\nA stoutish, square-built man about 5 feet 10 inches in height, he did not\nstrike me as in any sense handsome, but he had a firm face and there was\nsomething about the man and his conversation which at once suggested\nintellect. At that time he would be somewhere in the sixties. I remember\nhe said to me a few minutes after we had been introduced, 'I expect you\n64 f\\\nhave heard all sorts of stories about us and our country, most of them\nexaggerated, and let me tell you at once that you can go through our country just as you like without getting into any trouble.' I remember he lived\nin one of the finest residences in the city, but it did not strike me as being\nat all luxuriously furnished.\" Mr. Moberly, speaking of the military fort,\nrecalled with a smile the occasion when the United States sent a considerable force, including a fine lot of horses and cattle, to invade the territory\nof the Mormons and how the latter quietly surrounded and captured the\nlot and sent them home again without killing any of them and unharmed.\nIncidentally, he mentioned that Brigham Young showed keen interest in\nBritish Columbia and asked many questions about the development and\nform of government in this province.\nMINING IN OPHIR CITY, UTAH.\nAnd now Mr. Moberly plunged into another mining city, this time\nin Utah and some forty miles from Salt Lake City. \"It was in the Ophir\nCanyon,\" he explained, \"and was called Ophir City. It was little more\nthan a large mining camp when I got there and took up a considerable\nnumber of claims. My friend and I started to sink a shaft two miles\nbelow the city, and we used to go for our supplies to a store kept by one\nof Brigham Young's sons. This son also ran the stage into Salt Lake\nCity.\"\nOne of these days, perhaps, Mr. Moberly will set down on paper or\nlet someone else do so, some of his experiences in and impressions of Mountain City and Ophir City and of several other mining excitements that he\ntook part in during his four years of wandering in the States. Some of\nhis adventures he told me, and I should like to record them, for they would\nmake good reading, but they would make this story too long. It will be\nremembered that our explorer had had instructions to keep Ottawa in\ntouch with his whereabouts, as he was the only man living who had a\nfairly thorough personal knowledge of the interior of British Columbia and\nwhere the proposed transcontinental railway should be located. It was\nwhile he was mining at Ophir City that he received by stage the expected\ntelegram, which had been sent from Ottawa to Salt Lake City, requesting\nhim to go to Ottawa at once to see Sir John A. Macdonald, the premier.\nRODE DAY AND NIGHT TO MEET SIR JOSEPH.\nBut just here it will do no harm to retrace a step and record an\nincident that should have been recorded when Mr. Moberly was telling of\nhis experiences at Mountain City. He was there when he received\u2014by\nstage also\u2014a telegram from Sir Joseph Trutch from Ottawa. It had\ncome by the Wells-Fargo express from Elko, and asked if Mr. Moberly\ncould meet him at Elko on his way back to British Columbia from Ottawa\nas he had important news. Sir Joseph had just been to Ottawa as one of\na delegation (consisting of himself, Dr. Carrall of Cariboo, afterwards a\nSenator, and Dr. J. S. Helmcken, still living at a great age in Victoria)\nsent there to complete the negotiations for Confederation, already under\nway, and he was now returning. This delegation and its work is, I notice,\nmentioned in Sir Charles Tupper's recently published \"Recollections of\nSixty Years in Canada,\" and Sir Charles also has a reference to Mr.\nMoberly.\n65 \"When I received that telegram at Mountain City I knew that, if\nI was to see Sir' Joseph on his way through\u2014and it was important that\nI should\u2014I should have to ride the eighty miles between where I was and\nElko without more rest than a change of horses. I started at 4 o'clock\none afternoon and rode the rest of that day and all that night and well on\ninto the next day and got to Elko pretty tired out an hour before the train\narrived. The country was pretty open and, though there were no roads,\nyou could safely ride at a gallop over most of it, and I had one of the\nbest horses m that part of the country. 1 had breakfast with Sir Joseph\nand Mrs. Trutch, who accompanied him, and then they had to leave. He\ntold me all about the negotiations to date and asked me to be sure and\nkeep in touch with civilization in order that a telegram could reach me.\nThe contract was that they should commence construction of the C. P. R.\nin two years and finish it in ten years. Those were the terms of Confederation.\"\nRECOLLECTION OF LADY MACDONALD's GIRLHOOD.\nReturning to Ophir City. 'When I received the telegram telling\nme to go to Ottawa, I bought a gallon of whiskey and returned to the\ncamp and told the fellows to drink my health. I made them a present of\nmy mining claims, which were not very valuable, anyway, and told Young\nto get the stage to stop for me in the morning, as I was going to Salt Lake.\nA week or so later I was in Ottawa. The first person I went to see there\nwas Colonel Bernard, who was a brother of Lady Macdonald and private\nsecretary to Sir John, and while I was talking to him Lady Macdonald\ncame in. I had not seen her since she was a girl.\" In reply to questions\nI elicited from Mr. Moberly that he knew the great premier's clever wife\nwell as a girl. 'They came from Jamaica, where her father used to be\nchief justice,\" he observed, \"and they came to settle in Barrie, where\nwe lived when I was a boy. My mother went to England to visit her\nsister, and they took our house. My headquarters were at Toronto at\nthe time, but whenever I went to Barrie for a holiday I used to stay with\nthem. And many's the good gallop Baroness Macdonald and I have had\ntogether when she was a girl,\" added the veteran, laughing, and with his\neyes lighting up at the recollection. \"She was a splendid horsewoman,\neven as a small girl, and was always clever and, though not beautiful, she\nwas a fine-looking girl and popular.\" Lady Macdonald at once invited\nher old friend to lunch at Earnscliffe, as she said Sir John was anxious to\nsee him and they could have a long talk there without being disturbed.\nWHAT MR. MOBERLY TOLD SIR JOHN.\nThe two had met before when Sir John was Attorney-General during\nthe old Grand Trunk times. I asked Mr. Moberly for a recollection of\ntheir conversation upon this occasion. \"I told him that I could show him\nexactly where to locate the C. P. R. from the sea coast to the prairies,\"\nsaid Mr. Moberly simply, and he added, with a short laugh, \"and I think\nthey realize now that it was an expensive pity that they allowed part of\nthe route that I proposed to be humbugged away from the rest of the line.\nThere is not one inch of the C. P. R. on the proper line from Revelstoke\nto Rat Portage, and they have paid through the nose for this to the extent\nof hundreds of thousands of dollars.\" \"I told him,\" continued the old\nman, after this passing criticism, 'You can commence the construction of\n66\nM the line six weeks after I get back to British Columbia.' I remember\nadding: 'Of course I don't know how many millions you have, but it is\ngoing to cost you money to get through those canyons.' I told him that\nI would like to leave at once for B. C. in order that I could land the first\nparty of engineers in the province the day we went into Confederation.\"\n\"And, by gad, I did it, too, though they wanted me to stay,\" Mr. Moberly\nadded with a satisfied emphasis.\n\"I saw Sir Sandford Fleming before I left. I had known him for\nmany years. I had gathered a few engineers when I left Ottawa, but\nI told Sir John that I preferred to employ engineers whom I knew out\nhere, and he replied that I might employ just whom I liked. He added:\n'There is a young man here I would like you to give a job to if you can,\nbut do just as you like.' This young man came to me some months later\nin Victoria with a letter of introduction, and I engaged him. His name\nwas Martin Benson, and he proved one of my most valued assistants.\nI returned to Victoria by boat from 'Frisco and\" arrived in the summer of\n'71. That was in June, and by July I had my first parties for making\nthe surveys organized. I was now going to take a preliminary survey, as\nwe call it, to be followed by location surveys.\nCOMMENCING A GREAT WORK.\nDescribing the commencement of this work which was to have such\na momentous effect upon the future of the province in which we live, Mr.\nMoberly said: \"I had two parties. I sent one from Hope to get into the\nColumbia, and the other from Kamloops to get into the Eagle Pass. Mr.\nD. C. Gillette, an American engineer of much ability whom I had known\nfor a long time, was in charge of the Hope party, and Mr. Edward\nMohun, an engineer who had a wide and excellent reputation in B. C,\nand who, after being connected with the Land and Works Department, is\nnow living retired in Victoria, was in charge of the party which went in\nfrom Kamloops. I went up to Hope and saw the party off and then to\nKamloops and saw the other party off. Mr. Roderick McLennan, an\nengineer from the Intercolonial Railway, had charge of the North Thompson and Yellowhead surveys, and I took charge myself of the Eagle Pass\nsurveys.\"\n3QI IZDl\n67 MAKING RAILWAY HISTORY.\nE now enter upon, perhaps, the most important chapter of Mr.\nMoberly's life story, as it was the most important chapter\nin the history of the Province of British Columbia, for it\nmarked the first definitely organized and comprehensive steps\ntoward the actual planning of the route of the bands of steel,\nwhich were for the first time in the history of this continent\nto connect the Atlantic with the Pacific. All that had\ngone before in our explorer's life, strenuous as that\nlife had been, was but the introduction to this great work which he had\nhad before him as his goal from the start. Even the building of the historic Cariboo Road was but an incident\u2014though a very vigorous and\ndramatic one\u2014compared with the task which he and those associated with\nhim had before them now that Confederation was an accomplished fact\nand that the first practical steps in the realization of that great undertaking\nwhich was to be known to future generations by the magic letters \"C.\nP. R.\" were to be taken.\n\"let's abuse the c. p. r.\"\nWe have got used, in England, to the saying that it is a farmer's\nprivilege to grumble at the weather. In Canada it is the privilege of the\npublic to grumble at the C. P. R. We abuse that unfortunate company\nbecause it had the foresight to secure (when it had the chance) much land\nen route; we abuse it in Vancouver because it happens to own much waterfront; we abuse it because of the rates it charges, and, I have no doubt,\nif we could, we should, in some indirect way, make it responsible for all the\nrain we get during the winter. And in our criticism\u2014sometimes, no doubt,\njustified\u2014of that company, which (like all others of its kind) has not a\nsoul to be saved nor a body to be kicked, we are often inclined to overlook the stupendous nature of the task tackled in those early days, first by\nthe Dominion Government and then by the late Lord Stratheona and his\nassociates, a task tackled, often, with inadequate resources and under the\nstress of political agitation; we are inclined to forget that the building of\nthat railway\u2014which, while inevitable, might have been accomplished years\nlater had it not been for the type of men associated with its inception and\nbuilding\u2014has made possible our present development; yes, and in our\ndesire to dispose of. corporations and their monopolies, lock, stock and\nbarrel, we are inclined to forget that the land granted to this particular\ncorporation, like the land in Vancouver which has made so many wealthy,\nwas not worth a tithe of its present value when it was granted. However,\nwe must have something to abuse, so far be it from me to attempt to lighten\nthe load which this most wonderful of modern railways and railway organizations has to bear. After all, we do occasionally recognize with a certain grudging pride that the C. P. R. is something which no other country\nin the world has managed to produce.\n69- r\nREMEMBER THE EARLY STRUGGLES.\nBut do not let us forget those early days and those tremendous early\nstruggles which saw the preparation for and the building of the Canadian\nPacific Railway through the wilds of this mountainous province, struggles\nto overcome nature which the average tourist, as he is whirled through\nglorious mountain scenery, only vaguely guesses at. And do not let us\nforget any of the great pioneers of that work, and particularly (in the\npreparatory, exploratory and survey work) Walter Moberly and (in the\nactual surveying and building of the most difficult part of the line through\nthe canyons of the Fraser) Henry J. Cambie.\nWalter Moberly some years ago.\nIt will be necessary, in the interests of the historical accuracy of this\nstory, to touch upon a phase of the building of the railway through B. C.\nwhich has controversial elements and which, I find, has been touched upon\nin passing in several publications (books and pamphlets), dealing with\ndifferent phases of the province's development, the particular point at issue\nbeing the abandonment by the powers-that-were at the time of the building\nof the railway of much of the longer but easier route explored and recommended by Mr. Moberly, and the resultant continuous heavy expense and\nloss of life caused by endless avalanches, snow blockades, etc., through the\n70 Rogers Pass portion of the Selkirks and the present heavy expense involved\nin the great engineering feat which the C. P. R. has now in progress in\nthe boring of the longest tunnel on the continent, the tunnel beneath Mount\nSir Donald in the Selkirks, a work undertaken expressly for the purpose\nof obviating, in future the dangers and expense referred to.\nTHE OLD \"FORTY-NINE.\"\nFor the present let Mr. Moberly tell his story in his own words. It\nwill be recalled that the explorer had sent out his initial survey parties,\none under Mr. Gillette to the Howse Pass, and another, under Mr. Mohun,\nto Eagle. Pass, while Mr. Roderick McLennan was in charge of the surveys of a line via the North Thompson and Alfreda Rivers and through\nthe Yellowhead, and Mr. John Trutch was in charge of the surveys between\nBurrard Inlet and Kamloops.\n\"At Kamloops I parted with my survey party under Mr. Mohun\nand also with Mr. McLennan's party and that of the late Dr. A. R. C.\nSelwyn, the director of the Geological Survey of Canada, who accompanied Mr. McLennan to the Yellowhead Pass,\" continued Mr. Moberly.\n\"I now proceeded with a few horses and three Indians on my way to\nHowse Pass. I went by the trail via Osoyoos Lake to Colville, where\nI chartered the old steamer Forty-nine, and loaded her with supplies, which\nI purchased, and sent up to The Big Eddy, at the east end of the Eagle\nPass, where I had instructed Mr. McLennan to winter, and then proceeded on my way via the trail to Wild Horse Creek, the valleys of the\nKootenay and Columbia rivers, to Kinbaskit's Landing, where I overtook\nMr. Gillette's party. The old Forty-nine was a stern-wheeler, built by\nCapt. White, of Colville, during the Big Bend excitement in '65 and '66.\nAN ORIGINAL FLOTILLA.\n\"I sent a few horses through the woods, along the east bank of the\nriver, to the mouth of the Blueberry River, which has its source near the\nsummit of the Howse Pass, and then embarking my party and supplies on\nboard a flotilla composed of some half-rotten and leaky boats, old log\ncanoes and a few Indian bark canoes, we floated down to a point a short\ndistance south of the mouth of the Blueberry River, where I at once set\nsome men at work to build log huts to winter in, and the survey party\nrunning a preliminary survey up the valley of the Blueberry River, and\nthen, taking some horses and three Indians, I started to cross the Rocky\nMountains to their easterly foothills, where I expected to meet a party\nnear Mount Murchieson, under the command of my brother Frank, who\nhad charge of the exploratory surveys between Red River and the easterly\nfoothills of the Rocky Mountains.\n\"From the summit down the easterly slope of the Rocky Mountains\nthe descent was very gentle, and I anticipated there would not be any\ndifficulty in getting a line easterly by the valley of the Red Deer or Saskatchewan rivers, but that probably the better line to adopt would be an\nair line near Mount Murchieson, passing through Winnipeg and reaching\nthe northwest corner of the Lake of the Woods. I now knew that on the\nwhole of my proposed line from Vancouver to Winnipeg the only really\ndifficult point to settle was the descent from the summit of Howse Pass to\nthe Columbia River, as the descent from the summit for three or four miles\nwas very steep.\n71 HEAVY WINTER SETS IN.\n\"Everything now indicated a very heavy fall of snow, and as I knew\nfrom experience what that meant at such a high elevation as the summit of\nthe Howse Pass is, I retraced my way to the survey party and found that\nthey had the trial line partly up the steep grade, and I caused it to be\npushed on with the utmost despatch to the summit, and then commenced\nto make a trial location down the side of the mountain, but, just as we\nbegan this survey, the snow began to fall so heavily that we could not see\nthrough it with our instruments, nor could we retain our footing on the\nsteep and slippery side of the mountain, and, as the snow continued to fall\nall day, I saw that I could not get this all-important portion of the line\nproperly surveyed, and that to remain any longer on the mountain would\ncause the death of all our animals, I reluctantly ordered the party to proceed to the depot until better weather set in.\n\"I remained a few days at the depot waiting for the Columbia River\nto freeze in order that the ice would be strong enough to travel on, and,\nhaving got snowshoes made, and men set at work to build boats that I proposed to use in connection with the surveys I intended to make the following year around the Big Bend, I instructed Mr. Gillette, as soon as the\nweather permitted, to push forward the survey of the line down from the\nsummit of the Pass to the bank of the Columbia River. (The next summer when I reached the Howse Pass, on my way to the Yellowhead Pass,\nMr. Gillette informed me that the result of the surveys he had made satisfied him that a good line could be obtained through the Howse Pass, and\nhe was of the same opinion as myself, that a great mistake was made by\nthe engineer-in-chief in abandoning that line in favor of the Yellowhead\nPass.)\nLONG SNOWS HOE WALK: ESCAPE AVALANCHE.\n\"Accompanied by my ever-faithful Indians and the late Hon. Mr.\nTodd, I started for a long snowshoe walk to New Westminster, and proceeded down the Columbia River to the latitude of Gold River, in order\nto see if I could get a line through the Selkirks by a high pass between the\nheadwaters of Gold River and those of Gold Creek, or if it would b^\npossible to connect those valleys by a tunnel. If I could get a line this\nway it would very materially shorten this distance between Revelstoke and\nthe Howse Pass.\n\"After a very fatiguing journey through the Selkirk Mountains by\nthis high pass, in which we were very nearly buried beneath an immense\navalanche that came roaring down the steep mountain side when we were\nnear the summit, we reached the almost deserted mining town on French\nCreek that I had before visited in the year 1 866, when I constructed a\ntrail between it and the Seymour Arm of Lake Shuswap.\n\"I here met several old acquaintances, and the following afternoon\nwent on to McCulloch's Creek, which was entirely deserted, and the\nremains of the few buildings still standing were in a very dilapidated condition. Two more days' travel against a strong head wind, which was\nexcessively cold, brought us to Mr. Mohun's winter quarters at The Big\nEddy, just before Christmas Day.\n72 REALLY 'PERRY'S\" PASS.\n\"I spent a few days with Mr. Mohun's party waiting for the plan\nand profile of the line surveyed through the Eagle Pass, which I found\nshowed that a very good location could be obtained, and then having\narranged with Mr. Mohun to push forward the survey through the Selkirk\nRange by the valley of the Illecillewaet River, and the Pass by its south-\nJ\n&\nMajor Rogers, after whom Rogers' Pass is named.\neasterly fork, which was discovered by my assistant, Mr. Albert Perry,\nin 1866, and was subsequently very improperly named Rogers Pass (it is\na well-known fact among contemporaries, like Mr. Cambie, who were\nengaged in the building of the C. P. R., that Major Rogers did not see\nthe Pass until many years later and, as a matter of fact, never passed\nthrough it before the railway was built), I resumed my way westerly\nthrough the Eagle Pass to the Great Shuswap Lake.\n\"The weather had now turned quite warm, which caused the ice on\nthe Eagle River to be unsafe in places, but, as travelling through the thick\nunderbrush, etc., covered with deep, soft snow, was very fatiguing and\ndisagreeable, we preferred risking the way by the ice, and consequently\nall the party, at different times, experienced the discomfort of one or more\ncold baths.\n\"When we reached the Sicamous Narrows we found there was no\nice, and crossed the narrows in a log canoe, and then resumed our way\nalong the south shore of the Salmon Arm.\n73 ADVENTUROUS TRIP: MR. MOBERLY HAS NARROW ESCAPE.\n\"I was anxious to examine a gap in the low range of hills between\nthe Salmon Arm and the main or easterly arm of Shuswap Lake that I had\nnoticed when first exploring through that lake in the year 1865. This gap,\nnow known as* Notch Hill, would, if practicable for railway construction,\nmuch lessen the distance that a line for a railway would otherwise have to\ntake to reach Shuswap Lake.\n\"Directing the members of my party to remain on the shore, while\nI tried to cross Salmon Arm on the rather rotten ice to see if it was strong\nenough for them with their packs, which contained all the plans, profiles,\nfield books, etc., connected with the exploratory surveys so far made by\nme, and the loss of which would have been a serious calamity, I started\non my adventurous trip.\n\"When about half way across the Arm, I fell through the ice, and,\nbeing encumbered with rather heavy clothing, I had a long and hard\nstruggle to save my life. When nearly exhausted and benumbed by the\nice-cold water, by spreading my snowshoes under my body in order to\ncover as large an area of the rotten ice as possible, and thus prevent its\nbreaking under the weight of my body, I managed at last to scramble out\nand reach the shore, where my Indians were in a half-frozen and miserable\nplight. |||\nBEST LINE FOR RAILWAY.\n\"We pursued our way along the south shore and when we were at\na point opposite Notch Hill we found the arm clear of ice, and made a\nraft and crossed to the southerly end of the Notch. The next day we\nwalked through the Notch, when I found it would be the best route for\nthe railway, and in due time reached Cache Creek, from which place there\nwas telegraphic communication with Ottawa, and I sent a telegram to the\nengineer-in-chief to the effect that a good, practicable route for the Canadian Pacific Railway was a certainty from Burrard Inlet to the prairies\neast of the Rocky Mountains, and that the surveys had progressed in a\nsatisfactory manner.\n\"I was now perfectly certain, within a possible deviation of a few\nhundred feet, or a shortening of the line by a tunnel through the Selkirk\nMountains, between the valleys of Gold River and Gold Cerek, where\nthe location of the Canadian Pacific Railway should be from Vancouver\nthrough the mountain region of Canada, for I had examined every part\nof it myself. The objectionable Pass, now known as Rogers Pass, I had\nnot been through, but formed my- opinion about it from Mr. A. Perry's\nreport made to me in 1866.\nDIFFICULT WORK AHEAD: WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.\n\"In due course I reached Victoria, after a long and tedious journey,\nthat had consumed much time, and, as I knew there was a great deal of\nextremely difficult work, of the very greatest importance for me to do the\nnext season, and for which I had to make various extensive preparations\nthat would require my personal supervision in many different places scattered throughout an immense territory, where travelling and transportation\nhad to be done almost entirely on the backs of animals, I did not go to\nOttawa, as it would have been only a useless waste of time.\n74\nJ 'The important surveys I proposed making during the year 1872\nwere as follows:\n\"1. A careful location survey from the Columbia River through\nthe Howse Pass.\n\"2. A trial survey through the Selkirk Range by the valley of the\nIllecillewaet River and Rogers Pass.\n\"3. A trial survey across the Selkirk Range by the valleys of Gold\nRiver and Gold Creek, to ascertain what length of tunnelling would be\nrequired to connect those valleys.\n\"4. A survey from Revelstoke around the bend of the Columbia\nRiver to connect with the survey via Gold River and Gold Creek, and\nwith the survey through Howse Pass.\n\"At this time I was so confident where the best line for the Canadian Pacific Railway ought to be located that I had decided to go on\nwith the location surveys after making the above surveys and getting the\napproval of the engineer-in-chief, which I never doubted for a moment\nwould be given, and had I been allowed to carry out the above work,\nwhich Mr. Gillette's report to me about a line through the Howse Pass\nfully justified and endorsed, millions of dollars would have been saved to\nthe country, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company would have had\na far better, less expensive and safer line to operate than the present line\nthrough the Rogers and Kicking Horse Passes, and been able to make\nbetter time over it.\nTRIAL LOCATION THROUGH HOWSE PASS.\n\"Soon after I reached Victoria I forwarded my reports, etc., to\nOttawa, and requested the engineer-in-chief to allow me to increase my\nengineering staff. I shortly afterwards received a telegram from the\nengineer-in-chief informing me that a trial location through the Howse Pass\nwas considered most important. This telegram led me to infer that the\nline I had taken so many years to explore and discover, and which I was\nquite confident would be the best to adopt for the proposed Canadian\ntranscontinental railway, would be adopted.\n\"I at once let contracts for large quantities of supplies to be forwarded immediately, and delivered to me at Kinbaskit's Landing, on the\nupper Columbia River, to which point I had instructed the engineer at\nHowse Pass to have boats built and sent, to convey the supplies to the\nvarious points along the Columbia River where they would be required.\nDRAMATIC TELEGRAM: YELLOWHEAD PASS ADOPTED.\n\"I now engaged the additional engineers and men required to carry\nout the extensive surveys I proposed to make during the summer of the\nyear 1872, and, having equipped them and closed all business affairs in\nVictoria, I embarked the party on board a steamer that was to sail for\nOlympia at 3 o'clock on the following morning, proposing to accompany\nthe party myself.\n\"At 1 1 o'clock that night I received a message from Lieutenant-\nGovernor, the late Sir Joseph W. Trutch, requesting me to see him at\nonce at Government House, and on my arrival there he handed me a telegram he had received from the engineer-in-chief, desiring him to inform me\n75 \/Ifff\nthat the Yellowhead Pass had been adopted for the Canadian Pacific:\nRailway and that I was to take charge of and make the survey through\nit, and convey my survey parties and supplies to it by way of the Athabasca Pass.\nSTAGGERING INSTRUCTIONS.\n'These instructions completely staggered me. I knew that there was\nnot a person living at that time who had such a knowledge of the country,\nits great possibilities and requirements, as myself, and I could foresee the\nfuture inevitable consequences that would follow by locating the Canadian\nPacific Railway on a line far distant from the southern boundary of the\nDominion, and thus leaving the future trade and commerce of the immense\nbelt of the richest and most important portion of the country, extending\nfrom the Pacific Coast to the Red River, and from the 49th parallel of\nlatitude to a great distance north of it, to be tapped and drawn away into\nUnited States channels by American railways. It was very disappointing\nto me after all the years and money I had spent to prevent the possibility\nof such an eventuality, and at the same time to obtain the best commercial\nline for the Canadian Pacific Railway.\n\"I was now in a very false position, for I had let the contracts for\nthe large quantities of supplies needed for the surveys I proposed, and\nknew ought to be made, and the supplies were already well on their way\nwhen I received the order to abandon the surveys for which they were\nintended.\nMR. MOBERLY'S DIFFICULT POSITION.\n\"I left Victoria for Portland to meet the contractor who had undertaken to furnish the supplies at Kinbaskit's Landing, and at Marcus, near\nColville, and tried to get out of the contract by offering him a large sum\nof money. He showed me the contracts he had entered into with the\npackers who owned the pack animals then transporting the supplies, and\nalso stated that the supplies would be useless to him at Kinbaskit's Landing,\nwhich I was well aware would be the case. He, however, agreed to take\nback the supplies that were to be sent up the Columbia River to the mouth\nof the Illecillewaet River for the survey of the line through the valley of\nthat river and Rogers Pass, etc. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a\nquantity of hardware I had agreed to take, and which was then not far\nfrom the Columbia Lakes. It was intended to be used in the construction\nof boats and engineers' houses, etc., that would be needed during the location and construction of the railway through the district in my charge.\nA CONVINCING REPLY.\n'These supplies were rendered superfluous by the abandonment of\nmy line, and I was censured by the engineer-in-chief and subsequently by\nthe members of the Royal Commission that was appointed to investigate\nthe expenditures incurred in connection with the exploratory surveys made\nfor the Canadian Pacific Railway. Both the engineer-in-chief and the commissioners being quite ignorant of the country, etc., where and for what\npurposes these supplies were to be used, I think a sufficient answer to their\nfault-finding with me is that when the Canadian Pacific Railway took the\nrailway out of the hands of the government, and got its location from Vancouver to Revelstoke back to my line, and then got entangled in the Rogers\n76 ^p-\nand Kicking Horse Passes, they used during the location and construction,\nthrough only a portion of my former district, a very much larger quantity\nof similar supplies.\nOUTWITTING THE PACKERS.\n'To have these large quantities of supplies available for the surveys\nthrough the Yellowhead Pass, and to transport my engineers and men and\ntheir outfits from the Columbia to the Athabasca River, it was imperatively\nnecessary that I should obtain possession of the pack animals then conveying the supplies to Kinbaskit's Landing before the packers who owned the\nanimals knew of the change that had been made in the surveys by the\nadoption of the Yellowhead Pass, and of the 'fix' I was in for pack\nanimals to convey the supplies from the Columbia River to the Yellowhead\nPass, for there were no other pack animals nor packers available, and if\nthe packers knew how I was then placed they would have either extorted\nvery high transportation charges or have done the same for their animals.\n\"I hurried on from Portland to Wallula by steamer, thence via Walla\nWalla to Colville, where I engaged Captain A. T. Pingston and a party\nof boat men to navigate the boats I had ordered to be built during the\npast winter at the depot at Howse Pass, and had instructed Mr. Gillette\nto have them sent up to Kinbaskit's Landing. I then went on, travelling\non horseback, to Wild Horse Creek, the Columbia Lakes, etc., to Kinbaskit's Landing, where I found the boats awaiting me.\n\"On my way up I overtook the different trains of pack animals, which\nI purchased, and engaged all the packers, thereby getting possession of\nupwards of four hundred pack animals, all in splendid condition, with their\nrigging complete, and experienced packers to handle them. I thus got out\nof the serious 'fix' I was in regarding transportation.\n\"OCEAN TO OCEAN.\"\n\"My next and most serious difficulty was to open a pack trail along\nthe right or easterly bank of the Columbia River, where the navigation was\ntoo dangerous to convey the supplies in boats. The country through which\nthe trail had to be constructed was rough and heavily timbered, which\nmade the work of opening it tedious and expensive, and, as the misbehavior\nof the men obliged me to dismiss them, my working party was very small,\nand the construction of the trail proceeded with exasperating slowness.\n\"When the trail was opened to Kinbaskit Lake, I was sorry to lose\nthe services of Mr. Gillette. Mr. Ashdown Green took his position as\nengineer in charge of the party. I now left with three Indians for the\nYellowhead Pass, as I expected to meet the engineer-in-chief, who had\ninformed me that he proposed, during the autumn, to journey through the\nYellowhead Pass. A description of his journey was written by the Rev.\nGeorge M. Grant, principal of Queen's University, Kingston, and entitled\n'Ocean to Ocean.'\nEXPERIENCED FRONTIERSMEN ENGAGED.\n\"Previous to my leaving Victoria I had engaged and instructed Mr.\nWilliam Cameron McCord, an able, trusty and experienced mountaineer,\nminer and frontiersman, to equip a party of axemen and a pack train, and\nopen a pack trail by the valleys of the North Thompson and Abreda rivers\n77 \"*!5\n. 186 J. Canoe with malls, Yale, B.Gj\n1881. Cariboo Mail Stage, Spuzzum, B. C.\nLik\n1901; \u2022\"Imperial Limited'' Mail Train) Kicking: Horse Canyon, B. C.\nImperial Limited. to and through the Yellowhead Pass, where I promised to meet him as\nsoon as I could get away from the Columbia River.\n\"On leaving Kinbaskit Lake with my Indians, who carried very light\npacks containing only a pair of blankets each, a little tea, salt and flour,\nwe ascended and crossed over the high mountain spur that rises to a great\nelevation between the waters of the Columbia and those of the Wood or\nPortage River, and made in as direct a line as possible for the Athabasca\nPass, between Mounts Brown and Hooker. This line of travel we took\nin order to avoid the long way by the valley of the Columbia to the boat\nencampment, and thence by the old trail of the Northwest Fur Company\nof Montreal by the valley of the Wood River to the foot of Mount Brown.\n\"The steep ascent of this mountain side from Kinbaskit Lake was\nextremely toilsome, and we suffered dreadfully for want of water. The\nexposed, scantily-timbered, rocky face of the mountain, with the sun beating down on us and making the rocks hot, combined with myriads of black\nflies, rendered this climb trying in the extreme.\nA MEMORABLE SIGHT.\n\"When we got high up the mountain, and just before entering a very\nelevated pass, we had a magnificent view over the northerly portion of the\nSelkirk Range, and also of the easterly side of the Gold, and the westerly\nside of the Rocky Mountains, and, as the sun was shining brightly, the\nsky blue and the atmosphere clear, the innumerable peaks and sea of\nmountains visible, covered with snow and glaciers glittering in places,\ntogether with the deep green forests which clothed the lower portions of\nthe mountain ranges, and the Columbia River, like a silver ribbon, wending\nits way through the deep, narrow gorge far below us, impressed me with\n\u2022what stupendous grandeur primeval Nature is endowed. .\n\"I have read descriptions of the mountains of British Columbia as\ngiven by different 'globe trotters,' who rush through the country at the\nbottoms of some of the valleys traversed by the railways, which, although\naffording truly grand and striking scenery, are not to be compared with\nthose that can be obtained from higher altitudes. I would recommend\nthese globe trotters to climb up above the timber line and then expand their\ngushings in describing the unexplored and more inaccessible places.\nNAUSEATING EXPERIENCE.\n\"We camped on the bank of a lovely stream flowing through a parklike valley, or rather opening through the mountain spur, at an elevation\nabove the sea of probably six thousand feet. The following morning, we\npursued our way for some distance through this valley, and then reached\nthe northerly steep declivity of the mountain, down which we went, following the dry bed of a watercourse which had been cut by the water from\nthe melting snows during the early part of countless summers.\n\"On reaching the bottom of the valley of the Wood River we had\nto wade for some distance through the stagnant water containing some\nreddish-brown substance\u2014probably decomposed iron ore\u2014of a disagreeable nature, and shortly after reached the Wood River, into which we\nplunged to free ourselves of as much as possible of the nauseous substance\nwhich painted us. We followed along the south bank of the river for\nsome distance and then constructed a raft and crossed to the north bank,\n79 which we followed until we reached the foot of Mount Brown and found\nthe trail of the old fur traders going up the steep mountain, and then we\ncamped and cooked a porcupine which we found at this place.\nCARIBOU SHOT AND TREE-TOP CACHE BUILT.\n\"The next forenoon, when we had nearly gained the summit of the\npass, in the vicinity of 'The Committee's Punch Bowl,' we shot two fine\ncaribou. As our footgear was in a sadly dilapidated condition, and our\nfeet very sore, we decided to camp and make moccasins out of the green\nhides, and dry and smoke the caribou meat to provision us for the rest of\nthe journey, and cache a quantity of the meat on a platform we constructed\nat the top of three trees, which we stripped of their bark and branches to\nkeep it out of reach of those thieves of the forest\u2014the wolverines\u2014and to\nsupply us with meat on our return journey.\n'We now travelled along the easterly side of Mount Brown, and\nleaving the Athabasca Pass, crossed a high ridge and then, following a\nwell-beaten Cariboo trail, descended a steep declivity on the north side\nof the ridge, over a large deposit of perpetual snow, in which we saw some\nrecent tracks of caribou, and arrived in a beautiful valley surrounded with\ngrand and magnificent scenery. Here we camped at a small spring that\nis the true source of the Fraser River. Shortly after we camped, one of\nmy Indians shot two caribou and I shot one.\n\"For some considerable distance next day the travelling was fairly\ngood, but in the afternoon we got into thick timber and the valley became\nnarrow, down which the river, which had rapidly increased in volume,\ndashed and roared at a great rate through the canyons.\nCAREFUL INDIANS WANTON WHITE MEN.\n\"Shortly before we camped we noticed a bush fire, which was, so\nmy Indians informed me, in the neighborhood of Yellowhead Lake, and\nwas a certain indication that white men were in that neighborhood, for the\nIndian is careful not to burn the forest which the white man so recklessly\nand wantonly destroys.\n\"At the break of day the fire, fanned by a wind from the north, had\napproached rapidly in our direction, and the valley was filled with smoke.\nTo remain in the thick timber meant being burned to death, so we made a\nhurried detour by a bare place on the side of an adjoining mountain, which\nenabled us to get behind the blazing and roaring fire. After travelling some\ndistance along the side of the mountain we descended to the valley to\nresume our way through the blackened and smouldering remains of what\nhad been, a few hours before, a dense, beautiful green forest.\nHEARD THE BELL-MARE'S BELL.\n\"My feet had not recovered from the chafing they got when we were\naccomplishing the first portion of this journey, and, as we proceeded through\nthe smouldering remains of the forest, they became very sore and painful.\nIn the afternoon we reached a smaller stream than the one we had been\nfollowing, and which flowed from the eastward, and I knew it must be the\nFraser River. We all plunged into it to wash off the ashes and other filth\nwith which we were covered and begrimed, and to relieve our sore and\nblistered feet.\n80 \u25a0H-\"\n\"Shortly after reaching the bank of the Fraser River, I heard the\ntinkling of a bell, which I knew must be attached to a mare, known as\nthe bell-mare, that always leads the mule trains, for the mules will always\nfollow the bell-mare when travelling, and when turned out to grass will\nnot stray away from her.\nWHY MR. BROWN BECAME A \"MAC.\"\n\"We waded across the Fraser River and met the pack train, which\nI found was conveying supplies to Mr. McCord's camp of trail-makers,\nthen on the shore of the Yellowhead Lake, a short distance east of us.\nSpence's Bridge\u2014a remarkable structure built across the Thompson River by\nMr. Spence, and named after him.\nI asked the man who was in charge of the train\u2014the cargadore, as he is\ndesignated\u2014what his name was, when he informed me that it was Mac-\nBrown. I told him that I fiad met many different Macs in my life, but it\nhad never been my luck to meet a MacBrown before. He gave me the\nfollowing explanation of how he had obtained his uncommon name. When\nMr. Roderick McLennan, who was the previous year in charge of the\nexploratory party, was up the North Thompson River and the Yellowhead\nPass, he was engaging men, and Mr. Brown, who was an American from\nthe State of Maine, and wished to obtain employment, observed that Mr.\n81 McLennan appeared to have a strong feeling in favor of men who had\nthe prefix of Mac to their names. Mr. Brown thought his chance of obtaining employment would be greatly enhanced if he became a Mac, and,\ntherefore, on his applying to Mr. McLennan, he gave his name as Mac-\nBrown and was employed.\nLINE SURVEYED WEST OF TETE JAUNE CACHE.\n\"Taking a riding horse out of the train, I soon reached Mr. McCord's\ncamp and heard that Mr. Mohun had the line surveyed west of the Tete\nJaune Cache as far as Moose Lake, and I at once sent a letter to him\nSuspension Bridge.\nrequesting him to meet me the following day at McCord's camp. I now\nfound the engineer-in-chief had not yet passed through the Yellowhead\nPass on his way to the coast.\n\"I remained the following day at Mr. McCord's camp to see Mr.\nMohun, and to doctor my feet, and then, taking some of Mr. McCord's\nhorses, I proceeded with my Indians along the much-obstructed trail over\nthe summit and down the valley of the Nuette and Athabasca rivers to\nmeet the engineer-in-chief, and to ascertain where the best place would be\n82 -=-s\n>\u00bb\n\u2014\nl.\nns\no\n4-\nO\nQ.\na>\n>\u00bb\n>\n\u25a0\u00bb->\nre\na>\nre\n\u25a0o\no\n3\na>\nX!\nsi\n-t-\u00bb\nre\nT3\n0)\n+\u25a0>\nL.\nc\n\ns_\n\u25a0o\n3\nO\nE\no\na>\nre\no\nO\nc\no\nre\nc\nO)\n>\nre\nre\nt-\na\nCO\n1.\no\nre\nm\n**\nO\na>\nL.\n>\u00bb\nT3\nT5\n+J\n\u2022\u2014\n\u00a3_\n4-\n4)\nre\n>\n>S\nCO\n1_\ns_\nO\nre\nU\n0)\na>\nc\nI\nE\na;\no\na>\n.\n13\nen\na>\n-o\ns_\n3\nre\nre\nu\nre\nCO\n(0\n\n<*-\n\u00a3\nc\nre\na>\n(ft\no\nS-\nt.\na>\nrt\na>\nj=\na>\nsz\n>t\n\u25a0*->\n4-\no\n4-\nD\no\na>\n+\u25a0>\no>\nre\n4>\ns.\n\u00a3\nre\nt_\nO\ns:\n(i)\no\nX\nCO\nre\nE\nc\n4->\n\"~\nC\n^\nre\n\nco\nCO\n00\n\u25a0~\nT\u2122\nCO\nO'\nc\nCO\n\u2014\u25a0\n111\nCO\n+->\no\nre\n3\n-H\nJJ\n+J\n_\n3\ns_\no\n0)\n>\nCO\nre\nm\n\u00a3\nre\no\no\no\nLi\nx:\nO\nS\n(0\nJC\nL.\na>\n\n+-\u00bb\n+J\nu\ns-\n0.\nm to build a depot on the banks of the Athabasca River to winter my parties in.\"\n\"When I reached a point a few miles west of Jasper House, I came\non fresh tracks of men and horses, which convinced me and my Indians\nthat they were those of men from the east, or, as the Indians designated\nthem, Moneasses, a not altogether complimentary term. I at once retraced\nmy way and reached the Snaring River some time after dark, when I camped\nand sent on my Indian hunter with a note to ascertain if the travellers were\nthose I was seeking. Late in the night the Indian returned and brought\nme a note from the engineer-in-charge, which gave me the desired information, and the following forenoon I overtook the party as they were entering\nthe valley of the Nuette River.\nDR. GRANT AND HIS DILAPIDATED PACK TRAIN.\n\"Hie first person I overtook was that estimable gentleman, the late\nDr. George M. Grant, whose writings are extensively known. The doctor\nwas on foot with a long stick in his hand, driving some worn-out and very\ndilapidated pack-animals. The other members of the party were supposed\nto be ahead, so I pushed on to overtake them, but, as they had missed the\ntrail, they were in reality behind us. I, however, went on for a few miles,\nimproving the trail as I progressed, and, coming to a meadow where there\nwas good grass for the animals, I awaited the arrival of the party.\n\"After lunch I pushed on with my Indians, clearing the trail of fallen\ntimber as I went, and stopped near a point at which we would have to\ncross the river, The party did not arrive for some time afterwards, and\nI sent an Indian back to ascertain what had caused their delay.\n\"Next morning being Sunday, and the grass being very poor and\nscanty, I proposed that we should go on to Mr. McCord's camp, where\nwe could find plenty of food for man and beast, and generally be 'in\nclover.' My suggestion was acted upon, and we reached the camp early\nin the day and had a good rest and I was enabled to give the engineer-in-\nchief an account of my proceedings since I left Victoria, and the difficulties\nI had passed through and was experiencing in getting my parties and supplies out from the Columbia River.\n\"Fresh pack animals and riding horses and packers.were now provided for the whole party, and next morning we all started for Mr. Mohun's\ncamp, which proved to be farther away than I anticipated and consequently\nI did not reach the camp until some hours after dark, and the rest of the\nparty kept dropping in at different times during the succeeding three or four\nhours. They were in an excessively bad humor and blamed me for not\ntelling them how far they had to go, when I did not know myself, as they\nhad heard at Mr. McCord's camp as much as I had regarding the trail.\nANXIETY ABOUT MEN AND ANIMALS.\n\"I was now getting very anxious about my men and animals, who\nwere making their way through the rough and inhospitable country between\nKinbaskit Lake and the Yellowhead Pass, and explained to the engineer-\nin-chief the urgent necessity there was for my immediate return to the\nColumbia River to look after them. He expressed himself as being much\ndissatisfied that I had not got the survey farther advanced, and appeared\nto think I should have accomplished what it was impossible to do, and\n84 even said I should not have attempted to take my party and supplies through\nthe Athabasca Pass, which he himself had indicated, when I was ordered\nto abandon the surveys on the Eagle Pass line and take charge of the surveys of the Yellowhead line.\n\"I felt so disgusted with the engineer-in-chief for abandoning the line\nI knew was the right one to adopt, and then at his finding fault with me\nfor not pushing forward the surveys of the Yellowhead line faster when\nI had done my utmost to carry out his instructions, that I was on the point\nof leaving the service, which I should have done there and then had I not\nknown the very critical position my men and animals were in on their way\nby the Athabasca Pass, and how much they relied upon me to see them\nsafely through.\nHUNGRY GRIZZLIES AND HEAVY SNOW.\n\"I now returned to Mr. McCord's camp, and the following day\nreached the Aathabasca River near the site of the old Henry House. The\nweather had now become very cold and everything indicated a snowstorm. I hurried on through the valleys of the Athabasca and Whirlpool\nrivers. I met a large herd of caribou and a bear on my way through the\nvalley of the Whirlpool River, and, in the evening of the third day from\nMcCord's camp, reached the place where we had killed the caribou and\ncached the meat to supply us with meat on our return journey. Grizzly\nbears had, however, eaten up all the meat, and we had a very meagre\nsupper.\n\"Before daylight the snow began to fall heavily, and I pushed on,\nexpecting to meet my party and pack animals at the foot of Mount Brown,\nbut they were not there. Being greatly disappointed at, to me, the unaccountably slow progress the whole outfit had made since I left them at\nKinbaskit Lake, we travelled all day until we reached a point not far from\nthe Boat Encampment, and then endeavored to cross the mountain spur\nbetween the Wood and the Columbia rivers, in order to shorten the distance, but, as night came on, and the underbrush was dense and the fallen\ntimber very obstructive, we were compelled to stop in the bush, where our\nhalf-famished horses had nothing to eat. Early next morning we heard\nthe sound of a mule bell, and, by returning to and wading down the river,\nsoon heard the sound of chopping, and on a high bank on the south side of\nthe river found that Mr. Green and the survey party he had charge of\nwere at work constructing buildings to winter in, as he had concluded from\nmy long absence that they would have to pass the winter on the Columbia\nRiver.\nTOUCH AND GO.\n\"I knew now that it was touch and go if we could go through the\nhigh Athabasca Pass, but I determined to take the risk, and at once\ninstructed Mr. Green with his survey party and the necessary pack animals\nto start at once for the Athabasca River, and also order all the packers in\ncharge of the large* trains of pack animals and supplies to get everything\nforwarded over the summit of the Athabasca Pass in order that they\ncould, during the winter, be conveyed by dog-trains along the frozen Whirlpool and Athabasca rivers to the depot I had instructed Mr. McCord to\nbuild about a mile and a half below where, in bygone years, stood the\nold Henry House.\n85 'With Mr. Green's survey party and my little outfit of Indians,\nI started back from the Athabasca River, and, as I travelled much faster\nthan he did, I pushed on ahead in order to get back and have the survey\nof the line from the summit of the Yellowhead Pass made by Mr. Mohun's\nparty before the snow fell. I arrived where Mr. McCord had commenced\nthe construction of the buildings for the different parties to winter in, late\nin the night of the third day after leaving Mr. Green's party. I was\nastonished to learn from him that the survey party under Mr. Mohun had\nstarted on their return to Victoria.\n\"This was to me at that time incomprehensible, as I had given the\nengineer in charge of the party definite instructions about the work I wished\nto have done during the winter, by pushing forward the surveys in that\ninclement season of the year, and which I had promised the engineer-in-\nchief that I would have carried out.\n\"Next morning at the break of day, with my two Indians and nearly\nworn-out horses, I started to try and overtake and bring back the party.\nOn my way I met a messenger from the engineer-in-chief, telling me he\nhad changed his mind regarding the surveys of the line through the Yellowhead Pass, and instructing me to bring out my parties and most of the\npack animals and report at Kamloops, and place the supplies and some of\nthe pack animals in the hands of a man in whom I had confidence.\nWISE DISOBEDIENCE.\n\"These peculiar orders it was simply impossible for me to carry out.\nThe winter had set in with heavy falls of snow in the Athabasca Pass,\nthrough which mp men and animals were struggling to reach the Athabasca Valley, where grass for the animals could be obtained, and when\nthey did reach it they were in a weakened condition. In the valley of\nthe North Thompson and Albreda rivers and the Yellowhead Pass the\ngrasses would all be covered with snow except the lower portion of the\nvalley of the North Thompson River, and had I attempted to carry out\nthe orders sent to me by the engineer-in-chief, I should certainly have lost\nall my animals and, perhaps, the lives of some of the men, which was a\nresponsibility I would not assume, and, therefore, was compelled to remain\nin the Yellowhead Pass.\nKEEPING FAITH WITH EMPLOYEES.\n\"It is impossible for me to express how much I wished at this time\nto discontinue my connection with the engineer-in-chief, and I should have\ndone so if I had not thought it would be unfair to all my employees, who\nhad served me so faithfully, and to the Dominion Government.\n|P \"I subsequently learned that it was instructions from the engineer-in-\nchief to Mr. Mohun after I parted with the former at Moose Lake that\ncaused Mr. Mohun, on reaching the divide in the Yellowhead Pass, to\ndiscontinue his survey and return to Victoria.\n\"I kept my party at work until the end of December, when the snow\nhad reached the Fiddle River, and then went into winter quarters at the\ndepot, and had some log huts built at Fiddle River for Mr. McCord's\nparty to winter in. I sent to Edmonton requesting Mr. Richard Hardisty,\nthe chief factor in the Hudson's Bay Company then in charge, to send\nme dog sleighs to bring the supplies at the headwaters of the Whirlpool\n86 =r-\n1\nO\nU)\nre\nCO\nS-\nre\n\u00ab\n>\n\u00a3\nCD\ns-\n4>\n>\n3\nO\no\n\u00a3\nre\n> River to the depot, all of which was done, and having completed the\nplotting of our season's work, I sent the plans off to Edmonton with a\nletter to Mr. Hardisty requesting him to have them forwarded to Ottawa.\nEXPLORER'S INACCURATE REPORT.\n\"As soon as these documents were sent off, I set the trail party at\nwork, continuing the survey of the line in the direction of the latter place,\nas I was led to believe from a printed report of an explorer sent out in\n1871 by the engineer-in-chief, which he had given me at Moose Lake\nthe previous autumn, that a 'level sandy plain' extended from the Fiddle\nRiver to Lac St. Anne. I soon found that the description given in that\nreport and the nature of the country between the Athabasca and the\nMcLeod rivers were very different, as there was a high ridge\u2014a spur of\nthe Rocky Mountains between those two rivers\u2014that made it difficult to\nget into the valley of the McLeod River. As the line had been gradually\nascending this ridge, crossing several formidable ravines, I directed the\nengineer to go on with the survey and get into the valley of the McLeod\nRiver as soon as possible, and I would explore the country ahead and to\nthe eastward.\nGOOD NEWS FOR MR. MOBERLY.\n\"I found a good line could be obtained by keeping much farther to\nthe eastward, without any trouble, but decided to continue the line we were\nsurveying to Victoria. When the line was within a short distance of the\nMcLeod River, I was a short distance ahead when a half-breed met me\nand handed me a letter from the engineer-in-chief. It informed me that\nhe had received the package forwarded by Mr. Hardisty, and directed me\nto discontinue the survey easterly and to return to the coast with my party.\nIt also informed me that Mr. Marcus Smith, C.E., had been appointed\nto take charge of the exploratory surveys in British Columbia. This was\njoyful news for me, for I saw the way clear to get out of the distasteful\noccupation of making useless surveys.\n\"Shortly after receiving the above despatches, I received a letter from\nMr. Marcus Smith, informing me of his appointment and requesting me to\ntry and find a line feasible for a railway west from the Tete Jaune Cache\ninto the valley of the Horsefly River, or into the basin of the Quesnel\nLake.\n\"We all started on our return journey, and on our way back, when\nwe got east of Moose Lake, I directed Mr. Green to make a short survey\nalong the south bank of the Fraser, whilst I went up to the head waters\nof the canyon, and those of the North Thompson River, to see if I could\nfind a pass in the direction Mr. Smith desired.\nTHROUGH \"BLACK CANYON\" TO \"BLUE PRAIRIE.\"\n\"Taking my three Indians with me, I proceeded to explore the country at the headwaters of the Canoe River, and very soon found there was\nno pass in that direction. I then went to the forks of the Albreda and\nNorth Thompson rivers, and up the valley of the latter. I found the\ncountry densely timbered and difficult to travel through until we reached\na high elevation. I pursued my way until, at a very high elevation, I was\nsurrounded by high-capped peaks and glaciers that presented an impenetrable wall of rock, snow and ice. I returned to the forks of the Thomp-\n88 son and Albreda rivers, where my Indians found an old log canoe, which\nthey patched up, and we decided to run down the North Thompson River\nin preference to walking to Kamloops, as we found that Mr. Green and\nthe survey party had preceded us. The Indians were expert canoe men,\nbut knew nothing about that river, nor did I, except that the 'Black\nCanyon' was considered a dangerous place for boats or canoes. We swept\ndown the river in fine style and when we got into the canyon the Indians\nhandled the canoe to perfection. We pursued our way, and soon after\ndark came to the place where the party were encamped on the 'Blue\nPrairie.'\nEND OF MR. MOBERLY'S EXPLORATIONS AND SURVEYS FOR\nTHE C. P. R.\n\"Here we left the canoe, and, taking my horses and Indians. I pursued my way, in advance of my party, through a lovely valley to the mouth\nof the North Thompson River, where I met my commissariat officer, Mr.\nA. G. Hall. I instructed him to hand over all the pack animals, etc., to\nMr. Marcus Smith's agent at Kamloops, and bring me duplicate receipts\nfor the same, and to take all further orders from Mr. Smith. Thus ended\nall my explorations and surveys for the Canadian Pacific Railway through\nthe mountain region of Canada, and these instructions were the last I gave\nin connection with that great national railway.\nHudson's bay tribute.\n' As usual for many years, I took up my quarters with my never-\n. failing friends, the officers of the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company, in Fort\nKamloops, where I remained a short time. The factor provided me with\nhorses and Indians to take me down to Yale, as that was probably the last\nopportunity the Hudson's Bay Company would have, in British Columbia,\nof-doing me a service and showing their appreciation of my long social\nintercourse and business transactions with the company since my arrival in\nBritish Columbia in the year 1858. ' <7[,\n\"Ort arriving at Victoria I met, and soon formed a very friendly\nacquaintance with the late Mr. Marcus Smith, which lasted until his death.\nWe shortly afterwards left Victoria for Ottawa and in due course arrived\nthere. I was, as I fully expected, very coldly received by the engineer-^\nin-chief. He, unnecessarily, caused my detention in Ottawa after the\nauditor had passed my accounts in a manner satisfactory to me. He caused\nthe accounts to be sent to another auditor to be gone over again, and I had\nto wait because I could not get my hard-earned pay, and actually had to\nborrow money to pay for my board and lodging.\nBADLY TREATED AT OTTAWA.\n\"After several months the engineer-in-chief sent me a cheque for my\npay to the time of the completion of the first auditing and would not pay\nme anything for the time I had to wait for the second auditing, nor would\nhe pay me anything for the expenses I had incurred during the whole time\nI had been in Ottawa. I protested at this unjust treatment, but without\navail. The unjust treatment I received was not in accordance with the\nwritten terms of my engagement, made in 1871, and I was defrauded out\nof a large amount, which the Dominion Government still owes me.\n89 MR. MOBERLY S ADVICE AT LAST ADOPTED.\n\"I made my headquarters in Winnipeg for the purpose of getting a\npersonal knowledge of the country west from Lake Superior to the Rocky\nMountains, which I obtained, and also of the line the engineer-in-chief was\ntrying to have adopted via Selkirk, the Narrows of Lake Manitoba and\nthence northerly. I did my utmost, in various ways, to get the line adopted\nback to my line in order that Winnipeg should be on the main line and\nthe valley of the Columbia reached, which would necessitate the line passing\nthrough the Eagle Pass and thence to Vancouver. My exertions finally\nled to the adoption of the present line from Revelstoke to Vancouver,\nwhere it terminates at the magnificent harbor of Burrard Inlet and has\nbrought into existence the flourishing and beautiful City of Vancouver,\nwhich is destined to be the finest commercial and most progressive city of\nthe Dominion of Canada, and from which other important railways will\nradiate-^the city part of whose site I pre-empted in 1859 when I had\ndiggings made to try and find coal in 'Coal Harbor.'\n;or\n91 FIVE AND FIFTY YEARS AGO.\nsjy^2 ORE than half a century ago two comparatively young white\nmen, accompanied by two Indians, turned the bow of their\ncanoe from Burrard Inlet and up the North Arm. It was a\nglorious day in the August of 1859, and, as vista after vista\nof sparkling water, towering mountain and green forest opened\nto their view, what time they paddled northward, exclamations of pleasure and satisfaction escaped them. It was a big\ncanoe and all four were powerful paddlers, so that the light\ncraft skimmed over the surface of the water at a fine pace and the afternoon saw them bursting upon those beautiful, lagoon-like parts of the Arm\nwhich open out near its head.\nThey landed near the spot where, more than fifty years later, the picturesque Wigwam Inn and its pretty grounds were to lend a comfortable,\nWalter Moberly, present day.\nhuman touch to their rather rugged environment and suggest to the approaching visitor or guest rest and refreshment. Climbing up the bank, the party\nof four proceeded along the bed of a shallow stream for, perhaps, a quarter\nof a mile, into a declivity in the mountain, until their progress was arrested\nby one of the most beautiful bridal falls to be found in this part of the\nworld. The white men stood for some minutes lost in admiration. The\nIndians (who were Capilanos) had probably seen the falls, which have\nsince become so familiar to many visitors, before. Hale and hearty and\nin the full flush of early manhood, the two explorers proceeded to climb to\n93 the top of the mountain, a pretty tough scramble, to see if they could find\nthe Chickamen (money) stone.\nTHE BRIDAL FALL AND CHICKAMEN STONE.\nFifty-five years, full of varied and adventurous happenings, rolled\nbetween and then, upon a recent Sunday, a white-haired, white-bearded\nveteran of eighty-five was heartily welcomed at the landing before the\nWigwam Inn by genial Mr. Dickens, whose pretty residence nestles\nnear at hand, the only other habitation within a wide radius. Anon,\niiiii\nprr \u25a0 t-'\u25a0\u2022\u25a0\u25a0\u25a0\n\\ VANCOUVER jd^pARS AOO\n3S5\nl^aTiX1^^?WU'U^'1*^W^3K^^^^mMM\u00a3^. vI3\n,*s***s\nil|i|gj\niPrKPEE\n| J\nliB: j&jMtt;\nir * i\nBW|ata^5^^^;^r*^-y^>% j\nJ^a^s' !W^'-JLiS'\n\u2122%fl\n; a\n1 ^^3^%\" ?*\"\" \\fc\nthe old man stood with his host and his friends at the foot of those delicately traced falls, the water of which has been falling, falling, falling\nwithout ceasing ever since that first yisit, and will be falling, falling long\nafter Mr. Walter Moberly and the youngest of you who may have read\nthe story of his strenuous life have passed to the bourne from which no\ntraveller returns. Lieutenant Burnaby (whose name is perpetuated in a\nwell known municipality near Vancouver) passed to that bourne many\nyears ago. He was the white man who accompanied Mr. Moberly upon\nthat first voyage of discovery up the North Arm at a time when no white\nman lived nearer than New Westminster, which itself was but a series of\nclearings and roughly erected wooden buildings. And Mr. Moberly had\nnever revisited the falls until this Sunday to which reference has just been\nmade. It was upon the advice of the Indians that gold was to be found\nup the mountain at the back of and above those falls, that Moberly and\nBurnaby spent sometime searching for the Chickamen (which, in Chinook\njargon, means money) stone.\nTHE END OF THE STORY.\nAnd sor my friends, we have nearly arrived at the end of the story\nof British Columbia's most notable pathfinder. We have arrived at the\nend, that is, of the public work he was responsible for, the work which led\nto the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It is true that he was\nstill only in the forties when he left this province and for many years made\nWinnipeg\u2014then a city of 8,000 or 9,000 inhabitants and unconnected\nby railway with the rest of Canada\u2014his home, and that for the next\nthirty years he lived a very active and interesting and, often, adventurous\nlife, which, some day, may supply material for another series of stories.\nThese particular chapters of that life are, however, concerned almost\nentirely with the explorations and preparations for the laying of steel which\nwas to link ocean with ocean. But, as the reader who has read so far\nwill probably be interested to know what Mr. Moberly did after leaving\nthe service, I will give a brief summary before concluding.\n94 MR. MOBERLY BUILT WINNIPEG'S FIRST SEWERS.\nThe year that followed his arrival at Winnipeg, Mr. Moberly spent\nin general exploration work in the country round about, and then, as his\nnext considerable task, he contracted to build the first sewers that Winnipeg ever had. \"Perhaps that sounds a bigger undertaking than it really\nwas,\" laughed the veteran when telling me about the contract, \"for there\nwere not many thousands of people in Winnipeg then.\" \"But,\" he added\nwith satisfaction, \"many of those wooden pipes of white pine and spruce\nare in use today, and I remember shortly before I left Winnipeg\u2014I think\nit was in '96\u2014being shown a section of one which had been taken up,\nand it was as sound as the day that it was put in.\" Veteran pioneers who\nwere resident in Winnipeg at the time when this contract was fulfilled have\ntold me of the very fine and conscientious job Mr. Moberly made of it,\nthough, as in the case of most things he has touched, he made very little\nprofit.\nOTHER RAILWAYS.\nHe then took the contract to build a short line of railway along the\nGrand Rapid. Steamers used to run from Winnipeg to the foot of the\nGrand Rapid and then the freight was carried over this tramway to the\nsteamers at the other end. At that time several big railways were endeavoring to get a charter to come into Winnipeg. The nearest railway approach\nwas hundreds of miles away on the American side at Moorehead on the\nRed River, and travellers came to Winnipeg from Moorehead on steamers\nby that river. Moorehead was reached from St. Paul. Mr. Moberly made\nseveral visits to Ottawa during these years and spent two winters there.\nOnce when he returned to Winnipeg he did so with the intention of getting;\na charter through for the Southwestern Railway, a railway that was to\nrun in a southerly direction from Winnipeg. He got it through and the\nrailway was built. Mr. David Young was the secretary, and General\nHammond, a Southerner, took charge. Mr. Moberly made the track\nsurveys and then fell out with Young and left the service of the company.\nShortly afterwards that well-known railway magnate, Mr. James Hill, took\ncontrol of the road.\nCHATS WITH SIR JOHN: \"YOU ARE A LOT OF SPECULATORS.\"\nDuring his several visits to Ottawa, Mr. Moberly saw a great deal\nof Sir John A. Macdonald, who was then in Opposition, dining with him\nnearly every Sunday and discussing railway matters at length. \"Perhaps\nI cannot claim to have suggested to Sir John the idea of taking the building of the railway to and through British Columbia out of the hands of\nthe Dominion Government and forming a company to conduct the undertaking,\" observed Mr. Moberly, \"but I know that frequently in conversation with him I favored the idea and that we often discussed it. I told\nhim that I had no confidence that a government would ever carry it through.\nMackenzie was at that time trying to do so in driblets and by the use of\nwater stretches. I have spent hours again and again discussing this matter\nwith Sir John, and I always laid particular stress upon the certainty that\nBritish Columbia would go out of Confederation if the railway did not\ngo through.\" In reply to a question, Mr. Moberly said that he knew\nPremier Mackenzie well and, while in Ottawa, used to visit at his house\nand play whist with him. \"He was a very quiet man out of politics,\"\n95 observed the explorer. \"I remember he said to me more than once,\n'Moberly, you seem to be a lot of speculators in B. C I wonder what\nhe would have said if he had lived to see the B. C. of today and its\nspeculation,\" laughed the explorer.\nAN AMOR DE COSMOS JOKE.\nMr. Moberly told me of one amusing dinner party at Sir John's\nOttawa residence at which he was present and at which a one-time singular\nparliamentarian and premier of British Columbia figured\u2014Mr. Amor de\nCosmos. \"This was a dinner given by Sir John in honor of the members\nfrom British Columbia,\" observed Mr. Moberly, \"and among the members present were Mr. Amor de Cosmos and the Hon. Edgar Dewdney\u2014\nMr. Dewdney will remember the humor of the situation well, I expect,\nAs you know, Mr. de Cosmos, who was a striking looking man, changed\nhis name from Smith to Amor de Cosmos (or Lover of the World), by\nwhich name he was ever afterwards known. The story of the change was\nalso known, and at that particular dinner the company included Captain\nHamilton, a brother of Lady Dufferin. Mr. de Cosmos had not put in\nan appearance, and Captain Hamilton, who was interested in the story,\nwas inquiring all about it when de Cosmos came through a door at the\ncaptain's back and at the other end. of the room and took his seat quietly.\n\"Sir John was facing and saw him enter, but Captain Hamilton did\nnot and continued to chat about the change of name with a good deal of\nhumor, and to the general discomfiture of all who knew that the subject\nof the conversation was now at the table.\" Mr. Moberly laughed heartily\nat the recollection which this conjured up. \"I can see Sir John now,\"\nhe said, with reminiscent gusto. \"He was at the head of the table and\nCaptain Hamilton about two removes down the table, and Mr. de Cosmos\nonly a few removes further down on the same side. It was clearly impossible to call the captain's attention to the fact by speech, and the diners\non either side the captain had not noticed the new arrival. So Sir John\nslowly slid down his chair in an apparent effort to pick something up, until\nhis long nose was nearly level with the table, and, reaching under the table\npast his left hand guest, he gave the captain a kick. The latter started,\nSir John slowly resumed his position and\u2014Mr. Amor de Cosmos, who\nmust have been perfectly aware of the incident and its cause, never moved\na muscle of his face.\"\nDISCRETION WINS THE DAY.\nIt was during these few years of which we have been speaking that\nDonald A. Smith (later known as Lord Stratheona), then Chief Commissioner of the Hudson's Bay Company and resident on Silver Heights,\nWinnipeg, ran for a seat in the Dominion Legislature and, after a very\nexciting contest, was returned by a majority of nine, his opponent upon\nthat occasion being Governor Morris. Mr. Moberly, who knew the G.\nO. M. of Canada well personally, and who had shortly before completed\nthe sewer contract to which reference has been made, threw himself into\nthe fight with great enthusiasm. The transcontinental railway was the\nissue upon which the election was fought, and the North Ward of Winnipeg turned the day in favor of the future peer. In this ward were resident many of the men who had been working for Mr. Moberly during the\n96 carrying out of the sewer contract, and he spent much time canvassing there\nfor his candidate. This ward polled a solid 35 majority for Donald A.\nSmith and enabled him to carry the day, though he was defeated the following year. There are certain moments when a man is sorely tempted to\nthrow discretion to the winds for the sake of a really good story, and here\nis just such a moment. I have read over this rather bald paragraph and\nhave been sitting for five minutes wondering whether I should or should\nnot tell the real underlying story of that victory, as Mr. Moberly told it\nto me. It would make fine reading. But, while not definitely pledging\nme to secrecy, he does not desire it as there are people still living, etc.\u2014\nso discretion shall win the day this time.\nBACK TO VANCOUVER.\nIncidentally Mr. Moberly told me of pleasant times spent at Sir\nDonald's residence at Ottawa, called \"Bank Cottage,\" because it was\nLord Stratheona, the G. O. M., of Canada, in his old age.\nsituated near the Bank of Montreal, where open house appears to have\nbeen the order of the day. Mr. Moberly acted as architect and contractor during the years that followed in Winnipeg, and erected quite a\nnumber of buildings there. Then came the Klondyke excitement and he\ndecided to return to his old love, Vancouver, which he did in the late\nnineties. A dozen years or so earlier the first train had run through to\nthe coast, and for the first time Mr. Moberly now travelled through this\nprovince over a railway towards the building of which he had done so\nmuch preparatory work. Still keenly interested in railways, he went to\nwork later to get a charter from the Provincial Government for a proposed\nrailway to Alaska, the Vancouver-Northern-Yukon Railway. Through\nthe efforts of himself and others this charter was procured. The line was\nnever built, but the Pacific Great Eastern, which is now being constructed,\n97 is being built in the direction the other line would have gone in. He has\nbeen associated with other undertakings, but, from a public standpoint, this\nis the end of his story.\nA HEARTY TRIBUTE.\nJust here let me make a quotation from a substantial and beautifully\nprinted and illustrated and authoritative volume entitled \"The Selkirk\nRange, British Columbia\" (by A. O. Wheeler, F.R.G.S.), which contains\nmany extracts from Mr. Moberly's official reports and which pays more\nthan one tribute to his work. \"Mr. Moberly took no further part in great\npublic enterprises. The good work that he did and the prominent part\nthat he took in opening up and giving access to the resources of the interior\nof British Columbia have never been fully recognized. To realize the\ndifficulties he encountered, the years of toil, hardship and privation he\nendured, it is necessary to visit the wilderness of mountains, the trackless\nforests and jungles and the dangerous waterways comprising the territory\nover which he worked, and, even then, the strides of civilization have been\nso great of recent years that it is difficult to picture these wilds as they\nwere when they were only inhabited by Indians and by wild beasts and\nwhen the influx of the white man was a slow and difficult process.\" Incidentally I may mention that there is chapter and verse for most of the\nstatements with reference to the explorations and surveys made by him in\npreparation for the building of the railway, this being contained in the old\nCrown Colony reports and the reports of the surveys for the railway made\nby Mr. Moberly to Ottawa and published by the C. P. R.\nORIGIN OF TETE JAUNE CACHE.\nThe last camp that Mr. Moberly made when running the last\nline in the surveys he made for the future C. P. R., was at Tete Jaune\nCache in the Yellowhead. I asked him to tell me the origin of this curious\nname. \"Yellowhead,\" he replied, \"was the nickname of a trapper who,\nin the early days, was in the service of the North West Company, and\nhis headquarters were at what is now known as Tete Jaune Cache, the\nFrench for Yellowhead. There he had the cache where he cached his\nbeaver skins. It used to be called Leather Pass, for it was a great country for moose and these and other skins were collected at Jasper House,\nan important trading post in the early days. Then, in the spring, they\nwould float these skins down to Fort Assiniboine.\"\nB. C.'S LACK OF APPRECIATION: THE OLD TALE.\nAnd so I might wander on, introducing little tid-bits of interesting old-\ntime information which the veteran has given me during our chats and\nwhich I have made notes of and placed aside for use in this last chapter\u2014\nbut one must stop somewhere. In taking leave of the octogenarian explorer\nI would like (very lightly and without asking his permission, for he is now,\nas he has been all his life, a man of sturdy independence) to suggest, as\nthe writer of the volume from which I have just quoted also suggests, that\nthe services rendered by Walter Moberly to the Province of British Columbia have never been fully realized or recognized. Mr. Moberly himself\nwould be the last person to desire one to touch here upon personal circumstances, but, when it is recalled that he spent all his own money upon the first\n98\nVb voluntary explorations in this province, that he lost heavily, through no\nfault of his own, over his Cariboo Road undertaking, which has been of\nsuch importance to the province, that he emerged from his C. P. R. explorations and surveys a comparatively poor man\u2014all public works of inestimable value to British Columbia\u2014and that he is now in very poor circumstances, though he has admiring friends, some of them prominent in the\npublic life of the city and province, who would not see him want, it reflects\nbut poorly upon the generosity of the province which owes him so much,\nand which has enabled so many infinitely less deserving men to acquire\nwealth. It is, alas, too familiar a tale in the world's history.\nA NOTE OF TRIUMPH.\nBut let the story of the pathfinder's life close upon a different note.\nFor one concluding moment let us shut our eyes and try to visualize what\nthe forging of this greatest railway of the world, in order that it might\nconnect ocean with ocean, has meant to British Columbia; let us picture\nin our mind's eye the \"sea of mountains,\" of which we have talked so much,\nuntouched by the sophisticated magic of those two parallel bands of steel;\nlet us think of the hardship and courage and, often, of the sacrifice that\nwent to the praparing of the way and the building of the road; and then\nlet us read this wonderfully expressive poem by the Mohawk poetess,\nPauline Johnson, who pitched her tent and sang all her later songs among\nus, entitled \"Prairie Greyhounds\":\n\"C. P. R. 'NO. \u25a0 WESTBOUND.\"\n\"I swing to the sunset lands\u2014\nThe world of prairie, the world of plain,\nThe world of promise and hope and gain,\nThe world of gold and the world of grain,\nAnd the world of the willing hand.\n\"I carry the brave and bold\u2014\nThe one who works for the nation's bread,\nThe one whose past is a thing that's dead,\nThe one who battles and beats ahead,\nAnd the one who goes for gold.\n\"I swing to the 'Land to Be,'\nI am the power that laid its floors,\nI am the guide to its Western stores,\nI am the key to its golden doors,\nThat open alone to me.\nI \"C. P. R. 'NO. 2,' EASTBOUND.\"\n\"I swing to the land of morn;\nThe grey old east with its grey old seas,\nThe land of leisure, the land of ease,\nThe land of flowers and fruits and trees,\nAnd the place where we were born.\n99 \"Freighted with wealth I come;\nFor he who many a moon has spent\nFar out west on adventure bent,\nWith well-worn pick and folded tent,\nIs bringing his bullion home.\n\"I never will be renowned,\nAs my twin that swings to the western marts,\nFor I am she of the humbler parts,\nBut I am the joy of the waiting hearts;\nFor I am the Homeward-bound.\"\nlOE\n100\nI BUILDING AN HISTORIC RAILWAY.\nI HE life story of Mr. Henry J. Cambie, explorer and railway\nbuilder, I have recorded in another place and hope soon to\npublish, together with other pioneer stories, in book form.\nBut, in order that the tale of the preparations and building\nof the Canadian Pacific Railway may be completely told,\nhe has kindly allowed me to add here the closing portion of\nhis story. Mr. Cambie is an Irishman\u2014a taste of the brogue\nstill clings to him and he cannot lose his Irish sense of humor.\nHe is very nearly eighty years of age, and, despite all that he has gone\nthrough, he is still, like Mr. Dewdney, fresh-complexioned and hale. Inci-\nHenry J. Cambie, present day.\ndentally he is one of the select band of Vancouver's most highly esteemed\ncitizens and, upon a recent occasion, at the annual banquet of the Vancouver Pioneers' Association, Mr. Cambie, Mr. Moberly and Mr. Abbott,\nanother notable British Columbian to whom the C. P. R. owes much and\nwhose name is commemorated in the city and province in various ways, sat\ntogether at the head of the table\u2014\u2014a striking white-haired triumvirate.\nMr. Cambie, a man who has done things which only a minority of men\nout here have attempted; who, forty years ago, was exploring through hundreds of miles of territory where a white man had never trod; who, by\n101 general consent, is admitted to be the Grand Old Man of railway construction work in this province, is almost irritatingly modest\u2014from the\ninterviewer's standpoint, at any rate. \"Please make it very clear that,\nthough I explored and surveyed and planned much of the course of the\nCanadian Pacific Railway through a large portion of this prvoince, the\nonly part that was built under my direct supervision was that running\nthrough the canyons of the Fraser,\" he said. The \"only\" part! Those\nof you\u2014that means nearly all of you\u2014who know those rugged Fraser\ncanyons with their towering masses of rampart-like rock, through which,\nand cut into which, the metals wind their sinuous way, alternately far\nabove or close beside the turbulent Fraser as it rushes to the Pacific, will\nrealize that this part of the work was the piece de resistance in driving the\nline through the province.\nThen again, what are you to do with a man who tells you, modestly\nenough, when talking to you privately and not for publication, a story\nof daring and determination in connection with planning the line round a\ncertain bluff at Kamloops, a story well worthy of, record, and who, when\nyou come to ask him later for further details for publication, refuses them\npoint blank, and, what is more, will not have the incident recorded. And\nall, forsooth, because he happens to be the principal actor in that drama.\nIt is enough to make an nterviewer who has any respect for himself tear\nhis hair. \"I think now it is time that we arrived at the driving of the\nlast spike by Lord Stratheona,\" observed Mr. Cambie upon quite a number of occasions while I was questioning him for details of the trials and\ntribulations which the engineers had to endure in the course of those\nstrenuous years of building\u2014all by hand, be it remembered\u2014the C. P. R.\nthrough British Columbia. I put off the arrival at that spike as long\nas possible.\nSPLENDID STAFF OF ENGINEERS.\n\"The Hon. Edgar Dewdney,\" Mr. Cambie observed in the course\nof one of our talks, \"had much influence with the Dominion Government\nand with Lord Dufferin, and this influence showed itself very soon, for\nimmediately after Lord Dufferin had returned to Ottawa, I had a telegram\nfrom the premier, Mr. Mackenzie\u2014who was also Minister of Railways\u2014\nto survey the Fraser River route. I think I still have that telegram. I was\nto survey it from Yellowhead Pass to Port Moody. A start was made\nthat year and the work was completed the following year. Upon this\nsurvey we had the finest staff of engineers that ever worked in this country,\nand I would like to give the names of a few of them: Mr. H. P. Bell,\nlately connected with the Ottawa Ship Canal; Mr. C. E. Perry, lately\nof the National Transcontinental Railway to the south of James Bay; Mr.\nGeorge FJ. Keefer, lately resident engineer to the department of public\nworks at New Westminster; Mr. W. T. Jennings, of late years prominent\nupon many public works in Ontario and elsewhere; Mr. Joseph Hunter,\nlate engineer for Mr. James Dunsmuir, and still with the Canadian Collieries; Mr. Brunei and Mr. Gamsby. All these, except Mr. Hunter and\nmyself, have passed away during the last five years. I was, I think, the\noldest of the crowd.\nMANY GRIZZLIES.\n'The information gathered by this survey practically decided the\nFraser River route as the one to be adopted. The then government of\n102 Canada, however, having come into power in 1878 and established a\nnational policy, was not in a position to proceed with the construction of\na transcontinental railway at once. Accordingly, in order to gain further\ninformation with regard to the country and possible routes, I was sent\nto explore the line by the Skeena valley and the Peace and Pine rivers east\nof the Rockies. For that purpose I selected Port Simpson as the proper\nterminus for such a line, and in company with Dr. G. M. Dawson, representing the Geological Survey1; Mr. Henry McLeod, an engineer\nof high standing who still lives in Ottawa, and Dr. G. M. Gordon, the\nprincipal of Queen's University, went in canoes up the Skeena River,\nthen by way of Babene and Stewart Lakes to Fort McLeod, where we\npatched up an old boat which had been abandoned by the Hudson's\nBay Company, and drifted down the Parsnip and Peace to the Rocky\nHon. Edgar Dewdney, pioneer, explorer, administrator.\nMountain Canyon, a distance of about 150 miles. There we met a\nfamily of Indians hunting and they helped us to portage round the canyon\nto the Hudson's Bay post known as Hudson's Hope, where we made\na raft and drifted another 1 30 miles to Fort Dunvegan. The last part\nof the trip was in the beginning of August. Hie berries on the southern\nslopes of the hills were beginning to ripen and the number of bears we\nsaw\u2014grizzlies and others\u2014surpassed anything I had ever known or heard\nof. Often we' would see on the banks of the river three or four bears\ntogether. However, we had no time for hunting and to have gone ashore\nwith a raft would have lost half a day. We did get one or two black\nbears, but we were not armed to attack grizzlies.\n103 Here followed an attractive account of Mr. Cambie's interesting\nand adventurous exploration, but that must be left for another place as\nthis closing chapter is to deal with the actual construction of the great\nrailway through the canyons of the Fraser.\nTRIBUTE TO A GREAT ENGINEER.\n\"I should like to pay a tribute first to some of the fine body of\nengineers who were associated with me on the work of construction in the\nsame way as I mentioned just now those with me on the surveys\u2014and first\nand foremost I should mention the chief engineer, Mr. (afterwards Sir\nSandford) Fleming, who had directed the surveys for the transcontinental\nrailway from its inception\u2014and was the adviser of the government of\nCanada in the selection of the route via the Yellow Head Pass. And it\nmight not be amiss here to state some of the salient reasons for so doing.\n\"In the first place that is the lowest pass through the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia\u2014south of the Peace River. In the second place\nit is the only one from which the Pacific Ocean can be reached without\nany adverse grades\u2014that is, descending gradually all the way to the sea,\nvia the Fraser River; or by a line via the Thompson River, with one rise\nof 300 feet over Albreda Summit\u2014so that it had the best grades. In the\nthird place it was in what was called the fertile belt, all the way from\nWinnipeg to Edmonton, and the country further to the south was then considered to be barren or nearly so. And in the fourth place it was much\nfarther from the American boundary than the other passes, and there would\nbe less difficulty in borrowing money for its construction as a military road,\nthan had it been near the boundary, as in the cases of the Crow's Nest\nor Kicking Horse passes.\n\"Sir Sandford had taken an interest in my welfare since my boyhood\nand I cannot say how much I regretted his retirement. He was a statesman among engineers, with a broad outlook, and was even then advocating\na Pacific cable from Canada to Australia as a link with which to bind\nthe Empire together. The cable was not laid for twenty years later, but,\nin the meantime, he kept it continuously before the public.\nNOTABLE GROUP OF ENGINEERS.\nIn the early spring of 1880 contracts were awarded to Mr. Andrew\nOnderdonk for the line from Emory's Bar f!\u00a9 Kamloops Lake and, later,\nfrom Port Moody to Emory's. Upon some of these sections other people\nhad tendered lower than Mr. Onderdonk, but, with the consent of the\ngovernment, he took over their contracts. Immediately after the route\nvia the Thompson and Fraser rivers to Port Moody had been finally\nselected, and the work placed under contract, Sir Sandford Fleming retired\nfrom the position of chief engineer and was succeeded by Mr. Schreiber,\nwho, though over 80 years, is still actively engaged on the line of the\nG. T. P. and is probably the oldest engineer in Canada still in harness.\nDuring the construction Mr. Marcus Smith had charge of the work\nfrom Port Moody to Emory's Bar, I had charge from Emory's Bar to\nBoston Bar, Mr. George H. Keefer had charge from Boston Bar to\nLytton, Mr. Henry McLeod from Lytton to a point some miles beyond\nSpence's Bridge and Mr. L. G. Hamlin from that point to Kamloops Lake.\nSir Joseph Trutch, who had previously been governor of British Columbia,\n104 came out as government agent and counsel to the engineers in many business matters. Mr. Marcus Smith died many years ago; Mr. Keefer died\nduring the past year; Mr. Hamlin was frozen to death in the Klondyke,\nand Sir Joseph Trutch passed away in England a few* years ago. Only\nMr. McLeod and myself are now living.\nTHE JUDGE AND DAVE MCBETH.\n\"Mr. Onderdonk, the contractor, was not quite thirty years of age,\nbut very clever, a good organizer, possessed of a great deal of tact and\nbacked by unlimited capital in the shape of Mr. D. O. Mills, a well-\nknown millionaire. He had as his engineer Mr. E. G. Tilton, who, I\nbelieve, is at present engineer of a road from Los Angeles to Utah. At\nthe outset we were asked by the government to reduce the cost of the\nwork as much as possible and Mr. White, my principal assistant, who is\nnow chief of the Canadian Northern Pacific, and I, spent many anxious\nhours trying to do so.\" (Mr. White, by the way, was one of the\nveteran guests of honor at the recent Vancouver Pioneers' banquet to which\nreference has been made.) \"No such mountain work had ever been\nattempted in Canada before, and we were confronted by new problems almost every day. One of our great troubles was the old wagon road,\nwhich ran for miles alongside the railway and which had to be kept open,\nas it was the only means of access to the upper country and continued\nso until the railway took its place. As a matter of fact, if you were to\nblock the railway above Yale even now there would be no other means\nof access to the interior. The difficulty of keeping this road open can only\nbe appreciated by people who have seen prairie schooners. These usually\nconsisted of two wagons, coupled together and drawn by nine yoke of\noxen or teams of mules, the whole well over 100 feet long. It will be\ngathered what these meant going round curves. I remember upon one\noccasion near old Spuzzum suspension bridge that a blast had been fired,\nfilling all the road. A fine old fellow named Dave McBeth, who was\nwell known in B. C. and who died in Vancouver only the other day, was\nforeman. He got the slide partly cleared away, when a coach came along\ndriven by that notable whip, Steve Tingley. Among the loose stuff, a\nrock, of which Dave was unaware, had been left, and the coach, in\nwhich was Judge McCreight\u2014who is still living\u2014upset. The judge was\nirritated and told Dave, much to the amusement of the other passengers,\nthat if he was ever brought before him he would have no compunction\nin condemning him to be hanged for his carelessness in allowing such an\naccident to happen.\"\nCONVICTED BY HIS SOCKS.\nMr. Cambie has a habit of pulling up every now and again as he\nnarrates a humorous reminiscence, \"not for publication.\" Of course these\nare some of the best stories. Here is an ancedote which I rescued. \"It\nwas on May 24, 1880\u2014Victoria Day\u2014that we had sports in Yale, and\na nephew of mine went to a room where we had our surplus baggage stored\nto get a pair of running shoes. He found that his valise had disappeared\nand, upon further search, it was discovered that several other valises had\ngone\u2014among them a trunk of Mr. McLeod's clothes. Suspicion fell\nupon the cook of the camp, who had been discharged the day before.\nSo a constable was sent up the road in search of him. The first thing\n105 the constable saw when he had gone some distance was an Indian riding\nup Jackass Mountain and wearing McLeod's tail coat. The Indian\ntold the constable, \u00abin Chinook, that he had just purchased the coat and\nthat it fitted hjm very well. He was also wearing Mr. McLeod's plug\nhat, which had been stored away. Hie thief was caught, brought back\nto Yale and tried before Judge Crease. Mr. McLeod, while in the witness\nbox, was asked to identify the clothes and, almost with tears in his eyes,\ncalled the judge's attention to the prisoner's feet. The prisoner was wearing a pair of red silk socks which, Mf. McLeod explained, had taken\nhis wife half a year of evenings to knit for his evening wear. These\nsocks convicted the cook.\"\njP^\nffisnt\nivi^^mm4mSmLm\nGlimpse of Vancouver harbor and shipping.\n'The same day I met the bishop and Mrs. Sillitoe,\" added Mr.\nCambie, \"who had just arrived in British Columbia and were on one\nof their pioneering trips. In reading Mrs. Sillitoe's recollections in this\nseries of stories, while I was much interested, I could not help regretting\nthat she did not tell you more of her personal adventures, as her experiences\nwould certainly rank ahead of those of most of our pioneer women. I am\nafraid that her modesty stood in her way. She was very popular wherever\nshe went, whether it was in the city, on the trail or in the mining camp,\nand she, like her husband, was very musical and had a particularly good\nvoice.\nTRANSPORTATION DIFFICULTIES: HAND WORK.\nAnd now we come to the actual construction of the line. \"Mr.\nOnderdonk had a lot of very fine superintendents,\" observed Mr. Cambie,\n106 \"who pushed the work along as fast as it was possible to do. Notwith-.\nstanding this, the great amount of tunnelling and rock cutting and the\ndifficulty of getting what we wanted into the work caused the progress\nto be very slow, so that the track was not laid up to the Cisco cantilever\nbridge until four years had elapsed. Teaming on the wagon road was the\nonly way in which heavy stuff could be brought to the scene of operations in\nmany parts, and, therefore, most of the work which is now done by steam\nshovels and power drills, had to be done by hand. From Savona to\nSicamus the line ran along Kamloops Lake, Thompson River and Shuswap\nLakes, so that it could be reached by steamers at almost any point and\nthis part of the work progressed much more rapidly than the other. The\nrails came by ship to Port Moody and supplied all the line up to Craighillachie, and, in fact, we could have got farther if we had had more\nrails on this Pacific side. The line from Winnipeg westward to Craighillachie had all been constructed and the track laid with Winnipeg as\nthe base.\" (It is worthy of note that only a Scotchman\u2014or possibly\nan Irishman\u2014can correctly pronounce this jaw-breaking name of Craig\u2014\netc.\u2014etc.) \"Craighillachie is 340 miles from Port Moody and is in\nEagle Pass (sixteen miles from Sicamous). Eagle Pass had been discovered by Mr. Walter Moberly when he was trying to locate a road to\ncommunicate with the gold mines in eastern Kootenay. At Craighillachie\nwe met the track which had been laid from Winnipeg through to that\npoint and during the construction we really knew very little about what\nthey were doing on that side, because there was no direct mode of communication between us. Our letters, if we had written them, would have\ngone round by San Francisco to St. Paul and then back.\"\nA STRANGE CROWD.\nI asked Mr. Cambie to give me some idea of the class of labor used\non the work during construction, and he replied that, in the main, a much\nhigher type of workman was engaged then than is the case now on such\nwork. \"Outside the Chinese there were very few foreigners in the country,\" he explained, \"and most of the men on the construction work were\nEnglish-speaking, many of them Englishmen. I was often surprised at the\ngreat number among them who were well informed men who had drifted\nthrough most parts of the world, many of them highly educated. They\nwere good workmen, too. Onderdonk supplied excellent camps and good\nsleeping quarters and the food in his camps was of really good quality and\nwell served. 1 often dropped in and had a meal in the camps. The wages\nwere $2 and upwards per day. At the start, however, the labor was\nnot satisfactory. In the spring of 1882 Mr. Oderdonk found that the\nwhite labor that he had got from San Francisco\u2014the only source of\nsupply at the moment\u2014consisted for the most part of clerks out of employment, broken-down bartenders and others of that ilk, men who had\nnever handled a shovel before and who often appeared on the scene attired\nin fashionable garments in a rather tattered state, who might even be seen\nin the cuttings with patent leather shoes, much the worse for wear and\ntrousers sprung over the foot.\nCHINESE VANGUARD ARRIVES IN B. C.\n\"So he determined to import a lot of Chinamen\u2014the first large\nnumber of Chinese coolies to be imported into this country at one time\u2014\n107 and he got two ship loads, 1,000 men in each. They came in very bad\nweather and had to be kept below hatches most of the way, so, as soon\nas they got upon the work and began to take violent exercise, they developed scurvy and were decimated, fully one-tenth of their number dying.\nBeing fatalists, as soon as a man was stricken with scurvy the others would\nnot wait upon him or even give him a drink, and the government agent\nat Yale had great difficulty in getting them buried when they died. In\nfact many of their bodies were so lightly covered with a few rocks and a\nlittle earth that one became unpleasantly aware of the fact while walking\nalong the line.\"\n\"By the way, it may be interesting to mention that Yale at this time\nattracted much attention in different parts of Canada. It was a curiosity\nin the matter of vice flaunting itself before the public along the main\nstreets and I recollect quite a number of articles being written in the papers\nabout this unfortunate feature of Yale life.\"\nGALAXY OF CONTRACTORS \"THE BISHOP.\"\nMr. Cambie's own particular section of the construction work by the\nGovernment was completed in the early spring of 1 884, when he entered the\nservice of the railway company and proceeded to Kamloops to take charge\nof the work for the company, whose line from the east was then being built\nfrom Field westward. He took charge from Savona to Shuswap Lake,\nand Major Rogers from that point to Craighillachie. On the work constructed for the company to the east of Savanah many of the superintendents and contractors were the same who had been at work on what were\ncalled the government sections. \"I should have stated that Mr. Tilton\nonly remained about two years and after he had left Mr. Onderdonk\ngot out Mr. M. J. Haney as manager and superintendent of construction,\" interpolated Mr. Cambie. \"Mr. Haney, who resides in Toronto, has since become a well-known contractor and very wealthy man.\nThen we had, a contractors under Mr. Onderdonk, Mr. A. G. Ferguson, who built a large number of the tunnels, and who, assisted by\nMr. Dean, our well-known yachtsman in Vancouver, had the best\norganized work I think I ever saw; Mr. James Leamy, who died\nabout a year ago, and who was for many years timber agent for the\nDominion Government with reference to the railway belts in B. C.; Mr. J.\nB. Harrison, for years afterwards a member of the City Council of Victoria, who died many years ago; Captain Troup, now superintendent of\nthe C. P. R. coast steamships; Mr. Hugh Keefer, who is still with us in\nthe quarry business; Mr. E. Choate, who framed all the bridges, and Mr.\nD. MacGilliveray, who erected them and who afterwards became a prominent contractor in this province, and also in Ontario, where he died\u2014his\nfamily are still with us in Vancouver; Mr. George Monroe, who still lives\nin the city, and Mr. A. Macdonald, the man who laid the track and ballasted it, and who was overtaken by a train and killed a few years ago\nwhile crossing a bridge on a velocipede.\n\"Major Rogers, whom I spoke of just now as having charge to the\neast of my work, was an original character. He was a man of wonderful\nenergy, and Rogers Pass, the pass through which the line was afterwards\nbuilt through the Selkirks, bears his name. His powers of profanity were\nvery great and, in consequence, he went by the cognomen of 'The Bishop.'\n108 PERILOUS PROCEEDINGS: A TRAGIC END.\nIn response to some pressure as to the difficulties of laying out the\nwork\u2014apart altogether from the difficulties of construction\u2014Mr. Cambie\nadmitted that these were great. He instanced particularly the Cherry\nCreek bluffs on Kamloops Lake. \"In fact quite a stretch of it was laid\nout by a very small portion of our engineering staff,\" he observed, \"consisting of two sailors, who sprung ropes from rock to rock or from tree to\nDriving of last spike of Canadian Pacific Railway by Sir Donald Smith\n(afterwards Lord Stratheona) at Cralgellachie, British Columbia, in 1885. Sir\nSandford Fleming and Sir William Van Home are seen on the right of Lord\nStratheona, and Mr. Cambie, bearded, is upon his left.\ntree, and a few engineers, who, steadying themselves with these ropes, went\nalong in their bare feet to lay out the work, with a precipice, and then\nKamloops Lake of unknown depth, immediately below them. Yes, I was\none of those engineers. The only one of our engineering staff who came to\ngrief was Mr. Melchoir Eberts, who was killed close by the old Alexandra\nsuspension bridge, in January, 1881. He was hurrying to get his work\nin shape in order to go away for a month's leave, and was climbing over\na bluff, which was then covered with snow and crusted with ice. The\npoor fellow slipped, went head first down a steep slope until he struck the\ngrade and brought up against a stump overhanging the Fraser River.\nWhen found a little while afterwards he had a large number of wounds\nabout his head, any one of which would have proved fatal.\"\n109 GRASSHOPPER TRESTLE: GREAT LOSS OF LIFE.\nAn example which Mr. Cambie instanced of the difficulties which\nhad to be faced was this one: \"We had to increase the curvature beyond\nanything we had ever seen up to that time on a main line of railway, and,\nin order to get round the face of some of the bluffs, we had to construct\nwhat we called grasshopper trestles, that is trestles with long posts on the\noutside, standing in steps cut in the rock, and on the other side a very short\npost, if any, because very often we had half a roadbed. These things\nhave since been done away with and their places taken by retaining walls.\"\nQuestioned as to loss of life generally during the construction work,\nMr. Cambie replied: \"There was very heavy loss of life, more especially\nupon the construction work through the canyons of the Fraser, where all\nthe work was in rock and where there was great difficulty in getting good\ncover when shots were fired. A great many men, too, were drowned, but\nI have no idea how many men lost their lives, though I believe the Provincial Government kept reports.\"\nLORD STRATHCONA DRIVES LAST SPIKE.\n\"Early in November, 1885, the track which had been laid from\nthe east met that which had been laid from the west. And there gathered at Craigillachie to witness the connection of the track and the completion of the transcontinental railway Sir Donald A. Smith (afterwards\nLord Stratheona), vice-president of the railway; Mr. van Home (afterwards Sir William), general manager; Mr. Sandford Fleming (afterwards\nSir Sandford) and Mr. Harris of Boston, directors, with Mr. Harry Abbott\n(afterwards general superintendent of the Pacific Division). Mr. James\nRoss, manager of the construction of the line through the Rockies and\nSelkirks, with many of his associates, was also present, but they were\nstrangers to me. Those who had taken part in the construction from the\nPacific Coast eastward were represented by Mr. Haney, manager of construction for Mr. Onderdonk, with Mr. Marcus Smith, Major Rogers\nand myself representing the engineering staff.\n\"Lord Stratheona drove the spike, while Major Rogers, with a bar,\nheld up the tie in which it was driven. The party gathered round to see\nwhat was done, and were photographed. A funny incident occurred last\nyear in connection with this picture. The 'Montreal Star' published a print\nof the group, giving the names of the more prominent members of the party,\nwith a special arrow pointing to my head as that of Lord Mountstephen,\nthe president of the road. They evidently supposed that, as president of\nthe road, he should be there, but he happened at that time to be in England.\nImmediately after the spike had been driven the directors' train started for\nPort Moody, and the engine which hauled us was driven by Bob Mee\u2014\nhe died this year\u2014who hauled a passenger train either in or out of Vancouver every day for many years.\"\nALMOST MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.\nWhile recording incidents of the construction work, I omitted one\nincident which savors of the miraculous. \"Mr. W. Evans, who ran\nan engine for Mr. Onderdonk, and who has been for years inspecting\nengine driver from Vancouver to Revelstoke, was, in the autumn of 1 884,\ngoing east with a long train. Three or four miles beyond Keefers, and\n110 just opposite Jackass Mountain, he met a slide of rock on the track. The\nengine ran up on to it, turned partly round and dropped about forty feet\ninto a pile of rock debris\u2014with which it slid about 200 feet to the\nFraser River. The extraordinary feature of the incident is that no one\nwas seriously hurt, and the engine was quite uninjured\u2014not even a headlight broken\u2014though one could hardly expect a cat to get down there\nalive. The engine was hauled up and repaired, and started out again in\nthree weeks' time, with Evans again in charge, and a short distance above\nAshcroft went through a trestle, when he again escaped unhurt, though\ntwo men with him were killed. So far as I know, Evans has not met with\nan accident since. I have a photograph of the first of these two incidents,\nshowing the engine with its cowcatcher in the river.\"\n\"Sometime in 1885 the managers of the C. P. R. made arrange-\nNorth Vancouver today; forest ten years ago.\nments with the local government and with the private owners of lots round\nCoal Harbor, in what is now Vancouver, for certain grants of land at\nthis point as an inducement for them to extend their line from Port Moody\nto this point. At the same time they arranged for a subsidy for a branch\nline to New Westminster, and in October, 1885, I came down from\nKamloops with two survey parties to locate these lines. For a long while\nPort Moody remained the terminus and the line to Vancouver was a\nbranch line.\"\nPRINCESS AND SPLENDID TREE.\nFeeling that a few rambling recollections (coming from so reliable a\nsource) of Vancouver's early days would constitute a fitting termination\nto this story, I pressed the explorer and railway builder for them. \"I will\njust run off a few memories of Vancouver in my own way, then,\" he\n111 replied, \"and you need not ask me any questions, because, if you do, it\nwill set me off upon so many side tracks of memory, as I recollect incidents\nhumorous and serious, of the old days and old-timers, that we shall certainly not finish this week, and I think a long-suffering public have already\nhad more than enough of my reminiscences. Such memories as I may\ngive you today can only interest old-timers here, as there will be nothing\nof the exciting or strenuous about them to appeal to a larger public.\"\n\"I found this a very different place from what it had been in 1874.\nQuite a little village had sprung up at the corner of Carrall and Water\nstreets. The Sunnyside Hotel at that point was a comfortable establish-\nMeeting of Vancouver City Council after the great fire which practically\nobliterated the city in 1886.\nment, run by Mr. Harry Hemlow, who is still here. 'Gassy Jack's' old\nplace stood in the middle of Carrall street. The owners of the Hastings\nMill had refused to permit him to sell liquor on their property, so he had\ngone just outside it, the boundary line being the centre of Carrall street.\nMr. Joe Manion had an hotel on Water street a few doors from Carrall.\nThere was a good road to Westminster, via Hastings, and also a good\nroad via Mount Pleasant. A syndicate of Victoria gentlemen, with whom\nwas associated Messrs. Oppenheimer Brothers, then of Yale and Victoria,\nhad purchased all the holdings of the Hastings Mill Company, and was\nclearing that portion of it between Carrall street and Gore avenue. The\ntimber was slashed, but the trees were lying on the ground, and this made\n112 ' \" ws\nMl\nCO\nCO\nS-\nCO\n4)\n!5\n\u00a3\nre\no\no\nCO\nCO\nCI)\nCO\ns_\n(0\nCO\nO)\nE\nCO\nre\nI it very difficult to get about, except actually on the roads. In this clearing\none magnificent tree stood on the bank where the approach to the Grand\nTrunk Pacific wharf is at the present time. Some of the loggers here had,\nin 1882, asked the Princess Louise to see it felled. She could not come\nat the time and requested them to preserve the tree for her sake. Sir\nWilliam van Home afterwards gave it into my charge and it was cut\ndown some years afterwards during my absence, as being a menace to the\npeople doing business round that part. The roots had been burned by the\nfire. Forest trees are never safe when left for any length of time standing\nby themselves.\nMR. HAMILTON NAMES THE STREETS.\n\"By the direction of our managers, in December, '88, I got tenders\nfor clearing a portion of the townsite. They expected me to get it done\nfor a little more than they were in the habit of paying in the east, probably\n$15 or $20 per acre. They were taken aback very much at the prices\nasked and did not allow me to proceed with the clearing until Mr. Harry\nAbbott, who superceded me as far as the company's work was concerned,\nappeared on the scene. I located the line from Port Moody here and as\nfar west along the shore of English Bay as the western boundary of lot\n526. That is about half a mile beyond the present terminus of the Kit-\nsilano tram line. Later a special Act of Parliament was passed making\nCoal Harbor the terminus of the C. P. R. line. The clearing of the\ntownsite was nearly all done by Mr. D. B. Charleson, as superintendent\nfor the C. P. R:\n\"Upon arrival here after the driving of the last spike, I found my\nold friend Mr. R. H. Alexander in charge of Hastings Mill, and also\ndispensing justice to the unruly. Mr. Jonathan Miller was government\nagent, constable and gaoler. He was afterwards postmaster of this city\nfor many years. Mr. L. A. Hamilton was here as agent for the C. P. R.,\nand he it was who had the laying out of the townsite and the naming of\nthe streets. He called the first street Abbott, after the general superintendent; the second -street, Cambie, after your humble servant; the third\nstreet, Hamilton, after himself, and then he had to fall back upon such\nunimportant persons as lieutenant-governors, members of the legislature,\nand so on. Homer was named after the member for the district. Richards\nafter the hon. A. N. Richards, who had been lieutenant-governor of the\nprovince shortly before; Seymour after the last lieutenant-governor of the\nmainland before the mainland and Vancouver Island were made one province. I do not know how Hastings came to be named\u2014that was before\nmy time. Granville street was named after the old Granville townsite.\nLord Granville was, I believe, a member of the British Government at\nthe time of the naming. Smythe, Robson and Davie were all premiers of\nB. C, and Nelson was a lieutenant-governor.\nPROMINENT OLD-TIME OFFICIALS.\n\"I also found here at that time looking out for desirable lots, Mr.\nInnes and Mr. Graveley, who became partners shortly afterwards. Also\nDr. Lefevre and Mr. R. G. Tatlow, the latter afterwards finance minister\nin the McBride administration. Also our genial fellow citizen, Mr. C.\nGardner-Johnson. Then there was Mr. A. G. Fergusson, who had done\nso well with his tunnelling for the main line of the railway that he was\n114 able to put up the first buildings of any pretensions in what is now the City\nof Vancouver. One of these was a fine building at the south-east corner\nof Carrall and Powell streets, which was burned down in the fire, and\nanother was a store building at the corner of Cordova and Carrall, known\nas the Boulder saloon. This was erected after the fire.\n\"The prominent officials when the road was opened in 1 886 were\nMr. W. P. Salsbury, local treasurer, who is still with us; Mr. D. E.\nBrown, general freight and passenger agent, and now of Brown & Mac-\naulay, and his assistants, Mr. George McL. Brown, now general agent\nfor the C. P. R. in Europe, with offices in London, and Mr. H. Connon;\nMr. A. J. Dana, who has been purchasing agent ever since; Mr. L. R.\nJ. W. Home's real estate office after the Vancouver fire.\nJohnson, master mechanic; Mr. R. Marpole, who had the general direction\nof the Pacific Division under Mr. Harry Abbott, and who generally\nresided in Kamloops, and myself, engineer of the Pacific Division.\nINTO THE WILDS OF GEORGIA STREET.\n\"After the line was opened to Vancouver\u2014in May, 1887\u2014the\nBank of B. C. opened an o&ce here with Mr. J. C. Keith as manager\nand Mr. R. G. Harvey, now of Loewen & Harvey, as his assistant. This\nwas Vancouver's pioneer bank. I lived for upwards of a year at Black's\n115 Hotel, Hastings, but in May, 1 887, much to the amusement of my friends,\nI went out into the country and purchased two lots at the corner of Georgia\nand Thurlow streets. 1 could not, however, induce the city to clear a\ntrack so that I could reach that property until near the end of that year\nwhen I at once started building and moved out there in 1888. I had\nto lay the first sidewalk on Georgia at my own expense, as the city would\nnot do it, and when I got the telephone there the company dunned me for\nmore than a year to pay for the poles from Granville street down to my\nplace, as they told me that no one else in that generation would ever go\nto live west of Granville street.\n\"My first office in town was in a little two-storey building on the\neast side of Granville street, where the northernmost section of the Hudson's\nBay Company's store now stands. This little house belonged to a contractor, Mr. H. A. Bell, and I think I am safe in saying that it was then\nalmost the only house on Granville street south of Hastings. When\nI looked out of my windows my view was limited to the foundations of\nthe C. P. R. Vancouver Hotel, and to the frame of my own house in\nthe wilds.\nVANCOUVER FIRE RATHER EXAGGERATED.\n'The fire which occurred in 1886 wiped out all the little town then\nexisting, and it was a very terrible fire, but I think it has been somewhat\nexaggerated, as there were then not a dozen buildings of any size in the\ntown. Such as they were, however, they were wiped out. I was in\nKamloops with my family at the time.\n\"On May 24, 1887, we had horse racing on Granville street, which\nhad just been cleared, and the stumps taken out from Georgia to Pacific\nstreet. And that reminds me that there was one other house south of\nHastings on Granville, a very rude sort of building in which Mr. Charleson\nboarded the promiscuous gang of men who were clearing the townsite.\nDownstairs was an eating room, and upstairs at night the men lay like sardines round the walls. This building is still standing with a pretentious brick\nfront, and is, I think, the next building to the north of the Cecil Hotel.\nThere are still standing between Davie and Pacific streets a number of\nwooden houses which were brought bodily from Yale when the C. P. R.\nCompany moved their shops from Yale to Vancouver the first year that\nthey operated to this city, they having previously used the machine shops\nerected by Mr. Onderdonk for his construction work. These houses were\nfor years\u2014and may be yet\u2014known as Yale Town.\nCAPTAIN BOLE'S CANNON.\n\"At the same time that we were building a branch from Port Moody\nhere we were constructing one into New Westminster. Mr. John Hendry\nwas then Mayor of that city, and afforded us every facility in his power,\nas also did his successor, Mr. Dickinson. Early in 1886, as mayor,\nMr. Dickinson turned the first sod of that branch alongside the old building at New Westminster, which had been the first Parliament House of\nthe Province of British Columbia, and was opposite the gate of the penitentiary. Upon that occasion Captain Bole\u2014afterwards Judge Bole\u2014\nturned out with his company of artillery, and, when the sod was turned,\nfired a salute. A number of Chinamen had climbed up into an apple\ntree near the spot in order to look down at the proceedings. Captain\n116 Bole's cannon, by design or by accident, was pointed right at them, and\nwhen it was fired, the Chinamen, whether from fright or from some other\ncause, I don't know, dropped to the ground in a shower, like apples when\na tree is shaken, much to the amusement of the crowd. I have seldom\nseen anything funnier.\"\nA NARROW ESCAPE.\nAnd upon this humorous note I think we will leave Mr. Cambie\u2014\nfor is he not an Irishman? No, there is just one other note\u2014also humor-\nOPEN AIR CONCERT, ENGLISH BAY, VANCOUVER\nous. I asked the G. O. M. if he had ever taken part in public life or run\nfor office, and this was his reply: \"Once upon a time after I had settled\ndown at Vancouver they decided to put the waterworks under a commission, and the members of that commission were to be elected. I was\none honored in that way. Being at Montreal at the time of my election,\nI telegraphed my thanks to one of the newspapers in the form of an advertisement. When I returned to Vancouver I found that the by-law had\nbeen repealed and that my services were not required. Never had I\ndreamed of public office, and I felt, after that incident, that a kindly\nfate had determined that I should escape this toil of the snarer, at any\nrate, and I have managed to do so ever since.\"\nSo I left the explorer and builder of the great railway through the\ncanyons of the Fraser, laughing heartily.\nHOE\n117 f\nENGLISH BAY, VANCOUVER f\nft gii. imtif\nL ","@language":"en"}],"Genre":[{"@value":"Books","@language":"en"}],"Identifier":[{"@value":"F5821_M6_R6_c5","@language":"en"}],"IsShownAt":[{"@value":"10.14288\/1.0056530","@language":"en"}],"Language":[{"@value":"English","@language":"en"}],"Notes":[{"@value":"43 illustrations","@language":"en"}],"Provider":[{"@value":"Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library","@language":"en"}],"Publisher":[{"@value":"[Vancouver] : News-advertiser, printers","@language":"en"}],"RBSCLocation":[{"@value":"Rare Books and Special Collections","@language":"en"}],"Rights":[{"@value":"These images are provided for research and reference use only. Written permission to publish, copy or otherwise use these images must be obtained from Rare Books & Special Collections http:\/\/www.library.ubc.ca\/spcoll\/","@language":"en"}],"SortDate":[{"@value":"1914-12-31 AD","@language":"en"},{"@value":"1914-12-31 AD","@language":"en"}],"Source":[{"@value":"University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. F5821.M6 R6 c.5","@language":"en"}],"Subject":[{"@value":"Moberly, Walter, 1832-1915","@language":"en"},{"@value":"Canadian Pacific Railway Company","@language":"en"},{"@value":"British Columbia --History","@language":"en"},{"@value":"Vancouver (B.C.)","@language":"en"}],"Title":[{"@value":"Blazing the trail through the Rockies : the story of Walter Moberly and his share in the making of Vancouver","@language":"en"}],"Type":[{"@value":"Text","@language":"en"}],"Translation":[{"@value":"","@language":"en"}],"@id":"doi:10.14288\/1.0056530"}