CONTENTdm
British Columbia Historical Books Collection
McCowan, Dan
"A short bibliography: p. 259-260. Includes information on the explorers and pioneers of the Rockies."-- Lowther, B. J., & Laing, M. (1968). A bibliography of British Columbia: Laying the foundations, 1849-1899. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, p. 204. "Bibliography: p.259-260. Brief accounts of interesting people and events in the Rockies, including A.P. Coleman, Father Pat, James Outram, Conrad Kain and Bill Hartley."-- Edwards, M. H., Lort, J. C. R., & Carmichael, W. J. (1975). A bibliography of British Columbia: Years of growth, 1900-1950. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, p. 178.
xi, 266 pages : frontispiece (portrait), portraits, photographs ; 23 cm
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Hill-top tales $3.50 HILL-TOP TALES By DAN McCOWAN These twenty-four delightful and leisurely stories are Dan McCowan's first published observations on his fellow-men whom he finds I just as amusing " as the furred and feathered tribes of which he writes so affectionately and so well. Set in the Canadian Rockies during the last century and a half, these rambling tales make up a highly informal history of the opening of the West, full of the humour, the open-handedness, and the courage that, spells pioneer. Dan McCowan has lived in Banff since 1911 and served his turn as fire warden as well as chronicler of the mountains. Many of these stories were told to him beside the camp fire by the men who lived them, others he has culled from the journals of explorers, fur traders, and missionaries — sources that are not readily available to-day. There are tales of high adventure, astonishing endurance, ugly crime, and heart-warming friendship; of dauntless mountain-climbing, gold hunting, trail blazing, and scientific research. Through them, all runs Dan McCowan's love of the beauty of the mountain lands and his appreciative chuckle at a good yarn. They are happy reminders of the grand old days when, as Howard Sibbald put it, "a calendar was more useful to us than a clock jjffl Most of the twenty-four illustrations are photographs taken by Dan McCowan. That of the King and Queen, taken at Banff in 1939 and accompanying the charming description of their visit, is a C. P. R. photo. MACMILLAN HI $3.50 HILL-TOP TALES By DAN McCOWAN These twenty-four delightful and leisurely stories are Dan McCowan's first published observations on his fellow-men whom he finds " just as amusing " as the furred and feather- ed tribes of which he writes so affectionately and so well. Set in the Canadian Rockies during the last century and a half, these rambling tales make up a highly informal history of the opening of the West, full of the humour, the open-handedness, and the courage that, spells pioneer. Dan McCowan has lived in Banff since 1911 and served his turn as fire warden as well as chronicler of the mountains. Many of these stories were told to him beside the camp fire by the men who lived them, others he has culled from the journals of explorers, fur traders, and missionaries — sources that are not readily available to-day. There are tales of high adventure, astonishing endurance, ugly crime, and heart-warming friendship; of dauntless mountain-climbing, gold hunting, trail blazing, and scientific research. Through them, all runs Dan McCowan's love of the beauty of the mountain lands and his appreciative chuckle at a good yarn. They are happy reminders of the grand old days when, as Howard Sibbald put it, " a calendar was more useful to us than a clock ". Most of the twenty-four illustrations are photographs taken by Dan McCowan. That of the King and Queen, taken at Banff in 1939 and accompanying the charming description of their visit, is a C. P. R. photo. MACMILLAN HILL-TOP TALES HILL-TOP TALES By DAN McCOWAN, F.Z.S. Illustrated from photographs by the author and others TORONTO THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED 1948 Copyright, Canada, 1948 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED All rights reserved—no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper. HA To Pioneer Men and Women of the Canadian Rockies This Book is Gratefully Dedicated PREFACE This book deals mainly with the doings and adventures of many interesting people who have appeared against the magnificent back-drop of the Canadian Rockies and there acted their several parts in the greatest of all dramas. It has frequently been stated that these mountains lack historical interest and one readily admits that in this respect they cannot compare with the Alps of Switzerland or the Grampians in Scotland. However, within the last century or so men and women drawn from all quarters of the globe have visited or settled in the highlands of Western Canada and all unconsciously perhaps have provided the warp and woof from which history is woven. A few of these persons have had memorial cairns and tablets erected in their honour ; others are remembered by mountain peaks, rivers, trees of flowers bearing their names. Many, however, having played a worthy role and made a dignified exit, are all too soon forgotten save by those with whom they had personal contact. During a long residence in the Rockies I have been fortunate in making friends with many individuals of whom mention is made in the following pages. I have also gained intimate knowledge of the mountain trails trodden by the feet of pioneer pathfinders and of the great western rivers along which the voyageurs paddled their frail canoes. vii Vlll PREFACE From sundry volumes in my library of early Western Canadiana I have drawn freely, hoping that the extracts may promote further interest in the diaries, journals and other works of explorers, fur traders, missionaries and travellers whose writings are not now readily available to present-day readers. In most instances mention is made in the text of the source from whence material has been gleaned. A short selected bibliography has also been included in the book. To many " old timers " in the Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia I am indebted for timely aid and friendly advice the while compiling this book. I am grateful to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for permission to include the chapter on the visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth to this region and acknowledge with thanks the use of the fine photograph of their Majesties at Banff kindly furnished by Canadian Pacific Railway. In planning the book and in typing the manuscript my wife has proved indeed a very present helpmate. D. McC. Banff, Canadian Rockies, 1947. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Stone Boilers 1 II. A Great Canadian Diarist 12 III. The Map Maker. ... 26 IV. An Emperor Rode in the Rockies 38 V. Black Gown 45 VI. The Palette of Paul Kane 59 VII. Pot Luck 73 VIII. Plant Hunters 82 IX. Trail Blazer '. 96 X. Rainbow Trail 112 XI. Pioneer Days in the Foothills 124 XII. Silver City 138 XIII. Old as the Hills j 146 XIV. Father Pat 156 XV. Alpine Ups and Downs 162 XVI. Dirty Work at the Crossroads 172 XVII. Stone Dead 185 XVIII. The Big Hill. 191 XIX. Guiding Stars 199 XX. A Warden of the Selkirks . 209 XXI. Burden Bearers 215 XXII. Bow Bells 223 XXIII. Yee Chow, Herbalist 227 XXIV. "What's Cooking?" 233 XXV. Gathering of the Clans 241 XXVI. Royalty in the Rockies 247 Index 261 ix SQmS^n^!!»»S!U8»i^gR«i68!^nQn8ISSnS!S;Sl! ILLUSTRATIONS King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at Banff Frontispiece Facing Stoney Indian Chief 18 Hanging Glacier Lake 18 Simpson Cairn. Banff-Windermere Highway 34 White Man Pass, Canmore, Alberta 34 Paul Kane painted Assiniboine Indians. 50 Site and Ruins of Old Bow Fort 66 McCoun's Gentian 66 Catherine Schubert Memorial, Armstrong, B.C 114 Sir James Hector 114 Howard E. Sibbald ;.... 130 Andrew Sibbald 130 Turbulent Kicking Horse River 146 Mount Eon 162 Father Pat's Church, Windermere, B.C 162 Mount Burgess, Field, B.C j 178 Mount Stephen, Field, B.C 178 Cathedral Mountain 194 Conrad Kain 194 Bill Hartley 210 At Banff Highland Gathering 210 Trail Cook 226 XI HILL-TOP tales Chapter I THE STONE BOILERS Among the lodges of the Assiniboine Indians time has wrought many changes. Young braves, denied the thrill of scalping enemies and the excitement of horse stealing are now to be found in chapps and spurs on ranches and at rodeos. Their elders are more at home in a jalopy than on a cayuse. Bows and arrows have been supplanted by the can opener and the wonder is that tipis are not equipped with zippers. Squaws are not so much concerned about possible scarcity of kinnikinik for pipe fuel as they are with the high cost of cigarettes. Dusky children are more familiar with all-day suckers than with pemmican. Most striking perhaps is the impact of white civilization on given names. Romantic and poetic names such as may be found in the pages of Longfellow and Fennimore Cooper no longer abound ; nor at a Calgary lunch counter or in a foothills railroad coach is one likely to rub elbows with a Big Bear or a Little Weasel. Photographing two small papooses in an Indian camp a year or two ago and inquiring about the names of the children I was somewhat astonished to be told by the mother that one was Joyce and the other Beverley. However, it is reassuring to learn that recently a Calgary diamond merchant, on being admitted as a Blood HILL-TOP TALES Brother into the Assiniboine tribe, was given the altogether appropriate name of Shining Stone. The Assiniboine Indians, part of the Sioux Nation, formerly ranged over a large portion of Central Canada. Their tents were pitched and their camp fires gleamed on the banks of Red River and by the shores of Lake Superior. At that time their domestic utensils were similar to those of the Eastern tribes who made use of earthenware and stone dishes in preparing and serving food. Later, the tribe migrated westward to the Great Plains and henceforth becoming nomadic in habit, found that clay pots were too fragile and platters of slate too cumbersome when the sole means of transport was by dog travois. Broiling a Winnipeg Goldeye fish or roasting a Prairie Chicken was of course a simple matter but boiling a nice cut of buffalo or antelope meat could hardly be done without a vessel in which water could be contained and brought to the proper temperature. Pondering over this problem by the embers of a tipi fire, some unknown domestic scientist amongst these primitive people had a bright idea. He, or more likely she, discovered that water might be boiled in a buffalo hide, not over a fire but in a shallow hole in the ground. A basin-shaped depression scooped in the earth was lined with a pliant pelt, hair side down, and filled with water. From a buffalo dung fire within easy reach, heated stones were carried in tongs of green willow and held in the water until it boiled. The meat was then placed in the steaming vat, kept simmering by relays of hot stones, and presently was cooked. THE STONE BOILERS Because of this custom these people were called Stone Boilers, which name in time was shortened to Stoneys, the Indian equivalent being Assiniboine. Intermittent warfare and an inherent spirit of wandering resulted in the tribe gradually drifting towards the foothills of the Rockies and thus in the dubious dicker in which ownership of the Western Plains passed from red landlords to white, the Stoneys made choice of a main reservation within shadow of these great mountains and in that tract where the benign Chinook wind has origin. There they still contrive to live, largely from hand to mouth, striving to eke out a meagre dole by rearing horses and cattle on land that is rich in stones suitable for primitive thermal cookery, and little else. When the Stoneys chose this sterile area as their future home they had not thought of being henceforth fettered to a farm, or of depending entirely on agriculture for a livelihood. Ploughing a straight furrow or tending a flock of sheep had little appeal to men who were primarily hunters. So, in country drained by the Bow River and its tributaries, they settled in what then was indeed happy hunting ground. Buffalo and antelope, in diminishing numbers but still plentiful, ranged the foothills. The pine forests and the brushy areas on the eastern slope of the Rockies were tenanted by great numbers of deer. One recalls that a few years previously a traveller journeying from Edmonton to Ghost River by dog team had remarked that the whole countryside resembled a vast deer park. In the mountains nearby lived bands of wild sheep, herds HILL-TOP TALES of goats and innumerable moose. Most of the streams and such lakes as Minnewanka, Spray and Kananaskis, were well stocked with trout but the Stoneys were indifferent to fish diet — which may or may not have influenced the tribe in leaning toward the Methodist form of religion rather than to that of Catholicism. From the circumstance that these people possessed no written language it is difficult to give precise knowledge of their history prior to the coming of white men to Western Canada. Nor will future historians be greatly aided, as otherwise they might well be, by the study of Assiniboine place names. Even when the red incomers had tracked the winding valleys and traversed the high- passes in the Rockies they were singularly averse to bestowing topographical names. It is strange that such prominent landmarks as Rundle and Castle mountains, such sparkling streams as Cascade and Spray and such colourful lakes as Moraine and O'Hara should have no Indian names. It is to the credit of the white explorers, James Hector, A. P. Coleman, Walter Wilcox and others, that today the map of the Canadian Rockies bears such melodic Stoney place names as Sunwapta — turbulent river, Wenkchemna —ten, Chaba—beaver, Pobokten—owl, and Waputik — white goat. Around the forts and trading posts of the interior, the Cree language was used almost exclusively ; in fact, one having a fair working knowledge of that tongue could, with appropriate subsidiary gestures, carry on conversation not only with Cree but also with Black- foot, Blood and Stoney peoples. Consequently mis- THE STONE BOILERS sionaries, traders, police and others found it profitable to be able to speak in Cree, with the result that few white men gained more than a smattering of the vocabulary of other tribes native to the plains of Western Canada. Amongst that few was Frank Sibbald of Jumping Pound who, in boyhood days, earnestly studied the Stoney language and who became more fluent in it than contemporary orators within the tribe. Not only did he master the vernacular of the Indians among whom he lived ; in native singing and dancing he was unequalled. I well recall his stirring performances of Prairie Chicken and of Deer dances in which the rhythmic vocal accompaniment was no whit inferior to the deft footwork. In these vivacious dances he far excelled the native exponents who, braves and squaws alike, paid handsome tribute to his artistry. In their seasonal hunting trips throughout the Saskatchewan River basin the Stoneys gained expert knowledge of that mountainous region. This knowledge was later of great value in the exploration of the Rockies in which guides of the tribe had a prominent part. Hector on the Palliser Expedition and Dawson in his exhaustive survey of the eastern slope, were in large measure dependent on natives familiar with trails and watercourses. Prominent amongst these guides was Nimrod, so named by Dr. Hector owing to his alleged prowess as a hunter. His Indian name translated, " The one with a thumb like a blunt arrow ", was a regular tongue-twister. Of the Stoneys who made contact with early white travellers on mountain trails HILL-TOP TALES Job Beaver had more definite knowledge of the region than any other man of the tribe. Professor Coleman, the eminent geologist, speaks of him as "A born explorer ". Job, however, had little patience with men of science probing amongst the rocks and mapping the peaks and the rivers. There was more money to be made in fur and it was as a trapper that he became familiar with the then uncharted wilderness of the Shining Mountains of Canada. Job Creek, about ten miles south east of Maligne Lake and directly west of Nordegg was named in honour of this pioneer native trail blazer. On turning from scenes of bitter tribal warfare and from plague-ravaged camps on the plains, the remnant of this once great clan, sought and doubtless found solace in the wooded valleys and on wind-swept moorlands of the Rockies. There, unmolested by enemies, they pitched their smoke-stained tents in the land of heart's desire, a land where the moose browsed and the beaver splashed, where rills of sweet water might quench their thirst and abundance of dry fuel feed their fires. There in sheltered glades and in the ruddy glow of camp fires at dusk the hunters had many a stirring tale to tell of the fortunes of the chase. Although poorly armed the Stoney archers and gunners stood in dread of no animal save perhaps the mountain lion. Despite the fact that this creature is far from courageous it was undoubtedly a bugbear to red men everywhere and in many tribes was regarded as being uncanny. I think perhaps that habitual awe of the beast arose largely from its being THE STONE BOILERS so often heard but seldom seen, for of all the large mammals in North America the cougar is most furtive. One white hunter in Montana who has slain no fewer than seventy of these lions stated that he had not seen any one of the victims until the animal had been treed by his dogs. In the lodges of the Stoneys a necklace of Grizzly claws formed a badge of courage in the gaining of which many an ambitious hunter was badly mauled. In his book The Rockies of Canada, Walter Wilcox tells of a valorous Stoney named Susie fighting a desperate duel with a grizzly. After firing at and wounding the animal it attacked him savagely, whereupon he cleverly went into a clinch, thereby preventing his huge opponent from dealing a knockout blow, and gaining opportunity to draw his hunting knife. When almost overcome he succeeded in stabbing and slaying the bear but the contest came perilously close to ending in a draw. Not so fortunate was James Jonas whom the Rev. John McDougall speaks of as "A mighty hunter ". While on a hunt some sixty miles from Morley the Indian encountered a grizzly which earlier in the day, unknown to him, had been wounded by another member of the party. The animal instantly sprang at him and injured him so severely as to leave him for dead. Afterwards he had apparently revived and had crawled to a large fir tree nearby, doubtless in the hope that he could climb to safety. Too weak from hurts to accomplish this he evidently was sitting with his back to the bole of the tree when the beast returned. Jonas 8 HILL-TOP TALES succeeded in firing several shots at it but in his condition the aim was poor and the infuriated bear tore him to pieces. The Jonas family was apparently unfortunate in dealings with denizens of the woods and hills. Mr. William Fear, an early resident of Banff who traded with the Stoneys, told me that Paul Jonas while eating porcupine meat had a quill stick in his throat. Being in the remote region about Kananaskis Lake and far from medical aid he tried himself to dislodge the dangerous obstruction by means of a freshly peeled willow wand but in this was unsuccessful. In a very short time he choked and succumbed to the effects of a somewhat unusual mishap. Formerly ranging far and free in pursuit of game the Stoneys in modern times have gradually been more and more restricted in hunting. A few years ago a young man of the tribe stood in a Calgary court of justice charged with an infraction of the game laws of the province of Alberta, to wit — shooting waterfowl out of season. During course of the trial a rather amusing interlude served to brighten an otherwise prosaic afternoon in court. The Crown Prosecutor, the late Mr. McKinley Cameron, an eminent Calgary barrister who was possessed of a ready wit, a keen sense of humour and who loved to touch off wordy fireworks in court, on this occasion treated his hearers to a sample of the alert mentality which ever stood that brilliant jurist in good stead. Mr. Ross Peacock, acting in defence of the accused, argued that when the ancestors of his client signed the THE STONE BOILERS treaty with Queen Victoria at Blackfoot Crossing they were given to understand that hunting might be carried on as formerly, provided that it did not interfere with settlers on the land. He further strove to bolster his argument by pointing out that in the deed then drawn up and signed by the representative of the Crown and the Chiefs assembled there was no mention of a close season for game animals, birds or fish. Cameron contended that nevertheless the red men are amenable to Provincial laws subsequently passed. During the verbal fencing bout which ensued it was revealed that lawyer Peacock, who had for long taken keen interest in the welfare of the Stoneys was, some time previous to this trial, made a Councillor in the tribe. Twitted good-humouredly by his legal opponent he volunteered the information that he was quite proud of the honour and of his Indian name " Walking Bear ". " Mr. Peacock/' said Cameron, with tongue in cheek, " don't you think that there has been some mistake ? It seems to me that you have become a Douk- hobor rather than a Stoney-." Reverting to the opening paragraph of this chapter and to the influence of modern civilization on the present-day descendants of the Stone Boilers, the writer believes that the passing of Peter Ear furnished the superlative example of how a familiar custom of the White Man may unwittingly be given an unfamiliar twist by his red brothers. Peter, full of years, died at Morley in the winter of 1941 and was buried in the cemetery on the reservation. Whilst the missionary, HILL-TOP TALES Mr. Staley, was present and officiated as clergyman, the oration or " Good Talk ", as the Stoneys callife was delivered by an old native named Roll-in-the-mud. So eloquent did this Mark Antony wax, extolling the virtues and praising the valour of the deceased, that the entire assembly were moved to give Peter Ear three rousing cheers and a Tiger. In contrast to the singing of dolorous hymns or with ear-splitting salvoes from muskets this seems a welcome innovation, one that might possibly serve to dispel the funereal fog in which the mortuary ceremonies of the White Man are usually shrouded. Descendants of a former fierce and warlike tribe, the Stoneys have successfully bridged the difficult chasm lying between savagery and modern civilization. Today the boys and girls gathering joyfully around a Christmas tree are not neglectful of the traditional music of the tribe. The women, highly skilled in the ancient craft of tanning, and unsurpassed in beadwork embroidery, give generously of their time and talents for the relief of their suffering fellow-men in far off lands. Annually, in mid-summer week, the men erect a spacious leafy arbour, not for renewal of base and cruel Sun Dance orgies, but as a place where they and their women and children may assemble to commune with the Great Spirit who guides the destinies of powerful nations and keeps watch over lesser tribes. On a little knoll in the Stoney reservation, overlooking the Bow River and within sight of the Rockies, there is a hallowed acre in which the pioneer missionaries and teachers, together with their devoted help- THE STONE BOILERS 11 mates, have long rested from their labours. George McDougall who made " straight in the desert an highway for our God " ; his modest Quaker-born wife, Elizabeth Chantler, " The good-hearted Praying Woman " ; and Andrew Sibbald, a schoolmaster who taught by example as well as precept, and his heroic young wife who was as sunshine to the settlement — these brave people, these great Canadians, are there interred. With them is a loyal bodyguard of Stoneys who many years ago, in bartering their ancient freedom for a new and perplexing mode of life, were vastly encouraged and aided by the group of stout-hearted friends who now sleep beside them on a sunny hillside at Morley. Chapter II A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST ALEXANDER HENRY Assuredly the Samuel Pepys of the Great Plains of Western Canada was fur trader Alexander Henry the Younger. A diligent servant of the North West Company he was stationed at various trading posts on the prairies during the first decade of the nineteenth century. Employed in collecting the skins of animals and in serving native customers with groceries and rum, his spare time was devoted to the tending of a small flock of poultry, to vegetable gardening in season and to faithfully posting a diary which, down through the years, was to prove his most outstanding memorial. Almost every page of this diverting journal reveals the fact that he was remarkably observant, had a well- developed sense of news value and was delightfully naive in the recording of current local events. For instance, under date of April 30th, 1804 he wrote : " Indians having asked for liquor and promised to hunt well all summer, I gave them some. Grand Geule stabbed Capot Rouge, Le Boeuf stabbed his young wife in the arm, Little Shell almost beat his old mother's brains out with a club and there was terrible fighting among them. I sowed garden seeds." 12 A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST 13 Again in February, 1806, he made further comment on the behaviour of his red neighbours when under the influence of alcohol : Men and women have been drinking for three days and nights, during which it has been drink, fight, — drink, fight, — drink and fight again, — guns, axes and knives their weapons, — very disagreeable." Previous to the merging of The Hudson's Bay and North West trading companies there was unhealthy rivalry between the two firms. Competition for pelts brought in by trappers and hunters resulted in wholesale corruption of the natives, rum being dealt out, not by the glass but by the keg. Indeed, one marvels at the miracle of transportation which enabled the traders to have such vast stocks of liquor at their disposal in utterly remote parts of the country. Stationed at White Mud Fort, about half-way between Edmonton and Prince Albert and nearly half-way round the globe from the nearest distillery, Henry remarked : " One customer, a Mrs. Batailleur, came for liquor. I gave her a nine-gallon keg of rum and sent her off." From which one gathers that in those days no meagre dole of a few paltry ounces of spirits but rather a full- handed measure was deemed necessary to stimulate trade with the drouthy Indians. Rolling out the barrel brought far-distant tribesmen with their peltries post haste to the fur-trading establishments, whereas a " Wee Deoch an' Doris " proved of little or no value as a lure. 14 HILL-TOP TALES Of course, it should be understood that the | firewater " ladled out to the red men was far from being potent; by the time they quaffed it the fire had been pretty well quenched. Indeed, it is doubtful if until the coming of the fur traders, the braves and squaws had swallowed so much river water. Following a prolonged drinking bout they were undoubtedly fuddled, not so much from intoxication as from being simply waterlogged. And it is interesting to note that some tribes carried their liquor like a country squire, whilst others were easily | soused". The formula for a keg of rum intended for consumption by the Blackfeet was one gallon of spirits to eight gallons of water. The Stoneys and the Crees demanded a stronger tipple and would be content with nothing less than six quarts to the nine-gallon keg. The Sioux proved ugly customers when served with refreshment weaker than one quart of liquor to one gallon of water. As a dutiful servant of his Company, Henry was of course obliged to trade liquor for beaver skins. He did not relish the business, however. Fully conscious of the manner in which the natives were being debauched and degraded and witness to many tragedies resulting from over-indulgence in rum, he was glad when the trading companies were amalgamated and a stop was put to serving alcohol, strong or weak, to the native tribesmen and women of Western Canada. Henceforth life on the plains was much more tranquil and much less disagreeable. At each of the prairie forts to which he was posted and always while on the trail Henry made notes on A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST 15 the prevailing weather, recorded the comings and goings of flocks of waterfowl and, while on the Red River, wrote about the multitude of passenger pigeons in migrant flight. Prairie plants and the date of their flowering had a place in his journal and any unusual congregating of insects was set down in the notebooks which he undoubtedly carried. In the field of Natural History he was outstanding among all the traders of bygone days in the West. Many of his observations on the larger mammals such as the buffalo and the grizzly bear revealed hitherto unknown facts about the life history of these creatures. At that time the enormous herds of buffalo furnished food to the numerous grizzlies then inhabiting the coulees and poplar bluffs on the prairie. A significant entry in the journal tells of the abundance of these grey bears in a region from whence they have long since disappeared : " Batailleur killed five buffaloes but grizzly bears were so numerous that they devoured three before they could be conveyed to the tent." The loss of five or six tons of buffalo meat was, however, insignificant when one considers that the wild cattle were present in millions. The diarist paints many graphic word pictures in describing the amazing spectacle presented by the hordes of these animals grazing on the open prairies. At one post on the Red River he wrote : 16 HILL-TOP TALES " Jan. 14 At daybreak I was awakened by the bellowing of buffaloes. I got up and was astonished when I climbed the S.W. bastion. On my right the plains were black, and appeared as if in motion S. to N. Opposite the fort the ice was covered ; and on my left, to the utmost extent of the reach below us, the river was covered with buffalo moving northward. I climbed into an oak tree for a better view. I had seen almost incredible numbers of buffalo in the fall, but nothing in comparison to what I now beheld. The ground was covered at every point of the compass, as far as the eye could reach, and every animal was in motion. Jan. 15 the plains were still covered with buffalo moving slowly northward." He observed also that although many thousands of animals were drowned annually in crossing rivers on rotting ice in early spring and vast numbers of them were destroyed in swift-running grass fires sweeping across the plains in autumn, their ranks were not perceptibly thinned. As he looked at the great herds passing by, probably the most stupendous movement of meat on the hoof that any white man had ever seen, he concluded that were it not for the curse of almost continuous inter-tribal warfare the natives might well be the most happy and contented people on this earth. It is perhaps from the small and relatively unimportant items in the diary of this journalist of early days in the West that one gleans something of the troubles endured and the resourcefulness displayed by people living in wilderness places and under primitive condi- A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST tions. Thus we find such entries as that in which Henry describes how he preserved cucumbers from his garden by pickling them in vinegar made from maple sap. Again, he tells of the labour involved in building chimneys when there was no stone available. Constructed of clay, and often from necessity, of mud, the flues were frequently defective and life in the houses was almost intolerable by reason of constant smoke. Nor were the fireplaces at all durable or even stable as is revealed in one pithy entry : 9 This morning early whilst I was still in bed the chimney in my room fell down in the middle of the floor — an ugly business." From recording sundry architectural mishaps the trader turns a facile pen to society news. So far as one can learn there were no night clubs nor dance halls amongst Indian lodges but nevertheless the marital troubles of red husbands and wives were akin to those of Pale-faces in modern times. In the most matter- of-fact manner Henry, the peerless prairie columnist, jotted down this artless entry : " L'Hiver hamstrung his wife to prevent her gadding about ; the rascal cut the tendons of both heels while she attempted to defend herself." Wherever Henry was stationed for any length of time he made a garden and in the pages of his manuscript there is frequent reference to triumphs and fail- 18 HILL-TOP TALES ures in horticulture. Untimely frost and slashing hail played havoc with growing plants ; stealthy Indian women and children stole his potatoes ; and often the grasshopper was a burden. But like all good gardeners, he was incurably optimistic and when success did crown his efforts there followed a jubilant paragraph in his book of daily doings. On the evening of October 24, 1803, it was pleasant for him to pen these lines : 11 took in my potatoes, 420 bushels, the produce of 7 bushels exclusive of the quantity we have already eaten, and what the Indians have stolen which must be about 200 bushels more. I measured an onion 22 inches in circumference ; a carrot 18 inches long and at the thick end, 14 inches in circumference ; my turnips weighed from 9 to 12 pounds each without the leaves." Of wild fruit there was also abundance, raspberries, strawberries and Saskatoon or Service berries being gathered in large quantities. In one post in Manitoba a goodly quantity of hazel nuts laid away for winter use proved a bonanza to the many mice quartered in the neighbourhood of the storehouse. Edible wild roots occasionally served as an emergency ration when buffalo were distant and meat was scarce. At such time the prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta) formed an important source of food to the Indians and, as Henry records, the tuberous roots of this plant once actually saved the white population of Portage la Prairie from starving to death. A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST 19 Posted to Rocky Mountain House in the late autumn of 1810, Henry and his men spent several months overhauling the buildings which stood badly in need of repair. He also did much towards securing the good will of customers from the various tribes who came to trade at this remote general store. Ever observant and curious he noted that when thirty-five mean of the Assiniboines arrived at the Fort they were accompanied by two hundred and thirty dogs. He counted them. These, of course, were their draught animals, each one attached to a " travois " on which the chattels of their masters were loaded. Meeting an extraordinarily corpulent Indian chief named Gros Blanc he had, to his great regret, no scales on which to weigh the " Man Mountain " but he " measured his bulk". Five feet and seven inches around the chest and six feet and four inches around the waist were the main dimensions of this fine target for an enemy archer. Mounted as he was on a white mule, he must have formed quite an imposing spectacle. With the palisade of the Fort again in good order and with all the houses ship-shape and spic and span in a fresh coat of whitewash, Henry decided to take what he called a " jaunt" into the main chain of the Rockies. At 5.30 a.m. on Feb. 3rd, 1811, in clear calm weather with the thermometer registering 12 degrees below zero he set out on this journey, his destination being Howse Pass, then the main passage between the plains and the Pacific. With him were two men and three dog teams and travelling on the frozen surface of the Saskatchewan River they made rapid 20 HILL-TOP TALES progress. Next morning before breaking camp they, as they thought, prudently cached a quantity of meat in a natural refrigerator against possible food shortage on the return journey. A good-sized cavity was cut in the river ice, then three feet thick, and a small hole was pierced through the bottom to let the water rise and fill it. The meat was placed in the water-filled trough and left to freeze. This was common practice designed to foil the wolf and the cunning wolverine. Heading westward along the course of the river Henry made frequent stops to admire the wonderful array of mountains and wished that some day he might return when there was verdure in place of snow. In the early days of fur trading few people engaged in the business took time out to look at scenery but keen trader Henry had an eye for more than beaver pelts and bills of lading. He gloried in the splendour of a fine sunset and on this particular trip was entranced by the beauty and majesty of towering mountains and dazzling snow- clad peaks. He found good hunting and an ideal camp site on historic Kootenay Plain some distance south-west of present-day Nordegg. This mountain meadow had formerly been a great market place on which Indians from the west side of the Rockies met and did business with their countrymen resident on the prairies. The Kootenay Indians excelled as armourers and brought to this place of exchange the superfine bows which were ever in demand by the buffalo hunters of the plains. Henry, ever on the quest for information, A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST learned something about the making of these primitive but highly efficient weapons. He writes : " The bows fashioned by the natives west of the mountains are well made and of three kinds, — the horn, the red cedar and the plain wooden bow. The horn bow is made of a slip of ram's horn. The outside is left undressed, but overlaid with several successive layers of sinew glued to the thickness of one-third of an inch and then covered with rattlesnake skin. The inside is smoothly polished and displays the several ridges of the horn. These neat bows are about three feet long and throw an arrow an amazing distance. The red cedar bow is made of a slip of that wood overlaid with sinew and glue ; it is nearly four feet long and throws an arrow a great distance. These people make the most handsome bows I have ever seen. I have known a Piegan to give a gun or a horse for one of those made of sinew." Bird life was somewhat scarce on Kootenay Plain in mid-winter but of such members of the feathered tribe as were present at that bleak season Henry took notice. He watched many water ouzels dipping in icy pools in the Saskatchewan River and saw one flock of at least one hundred ptarmigan, " Very beautiful birds and very good eating." He mentions seeing some old camps of the Indians from Columbia Valley, relics of the days when these people came thither to secure a supply of meat. | It must have been a very convenient place," said Henry ; I as buffalo and sheep 22 HILL-TOP TALES are always numerous, moose and red deer are also plentiful, jumping deer, grizzly bears and other animals peculiar to the country are also found here." From which one might well imagine that Noah's Ark had dumped a considerable part of its cargo on the shores of the North Saskatchewan. Travelling westward from Kootenay Plain the party soon reached " The Forks ", a little way above the Saskatchewan River bridge on the present-day highway linking Lake Louise and Jasper. This was the head of navigation for canoes in summer, and passengers for Oregon traversed the long portage to the Columbia on horses or on foot. The Plains, one of which was known as Kootenay Park, were evidently a favourite grazing area for large numbers of buffalo, several herds of which were there when Henry passed. He noted, however, that only in summer did these wild cattle venture farther to the west than the mountain tarn now known as Glacier Lake. Ascending Howse Pass the snow was very deep and travel was tiresome yet Henry could not but admire the play of light and shade on the glittering landscape or mark the on-rush and thunder of avalanches. He was much impressed by many immense snow mushrooms and even went to the trouble of measuring one of these giant caps resting on top of a tree near the summit. It was thirty-six feet in circumference, ten feet thick and was elegantly shaped like a great inverted bowl. Between the base of this bonnet of snow and the snow on the ground there was a clear space of two feet. A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST 23 Reaching the summit they drank from Blaeberry Creek, flowing westward to the Pacific and having viewed the country sloping down towards the Columbia River, retraced their steps and soon were again on the banks of the Saskatchewan. On the way home they were not so fortunate in finding game. Sheep and goats prudently remained far up on the rocks beyond gunshot range, while the buffalo and the ptarmigan also discreetly absented themselves. On Kootenay Plain, Henry made this interesting entry in the journal : " I roasted the meat of a wolf and a loup-cervier (Lynx) for the dogs which had been three days without food but they would not eat it. I then had it boiled and broiled but to no purpose, — some of them would take the meat into their mouths and having begun to chew it, would instantly throw it out." Pushing on in bitterly cold weather the men tightened their belts and consoled themselves with vision of a hearty meal at the spot on the river where they had cached food in the ice-box. Alas, a pack of hungry wolves had forestalled them by discovering the meat before the water had time to freeze solid. One can clearly understand that during the next day, their last on the snowy mountain trail, the men were " discontented and surly". However, all reached Mountain House in safety and no doubt immediately raided the kitchen. 24 HILL-TOP TALES Scattered throughout the pages of this intensely fascinating diary are many items pertaining to the natural history of what is now the province of Alberta. One of these describes the Chinook Arch, familiar to all residents of the foothills of that province. At Rocky Mountain House Henry wrote : | Nov. 7th. — Weather cloudy except in the South West where I have observed the sky to be perfectly clear for several days past while every other part of the heavens is overcast with thick black clouds." Henry also made an interesting observation regarding the hibernation of grizzly bears. Nowadays these animals are almost entirely vegetarian in habit but in Henry's time their chief source of food lay in the flesh of buffalo, then available at all seasons. Consequently, the grizzlies, freed from the menace of famine, were not obliged to hibernate. Commenting on this the trader notes under date of Dec. 27th, 1810: " Our hunter killed a large grizzly bear, somewhat lean and as usual with them in that condition, very wicked. He narrowly escaped being devoured. They seldom den for winter as black bears do, but wander about in search of prey." WTien Henry came to Western Canada he brought with him a few domestic fowls. These, carefully guarded from weasels, coyotes, foxes and hawks, A GREAT CANADIAN DIARIST 25 accompanied him in all his wilderness wanderings and provided him with an occasional omelette, a welcome change from the monotony of buffalo meat. The doings of his hens had frequent mention in his diary and in all probability the birds formed a link with the civilization from which he was so long sundered. In common with his vegetable garden they 'reminded him of home. Amidst bloody brawls around the trading posts, in imminent danger of assault by red-skinned hoodlums, even when threatened with loss of his scalp, it was entirely characteristic of the man that he should calmly turn to the building of a chicken coop or to the setting of a broody hen. Packing his dunnage and crating his poultry he bade farewell to Rocky Mountain House in 1811 and henceforth continued his duties as a fur trader at far-away Fort George near the mouth of Columbia River. Crossing from the Fort to a vessel anchored in the estuary in 1814 his small boat was upset and there his journal breaks off abruptly, for there he came to a sudden and tragic end. Chapter III THE MAP MAKER ! He delighted to wander in unknown places, to see unknown rivers, the labour being lessened by his zeal for information ". Ovid David Thompson was the most famous geographer in the history of Canada. Born in London, England, in 1770 and gaining but a meagre education in a charity school in that city, he was bound apprentice to Hudson's Bay Company when but a lad of fourteen. Sailing to Canada on board the Prince Rupert he served the Company of Adventurers for some years at Fort Churchill and at Cumberland House. His contract having then expired he transferred to the rival North West Company of which, later, he became a partner. While Thompson was supposedly a fur trader, and it was as such that his numerous lengthy journeys were made, he had but little heart for dickering about pelts or in haggling over gunpowder or tobacco. Most happy when outdoors with sextant and notebook, he was actually a great scientist who, in course of time, explored and accurately charted an enormous area of the then unknown mountain ranges and water courses of Western Canada. It should be stated that in this important task he had the whole-hearted support of the North West Company. 26 THE MAP MAKER 27 His first contact with the Canadian Rockies was made in the summer of 1800. Stationed at Rocky Mountain House on the North Saskatchewan River he then made several short trips through the foothills, drumming up business for his firm. On the first of these commercial outings he rode south to Red Deer River and thence upstream to Williams Creek, some thirty-five miles west of present-day Didsbury. There he had chance meeting with a hunting party of Kootenay Indians who, doubtless after a sales talk, were prevailed upon to return with him to the trading post. It is noteworthy that members of this minor tribe from across the Rockies should then have had the audacity to hunt and fish, or in other words, to poach, on the eastern slope of the mountains and in the game preserves of the Crees, the Piegans and the Assiniboines. In bartering with the natives Thompson was sternly opposed to the general practice of dishing out fire-water to customers. He made no requisition for liquor when ordering goods but nevertheless his superiors in the firm shipped kegs of rum to their manager at Mountain House. By some strange coincidence these were invariably lost in transit or else quite badly stove in by repeated falls from the saddle of a capricious pack- horse. Tobacco, measured out by the yard, was in great demand by Indian customers and in the store at this remote post were many fathoms of the fragrant weed. Brightly coloured beads in strings and in bulk, bangles, rings both plain and fancy, were exciting items carried constantly in stock. Packets of vermilion powder (Rocky Mountains rouge), needles and buttons 28 HILL-TOP TALES were amongst the "notions" displayed to tempt native women buyers. Hawk's bells, commonly used elsewhere in falconry, were doubtless purchased for personal adornment but one is somewhat at a loss to discover why the squaws bought large quantities of gartering. Towards the end of that year (1800) David made a more lengthy trip to gain further knowledge of the country along the base of the Rockies. From his post on the Saskatchewan he journeyed southward and presently stood on the heights above the north bank of Bow River and watched great herds of buffalo grazing on what is now the site of the City of Calgary. He then continued as far south as Highwood River and turning north again traversed the now renowned Turner Valley, crossed Elbow River and Jumping Pound Creek and again forded the Bow near the mouth of Ghost River. Although winter was nearing and the weather was far from ideal for camping out he was curious to learn where the Bow River made its exit from the mountains and with this in view he headed west as far as what is now Exshaw. Leaving his men and horses there he continued up the valley on foot to where he could view " a sea of hills and peaks to the west". This vantage point was undoubtedly the shoulder of Grotto Mountain, above what is now known as The Gap. Turning about again and skirting the eastern base of the Rockies a two days' ride brought him home again to Rocky Mountain House. After several years spent in surveying and mapping a vast area of what is now northern Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Thompson returned to his old THE MAP MAKER 29 post at Rocky Mountain House in October, 1806. During the succeeding winter, between intervals of trading, he busied himself in planning what proved to be the most important undertaking of his career, namely, that of exploring and charting the course of Columbia River from its source to where it enters the sea. His plans for the great adventure completed and all preparation made, the spring of 1807 saw him well on his epic journey. Soon the smoke from his camp fire rose above Kootenay Plain and presently he stood with his men on the summit of Howse Pass, at that time the only known route across the Rockies of Canada. At once he was on the Pacific slope and on the banks of the Blaeberry River, a tributary of the Columbia. Of this small stream he wrote, I May God in his mercy give me to see where its waters flow into the ocean, and return in safety." Reaching the big river at a point between Golden and Donald he there spent two weeks building canoes. In these frail craft the party paddled upstream to the lake now known as Windermere. There a so-called Fort was built which at least furnished lodging during the following winter. On this voyage the leader made note of an important tributary of the Columbia, naming it Rapid River on his chart. Fifty years later this impetuous mountain torrent was renamed Kicking Horse. While Thompson was getting out the logs for his Fort at Windermere, news of the battle of Trafalgar filtered slowly through to remote trading posts in the wilderness of the West. Thus, in honour of the victor 30 HILL-TOP TALES- in that decisive action the explorer gave the name Nelson's Mountains to the ranges now known as the Selkirks and the Purcells. -In the latter chain a lofty peak directly across the valley from Sinclair Canyon still bears the name of the heroic admiral who fell in the hour of his greatest victory. Upon the opening of river navigation in the spring of 1808 Thompson sailed southward to the head of Columbia Lake and transporting his small craft overland at Canal Flat re-embarked on Kootenay River on another voyage of discovery. Exploring the region around Fort Steele and portaging around Kootenay Falls near Bonners Ferry in Idaho he presently reached Kootenay Lake. From the Flat Head Indians in that area he bought a large quantity of furs, which were at once carried overland on horses by way of Moyie and Cranbrook to the Fort at Windermere. No sooner home — if such the rude quarters in Columbia Valley could be so termed — than the tireless voyager was off again, this time eastward across the Rockies with the valuable furs obtained from the Flat Head hunters. Starting about the middle of June and sailing speedily down Columbia River, he crossed Howse Pass and reaching the headwaters of the Saskatchewan River paddled half-way across Canada to Lake Winnipeg and thence to Rainy Lake in Ontario. There on August 2nd he delivered the far-travelled bales of precious pelts to the Chief Factor in charge of the important fur-trading depot of the North West Company. That was indeed an amazing journey, one in which THE MAP MAKER 31 freight and passengers were carried over an intricate and difficult route and for a distance of at least two thousand miles in only six weeks' time. One might have thought that such an arduous and hurried dash across the continent merited a well-earned rest. But the map maker had unfinished business to transact with a large river in the West and by mid-October he was again toiling over Howse Pass on his way to the Windermere Fort. On this crossing of the Rockies he killed two buffalo near the summit of the Pass and saw a herd of these animals on the British Columbia side of the mountains, a most unusual occurrence. Part of the course of Columbia River had been charted but the necessity of gaining a livelihood stood for long between the eager geographer and the project which lay nearest his heart. During the next two years he made further crossings of the mountains while carrying trade goods and furs to and from his post at Windermere. At Rocky Mountain House in 1810 his way to Howse Pass was barred by Piegan Indian braves, then at war with the Kootenays. Suspecting that he was conveying arms and ammunition to their enemies, the Piegans placed an embargo on west-bound cargoes on the Saskatchewan River and would fain have raided the laden canoes of the fur trader. But Thompson had timely warning of the blockade and thereupon determined to search for and if possible to discover an alternate route over the Great Barrier of the Rockies. While the Piegan warriors were cooling their heels on Kootenay Plain Thompson made a long detour, 32 HILL-TOP TALES descending the Saskatchewan River from Mountain House to a point due west of present-day Wetaskiwin. There he transferred his goods from canoes to the backs of twenty-four pack-horses and at once struck off in a north-westerly direction through an unknown and perplexing maze of mountains. After one month of steady and strenuous travel the tattered cavalcade reached Athabasca River some distance below Jasper Lake. During the latter part of the trip the party was on the verge of starvation — in fact two of the men were sent back to the base for relief provisions. They too had a lean time on the way, having been compelled to subsist on one old horse and four skinny dogs while on the mission of mercy. Arriving at Athabasca River where, with luck, he might possibly have wintered, Thompson immediately set the men under him tcrwork in the building of a meat house. Wild game seemed entirely absent from the woods and hills and lacking such there seemed but little point in labouring on the construction of a food cache. However, be that as it may, the very fact that they were employed in building a larder was doubtless helpful in sustaining the morale of the gaunt and hungry men. When the two weary men returned from Mountain House with but a woefully small supply of food Thompson decided to try to extricate himself and party from what was undoubtedly a tough spot by risking the extremely hazardous journey across the mountains from the Athabasca to the Big Bend of the Columbia. Ascending Whirlpool River and skirting the base of the THE MAP MAKER 33 mountains later named Brown and Hooker, the daring explorer put all to the touch and in so doing discovered and traversed Athabasca Pass, which had not heretofore been trodden by the foot of any white man. Subsequently this pass became the most important Canadian trade route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and continued so until a transcontinental railroad spanned the Dominion. Camped on the snowy Alpine pass in mid-January of 1811 the leader of the party wrote a letter to his employers giving information of his whereabouts and doubtless telling about the newly discovered passage through the mountains. He had no paper at hand and so this progress report was inscribed on tablets of wood hewn from the trunk of a pine tree. It was bitterly cold on the wind-swept lofty defile, with the thermometer ranging between twenty-five and thirty-five degrees (F.) below zero. Yet Thompson never failed to make record of the latitude and longitude of nightly camping places, nor did he neglect the daily posting of entries in his field journal. Descending to Columbia River without mishap the restless explorer would fain have pushed on to his Fort at Windermere but most of the men demurred and thus he was compelled to winter in the woods at the mouth of Canoe River. There they built a boat of cedar boards laced together with fibrous tree roots and thus the site of this primitive shipyard has ever since been known as Boat Encampment. In this makeshift craft Thompson with three of his men paddled upstream, and doubtless baled incessantly, all the long way to Wind- HffiSSSB888JKSi8S«fflgSSin 34 HILL-TOP TALES ermere. There, after a breather, they again embarked, this time in a more staunch vessel and having left upper Columbia Lake behind, were soon some two hundred and forty miles down Kootenay River. Portaging from that stream to the Saleesh and Spokane Rivers they again re-entered the Columbia River. Continuing downstream and charting the bends and reaches, the rapids and reefs on the great river, Thompson reached the sea at Astoria by midsummer. There still remained, however, a goodly stretch of the Columbia which he had not yet seen. And so, after a few days at the coast he set off again, eager to complete his survey. Paddling north-east to Spokane River he pushed through the Arrow lakes and on by what is now Revelstoke. Portaging around Priest Rapid and the Rapid of the Dead he again reached the head of the Big Bend and stepped ashore at Boat Encampment, proud in the knowledge that at last he had mapped every foot of the mighty river from its source to where God in his mercy gave him to look upon the ebb and flow of the tide. In these later days, with swift and luxurious means of transportation available by land and sea and in the air it is difficult to estimate the hardships and perils undergone by this man Thompson on his fifty thousand miles of journeying in Western Canada. His survey of Columbia River, over twelve hundred miles of intricate watercourse, was in itself a monumental task. Reading between the lines of his journal one well understands with what satisfaction he penetrated the regions now called Oregon and Washington and, some- White Man Pass, Canmore, Alta. Simpson Cairn, Banff-Windermere Highway I THE MAP MAKER 35 where in the neighbourhood of Walla Walla, on a half sheet of notepaper tied to an upraised pole, proclaimed that henceforth this part of North America was British Territory. Above it he hoisted the flag of his country. Three more crossings of the Rockies by way of Athabasca Pass and the activities of David Thompson in Western Canada were ended. He confessed to being weary of incessant travel on turbulent rivers and through precipitous mountains. Over more than a decade his lodging for eleven months in each year had been but a tent, and often food was scarce and poor. He returned to Montreal in 1812 and for two years thereafter was fully occupied in preparing his great map of the West, now a prized possession in the archives of the province of Ontario. From 1816 to 1826 he was employed on a survey of part of the boundary between Canada and the United States. Financial worries, chief of which were loss of a large mortgage on a church in Ontario and failure in business by two of his sons, whose debts he paid, together with partial blindness, rendered the twilight years of his life but a burden. In his manuscript journals which covered a period of sixty-six years and whose bulk would fill a birch bark canoe there is but little mention of his wife, Charlotte Small, whom he married in 1799 in Lat 55.26.15 N. Long. 107.46.40. (That was near Isle a la Crosse north-west of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.) David took his fourteen-year-old bride on a honeymoon trip to Grand Portage on the west shore of Lake Superior. 36 HILL-TOP TALES Here was located one of the most important fur-trade establishments of the North West Company, prior to the founding of Fort William. To Charlotte its warehouses and wharves and congregation of people must have seemed a veritable metropolis, for this was her first glimpse of the outside world. Afterwards, and in course of time, with her children, she accompanied the explorer on many of his wilderness journeys. She is said to have been a quiet and gentle person greatly devoted to her husband and family. David Thompson departed this life at Longueuil, Quebec, on February 10th, 1857. Surviving him but a few weeks, Charlotte was buried beside her life partner on Mount Royal above the city of Montreal. No picture of David is known to exist but it is said that he greatly resembled the author of Pilgrim's Progress. Little recognition of the work of this great man was forthcoming during his lifetime and for many years thereafter. Indeed, for long both he and his wife lived in dire poverty and many years were to elapse before their graves were even marked. Now a granite column marks the last resting-place of the " Greatest of Canadian Geographers " — a memorial in the form of a replica of his Fort stands on the shore of Windermere and, spanning the Saskatchewan River at Rocky Mountain House, there is now a massive modern bridge bearing his honoured name. Far away to the West, in the heart of British Columbia, the blue green waters of the Thompson, one of the world's most beautiful rivers, forms the finest of all memorials to this intrepid explorer who discovered THE MAP MAKER 37 an overland North West Passage and who methodically mapped a vast area of Canada hitherto unknown. Strange to say, he never saw the foaming sparkling stream which was named for him and by which he is best remembered. Chapter IV AN EMPEROR RODE IN THE ROCKIES By the side of a modern highway in south-eastern British Columbia stands a trim stone cairn erected to commemorate the passage of an outstanding figure in Canadian history, a traveller with a zest for high speed and great milage. In the year 1841 Sir George Simpson, on a journey around the world, took a short cut across the Rockies and on August 7th entered British Columbia by way of the pass and river which ever since has borne his name. No white man had previously traversed these mountains by this route but the Little Emperor of the great North West was, as ever, in a great hurry and as usual spared neither horse-flesh nor halfbreed voyageur on trail or waterway. One feels confident that had this dynamic Governor of Hudson's Bay Company lived in the twentieth century, he assuredly would have owned the swiftest automobile and the speediest motor boat in the Dominion. Further, to have winged his way along the skyways of Canada, to have flitted from one remote Fort to another would have filled his soul with ecstacy and his heart with joy. His tour of the globe, undertaken shortly after he was knighted by Queen Victoria, was in the nature of a combined business and pleasure jaunt. Afflicted by partial loss of sight, he nevertheless had a keen eye 38 AN EMPEROR RODE IN THE ROCKIES 39 toward the interests of the Company and at all trading posts en route made an inspection of the merchandise in stock and an audit of books that was far from cursory. Under his keen scrutiny a false entry in a ledger was as obvious as a bale of inferior pelts or a barrel of rancid salmon. Across the prairies and over the Rockies this peppery little Scot had as his companion a Canadian, John Rowand, Chief Factor at Fort Edmonton. Of him Sir George wrote in his private journal : " A shrewd level-headed man, — has made more money for the Company than any three of his colleagues, — bold as a lion." Then he added naively ; | Will not tell a lie but has sufficient address to evade the truth when it suits his purpose." Father Lacombe called Rowand, " A grand little fellow ", and spoke eloquently of his ability as a trader and of his worth as a friend. At that time the great trade route from Fort Garry to Fort Edmonton was by way of Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan River but on this occasion canoes were abandoned in favour of saddles and the travellers crossed the plains on horseback. This part of the journey, covering about one thousand miles, was undertaken in torrid weather, with frequent thunder and with at least one severe hailstorm. Yet in spite of broiling sun they urged the steeds along for a distance of fifty miles each day. Between Forts Carlton and Pitt a large company of emigrants consisting of some twenty-three families was overtaken. Of this meeting Governor Simpson writes : 40 HILL-TOP TALES " In honour of the occasion, the first perhaps on which two large groups of civilized people had met as friends on these vast prairies, I put the men in high spirits with a dram, while a donation of wine, tea and sugar rendered the women the merriest and happiest lot of gossips in the land." This band of pioneer settlers was en route to the Pacific coast. On the last stage of the prairie trip from Fort Pitt to Edmonton the Simpson party was guided by a western half-breed named Napoleon Bonaparte who, however, answered readily when addressed as "Sandfly". It is interesting to note that Edmonton a century ago was not indifferent to the fine arts. Simpson remarked, "This Fort, inside and outside, is decorated with paintings and devices to suit the tastes of the savages that frequent it. Over the gateway are a most fanciful variety of vanes ; but the hall, of which both the ceiling and the walls present the grandest colours and the most fantastic sculptures, absolutely rivets the astonished natives to the spot with wonder and admiration." Of that great Fort, by far the most historic in Alberta, and of these murals, no trace remains. The site was deemed necessary for the erection of a mere Provincial Parliament House and so the old Fort with its precious relics was rudely dismantled and destroyed. From the " Big House " at Edmonton the cavalcade fared forth on a difficult stage of the journey, abandoning baggage carts and relying solely on saddle and pack-horses for transportation. At first the leader of AN EMPEROR RODE IN THE ROCKIES 41 the party was quite proud of the half hundred horses comprising his stud, speaking of the animals in glowing terms. Later, with added and painful experience of the obstinacy and guile of pack-ponies, he upbraided them in words best described as vitriolic. It is quite evident that the passing of a century has brought little change in the language of horse wranglers or in the deportment of equine burden bearers on Rocky Mountains trails. Heading southward through the foothills and at a camp site on Smoking Weed River, a creek in the neighbourhood of present-day Wetaskiwin, Sir George met Rev. Robert Rundle, noted Wesleyan missionary, who was then returning from a tour of the eastern fringe of the Rockies. Rundle had been in the Ghost River region and doubtless gave the Governor some first-hand information about how best to enter the mountains in that area. Access to the main chain of the Rockies was made by way of Lake Peechee, so named by Simpson in honour of the native Indian guide now leading the party into the hills. This large lake, many times renamed and now known as Minnewanka, has recently become an important source of electric power. Camping near the present site of Banff and fording Bow River on a raft, the group followed the course of Healy Creek and presently reached the summit of what has ever since been called Simpson Pass. Sunshine Ski Chalet, well known in winter sports circles throughout the Dominion, today occupies a site not far from this Pass. On the crest of the continental divide the trav- 42 HILL-TOP TALES ellers filled their kettles from a small spring whose rivulet flowed westward, and henceforth they were on the Pacific slope. Before leaving this flowery upland Sir George had his initials, together with those of John Rowand, carved in the trunk of a stout tree. Many years later this tree, bearing record of the first white men known to have crossed the Rockies by this route was fortunately discovered, and a cross-section with the initials is now the property of James Brewster of Banff. Descending through the more dense underwoods of British Columbia, Simpson at once noted the larger growth of timber and grew a bit testy about the briers and thorns which impeded his progress and wrought havoc with his breeches. He must also at that time have been in somewhat of a tantrum due to the nonappearance of a guide with fresh horses who had agreed to meet them at the Bow River crossing. This tardy person later turned up near Invermere of today with a sorry string of nags and was doubtless properly chidden for his delinquency. A halt was made and a meal eaten at the confluence of Simpson and Vermilion Rivers where the Simpson memorial cairn now stands. Henceforth the record, until the prairie-like country north of Cranbrook was reached, consists of entries pertaining to the fording of streams, to the hacking of trail through tangles of fallen timber and to the waywardness of horses in general and particularly of pack-animals. There is, however, mention of the Red Rock at Radium and of the impressive Sinclair canyon which is described in AN EMPEROR RODE IN THE ROCKIES 43 true Victorian phraseology as " A horrid Gorge", A short detour was made in order to visit the hot springs now known as Fairmont and here a local guide named Berland testified to the healing virtue of the waters. Crossing the south-eastern corner of British Columbia and part of Idaho the horsemen, now in ragged raiment and with their mounts badly galled, reached Fort Colville, north of what is now Spokane, having completed a trail ride of nearly two thousand miles and of seven weeks' duration. During this lengthy journey they were in the saddle over eleven hours daily and must have been relieved to embark on Columbia River and to drift gently downstream in luxurious ease ; at least one is tempted to paint such a picture. But the impetuous, fidgety Governor would brook no delay and so the river trip from Fort Colville to Fort Vancouver was made at the rate of one hundred miles a day. Bidding farewell to Peechee at Colville, Sir George made the guide very happy by presenting him with a telescope to which he had taken a great fancy. However, he did not live long to enjoy the use of the marvellous far-seeing eye, for some little time afterwards, Peechee, who like most men of his tribe was a great gambler, staked and lost a horse in a game of chance. For some reason or other he welched, refusing to deliver up the nag ; whereupon the wrathful winner promptly drew a gun and blasted a large hole in the defaulter, ending his career as a guide and a punter. A fine mountain in the Fairholme range near Banff bears the name and perpetuates the memory of Peechee. 44 HILL-TOP TALES From Fort Vancouver, Simpson and Rowand sailed northwards in the S. S. Beaver, inspecting various fur- trading posts on the seaboard of British Columbia. They saw no fewer than one thousand Indians engaged in salmon fishing at the mouth of the Fraser River. They commented on the fact that the pioneer steamboat burned cordwood much faster than the men could cut it, hence vexatious delay. It is noteworthy that at Sitka, then part of North America ruled by the Czar of Russia, Sir George Simpson, the virtual ruler of North-west Canada, conferred with the resident Russian Governor with the object of prohibiting the use of rum on the North Pacific coast. Some years afterwards when John Rowand lay on his death-bed at Fort Carlton, he expressed the wish that he might be interred, not in the Indian country where he had served his chief so long and well, but amongst his own kin in Montreal. So, upon his death, the Governor placed the body of his loyal servant and companion in a cask of rum and shipped it in his own canoe to Fort Garry. Somewhere between that Red River post and Fort William the superstitious voyagers refused to have anything further to do with this unusual cargo. Thereupon Sir George, in honour bound, had the remains shipped from Hudson Bay to England and thence back to Montreal for burial. There too, in course of time, the Little Emperor of British North America, having come to journey's end, was laid to rest beside his friend on a little knoll named Mount Royal above the St. Lawrence River. Chapter V BLACK GOWN In Jasper National Park there is a prominent mountain called Roche De Smet, named for a Catholic priest who visited the Canadian Rockies one hundred years ago. When he set out on his travels his provident sister had furnished him with no fewer than two hundred shirts. When he reached Rocky Mountains House on the North Saskatchewan River he had but one. shirt left — that which he then wore. He was no gambler nor had he fallen amongst thieves. A very large and big-hearted man, his vast stock of wearing apparel was apparently donated bit by bit to needy native wayfarers with whom he came in contact. Pierre-Jean De Smet was born in Belgium in 1801 and came to North America as a Jesuit missionary. Stationed at Fort Vancouver in Oregon Territory he determined to visit the heathen Blackfoot Indians of Canada and on September 4th, 1845, he had set out on the lengthy northern journey and was camped on the shore of Columbia Lake. While the many letters written en route and addressed to his Superior are in the main ecclesiastical, the good Father also made note of travel incidents and commented on scenery in what might be considered quaint phraseology — one seldom regards mountains, and particularly Rocky Mountains, as being "ludicrous". 45 46 HILL-TOP TALES At that time the lakes forming the source of Columbia River were inhabited by a vast population of waterfowl. De Smet said that the waters were literally covered with ducks, geese and swans. Enormous shoals of spent salmon, exhausted after swimming over a thousand miles upstream, died in the lakes and, drifting ashore, polluted the air for miles around. Down from the mountain sides and out from the forests came grizzly and black bears, wolves, eagles and hawks, all eager to partake of the bountiful feast of fish. By the evening camp fire at Columbia Lake the reverend gentleman evidently listened to tales of the woods and hills and imbibed some supposedly local nature lore. In a letter written in this camp he set forth the manner in which bears contrive to exist throughout the winter. From this narrative we read : | After feeding for some weeks on stranded salmon the bears then retire to their dens, there to pass the four sad wintry months in complete indolence with no other pastime or occupation than that of sucking their four paws. If we may credit the Indians each paw occupies the bear for one month and, the task accomplished, he turns on the other side and begins to suck the second, and so on with the rest." When Columbus set sail on his great voyage of discovery this same fabulous bear story was current in Europe. It still persists in both Old World and New and ranks with that of the immortal toad embedded in solid rock or with the activities of the mythical Side-Hill Gouger. Somewhere near present-day Windermere Father BLACK gown 47 De Smet fell in with a French-Canadian trapper named Morigeau. He came from St. Martin's near Montreal and had reigned as sole white monarch of this wilderness region on the upper Columbia for twenty-five years. By means of carbine and beaver trap alone he had successfully supported himself, his wife and a family of seven children. Mass was offered, Madame Morigeau and her brood were baptized and a large Cross was erected on an open meadow which the priest named | The Plain of the Nativity ". This devout Catholic, remote from civilization and overjoyed at meeting a pastor of his own faith, gave a dinner in honour of his guest. Judging from De Smet's account it was a full and memorable meal. Some odds and ends of buffalo, venison, beaver tails, hare, partridges, etc. made | An agreeable, substantial, famous soup ". The first course, by a mere coincidence, consisted of baked bear paws. Then followed a whole roast porcupine and the muzzle of a moose, the latter pronounced delicious. Finally the great kettle, containing a hotch-potch or salmagundi, was placed in the midst of the dinner group and each one helped himself according to his taste. After enjoying a bath in the now well-known Fairmont Hot Springs and having bestowed a blessing on the hospitable "Canadians" the black-robed traveller re-mounted his horse and left Columbia valley by way of Sinclair Canyon and Pass, " A narrow defile where the light of day was darkened amidst huge bold barriers of colossal rocks". Thence fording Kootenay River, then known as Arcs-a-plats, he sup- 48 HILL-TOP TALES posedly ascended Vermilion River but as his geography was faulty in spots it is altogether likely that he travelled towards the continental divide by way of the stream since known as Cross River. One evening both De Smet and his guides were greatly impressed by a magnificent display of northern lights, apparently as significant to native tribesmen of North America as to former clansmen in Scotland. The priest commented : " When the Aurora presents itself after a disastrous combat the spectacle consoles the afflicted heart of the savage warrior. From the mountain's top we contemplated the dance of the manitous or spirits and the glorious entrance of departed champions into the country of souls." All of which is strangely reminiscent of Flodden Field and of Aytoun's lines " All last night the merry dancers Shot across the trembling sky Fearful lights which never beckon Save when kings or heroes die." In remarking on some of the quadrupeds of the mountains the pilgrim priest was plainly apprehensive of the Great Grey Bear | Who grinds his teeth expressive of his rage ". The cony, one of the most characteristic small mammals of the Rockies, also was seen along the way and described quite accurately as " A diminutive mountain hare six inches high whose biography has not yet found a place in natural history ". Its general behaviour was summed up in the terse but BLACK GOWN 49 trite remark, " Amuses itself amongst stony rubbish ". After much fatigue, labour and 1 admiration " De Smet with his guides traversed the high lands separating the waters of Oregon from those of the south branch of the " Sascatshawin" or ancient Bourbon River, so named before the conquest of Canada by the British. On the summit of the pass, since known as White Man, another emblem of the Christian faith was raised and named The Cross of Peace. It has long since fallen and mouldered but is kept in remembrance by Cross River, which has its source in the pass through which De Smet journeyed on his way to meet the Blackfoot. In his book titled Oregon Missions this trail-riding Catholic priest makes no particular mention of that lofty and impressive monolith later named Mount Assiniboine. On the map outlining his travels there is, however, a mountain, Pyramid, which from its position may possibly be one with the Matterhorn of the Rockies. Further evidence of this is in a significant sentence of a letter written in camp at the Cross of Peace : " The monuments of Cheops and Cephren dwindle into nought before this gigantic architectural cliff of nature." The journey through Spray Valley was very pleasant, the scenery diversified by % Enameled meads, magnificent forests and lakes in which there is abundance of trout". However, in crossing Goat Range the party was obliged to travel for six hours through a desolation of burnt timber where millions of half consumed 50 HILL-TOP TALES trees lay extended in every direction. This part of the trip was described as vexatious, presenting nothing but obstacles and contusions to men and horses. Emerging from this area of charred and blackened forest the little cavalcade reached the River des Arcs or Askow (Bow River) and camped in the neighbourhood of what is now the mining town of Canmore. Descending Bow Valley on the following day they encountered, and camped beside, a band of Mountain Stoneys, probably near the Gap. There were nine wigwams of them, the men then engaged in hunting Big Horn sheep and white goats but largely dependent on porcupines for flesh food. De Smet writes that at this time these prickly beasts were present in large numbers throughout the region. The Indians had with them a long file of famished dogs loaded with various goods and chattels. Each sorry mongrel was obliged to carry a load of about thirty or forty pounds and all were voracious beyond belief. Retiring to rest and sleep and neglecting to barricade the entrance to his tent, the worthy Father was righteously wrathful on discovery that in the night the hungry hounds had eaten the collar off his cassock, both of his shoes and one leg of his leather breeches. Travelling north through the foothills of the Rockies the Jesuit missionary arrived at Fort de Montagnes (Rocky Mountain House) on Oct. 4th. There he was greeted and welcomed by Hudson's Bay Factor John Harriott, " One of the most amiable gentlemen I have ever met. Although a Protestant he received Paul Kane Painted Assiniboine Indians of this Type BLACK GOWN 51 me, an entire stranger, with a politeness and cordiality truly fraternal." So far De Smet had met no Blackfoot, largely due to a state of war then existing between that tribe and the Crees. At that time the principal pastime or hobby of the western plains Indians was horse stealing and apparently the Crees were highly proficient rustlers. In a letter written at Rocky Mountains House the priest stated that in the previous summer, they had stolen no fewer than skhtindred horses from the Black- feet. At Mountain House an interesting meeting took place between pastors of widely difiteent religions. Rev. Robert Rundle, on a periodical thousand-mile round of his parish, arrived at the trading post while De Smet was there. Although the latter made no mention of the chance meeting in his correspondence one learns from the diary of Rundle that it was a pleasant encounter. Said the Protestant parson : " Father De Smet did not interfere with my Indians at all although he had plenty of opportunity to do so. I met him again at Edmctton where we passed part erf the winter together. It is doubtful if a Roman Catholic priest and a Westeyan missionary ever met and parted on such friendly terms." Reaching Edmonton towards the close of the year and in bitter winter weather, De Smet was consequently prevented from re-crossing the Rockfe® as planned. Again the H.B.C. played the part of good Samaritan, giving food and shelter to the wandering Black Gown until teavel could be resumed in early spring. Factor 52 HILL-TOP TALES John Rowand made him quite at home in the Big House and proved as ever an admirable host. Of the inhabitants of Edmonton the Father simply remarked that they were unusually pious, paying strict attention to religious duties. Sometimes food was scarce at Edmonton but the Oregon visitor was fortunate in lodging there while the larder was well stocked. In the capacious ice house hung five hundred buffalo carcasses, besides white- fish stacked like cord-wood, thirty thousand of them, each one averaging four pounds in weight. It had been a good year for ducks and geese and of these the storehouse contained several wagon loads. Beaver were so plentiful in the foothills that a hunter might Mil one hundred in a month. Great log fires burned brightly in the wide stone fireplace. There were books to read, letters to write, and in the long evenings music and much conversation beguiled the time. Occasional excursions outdoors made a pleasant break in the daily round. One of these was to the Catholic Mission at Lake Ste. Ann fifty miles distant. De Smet had little to say about the mission but was impressed by the fact that from this one lake during the previous autumn no fewer than seventy thousand whitefish had been taken. Had all the tomorrows at Ste. Ann been Fridays the missionaries would have been in no quandary. Life was congenial and tranquil at Fort Edmonton but as the days lengthened the thoughts of the priest kept turning towards Oregon. The Blackfoot were still on the warpath and in no mood for religious instruc- BLACK GOWN 53 tion. On March 12th, 1846, De Smet bade farewell taFactor Rowand, to pastor Rundle and to all about the Fort and started on the homeward journey. With three Metis, or half-breed, guides and a like number of dog teams hauling his sleighs, he headed westward towards Athabasca River and Jasper House. At that remote trading post he tarried for about a month during which time he was guest of Colin Fr-aser, who had been official piper to Hudson's Bay Company Governor Simpson and whose bagpipes still skirled in the gloaming amidst the mountains and across the quiet waters of the rippling lake. At Jasper Lake the priest met an old Iroquois Indian named "The Travelling Sun". With him was his family numbering no fewer than thirty-six individuals. He had been in this alien territory for forty years and with his numerous satellites subsisted entirely on fish and game. During that long period no priest had ever crossed his path and this chance meeting with one of his own faith was a great event. De Smet found that most of these people could pray in Iroquois language and that all were eager for further knowledge of spiritual things. He baptised all members of this isolated tribe save Travelling Sun himself and did like service for Mrs. Fraser, her four children and two servants at the Fort. Desiring to honour De Smet, these Indian people " Discharged muskets in the direction of a high mountain in the shape of a sugar loaf and with three loud hurrahs gave it my name." In a Jasper House letter the missionary gives the height of Roche De Smet as 54 HILL-TOP TALES 14,000 feet but, like Mts. Brown and Hooker, it was considerably reduced in stature by official surveyors and is now marked on the map as but 8,330 feet above sea level. Leaving Jasper and ascending a trail by the side of Whirlpool River, a swift stream which enters the Athabasca near Mt. Edith Cavell, De Smet approached Athabasca Pass in ever-deepening snow. On May 6th he met a party of Hudson's Bay men on their way from Fort Vancouver to York Factory'. With them were two British military officers, Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour who, in the previous summer, had crossed the Rockies on their way to the Pacific Coast, presumably by way of White Man Pass. This was their second meeting with the far-travelled priest, as he had entertained them at Kalispell Lake. Two mountains near the source of Spray River in Banff National Park perpetuate the memory of Vavasour and Warre. Hitherto the ponderous De Smet had travelled on hanrseback, in canoes and by dog sled. Now in a white Alpine wilderness and with a long steep climb between him and the " Divide ", it became necessary to resort to snow-shoes. He had never before walked on "raqueffetes" and, being decidedly corpulent, was somewhat perturbed as to his ability to surmount the hill of difficulty lying directly ahead. In fact, he had discussed the matter of this barrier with Messrs Harriott and Rowand at Rocky Mts. House and Edmonton, and ttey both assured Mm that on account o§ farsr heavy build it would be absolutely impossible BLACK GOWN 55 for him to accomplish the crossing of Athabasca Pass on snow-shoes. However, by a month of strict dieting at Jasper (he called it a vigorous fast) his surplus weight was so greatly reduced that when he donned the webbed footgear the forthcoming ordeal seemed less formidable. The snow was sixteen feet deep and the reverend gentleman laboured up hill and down, taking many falls and being continually embarrassed by his awkward footwear and frequently entangled in the branches of trees. Often he had to be assisted to his feet, a service which was rendered with great kindness and good humour. The spectacle of a fat man floundering over and sprawling into great snow banks was no doubt amusing to his companions. Nevertheless, and incredible as it may seem, he made thirty miles the first day and camped at night on the height of land. There is no record of his having written to Rowand and Harriott advising them of his success in crossing the pass but doubtless he did so, and with justifiable pride. If the man had a bulky body he assuredly was also possessed of a stout heart. Next morning the little group descended the western slope, a five-hour hike, and thence followed the course of Wood River to its confluence with the Columbia at the head of the Big Bend. Melting snows had swollen the streams and the progress of the weary travellers was greatly impeded. They forded Wood River forty times, often waist deep in the rushing icy torrent. For the first time on this long and arduous pilgrimage De Smet confessed to very great fatigue : 56 HILL-TOP TALES " The continued soaking swelled my legs. All the nails of my toes came off and four times on that day I found my strength quite gone. I should certainly have perished but for the help of my men. I would not dare undertake such a hazardous journey again." Knowing that the Oregon missionary was on his homeward way the Hudson's Bay people whom he had encountered a few days previously had thoughtfully cached a store of food for his party at Boat Encampment on the Columbia. This free gift of a sack of flour, a large ham, part of a deer and cheese, sugar and tea in abundance was truly manna in the wilderness. In less than an hour after reaching the Encampment he and his men were all snugly seated around the kettles and roasts, laughing and joking about the trials of a novice on snow-shoes on an arduous seventy- mile tramp across the Rockies. Embarking in a barge piloted by an experienced Iroquois guide, the ragged and leg-weary priest descended the great river without incident and by midsummer had again resumed work amongst the tribes in the region around Fort Vancouver. Some years later he moved eastward into Idaho and for long had his mission headquarters at St. Mary's in Montana. In a letter written at that station he told an interesting story about a shirt — not one of the two hundred mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, but one which, even judging by recent ceilings on haberdashery, brought a staggering price at second hand. BLACK GOWN 57 The first white man seen by the Coeur d'Alene Indians in their part of the country wore a calico shirt which had an all-over polka-dot pattern. To the superstitious red men these small spots on the cloth were highly suggestive of smallpox and they concluded that this speckled garment had supernatural powers, in other words, that it was actually the great Manitou of the contagious disease which so plagued the natives of North America at that period. This train of thought led them to reason further that, by obtaining possession of the shirt and by having the medicine men of the tribe exalt it to an honoured position amongst their assemblage of Gods, their nation might thenceforth be free from the menace of the dread scourge. They bought the shirt from the owner, who received in exchange almost as many horses as would have stocked a fair-sized ranch. On all solemn occasions the dotted and tattered old shirt tail fluttered bravely in the breeze when carried in processions and for years was an object of great veneration. After fifty thousand miles of travel by land and water in North America the veteran missionary, Pierre De Smet, came to trail's end at St. Louis in 1873 and was there laid to rest. A few years before his life ended he, like Father Lacombe in Canada, was active as a Peace Envoy, striving earnestly to prevent armed strife between the native tribesmen and alien white incomers who sought possession of the land. In 1868 De Smet ventured, alone and without fear, into the heart of the encampment of that renowned warrior, Sitting Bull. The embittered Chief had announced his in- 58 HILL-TOP TALES tention of exterminating all Palefaces within reach but, hearkening to the voice and heeding the counsel of the grey-haired black-gown from Belgium, was convinced that IA Peace is of the future of a conquest For then both parties nobly are subdued And neither party loser." Chapter VI THE PALETTE OF PAUL KANE On a winter day in 1845 a sledge and team of dogs belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Edmonton broke through the ice of Saskatchewan River and was lost. The sled, laden with goods destined for Rocky Mountain House, included such an important item of merchandise as a nine-gallon keg of rum. During the following spring some Indians discovered and broached the missing cask and immediately made preparation for a " party". However, one canny native thought that such a gift from heaven was much too good to be true — that there was something about this unexpected windfall which called for prudence. Could it be that, in revenge for the red men's attempt to hi-jack a shipment of rum on this river route some time previously, the " Company men" had put poison in the liquor with the hope that it might liquidate the head men of the tribe ? Faced with such a vital problem the councillors decided that before handing around the cocktails it might be well to test the quality of the spirits. For this experiment eight of the oldest squaws in the tribe were chosen as guinea pigs and well laced with a generous dose of the rum, deadly or otherwise. For these wrinkled grandmothers it was a critical hour, one 59 60 HILL-TOP tales in which they might literally be nipped in the bud. One can picture the scene — the aged women stoically contemplating a speedy passage to the promised land but nevertheless desirous of remaining yet a while in the foothills of the Rockies —the drouthy onlookers anxiously awaiting the outcome, praying that the ancient crones might, so to speak, still prove the life of the party. In half an hour they who, hand in hand, had sat within the shadow and heard the baneful beating of wings, were approaching the condition described as jocund ; soon they lifted tremulous voices in gleeful song and presently became blissfully fuddled. In addition to being harmless the suspected " fire-water" was considerably over-proof and thus extremely potent. Paul Kane, the narrator of this story of wild life on the banks of the Saskatchewan, added that, far from being grateful to the elderly females who had risked their lives, the other members of the tribe regretted that the liquor necessary to the test had been diverted from their own gullets ! In course of his travels across the prairies and over the Rockies of Canada, Paul Kane made record of many such episodes. He was by profession an artist who, in 1846, journeyed from Toronto to Vancouver Island in quest of subjects for his brushes, paints and canvas. Sir George Simpson gave him free transportation on canoes and convoys of the Company and commissioned him in addition to paint a dozen pictures of western Indians in their native haunts. In this he was quite successful and these, together with the amazing number of other sketches and drawings of THE PALETTE OF PAUL KANE 61 tribesmen and landscapes, made during the long trip, brought a new and graphic portrayal of early western life to the people of Upper and Lower Canada. As well as being a skilful artist, Paul Kane was a first-rate reporter ; the story of his adventures on the jaunt across the continent forms one of the most notable contributions to the travel literature of North America. He had a good sense of news value and his pages are filled with fascinating tales of the woods and hills, and of the people who dwell therein. While his Indian portraits may nowadays be considered stiff and classical, his description of scenes on the trail and in the camps could hardly be excelled. Journeying across the Great Lakes, through the wilderness to Fort Garry and on over the wide plains to the Rockies, he was obliged to resort to frequent hitch-hiking, greatly aided in this way by the hospitality of kindly men in the services of the Hudson's Bay Company. Arriving at Edmonton on September 26th and taking up quarters in the Fort, he noted that whilst there was abundance of coal in nearby seams, no grates were available in which to burn it. Consequently, it took 800 cords of firewood to keep 130 inmates of the Fort warm during the winter. There was no scarcity of food, as buffalo were exceedingly plentiful, so much so that the " outfit" with which the artist travelled from Fort Pitt to Edmonton was actually hampered en route by the presence of tens of thousands of the wild cattle. In his journal Kane wrote : " During the whole of the three days that it took us 62 HILL-TOP TALES to reach Edmonton House we saw nothing else but these animals covering the plains as far as the eye could reach, and so numerous were they, that at times they impeded our progress, filling the air with dust almost to suffocation. We had much difficulty in finding a place to encamp away from the immense herd which surrounded us, and we found it necessary to fire off our guns during the night to keep them away." At that time no fewer than seven different tribes of Indians came to trade at Edmonton and from these varied dans he had of course a wide choice of models. Mm first sitter was a Stoney chief named Potica-poo-tis or Little Round Man, but from his build and build-up as a warrior, commonly called "The Duke of Wellington ". In addition to exhibiting many" honourable scars, this doughty person had the doubtful distinction of having " done in " his own mother. The old lady was lame and decrepit and when she announced that, to her, incessant travel had become burdensome and life itself was stale, her loving son promptly shot her. At Edmonton, Kane was obliged to tarry for some time awaiting the arrival of a company of voyageurs with whom he was to travel across the Rockies. These men were conveying a very valuable shipment of fms from York Factory to Vancouver Island. The furs, an annual payment to the Russian government by The Hudson's Bay Company in return for trading privileges in that part of North America then under rule of the Czar, were entirely superfine otter. In THE PALETTE OF PAUL KANE 63 the seventy bales transported in canoes and on pack horses were 5,250 skins. Finally, the precious freight arrived and at once the artist fared forth on the strenuous trip across the mountains. Sixty-five horses were needed to carry the baggage and food and at first progress through swampy country was slow and monotonous, with little opportunity to sketch. Some distance west of Edmonton the party was joined by Colin Fraser, then on his way home to Jasper House, where he had lived for over a decade. Fraser had travelled extensively as official piper to Sir George Simpson and around the evening camp fires told many a tale about his journeyings in the retinue of The Little Emperor. On Simpson's tours of inspection, and particufaHi^ when arriving at trading posts or forts, Fraser was of course arrayed in full Highland costume. At such placesr and wherever groups of Indians were encountered, the bagpipes ware brought into play. This performance never failed to astonish the natives* many of whom had never even seen, a white man in everyday normal dress, far less a Pale-face in the splendour @f kilt, plaid, sporran and what-not. It is not surprising that the spectacle of this extraordinary man, together with the sound of his instrument, should have created the impression that; if not a god, he must surely be closdy-felated-te th& Great Spirit. One Indian, greatly awed, asked hta to intercede with the Deity on his behalf. This request, readily granted by the good- natured Colics bfought the aside that " Little doestfar man ken what sma' influence I hae in that quarter !" 64 HILL-TOP TALES The party reached the Athabasca on October 10th, by which time winter had set in; henceforth the journey proved extremely difficult. Heading upstream in a large boat towed by the men waist-deep in icy water, they toiled on for over three weeks, and were then obliged to abandon the craft because of low water and high gales. While awaiting the arrival of horses from Jasper House they experienced a hurricane, which played havoc with the surrounding forest and blew the heavy boat out of the water and inshore for a distance of fifteen feet. Kane said that the combined effort of the remaining nine men could not return it again to its element. Securing a horse and making what he called " a severe ride ", Paul arrived at Jasper House, having forded the river four times, with the drift ice sometimes coming over the saddle. Little wonder that he was cold, wet and famished; but a blazing fire and a supper of five or six pounds of mountain sheep meat soon set him to rights again. On the following day he, with his trail companions, started off for the long and toilsome traverse of Athabasca Pass. As they ascended, the snow deepened rapidly and soon they had tgnresort to snow-shoes made on the spot from such material as was available. On these crude f raquettes" they climbed upward for two days, and camped on the height of land and beside the frozen tarn known then to trans-continental travellers as the Committee -s Punch Bowl. The otter pelts were apparently left behind at Jasper pending transportation across the mountains when the winter snows had melted. THE PALETTE OF PAUL KANE 65 A rapid descent from the summit of the pass brought them to Wood River, a turbulent tributary of the Columbia. The trail followed the course of this stream, now on one side, now on the other — and frequent crossings were necessary. Here is one day's entry in Paul Kane's journal : | Nov. 15th 1846. Having reached the bottom of the pass, where I made a sketch, I soon arrived at a river, about seventy yards wide and with a strong current. Nothing remained but for me to take off my snow shoes and wade across. The water was up to my middle, running very rapidly and filled with drift ice, some pieces of which struck me and nearly forced me down the stream. On emerging from the water my capote and leggings were at once frozen stiff. One of the greatest annoyances accompanying the use of snow shoes, is that of having to take them off on entering a river, and replacing them over wet and frozen moccasins on coming out of it. Before stopping to breakfast this morning we crossed the river twenty five times, and twelve times more before camping ; having waded it thirty-seven times in all during the day." On reaching Columbia River they found that the boat brigade from Fort Vancouver had been awaiting them for over a month and, convinced that some disaster must have overtaken the members of the overland party, was actually breaking camp and preparing to embark for home when they at length appeared. Another few hours' delay in arriving would have resulted in their being marooned at the head of the Bososfflneassssi 66 HILL-TOP TALES 1 Big Bend " where, lacking food, they would doubt&ss all have perished. The long| sail down the great river to the sea was Elysian when compared with the horrors of the snowy wilderness through which they had jugt passed. For days they did little else but eat and sleep and the immediate change in their physical appearance was most marked. As the artist said, " We became so much improved in looib that it was with difficulty we amid recognize our fellow-travellers." After spending seve^ months on the Pacific coast, where he made numerous sketches of the natives in that region, Pgml Kane turned homeward again. Leaving Fort Vancouver on Jtiy 1st, 1847, and ascending Columbia Rr$gr, be mode an interesting side trip $& explore Grand Coulee Canyon — and wttte his one Indian companion almost died for want of food and water. On Qetoter 6th he might have been seen sketching by the river side some fifty miles north of present-day ReveMoke, while the northbound boats, in one of which he had passage, were being portaged around the fearsome gorge known as " The Rapid of the Dead ". Many voyagers had perished in the rushing, roaring titers at this point and as Kane was busy with pencil and brush, the steersman, idle for the nonce, told him the story of one smh tragedy of whfefch&w&s eye-witness and a fortunate survivor. He said: " About four years ago I crossed the Rocky Mountains with a party of tarty. When we got to Boat Encampment we embarked in two boats ; the one THE PALETTE OF PAUL KANE 67 which I was steering had twenty-two on board, amongst which was a young couple married in Edmonton and on their honeymoon, my own daughter ten years old going to rejoin her mother at Fort Vancouver, and a Hudson's Bay man named McGillveray with a small dog. There were two or three other women in the boat, while the remainder were voyageurs. Going through the rapid the water curled over the side of the boat, immediately filling her. I called out to all to sit still as the boat would not sink entirely owing to the nature of the cargo, which they did, hanging on to the seats. We ran more than a mile in safety when, running close to a ledge of rock, the young married man with his wife in his arms tried to leap ashore. The boat suddenly overturned but I and another man succeeded in getting on top of the keel and were thus carried down to safety. We thought we heard some noise inside the boat and the man who was with me, being a good swimmer, dived under, and to my unexpected joy, appeared with my little daughter who almost miraculously had been preserved by being jammed amongst the luggage and supported by the small amount of air caught by the boat when it turned over. We soon got ashore ; McGillveray and four others saved themselves by swimming, the remaining fourteen were drowned ; we immediately commenced searching for the bodies, and soon recovered all of them, the unfortunate honeymoon couple still locked in each others arms — an embrace which we had not the heart to unclasp, but buried them as we found them, in one grave. We found McGillveray's little E&BBWBgSBinBTMHgpv 68 HILL-TOP TALES dog thrown up dead on a sandbar, with his master's cap held firmly between his teeth." Reaching the boat encampment the artist was again inactive for a time while awaiting transportation. On the last day of October, in company with four Indians and a band of between fifty and sixty horses, he retraced his steps across the Rockies. The horse train had just brought over the otter pelts destined for St. Petersburg, where the Imperial landlord doubtless wondered what had become of his long overdue " rent ". Kane and his native companions had a most arduous trip in deep snow and in bitter winter weather ; the long red beard of the artist, ever a source of wonder to the Indians with whom he came in contact, was sheathed in ice and he was positive that the temperature must have been about sixty degrees below zero. That four men should have succeeded in getting such a large number of horses over the pass at that season, and without losing one animal by the way, was an amazing feat — one hardly equalled in trail history in the western mountains. At Jasper they changed over from saddles to snow- shoes and following the course of the Athabasca River, reached Fort Assiniboine, a distance of 350 miles, in fifteen days of steady walking. At one camp on the way the hungry quintette barbecued a large mountain sheep and ate the entire roast at one sitting. But most of the time they were on very short commons. The sole source of food of the people at Fort Assiniboine was whitefish and as these were plentiful, the ravenous travellers ate their fill. The fish averaged THE PALETTE OF PAUL KANE 69 between five and six pounds in weight and when Paul ate only four of the seven cooked for him by an old squaw, she thought that his appetite was but poor. Ever observant and curious, he had one fish weighed. It tipped the scale at eighteen pounds — surely a whitefish record. After a short rest another four days of tramping brought the weary and footsore men to the gates of Fort Edmonton and under a hospitable roof. The wandering artist made Edmonton his base for a period of five months, during which time he paid a four weeks' visit to Fort Pitt and made a trip to Rocky Mountain House. In the intervals between sketching many Cree and Blackfoot models at the several posts, his pen was seldom idle and to him we are indebted for numerous graphic pictures of frontier life on the Saskatchewan. The mural paintings in the great dining-hall of the I Big House " at Edmonton formed one of the sights of the place, and of these Kane wrote : " The walls and ceiling of this room, which is some fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide, are boarded, as plastering is not used, there being no limestone within reach ; but these boards are painted in a style of the most startling barbaric gaudiness, and the ceiling filled with centre-pieces of fantastic gilt scrolls, making altogether a saloon which no white man would enter for the first time without a start, and which the Indians always looked upon with awe and wonder. The room was intended as a reception room for the wild chiefs who visited the Fort; and the artist who 70 HILL-TOP TALES designed the decorations was no doubt directed to | astonish the natives '.If such were his instructions he deserves the highest praise for having faithfully complied with them." Of vital interest to the artist guest, as to all inmates of the Fort, was the cold-storage warehouse, at that time the largest refrigerator in Western Canada. It had a capacity of 800 buffalo carcasses and was of simple construction, being merely a large pit paved and lined with massive blocks of ice from the nearby river. Some time during the winter the quartered but unskinned beef was piled in layers in this giant ice box and finally covered with a thick coating of straw. A light roof of boards afforded protection from sun and rain, and the meat remained in excellent condition throughout the succeeding summer months. A versatile columnist was Paul Kane, now writing about a huge buffalo head which weighed over 200 lbs, again describing a wonderful Christmas dinner, a gargantuan feast, in the Fort. The ingenious manner in which rabbits were snared and automatically hoisted beyond reach of wolf or lynx came under his notice and was recorded in his racy journal. Boat building was then a staple industry at Edmonton, giving employment to many native carpenters. The tanning of hides and the making of moccasins and clothing therefrom furnished spare-time employment to all the women. All such activities came under the eye of the visitor from Toronto and later formed material for his excellent book, Wanderings of an Artist, published THE PALETTE OF PAUL KANE 71 in England in 1859 and for long listed amongst rare books until reprinted by the Radisson Society of Canada in 1925. It is interesting to note that at the time of Paul Kane's visit to Edmonton one of the burning questions in the tipis and around the council fires of the native tribes was freedom of religion. One chief of the Crees with whom Kane had many a friendly chat, spoke his mind freely to the artist in a forthright opinion about the rival white missionaries whose varied kinds of religion had his simple tribesmen and women utterly bewildered. Afterwards Kane set down this paragraph in his diary : ? The Chief, named Broken Arm, talked about the efforts of the missionaries amongst his people, and seemed to think that they would not be very successful ; for though he did not interfere with the religious belief of his tribe, yet many thought as he did ; and his idea was, that as Rev. Mr. Rundle had told him what HE preached was the only true road to heaven and Rev. Mr. Hunter told him the same thing, and so did Father Thibault, and as they all three said that the other two were wrong, and as he did not know which was right, he thought they ought to call a council among themselves, and that then he would go with them all three ; but that until they agreed he would wait." So many faiths, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind,— the while red men and white still await the dawn of that bright day when wrangling 72 HILL-TOP TALES sects will call a council among themselves, bury the hatchet of religious strife and unite in a common brotherhood under the banner of the Prince of Peace. Many of Paul Kane's pictures are still on display in a Toronto museum but those he painted for Sir George Simpson have mysteriously disappeared. After returning from his tour of Western Canada he made a journey to England where he was honoured by having a group of his Indian pictures displayed in Buckingham Palace. He died in Toronto in 1871, leaving a widow and four children. The narrative of his journey across the western plains and over the Rockies will long remain an enduring memorial to a pioneer Canadian artist who wrote as one with authority and in all his wilderness wanderings made no complaint. His rusty beard sheathed in ice, his weary feet and legs aching from contact with icy streams, hungry, cold and wet, footsore and saddle-sore— to him these were but hardships to be endured if one would make pilgrimage to the far-off hills and to the shores of the western sea. Chapter VII POT LUCK The first European to visit the Banff area of the Canadian Rockies was a commercial traveller named Simpson, who hurriedly passed this way in the summer of 1841. He was a knight of the road in the true sense of the word because, earlier in that same year, Queen Victoria had bestowed knighthood upon this general manager of Hudson's Bay Company. While Sir George gave his name to a pass and a river, his recorded impression of the great mountain range is characteristic of one to whom Alpine scenery was primarily a hindrance to speedy travel. Not so the attitude of the first tourist to sojourn in the Rockies of Canada. He was a middle-aged Scot, the Earl of Southesk, a nobleman who, to use a former quaint expression " enjoyed but poor health ". However, he displayed excellent judgment in choosing Western Canada as a place wherein one might recuperate and regain lost vigour. That he rapidly gained strength and developed a robust appetite is apparent in the record of his travels across the prairie and in the mountains. For instance, at a point on the trail not far from present-day Edson his Lordship had so far recovered as to partake of the hind leg of a skunk — for breakfast. Had the meal been lunch or even dinner one would not have so 73 74 HILL-TOP TALES greatly marvelled; but that a convalescent should have the temerity to tackle such a fearsome joint for breakfast was surely high tribute to the salubrious climate of sunny Alberta. Arriving at Fort Garry (which he described as " a very considerable place") in the early summer of 1859 he was present when the pioneer steamboat on Red River made her first appearance. " Crowds of Indians stood silently on shore watching this strange portentous object." Securing the services of a competent guide, several teamsters, one or two handymen and a cook, he was soon owner of a dozen horses, a number of Red River carts and wagons and presently was provided with everything necessary for a long season of camping on the western plains and in the Rockies. Supplies included much excellent plug tobacco for the men, an immense 90 lb. roll of rather coarse twist tobacco for the especial benefit of vagrant Indians, and several stout volumes of Shakespeare's works for mental stimulus to the belted Earl himself. Travel across the plains in midsummer heat was somewhat trying. There were prodigious thunderstorms which, although awesome, afforded temporary relief from hordes of mosquitoes, Bulldog flies and other insect pests. The Earl was fond of horses and devoted many pages of his diary to the behaviour of the animals in his caravan. One of the saddle ponies, named Bichon, was fond of flowers and would deliberately go out of his way to snatch a mouthful of hare-bells, to pick orange lilies or to munch quantities of a purple- flowered plant (possibly bergamot) which grew in such POT LUCK 75 large prominent tufts as to be readily mistaken at a distance for buffalo. The leader spoke highly of the manner in which his retainers overcame difficulties, of their cutting an oak and from it fashioning an axle- tree with no other tool than an axe, of reducing large horse-shoes to small ones without either forge or anvil, and so on. Personally equipped with an arsenal of various small arms, all of which bore the stamp of famous London gunsmiths, he thriftily bought a shotgun at the Trading Post of Fort Ellice for use by one of the half-breed hunters in the party. This lethal weapon, costing about six dollars retail, was a flint-lock with a gas-pipe barrel. Unreliable and potentially dangerous to the bearer, it was quite lacking in precision. Later, they had the new owner of the firearm, Old Numme, test it out on a canvas target the size of a large door. At 30 paces he blazed away repeatedly but failed utterly to register a hit. However, the native was not one to look a gift gun in the muzzle. Thrusting a long stick down the barrel and, using the spokes of a cart wheel as a vice, he patiently levered the tube this way and that until he got it reasonably straight. Quoting the Earl, I It really improved the gun which, being of the same pattern as those sold to the Indians, was, in time and with tinkering, likely to become a fairly useful weapon — at any rate for extremely short ranges." Much more deadly was the bow and arrow of James Short, d Scots Indian hunter hired by the Earl. An amazingly fine marksman with a stick, a stone or a gun, he was so skilled an archer 76 HILL-TOP TALES as to be capable of bringing down mallards and other waterfowl in flight. Sport was to be had in the running and killing of buffalo for food but antelope proved much too fast for even the most fleet of their saddle horses, Grey wolves were then present in large numbers on the prairie and many of these lurking around the camps fell to the rifle of Southesk. Grizzly bears, preying upon buffalo, were numerous in coulees along the Qu'appelle and Saskatchewan Rivers — the Earl shot his first one not far distant from the present-day town of Outlook. Somewhere along the way a strange stray dog, grossly fat and of highly perplexing parentage, attached himself to the cavalcade. His Lordship described the unshapely creature as " a farce ", yet found him diverting— "One look at him dispelled melancholy." For which reason perhaps, not knowing his name, they labelled him " Whisky ". Later, when they had reached the Rockies, this corpulent canine derived as much pleasure from climbing high mountains as many of his kind nowadays get from fast travel in autos. On reaching Fort Edmonton the tourist was greatly impressed, not by the architecture of the buildings but by the vast number of dogs about the premises. It was of course mid-summer, when all working dogs were at leisure. He mentioned that, unwittingly, he patted a large wolfish dog belonging to Dr. James Hector and afterwards learned that this animal was a notoriously bad actor who habitually could not be harnessed until stunned by blows from a club or other POT LUCK 77 blunt instrument. Idle dogs, many of them living by their wits, were undoubtedly a nuisance in daytime—at night, like Macbeth, they banished sleep. As the Earl remarked, " In winter these dogs do nearly all the work of the country ; at other seasons they do nothing for man, but pass their time in war, love, robbery and music." At Edmonton carts and wagons were abandoned in favour of pack-horses and soon the party headed westward to the mountains. At St. Ann the peer was guest of Fathers Lacombe and Le Frain at the Roman Catholic mission house. Around this " oasis in the wilderness " he found many Indians, wearing handsome medals, insignia of the Mission Temperance Society, and commented thus: — "This appeals to their pride or vanity and is far more effectual than mere dry exhortations." After spending the night in the Mission this staunch Protestant and stern Presbyterian said, " I felt quite sorry to leave St. Ann, all was so kindly and pleasant. The good Fathers loaded us with provisions — fish, potatoes, dried meat, etc. God Bless them and prosper their Mission." Meeting Factor Moberly from Jasper House as they entered the mountains, they were strongly advised not to venture so far west as that remote post but rather to turn south by way of McLeod River and thence through the ranges west of Brazeau to the headwaters of North Saskatchewan River. Moberly told Southesk that no European had previously been over that section of the Rockies. This route the travellers subsequently followed. 78 HILL-TOP TALES By this time days were shortening and nights growing cold. Presently they ran out of flour and other store provisions rapidly dwindled. But there were large bands of wild sheep in the country north-west of Nor- degg and for a time they fared well enough for food. Although no gourmet, his Lordship willingly partook of all manner of flesh food, including the aforementioned skunk. Convinced that many people were curious to learn something about meats other than beef, pork and mutton, he sampled almost everything in Nature's larder. Toma, the cook, was no culinary expert but his meals were never monotonous — if they lacked finesse they had infinite variety. In fact, one shrewdly suspects that on this memorable excursion the Earl originated the slang phrase " What's Cooking?". Following are some of his terse com- ents on the miscellaneous roasts and mulligans eaten on the trip : | Beaver tail for supper — like pork fat sandwiched between layers of Finnan Haddock." " Shot a siffleur (marmot) and for the first time had the pleasure of eating that most delicious meat —like very delicate mutton." | My supper was chiefly composed of porcupine — like siffleur but too rich and fat." "Partook of another novel dish —the last joints of a beaver's backbone. Exquisite, like sucking pig but better." | Was assured by my men that the meat of the mountain lion is most palatable of any in the Territories." POT LUCK 79 It may be recalled that in the dunnage assembled at Fort Garry there were several volumes of Shakespeare's works. During the long journey his Lordship devoted many idle hours in camp to a study of the plays of the great dramatist. When his supply of candles burned out the cook made a fresh lot from the tallow of mountain sheep. Having reached Bow Valley by way of Pipestone Pass and encamped near Castle Mountain he there discovered, to his dismay, that his men had surreptitiously eaten almost all the pemmican, that the dried sheep meat had gone mouldy and that there was but two days' rations in sight. Here is the entry in his diary for that doleful day : (* Sept 26,1859. Great gloom overspread the camp. Divided remaining pemmican and doled out tea. Ate some of the leg of the goat killed last week — she must have reared a dozen kids at least — tougher and drier fare I never fed on, — Read Romeo and Juliet." Encountering a band of Stoney Indians near Johnson's Canyon their gloom was dispelled when these native hunters brought them moose and other game. Said the Earl, "'At supper I astonished myself, consuming at least three pounds of fried sheep, — finished the Merchant of Venice". Afterwards he liberally repaid the Indians whose aid had been so timely. On reaching Fort Edmonton he sent several pack-horse loads of clothing, blankets and ammunition to the tribe at Morley. Rounding the end of Sawback Range, some few miles west of Banff, they noted the presence of a herd of wild goats on the cliffs above the trail (still a favour- 80 HILL-TOP TALES ite haunt of these woolly animals). Skirting the Vermilion Lakes and fording Forty Mile Creek the riders unsaddled their ponies and camped on a meadow at the base of Cascade Mountain. Here the now somewhat weary tourist enjoyed a better sleep than he had had since leaving Fort Garry. In a few pithy paragraphs about camping out he confessed that, 4< It is all very well to talk of the enervating influences of civilization but for my part I find no custom enables me to sleep as well on the ground as on a good mattress." On the last day of September, " A lovely sunny morning ", they rode through much fallen timber by Canmpre and Exshaw and in the evening emerged from the mountains and camped near the ruins of Old Bow Fort. Toma for dinner, cooked and served moose nose, which his Lordship pronounced very good indeed. In the gloaming of that autumn evening, with only the soft wind in the fir trees and the murmur of the gently flowing river breaking the silence, the Earl reclined at ease in the entrance to his tent. Asters and gentians were flowering on the meadows and all the aspen poplars had donned their yellow robes. Out in the west the jagged peaks of the Rockies were sharply etched against a cloudless sky. To the east, across the tawny foothills, the indigo curtain of oncoming night moved slowly toward the zenith. Twilight gave place to dusk and in the flickering firelight the traveller dutifully posted his journal for the day. Then, % When the floor of heaven was thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ", he lit his small candle, to commune once again with the Bard of Avon. In fancy one can see him open his bedside book, perhaps to read aloud the familiar lines, | And this our life, exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks Sermons in stones and good in everything." Chapter VIII PLANT HUNTERS " The beauties of the wilderness are His That make so gay the solitary place ; He sets the bright procession on its way And marshals all the order of the year." Cowper. Much of the charm of the Rocky and Selkirk mountains lies in the abundance and variety of plant life. From the lower valleys clothed in spruce and pine to the high wind-swept summits where lowly Campions and tiny Saxifrages snuggle amongst the rocks, a bright procession, a wondrous floral pageant is everywhere to be seen. Within the National Parks at Banff and Jasper alone, over five hundred species of plants have been listed, while in Glacier Park in the Selkirks the flora is even more extensive. Many excellent books have been published about the plants of this region and while botanists may still be in a quandary about the geneology of certain members of the vegetable kingdom, it is unlikely that in the entire mountain area there remains one species of plant which has been entirely overlooked. The earliest white travellers in this country were more concerned with the skins of wild beasts than with the collecting of wild flowers ; they gave but little thought to the lilies of the field. For instance, Henry 82 PLANT HUNTERS 83 Kelsey, who was the first British explorer of North West Canada (1691), disposed of the flora and fauna of the vast prairie region in one terse sentence: " This plain affords Nothing but short round grass and Buffilo and Outgrown Bear." David Thompson, perhaps the most famous geographer in Canadian history, was too deeply engrossed in surveying the uncharted land to pay much heed to plants and shrubs by the river banks and on the Alpine passes which he so diligently explored and mapped. The first botanist to visit the Canadian Rockies was Thomas Drummond, a native of Scotland. He served as Assistant Naturalist on the second Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin and in that capacity saw much Of the North West Territories. His immediate superior on that overland journey was the noted Sir John Richardson. In the autumn of 1825 Franklin and Richardson decided to winter at Great Bear Lake and to send Drummond on a one-man botanical expedition westward to the Rockies. In early October, Drummond left Fort Assiniboine on Athabasca River and two weeks later reached the mountains proper. Spending the winter on Berland River, a tributary of the Athabasca some fifty miles north-west of present day Edson, he impatiently awaited the melting of the snows and the coming of spring. It was there that he made first contact with the Bushy-tailed Wood Rat, better known as Pack Rat. From his discovery and description of this rodent it was listed as a sub-species and henceforth was known to zoologists as Neotoma drummondi. M53SSSJBS 84 HILL-TOP TALES Throughout the following summer Drummond covered a large area of the mountains in search of new species of plants and in this endeavour was highly successful. Some estimate of his wanderings may be gleaned from the knowledge that he picked blueberries on the summit of the pass between the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan and Columbia Rivers. On Smoking River (probably the later-named Little Smoky) he discovered Menziesia, a pretty flowering shrub common around Emerald Lake and in the Yoho Valley. White Mountain Rhododendron, one of the most beautiful of all Alpine shrubs, was also found growing by the stream where the coal was afire. In the long list of plants and shrubs native to the western mountains are many bearing the name of Drummond. Best known is the yellow-flowered Dryas, whose silken seed plumes spread a silvery sheen over countless gravel bars in almost all watercourses of this zone. This humble flower, together with a fine mountain at the source of Red Deer River, perpetuates the memory of Thomas Drummond who in course of his travels in the Rockies collected no fewer than five hundred species of plants. Richardson spoke of him as a great botanist, one of untiring energy and unrivalled quickness of eye. Within a short distance of Mt. Drummond stands another lofty mountain bearing the name of another great botanist. It is nearly 11,000 feet high and forms a splendid memorial to David Douglas, the son of a Scots stonemason, who attained high rank amongst the scientists of the day. Born in Scone, Perthshire, m PLANT HUNTERS 85 he served a seven-years' apprenticeship as a gardener at nearby Scone palace. By diligent study after working hours he acquired much botanical knowledge and, as a result, found employment on the staff at Glasgow Botanic Gardens. There the young man was greatly befriended by Professor Hooker, the eminent botanist, who became keenly interested in the career of the hardworking gardener and eager student. In 1823 the Royal Horticultural Society sent young Douglas to eastern Canada on a plant-collecting trip. Upon his return and as a result of his work on that initial tour, he was again despatched to North America, this time to the west coast where in ten years he made an intensive survey of the vegetation of that region. During that period he added the names of over one thousand plants to the existing botanical vocabulary. A fair, florid, partially bald-headed and wholly hard-headed Scot, Douglas was remarkably prudent in his dealings with the Indians. Known to them as "The Great Grass Man", he was soon reputed to have supernatural powers. His shooting of a bird on the wing was to them an amazing feat. Lighting his pipe with a lens he demonstrated his ability to call down fire from heaven. They were properly awed when he mixed an effervescent powder with water and drank the bubbling liquid, — a man who could swallow boiling water was not to be trifled with. In this and in many other ways Douglas was enabled to go about his business unmolested by the natives. Having previously presented his last shilling to a chief to whom he was indebted, the botanist was soon after- 86 HILL-TOP TALES wards obliged to reward another head man for services rendered. Lack of money or goods wherewith to bestow a gratuity placed the canny Scot in no dilemma whatever. He gave his benefactor a shave ! In the spring of 1827 Douglas left the Pacific coast and crossed the Rockies by way of Athabasca Pass. On the continental divide he named Mount Brown in honour of " Robert Brown Esq. the Illustrious botanist ", and Mount Hooker "As a token of regard to the enlightened Professor of botany, Dr. Hooker of Glasgow to whose kindness I in great measure owe my success hitherto in life." Douglas was evidently a better botanist than a geographer. Giving the altitude of these mountains as somewhere in the neighbourhood of 17,000 feet — whereas they are only about 10,000 feet high — he thereby started a controversy which continued until almost the end of the century. Collecting plants and seeds he continued to Norway House, where he unexpectedly met Franklin and Richardson and returned with them to England. One wonders what sort of a figure this ragged plant hunter presented when at the end of the long overland journey he embarked at York Factory on Hudson Bay. Leaving Fort Vancouver he had at the outset but one pair of shoes, no stockings, two shirts, a blanket and a cloak. But he did have a wealth of hitherto unknown plants and seeds to carry home — and that was all that mattered. Returning to North America two years later Douglas continued to make many tiresome and hazardous journeys in furtherance of his work. In June, 1833, H PLANT HUNTERS 87 he narrowly escaped drowning in Fraser River near Quesnel when his canoe was smashed on the rocks and he was thrown into the icy water. In this lamentable accident he lost all his provisions and upwards of four hundred specimens of plants, the result of four months of strenuous toil. That, and the hardship of wilderness travel, impaired his health so that he became somewhat despondent and longed to be home again. In the course of his wanderings towards the western seaboard Douglas arrived at Fort Kamloops, on the Thompson River. At that lonely outpost he was welcomed by Samuel Black, chief trader and a brother Scot, and there he tarried for a little while. During a heated argument with his host on the ethics of the fur trade, the botanist remarked that the Hudson's Bay Company was a mercenary corporation and that there was not an officer in it with a soul above a beaver skin. That, from one who at the moment was a non- paying guest of " The Company ", was rather tactless, and trader Black was properly resentful; in fact, he challenged Douglas to fight. The invitation was declined; but whether or not the loyal H.B.C. employee and the itinerant botanist parted on friendly terms is not disclosed. Before long both men came to a sudden and violent end, Black being murdered by an Indian lad who believed that the trader had charmed away the life of his uncle Chief Tranquille, and Douglas, visiting the Sandwich Islands on his homeward voyage, meeting a no less tragic fate. The inhabitants of those Islands habitually caught wild cattle in deep pits dug for the 88 HILL-TOP TALES purpose. One evening the botanist, out for a walk with his shaggy terrier, fell into one of these excavations in which a large bull had already been trapped and the fierce animal gored and trampled him to death. Thus the career of an intrepid explorer of the world of plants was brought to an untimely close. On the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States the name and fame of David Douglas is commemorated in the Douglas fir tree, of which he was the discoverer. Above flower-strewn meadows in the heart of the Rockies a lofty mountain forms his lasting cenotaph and keeps his memory green. In the parish churchyard of Scone the lovers of botany in Europe erected a monument in his honour. This simple stone, recording the years of his birth and of his passing hence, bears also the names of a few of the numerous trees, shrubs and flowering plants which the stonemason's son brought home to enrich the gardens of cottage and castle throughout the British Isles. The growing Douglas firs had added twenty-five years to their age when another noted botanist scoured the foothills and scaled the mountains of Alberta in search of further knowledge of the lowland and Alpine plants of Canada. As a member of the British Government expedition headed by Captain Palliser and engaged in the exploration of Western Canada, Eugene Bourgeau first saw the Rockies in 1857. Born in the south of France in 1813 and denied the benefit of higher education he nevertheless, by ambition and study coupled with a natural aptitude for natural history, became a very noted botanist. His unruffled PLANT HUNTERS 89 demeanour and extraordinary good nature made numerous friends for him on both sides of the Atlantic; in the field he was tireless and at the camp fire his merry laughter proved almost as beneficial as the tonic herbs of which he had intimate knowledge. It is interesting to note that Professor Hooker, who befriended Douglas, was also responsible for Bour- geau's appointment as botanist to the expedition commanded by Captain Palliser. While the jovial French scientist made no such remarkable discoveries as had brought recognition to Drummond and Douglas, his contribution to the botanical history of Western Canada was indeed notable. During two seasons in the country between Fort Garry and the Rockies and despite untimely frost, his collection of plants amounted to some sixty thousand specimens from eight hundred and nineteen species. In addition he gathered a great quantity of seeds, which together with the dried plants were forwarded to the Royal Gardens at Kew in England. Bourgeau* s work in the Rockies was confined to a small area of Bow Valley in the neighbourhood of present-day Exshaw and Canmore. With Dr. James Hector he journeyed westward from Old Bow Fort and spent two weeks in searching for Alpine plants on Grotto, Wind and Three Sisters Mountains. In a report to Professor Hooker he mentioned that of fifty plants collected at 8,500 feet in this part of the Rockies, fifteen are also to be found in the Grampians. Having made previous arrangements to conduct botanical research in Russia, the eager Bourgeau was reluc- 90 HILL-TOP TALES tantly compelled to retrace his steps and to bid farewell to the Rockies of Canada. Of him Palliser wrote : " We were sorry indeed to lose our friend who was a great favourite with us all. In addition to his skill as a botanist he united the most sociable disposition and was ever ready to lend a helping hand to all members of our party." While Eugene Bourgeau was busy pressing plants and gathering seeds in the Far West, a young Irish lad named John Macoun was teaching school in a backwoods community in Ontario. His salary was but fourteen dollars a month, yet out of that pittance he saved enough to buy one or two books on botany. Up till then he had drifted aimlessly from one occupation to another without guidance and with no permanent calling in mind. The purchase of these small books about plants proved an open sesame to a new and enchanted realm and henceforth his course in life was clearly charted. In course of time he became the most famous botanist in all Canada. John Macoun was born in County Down, Ireland, in 1831, and emigrated to Canada in 1850. His early botanical outings were restricted to local rambles during week-ends but in school vacation periods he was enabled to venture farther afield. It was on one of these holiday excursions, to the Lake Superior region, that he had a chance meeting with Sandford Fleming. That gentleman, impressed with Macoun's knowledge of plants, offered him a position as botanist PLANT HUNTERS 91 to the Canadian Pacific Railway survey then in the field. This he at once accepted and presently had opportunity to travel extensively in Western Canada and to gain first-hand knowledge of the flora of that part of the country. His first crossing of the Rockies was made by way of Peace River Pass when, in 1872, with an exploring photographer named Horetzky, he travelled from Edmonton to Fort St. John and thence across the mountains to Fort McLeod, Quesnel, Ashcroft and New Westminster. While at Edmonton he was keenly interested in watching men panning for gold in the sands of the river. From one of these miners he bought an ounce of Saskatchewan gold and had it made into a ring for his wife, which she afterwards wore. In 1879 Macoun visited Calgary, did some necessary shopping in the one store then standing on the present site of the city, looked over the Fort at the mouth of the Elbow River and headed westward to Morley and Old Bow Fort. As this particular botanical survey was restricted to the prairies and foothills he did not penetrate further into the mountains than the " Point of Rocks " (The Gap). At that eastern portal to the great range his party caught many large trout in Bow River and watched the Stoney Indians hunting wild goats on Grotto Mountain. During the summer of 1884 Macoun accompanied the members of the British Association on their tour of Western Canada, travelling as far as the end of the new railroad, then at Hector. The following year, 92 HILL-TOP TALES with his son William, he began the first of a long series of plant-hunting trips within the Rockies. At Banff they secured a great many specimens of mountain plants, also some crystals from the newly discovered sulphur cave. They camped at Castle Mountain and botanized on Copper Mountain, " where there was a mine at that time ". Three weeks under canvas at the Great Divide afforded splendid opportunity for collecting Alpine plants, following which they moved to Donald and thence to Glacier, where a thorough survey of the vegetation of the Selkirks was made. Afterwards the data obtained in what is now Glacier National Park (Canada) was put to good use in a valuable appendix to the book, The Selkirk Range, written by Arthur O. Wheeler, a son-in-law of John Macoun. In 1912 Macoun moved to Vancouver Island where, with his wife, he resided until his death on July 18, 1920. His work as Naturalist to the Geological Survey of Canada placed him amongst the great men of science of this Dominion. His splendid Catalogue of Canadian Birds proved that he was as familiar with fowls of the air as with lilies of the field. No fewer than twenty- one species of flowering plants have been named in his honour — surely a great tribute. From Digby to Dawson City, from the Lake of the Woods to Lake Athabasca, this perennial botanist ranged in search of plants and in quest of knowledge that might benefit mankind. He loved the rock pools and sand beaches of tidewater; on the flowery prairies his heart rejoiced; the splendour of snowy peaks and Alpine meadows PLANT HUNTERS held him in thrall. The final paragraph in his autobiography tells of a visit to the scenic Yoho Valley and of a quiet camp in the fragrant pine forest at the foot of a singing waterfall. Few botanists in the Canadian field have chosen to illustrate their own written descriptions of plant life. Mrs. Julia Henshaw of Vancouver was one of that select few. Her excellent book, Mountain Wild Flowers of Canada, owed much of its success to the fact that the author was as expert in the use of a camera as in the painting of colourful word pictures. For many years she was a familiar figure on the high trails and in the lush woods of British Columbia, where she revelled in interviewing and photographing the Dryas of Drummond, the beautiful Gentian named for Macoun, and all the other flowers so lavishly displayed in the highlands of that province. When no longer able to travel on steep slopes and amid rugged crags, Julia Henshaw continued to wield a fluent pen. Her frequent contributions to the newspapers of her home city and to periodicals throughout Canada revfealed the workings of a keen mind and a great love of the outdoors. In the moist and mossy woods around Emerald Lake grows a little plant listed in botanical text-books as Clintonia uniflora. Strangely enough, it had for long been nameless in the English language. Thus it was ever a joy to Mrs. Henshaw that she should have been chosen to remedy this oversight. She 94 HILL-TOP TALES wrote : " I feel that a great honour has been conferred upon me in that I have been permitted to name this lovely plant Queen Cup. With its shining leaves, amongst which are set the pure white chalices of its blossoms, it is the Queen of all the snowy flower cups of the Alpine forests." Admiring its flowers in summer and no less its wonderful blue berries in the autumn, the writer is invariably reminded of the gracious lady who bestowed upon it so regal a title. By means of water-colour sketches and photographs Mrs. Charles Schaeffer revealed her artistry in depicting the plant life of the Rockies. An early visitor to the Lake Louise region she later, as Mrs. William Warren, became a permanent resident of Banff. Her most noteworthy contribution to the botanical record of the Dominion consisted of a fine set of eighty pictures illustrating Alpine Flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. This book, now long out of print, was written by Stewardson Brown, a noted Philadelphia botanist and is still considered an outstanding work on this subject. A fine mountain in Yoho Park perpetuates the memory of Dr. and Mrs. Schaeffer. * * * William McCalla wrote and illustrated a useful little book entitled Wild Flowers of Western Canada. In his capacity and calling as a teacher in the city of Calgary, he continues to promote knowledge of the PLANT HUNTERS 95 plant life of the West. Happiest when in the field with camera and notebook, this gentle man and good botanist counts the day well spent when an extra fine negative has been added to his file of plant photographs. Some day, perchance, a great high mountain may be named for him but meanwhile a modest and winsome little flower called McCalla's Primrose serves nicely as a proxy. Mention should also be made here of the beautiful work of Mary Vaux Walcott who, coming to the Canadian Rockies from Washington for many summers, made paintings of flowers of the region. Her work has great charm, perfect in colour, proportion and arrangement and may be seen in the large folio publication, North American Wild Flowers, produced by the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, D.C. Chapter IX TRAIL BLAZER One of the world's great benefactors was a British General who knew how to build good roads. His name was Wade and he gained lasting fame, not on the field of battle, but by constructing a highway from one end of Scotland to the other, a thoroughfare by which large numbers of the natives were enabled to leave their own country on foot. They discovered England to be a profitable and therefore a pleasant land, and in course of time some of the more adventurous looked even farther afield to " somewhere far abroad ", to distant lands which awaited the coming of builders of roads and bridges and Empires. One such adventurer was Donald Smith, who laid twin ribbons of shining steel across British North America, thereby forging a link in a great world highway and welding scattered provinces into one great Dominion. Another was James Hector, whose methodical exploration and survey of numerous passes in the Rockies forms a splendid chapter in the early history of Western Canada. Over Vermilion Summit and through Kicking Horse Pass this pioneer pathfinder blazed a trail; he led his pack-horse cavalcade from Lake Louise to the North Saskatchewan River and to Edmonton; in the dead of winter he urged his 96 TRAIL BLAZER 97 dog team from Fort Edmonton to Jasper House. On an urgent trip to Fort Carlton, near present-day Prince Albert, he discarded snow-shoes in favour of skates and glided swiftly over the surface of the frozen river. He was undoubtedly a born traveller, adapting himself to all forms of transportation with equal facility. Indeed, one is convinced that had he then been sent to the South Pole instead of to Saskatchewan, he would have reached his objective and made safe return. Born in Edinburgh in 1834 and graduating in medicine from the University there, James Hector had added geology to his studies, and it was largely as a geologist that he found a place on the British Government expedition formed in 1857 to explore certain areas of Western Canada. When Dr. Hector, then a youth of twenty-three years, joined what has since been known as the Palliser Expedition, geographers were more familiar with the mountains on the moon than with those in the Canadian Rockies. The course of that turbulent stream, the Kicking Horse River, was quite unknown, nor had the vast Columbia Icefield appeared on any map. Of the high mountains those named Brown and Hooker, vaguely flanking Athabasca Pass, were top-ranking skyscrapers. When first discovered thirty years previously, these peaks were estimated to be about 17,000 feet high but subsequent surveys resulted in their being debased to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10,000 feet. Like many another schoolboy of an earlier generation, I have come to regard these two mountains with contempt; in my esteem they have shrunk almost to sea level. 98 HILL-TOP TALES Ostensibly searching for a highway route across the Rockies but strongly urged by the Colonial Secretary, for long editor of Truth, to keep a weather eye open for gold-bearing rock, the Palliser Expedition did a most thorough job of mapping the territory, listing its plants and fossils, recording climate and compiling a useful vocabulary of each of the Indian tribes with whom they came in contact. In all this arduous work and in actual exploration the young and apparently tireless doctor had a major part. While the monumental narrative of proceedings subsequently laid before the British House of Commons is ascribed to Captain John Palliser, it nevertheless bears the imprint of the genius of James Hector on almost every page. Hector first made acquaintance with the Rockies in the autumn of 1858. With Eugene Bourgeau, an ardent botanist from the south of France, a trio of hired men from Red River and one resident Indian re-named Nimrod, he camped at Old Bow Fort, an abandoned trading post in the foothills some fifty miles west of Calgary. Abandoning carts in favour of pack-horses the party headed westward and immediately entering the great range was at once in delectable country — for a botanist and a geologist. A host of native plants, some strange, some familiar, carpeted the valley and grew high on the Alpine slopes, yielding rfch store to the collector from France. The towering limestone cliffs, rich in fossils, were vastly exciting to the young Scots scientist. In addition to pasting labels on stones and botanic specimens they also tagged many mountains which hitherto had been nameless. TRAIL BLAZER 99 Grotto and Pigeon at Exshaw and Wind Mountain, opposite the Gap, were so named in the first camp pitched near the present town of Canmore. Nimrod, considered high man among Stoney Indian hunters, was said to have slain no fewer than fifty- seven moose in one season. His reputed prowess in the chase, together with the rumour that game was plentiful in the mountains, determined Hector to travel lightly and to live off the country. Thus, under the date of August 11, he wrote: " I did not take along any provisions excepting a little tea and a few pounds of grease." Seated by a camp fire in a meadow at the base of Cascade Mountain on what is now a landing field for aeroplanes, he heard an old Stoney visitor tell of great fish to be found in a nearby lake (Minnewanka). Also, the venerable Red Man claimed to have guided Rundle the missionary to this same camp site and gave details of the holiday enjoyed by the Reverend gentleman near the massive mountain which, thanks to Hector, bears his honoured name and perpetuates his memory. Next morning Nimrod desisted from mowing down moose and took Hector on a short sight-seeing trip, to view Bow Falls. On the return trip they shot two Big-Horn sheep, probably on the present townsite of Banff. The sulphur springs in this area were still unknown and so the young explorer, scanning the mountain from under whose base the steaming waters still gush, named it The Terrace. One year later, almost to a day, he was again in this part of Bow Valley 100 HILL-TOP TALES and then made note of the sulphur spring which still remains active and which flows into Vermilion Lake. The botanist was here obliged to retrace his steps eastward and to bid a reluctant farewell to Hector who, in his honour, named the truncated mountain directly west of Banff, Mount Bourgeau. Proceeding westward on an Indian trail over which the Banff-Louise section of the Trans-Canada highway was later built, the Doctor observed the Hole-in-the-Wall, a large cave high in the jagged range which he named Sawback. Greatly impressed by a prominent mountain standing out in the middle of the valley he gave it the appropriate name of Castle,* and later made the first ascent of that bastion. From Castle Mountain he then forded Bow River and followed the route of modern Windermere highway as far as Kootenay Crossing. In his journal there is mention of the ochre beds near Marble Canyon and of the large glaciers above Wolverine Plateau. Also some comment, but no complaint, was made concerning the fallen timber through which they were obliged to travel. Ascending Kootenay River Valley, crossing the watershed and descending Beaverfoot River, they skirted the base of Mt. Chancellor and immediately were confronted by a large and turbulent stream of which even Nimrod had no knowledge. On this raging glacial river, a short distance above Wapta Falls, the leader of the little group almost ended his career. A fractious horse lashed out and the hoofs * Castle Mountain was re-named Mt. Eisenhower in 1946. TRAIL BLAZER 101 caught Hector full on the chest, rendering him unconscious. He soon recovered, however, and after a day's rest was able to jog slowly along the side of the stream which, because of this accident, the men named Kicking Horse. Very soon the party was on short rations and, other than berries, there was little else to stave off hunger. Nimrod scoured the woods in vain — one cannot massacre moose when the animals are elsewhere. There was talk of killing a horse, but Hector knew that there is little nourishment in the flesh of a skinny horse and that a pack-animal is hardly edible. So the men tightened their belts and carried on, up the shingle flats where Field now stands and over the big hill where the spiral tunnels were later bored. One of the pack-horses tumbled into a deep gorge at the base of Cathedral Mountain but was rescued, a bit battered and bruised but still alive. At the close of a long and weary day the haggard group pitched camp near the Great Divide, where the Hector memorial now stands, and supper was eaten. It consisted of but one course — a small grouse and the ends of some tallow candles — not much of a meal for five famished men. But they had regained the eastern slope of the Rockies where game was more plentiful and where Nimrod was on familiar ground. Turning north near the present Lake Louise railway station and following the Bow River towards its source, they fell in with a roving band of Stoneys and at once their famine days were over. These native people, like themselves, had but a few days earlier been on 102 HILL-TOP TALES very short commons. But now the trees around their camp were literally festooned with assorted roasts, joints and steaks of moose meat, eleven of the animals having fallen victims to the gaunt hunters. That night, near the large lake and under the cliffs of the fine mountain (11,135 feet) which later bore his name, the genial young surgeon made the following entry in his daily journal : | Immediately on our arrival at camp, which was in a pretty secluded spot, by the side of a mossy lake, the squaws took the whole management of-our affairs — unpacked the horses, put up the tent, lined it beautifully with pine foliage, lighted a fire and cut wood into most conveniently-sized billets, and piled them up ready to hand. Then they set about cooking up all sorts of Indian delicacies, — moose nose, roast kidneys etc. I was able to make a few presents to these hospitable women, principally needles and thread, buttons, firesteel and flints/1 Bidding their Indian friends farewell and taking with them a small orphan boy who wished to visit another camp of his tribe farther north, the trail blazers, now greatly refreshed, made a rapid journey to headwaters of North Saskatchewan River. Encamped there they saw Hally's Comet for the first time, ate some goat meat (which violently disagreed with them), gained evidence of buffalo having penetrated that far into the mountains and, on a side trip TRAIL BLAZER 103 to Glacier Lake they carelessly set the woods on fire, burning a large area of fine forest. The Stoney lad now attached to the party made quite a hit with the Doctor. Adept at shooting fish with bow and arrows he was also skilled in woodcraft and knew most of the tricks of the trail. Having previously bagged many brace of grouse, but only by expenditure of precious powder and shot, Hector was greatly diverted by the simplicity and ease with which the young orphan captured birds of this kind : " He took a short piece of sinew twine and made a noose which he fastened on a slender pole, and advancing slowly to the bird, gently passed the noose over its head and pulled it off the tree. The grouse sat gravely looking at him all the time and actually when the noose was close, dodged its head into it." There follows the significant note in the journal : " We adopted this plan of catching them afterwards." Meeting with the friends of the boy some distance east of the Kootenay Plains they camped for several days and carried out a combined sheep hunt, which proved most successful. Emerging from the mountains west of present-day Nordegg and while riding at some distance from his men, Hector had the rare experience of seeing a mountain lion at close quarters. Although the cougar was but ten paces distant and in no hurry to depart, his rifle was so jammed in a wet rawhide cover that it could not be withdrawn in time for a shot. MBSBSS&pj 104 HILL-TOP TALES Some days later they reached Rocky Mountain House, a trading post which at that season was deserted. Here the supply of sheep meat was exhausted and as the diary records : " On looking for the bag of pemmican which the Stoney Indians had prepared for us we found that it had dropped out from the pack and was lost, so we were left without provisions and still had 180 miles to travel to Edmonton." Snow was falling heavily and the wind blew keen when on October 2nd they started on the last lap of this miserable journey. A few grouse and rabbits were killed along the way and at Blindman River they bought some elk meat from Cree Indians, the cost being the one leather tent, a tipi, which had sheltered them for many nights. At Battle River, west of where Wetaskiwin now stands, being minus the tent, they fashioned a crude bivouac from pine foliage, and next morning found themselves completely buried under a great drift. The snow was over two feet deep on the level ; their horses were jaded and they themselves tired, hungry and in rags. Hector wrote : " As it was very cold I tore up my blanket for the general good, to make wrappers for our feet." Plodding across the white wilderness they heroically covered about twenty miles each day, no mean distance in favourable circumstances. Although weather- beaten and weary they were nevertheless undaunted. At journey's end the leader made this brief entry in TRAIL BLAZER 105 his diary : " Coming near to Edmonton we halted to wash our faces before entering the Fort." One gathers that the Edinburgh doctor and his hardy men from Fort Garry were subsequently little the worse physically as a result of their long and arduous trip. In fact, Peter Erasmus, who was one of the group, survived for seventy-three years afterwards, and was actually in Civil Service as an interpreter when he died near Edmonton in 1931, aged ninety- seven. For a few days Hector busied himself with map making and writing. For exercise he made several short trips in the neighbourhood of Edmonton. On one of these walks he examined a seam of pipe clay exposed in the river bank. It worked into a lather and was commonly used by the women of the Fort in the washing of blankets. But the mountains had him in thrall and soon he with two of his men, an Indian named The Fox and three dog teams, was off on another long excursion, the destination being Ghost River and Devil's Head Mountain, some fifty miles west of Calgary. Severe winter weather was experienced throughout this journey which occupied twenty- nine days. During this period the travellers walked a distance of five hundred and thirty-six miles, exclusive of side trips. Camped near the future site of Red Deer City on December first, they were obliged to keep a roaring fire going all night, the temperature having dropped to thirty-seven degrees below zero. Making the usual daily observation for latitude, Hector took note of two large spots on the sun and was curious 106 HILL-TOP TALES as to whether these had any possible bearing on the bitter cold prevailing. One morning on the frozen surface of Red Deer River the ice gave way, plunging the entire party into fairly deep water. This in frigid weather in the wilderness was a serious mishap, but they scrambled ashore, lit a large fire, dried their clothes and resumed the journey. An interesting entry in the record of this foothills expedition tells of the abundance of wolves and of many deer falling victims to these beasts of prey. Hector thought it noteworthy that, almost without exception, the remains were those of bucks in prime condition and with large antlers. Many water ouzels were seen dipping in the water in search of food and bobbing up and down on boulders, with icicles on their wings. Mention is made in the journal of tracks of large numbers of otters on the several rivers along the way. Having made a brief survey of the Ghost River basin they turned homewards again and making a wide detour which took them slightly north of Calgary, followed roughly the route of the railway line which directly links that city with Edmonton. The weather remained consistently sub-zero but fortunately food was plentiful. In what is now the Innisfail district the open countryside was covered with buffalo, while the more wooded parts, as Hector remarks, " looked like an immense deer park ". Consequently the men fared well, as did also the dogs hauling the sleighs. Yet these voracious animals, probably from habit and instinct, embraced every TRAIL BLAZER 107 opportunity to filch flesh food, as witness this item from the diary of the Doctor : " Dec. 20th, 1858. Before starting this morning one of the dogs, that is a notorious thief, actually poked his nose into the pot as it was boiling on the fire and carried off a piece of meat." Facing a brisk north wind and breaking trail for the dogs through a foot of snow they trudged steadily northward reaching Edmonton on Christmas Eve in time to join the festivities at the Fort. Loath to remain long inactive and eager to gain further knowledge of the Rockies, Hector was soon thereafter urging his dog teams westward en route to Jasper House, a remote trading post some twenty miles north of the present town of Jasper. When, with Peter Erasmus as foreman and two additional .helpers, he had travelled for eighteen days out from Edmonton in Arctic weather, it became necessary to ford Athabasca River which despite the severe frost was merely fringed with ice. It was quite dark as they searched vainly for a shallow crossing place. So, unhitching the dogs from the sleds and rudely forcing them into the swift stream, they pelted them with chunks of ice and thus compelled them to swim to the opposite bank, following which the men, wading to the arm-pits in glacial water, carried the laden sleds across on their shoulders. The shivering dogs and their harness were welded into one frozen lump ; the garments of the men crackled even as they emerged from the water, the temperature being then fifteen degrees below zero. Yet somehow they got the icy 108 HILL-TOP TALES dogs and traces untangled and despite brittle clothing, made a brisk run of two miles to reach Jasper House at ten p.m. Mr. Moberly, in charge of this small Hudson's Bay Post, received them most kindly. * * * During that winter game was scarce at Jasper House, probably because wolves were numerous. Also, in previous years there had been heavy toll taken of such animals as moose and mountain sheep, some two score moose and several hundreds of sheep being formerly required to provision the Post through a normal winter. With abundance of venison and mutton the hunters, biped and quadruped, despised the rabbit and spurned the lynx as food animals. As a direct result the wild cats, unmolested and assured of ample food supply, multiplied enormously. When Hector came under the hospitable roof of the Factor at Jasper House, that gentleman had for some weeks been killing lynx for the larder. In a short time he had bagged no fewer than eighty-three, an amazing number in a comparatively small area. Lynx meat at best is not very nourishing and even by men in an isolated station in the far-off hills it was not considered toothsome. But Moberly was resourceful : he had the cook prepare some mountain sheep ham- burgher with which to stuff each lynx carcase. Roasted entire and with nutritious filling, the wild cats thus appeared on the table disguised as glorified " hot-dogs ", of which Hector and his men ate heartily and entirely approved. TRAIL BLAZER 109 During his visit to Jasper the activities of a pack of wolves proved vastly interesting to the young Scots explorer. He painted a graphic word picture of the destruction of several of these animals which had killed a number of horses belonging to the Company. The body of a mare which had just fallen victim to them was liberally salted with strychnine, and on the following day the Doctor and Moberly set forth to observe the effect. Hector thus described the scene : " On reaching the carcase we found that the poison had done its work, for there lay four enormous wolves, besides five or six of a smaller species (coyotes),/while about a score of large ravens were lying about, either dead or in different states of paralysis, some lying on their backs with only power to croak, and others wading about in the snow in the most solemn manner, with their wings trailing behind them. The large wolves who were the real offenders were splendid brutes ... like Scotch stag hounds." Making a side trip from Jasper House to the mouth of the Whirlpool River along the route of the highway now linking Jasper and Lake Louise, Hector climbed high on a mountain side in order to have a look at the spurious peaks named Brown and Hooker. He saw them, but apparently had no opportunity to take their measure. With but two Indians for company he then returned to Edmonton, walking for three hundred and twenty miles on soft snow to Lac St. Ann and living precariously on rabbits and little else. After no HILL-TOP TALES but a few hours rest he bade farewell to Father La- combe, hitched up a dog team and driving through the night was in Fort Edmonton, a distance of fifty miles, in ten hours. In the following summer Dr. Hector undertook another extensive survey of possible routes through the Canadian Rockies. Following the line of his previous journey from Edmonton to Old Bow Fort and ascending Bow River as far as present Lake Louise station he struck northward by way of Pipestone Pass to his old camping ground on North Saskatchewan River. Thence over Howse Pass to Columbia River he travelled southward by way of present-day Golden, Cran- brook and Cceur d'Alene, Idaho, to Fort Colville in Washington. "My men were immediately paid off and at once they started for the gold fields, about five days journey to the N. W. I found all arrangements made for descending the Columbia to the sea." With that significant entry ends the journal of James Hector, faithfully recorded at the close of each day in the flicker of camp fires on the Plains, in the foothills and amid towering peaks in the Rockies. The original manuscript was destroyed when in 1923, during " the Trouble" in Ireland, the home of Captain Palliser was fired and burnt to the ground. Upon returning to Britain the lure of distant places drew Hector from his native land to far-off New Zealand. After one year as geologist to the Provincial TRAIL BLAZER 111 Government of Otago he was appointed Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand, a position he held for almost half a century. For many years he was Chancellor of the University of that southern Dominion and right worthily earned the knighthood bestowed upon him. In 1904 Sir James revisited the scene of his former explorations in the Canadian Rockies, traversing Kicking Horse Pass, not hungry, tired and footsore, but in a luxurious train and as an honoured guest of Canadian Pacific Railway. On this trip he suffered grievous loss in the death of his only son who, accompanying his father, was taken suddenly ill at Field and is buried in Revelstoke cemetery by the side of Columbia River. In New Zealand in 1907 Sir James came to journey's end. To the youth of that country he was a good guide. On high steep trails in the Canadian Rockies and around nightly camp fires he was a good companion. The lofty and rugged Hector Mountain which stands near the source of the winding Bow is fitting memorial to an outstanding geologist, a remarkable explorer and, in the true sense of the word, a nobleman. Chapter X RAINBOW TRAIL Of the many travellers who in early days made the arduous journey across the Canadian Rockies none was more heroic than Catherine Schubert. Wife of one of a party of gold seekers venturing from Ontario and Quebec to the wilds of British Columbia in 1862, the amazing fortitude and endurance of this courageous woman forms one of the brightest chapters in the annals of the western provinces. Today in the town of Armstrong, in a fertile and fruitful valley, there stands a massive granite memorial bearing imprint of a covered wagon hauled by an ox and beneath, the following inscription : In Honour Of Catherine Schubert Who in company with her husband and three small children, was a member of the hazardous overland expedition of 1862 across the Canadian Rockies from Fort Garry to Kamloops. A Brave and Notable Pioneer When Catherine O'Hare, a native of County Down, Ireland, married Augustus Schubert at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1855 she little thought that within a few years her pathway in life would lead across the vast plains and lofty mountains of western Canada. 112 RAINBOW TRAIL 113 Nor ever during her long and trying journey did she dream that in time to come she would be kept in remembrance by a handsome memorial in the land of her adoption. Few of the pioneer women of western Canada have been so signally honoured. Shortly after the middle of last century — and how history does repeat itself — the people of eastern Canada were bitten by the gold bug. To Montreal and Three Rivers, to Toronto and St. Thomas came alluring tales of great gold deposits on Clearwater River near Rocky Mountain House. The staid Toronto Globe, in an editorial " panning | the existing Government for studied indifference towards this new Golconda said, " The precious metal is there and speedily thousands will be drawn to the territory." Rev. Thomas Woolsey, missionary at Edmonton, confirmed the report that there was gold in Clearwater sand bars and in other streams in the neighbourhood. The Nor9 Wester, a Fort Garry newspaper, in issue of March 5th, 1862, contributed further to the spread of gold fever by stating on the authority of a prospector, one Timoleon Love, that this foothills river " became more and more auriferous as one approached its source." Subsequent investigation proved that such claims were grossly misleading; in fact, it is doubtful if there was enough of the metal in Clearwater to fill the cavity in a hollow tooth. However, should the Clearwater prove barren it was but a comparatively short distance to the proven and fabulous field in Cariboo even if the Rockies did have to be crossed and so in May, 1862, a group of one 114 HILL-TOP TALES hundred and fifty men from Ontario and Quebec were to be found at Fort Garry busily employed in assembling | outfits " necessary to the great trek orar the prairies and across the mountains. They bought Red River carts for $8, rawhide sets of harness for $4, while horses cost them $40 and oxen $30 each. It had been decided that no women should be permitted to accompany the party on this gold rush but as Mrs. Schubert stoutly maintained that wherever Augustus went, she went also, the ban was lifted in her favour. With her were, of course, the children: Augustus Junior, aged 6; Mary Jane, aged 4; and James, aged 3. As the main article of food on the way was expected to be pemmican, and little else, the Schubert parents prudently purchased a cow, thus ensuring a plentiful supply of milk for their offspring. From Fort Garry to Edmonton the emigrants were to be guided by an experienced plainsman named Rochette. Highly recommended by Bishop Tache he nevertheless proved quite incompetent and ultimately decamped at Qu'appelle, taking with him a good shot-gun and a goodly supply of ammunition. It was an imposing cavalcade which moved out from the settlement on the Red River and wended its way westward by White Horse Plains. The wheels of a Red River cart, built entirely of wood and turning on a wooden axle, squealed like a stuck pig, and as there were ninety-seven of these vehicles in the caravan the sound made in the passing must have been audible from afar. The Schuberts had a " democrat" spring wagon with a hooded cover of canvas, under whidi Catherine Schubert Memorial, Armstrong, B. C. Sir James Hector Photo by Mrs. Chas. Schaeffer RAINBOW TRAIL 115 their personal belongings were protected from the weather. This conveyance was pulled by an ox and by their general-purpose cow. Mrs. Schubert rode a saddle horse, further equipped with wicker panniers, in which Mary and young Gus were comfortably seated. Jimmie was generally carried by his father. Before long the main expedition split into smaller groups, all of which, despite lack of knowledge of the country and of the route, made surprisingly good progress towards Edmonton. It is worthy of mention that although all were comparatively defenceless they remained unmolested by the several tribes of Indians through whose domain they were obliged to pass. The Mounted Police Force had not then been created and travel was dangerous, as at least two of the native tribes were at war. On July 15th the gold-seekers crossed a battlefield where, only three days previously, the Crees and the Blackfoot had clashed. Five victims of the fray still lay stark upon the ground but of living warriors there was no sign. From the number of picket pins left standing near the scene of the encounter it was judged that about seven hundred braves had taken part in the fight. Confronted by such grim tokens of deadly strife it might well be supposed that the travellers from Upper and Lower Canada were in sombre mood. In an actual theatre of war and, for all they knew, in imminent danger of being scalped, they should rightly have been in a dither. Far from it. Instead of standing to arms, posting sentries etc., they formed a Musical Association. 116 HILL-TOP TALES In the lively journal of one member of the party it is recorded that on the evening of July 16th, supposedly somewhere between Vegreville and Edmonton, "A meeting was held in the centre of the correll of all musicians both Vocal and Instimental for the purpose of getting up a musical society and accordingly one was formed by some 32 joining themselves together among whom were 4 violinists, 2 fluitists, a cornet a' piston, claranetts, a Concerteenia and a number of others who played various small instiments. We played and sang a number of favourite Pieces and then retired for the night." While Augustus was probably one of the " fluitists " or may even have performed on the slide trombone it would not have been surprising to learn that Kitty O'Hare had a harp stowed away in the rear end of the " democrat" and that at this, and subsequent concerts on the trip she played divinely. With the management of a horse and with the care of a husband and three small children Catherine would seldom be in the mood for music. Nevertheless, one feels confident that if she had no stringed " instiment" there were times when she listened gladly to the meadowlarks and to the melodious blackbirds piping by the prairie sloughs. When the sun shone over the grassy plains and the air was fragrant with the perfume of wild flowers she may have lifted her voice in song. At twilight, camped under the wide and starry sky, her lullaby was doubtless as soothing to other ears as to those of her little ones. RAINBOW TRAIL 117 At Fort Garry the members of this overland expedition met Felix O'Byrne, son of a bishop and renowned as western Canada's pioneer hitch-hiker and all-time champion pest. Having battened for several months at the expense of the inhabitants of Red River colony and long outworn his welcome, this itinerant school teacher — for such he professed to be — attached himself to the caravan of the gold-seekers. By the time they reached Fort Carleton he had taught them a lesson and they were thoroughly disgusted by the behaviour of their hobo guest. Turned adrift, but nothing daunted, he thumbed a ride on a Hudson's Bay Company river barge, expecting to sail in leisurely comfort ail the way to Edmonton ; but the voyageurs soured of his company and ditched him at Fort Pitt. On a train of freight carts he rode thence to the future capital of Alberta where, for an entire winter, he lived by his wits. To two English sportsmen, Messrs. Milton and Cheadle, then contemplating a trip to the Cariboo, he spun a wonderful hard-luck tale that resulted in their agreeing to take him with them as far as Kamloops. So pleased were the inhabitants of Edmonton to be rid of O'Byrne that they speeded the parting guest by presenting him with a saddle and a horse. All through the Rockies and down the entire course of the North Thompson River Mr. O'Byrne proved a sore trial to Lord Milton and Doctor Cheadle — their Indian guide strongly advised them to murder him. Reaching Kamloops and, later, Victoria, this astonishing vagrant shook the dust of Canada from off his 118 HILL-TOP TALES wandering feet. One wonders what Mistress Schubert thought of her fellow-countryman. As the travellers journeyed between Carlton and Edmonton the weather was wet and the mosquitoes insufferable. One man wrote home to Hamilton stating in his letter that the mosquitoes were as large as humming-birds. However, as in that fair city a small hill nearby is exalted to the rank of mountain, and as this correspondent had already claimed to have eaten Manitoba raspberries which were as large as plums, his estimate of the size of the tormenting insects may be considerably discounted. The arrival within sight of Edmonton was the signal for hearty and tumultuous cheers, " repeated again and again until the surrounding forests re-echoed with the sound". It was a ragged and forlorn group of adventurers that camped on the south side of the Saskatchewan River, but, as one of the party wrote: " Our courage was still unbroken and we had yet full confidence in our ability to reach the El Dorado of our hopes." From Edmonton twenty-five of the emigrants went to the alleged gold field on the Clearwater — the others determined to push on by Yellowhead Pass to the headwaters of Fraser River and thence to the Cariboo. As it was not possible to make use of carts on this stage of the journey these were discarded and resort was had to transport of their gear by pack- animals. The Schuberts sold their cow and their spring wagon and traded twenty pounds of flour for another horse. RAINBOW TRAIL 119 During the short period of resting and re-fitting, the members of the Musical Association gave three minstrel concerts in Edmonton, drawing crowded houses and greatly delighting the residents. All day and for several days there was much activity in horse-trading and in the barter of goods. Finally all were equipped for the arduous trip through the mountains and on July 29th the cavalcade of 140 horses, mules and oxen and 125 people departed from Fort Edmonton. Save for Cardinal, their guide, none of the men of the party were familiar with the art of " packing". The diamond hitch was something quite new and quite baffling to them, nor were the pack-animals accustomed to the bearing of burdens ; the result was that, at first, there was much vexatious delay on the trail. From the day-to-day journal of John M. Sellar we learn that: " As the oxen had never before had a pack on them they made some queer cappers, but all got along fairly well except one ox and we could not make him pack. After kicking up some of the most fearful didoes that any person could imagine, he got so ferosious that no person dare go near him." A member of the expedition named Morrow, a citizen of Montreal, had been knocked down by a Red River cart at Qu'appelle, one wheel of which passed over his face. At Ste. Anns, north-west of Edmonton, he had a further mishap. In an effort to halt the head- 120 HILL-TOP TALES long career of his wayward ox he resorted to % bull- dogging" the brute. Unfortunately, his grasp on the horns of the wildly careening beast was insecure and quickly wrenched loose, with the result that he was thrown violently to the ground and had his countenance further marred by being stamped upon by the unruly animal. At Pembina River their camp fires were built of coal. Seams of this fuel from nine to twelve feet thick were exposed at the place where they forded the stream, while from under a nearby hill such vast clouds of smoke poured forth from a subterranean coal fire as convinced the emigrants that they were in the presence of an active volcano. Sellar stated that " The burning mountain shows signs of a recent eruption as the lava is spread over several acres." The supposed molten rock was simply ashes. Another member of the party believed that there was enough coal in this one area to supply all England for a thousand years. In what is now Jasper National Park they were charmed by the wonderful scenery and by the wealth of wild flowers. Near Henry's House, a short distance from the present town of Jasper, the orchestra and vocalists gave a grand camp fire concert, regarding which one of the audience wrote, " The singing and instrumental sounds must have greatly surprised the mountain sheep and other wild creatures within hearing." From this point onward, food became scarce and the entire group was strictly rationed. Pemmican gave out and it became necessary to convert draught RAINBOW TRAIL 121 animals into roasts and steaks. The Schuberts were obliged to kill a horse, and as salt was almost all gone they cut the meat into strips and dried it over a fire. Squirrels, porcupines and even skunks appeared on the daily menu, the latter animals providing a much more appetizing dish than had been anticipated. The steed carrying the cooking utensils i got tired of the hard life of a pack-horse and jumped into the Fraser River and was drowned, sinking with all his cargo." Near Tete Jaime Cache they encountered a band of Shuswap Indians engaged in fishing and in berry- picking. From these native people they obtained a welcome supply of the mutton of the mountain sheep. They also purchased a number of salmon, one of which must have been a very great fish, as it provided dinner, supper and breakfast for seventeen hungry men. Reaching " Tait Joan Cass ", as Sellar spelled it, the party split, one group heading westward to Fort George and thence to Quesnel and Williams Lake ; the other, in which were the Schuberts, travelling south to Kamloops by way of North Thompson River, a distance of 230 miles. The Thompson River party consisted of thirty-six persons, with one hundred and thirty head of horses and cattle. Much of the trail led through a jungle of dense forest, in places the faint track was hard to find and follow and travel was slow and laborious. At the end of seventeen days they had covered but 60 miles and it became painfully evident that at this rate they would in all likelihood die of starvation before reaching Kamloops. So, killing their cattle and abandoning most of the 122 HILL-TOP TALES horses, they dried the beef in the sun, embarked on hastily constructed rafts and in dug-out canoes and, without chart or guide, undertook a desperate voyage, a voyage which might well have daunted a crew of experienced voyageurs familiar with the fierce rapids and rock-strewn channels of North Thompson River. On the way downstream several of the rafts were repeatedly upset, horses were thrown overboard and cargo lost. At least one man was drowned and many had miraculous escapes. At Murchison Rapids there was a portage of nine miles, over which the tired and now dispirited men passed on foot in alternate snow and rain. One wonders how the Schubert children and their indomitable mother, the sole adult female in the party, fared during this nightmare journey down the Thompson. From the south end of this portage to Kamloops, a distance of 120 miles, some members of the expedition proceeded on foot, whilst others built new rafts and sailed all the way down. Most of their food supply had been lost in the river and while yet far distant from their goal, starvation stared them in the face. Approaching a small Indian encampment they were horror-stricken to find all the native tenants dead from smallpox and yet unburied. The victims of that dread disease had planted a small field with potatoes in the spring and but for these tubers, to which they freely helped themselves, the emigrants would in all probability have perished for lack of food. They arrived at Fort Kamloops on October 13th, and on that same day in a small tent by the side of the RAINBOW TRAIL 123 river, Catherine Schubert gave birth to another child — the first white girl born in interior British Columbia. Her midwife, an aged Indian squaw, wished to call the baby Kumloops, but she was given the name of Rose. Strange to say, but few of the gold-seeking emigrants, after all they had gone through to get there, even went near the diggings in Cariboo. Amongst that few was Augustus Schubert, who mined for gold in that region for eleven years and rejoined his family at Lillooet in 1874. He died in 1908 and ten years later was followed by his wife. That Catherine Schubert withstood the fatigue and dangers of a three-and-a-half months' continuous transcontinental journey under primitive methods of travel, was remarkable. That she should bring her children all the long way without mishap was a tribute to her hardihood and to her mother-craft. She was indeed, " A Brave and Notable Pioneer ". Chapter XI PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS HOWARD SIBBALD One of the most unassuming and likable men in the Canadian Rockies was Howard E. Sibbald. For some time Indian agent at the Stoney and Blackfoot Reservations, for many years Chief Warden of Banff National Park and latterly Superintendent of Kootenay Park, he was recognized by the red men and white as being a government official endowed with much common sense and as a man of sterling character. 'During two summers it was my good fortune to serve under him as fire warden. Green as the woods through which I rode and did my best to safeguard, I found in Howard a patient mentor and from him gleaned much lore of the mountain trails and of the creatures of woodland and hill-side. In practical conservation of wild life and in forestry he was what one might call a connoisseur, only that he would have laughingly pronounced it" Cofin-oosir ", to my everlasting delight. I greatly envied his knowledge of woodcraft, also the handsome hairy chapps which he wore on the trail. These were made from the pelt of a grizzly bear which, mortally wounded by a poacher in Spray Valley, had turned on the assailant and slain him with one blow of its paw. 124 PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS 125 Around a camp fire after a good meal and with things made ship-shape for the night, he had many a good story to tell about men of the mountains with whom he had had dealings. He spoke of Byron Harmon, the photographer, who once brazenly rode up to a Park Warden's cabin with two brace of Franklin grouse dangling from the pommel of his saddle. Despite park regulations designed to protect bird life these confiding fowl had palpably been victims of deliberate stoning. Confronted by the warden, a somewhat gullible and elderly person, and asked to explain how he came to be possessed of the game birds, Byron blandly stated that as he rode along the trail his horse had unfortunately stepped on the luckless grouse. And he made the story stick ! Sibbald delighted in telling about a Scottish warden at Mount Assiniboine who had a misadventure with a skunk. The ranger, Jack Hogarth, had his tipi pitched among the larches on the grassy meadow by Cerulean Lake. While absent on patrol a skunk had gained access to his canvas dwelling and had thoroughly fouled everything within the lodge. As Sibbald, on an unexpected visit, reached the scene of the crime, Hogarth was discovered tearfully dragging his bedding from the malodorous tent. Without ever a word of greeting or even an exclamation of surprise at the chance arrival of his Chief, Jack said plaintively in typical Lowland Scots idiom, 1 Oh Howard, do you feel that smell? " Concluding the narrative, Howard remarked, " I have never heard a more apt expression." Camped with him on Ghost River, where we were 126 HILL-TOP TALES storm-stayed for two days, he beguiled the hours by recalling some of his experiences of bygone years in the West. His story of early travel across the great plains and of pioneer days in the foothills of the Rockies was to me entrancing, and there and then in the glimmer of a tipi fire I made record of what he said. Here it is : I Early in 1875 my father, Andrew Sibbald, had been offered a position as teacher in a school about to be established amongst the Blood Indians in the far west. This offer he accepted and so, at the age of nine years, I in company with the other members of the family, left Stroud, Ontario, on June 10 of that year. The party consisted of my father and mother, my brother Frank aged six and my sister Elsie aged three. Travelling by way of Duluth and Moorehead and descending the Red River we presently completed the initial stage of our long journey by reaching Fort Garry. There we met David McDougall the trader, with his cart train. My father bought a horse and a wagon for us to ride in and also secured a cart and an ox to haul it. In the ox cart were loaded our household belongings, among which were a sewing machine and an organ. This instrument was, I think, the first of its kind brought into the North West, although the McDougall family had previously imported a folding melodeon. i Leaving Fort Garry we set out across the prairie, our faces turned toward the setting sun. To me, a nine-year-old boy, it was an adventurous journey and PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS 127 a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Father travelled most of the way on foot and, with his gun, kept the family supplied with food. There was no dog in the outfit and so I was frequently obliged to act as retriever, wading into the sloughs for ducks which had fallen to the gun. At that time game of all kinds was plentiful and we had abundance of fresh meat. 9 Travelling on the old Edmonton trail we saw no white man until reaching Bird-tail Creek (now Birtle) where we encountered a survey party in which was Mr. Allan Patrick, later of Calgary. This chance meeting was on a Sunday which was a resting day and thus we had opportunity to learn much about the country through which these men had recently passed. Long before reaching Fort Ellice our freight ox had become exceedingly footsore and weary and my father traded him off for a partly broken steer. The part which was broken must have formed but a small portion of the animal, because he proved an unruly fractious beast, upsetting the cart several times and otherwise causing us much trouble and annoyance. After this experience trader McDougall was paid to transport our freight in his train. " My mother drove the horse and looked after her Children who, sheltered from sun and rain inside the covered wagon, gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the apparently endless sea of grass and at the various forms of wild life then so abundant on the plains. Father was unfortunate in his choice of draught animals as this horse of ours turned out to be a nervous irritable brute. Left standing too long when our cavalcade 128 HILL-TOP TALES would be temporarily halted, it became exceedingly restive and on several occasions alarmed us by bolting across the prairie, bouncing us around in the wagon and giving the driver cause for anxiety until she was able to get it under control and back into the line of teams and carts again. " Somewhere in what is now Saskatchewan we saw our first Indian. He came into our wayside camp one evening when mother was busy preparing supper. Being somewhat of a curiosity to us he was asked to stay and partake of the pancakes which were in the making and which formed the main part of the meal. This he did, bolting the hot cakes as fast as the astonished cook could turn them out of the pan, while we hungry youngsters watched with awe the rapacious Redskin greedily devouring our supper. This incident was indelibly stamped upon my memory and I can still recollect that after dark on that evening I lay watching the stars and speculating on just how many pancakes an Indian, given opportunity, could hold." Here Howard paused in his narrative, gazing long and thoughtfully at the embers as if still perplexed by this problem of fifty years standing. Then coming out of his day-dream to mend the fire and to take a hasty look at the weather, he again tucked himself into his sleeping-bag and went on with his story. " It is almost unbelievable the difference a few years make. The modern traveller, crossing the prairies by plane or train, measures the distance between Winnipeg PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS 129 and the Rockies by minutes and hours. Settlers such as we were plodded across the plains from dawn till sunset and at the pace of a slow-moving ox a calendar was more useful to us than a clock. We were over a hundred days on the trail before we finally reached the foothills and made preparation to spend the nearing winter in the little settlement at Morley. The untimely death of Rev. George McDougall which occurred in a January blizzard some few miles northwest of Calgary was an irreparable loss to our small community and delayed for several years the founding of a mission school amongst the Blood Indians to the south. So my father remained at Morley where he taught school and between times was otherwise employed. He had much to do with preparing the lumber and with building the church which stands by the side of the Trans-Canada highway near Morley. He also floated logs down Bow River to the new settlement at Calgary. From this timber at least one church on what is now Sixth Avenue, and several other buildings were constructed. That was of course a few years after we took up residence in Morley. R In those early days (1875) all our supplies had to be fetched from Fort Benton on the Missouri River over four hundred miles distant. As but one trip was made annually a large train of carts was needed to export buffalo hides and furs and to bring back the necessary foodstuffs and other materials on which the Morley settlers depended. In the spring of 1876 I was greatly excited over the prospect of going to Benton with the teamsters. Our caravan was formed 130 HILL-TOP TALES of some forty vehicles and had attached to it, in addition to the animals in harness, a number of unbroken steers. These were to be occasionally yoked and gradually accustomed to work so that, on the homeward journey they would provide haulage for our more bulky and weighty imports. I These wild steers at the outset, could only be successfully handled when coupled with a steady old ox long used to the hauling. I was appointed tutor to an animal hailing from Texas. Its horns were long but a list of its good qualities when we first met would have been very short. I commenced the training by giving it a lesson in behaviour when being led. Hitching the prosaic old ox to a cart I tied the steer to the rear end of the vehicle by a rope. I was then only ten years old and fear had a mortgage on my soul and body. When the cart ox started ahead Mister Longhorn reared violently on his hind legs and first thing I knew he was beside me in the cart. After recovering from fright I persevered with the clumsy brute and before long had him as docile as any draught animal in the outfit. " An ox team consisted of six animals hitched in a string and driven by one man. Its progress depended largely on the behaviour of the leader. Crossing rivers which were too deep to ford on the hoof proved a tedious undertaking on such a trip as that to Benton and with such a large outfit. The carts, with their contents, had to be ferried on a raft fashioned from cart wheels covered over with buffalo hides. By means of long rawhide ropes this primitive ferry boat Howard E. Sibbald Andrew Sibbald PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS 131 was pulled to and fro until the crossing was completed, usually an arduous task. " On this trip, which to me was novel and thrilling, I was left, together with two teamsters, on an island in Sun River where the oxen were turned loose to graze while the other members of the party proceeded to Helena. There they hoped to procure material necessary for building the additional carts needed to freight our goods home to Morley. This island was the home of large numbers of skunks which, to while away the time and to impress the teamsters with my prowess as a hunter, I proceeded to exterminate. The men were impressed alright and said so plainly in no uncertain terms whenever I got to windward of them. " When our people returned from Helena they brought with them a number of used cannon wheels upon which we made and mounted cart bodies, and with our augmented caravan went on to Fort Benton. At that time Benton was a bustling frontier town. It depended almost entirely for its prosperity on the Missouri River which was navigable up to that point. It also formed a base for prospectors scouring the Black Hills country in search of mineral wealth. While we were at Benton news was received of the Custer massacre. Consequently, on the return journey we were all armed. My weapon was an old rim-fire rifle, almost as great a menace at the butt as at the muzzle. However, we saw no Indians, either hostile or friendly." 132 HILL-TOP TALES From the spruce tree branches overhead soft wads of snow fell upon the canvas of our Ghost River lodging—there was intermittent tinkle-tankle of horse bells as our steeds sauntered idly in the neighbourhood or twitched the moisture from their dripping coats. After nightfall a pair of noisy coyotes howled and yapped. Otherwise it was very quiet as we smoked and talked in the flickering firelight or silently watched the ever changing pictures in the glowing embers. From time to time the frying-pan sputtered and the billy-can boiled. At wakeful intervals Howard, rummaging further in memory's storehouse, brought out more graphic stories of other days in the West. Asked about buffalo on the prairies in those days he said : " At the time we came West the buffalo had already dwindled rapidly and the vast herds one reads about were no longer to be seen. I recall now an experience on the boyhood trip to Benton, one that still remains vivid in spite of the passing of many years. This incident had the Sweet Grass Hills for a setting. There, one morning at very early dawn, I sleepily went out with one of the men to round up the oxen. On locating the animals we were somewhat surprised to see an old bull bison quietly feeding in their midst. I ran quickly back to camp and got an Indian of our party to come and shoot the great shaggy beast. One of our cart wheels had given way and so the hide of this bull was put to good use in repairing the damage. The green pelt was stretched and bound over the fracture and when the rawhide had shrunk and dried PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS 133 the wheel was again serviceable. We took with us part of the meat of this buffalo but hot and sultry weather soon spoiled it. " On another occasion I went to Benton to meet my mother and on the return trip had a real mishap. We had bought a large can of coal oil, enough to light the Sibbald family lamps for a year. Unfortunately the jolting and jarring of the springless cart caused the can to spring a leak, with the result that when we reached Morley the oil was somewhere along the Benton trail. So all that winter we were entirely dependent on homemade candles for night light. Nowadays, with great electric power plants on Bow River and at Morley furnishing light for half the province of Alberta the loss of a can of coal oil seems a small matter. But to us it was a calamity. Later, when I. G. Baker had established stores at Macleod and at Calgary we were, one might say, almost next door to the grocery. f During the late fall of 1877 I was permitted to go on a hunting trip with the men of Morley. We were after buffalo which at that time were becoming comparatively scarce, only small bands of from fifty to one hundred ranging on the prairies. In search of these wild cattle we travelled long distances and after being out for several days finally sighted a herd some short distance west of the present town of Gleichen. It was then almost dusk and too late to hunt, so we camped for the night. Firewood was needed and with a half-breed Indian axeman, I went to the Bow River bank for dry poplar wood. No sooner had my com- HILL-TOP TALES panion laid axe to a stout tree than there was a most unearthly clatter and a shower of bones came rattling down about our ears. Unwittingly we had disturbed the last resting-place of some long-departed Blackfoot brave." Howard spoke of his mother in a wistful way which I could well understand. She died when he was but a lad of fifteen. Typhoid, then a scourge in primitive settlements, had broken out in Morley and she was amongst those stricken. There was no doctor nearer than Fort Macleod far to the south and no means of communication other than by courier. A young man named Boyd rode post-haste to the southern Police post for medical help. Despite a long detour made necessary by a prairie fire, the return journey, in a buckboard and with relays of horses, an estimated distance of one hundred and seventy-five miles, was made in eighteen hours and that over rough ungraded prairie trails. It was an heroic journey, but unfortunately without avail. By the time the doctor arrived at Morley the beloved wife of the Mission teacher and friend of all the Stoneys was beyond all aid. When the storm had cleared and the September sun was rapidly melting the sodden snow we broke camp, dried our canvas shelter, stacked away the tipi poles and presently wended our way homewards across Aylmer Pass and along the hillsides above Minnewanka Lake. Sibbald's flood of recollection still ran strong. He remembered taking part as a jockey in a horse race on open prairie where Hudson's Bay store, Central PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS 135 United church, the Herald and other prominent Calgary buildings now stand. The year 1882 found him freighting supplies for the engineers then surveying the route of Canadian Pacific Railway through the foothills of the Rockies. Three years later war broke out on the Western plains and Sibbald joined the transport division of Steele's Scouts, a force which took active part in quelling the Riel Rebellion. Then followed a tranquil period of ranching and a long term as Indian agent at Morley and Gleichen. Thus far his train of recollection ran and it failed only when we had finally dismounted, unsaddled and stowed away our gear. The notebook then used to store these pioneer memories is open before me now, the yellowing pages somewhat foxed and considerably smudged with ash from a camp fire long gone cold. It still exhales the faintest whiff of wood smoke whose odour conjures up undimmed vision of a good companion and a trustworthy friend. During the latter part of his long and useful life Andrew Sibbald lived in Banff where, as at Morley, he was greatly respected. On the occasion of his ninety-seventh birthday he was guest of honour at a special meeting of the Southern Alberta Old Timers' Association in Calgary. This organization boasts of many members of Scots birth or ancestry and it was significant that at that gathering they made the venerable gentleman a Life Member. However, it 136 HILL-TOP TALES proved no belated tribute because the recipient lived for several more years and even after becoming a centenarian, he remained keenly interested in the affairs of the Association and in all current events. He died in Banff and was buried on the Indian Reservation at Morley where in 1875 he founded the first school established in Southern Alberta. During the service in the nearby church, of which he had been architect and builder, there came an unexpected interruption, one which was profoundly touching. While the resident missionary offered a simple prayer and read a familiar chapter, an aged Indian, William Twin, walked slowly down the hill and across the meadow towards the building. In one hand he held a compact little bunch of foothills flowers — in the other he carried a single pinion feather. Pressing through the throng in the doorway and advancing up the narrow aisle, he halted beside the coffin and in the hush of the crowded sanctuary, gave voice to the sorrow of his tribe and paid tribute to the worth of the Good Teacher who had gone to sleep. Present on that occasion and though quite unfamiliar with the Stoney language in which William spoke, I was nevertheless as deeply moved by his eloquence as by his dignity. Having ended he laid the humble floral token on the casket and placed the feather, native symbol of immortality, on the breast of his departed friend. Then, gathering his smoke-stained and tattered blanket about him as a proud Roman patrician might have girt his toga, he silently took his leave. PIONEER DAYS IN THE FOOTHILLS 137 Outdoors a gentle wind stirred the prairie grass and rippled the quietly flowing river. The clack of up- springing grasshoppers sounded strangely loud. William walked slowly up the hill and over the ridge where the old fir trees stand sentinel. Chapter XII SILVER CITY I Over the meadows that blossom and wither Rings but the note of a wild bird's song; Only the sun and the rain come thither All the year long." These lines might well form appropriate epitaph for a number of towns in the Canadian Rockies which, after a brief existence, passed peacefully away. Some of them, as for instance the coal-mining towns of Anthracite and Bankhead, have disappeared more completely than did Ninevah and Tyre and the grass now grows rank on their former sites. Most ephemeral amongst these once bustling centres and perhaps most frequently spoken of was Silver City, with which this chapter has to deal. Situated half-way between Banff and Lake Louise and under the towers and bastions of the mountain originally named Castle but now mapped as Mount Eisenhower, its rapid growth and equally rapid decay were such that today the place has almost become legendary. During the summer of 1882 a youth from distant Barrie in Ontario and a Stoney Indian from nearby Morley journeyed westward together through the Rockies. Their route skirted the great swamp at the base of Sawback Range, followed the course of Bow 138 SILVER CITY 139 River and led onward towards the Great Divide. The man from Ontario was Tom Wilson, who later became one of the best-known guides and outfitters in the Canadian Rockies. The Indian was Edwin Hunter who, amongst his fellow-tribesmen, was known as Gold Seeker. Tom was not prospecting for silver or gold but, employed on early surveys for the forthcoming railroad and during this present reconnaissance, he discovered the lake whose incomparable beauty has year by year brought abundance of fine gold into the region. At the end of their first day's ride they camped on a pretty green meadow near the base of Castle Mountain. Save for the presence of a few scurrying gophers and a family group of friendly Canada Jays the flowery park on which they set up their tipi was quite untenanted. Next day they rode north-west to the mouth of Pipestone River and, fording the Bow, pushed upwards through pine woods and beside a rushing un-named stream. The water in this foaming, tumbling creek was clear and sparkling and hence, to one familiar with the mountains, offered conclusive evidence of having its source in a lake. Presently they stood on the margin of Lake Louise. Until that memorable afternoon no white man had ever seen the splendour of this colourful mountain tarn or of the glittering snowy heights reflected in its calm waters. Two years later Tom again had occasion to break journey at the foot of Castle Mountain. By this time the grassy meadow on which he and the Gold Seeker had previously camped was thronged with a medley W65SBS!Bn5SI5a!H5SSISlS8gg§Sggl 140 HILL-TOP TALES of seekers after hidden wealth. Lured thither by widespread rumours of rich veins of silver and copper embedded in the neighbouring hills, many adventurers trudged up Bow Valley, most of them wandering miners with that strange gleam in their eyes common to habitual pursuers of rainbows. Numerous dwellings of log construction had been hastily thrown together, several stores built and two hotels erected on this pleasant site. The settlement, it could hardly even aspire to village status, bore the somewhat sanguine name of Silver City. On this visit to the budding metropolis Wilson found food and lodging in the Miners' Home hotel, a comparatively palatial two- storied structure. Here also he found his future wife, Minnie McDougall, one of the most gracious pioneer women in the length and breadth of the Rockies. During the winter of " 84 " the log shacks of Silver City were crowded with impatient fortune seekers, all eagerly awaiting the melting of snow, all anxious to stake silver and copper claims. Migrating chiefly from Montana and other western States, these roistering incomers would fain have had a " wide-open" town, but the advent of two North West Mounted Police officers put a crimp in the activities of whiskey peddlers, gun-men and the like. That this mining camp of mushroom growth had several thousand inhabitants is common belief. From an early issue of the Calgary Herald, then a four-page news sheet of foolscap size, one learns that the actual population of Silver City at its peak consisted of 237 men, 7 married women, 5 girls and 2 boys. SILVER CITY 141 With the coming of spring it was soon revealed that no silver-bearing ore existed in the vicinity, nor was there other than a mere trace of copper in the rocks. Professor A. P. Coleman of Toronto, one of the most eminent geologists in Canada, then engaged in a survey of the Selkirk mountains, examined several claims in the great cirque behind Castle Mountain and on nearby ridges, but found them all worthless. All he had for the labour of a long hard climb was an excellent view of Bow Valley. By midsummer most of the miners had departed sorrowfully, and although one of the hotel proprietors sought to retard the exodus by " salting " Johnson Creek, the operation was futile and the boom town speedily passed out of the picture. One of my neighbours in Banff is Jim Cooper who, as a youth of twenty, lived in Silver City during its brief hey-day and helped to build a tote road to the alleged mine known as " Queen of the Hills ". He told me that the evacuation of the place was such that storekeepers simply walked away from their premises, leaving large quantities of merchandise as treasure- trove to the Pack Rats. Some time later, when many of the buildings were being razed and while clearing out a disused storehouse, Cooper discovered a large cask full of fiddles and bows, all of the instruments irreparably damaged by moisture. From another abandoned building he retrieved an oil painting, supposedly done by an Italian labourer then working on railroad construction between Banff and Holt City (later Lake Louise). This landscape, hanging in the Cooper home, was probably the first canvas painted 142 HILL-TOP TALES in a region which now boasts a permanent School of Art and in summer simply swarms with artists. By the month of August, 1888, Silver City had already taken on the general aspect of a ghost town. About that time William Spotswood Green, an English clergyman returning from exploration of what is now Glacier National Park in British Columbia, stopped off at Castle Mountain station in order to interview " Joe" Smith, a tenacious and optimistic resident of the City. From him Green hoped to gain some first-hand information of local geography and particularly of the whereabouts of Mount Lefroy, now known as Mount Temple. In his book, titled Among the Selkirk Glaciers the reverend gentleman paints a vivid word picture of the skeleton of the mining town which had then been demoted to a " whistle stop " on the railroad. This is what he wrote : " The station consisted of nothing but a water tank for the engine and here we left the train. The mountains had receded from the river, leaving a level plain surrounded by bare castellated peaks and on the centre of this little plain we could see the rows of brown log houses forming Silver City. Throwing down our packs near the railway station we walked off to explore the " City PL There was a marvellous stillness about it ; no sign of any living thing. " We reached the grass-grown street, and looking into the empty houses heard no sound but the flapping of torn paper, which once bedizened the walls. One house we explored had evidently been a drinking SILVER CITY 143 saloon ; there was some moth-eaten finery hanging about and an underground cellar. At last we espied a dog and at the farthest end of the town found a house in which were two young women, the wives of men working in the section gang on the railway. It being near supper time they kindly invited us to stay and share the meal then cooking. We asked for Joe Smith but to our chagrin heard that he had been absent on a prospecting trip for some six weeks and would not return for another month. " For our night's lodgings they told us we might occupy any house in the City we liked. What a charming place some might think Silver City to be. House and land and no rent to pay... There were hordes of spiders in the houses so notwithstanding this freedom of everything we preferred pitching our own tent and were quite comfortable at night. " The men at work on the railway returned about sunset and shortly afterwards strolled over to our camp fire and sat for an hour's chat. They were both Canadians and considered the railway work comparatively easy. They were most intelligent, had plenty to talk about and we thoroughly enjoyed their visit. We discussed the past history of Silver City which was brief as may be supposed, and depended largely on a swindle carried out by some sharp mining agents. Our new found friends knew where Mount Lefroy stands and could have pointed out its peak to us but for dense clouds of forest fire smoke which made everything indistinct." 144 HILL-TOP TALES In the late autumn of 1882 or the spring of the following year " Joe " Smith, employed on Canadian Pacific Railway construction between Winnipeg and Calgary, came to settle near Castle Mountain. (George and William Fear, old-time merchants in Banff, told me that he worked his way westward along the new line selling watches, shoe laces, buttons and other packman notions to the navvies.) His father was a Scot and his mother French Canadian; he had had some experience in prospecting for minerals and was then 41 years of age. Shortly after his arrival and presumably from his profits as a pedlar, he built a good-sized rooming-house and a small pool-room in Silver City and did quite a good business during the "boom". When that short period ended in a thorough slump, Joe turned again to hunting for the elusive lode in summer and to trapping fur-bearing animals during the winter months. James Smith, for such was his proper name, lived on at Castle Mountain for over half a century. Often I have heard him described as a hermit. On the contrary, he was no soured and sullen recluse but a well- read, well-bred courtly gentleman whom it was ever a pleasure to meet. Solitude and close contact with Nature but served to develop in him a contentment that the worldling strives eagerly after but seldom gains. About the year 1926 his eyes were dimmed by cataract and latterly he became almost blind. Oldest resident and sole remaining inhabitant of Silver City, he was removed to Lacombe Home at Midnapore in SILVER CITY 145 October, 1937, and there, but one month later, the Fathers said Mass for his soul. * * * Of Silver City itself no trace remains — on collapse of the short-lived mining boom the logs and lumber from many of the abandoned buildings were hauled to Banff and there put to further use in the construction of a small hotel and a theatre, both bearing the name of Moulton. If the shades of Tom Wilson and his Gold-Seeking Indian companion ever visit the Canadian Rockies — and one cannot think of them as being contented elsewhere — they are doubtless grateful to find the pretty green meadow where they camped of old again in sole possession of the gophers. It is once more a desirable place on which to pitch a tent and pasture a pony. Chapter XIII OLD AS THE HILLS ' The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret." Scott An elderly Scotsman, paying his first visit to a race track and winning a handsome sum on a long-odds horsey was prompted to ask how long this sort of thing had been going on. Many a tourist to the Canadian Rockies, gazing in wide-eyed wonder at the towering cliffs and lofty peaks, and curious as to when and how this great upheaval took place, might well ask this same question. Many persons whose knowledge of geology is but slight are under the impression that this vast range was raised, as it were, overnight. As a matter of fact, the shrinking of the earth's crust and the resultant forming of the mountains was an immeasurably slow process which may still be in progress. More difficult to answer is the other part of the query — when did this area first commence to move upwards ? From the evidence available it seems that even the most learned scientists differ widely about the age of the so-called everlasting hills at Jasper and at Lake Louise. Near the latter place and alongside the Trans- Canada highway is a rocky ridge of almost incredible 146 Turbulent Kicking Horse River OLD AS THE HILLS 147 antiquity. Upon it is a signboard bearing the inscription : % The rock here exposed is from 500 million to 700 million years old \\. That estimate, with its margin for error of whole aeons, fairly well outlines present-day knowledge of the structure and far-off founding of the Canadian Rockies. Nevertheless, many geologists, patient as a glacier, have given much time to a study of the rocks of this region and, as a result, have unearthed many interesting facts about the general architecture of the western mountains of Canada. In simple terms they have explained how Maligne Lake was formed and why Bow River went out of its way to create the splendid scenic waterfall at Banff, and so on. I give you their word that the Selkirks are one hundred million years older than the Rockies and are already showing definite sign of having passed their prime ; that nowhere throughout the region, save in Ice River Valley in Yoho National Park, is there evidence of volcanic eruption, and that despite the presence of gold in the sands of the North Saskatchewan River, there is no auriferous rock on the eastern slope of the Shining Mountains of Canada. Along the eastern margin of the Rockies there is, however, glittering black gold in abundance ; and men skilled in such matters, maintain that under the mountains of Alberta lies one of the greatest deposits of coal yet discovered on this earth. This has already been proved throughout Crow's Nest Pass, in the Canmore-Bankhead area and farther north at Nordegg, in the vicinity of Edmonton and elsewhere. When 148 HILL-TOP TALES you go to stoke the furnace on a winter's night or put a bit of fuel in the kitchen range, give a kind thought to the painstaking geologists who, with hammer and drill, revealed the hidden hoard of coal buried deep under the foundations of the western mountains. Much of the ground-work leading up to the discovery of extensive coal measures in all parts of the foothills and in the mountains was done by D. B. Dowling, an eminent geologist to whom tribute has been paid in the form of a simple memorial cairn now standing by the side of the Banff-Calgary highway. First, and possibly foremost, of the scientists to scan the cliffs and to study the formation of the mountains in this region was that Dean of Canadian geologists, Professor A. P. Coleman. Paying his initial visit to the Rockies in 1884 he returned many times to gain further knowledge of the life history of the range. Opening his book The Canadian Rockies, one obtains, in the first paragraph, a delightful vignette of rail travel across the prairie on the semi-weekly train which bore him westward : " When the train left Winnipeg for the west in May, 1884, it was not in a hurry. At the stations there was ample time to pick prairie flowers and eat a dinner of wild goose in a restaurant tent at one place or enjoy a supper of antelope in a shack beside the track at another/' From Calgary, then but a village, he travelled west on a construction train which staggered as far as Holt City, later Laggan and still later Lake Louise. There he found accommodation, but little sleep, in a lowbrowed log " stopping place | called " Sumit House " OLD AS THE HILLS 149 and next day started out with his own pack-horse outfit for Golden. The railroad builders were then hacking and blasting a track alongside the turbulent Kicking Horse River and all along the way the air was blue with forest fire smoke and profanity, while rock debris shot sky high, fell in showers on the tote road over which he urged his horses. In the Columbia Valley and particularly around Spillamacheen, he spent a happy holiday, while surveying the Rockies on one side and the Selkirks on the other, and then with an appetite but whetted for further exploration, returned to Toronto. The following summer saw Coleman detrain at Donald, then a bustling town of mushroom growth. He was en route to Revelstoke from whence he planned to visit the Big Bend country to the north. At Stoney Creek he saw a large gang of men building the highest trestle bridge in Canada and found a night's lodging in a woebegone boarding-house called f Dew Drop Inn", staffed by a frowsy gentleman who combined the duties of clerk, waiter, cook and general roustabout. Revelstoke, yet un-named, had been almost wiped out by a disastrous fire just previous to his arrival, and his first impression of the place was not at all favourable. With twelve dollars and fifty cents' worth of bacon, beans and flour he purchased a one-quarter interest in a dug-out canoe and with three ardent prospectors immediately embarked on the swollen Columbia River, on what appeared to be an extremely risky voyage upstream to the abandoned Big Bend goldfield. However, the flooded turbulent river proved almost impass- 150 HILL-TOP TALES able and after several days of strenuous tracking, punting and paddling, Coleman relinquished his share in the craft and completed the journey on foot. He found much of interest to a geologist on French and McCulloch Creeks where, in 1866 and 1867, from eight to ten thousand miners panned over three million dollars' worth of gold. The towns in which they lived were now completely deserted, the houses moss- grown and rapidly falling into decay. During the entire trip rain fell almost continuously and his clothes were never dry ; when he again reached Revelstoke even the | folding money " in his wallet was mouldy. Home again in Ontario he was greatly intrigued by stories about those legendary monarchs of the Rockies, Mounts Brown and Hooker. Were they really the highest mountains in Canada and if so, where did they stand ? Ever and anon for many months his thoughts strayed toward the twin giant peaks that had for so long proved a puzzle to geographers. So, in 1888, with one companion, Coleman sought to penetrate a trackless wilderness in an effort to solve the Brown-Hooker problem. Sailing down the Columbia from Beaver- mouth in a light canoe, he came near to losing his life in Surprise Rapids near Kinbasket Lake. He failed in this quest of the elusive mountains but, in an old rotting tent on the bank of the big river and twenty- five miles from the nearest habitation, was considerably surprised to find a costly-looking kitchen range and a marble-topped wash-stand. These were undoubtedly relics of the Big Bend gold rush, probably jettisoned by Argonauts in face of awesome rapids. OLD AS THE HILLS 151 Reluctantly turning back when time would no longer permit of further exploration, Coleman collected some fine garnets from the rocks and that evening by the camp fire made an entry in his journal which was singularly characteristic of the man : " We were coming back beaten, but we had made acquaintance with one of the most remarkable valleys in North America, one in which all the main rivers of British Columbia begin their course, no matter where they may close their career. And after all it was a pretty good world to live in, when it was not raining ; and so tonight we shall sleep contentedly to the drowsy music of the river." More determined than ever to come to close quarters with the mysterious mountains flanking Athabasca Pass and having literally had his fill of Columbia River, Coleman returned to his brother's ranch at Morley in the summer of 1892. There, in preparation for a northward trip by cayuse instead of by canoe, he secured pack and saddle horses and hired two Stoney Indians, Jimmie Jacob and Mark Two-Young-Man, as guides and packers. Jacob was mounted on a pinto pony and somewhat unsuitably dressed in clerical garb ; Mark brought up the rear and also brought doleful music from a tin whistle. Little need be said about this mountaineering expedition save that Coleman discovered one of the most beautiful lakes in the Rockies, and gave it the name of Fortress. And although, unknown to him, the mountains which he so HILL-TOP TALES eagerly sought were relatively just around the corner from this fine lake, he was obliged to return without glimpse of them. Nothing daunted, the persistent geologist and explorer made yet another attempt to discover the whereabouts of the two elusive mountains and this time was successful. In place of Jacob the sexton and Mark with his penny whistle he had competent Frank Sibbald as packer and cook, and as a result the trail trip of 1893 was as pleasant as the one of the previous year had been otherwise. Setting out from Morley they made rapid progress to Kootenay Plain, where they encountered a lone prospector named McGavan. This solitary adventurer had methodically panned every creek between Edmonton and the point where Coleman met him, hopeful of discovering the main source of the gold present in small quantity in the North Saskatchewan River. By a camp fire on the Plain the geologist explained to him that there are no gold-bearing rocks in the range, that before the Rockies existed rivers flowed eastward from the older Selkirk and Gold ranges. From these rills and streams much gold was transported out over the plains before the Rocky Mountains were raised. The long watercourses wore the nuggets down to dust, a portion of which, deposited with the sedimentary rocks, was later found in the sandbars of the Saskatchewan. Although thus advised that in searching for a lode in this area he was on a wild-goose chase, McGavan was unconvinced and went his lonely way in quest of hidden wealth. From Kootenay Plain, Coleman's party reached OLD AS THE HILLS Sunwapta River by way of Pinto Lake and Jonas Pass and thence ascended Whirlpool River on a trail well worn by the feet of countless voyageurs and fur traders. At the height of land was the tarn known as the Committee's Punch Bowl but where, oh where were the soaring peaks of Brown and Hooker? Instead of the mighty cloud-piercing sentinels there stood revealed two comparatively insignificant mountains, which to the sadly disillusioned explorer must have seemed but molehills. He sadly made this entry in his journal: " Mount Brown and Mount Hooker were frauds and we were disgusted at being so badly humbugged." However, if nothing else was accomplished, Coleman had put these mountains in their proper place and had proved them of but low degree when compared with the yet unconquered Mount Robson towards which his thoughts now turned. He knew exactly where it stood and that it towered head and shoulders above all other peaks in the Rockies. But ten years elapsed ; it was not until the autumn of 1907 that he set eyes on Robson and had opportunity to survey its vast bulk from all sides. The extremely complicated structure of this, the highest mountain in the Rockies, (12,972 ft.) was to him a revelation ; on one cliff alone 7,500 feet of the displaced crust of the earth is exposed to view. If Mounts Brown and Hooker failed to come up to expectation there was nothing fraudulent or puny about Robson, as Coleman discovered when making several attempts to scale the mountain. Foiled in 1907 he 154 HILL-TOP TALES returned in the following year, but was again unsuccessful. Had not the season for climbing been too far advanced it is possible that he might then have reached the summit. Camped for three weeks at the base he might have bewailed the fact that during the entire period the weather was consistently stormy and unfit for climbing. Instead he was thankful to have escaped the many avalanches thundering from the heights and delighted to have had such splendid opportunity for first-hand study of his chosen science. Returning to Edmonton and thence home he paid tribute to the Rockies in these words : I There is a clean-ness and an exquisite loneliness about many of the peaks and valleys. There is the feeling of having made a new discovery, at seeing something of the work of creation as one turns off from a scarcely-beaten trail into a route never perhaps trodden by the feet of white men ; and this experience may be had in a thousand valleys among the Rockies of Canada." By the side of the highway linking Jasper and Lake Louise and overlooking the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan River is the fine mountain named Coleman, honouring an eminent geologist and a true lover of the great range in which he enjoyed many a vacation. Rubbing shoulders with Mount Wilson, these neighbourly mountains were formerly mapped as being each 11,000 feet high. More recent survey, however, has lowered their summits by several hun- OLD AS THE HILLS 155 dred feet. Bearing Mounts Brown and Hooker in mind this is somewhat disquieting, but no matter — in the world of science the stature of A. P. Coleman remains unimpaired ; on winding mountain trails and in the glimmer of valley camp fires in the Rockies he is still spoken of as a genial companion and a trustworthy friend. Chapter XIV FATHER PAT On the Big Bend highway some few miles west of Golden there is a small hamlet named Donald. Once upon a time, when Canadian Pacific Railway locomotives had considerably less stamina than they have today, it was a divisional point and in the condition usually described as flourishing. During the building of the railroad, when the place was founded, the bulk of the population consisted of gamblers, bootleggers, clandestine saloon keepers and other riff-raff common in frontier settlements of that period. This lawless element, denied use of the construction cars in importing merchandise, resorted to all manner of hi-jacking, petty thieving and similar knavery, and thus it came about that the first | Black Market" operating in British Columbia was in full swing at Donald in the year of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Into this thimble-rigging, card-sharping community, largely devoted to devising methods of fleecing navvies of their earnings, came Henry Irwin on a hand-car, bringing with him his sole possessions — a few books, a small portable organ and infinite zeal in pursuit of his sacred calling. An Anglican missionary, of Irish birth, his great aim in life was to help his fellow-men and to preach the Gospel in remote parts of the earth. 156 FATHER PAT 157 One gathers that in the pulpit his oratory was not such as would set the Columbia River afire but in the role of Good Samaritan his fame spread far and wide throughout the mountain wilderness. He was also a top-notch footballer, a good boxer and a fair-to-middling organist. Settling for a time in this raw and rowdy outpost at Donald, this quiet and unassuming parson went about amongst the camps with a kind word and friendly smile for builders of the railroad, for the lone prospector working his claim, and for all wayfaring people with whom he made contact. It is doubtful if any one of these working men knew him as Henry Irwin. It was " Father Pat" who cheerfully lent them a helping hand, who visited the sick and those in prison, who over the departed read the impressive burial service, and who was architect and builder of the first church erected in the Canadian Rockies. At the outset his services at Donald were held in the Court House, a meeting place naturally shunned by many of the people to whom he was most anxious to minister. So he got some lumber and shingles and nails and built a regular place of worship. It was of course no cathedral, but a diminutive structure, and one is amused to glean from a contemporary ecclesiastical record that, " Bishop Sillitoe, returning to Westminster from Jubilee ceremonies in London, England, broke the journey at Donald and in the new church of Saint Peter's preached morning and evening to crowded congregations." When construction of the railroad had been completed the town went into a rapid decline and presently, 158 HILL-TOP TALES in place of a throng of church-goers, there scarce remained enough men to fill a jury or to bear the pall at a funeral. As the once busy centre became more and more deserted, the intoning of matins and evensong was no longer heard. | Father Pat ", poor as a church mouse, was forced by circumstances to become, in modern parlance, a displaced person. When the young Irish clergyman emigrated to Canada in 1885 his first mission station was in Kamloops, then but a straggling settlement alongside the Thompson River, and largely tenanted by railroad builders. He had long declared his intention of remaining a life-long bachelor, but in 1887, meeting an attractive Esquimault girl named Frances Innes, then visiting relatives in interior British Columbia he changed his mind and, after a short courtship, became engaged to this young lady. If the wooing was short the engagement was long. Being then, and for some time thereafter, unable to support a wife on the meagre stipend allotted a missionary, it was not until four years had elapsed and he had become curate of Holy Trinity Cathedral Church at New Westminster that the marriage was solemnized. The couple took up residence in a small cottage on what is now the main business street of that large seaport city. Their married life, however, was brief. Within less than a year Mrs. Irwin died, leaving behind her grief-stricken husband and a host of sorrowing friends. Immediately following his great loss the disconsolate pastor paid a lengthy visit to his old home in Ireland and on his return to New Westminster served for FATHER PAT 159 several years as Secretary to the Bishop of the diocese. He then also had supervision of a school for Indian girls at Yale and another for boys at Lytton. But his thoughts ever strayed to the men in remote camps and settlements throughout the interior of the province — to the hard-living, hard-rock miners and prospectors around Rossland. and in East Kootenay. Early in 1896 the Bishop appointed him Mission Priest to the Kootenay district. Making his headquarters in the cosmopolitan mining camp at Rossland he at once set to work and there built Saint George's Church. Under it, in the basement, he established the first public library and perhaps the first men's club in the mountains of Western Canada. Into its hospitable rooms came lonely and homeless miners of all nationalities, grateful for the opportunity to enjoy books, magazines and newspapers or to carry on friendly intercourse one with the other. Down at Trail the busy sky pilot built yet another church and, riding all over the rugged countryside on his sturdy horse, held divine services at points west to Grand Forks, east to Cranbrook and thence north to Golden. After he had spent a year or two in the Rossland- East Kootenay area Father Pat's superiors realized that in such an immense parish he was greatly overtaxing his powers of endurance. Thereupon he was transferred to an easier post at Fairview in Okanagan Valley. But the rigours of a hard life on a slender stipend, coupled with the untimely death of his wife, had undermined his physique and partly clouded his 160 HILL-TOP TALES intellect, and his term at Fairview was short. While on his way back to Ireland in 1902 he was taken ill at Montreal and died in Notre Dame hospital in that city. His remains, brought back to the diocese in which he laboured so faithfully, were buried beside those of his wife, on a hillside at Sapperton above the gently flowing Fraser River. Even before he departed this life, the fame of this Padre of the mining camps had spread far and wide. Of him the Toronto Globe had this to say : " He went about doing good with cheerful words and kindly smiles, and a warm clasp of the hand for the Jew and the Gentile, for the orthodox and the heretic, and thus he won the hearts of the people engaged in building up this great young country." Wishing to honour the man who in life had so unselfishly befriended them, the rugged miners of Rossland subscribed for, and purchased, an ambulance for use in the community. In the mining town they also erected a cairn to his memory. It was formed of sizable chunks of ore, one from each of the mining claims in the neighbourhood. Another monument bearing the name of Henry Irwin stands at Windermere in the Columbia Valley. It consists of a large block of grey granite set in the grass by the entrance to Saint Peter's Church, the same church that he designed and built at Donald one hundred miles to the north. Lest the reader have a vision of cyclone, flood or violent earthquake, a word FATHER PAT 161 about the transfer of this nomadic church might prove reassuring. The worthy people of Windermere, lacking a church or the wherewithal to build one, had for some years cast covetous eyes toward the little edifice standing empty, forlorn and cobwebbed, at Donald. Faith might possibly move mountains, but even the prayers of a tentative congregation will scarce avail in moving a Rocky Mountain church. Teams of horses might have been had for the asking, but the winding road was long and rough and close-set by heavy tree growth. However, there is a large-sized navigable river linking Windermere and Donald ; so Father Pat's church was prized loose from its foundation and, reverently we hope, loaded on a barge and towed upstream to the site which it now occupies by the side of the tranquil waters of Windermere. It is said that there was some heart-burning over the shipping of Saint Peter's, a few of the former natives and residents of Donald even going so far as to hint broadly that the church was literally stolen — a preposterous and unchristian allegation, which doubtless brought prompt denial. Be that as it may, the building, now an historic shrine continues to serve as a place of worship dedicated to the Glory of God and hallowed by the memory of a humble missionary who went about the Rockies of Canada building churches and uplifting men. Chapter XV ALPINE UPS AND DOWNS On a sunny afternoon in August, 1897, a party of skilled mountaineers crossing a glacier near Bow Lake was trudging along unroped and on apparently good footing when suddenly one of their number, C. S. Thompson, broke through a snow bridge and disappeared from sight in a deep crevasse. The other members of the group, which included the famous guide Peter Sarbach and such experienced Alpinists as Norman Collie and Charles Fay, were convinced that even if he had survived the fall his plight was indeed serious. His icy prison seemed likely to be his tomb. But they got him out alive and unhurt and the story of his miraculous escape forms one of the most thrilling chapters in the annals of mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies. Immediately below the summit of Mount Gordon there is an extensive snowfield and glacier and this party of Alpine climbers, having made a successful first ascent of the mountain, was traversing the snowy waste when the accident occurred. The perpendicular crack in the ice into which Thompson had dropped was only two feet wide but of very great depth. Peering anxiously into the dark chasm his horror-stricken companions could see no trace of him ; but presently he 162 Father Pat's Church, I Windermere, B.C. I nHHpHi ALPINE UPS AND DOWNS was heard calling for help and requesting that hasty action be taken to get him out of a bad predicament. Fortunately, the group of climbers was an unusually large one, with plenty of rope available, otherwise Thompson would have remained in cold storage for an indefinite period. Of the eight men left on top Collie, being lightest in weight and the only bachelor present, was chosen to make the descent and, if possible, rescue the victim. Securely attached to a rope and lowered into the frigid heart of the glacier, he took with him the end of another strpng line by means of which it was hoped Thompson might be hoisted to the surface. In a chapter of the fine book Climbs and Exploration in the Canadian Rockies, Collie gives the following modest account of the rescue of his friend : " It was not until I had descended sixty feet, almost the whole available length of an eighty-foot rope, that at last 1 became tightly wedged between the two walls of the crevasse, and was absolutely incapable of moving my body. My feet were close to Thompson's, but his head was farther away, and about three feet lower than his heels. Face downwards, and covered with fallen snow, he could not see me. But, after he had explained to me that it was entirely his own fault that he was there, I told him we would have him out in no time. At the moment I must say I hardly expected to be able to accomplish anything. For, jammed between two slippery walls of ice, and only able to move my arms, cudgel my brains as I would I could not think 164 HILL-TOP TALES what was to be done. However, I managed to throw the end of the spare rope to Thompson's left hand, which was waved about, till he caught it. But, when pulled, it merely dragged out of his hand. Then with some difficulty I managed to tie a noose on the rope by putting both my hands above my head. With this I lassoed that poor pathetic arm which was the only part of Thompson that could be seen. Then came the tug-of-war. If he did not move, I could do nothing more to help him ; moreover, I was afraid that at any moment he might faint. If that had occurred I do not believe he could have been got out at all, for the force of the fall had jammed him further down than it was possible to follow. Slowly the rope tightened as it was cautiously pulled by those above. I could hear my heart thumping in the ghastly stillness of the place, but at last Thompson began to shift, and after some short time he was pulled into an upright position by my side. To get a rope round his body was of course hopeless. Partly by wriggling and pulling on my own rope I so shifted that by straining one arm over my head I could get my two hands together, and then tied the best and tightest jamming knot I could think of round his arm, just above the elbow. A shout to the rest of the party, and Thompson went rapidly upwards till he disappeared round a bulge in the ice forty feet or more above. I can well remember the feeling of dread that came over me lest the rope should slip or his arm give way under the strain, and he should come thundering down on top of me ; but he got out all right, and a moment later I followed. Most mar- 1 ALPINE UPS AND DOWNS 165 vellously no bones had been broken, but how any one could have fallen as he did without being instantaneously killed will always remain a mystery. He must have partially stuck some considerable distance higher up than the point where I found him, for he had a ruck-sack on his back, and this perhaps acted as a brake, as the walls of the crevasse closed in further down. We were both nearly frozen and wet to the skin, for ice-cold water was dripping the whole time on to us and in my desire to be as little encumbered as possible I had gone down into the crevasse very scantily clad.,, In like manner, some forty years later, a pair of stout skis clattered into the profound depth of a crevasse in Athabasca Glacier, a prominent landmark on the highway between Banff and Jasper. Attached to the skis was Victor Kutschera, a guide at Columbia Icefield Chalet. Eighty-five feet he plummeted into the fissure, yet sustained no injury, nor were his skis even damaged. With him on the Alpine jaunt were the well-known Banff skiers, Ted Paris, Robert Crosby, Norman Knight and the late Rupert Edwards. In recounting the mishap Victor told me that the heavy skis undoubtedly held him in an upright position while falling and that, apart from the jolt when landing on an ice bridge spanning the crevasse, the long drop left him relatively calm and unshaken. In fact, faced with the possibility of freezing, he immediately loosened ski bindings, shoe-laces and any garment likely to retard free circulation. Aware that the lads 166 HILL-TOP TALES above lacked sufficient rope to reach him, he was resigned to being imprisoned for at least twenty-four hours. In one pocket was a good file and beside him stood his steel-tipped ski pole. For some little time, after assuring his friends that he was not only alive but also unhurt, he contemplated filing down the spike to a chisel shape and, with that make-shift tool, cutting steps in the sheer waH of the narrow crevasse. But realizing that the task, together with the risk of another fall, was too great, he abandoned that avenue of escape. Meanwhile, two of his companions made what was probably a record downhill ski run in their dash to the Chalet for additional rope. Only that morning Vic, either prudently or with presentiment, had shown the group where his spare ropes, crampons etc. were stored. It was a hard heart-pounding trip back to the heights where their chums kept vigil, while anxiously yearning for their return, but they made speedy progress. Down went the eagerly awaited rope and up came Victor, somewhat benumbed but voluble as ever and glad to be again on deck. Five long hours he had been penned in the largest refrigerator in Canada, yet buckling on his skis he glided swiftly down the snowy surface of the glacier and led his thankful party home. To a question about his impressions while dropping into the glacier Kutschera replied : " I thought the colour of the icy walls was singularly beautiful — just like the glass in a beer bottle." While awaiting succour he made a most interesting observation about ALPINE UPS AND DOWNS 167 the acoustics of his gelid dungeon and was amazed at the way in which sound waves travelled through the solid ke. In talking to him his friends immediately overhead had to shout loudly but ordinary conversation of the others ascending the glacier with the rope was clearly audible although the speakers were distant well over a mile. * * * One is sometimes in a quandary as to whether mountaineering should be referred to as a sport, a hobby or an ailment. To James Outram, a British clergyman and an early visitor to the Rockies of Canada, the scaling of high and difficult mountains was but a step removed from climbing the stairs of a pulpit. If it so happened that the particular summit had not hitherto been trodden by man, he regarded it with an envious eye and attacked it with peculiar zest. No virgin peak was too remote — no travel hardship too great to deter this wiry sky pilot from yet another first ascent. " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills I must surely have been his favourite scripture text. Scanning a list of notable " first ascents " of high mountains in the Rockies it is at once apparent that Outram was the most active mountaineer of his day. His was the first foot to tread the crest of such giants as Columbia, Forbes, Lyell, Bryce and Alexandra in the country between Bow Lake and Jasper. In Yoho National Park he conquered Chancellor, Cathedral and President but was baffled by Goodsir. Perhaps 168 HILL-TOP TALES his greatest triumph was on a September day in 1901 when he reached the summit of Mount Assiniboine and stood upon a higher spot in Canada than had heretofore been reached by man. On this arduous climb he was accompanied by the Swiss guides C. Bohren and C. Hasler Sr., and while the six-hour ascent was not marked by any unusual incident the return journey by the unknown north face of the great pyramid was extremely venturesome. However, the trio reached the base camp in safety and was heartily congratulated by the packer, Bill Peyto, and by Sinclair the cook, who got out his fiddle and played " See the conquering heroes come ". During one expedition to the headwaters of North Saskatchewan River, Outram made first ascents of ten peaks, all of which were over ten thousand feet high. On that trip Christian Kaufmann was his guide, while Jim Simpson and Fred Ballard — " Both excellent trail men" — did a good job of wrangling and cooking. Of Fred's ability as a cook the reverend gentleman spoke feelingly, remarking that " he made the best mustard I ever tasted". Also he bestowed a blessing on Simpson's good bannock, infinitely superior to some which on former trail trips had been proffered him and which had proved inedible. He said, " I have seen bannocks, tough and solid, which have stood the ravages of sun and wind, rain and snow for four long years without even being weatherbeaten.,, Although not at all averse to I roughing it" in the hills, Outram had no illusions about the alleged comfort of a spruce bough bed. Thus, on his several journeys ALPINE UPS AND DOWNS 169 in the Canadian Rockies, he took with him what he called his "most precious possession", to wit, a pneumatic mattress and an accordion-like apparatus for inflating it. From fellow-climbers, guides and packers came much banter about this air-bed, first of its kind in the region. Later, when its superlative qualities had been made manifest, the scorners became covetous, and the wisdom and prescience of the owner was handsomely acknowledged. Through the medium of a most readable book, In the Heart of the Canadian Rockies, Sir James Outram, as he later became, gave us an entertaining account of the many episodes incidental to his travels in the mountains. Apart from his skill as a mountaineer he had a profound love of the hills and woods, and of the creatures that dwell therein. His hunting weapon was a camera and thus he remained ever on friendly terms with the timid deer and the confiding ptarmigan, the Big Horn sheep and the marmots. Crossing Habel glacier at the head of Yoho Valley he came upon a huge porcupine fast asleep in the midst of a great expanse of snow. Why the prickly beast had chosen to climb to an altitude of 9,000 feet and to 1,500 feet above timber, and why it had undertaken a long journey across an utterly barren area, were problems which set the parson to pondering but which he was unable to solve. In order to obtain a more life-like photograph of the animal he roused it with a well-thrown snowball, whereupon Porky, beating a flurried retreat, fell down a crevasse and was trapped beyond hope of rescue. Outram, while somewhat 170 HILL-TOP TALES perturbed about the occurrence, pointed a moral by remarking, "There we had to leave him, another victim to the dangerous habit of climbing alone and of venturing upon a glacier without a rope ". That James Outranks amazing record of first ascents contains no blemish of accident, major or minor, is tribute to his skill and prudence and to that of his guides and packers. He died in 1925 and has an impressive memorial in a massive mountain bearing his name. It stands near Glacier Lake in the midst of the noble array of peaks which had thrown him a friendly challenge and were speedily conquered. Immediately south of Mount Assiniboine and towering over lakes Gloria and Marvel is the lofty peak named Eon. On July 16th, 1921, it was the scene of a fatal accident, one of the most dramatic in the history of mountaineering in the Rockies. On that day Dr. Winthrop Stone, President of Purdue University, accompanied only by his wife, had almost reached the hitherto unclimbed summit when, after detaching himself from the rope which they had been wearing, he fell from a cliff and tumbling over a great precipice was instantly killed. Mrs. Stone, left alone on a narrow shelf of rock and unable to move upward or down, survived an experience the like of which few mountaineers have ever been called upon to undergo. For seven long days she remained there, grief-stricken, without food, exposed to broiling sun by day and chilled by the keen frost of high altitudes at night. None but a brave heart could have withstood such an ordeal. Day after day she ALPINE UPS AND DOWNS 171 watched the dawn and the sunset; nightly the planets wheeled in the sky, while she kept solitary vigil on the mountain side. Then, after a week of utter loneliness which to her must have seemed an aeon, she was discovered by veteran guide Rudolph Aemrner, who carried her to shelter and to friendly care in the valley far below. The two climbers had expected to be away from camp at Assiniboine for four days. Despite the fact that at the end of that period they failed to return, no undue alarm was felt, as someone reported that they had left the repon by another route. When this was found to be false the guides Aemmer, Edward Feuz and Conrad Kain, summoned from Lake Louise and Banff, brought about the rescue of Mrs. Stone and later, with great difficulty recovered the body of her husband. They built a cairn on the summit and placed therein a metal box in which was contained a sincere tribute to one who loved the Canadian Rockies and who, in ascending Mount Eon, came suddenly to journey's end. Chapter XVI DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS Prominent on a high gable at the western Gateway of Kootenay National Park is the singularly appropriate inscription, * The Mountains shall bring Peace to the People". Hearing a near-sighted visitor interpret it " The Mounties shall bring Peace", I felt that, despite the fact that the first sergeant of the Force posted to the Rockies was named Fury, the error was pardonable. Indeed, that unknown person with the defective eyesight was more far-seeing than he knew. The mere presence of officers and men of the far-famed North West Mounted Police has assuredly proved a deterrent to evil-doers, with the result that in the Canadian Rockies capital crime has but seldom been recorded. From time to time, however, the hand of Cain has been raised and the blood of victims shed in these peaceful surroundings. It is doubtful if even one of these cases would prove complex enough to interest an addict to present-day sleuth literature but some were highly dramatic and thus worthy of a place in the crime annals of the region. The first civilized killing took place during the building of Canadian Pacific Railway and the principals concerned were, as they might say in Boston, extran- 172 DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS 173 eous personalities. In fact, the victim was a coloured gentleman with strong Republican leanings, of which more anon. At the base of Mount Stephen near the famous spiral tunnels and close to Kicking Horse River there still stands a primitive stone bake-oven. Upon its lintel the date 1884 is carved. Moss-grown and partly concealed in underbrush, it is all that remains to mark the site of a once busy camp temporarily inhabited by rock drillers, navvies, teamsters and the like. Present also were the usual camp followers, some gaining an honest livelihood, some obviously parasitic. Bootleg liquor flowed freely in the several dives, with the result that occasionally argument became highly contentious and sometimes flared into physical violence. In this one-act tragedy, for such it proved, strong drink had no part. It was a political wrangle which, fermenting from the relatively harmless rapier thrust and parry of verbal partisans, ended in one of the disputants being taken off the voter's list — and buried. Prior to this unfortunate fracas the Northern Pacific Railway had just been completed, whereupon many citizens of the United States entered Canada in quest of construction work on the new line being built through the mountains of British Columbia. Among these was a negro barber who set up a tent and a tonsorial signboard at the camp under Mount Stephen. He had no lack of customers. His place of business, like many a more pretentious establishment of its kind, was apparently a hot-bed of political controversy in which patrons and proprietor alike took active part. IT4 HILL-TOP TALES At this time, the autumn of 1884, a Presidential election campaign was in progress, Cleveland and Blaine being the candidates. Feeling ran high even in such alien and remote places as Kicking Horse flats and the barber shop there was in frequent turmoil. One evening two Irish-Americans, a train conductor and a brakeman, entered the already crowded tent and in no time at all were embroiled in a fierce controversy regarding the merits and demerits of the respective office seekers. The conductor, of peppery disposition and a virulent Democrat, carried a revolver in place of a ticket punch. When the argument seemed as though headed into a collision the brakeman deftly and stealthily relieved his mate of the weapon. In a little while, the barber, taunted to fury by the gibes of the opposition, suddenly left off shaving a customer and made a few significant flourishes with the ready razor, whereupon the debate was hurriedly adjourned. In the stampede for safety the conductor was shunted into a corner, with little prospect of escaping immediate laceration. With one sweeping slash the berserk barber shaved a few buttons *xff the trainman's vest, while the latter reached vainly for the missing gun. Meanwhile the brakeman, realizing that more whittling was imminent and remembering that he himself was now armed, drew the revolver and, for an amateur, proved a first-class marksman. At the subsequent inquest it was disclosed that no fewer than five bullets had found a billet in the body of the defunct Republican barber. The brakeman, reputed to be of singularly meek and inoffensive dis- DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS 175 position, took to the hills in terror but was shortly after taken by the police. Later a successful plea of justifiable homicide was entered in his behalf and thus ended the first case of its kind in the history of the North West Mounted Police. Vastly different in its beginning and ending was another tragedy of the mountains, one in which greed for gold — for easy money — was prime motive. It took place at Exshaw, where the big cement works are located, and was one of the most cold-blooded murders ever committed in Alberta. On the morning of May 22nd, 1914, John Wilson, Cement Company paymaster, together with a young assistant named Gordon, went on foot to Exshaw railway station to take delivery of a package of currency from the Dominion Express Company. This money, forwarded from the Bank of Montreal in Calgary, was for the payment of wages to employees at the plant and amounted to $2,300. Having obtained the bag with the cash, Wilson and his companion crossed the tracks in front of the station building and were about to pass through the gate giving access to the highway when they were confronted by three strangers who had been hiding in a box-car standing nearby. Gordon, who carried the bag, was not armed but Wilson, walking close behind, had a revolver. One of the hold-up men, for such they proved to be, with never a word of warning shot and I ~1 176 HILL-TOP TALES killed Wilson with a Luger pistol. Another, also armed with an automatic gun, snatched the canvas sack with the money from Gordon and with his bandit companions disappeared in the thick scrub behind the station. The murderers then crossed Bow River on a raft and found ready concealment in the rough wooded area at the base of Pigeon Mountain. Gordon at once gave the alarm and police at Banff and Morley were immediately notified. Meanwhile, some half-dozen employees at the works, equipped with such firearms as were available in a National Parks community, also crossed the river and engaged in a search for the killers — a hazardous proceeding. One man named Dobson, but recently from England, caught sight of someone squatting at the base of a large tree and promptly let him have the contents of both barrels of a shot-gun. Caught literally with* his nether garments down and severely peppered, the quarry fortunately proved to be one of the wanted men, a Russian named Manelek who unarmed and in his present condition was easily apprehended. By this time the Mounted Police, led by Sergeant Dennis Ryan, later Assistant Commissioner, had arrived and at once took charge of the hunt. A hasty search of the area in which the remaining murderers were believed to be hiding was without result. All that day and the day following the hunt continued. At midnight of the 23rd the second criminal was captured. Searching a freight train at Cochrane, some thirty miles to the east of the scene of the crime, railway DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS 177 police discovered Serkey Konuch concealed amongst some lumber and after a rough-and-tumble encounter in the darkness disarmed and locked him up. Luckily for the police the safety catch on his gun had jammed. Upon his person was the bag with all the stolen money. It was now known that the still missing bandit was another Russian named Sokoloff, a good violinist and a confirmed gambler, who had lived in Calgary for about two years. Believed to be ring-leader in this fatal hold-up and known to be well armed it was thought that his capture might entail further bloodshed. There was, however, some doubt as to his being still alive : Superintendent Deane of the Mounted Police suspected that Konuch had double-crossed and probably killed his partner. Certainly Konuch's possession of the entire loot gave ample grounds for suspicion. But the search for Sokoloff continued with ever- increasing energy. It was rumoured that he had been seen in the neighbourhood of Lake Louise but a large band of armed men scouring that mountainous region found no trace of him. Shortly afterwards, largely through the efforts of a Calgary city detective named Schoeppe, it was learned that the fugitive was in hiding in the cellar of a vacant store in Tuxedo Park, a suburb of the foothills city. Eager to capture the desperate gangster, yet fully aware of the risk incurred by his men, the Chief of Police enlisted the services of Fire Chief Smart together with a platoon of his brigade and an engine. Running a line of hose from a pumper the firemen chopped a hole in the floor of the store and through it 178 HILL-TOP TALES thrust a whining nozzle. An inanediate deluge of icy Elbow River water brought the shivering Sokoloff too the open, looking more like a half-drowned gopher than a desperado. His gun and ammunition were surrendered, he was given dry clothing and secure lodging and with the others had speedy trial. The preliminary hearing, at which I was present, took place before Magistrate Carpenter in the police barracks at Banff. Manacled and unkempt the three prisoners were ushered into the small court-room, all glancing furtively at the grey-haired occupant of the bench and at the dapper Inspector of Police in charge of the case. Evidence was largely routine in character. The medical officer described the injury which brought about the death of Wilson : the boy Gordon, pale and nervous, told a simple story of the shooting and theft and identified the haggard thugs in the dock : several trig constables testified as to the weapons, the finding of the money and sundry small details linking the prisoners with the crime. In brief intervals the ticking of the clock upon the wall seemed solemn and ominous. The evidence of Dobson provided the one small spot ©f ifcoiour in an otherwise sombre judicial hearing. He, you may recall, was the Exshaw vigilant who summarily bagged the first bandit. Following the evidence for the Crown, the lawyer for the defence asked him if his action in taking pot shots at an unknown individual was not a bit reckless. The man might well have been one of the posse of his fellow-workmen then ranging the woods—in fact, it might have been anyone taking temporary cover in the underbrush. Dobson, slightly DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS 179 embarrassed, agreed with council that he was perhaps rather imprudent with his sudden salvo but explained naively to the court that he, being a newcomer to Canada, was quite inexperienced in that kind of hunting. Reckless or not, his ready trigger and good aim resulted in the mowing down of Manelek and later brought him reward at the rate of one hundred dollars a shot. fjfg At the conclusion of the hearing the prisoners were committed for immediate trial at the current assizes in Calgary. There, on June 27, Sokoloff summed up the case in one terse remark, " What is there to say ? We killed the man." The jury found them all guilty but recommended mercy for Manelek. Sentenced to be hanged at Macleod on August 26 they were reprieved until September 26, when Sokoloff and Konuch paid the extreme penalty. Manelek's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Following the trial and execution Sergeant Ryan told me that during the hunt for the murderers he had narrowly escaped death. While in the cells at Banff, Sokoloff talked freely to the Sergeant about the case and said, " When you were going through some thick bush not far from Exshaw, you passed within a few yards of where I lay concealed. If you had discovered me I would have instantly shot you." Ryan often pondered over that statement and declared that in future operations of the kind somewhat different tactics than those employed in the cover shooting of pheasants might well be adopted. Yet, but a few years later, within a few miles of 180 HILL-TOP TALES Banff, a large group of male inhabitants of that resort town might have been seen and heard skirmishing through pine woods in a snow-storm in search of, and presenting easy targets to, a pair of well-armed youths wanted for the murder of no fewer than three members of the Mounted Police. Fortunately, or perhaps providentially, none of the civilian beaters whose courage was only exceeded by their temerity, fell victim to the guns of the frenzied hoodlums whose score against the Mounties was then one-sided. When the grim game ended, as soon it did, the final tally was more even... But that is anticipating the story which follows. * * * In the long and colourful history of the Canadian Mounted Police many thrilling episodes of heroism and courage have been recorded. Few chapters in the annals of the Force are, however, so surcharged with stark murder and sudden violent requital as that in which the case of the desperate Doukhobors is outlined. There is no mystery in this strange story, this almost incredible real-life scenario in which a small group of young men, taught from infancy by precept and example to utterly abhor the shedding of blood and to embrace the principles of peace at any price, became involved in a deadly brawl with members of that very Force which was recruited to bring law and order to the mountains and prairies of Western Canada. While the final act of this stirring drama was staged against an imposing background of towering cliffs in DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS 181 the heart of the Rockies, the opening scene was laid in flat wheatland on the boundary between Manitoba and Saskatchewan. At Benito, near Swan River, three young Doukhobors suspected of minor shop-breaking, were picked up by police at a dance in the early hours of Saturday, October 5, 1935. While being taken to the nearby town of Pelly for further questioning, the suspects, Posnikoff, Voiken and Kalmakoff, disarmed and killed their escort, Constables Shaw and Wain- wright, the latter a municipal officer. When last seen alive the two policemen were riding in the front seat of the police car, the others in the rear. Robbing the victims and dumping the bodies in a ditch by the wayside, the murderers drove off in the blood-spattered automobile, visiting acquaintances in various hamlets throughout the district, drinking considerable quantities of potent liquor and boasting openly of their heinous crime. By nightfall it became evident that something had befallen Shaw and Wainwright and inquiries were set afoot. No trace of them could be obtained on Sunday and it was not until Monday afternoon that their bodies were found. By this time the fugitives had disappeared. A detailed description of them and of the stolen car was immediately broadcast throughout the prairie provinces, service station attendants being particularly requested to check car licence numbers. All roads and railways were closely watched. First word of the whereabouts of the guilty trio and of their headlong flight from justice came from Exshaw on the eastern fringe of the Rockies. At that 182 HILL-TOP TALES point they purchased a few gallons of gasoline and pushed westward along the trans-Canada highway. By this time funds must have been running low. When they reached the National Park gateway ten miles east of Banff, the necessary entrance fee of $2 was apparently beyond their means. So, turning back for a few miles, they halted a car driven by a commercial traveller whom they robbed of ten dollars and a watch. But Nemesis, if somewhat slow in the take-off, was swiftly overtaking the gang. The garage owner at Exshaw had notified the police at Banff that the missing car together with men answering to the description of the killers was in the neighbourhood. Can- more was also advised and immediately police cars from both centres came roaring over the main highway. Heading into the lights of an oncoming car the Banff officers, Sergeant Wallace and Constables Harrison, Campbell and Combe, swung their automobile square across the road and stepped out into the blinding glare of nearing headlights and into a blast of gunfire from the desperadoes. For several hectic minutes the fusilade continued in the semi-darkness, the police making brisk reply. The uniformed men fared badly in this encounter, Sergeant Wallace being instantly killed and Harrison fatally wounded. Combe countered by ending the career of Posnikoff, the ringleader and braggart of the group. Voiken and Kalmakoff took to the woods and with that the curtain fell on the second act of thfe grim tragedy. DIRTY WORK AT THE CROSS-ROADS 183 Next day at dawn an armed band of angry citizens of Banff set out in the midst of a whirling storm of snow, determined on the capture of the murderers dead or alive. Amongst the man-hunters on this occasion was a Park Warden named Bill Neish, a tall lank Scot then stationed at a remote post twenty-five miles north-west of Lake Louise. His next-door neighbour lived twenty miles away and life at this moment was monotonous. When the radio droned out news of the tragedy at Banff and of the impending hunt for the criminals, Bill's mind was immediately made up. That night, without asking leave of Park headquarters, he left the wild animals to look after themselves and journeyed to the scene of action at Banff. Walking through the snowy woods next morning, his rifle at the ready, Neish saw two men running across a clearing and called on them to halt. They paid no heed so he bowled one of them over with a single shot: the other man dropped behind a fallen half-rotted fir tree and opened fire on the Warden. Snow was then falling thickly and visibility was poor but Bill sent a bullet smack through the prone trunk of the tree and into the stomach of the last of the felons. Seriously wounded, the bandits both died that night in a local hospital, Kalmakoff with the stolen ring of Constable Shaw still upon his finger. When the October daily journal of Warden Neish of Mosquito Creek reached National Parks headquarters office at Ottawa it contained one entry which caused some eyebrow-lifting. It read : 184 HILL-TOP TALES ..." Oct. 8. Killed two bandits." Unfamiliar with the events of the fateful day in Banff Park the authorities at the Capital requested that Neish amplify this somewhat sketchy entry. This he did by adding the simple and terse comment: I Snowing to beat hell." Chapter XVII STONE DEAD From a limestone quarry above Burgess Pass in Yoho National Park a patient perspiring fossil-hunter emerged with specimens of petrified jelly fishes, creatures one would scarcely expect to find preserved in solid rock at high altitudes in the Rockies. The quarry also yielded many other primitive forms of life formerly present on this earth and the quarryman, whose most important tool was a microscope, told me then that he himself had first-hand knowledge of some 40,000 fossils. From this scientist who probed diligently in the rind of the earth I also learned that the continent of North America was once much larger than it is today and that on several occasions it was entirely 1 dunked " in the ocean. My informant was Charles D. Walcott of Washington D. C. who for many summers camped in the Canadian Rockies while holding inquests on the earliest inhabitants of the region. It mattered not that the victims had perished some hundreds of millions of years ago. So exquisitely were the remains preserved that the nervous systems had remained intact and the stomachs were not disordered. In fact, the learned Doctor, seated on a pile of loose shale, laughed heartily when I suggested that further inten- 185 186 HILL-TOP tales [ I sive peering might even disclose what they had eaten at breakfast on that dim far-off morning when apparently all of them had been mysteriously snuffed out. What he did not know, and what no other scientist knows, is the manner of their taking off. A sudden adverse change in temperature or content of the sea- water in which they swam or crawled might have proved disastrous : an untimely rise or fall of the bed of the ocean may have deprived them of suitable board and lodging. At all events, they undoubtedly passed peacefully away and were given decent burial under several thousands of feet of silt, the interment occupying a period so profound as to be quite beyond my comprehension. Walcott believed that they were actually embalmed — that there was abundance of carbonic acid in the slime into which they sank, as otherwise they would have speedily decayed. Later, much later, their last resting-place was given a considerable hoist and now, a mile or more above tide level, on lofty shale slopes in the Rockies, these incredibly ancient denizens of the deep occupy an upper in place of a lower berth. Of those exposed to public view the Trilobites, believed to be one of the first families on this planet, are most prominent. The north-west side of Mount Stephen, directly above the town of Field, is a veritable cemetery for there almost every fragment of shale contains one or more fossil specimens, j The most common of the various types of Trilobite was posthumously given the name of Ogygopsis. It looked somewhat like an overgrown bug, measuring STONE DEAD 187 three inches in length and two and a half inches in width, had compound eyes and was fringed with a large number of bristles believed to have been used as propellers in swimming. For obvious reasons nothing is known of its temperament or domestic habits but it is supposed that it crawled hither and thither in the mud of the sea bottom, preying upon worms and similar marine organisms. My fossil-hunting mentor said that it probably stood in dread of a gangster crab, whose imprint was first discovered in the neighbourhood of Field. Trilobites are, of course, entirely extinct but the type persists in the present-day King Crab or Horseshoe Crab, common on the coast of Maine, and usually on view in any good aquarium. Speaking of the King Crab and its relation to the trilobites, Professor Arthur Thomson the great biologist said : " The King Crab, which by the way is not a crab, is the most quaint marine animal living today — a living fossil with an impressively long pedigree. It is the only surviving representative of an ancient race that was already very old 300 million years ago. Long before birds had even begun to fly the progenitors of the King Crab were pursuing the even t^nor of their way." There is also an Isopod, a sea-faring animal not unlike a gigantic louse, which bears superficial resemblance to the long defunct Trilobite. The chosen habitat of this beast lies at the depth of some 2,000 fsBnaszsffiaBusnnssssssiigs^gj 188 HILL-TOP TALES fathoms and thus it is not likely to be encountered on bathing beaches. But to return to the hill-tops. In the great fossil bed on Mount Stephen Dr. Walcott identified over a dozen different kinds of trilobites, some no larger than a vest button. Down by the railway tunnel near the Monarch Mine building he found a very large species, one called Olenellus. In addition to these he listed many other bygone inhabitants of this earth now interred on the side of the mountain. Then, crossing Kicking Horse Valley, he camped on Burgess Pass and for several summers thereafter with drills and dynamite he resurrected a necropolis of creatures which had been dead for twenty million years, or thereabouts. At that remote period, so far as is known, no fishes had yet made their appearance nor was there any backboned animal in existence. The dry land, what there was of it, was utterly devoid of plant life and trees were quite absent from the landscape. But the shallow seas teemed with life, crustaceans being exceedingly abundant. In the shale of his quarry on Mount Wapta the learned geologist found many sea cucumbers which, be it understood are not members of the vegetable kingdom but prickly-skinned animals, even yet present on our coasts. Some are bulbous or decanter-shaped, while others look like gherkins. When molested or annoyed all have the revolting habit of discarding some of their internal organs, which are soon replaced by new growth. In the Wapta limestone were found eleven different kinds of marine worms, all pressed exceedingly flat STONE DEAD 189 but easily identified. Also unearthed were numerous varieties of brachiopods, very ancient animals which have persisted without appreciable change, down through hundreds of millions of years to the present age. Known today as lamp-shells they bear a fancied resemblance to cockles but in reality are much more complicated in structure. Mention has already been made of the discovery of jelly fish fossils on Burgess Pass and amazing as that may seem, it has a counterpart in the finding of fossil bacteria in the sky-line quarry. One is prone to consider such micro-organisms as being strictly modern when as a matter of fact they were going concerns aeons before the foundation of the Rockies was laid. Learning something of the life history of the seafaring creatures of long ago from the late Dr. Walcott, I now seldom pass an exposed limestone rock without scanning its surface for sign of fossil remains. One need not venture far afield in a hunt for specimens. On Stoney Squaw Mountain overlooking Banff town, the rocks in many places display masses of brachiopods. Neighbouring Mount Norquay is a good place for corals, crinoids or sea lilies and the like. The Baker Lake district, ten miles north-east of Lake Louise, is singularly rich in fossils ; a glance at the map reveals such place names as Fossil, Anthozoan and Brachiopod Mountains. The slopes of the latter mountain are literally strewn with the fossils of crustaceans. When King George and Queen Elizabeth visited the Canadian Rockies in 1939 I had opportunity to tell them about the wonderful trilobite treasure house HILL-TOP TALES on Mount Stephen. Time would not permit of a visit to the place where the trilobites have lain so long undisturbed, but on leaving the mountains the Royal couple carried with them what they considered the most unique souvenir of their entire tour of Canada. It was a fragment of the Rocky Mountains containing a fine fossil specimen of one of the most ancientiorms of life of which mankind has present knowledge. Chapter XVIII THE BIG HILL In that great chain known as the Canadian Rockies there are many lofty mountains but only one Big Hill. Situated on the continental divide between Lake Louise and Field, it has from time to time been the scene of much strenuous endeavour and of many thrilling episodes. Through its rugged canyon rushes the impetuous torrent of Kicking Horse River. High above its wooded and boulder-strewn slopes towers the graceful spire of Cathedral and the massive bulk of Stephen, their summits caressed by clouds. Strange to say, this very famous hill is really a hollow place in the main range and is marked on the map as Kicking Horse Pass. Over it, in bygone days, the main line of Canadian Pacific Railway ran " like a rope over a trunk ". Now the track is made to turn and twist in a slalom course, forming the most contorted and most scenic section of railroad in North America. To the men who pilot the huge locomotives and patrol the track the Big Hill stands as perpetual challenge. Upon its shoulders in winter the snow lies very deep, while in spring dread avalanches may at any moment thunder from the heights above. Summer cloudbursts swell rivulets to surging cataracts charged with great masses of rubble. The crowbar of frost pries loose an 191 192 HILL-TOP TALES overhanging crag and sets the section men to doubt that the hills are so everlasting after all. These things, plus abnormal strain on rolling stock, must at times prove a sore trial to engineers, roadmasters and the like, whose duties lie in maintaining train service over the Big Hill at Field. Yet it is doubtful if any one of these men yearns for a transfer to a division where the roadbed is more horizontal or the landscape more stable. That this section of the line straddling the roof of the Rockies and exposed to almost constant threat by the elements should hold and maintain a proud record for safety is tribute to the vigilance of all employees concerned — the track walker patrolling his solitary beat, the lonely operator tapping the telegraph key in his hillside shack, the hostler in the roundhouse, the fireman in his cab. Fretful travellers, annoyed when their train may drop a few minutes behind schedule, seldom even think of these men or of the problems they solve in getting passengers to journey's end in comfort and in safety. When the railroad was first built it went over the Big Hill in a bee-line or as the crow flies. To the locomotives of that period it was either a breath-taking ascent or a wheel-grinding declivity, the gradient being somewhere around two hundred and forty feet to the mile. At intervals along this ramp, for such it was, safety switches were installed by means of which heavy freight trains getting out of control might be halted in their wild career. In such circumstances the engineers sounded an imperative warning to presumably alert switch attendants, who in turn routed THE BIG HILL 193 the locomotive and cars up a steep gully in the side of the mountain. This was a somewhat drastic step but preferable to cluttering up the bottom of the canyon with an engine, a string of box cars and a caboose. At that time eastbound freight trains required four engines to hoist them over the hill from Field to Stephen and seven hundred tons was considered a full load. In course of time and with an ever-increasing volume of traffic the Big Hill became more and more of a bottle-neck, seriously retarding the free movement of main line trains. There seemed but one way out of the difficulty, namely to reduce the grade by lengthening the track between Field and the Great Divide. This proved no easy task. What with mountains and rivers and one thing and another there was not enough elbow-room on the surface and thus it became necessary to run part of the new line underground. That part consists of the spiral tunnels now familiar to all travellers over this route. These two loops, one under Mt. Cathedral and the other beneath Mt. Ogden, are respectively one thousand and seventy-five yards and nine hundred and seventy-four yards in length. A locomotive climbing the hill gains about fifty feet in altitude in each of the tunnels. Although it still takes three giant engines to move a normal-sized freight train over this troublesome hurdle, the reduction in gradient, plus increase in mechanical power, now permits hauling a load of twenty-five hundred tons as compared with the former limit of seven hundred tons. In other figures, one engine pulls 833 tons of goods in place of 175 tons. The 194 HILL-TQP TALES uphill journey of fourteen and a half miles is made in about ninety minutes, during which time each locomotive consumes about seven tons of coal. The summit of the Pass is 1,265 feet higher than rail level at Field and one mile higher than rail level at Vancouver. One of the most exciting incidents in the history of railroading on the Hill occurred in the middle of an August night in 1925. Following heavy rains, an enormous mass of scree and boulders slipped from the steep northern side of Mt. Cathedral and like a stream of lava from a volcano, moved down the slope towards the railroad. The small station building at Yoho, together with a section house and one or two shacks, lay directly in the path of the oncoming slide. From the cab of his pusher engine, then travelling light on an upper traverse of the mountain, engineer Seth Partridge heard the rumble of the rock avalanche far overhead. Realizing that the inmates of the buildings at Yoho were doubtless asleep and certainly in imminent peril, Seth stopped the locomotive, scrambled down through brush and rocks to a lower level of the railroad and sprinted along the tracks towards the houses. In the dark of the night the sound of the grinding, hissing debris grew more and more awesome as the slide rolled nearer and nearer, snapping off tree trunks like match sticks. When Seth reached the bunk- house where the men slept he was too breathless to yell. But he kicked the door in and got all the astonished tenants out before the slide arrived —to crumple and overwhelm the buildings and to bury the Conrad Kain Photo by B. Harmon THE BIG HILL 195 tracks under thousands of tons of loose earth and rocks. For his heroic action in this tense drama the quick- thinking and fleet-footed engineer received an award of one thousand dollars from the editors of Liberty magazine. More gratifying, perhaps, was the renaming of a station on the Hill from former Mars to present Partridge. As you motor along the old railroad track, now part of the Trans-Canada Highway, and cross the old railway bridges spanning the foaming Kicking Horse River, you may see the station whose name recalls a brave deed. Further down the hill you will cross the slide which made a Pompeii of the flag station at Yoho. Forming part of Yoho National Park the Big Hill is inhabited by numerous large and small animals. White-tailed deer are common in the woods ; coyotes scan the railroad tracks and inspect the ditches in quest of sundry scraps of food from dining-car kitchens ; by the verge of the highway mendicant bears collect alms from passing motorists. Long-headed moose in the neighbourhood make free use of the railroad right-of-way when travelling back and forth on business and pay but small heed to the clanking, smoking monsters rolling along the shining rails. From the cabs of a trio of locomotives hauling and pushing an eastbound freight train over Kicking Horse Pass the pilots saw a moose, also heading towards Alberta, walking at leisure on the railroad tracks and towards the spiral tunnel under Mt. Ogden. The furious thunder of the ponderous engines and the fierce blast of their warning whistles echoed and re- 196 HILL-TOP TALES echoed amongst the surrounding cliffs and crags but was quite unheeded by the animal, which continued to saunter along between the lines of steel. Within a stone's throw of the lower portal of the tunnel stands a long and lofty trestle carrying the rails across the turbulent river. Across this high bridge paced the nonchalant moose, while the prudent engineers brought their train to an unscheduled stop. When about half the length of the trestle had been traversed the hoofs of the animal slipped on the creo- soted wood with the result that his legs went down between the ties and there he hung helplessly, throwing a whole trans-continental railroad out of gear, perchance impeding the progress of great armies then in the field. Certain it was that for the nonce he tied up traffic on the Field Hill and it behooved the train men to get him out of his awkward predicament and off the track as soon as possible. So with much effort and no little danger, they laboriously hoisted the great deer to his hoofs again and, like a team of well-trained pall bearers, tenderly escorted him to solid ground at the further end of the bridge. Eager to be on their way and confident that after his unpleasant experience the moose would doubtless seek seclusion in the neighbouring woods, the men resumed their journey. But the animal had a one- track mind and would not be detoured. He had intended to climb the hill by way of the tunnel, and he did, walking deliberately through the dark circular bore ahead of the snorting locomotives and the astounded engineers. He did not know there was a war on. THE BIG HILL 197 Outstanding amongst unusual stories of railroading in the Rockies is one which had the Big Hill for a setting and a rolling-stone telegrapher named Angus Grant for central figure. A thoroughly reliable operator when far removed from bright lights and convivial companions, Angus was as skilled with piano keys as with the keys of the tic-tac instrument which earned for him a bi-monthly cheque. Invariably marooned in an out-of-the-way post, Angus found solace in music and owned a piano which, literally, accompanied him wherever he went. Stationed for some time at Hector near Wapta Lake and a short distance from the Great Divide he was ordered to transfer to Cathedral, an equally cloistered retreat about half-way down the Big Hill. His goods and chattels were but few and moving was therefore a simple matter. Loading his suitcase, music, piano and stool on a hand-car, he climbed aboard and went coasting down the long, smooth gradient, secure in the knowledge that the line was then clear of traffic. Approaching the spiral tunnel under Mt. Cathedral, pianist Grant thought it might be a good idea to have some music while looping the long, dark tube. Presently a gang of section men at work in the tunnel imagined that they heard a piano being played and peered apprehensively into the murk beyond the gleam of their lanterns. It was a spooky situation ; surely no human agency could possibly be responsible for the sound which speedily grew louder and louder. The labourers were in the | cold sweat" stage when around the bend came Angus, his four-wheeled chariot clicking 198 HILL-TOP TALES on the rail joints in perfect time to the music of his choice. In the midst of a sparkling allegro movement that echoed through the winding cavern he swept past the affrighted gang of men and was at once lost to sight and soon lost to hearing. Often since have I wished that such mountain musicians as Max Pirani, the Adaskins, Louis Crerar, Leonard Leacock and their like had been at Cathedral siding to acclaim the soloist at the end of his moving recital. In the musical annals of Western Canada it is doubtful if there ever was such a unique performance. Chapter XIX GUIDING STARS The high trails above Emerald Lake are not the same since Fred Tabiteau went west — to live on Vancouver Island. Straight from the peaty pages of Somerville and Ross came " Tabby " ; his bland countenance and delightful idiom would have charmed the heart of these gifted delineators of Irish life and character. For long he guided tourists over Yoho and Burgess Passes, handling trail-wise horses and novice riders with rare tact and with unfailing good humour. After half a lifetime of strained relations with refractory pack-animals at high altitudes, I was not greatly surprised to learn that he had permanently repaired to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and that he had taken to horticulture as a hobby. One never did know just where Fred would break out next. Once when he was temporarily employed as watchman on the east entrance to Banff National Park we had first-hand evidence of his unpredictable trend of thought. It was in the middle of a pitch- black night and in a deluge of rain that he came, lantern in hand, to open the gate barring entrance to our car. With never an introductory inquiry as to our health or remark concerning the foul weather, he stuck his dripping head through the open car window 199 m 200 HILL-TOP TALES to ask, " What do you think of Conan Doyle and Oliver Lodge and that spiritualist stuff ? " To the horse corral at Emerald came a young woman who informed " Mr." Tabiteau that she would fain be provided with a gentle pony upon which to ride by the shores of the sparkling lake. " Might it be an English saddle or a Western saddle that your Ladyship is desiring ? " asked Fred,* whereupon the prospective equestrienne confessed that she did not know one kind of saddle from another. | Well now, Ma'am, and I'll enlighten you about that in no time at all," said the genial guide as he led a tranquil-looking steed from the enclosure. " An English saddle is as flat as a flounder but a Western saddle has a horn on it." | Oh ! I said the fair lady, " I think the English type will be all right. There is so little traffic on these woodland trails that a horn on the saddle seems hardly necessary." It is doubtful if high adventure ever came to Fred on lofty trails in the Rockies ; once or twice, however, he came near death by drowning. This happened on the North Saskatchewan River when that turbulent stream was swollen by the melting snows of summer. Camped in a rather cramped area by the river's edge and helping to put up the tipis for the party of travellers to which he was attached, he tripped over a small stump and fell headlong into the swift rushing current. He managed to stay partly afloat but was considerably waterlogged when rescued some few furlongs downstream. Before his shirt and overalls GUIDING STARS 201 were even out of the damp-wash condition someone by the camp fire asked him how the accident had happened. It was entirely characteristic of Tabby that while re-enacting the prelude to the mishap which had almost cost him his life, he again stumbled and again in the darkness disappeared into the river. Profiting by experience he this time succeeded in reaching shore unaided, otherwise he would now be riding Elysian trails instead of tending tomato plants in a British Columbia garden. * * * Another of the shining lights in the galaxy of guides in the Rockies is Jimmie Simpson, a small wiry man with a large zest for life. Entirely familiar with the trails of this vast mountain region, knowing much of the intimate life history of creatures of the wilderness, courageous enough to referee a hockey game, he also throws a deft curling rock and revels in a rousing game of rummy. Fond of classical music and happy with a brush and a pan of water-colour paints, it is doubtful if in the western hills there is another individual with so many varied interests. Versatile is his middle name. On the evening of a winter's day some years ago, I had occasion to visit Simpson in his home. Entering the house I was at once struck by the unusual silence brooding over the premises. Upon the walls of the living-room hung many fine paintings of mountain sheep, and goat, elk, moose and other mammals, all from the gifted brush of Carl Rungius. These crea- 202 HILL-TOP TALES tures, at the moment, looked down upon a regular logjam of upturned tables, chairs and other miscellaneous bits of household furniture. Scattered about was a litter of books, periodicals, ash-trays and gramophone records. In fact, the room bore some resemblance to a terminal moraine. Of Mrs. Simpson or the children there was no sign but amidst the chaos sat James himself in no amiable frame of mind, as I presently gathered. In addition to activities already mentioned Simpson at this time was keenly interested in philately. The day of my visit, which had dawned clear and sunny, he had received from a dealer in New York a postage stamp for which he had paid ten dollars. This stamp in some mysterious manner had disappeared, hence the topsy-turvy appearance and tense atmosphere of the living-quarters and the non-appearance of other members of the family. Some hours previously, in the gathering twilight and a domestic hurricane, the lady of the house had retired in dudgeon ; the children likewise beat a hasty and tearful retreat, while on into the night did Father persist in a hectic but fruitless search for the missing item. Face flushed and hair even more than ordinarily tousled, he had turned the rugs time without number, groped in the innermost gussets of the chesterfield, probed all the pigeon-holes in a large desk and now, in a last forlorn hope went wearily once again through the collection of useless trivia with which almost all table drawers are gorged. Alas ! There was no trace of the furtive scrap of gummed paper. GUIDING STARS 203 It was clearly no time for pleasantry, or friendly fireside chat, so offering condolence and bidding him " Good night" I expressed the opinion that with the coming of the day the missing stamp would undoubtedly turn up. Sure enough it did. Next morning while dressing he found it, or rather its pale shadow, adhering firmly to the heel of his own shoe. It was so hopelessly downtrodden that of what had recently been a well-conditioned and valuable postage stamp only the watermark remained and even that was hopelessly scuffed. * * * Shortly after arriving in this country it was my good fortune to become intimately acquainted with Conrad Kain, who had but recently emigrated from the Austrian Dolomites to the Canadian Rockies. The other day I stood by his grave in a secluded cemetery at Cran- brook in British Columbia and there from a plaque of bronze set in a massive lichen-stained boulder, read the simple impressive epitaph contained in but one simple sentence : " A mountain guide of rare spirit." Of short stature and stocky build Conrad was possessed of abnormal strength and amazing endurance. Alone, between the dusk of one autumn day and the dawn of another, he made the first ascent of Mount Whitehorn, an almost superhuman feat. In charge of a rope of climbers, skilled or otherwise, he was then 204 HILL-TOP TALES at his best as a raconteur. During such recitals one forgot the toil of monotonous scree slopes, the tiresome tramping across dreary expanses of soft snow or the weary homeward trudge through rain-drenched forest. Around evening camp fires his apparently inexhaustible fund of good stories kept hired men in great good humour even at the end of a vexing and arduous day. He had climbed in the Alps of Switzerland and of New Zealand. Once he went fur trapping on the Athabasca, spending a winter alone in a remote valley, seeing no one for several months. He told me afterwards that, having to back-pack all his winter supply of food from railhead to the cabin, a great distance, he pondered for long as to whether or not a bulky copy of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables should have priority over an equal weight of bacon and beans. He took the book along and confessed later that while he did lose bodily weight and strength the companionship of Jean Val Jean kept him from losing mental balance. I recall one evening when, after some trivial fireside conversation in our home at Banff, he casually remarked that next morning would see him on his way to Siberia to catch mice. Our laughter having subsided (it did sound so ludicrous a statement), he went on to explain that the Smithsonian Institute or some such scientific body, was desirous of obtaining specimens of a hitherto elusive mouse believed to exist somewhere in that far-off portion of Asia. Aware of his knowledge of trapping small mammals and of his standing as a field naturalist, the learned biologists commissioned GUIDING STARS 205 Conrad as a one-man expedition to undertake the long journey and if possible to capture several of the rare rodents, which he subsequently did. Siberia is a large country and Kain had ho exact knowledge of the habitat of his intended prey. Instead of setting traps at random and thus making progress by trial and error, he diligently set about to find and examine the nests of hawks and owls. Discovering a skull of the desired rodent in one nest he baited his mouse traps in that neighbourhood and speedily secured the coveted specimens. Conrad had expert knowledge of natural history but was never a confirmed hunter. On the near approach of winter, having laid away his alpenstock, he would sometimes fare forth with a rifle. Usually he was but moderately successful in the hunt — occasionally he came home empty-handed. On firing at and missing a mountain goat he displayed no sign of vexation, simply remarking. "It's surprising how much empty space there is around a white goat." After he had lived in Banff for some time Cupid took a shot at him and scored a palpable hit — at least so we all concluded until hearing that the victim, in a quandary, had tossed up a coin to determine whether he should get married or go on a bear hunt. In later years, while farming a small croft at Wilmer between the Rockies and the Selkirks, his health declined and he crossed the Great Divide of life in hospital at Cranbrook. The journals of the Canadian and American Alpine Clubs contain glowing tributes to his skill in guiding and to his genial companionship 206 HILL-TOP TALES around the camp fire. In the Banff and Jasper country he is still remembered as one who greatly loved the mountains of his adopted land. In fancy I still can see his rugged sun-tanned face, ruddy in the firelight, and hear his voice as in broken English he spun fine tales by our inglenook. He sometimes stumbled over an awkward word, finding it hazardous going in this alien tongue ; but on the lofty ramparts of Assiniboine and Robson his step was ever firm and sure ; on all high hills he was at home. * * * By the side of Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park stands a high mountain named Unwin. It was so called for a friend of mine, one Running Rabbit, for as such the red men of the Rockies knew Sid Unwin. I doubt if there ever was a more capable guide on the trails and in camps in the western mountains. His life term was comparatively short but amazingly adventurous. Born in London, England, on January 10th, 1881, he joined the colours at the outbreak of the South African War and served with distinction through that campaign. Coming later to the Canadian Rockies he set up in business for himself as guide and outfitter in summer and in winter did well as a fur trapper. When I first settled in Banff he was my next-door neighbour and sometimes of an evening he would tell me about some of his experiences with wayward pack- horses, with people on trail trips and with elusive fur- bearing animals. Running and tending a trap line beside Waterfowl GUIDING STARS 207 lakes and along the course of Mistaya River, now paralleled by the Lake Louise-Jasper Highway, Sid had his base camp some distance south and near the prominent Crowfoot Glacier. Late one winter afternoon he tramped homeward on snow-shoes over Bow Pass and was crossing Bow Lake when suddenly the snow covered ice gave way under his weight. That might well have ended his career. It was about twenty below zero at the time and the lake is deep. He was burdened by a pack almost half his own weight and hampered by snow-shoes. When the ice broke he instinctively threw his rifle from him but there was no way of freeing himself from the pack or the webbed shoes. The water was exceedingly cold, his pack became more and more soggy and it seemed as if his chance of getting out alive was but slim. But he was a fine athlete and a strong swimmer and he kept his head. Clinging for a few seconds to the frail ice edge he then succeeded in literally flailing his way to a point where it became sufficiently stable to bear his weight. To gain the upper surface of the ice must have required a superhuman effort but somehow he succeeded and crawled cautiously away from what had so nearly proved a watery grave. Even then, having emerged from the numbing water, he was by no means out of danger. His clothing froze stiff as he walked unsteadily towards the shore and into the woods fringing the lake. Fortunately his-metal match-box was really waterproof and with trembling fingers he immediately set fire to the withered and bone-dry branches around the lower trunk of a 208 HILL-TOP TALES standing spruce. The whole tree at once flared up like a giant torch, its heat yielding timely first aid to the shivering trapper. He then built a good-sized bonfire and almost entirely disrobing thawed and dried his garments one by one. Before reaching the lake that afternoon he had shot several grouse and these, still in his possession, when he reached the cabin long after nightfall, provided him with the makings of a good supper. While thawing and plucking the birds in front of a rousing fire of faggots on the hearth, a great quantity (I forget whether he said quarts or gallons) of almost scalding hot tea did him much good. Sid spoke lightly about this narrow escape and about others which he had had on African battlefields. When the first World War broke out in 1914 he at once disposed of his pack-and-saddle-horse business and enlisted in the Canadian Army as an artilleryman. In a fierce fight in Flanders, in which he played a valorous part, he was severely wounded and shortly afterwards died of his injuries. The last letter he wrote, a left-handed scrawl from a cot in a military hospital, was worded as one who knew him well would have expected. This was the closing sentence : | Aside from having my right arm blown off, being almost stone deaf from shell fire and having my head full of shrapnel fragments, I'm fine and dandy." In the little Anglican church amongst the pines at Banff there is a beautiful stained-glass window in memory of Sidney Joseph Unwin, a great guide and a very gallant gentleman. Chapter XX A WARDEN OF THE SELKIRKS In the National Parks of Western Canada many wardens are employed, their business being to discourage poaching, to guard against forest fire and generally to promote the welfare of wild life within the sanctuaries. At one time these men were regarded, and rightly so, as gamekeepers whose activities were largely centred on the destruction of coyotes, hawks, weasels and other mammals and birds commonly classed as vermin. With official backing they waged total war on all things furred or feathered which did not come under the heading of "Game". Later, when it was decided that animals, other than those of vegetarian habit, had a rightful place in the Park areas, many wardens found it difficult to conform to changed conditions. To refrain from tracking down and destroying a cougar, to spare the life of a wolverine or to display a friendly attitude toward a lynx or a badger — that was almost unthinkable. This was, however, not so to Bill Hartley who, amongst the many wardens I have met, was truly a friend and guardian to all birds and beasts within the area which he patrolled. Bill was a Yorkshireman, a veteran of the first Great War, one of the type made immortal by Bairnsfather. When I first made his acquaintance he was stationed in Glacier National Park in British Columbia and had the entire sanctuary 209 R55SSSS?5!8«S?nBKS8JJ};SJ8 210 HILL-TOP TALES as his beat. He was then middle-aged and his gingery hair was thinning. But his eyes still had a merry twinkle and a slight wry twist to his mouth added further to the humorous cast of his countenance. Bill had but recently taken unto himself a wife and while the pair argued almost incessantly they were nevertheless extremely devoted to one another. Possessed of a typical "tyke" dialect which none but Eric Knight could ever have put on paper, Bill's monologues on Natural History and Current Events were a sheer delight. His attitude towards the creatures of the wild was revealed in an encounter with a bear which might well have cost him his life. He told me about it one afternoon as we sat and smoked in the lee of the woodshed, enjoying a breather after grinding a particularly dull and adamant axe. Shorn of picturesque speech and gesture the narrative was as follows. During the previous summer a black bear loitering on the outskirts of the hamlet of Glacier by day and raiding larders at night, had become a regular nuisance. One night it broke into the local general store and played havoc amongst the groceries. In the morning the wrathful storekeeper telephoned to Warden* Hartley whose station was distant about one mile, asking him to come at once and if possible hunt down and shoot the marauder. To this request Bill replied that he couldn't do that because as he phrased it, "I might kill the wrong bear." However, he said he would bring along a rifle and leave it in the store. Then, should the animal return for further pilfering amongst A WARDEN OF THE SELKIRKS 211 hams and honey, the storekeeper himself could take a shot at it. On the following morning at daybreak the hungry bear made its reappearance and was at once the target for several bullets. Staggering towards the river she collapsed on a gravel bar a short distance from the settlement. At once the owner of the store notified Hartley that he had slain the shop-breaker and said that Bill had better come and skin the beast. So, after breakfast, William walked to the scene of the shooting and set about removing the pelt of the fallen animal. Standing beside the bear, the while sharpening his knife on a pocket whetstone, he inadvertently touched the sole of a hind paw with his boot. Immediately the supposedly dead creature sprang up and fiercely attacked the warden. Bill said, "She loomed right over me." He had set his rifle against a neighbouring tree and thus at the moment it was quite out of reach. The fight resolved itself into a rough-and-tumble scrap somewhat like a modern wrestling bout. The warden, although less than half the weight of his opponent, battled valiantly with fists and knife and feet and actually floored the animal two or three times. But she came at him again and again with what strength was left to her. Bill told me that although bitten and clawed repeatedly he did not fare too badly until the brute caught hold of his left hand with her teeth and severely crushed that member. He said, "When I heard the bones of my fingers cracking and crunching, I were vexed." By this time his adversary, weakened by wounds and loss of blood, became so enfeebled that 212 HILL-TOP TALES Hartley was enabled to retrieve his gun and end the affray. Bill spent many weeks in hospital at Golden as a result of the encounter but maintained that despite his injuries he bore no grudge against the luckless animal. As he said, with characteristic kindliness. " If I'd been in her place I'd have done just what she did." On a sunny afternoon in early July we sat with Bill on a grassy bank at the junction of Asulkan Creek and Illicilliwaet River. Our resting place was a veritable wild flower garden gay with avalanche lilies and starred with dainty blooms of Spring Beauty. Basking in the sun it was pleasant to contemplate the cloud shadows sweeping across the gleaming snowfields of Asulkan and climbing the lofty pyramid of Mount Sir Donald. The talk ranged from vagaries of climate at Glacier to vagaries in colour of Indian Paint Brush. Bill was as keenly interested in wayside flowers as in the habits of a grizzly or in the wanderings of vagrant Caribou. Speaking of the local snowfall, which is greater at Glacier than elsewhere in Canada, he quoted figures for winters when there had been great downfalls, winters such as that of 1918 when the area was smothered under fifty feet of snow. As the people of the United States are nowadays prone to date events as being before or after Pearl Harbour so likewise did Bill Hartley refer to various happenings as being before or after The Flood. This inundation, if such it could be called, was not that which set Noah afloat, but a much more recent and A WARDEN OF THE SELKIRKS 213 local spate that caused the Hartleys to hurriedly take to the hills until it had subsided. Laughing, Bill recalled it was in the year of the furious freshet that they carted away the big cornerstone. Our curiosity aroused by this chance remark, we prodded him into telling the story that lay behind it and this is what we heard. For several weeks previous to The Flood, at Glacier a gang of men equipped with tractors, scrapers, stone- boats, drills and much dynamite, had been employed in hacking and hewing a rough roadway to the head of Illicilliwaet Valley. This primitive track through thick-set woods and over rocky terrain was made in order to facilitate passage of a ponderous block of stone which had just been quarried from the base of Mount Sir Donald. It is now bedded in a wall of a noble stone building in the far-off state of Connecticut. Amongst many similar benefactions made by Sir Donald Smith, later Lord Strathcona, was one of half a million dollars to Yale University. With this great sum, plus compound interest for quite a number of years, the magnificent Strathcona Hall was erected on the campus at New Haven. As a tribute to the worthy Canadian whose bounty had been so lavishly bestowed on Yale, it was decided that the cornerstone should fittingly be hewn from Mount Sir Donald in the Selkirks. To convey the large and weighty block from the base of the mountain to the railway station at Glacier proved no easy task. Trees had to be felled by scores, massive boulders removed and many stout bridges HILL-TOP TALES built to make way for the transport of the memorial stone. But finally it was brought to railhead, loaded on a flat car and shipped across the continent. Then came The Flood. The stone had hardly reached its destination when the deluge descended on Glacier. Out went the trails, out went bridges and out into the soggy night went Bill Hartley and his spouse. The watershed of the Illicilliwaet and of Asulkan consists of two vast bowls and on that night they caught and discharged a cloudburst of mighty volume. It roared down the valley in a monstrous torrent whose impetus dislodged and transported hundreds of large boulders from the base of Mount Sir Donald and dumped them all in the station yard at Glacier. Cornerstones ! The railroad tracks were literally strewn with them. What of the Hartleys? Their log house stood perilously close to the narrow channel down which The Flood and the giant rolling stones went roaring and rumbling in the darkness. Presently the rising water lapped across the threshold and gradually deepened until it was level with the window-sills. About then they agreed that it might be prudent to seek safety on higher ground and so, retrieving the dog from the top of the kitchen table, they waded across the yard and up into the sloping woods on the farther side. Bill swore that during the anxious minutes when it seemed as though their home was marked for destruction, the radio in the living-room was grinding out one of the song hits of the day, | River, keep away from my door ". Chapter XXI BURDEN BEARERS It is singular that in Western Canada, where the horse played so prominent a part in early transportation, there is but one equestrian statue in a public place. It is appropriate, however, that this single monument portraying a horse and his rider should stand in the city of Calgary and that it should be, without question, one of the most beautiful and graphic examples of the art of the sculptor in Canada or elsewhere. Some day perhaps, when helicopters and gyro-planes have become common carriers throughout the Rockies and Selkirks, a similar worthy monument may be erected to commemorate the passing of the Pack-Horse and to pay tribute to the vast army of beasts of burden which trudged patiently along mountain trails in the service of mankind. Should such a memorial ever be erected one hopes that the artist in stone or bronze will shun the humdrum draught horse and spurn the high-strung race equine, to choose as his model a typical cayuse to whom a currycomb and a feed of oats are equally mythical. Such hard-working steeds are still familiar on wilderness trails in the hills of Alberta and British Columbia. Despite appearances they are invariably mentally alert, physically fit and supremely indifferent to oral abuse. 215 216 HILL-TOP TALES One pack-train attendant (Wrangler, to you) habitually removed his jacket prior to scolding refractory nags in a marsh or a maze of down timber. This may have promoted the flow of lurid language but other than giving freer vent to the emotions of the elocutionist, the harangue was as always, ineffectual. Obliged to spend their spare time in a search for food, exposed at all times to the elements and occasionally subject to attack by grizzly bear or cougar, pack-horses are both hardy and wary With a cavalcade in the hills their great aim in life is to evade the herders at sunrise and to remain aloof for the rest of the day. In this they are amazingly furtive and resourceful ; indeed, it is common belief that elderly horses accustomed to travel on long, tough, trail trips develop a high type of low cunning. In an effort to restrain his animals from decamping after nightfall the owner has recourse to (a), the tether, (b) the hobble, (c) the bell. Whatever the origin of the term "horse laugh" one suspects that these things have something to do with it. Tether a saddle horse to a sapling and he will either make a Maypole out of it or else become as thoroughly enmeshed in the rope as an eeljn an angler's tackle. Put hobbles on a pack-horse of wayward disposition and in spite of gyves he, or she, will be over the hills and far away in the course of a short summer's night. There is something almost uncanny in the way an animal so hampered succeeds in travelling long distances in short time and is able to overcome such obstacles as high hills and deep swift streams. Swollen by melting BURDEN BEARERS 217 snows and glaciers the North Saskatchewan River in summer is an impetuous torrent, with treacherous undercurrents and a surge that might daunt a beaver. Yet a hobbled pack-horse has been known voluntarily to cross this large river, swimming strongly and emerging safely on the farther shore. Twitching a rainbow spray from his dripping coat he doubtless cropped the few sprouts of Equisetum which had lured him from the far side of the flood. Under observation a hobbled horse moves awkwardly, even distressingly. Under cover of night it is alleged that the fettered animal emulates Pegasus or else adopts the gait of a kangaroo. At close of day the clangour of tell-tale bells dangling from the necks of footloose ponies assures the sleep- wooing wranglers that the grazing animals are all in the near neighbourhood, in fact are sauntering around the tents and ambling amongst the tipis. The tintinnabulation is then terrific. When jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountains' tops these same bells, like those of St. Boniface, are heard faintly from afar or else are mute as were those in English belfries under the blitz. In remote glens the wily beasts lurk behind clumps of stunted spruce or hide in secluded hollows where, inanimate, breathing cautiously lest the bells should tinkle, they contrive to elude the petulant members of the search party. An adult whale can hold its breath for almost an hour but an experienced pack-horse can inflate his lungs and all interior cavities to fullest capacity and remain in this bloated condition for an indefinite period. When the crafty animal is led forth for loading he 218 HILL-TOP TALES sets the compressor going and when the packers haul lustily on saddle cinch, is already swollen abnormally. Deflation comes later, usually as the pack-train threads a labyrinth of fallen trees or is in the midst of a quaking muskeg where insect pests are abundant and trustworthy tussocks scarce. There, as the air is rent by a male voice chorus, the aforesaid quadruped suddenly shrinks, the while going into a glorified "shimmy" in which all the twitching muscles are brought into full play. The load quickly disintegrates. Aided by a few swift kicks from flying hoofs the bacon goes one way, the billycans another and much miscellaneous duffle is strewn over the landscape. Such an occurrence is vexing and the men become tetchy. Yet the scattered pack is speedily reassembled, there is general inspection of saddle cinches, and as the cavalcade moves along the mountain side or wends its way by the shore of a glacial lake, the rearguard wrangler will more than likely be lifting his voice in song. At stampedes held annually in Calgary and elsewhere, spectators are thrilled by the frantic efforts of "outlaw" horses in striving to unseat tenacious riders. These unruly broncos from the open range depend more on brawn than on brain in getting rid of their tormentors. There are, however, exceptions. A pack-horse from Morley, domesticated in appearance and mild-mannered on the trail but reputed to be a holy terror in a rodeo arena, appeared at an Indian Days Stampede at Banff and there staged an unusual act. From bitter past experience this sagacious animal had finally concluded that headwork rather than hoisting of the hind- BURDEN BEARERS 219 quarters might be the better solution to the problem in hand. Thus, on being mounted and released from the chutes he charmed the onlookers, not by rude and violent bucking, but by performing a rather graceful and frolicsome fandango which brought him to the centre of the field. Suddenly, standing stock still, he calmly turned his head to one side — and set his teeth in the leg of the bewildered and astonished Stoney rider. From the point of view of the horse this was a good idea. It brought immediate relief from an irksome burden. Over against misdeeds of pack- and saddle-horses many fine examples of fortitude, endurance and intelligence might be cited. A few years ago George Harrison of Banff and Edward Feuz of Lake Louise were establishing a fly camp for the Alpine Club on the high slopes of Mount Goodsir. There was abundance of horse feed on this lofty meadow and so at the end of the day they left two pack-ponies there, one picketed, and the other hobbled, and returned to their base camp in Ice River Valley below. In the middle of the night the men, awakened from sleep by the loud persistent clanking of a bell, were surprised to find the hobbled horse making its way toward the tent, not by the circuitous route which they had taken in the twilight but directly down a steep and rugged slope which lay between the lower and upper camps. Confident that something was amiss, Harrison immediately started up the mountain side and, gaining the alpine meadow, discovered the tethered animal in dire distress, in fact almost at its last gasp. Possibly start- 220 HILL-TOP TALES led in the darkness, the unfortunate beast had stumbled and fallen over a log and in so doing became so tangled in the picket line that death from strangulation must shortly have resulted. The rope was immediately cut, following which a brisk massage of neck and head and a draught from a nearby brook considerably revived the victim. Harrison is convinced that the hobbled animal purposely descended by the shorter route and deliberately caused the bell on its neck to jangle noisily in the hope that help might thereby be had for his prostrate and helpless companion. A large volume might be filled with prime stories about pack-horses and packers on Rocky Mountains trails. Guides still talk about a Brewster horse (his name must surely have been Hercules) who carried a pair of heavily shod wagon wheels from Banff to a ranch on the Red Deer River. More recently another Samson of a horse climbed the big hill between Healy Creek and Sunshine Ski Lodge with a large and weighty kitchen range, plus two bales of hay, on his back. The hill is three miles long and the Lodge stands two thousand feet higher than the ford on the creek. The baled hay made a sort of staging upon which the cook stove was firmly lashed. In conveying a large rowboat from Laggan (Lake Louise) station to Bow Lake, a distance of twenty-seven miles over rough, wooded and swampy trail James Simpson of Banff did a noteworthy job of packing. The unwieldy load was slung from two long poles and carried sedan chair fashion by two stout pack-ponies. Some time about the beginning of this century a BURDEN BEARERS 221 touching poem was written about the reaction of a group of pack-horses at Banff on sighting a huge mattress, the property of an English gentleman contemplating camp life in a mountain wilderness. Despite the scoffing of the hired men he insisted on its being packed on a cayuse preparatory to a trail journey to the Columbia icefield. Many a tipi has been pitched and many a diamond hitch thrown since then but the fact remains that in preferring a downy mattress to a pallet of spindly spruce boughs this prudent tourist from overseas displayed much horse sense. Possibly the most appropriate name bestowed on a pack-horse was that by which one venerable individual was known throughout the Canadian Rockies. No person had definite knowledge of when he was foaled ; his teeth had long since ceased to record the tale of his years, in fact he was considered almost immortal. They called him Trilobite. Following a great forest fire on Cut-head Creek he was given a new name by which he was ever afterward known. Caught in the roaring conflagration which swept that part of the Banff National Park, the animal had somehow survived and later was discovered standing in a small thicket which had escaped the flames. He was in a deplorable condition, his coat thoroughly singed, his mane gone, his tail reduced to a stub. The cinches on the pack saddle to which his load had been tied, had burned to a crisp and parted ; the saddle and the pack fell apart and were consumed. But this hardy fireproof horse still had a whinny for the warden who found him and led him from amongst embers and ashes to a pleas- ~1 222 HILL-TOP TALES ant pasturage. On recovering he spent many more years of useful service on mountain trails, being then known to one and all as Asbestos. In upper Bow Valley there lived an old pack-horse who had a well-developed sense of humour. This grizzled veteran, grazing on unfenced land bordering on the Trans-Canada Highway, devoted much of his leisure to deliberate tantalizing of the drivers of motor vehicles. Standing pensively by the side of the road he awaited the near approach of a victim when, with the gait and general demeanour of an honorary pall bearer, he would walk nonchalantly into the path of the oncoming car and toward the farther side of the highway. The sudden screeching of brakes and squealing of rubber on asphalt moved him only to inward mirth. When the next car came along he would be found sauntering slowly back to the original stance, chewing on a single straw, doubtless chuckling and with a twinkle in his eye. I myself was several times retarded by this waggish old nag who halted many a modern Jehu in his tracks and who set me to pondering whether on a sunny afternoon, in the midst of much fine scenery, I really was in such desperate hurry after all. Chapter XXII BOW BELLS " How soft the music of those village bells Falling at intervals upon the ear In cadence sweet." Some few years ago on a tranquil Sabbath afternoon in the little town of Banff the bells of Saint George's church responded to the deft touch of a masterly musician. Dr. Price, then Carilloneur at Parliament House in Ottawa, was playing for his mother who, for the first time, had opportunity to enjoy the artistry of her gifted son. It was evident that he had no set programme — he ranged from Bach to Haydn, from Handel to Beethoven, linking the noble music of these great composers with silvery chains of liquid melody that in themselves were a delight to the ear: He played a few of his parent's favourite hymns with rare simplicity and tender grace. The cliffs of Cascade Mountain echoed the solemn strains of old Scots psalm tunes and the dulcet notes of a pleasant pastorale stole softly through the pine woods on Mount Rundle, soothing as gentle wind in the tree tops, mellow as moonlight on fields of ripening wheat. One could not fail to be impressed by the full rich tone of these bells of Bow Valley. Never before had they given tongue so beautifully. It was the earnest 223 224 HILL-TOP TALES desire, unspoken perhaps, of all who listened that the gifted musician then in the belfry of Saint George's in the Pines might come again and again to gladden the heart of his mother, and of all within hearing, by waking the chime to another hour of glorious harmony. This fine peal of bells, cast in England by skilled craftsmen, was presented to the church and the community by the late Dr. R. G. Brett, founder of Banff town and sometime Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. Shortly after the chime was installed Mr. R. B. Bennett, then Member of Parliament for West Calgary, paid a visit to his constituents in the mountain town. While there he expressed the wish to hear the bells which had been donated by his good friend and staunch supporter, Dr. Brett. Whereupon the pawky rector, knowing full well that the worthy Doctor and " R. B." were both fervent political warriors to whom election writs were as the breath of life, climbed into the high church tower and presently out on the still evening air rang the simple strains of " Tell me the old, old story ". The tone of the Presbyterian Kirk bell in Banff can hardly be described as dulcet; in fact, it calls the congregation to worship in a manner that wakes memories of the austere days of Calvin and Knox. Robert Louis Stevenson spoke of the " Clinkum-Clank o' Sabbath Bells" in his native land, a delightfully descriptive phrase equally applicable to the strident peal which on the first day of each week issues from the steeple of this Rocky Mountains church and puts the welkin under somewhat of a strain. BOW BELLS For many years this bell served the community as fire alarum — and it never seems to have got over it. As a tocsin it was peerless ; few slumbering citizens remained long unconscious of its raucous call or disregarded its imperative summons. On frosty winter nights when an overheated stove pipe or a faulty chimney had started a blaze its dolorous tongue set up awesome clangour amongst the mountains and speedily brought semi-clad burghers to the scene of the outbreak. At that time the bell rope hung outside the church where it could easily be reached in emergencies. Thus, on Hallowe'en it was singularly tempting to small boys bent on pranks common to that evening. That was the one night in all the year in which the bell sounded cheerful and carefree. The stern ecclesiastical tone was for the nonce in abeyance and the ominous warning of a conflagration gave place to a chuckling sort of peal that might best be described as jocund. The only bell in Banff which has a given name is "Maria". In a pleasant resonant voice she has called the devout to Mass for a full half century. On one memorable occasion she conveyed a jubilant message to all the townspeople, Catholic and Protestant alike. It was at two o'clock in the morning of November 11th, 1918, that she, as town crier, went on the air. A few minutes previously I had been roused from sleep by someone pounding loudly at the door. Hurrying downstairs I was confronted by a somewhat breathless and excited neighbour who said, "The War Is Over !" He had been so advised by long- 226 HILL-TOP TALES distance telephone and knowing that our household had several members "over there", came hot-foot to break the great news. Casting about for some speedy way of conveying word of the ending of hostilities to the sleeping townspeople, and not wishing to provoke alarm by ringing the fire bell, we thought of the bell in Saint Mary's church nearby, presuming that amongst all churches in town this one would be most easy of access. Hastening along the silent snowy streets we were gratified to find our surmise correct — the door was not locked. Entering the building, whose temperature was assuredly below zero, we groped about in the dark, searching vainly for the bell rope. There was no electric light in the church and the oil lamps suspended from the ceiling were quite beyond our reach. But there were waxen candles on the altar and my companion soon had these all alight. The rope was at once discovered and so " Maria " rang out the tidings to the biH-tops and the stars and the people of the quiet valley knew that Peace had come at last. Surely not since the siege of Londonderry has so strange a spectacle been presented as that of the Master of a Loyal Lodge of Orangemen (which office my friend then filled), calmly lighting the tall tapers on the sacred altar of a Roman Catholic Church in the small hours of a chill November morning. One feels reasonably sure that peace-loving Father Lacombe, who over fifty years ago brought the bell from the Quaker city of Philadelphia to the mission station in the hamlet of Banff, would have heartily approved. Trail Cook Chapter XXIII YEE CHOW, HERBALIST In the prisoner's dock of the Mounted Police courtroom at Banff stood Yee Li, charged with murder. He was, without exception, the most unprepossessing human being I had ever seen, so much so that one would almost have been tempted to convict him on his looks alone. With him as accomplice was Li How, a callow youth clearly bewildered by the strange turn of Fortune's wheel which had lodged him behind bars and ushered him into the presence of a magistrate. These two Chinese were alleged to have slain their fellow-countryman Yee Chow, herbalist, who, like the prisoners, lived in the coal-mining town of Bankhead nestling under the towering cliffs of Cascade Mountain. Yee Chow's body had been found buried under a mass of rubble in the bed of Green Timber Creek within a mile of his late residence. His skull had been fractured, and of a goodly sum of money which he was believed to have carried on his person at the time of his disappearance one month previous, there was no trace. The local constable, notified of the finding of the body by boys playing on the banks of the creek, called the coroner. He in turn impanelled a jury which, after a long and wordy session returned an open verdict, stating frankly that they did not know how 227 228 HILL-TOP TALES the victim came to his tragic end. However, subsequent diligent inquiry on the part of the police revealed the fact that on the evening prior to his sudden disappearance, Yee Chow had celebrated some Chinese festival or other in company with Li How and Yee Li in the laundry premises of the latter gentleman. The party broke up at a late hour and that was the last occasion on which the deceased herbalist was seen alive. For some time prior to this event which profoundly stirred the mining community there had been a bit of a feud between the Laundry Man of the Forbidding Countenance and the resident Mountie. Yee Li, a wizard with soap suds, starch and poker chips, was suspected of dealing in opium but so far the wily washerman had not been trumped by his opponent in the scarlet coat. Once he came within an ace of being caught. Scanning Yee Li's mail in the Post Office, the Constable discovered a small package of the forbidden drug concealed in a bundle of newspapers. He carefully replaced the opium and anxiously awaited the coming of the suspect. Presently Yee entered the office, gave the Postmaster his usual cheerful greeting, received the mail matter and departed. Behind him walked the Mountie, trailing hfe man through a whirling snow-storm then rapidly piling deep drift in the lee of the shacks in *&e Chinese quarter of the town. The laundryman, fully aware that he was being shadowed, turned the corner of his cabin but a few paces ahead of the eager and confident sleuth. His foot was on the threshold, his hand on the door YEE CHOW, HERBALIST 229 knob, when he was commanded to halt. His bundle of papers was seized and he was formally charged with having opium in his possession. However, when the papers were again unrolled and searched no trace of the narcotic was found, nor was it ever found by the police. During the short walk from the Post Office to his dwelling Yee Li had cleverly extracted the incriminating packet from the roll of newspapers. Turning the corner of the house where he was momentarily out of sight of the officer, he cast the small parcel into the fluffy snow-bank then wreathing under the window- sill and across the doorstep. Instantly the sifting snow hid all trace of the deftly discarded evidence and the mortified Constable was again outwitted. Nevertheless, the matter rankled for long in his mind and thus, months later, when the corpse of the missing herbalist was found in the creek bed, when the evidence was obtained that his last few hours on this earth had apparently been spent in the steamy laundry premises of Yee Li, when his alleged hoard of cash could not be found and when the wash tub and wringer of his late host and supposed friend seemed to be paying sudden abnormal dividends, it was perhaps but natural that the chagrined member of the Silent Force concluded that the poker-playing, opium-peddling old villain had something to do with the untimely passing of Yee Chow, purveyor of healing herbs. Thus Yee Li and his young friend came to be imprisoned on the capital charge of murder. They spent several weeks in the cells at Banff, during which time 230 HILL-TOP TALES imported Chinese eavesdroppers endeavoured to record such snatches of conversation as might tend to incriminate the accused. In this they were unsuccessful; During the long and tedious hours of day and the many wakeful watches of the night, the old man and the lad talked freely one with the other but not a word was uttered that could possibly link them with the crime. What the human dictaphones did most frequently hear and what they repeated in the witness box was a rather scathing indictment of occidental civilization, voiced by an unkempt and somewhat weary old oriental gentleman whose language was scholarly and whose philosophy was clearly that of Confucius. The dialogue was in the best Isaac Walton tradition, the lad asking questions and the aged mentor replying sagely. He paid high tribute to the Mounted Police Force collectively but ventured the opinion that here and there an individual member might be found who was obviously miscast and who might better be returned to a vocation in which clear thinking is relatively unimportant, " Further," he said, " it takes more than yellow braid on the seams of trousers to transform a churlish person into a courteous officer of the law." Again, when asked by the anxious youth as to the qualifications and ability of the lawyer retained for their defence, he stated that the gentleman in question looked more like a man who should be wearing overalls rather than silk but that notwithstanding he deservedly ranked high in his profession. As a matter of fact, he affirmed, " Out of some twenty odd cases which he YEE CHOW, HERBALIST 231 has defended for members of the Chinese National League he lost but one and in that instance the other side had more ready cash than the League possessed." At this apparently naive remark read into the record the lawyer for the defence himself laughed more heartily than any one in court, save perhaps the magistrate. At the subsequent assizes in Calgary it soon became evident that the Crown had but a poor case and no one was greatly surprised when the prisoners were acquitted and discharged. Almost all juries hanker after a rider to a verdict and in this instance it was recommended that Yee Li be deported. The man was clearly innocent of murder, he had never been arrested for gambling nor even for growing poppies in his garden, yet the jurors felt that somehow this aged and harmless alien should forthwith be punished — which was just plain silly nonsense. It was indeed doubtful that Yee Chow came to his death other than by accident. Many local people believed that the herbalist, scrambling alone on the steep mountain side in search of medicinal plants, had broken through a slim snow-bridge spanning the creek and had lost his life in the freshet then prevailing. The head injury may well have been caused by contact with rock and boulders in the bed of the rushing torrent. Only a month or so previous to the passing of Yee Chow the town of Bankhead had become possessed of a graveyard. Formerly, defunct citizens of the mining community had been buried in neighbouring Banff. Thus it came about that Yee Chow had the 232 HILL-TOP TALES doubtful honour of being the first person interred in the new cemetery. Further, and thereby hangs a tale, he was the last individual to be buried there and so he lies in solitary state on top of a little knoll overlooking Lake Minnewanka. When Yee Li was acquitted of the murder charge, the mine owners, fearful of Tong trouble, advised him to betake himself and his laundry business elsewhere. And so he shook the coal-dust from his sandals, departed quietly and without rancor and apparently with malice toward none. Some say that ere leaving he laid a potent curse on the place ; some deny it. At all events, in but a few weeks the mine was permanently closed and the town abandoned. Soon the buildings — shops, offices and dwelling houses — were demolished or moved to Banff, and today all that remains to mark the site of a once thriving community is the simple Cenotaph standing in the silent market place and the lone hill-top grave of the dealer in herbs and simples. Arnica and betony grow freely about his resting-place ; cranesbill and cinquefoil are there nurtured in the loam ; in autumn his coverlet is embroidered with the blue of many gentians. Some day, perchance, he may be disinterred and his bones carried off to Canton. Otherwise, when Gabriel sounds his horn Yee Chow will be somewhat bewildered by the poor turn-out of the mining men of Bankhead. Chapter XXIV "WHAT'S COOKING?" Prior to the days of Ice Carnivals, Bonspiels, Ski- meets and other forms of winter sport the residents of Banff did little more than hibernate between summer tourist seasons. The winters then seemed longer and the weather much more Arctic than in recent years. But fuel was plentiful, wood being where one found it in the neighbouring forest; and there was abundance of good coal at little more than the cost of hauling from the several mines in the valley. Movies and radio were yet unknown so the people simply sat by glowing stoves in a drowsy lethargy, changing the calendar at the month's end, content in the knowledge that several sacks of spuds still remained in the cellar and a side of frozen beef hung in the woodshed. As in most rural communities in horse-and-buggy days there was of course a degree of insularity, of parochialism, but that was largely offset by the wide spirit of neighbourly good will and open-handed hospitality common amongst people whose lot has been cast in a country village. Of that I myself had ample evidence shortly after arriving in the mountains. Far from home and being a comparative stranger, my first Christmas in Banff promised to be somewhat bleak and cheerless. Yet it was altogether trans- 233 234 HILL-TOP tales formed when with numerous other guests, I sat down to one of the most remarkable Christmas dinners on record in Canada, or elsewhere. No Lord Mayor of London ever presided over such a banquet. It was like a glorified chapter from the Christmas Carol and Charles Dickens who normally regarded doings in North America with a somewhat jaundiced eye, would have revelled in it. At that time there were two hotels, the Alberta and the King Edward, open the year round in the mountain resort. On Christmas day these hostelries customarily invited all who cared to come to partake of dinner "on the House". On the occasion to which I have referred I accepted the invitation of the King Edward chiefly because it had promised an "All Canadian Game Dinner". To me that was indeed a memorable meal and I know that fellow-guests, miners, trappers, prospecters, wardens and the like might have been heard talking about it even in the "dog days". My one regret was that I did not obtain and preserve a copy of the menu, nor apparently did anyone else, for despite diligent effort my search for that extraordinary bill of fare has been fruitless. However, my memory tablets must then have been deeply etched as they still yield clear impression of the lengthy list of foodstuffs proffered at that time. There was seafood from the Maritimes, oysters and lobster such as Bluenose exiles vision in dreams. Clams from the sand beaches of Vancouver Island went to the making of a chowder that smacked of the salty sea. Flaky red salmon out of the far-off North Pacific " what's cooking ? " 235 and tasty trout from the Bow River, scarcely more than a stone's throw distant, gave one choice of a fish course. Of roast meat there was great variety : buffalo boss or hump, saddle of Rocky Mountains sheep, moose nose, elk and mule deer venison, a choice cut of prairie antelope and, to me most intriguing of all, a loin of black bear. Upland game birds were represented on this extensive menu by Franklin's grouse of the mountains and prairie chicken from the plains. Waterfowl also had prominent place ; Canada goose, mallard, and canvas back ducks which in the autumn had gleaned to advantage on the stubble fields of Alberta. Ontario blueberry and Okanagan apple pie with a tasty bit of habitant cheese from Quebec rounded out a unique national dinner. Afterwards around the large stone fireplace filled with crackling pine logs the full-fed guests smoked in leisurely comfort and were grateful to the keeper of the inn whose bounty had been so freely bestowed. Outdoors a keen wind brought sifting snow from over the Palliser Range and there was filigree of frost on the window-panes. Within, the fire burned brightly and, through a blue haze of Christmas cigar smoke, there was much talk about food and particularly about culinary doings in wilderness camps. To all of this I listened intently, making mental notes, with reservations. Since then I have had it confirmed that dried apples in cooking do swell abnormally ; that rattlesnake meat does make a toothsome sandwich filler ; and that shell eggs, transported on a horse in a mountainous 236 HILL-TOP TALES country, will go farther if packed in rolled oats ; this method saves space and should there be breakage, the wastage is negligible. I have also learned that the bittern, although lanky, is a fairly good table bird but that no amount of parboiling, stewing, roasting or baking will ever render an eagle palatable or even edible. Out of a discussion concerning skillets, billy-cans, reflectors and other aids to life and welfare in the solitudes there emerged a story about Fred Ballard, an adventurous citizen of the United States then resident in Banff. He was a super handy-man of restless disposition who could shingle a roof, shoe a horse or bake a superfine bannock with equal dexterity. When Dr. Habel of Berlin was mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies in 1901 one of his guide-cooks was Ballard. While at Fortress Lake near what is now Jasper National Park the German doctor killed a "Fool Hen" and several of her half-grown brood, forthwith giving orders that these be cooked for supper. Knowing that Habel was sure to appropriate the large bird and leave the insignificant ones to the hired men, Fred, with malice aforethought, shot a sea-gull then swimming in the lake. This bird, plucked and dressed while the Herr Doktor was out climbing, went into the pot as substitute for the elderly grouse and with the young ones was well boiled. Upon his return and at the immediate evening meal Habel dug into the steaming kettle and speared one or two of the small birds which he promptly discarded. Then hoisting the understudy to the "Fool Hen" onto his plate and " what's coosmc ?" 237 smacking his lips in anticipation he made the significant remark, " This will be enough for me." It was ! Since that Christmas night by the fireplace of the inn at Banff much water has gone under Bow bridge and in the interval my file concerning food and cooking has grown appreciably. Quite a number of the items in the collection have to do with Christmas Pudding, the most unusual one being vouched for by that renowned Canadian explorer, Samuel Hearne. In 1759 he captured and made pets of several beaver which were given lodging in his quarters at Fort Prince of Wales during the winter months. Of their abnormal food habits he writes : " In general they lived on the same food as we did and were remarkably fond of rice and Plum Pudding. They ate partridge and fresh venison freely but I never tried them with fish." For the sake of these gourmand beaver it is to be hoped that the pudding was more easily digested than one invented by an early missionary in Western Canada. A bachelor not long out from England and living with two Indian mission helpers named George and David, he saw Christmas looming and was perturbed about the menu for that festive day. He had no pudding — and that was a sobering thought even for a missionary. Quite ignorant of what he had let himself in for, but optimistic and a believer in prayer, he set about assembling and cooking the Christmas pudding. His maiden effort, if one might so call it, 238 HILL-TOP TALES was far from being a culinary triumph and is best described in his own words : " We were not quite sure what was required for a Christmas pudding but currants and raisins we had none. Neither had we any suet and bread crumbs, and eggs were conspicuous by their absence. David said that whitefish roe would do as well as eggs but I preferred baking powder to fish roe, though perhaps I erred in using it too freely. Part of an empty flour sack made a serviceable pudding bag and was damped and floured in readiness. " Into a large wash basin, properly purified, we put flour and to this I added a large tablespoon of baking powder. At this stage I suddenly remembered having brought a copy of Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book with me from England and so went off in search of it. For all the use it was I might have saved myself the trouble. It told us we needed everything we hadn't got and what we did possess it did not mention, except the flour, and then it went on to say something about bread crumbs and grated carrot being used as substitute ; but as we had neither bread nor carrots we kept to the original and used flour. For currants and raisins we took some slices of dried apples and cut these into pieces, the larger representing raisins, the lesser bits the currants. In my box of groceries I found some allspice so dumped in a generous quantity. One of the lads suggested treacle so a cupful of that was warmed and poured into the basin. Then followed a can of condensed milk (diluted), which properly stirred what's cooking ? 239 made a fairly stiff paste of the mixture. Tying it up tightly in the flour sack we lowered it gently into the. boiling pot. When it had boiled steadily for six hours we judged it done. So we took it out and I shall never forget with what a THUD it fell on the table. It proved to be so hard as almost to defy our efforts at whittling. With the excess baking powder plus the dried apples the marvel was that the flour sack withstood the strain. The pudding lasted till long after Christmas." Rather more successful as an amateur chef was Lord Milton, an English nobleman who, with a medical doctor named Cheadle, came to Western Canada in 1863 on a hunting trip. In the Saskatchewan country they built themselves a log hut and wintered in the wilderness with no other company than that of a few vagrant Cree Indians. Their adventures in housekeeping and particularly in artless cookery are vividly set down in the journal kept by Cheadle. They too had a bout with a plum pudding, of which the noble Lord was sponsor. Milton, however, was much better off than the missionary in that he had several proper ingredients to work with. Consequently his pudding, according to medical evidence, was really good. It was about the size of a football and required prodigious boiling. When it was but partly cooked they excitedly took it out of the pot to have a look at it and were sorely tempted to eat the outside and continue to boil the undone core later, but refrained. They contemplated eating it all at one sitting but having beguiled the time HILLTOP TALES of anxious waiting by consuming a few partridges, were obliged to set aside a portion for next morning's breakfast. Living, as they were, almost entirely on a meat diet, it can readily be understood that anything even faintly resembling a plum pudding would be hailed with joy and regarded as ambrosia. It appears, however, that here too a rose petal fell from the chaplet of the cook and that Milton's reputation as a purveyor of superfine Saskatchewan pudding became slightly tarnished. In a terse but pungent postscript to that day's entry in the journal, Cheadle wrote, as in a whisper : " PiPcussion caps and buckshot found in the Pudding." Chapter XXV GATHERING OF THE CLANS At the great Highland Gatherings held at Banff in the Canadian Rockies some years ago one of the outstanding attractions was the Musical Festival staged each evening in the baronial halls of the massive stone castle towering high above the cataract of Bow River. There one heard Robert Burnett of Edinburgh singing "The Bonnie Earl of Moray" and holding his audience spellbound with a soulful rendition of that splendid Scots ballad. There, too, Campbell Mclnnes of Toronto sang " Farewell to Islay " and " Turn Ye to Me ", and there were tears in the eyes of many who long ago said goodbye to the sea-girt Western Isles but who had not forgotten the call of the curlew at break of day or the crying of gulls in the gloaming. To this gathering of the Clans in Western Canada came also Marjory Kennedy Fraser and Margaret Kennedy, incomparable interpreters of Hebridean song. Into the great concert hall, set in the midst of a vast pine forest hundreds of miles from tidewater these gifted women magically brought the pungent odour of kelp and the fresh salt smell of the wholesome sea. It seemed as if the entranced audience was swayed by the lift of the oncoming tide and soothed by the sough of westlin' wind in the bracken. 241 242' HILL-TOP TALES My wife and I were, as Will Fyffe might say, " deputed " to guide these two visitors to various points of interest in the Rockies and this proved an altogether delightful assignment. One afternoon our conversation ran strongly to graveyards, tombstones and epitaphs. As I recall it, this train of thought was set alight when mention was made of an undertaker in Connecticut whose hearse bore the highly significant license number U. 2. There followed some amusing anecdotes and a flood of pithy epitaphs. One gem unearthed was the unique obituary of a Scots bachelor. Recording his passing and casting about for scarce laurels, a rural reporter wrote : " In course of his lifetime the deceased acted as best man at no fewer than fourteen weddings." Margaret Kennedy capped these sepulchral stories with a tale about a widow, one who had just been bereft of a husband whose great aim in life had been to avoid work of any kind. Further, he craved alcohol, was seldom sober and in short was an idle dissolute shiftless wastrel of whom it would have been difficult to say one good word. Nevertheless, on calling upon the widow after the burial, Miss Kennedy found her loudly lamenting the passing of him who could hardly have been called her helpmate. Rocking endlessly in a chair by the kitchen fire she gave vent to her grief in the oft-repeated eulogy, " Puir Tarn ; puir Tarn ! He was the neatest picker of a herring in the county of Perth." To one of these Festivals of Music came Christina McAulay, a buxom middle-aged woman whose home GATHERING OF THE CLANS 243 was then in a Hebridean settlement in the neighbourhood of Red Deer but who formerly lived in South Uist. She was skilled in the carding, spinning and dyeing of wool and in the I waulkin I of webs of Harris tweed. She was also a singer of Gaelic songs and it was in this capacity that she appeared before a large audience at Banff. The stage curtain rose to reveal Christina, in decorous dress including apron and mutch, and seated at a spinning wheel whose gentle whirring sound formed soothing accompaniment to her pleasant voice as she sang a Gaelic lullaby. Unfortunately the wheel, hired for the occasion from a Winnipeg department store, had seen better days either in the Isles or in Fort Garry. In the middle of the first verse the cord connecting treadle and wheel suddenly snapped. Apparently unperturbed the lady calmly re-tied the broken string and made a fresh start with her Gaelic slumber song. Again the cord parted and again the song was halted, the audience meanwhile becoming more and more tense under the strain. The climax came when, after a third break, Christina rose from her stool, regarded the wheel with a bitter look and uttered but one stentorian word — " Damnation !" The pent-up emotion and sympathy of the crowd was instantly loosed in a great gale of laughter which rocked the house and in which the sorely tried vocalist good-naturedly joined, to the delight of the wildly applauding assemblage. At these Caledonian Gatherings in the Highlands of Canada handsome prizes were offered in the competition titled "Best-dressed Highlander". Many 244 HILL-TOP TALES of the ultra-Scots were once badly stunned when an entrant named Moe Finklestein, a haberdasher, was adjudged a winner in this event. It could not but be admitted, however, that his was indeed a sartorial triumph : his sporran was of the mottled pelt of the wild cat, his silver shoe buckles and the haft of his skean glinted in the sunshine. He wore the most beautiful blue bonnet I have ever seen. In fact, some years afterwards, I searched diligently for the counterpart of this colourful headgear in the tartan shops of Edinburgh but without success. At the annual Scottish festivals in the heart of the Rockies there was what one might irreverently call a plethora of pipers, and the skirl of chanters and wail of drones was incessant. Seeing and hearing the massed pipe band as its members marched proudly, seventy kilts swinging in perfect rhythm was, however, a nerve-tingling, soul-stirring spectacle, profoundly impressive to a native of North Britain. Nevertheless I still wince on recalling the terse comment of my artist friend, Carl Rungius, about bagpipe music ; he said, " It goes clean to the bone." Not only were there lengthy sessions of piping and dancing at these New World rallies of the clans. Brawny chiels from all the provinces displayed strength and skill in throwing the hammer, in tossing the caber, in hurling the discus and in casting the javelin. Fleet- footed sprinters and hurdlers sped nimbly along the cinder track. High leapers and pole vaulters soared buoyantly over lofty marks, the while limber long- winded distance runners strode hastily around the GATHERING OF THE CLANS 245 oval and towards the tape. The Dominion Athletic Championships were held one year in conjunction with Banff Highland Gathering and to the mountain resort on this occasion came athletes " frae a' the airts". The presence of a medical man and a first aid attendant is compulsory at such important meets and thus genial and kindly Dr. Atkin of Banff, truly the Doctor McClure of the Rockies, was on hand with his wee black bag. James Watt, a small wiry Scot from Perth city, had charge of the first aid tent. Formerly an engine driver (locomotive engineer) on the Caledonian Railway and for long a Saint John Ambulance Brigade member, he was eminently fitted for dealing with such minor mishaps as were likely to occur at a sports meet. One competitor in the running long-leap contest, having twisted an ankle, limped to the tent over which the Red Cross emblem was displayed and was given prompt treatment. Busied with bandage and liniment, Watt was on his knees beside the prostrate patient when in walked Phil Edwards, the internationally famous runner. Unaware that a coloured athlete was amongst the entrants and from his lowly viewpoint seeing only the bare legs of the West Indian Watt was completely flabbergasted. " Oh my God, man !" he said in tremulous tone. " What's happened to you ? " Great was his relief on immediate discovery that Edwards was not, as he had supposed suffering from sudden mortification of the feet and legs. It was a great concourse of Canadian Scots who foregathered at Banff to witness the sports and dances, 246 HILL-TOP TALES to listen to the loud pibroch and to hear again the tuneful songs and ballads of an ancient realm. Everywhere around the arena and in the concert halls one's ear caught the varied dialects of Highlander and Low- lander from John O' Groats to the Solway Firth and from the verdant East Neuk of Fife to the rock- bound surf-beaten Atlantic coast. At unexpected meetings with auld acquaintances, and there were many such, faces shone and eyes sparkled and the talk was all of days when the sun shone brighter far than it's ever done since syne. It was heart-warming to witness the hearty handshake of trusty friends, long sundered perhaps but joyful in keeping tryst with former cronies and neighbours at the Scottish Festival in the heart of the high hills of Canada. Chapter XXVI ROYALTY IN THE ROCKIES At the close of a summer day in 1939, King George and Queen Elizabeth came to the Highlands of Canada and at Banff were quietly and comfortably lodged in a massive stone castle in the heart of the western hills. No uniformed guard of honour stood in rigid ranks at the railroad station ; no booming of cannon nor blare of brazen instruments was heard. The mountains themselves, in fresh helmets of snow and in verdant cloaks, mounted guard. There was a rumbling salute from a distant avalanche ; the westerly wind sang softly in the pine trees while the rapids on the nearby river made a pleasing sound. To this quiet retreat the Royal travellers came to rest and to be at ease for a brief interval, glad of respite from official routine and ceremony and from the tumultuous welcome of a proud and grateful people. Of course the inhabitants of Banff, who are all tenants of His Majesty, were out to greet the Laird and Lady on their arrival. One should perhaps explain that this thriving resort, being in a National Park, stands on Crown Land. We residents do not own a foot of the ground on which our homes are built, the lots being simply leased from the Crown. But we have a good landlord and know it, and so, on arrival, we hailed 247 HILL-TOP TALES him gladly as with his Queen he rode through the trim streets of the mountain town. Many of our neighbours came to do homage. Can- more, a nearby coal-mining town which bears the name of an old Scots king, was almost deserted, only the Three Sisters being left at home. Exshaw, whose ambition is to grind the entire Rocky Mountains into cement, sent its population en bloc. The villagers of Field, where ponderous mountaineering locomotives are stabled and groomed, came over the Big Hill in a body to greet their rulers. From tranquil Columbia Valley, in which, long ago, David Thompson the map- maker from London hoisted the first British Flag ever seen in the Rockies, a host of happy children journeyed with their elders to salute a Royal couple from London town. Road menders parked their wheelbarrows in the ditch ; park wardens left the grizzly bears and mountain lions to shift for themselves ; prospectors turned their backs on the rainbows ; woodsmen spared the trees for another day and joining their brothers from wilderness places, trudged along trails and byways leading to Banff. Some of these men were cradled in the Grampians ; a few claimed rugged Wales as their place of birth ; while others spoke wistfully of the Hills of Donegal. Many, in boyhood days living within sound of Bow Bells, knew then no hills save those of Ludgate and the Tower. On that memorable night of the Royal visit, in common with native-born Canadians from all the provinces, they were lulled to sleep by the sound of Bow Falls, happy in the knowledge ROYALTY IN THE ROCKIES 249 that the grandeur and beauty of the Canadian Rockies was being shared by the King and Queen. Walking home on that evening through the greenwoods, the pathway flecked by clear moonbeams, the air heavy with odour from balsam poplar buds and resinous pine needles, I found myself wishing that their Majesties had had more time to spare in this National Playground — time to devote to golf or tennis, to cruise on the winding river, to ride or hike on skyjiigh trails, even time to fish. At the moment I was somewhat vague as to whether or not the King was numbered amongst the followers of Isaac Walton but at that time Canadian newspapers carried a story about the Queen once having some difficulty in coping with a perch, an unusually awkward fish to unhook. There are no perch in this part of the Rockies but trout were plentiful in neighbouring streams and lakes. They were just then recovered from repeated forays made on their tribe by the Duke of Connaught when he was Governor-General of Canada. Possibly he was thinking that night about the King and Queen in the far-off Rockies, perhaps recalling to mind some of the happy days when he himself cast a deft fly over waters in the vicinity of Banff and Lake Louise. Once while fishing in Consolation Lake he was politely reminded by an attendant park warden that the limit was fifteen fish per angler per day, and that as he had already caught that number it might be advisable to reel in his line and take down his rod. Said the Duke, " Per angler per day, perdition. My good man, I ask you what is the sense of me being Governor of this 250 HILL-TOP TALES widespread, far-flung, sea-to-sea Dominion if I cannot catch all the fish I have a mind to ? " But he did desist, good sportsman as he was. He had a worthy brother of the Angle in a later Governor-General, namely, Lord Tweedsmuir, envied of all fishermen of his day because he had a notable fly hook named in his honour — it is known as the Buchaneer. So pondering, my way led onward by the river's edge where the sight of rippling circles made by rising trout on the calm moonlit water brought recollection of another keen angler, one named Todd. His encounter with royalty, set forth in a delightful little poem by the gifted Scots writer, Marion Angus, might well have taken place that very night in Banff. I The King cam' drivin' through the toon, Slae and stately through the toon : He bo'ed tae left, he bo'ed tae richt, An we bo'ed back, as weel we micht; But wee Jock Todd he couldna bide, He was daft tae be doon at the waterside ; Sae he up an' waved his fishin' rod — Och, wee Jock Todd. " But in the quaiet hoor o' dreams, The lang street streekit wi' pale moonbeams, Wee Jock Todd cam' ridin' doon, Slae and solemn through the toon, He bo'ed tae left, he bo'ed tae richt (It maun hae been a bonnie sicht), An' the King cam' runnin'—he couldna bide— He was mad tae be doon at the waterside ; Sae he up wi' his rod and gaed a nod Tae wee Jock Todd."* Marion Angus * From an anthology entitled A Scots Garland, published by Grant & Murray, 126, Princes St., Edinburgh. ROYALTY IN THE ROCKIES 251 Knowing that the Royal visitors were keenly interested in Natural History I hoped that during their all-too-brief stay at Banff they might see a mountain bluebird, might hear a western meadowlark and perhaps catch a glimpse of a golden eagle spreading her dark sails in the wind. A pair of these royal birds were then occupying a lofty eyrie on Cascade Mountain directly above the town. I am sure that both the King and Queen must have laughed at first sight of our Canadian robin ; almost all travellers from the British Isles think our robin is a huge joke. It's a huge robin compared with the British bird of that name. But then everything in Canada is on a large scale — the great lakes, the wide prairies, the towering Rockies and Selkirks, the mighty rivers, the vast seaboard — and the robin. That evening, while the Royal party passed on their way from the railroad station to Banff Springs Hotel, spectators were forbidden to occupy a stance on Bow Bridge. But a large congregation of cliff swallows nesting under the span flipped a saucy wing at the I Mounties I on guard, the while gliding gracefully overhead. A broadwinged Osprey, flying home with a fish for the family supper and taking a short cut over the town, was so startled by a sudden outburst of cheering that he almost dropped his precious prize on the heads of the crowd below. A pair of flickers, housekeeping in the heart of a telephone pole by the wayside, must have been perturbed by the unusual clamour. Early next morning the fine peal of bells in Saint George's church rang out right merrily. In this small 252 HILL-TOP TALES grey stone building many distinguished people have worshipped, amongst them Bliss Carman, who there found inspiration for the poem "Saint George's in the Pines ". It was a very perfect day (" Queen's Weather", I heard an old resident remark), with bright Alberta sunshine and a gentle wind wafting little white clouds across the snowy peaks—an ideal day for a hike. And so, before the sun had cleared the lofty crags of Mount Rundle the Royal party was on its way to the summit of Tunnel Mountain from whence a splendid view of the valley and the surrounding peaks can be had. From the stately castle which was for the nonce their residence, the King and Queen motored to the base of the mountain, their chauffeur being James I. Brewster, an old-time resident of Banff and President of the well-known transport company operating throughout the region. While Jim is a charter member of the Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies and one of the founders of the Rocky Mountains Ski Runners Association, he has always regarded hiking as an extremely laborious and primitive method of travel — something to be undertaken in an emergency, as when the gas tank of one's automobile goes unexpectedly dry and the nearest service station is miles distant. Having conveyed Their Majesties to the foot of the mountain which they proposed to climb, Brewster looked around for a nice leafy tree under whose grateful shade he might park his car and recline at leisure pending the return of the Royal wayfarers. It came as a distinct shock when the King said, f1 believe you are ROYALTY IN THE ROCKIES 253 coming with the party, Mr. Brewster." To say that Jim was nonplussed was putting it mildly. To him the sun at once glared fiercely, the cooling breeze died down to a mere zephyr, the trail looked rough and steep, while the mountain itself seemed to rival Robson or Assiniboine in stature. But there was alacrity and emphasis in his reply of, " YES, SIR," and that, my friends, is how Jim Brewster came to take part in a Sky Line Hike. Confiding to me afterwards that he had not walked up there for almost half a century, I expressed doubt as to whether he had ever made the ascent on foot. He thereupon explained that when but a small boy he owned a horse which, although trustworthy and all that, had the peculiar habit, for a quadruped, of climbing mountains in the night the better to view sunrise over the Rockies. The summit of Tunnel was the favourite coign of vantage of this horse with a hobby and thither " Jimmie " had frequently been obliged to trudge to retrieve his errant steed. As the group of hikers, the King and Queen, Lords and Ladies — and Brewster — wended their way up the hill-side there were many halts by the way, a little clump of forget-me-not in a cranny of rock or a few colourful and fragrant orchids rooted under the pine trees providing welcome excuse. Numbers of bra- chiopod fossils in the exposed limestone rock were worth more than a passing glance. The trail winds back and forth through open woods of lodge pole pine, with here and there a rugged Douglas fir, named for a great Scots botanist who, in the reign of George the 254 HILL-TOP TALES Fourth, camped in the Canadian Rockies and collected plants for the Royal Gardens at Kew. The summit of the mountain is 5,500 feet above sea level and there the party rested while enjoying a wonderful Alpine panorama. A portion of the smooth flat limestone rock on which they sat had some time previously been split and broken by great heat, for towards the end of the year 1918 the elderly men of Banff, thankful that the First World War was ended, built a huge bonfire there. Again, on the evening of the day on which King George the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth were crowned in far-away Westminster Abbey, the Boy Scouts of the town lit another noble beacon, little thinking that before long Their Majesties would stand on this same mountain-top. During the descent there came a pleasing interlude when the Royal mountaineers met and chatted with Norman Sanson, a veteran of the Riel Rebellion. An eminent botanist and entomologist, he was " weather man " at Banff for almost half a century and on the previous day had proudly raised a Union Jack over his observatory on the summit of Sulphur Mountain. That of. course entailed a long steep climb of 8,000 feet to the stone hut above timber line but as Sanson in the course of his duties had already scaled the mountain over one thousand times, he simply took another ascent in his stride. Before entering upon their visit to Canada in 1939 it is not unlikely that Their Majesties spent some little time poring over some of the family photo albums, particularly those containing pictures of King George ROYALTY IN THE ROCKIES 255 the Fifth and Queen Mary when, as Duke and Duchess of York, they spent a holiday at Banff. At that time surreys, fringed and otherwise, and buggies were fashionable vehicles and a democrat was a conveyance and not a political label. The Duke and Duchess drove around the neighbourhood in one of these I rigs ", escorted by members of the North West Mounted Police, who wore natty little pill-box headgear and skintight uniforms. Thus, when Queen Elizabeth was asked what she would like best to do at Banff, her prompt reply was, " Have a ride in a Canadian buggy." Following an intensive search for one of these vehicles the Royal tourists did thoroughly enjoy a % buggy ride " in a real old-time model with bright red wheels, buffalo robes, a whip and everything. Brewster discarded his Packard car for the time being and, with Major-General E. de B. Panet as equerry, guided his team of white horses along Bow Falls road and around the highway encircling the golf course. They halted momentarily beside the little tarn known as the Deil's Cauldron where some years ago a great Covenanter service was held at which Ralph Connor preached the sermon. Although the season was early for wild flowers the many Saskatoon bushes in bloom must have reminded the trippers of hawthorn in English lanes. At the edge of the forest fringing the highway the dainty Calypso orchids were flowering freely and fragrantly. On the grassy meadows by the river there was galaxy of Shooting Stars, beautiful little flowers beloved of children and of the fairies. Purple Clematis climbed 256 HILL-TOP TALES upward on many shrubs as if eager to display colourful blossoms to the passers-by but in reality to catch the eye of winged messengers. It was particularly gratifying that a black bear should then have emerged from the neighbouring woods, affording the King opportunity for a shot with his camera. One cannot but note that almost all tourists sojourning in the region, be they Kings or Commoners, are alike mortified on failing to see one or more of these animals at large in the Rockies. Towards the close of their final day's holiday at Banff, when long shadows lay across the hill-sides and over the evergreen forest, the Royal pair walked by themselves for several miles along the highway leading to Lake Louise. On Vermilion Lake they watched a fine flotilla of Canada geese cruising about, with several beavers acting as submarine escort. By the lake shore road a large area of poplar stump stubble, the work of a beaver colony, greatly interested the visitors. They listened to a bittern booming in the marshes and heard a Great Horned owl calling softly through the dark aisles of spruce. Then the afterglow faded, the stars came out and a cool wind from unsunned conies in the high glens set the aspen leaves astir. So the travellers put away their walking sticks and cameras and were content to sit before a bright log fire in the castle by the sounding Bow. If there were then any Jacobites in Canada I feel sure that as a result of this memorable Royal Visit, they must have henceforth forsworn allegiance to an ancient line of Scottish Kings. Nevertheless, it is APPENDIX A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY Chap. IV. Brown-Schaffer. Alpine Flora of the Can. Rockies. Putnam, 1907. Douglas* Journal. Roy. Hort. Soc. London, 1914. McCalla, Wm. Wild Flowers of West, Canada. Musson, 1920. McCoun, John. Autobiography. Ottawa Field Naturalists, 1922. Henshaw, Julia. Mountain Wild Flowers of Canada. McBride, 1915. Chap. VII. Palliser's Journal. Brit. Parliament Report. London, 1863. Chap. VIII. Mercer, Mrs. J. Life of Henry Irwin. S.P.C.K. London, 1909. Chap. IX. Wade, M.S. Overlanders of '62. B.C. Archives .1931. McNaughton, M. Overland to Cariboo. Briggs. Toronto, 1896. Chap. X. New Light on the Great North West. Edit. E. Coues. Harper, 1897. Chap. XII. De Smet, PJ. Travels in the Rocky Mts. Duni- gan, N.Y., 1847. Chap. XIII. Coleman, A. P. The Canadian Rockies. Frowde. Toronto, 1911. Chap. XVII. Hines, Rev. Red Indians of the Plains. S.P.C.K. London, 1915. Milton & Cheadle. North West Passage by Land. Cassell, Petter & Galpin. London, 1865. 259 APPENDIX Simpson, Sir G. Overland Journey. Lea & Blanchard. Philadelphia, 1874. Collie & Stutfield. Climbs and Explorations in • Canadian Rockies. Longmans, Green & Co. London, 1903. Outram, Sir Jas. The Heart of the Canadian Rockies. Macmillan. N.Y., 1905. Coues. Elliott. New Light on Great N. W. Harper, 1897. Green, Wm. S. Among the Selkirk Glaciers. Macmillan. London, 1890. Southesk, Earl of. Saskatchewan & the Rocky Mountains. Edmonston & Douglas. Edinburgh, 1875. Kane, Paul. Wanderings of an Artist in N. Amer. Longman-Brown. London, 1859. INDEX Aemmer, Rudolph, 171 Blaeberry Creek, 23, 29 Alberta, 24, 133 Blindman River, 104 Alexandra, Mt., 167 Boat Encampment, 33, 34, 56, 66 Angus, Marion, 250 Bohren, C, 168 Anthozoan, Mt,, 189 Bonaparte, N., 40 Anthracite, Alta., 138 Bonners Ferry, Idaho, 30 Armstrong, B.C., 112 Bourbon River, 49 Arrow Lakes, 34 Bourgeau, Eugene, 88, 90, 98 Ashcroft, B.C., 91 Bourgeau, Mt., 100 Assiniboine, Bow Fort, 68, 83 Falls, 99 Mt., 49, 125, 168, 170 Fort, Old, 80, 89, 91, 98, 110 Astoria, Oregon, 34 Lake, 162, 167, 207, 220 Asulkan Creek, 212 River, 3, 10, 28, 41, 50, 91, 101 Athabasca, Valley, §0 Glacier, 165 Brachiopod, Mt., 189 Lake, 92 Brazeau, Alta., 77 Pass. 33, 35, 54, 55, 64, 97 Brett, Dr. R.G., 224 River, 32, 54, 64, 68, 107 Brewster, James I., 42, 252 Atkin, Dr., 245 Broken Arm, Chief, 71 Aylmer Pass, 134 Brown, Stewardson, 94 Brown, Mt., 33, 54, 86, 97, 150, 153 Baker, I.G., 133 Bryce, Mt., 167 Baker, Lake, 189 Burgess Pass, 184, 199 Ballard, Fred, 168, 236 Burnett, Root., 241 Banff Alta., 41, 43, 73, 99, 136, 189, 233, 247 Indian Days at, 218 National Park, 54, 82,124,182, 199,22.1 Springs Hotel, 199,221, 251 St. George's Church, 223, 251 St. Mary's Church, 226 Bankhead, Alta., 138, 227 Battle River, 104 Beaver, Job, 6 Beaverfoot River, 100 Beavermouth, B.C., 150 Benito, Sask., 181 Bennett, R.B., 224 Benton, Fort, 129 Berland River, 83 Big Bend, 34, 55, 66, 149, 156 Bird-Tail Creek, 127 Black, Samuel, 87 Blackfoot Crossing, 9 Calgary Alta., 1, 8, 28, 91, 94, 98, 148, 177,218 Herald, 135, 140 Stampede, 218 Cameron, McKinley, 8 Campbell, Constable, 182 Canadian Pacific Railway, 91, 111, 135, 144, 156, 172 Canal Flat, B.C., 30 Canmore, 50, 80, 89, 99, 182, 248 Canoe River, 33 Cariboo, 113, 117, 118 Carlton, Fort, 39, 97, 117 Carman, Bliss, 252 Carpenter, Magistrate, 178 Cascade Mt., 80, 99 River, 4 Castle, Mt., 4, 79, 92, 100, 138 Cathedral, Mt., 101, 167, 191 262 INDEX Cerulean Lake, 125 Chaba River, 4 Chancellor, Mt., 100, 167 Chantler, Elizabeth, 11 Cheadle, Dr., 117, 239 Chinook Arch, 24 Chow, Yee, 227 - Clearwater River, 113, 118 Cochrane, Alta., 176 Cceur d'Alene, Idaho, 57, 110 Coleman, Prof., A.P., 4, 6, 141, 148 Coleman, Mt., 154 Collie, Norman, 162 Columbia Icefield, 97, 165, 221 Lake, 30, 45 Mt., 167 River, 23, 29, 55, 65, 149 Valley, 248 Colville, Fort, 43, 110 Combe, Constable, 182 Committee's Punch Bowl, 64,153 Connaught, Duke of, 249 Connor, Ralph, 255 Consolation Lake, 249 Cooper, Jim, 141 Copper, Mt., 92 Cranbfook, B.C., 30, 110, 159, 203 Crosby, Robert, 165 Cross River, 48 Crowfoot Glacier, 207 Crow's Nest Pass, 147 Cut-head Creek, 221 De Smet, Pierre Jean, 45 De Smet, Roche, 45, 53 Deane, Supt., 177 Devil's Head Mt., 105 Didsbury, Alta., 27 Dobson, of Exshaw, 176, 178 Donald, B.C., 29, 92, 149, 156, 160 Douglas, David, 84, 88 Douglas, Mt., 84 Dowling, D.B., 148 Drummond, Thomas, 83 •Drummond, Mt., 84 Ear, Peter, 9 Edith Cavell, Mt., 54 Edmonton Alta., 13 Fort, 39, 51, 52, 59, 69, 91, 96, 116 Edson, Alta., 73, 83 Edwards, Phil., 245 Edwards, Rupert, 165 Eisenhower, Mt., 138 Elbow River, 28, 91, 178 Ellice, Fort, 75, 127 Emerald Lake, 84, 93, 199 Eon, Mt., 170 Erasmus, Peter, 105, 107 Exshaw, Alta., 28, 80, 89, 99, 175, 181, 248 Fairholme Range, 43 Fairmont Hot Springs, 47 Fairview, B.C., 159 Fay, Charles, 162 Fear, George, 144 Fear, William, 8, 144 Feuz, Edward, 171, 219 Field, B.C., 101, 111, 186, 191, 248 Finklestein, M., 244 Fleming, Sir Sandford, 90 Forbes, Mt., 167 Fort William, 44 Fortress Lake, 151, 236 Fossil, Mt., 189 Franklin, Sir John, 83 Fraser, Colin, 53, 63 Fraser, Mrs. C, 53 Fraser, Marjorie Kennedy, 241 Fraser River, 44, 87,118 French Creek, 150 Fury, Sgt, 172 Gap, Alta., 28, 91, 99 Garry, Fort, 39,44,61,74,114,117, 126, 243 George, Fort, 121 Ghost River, 3,28, 41,105,125,132 Glacier, B.C., 92 Park, 82, 92, 209 Gleichen, Alta., 133,135 Gloria Lake, 170 Goat Range, 49 Golden, B.C., 29,110, 149, 212 Goodsir, Mt., 167, 219 Gordon of Exshaw, 175 Gordon, Mt., 162 Grampian Mts., 89 Grand Coulee, Wash., 66 Grand Forks, B.C., 159 Grant, Angus, 197 Great Bear Lake, 83 Great Divide, 92, 101, 139,193 Green, Wm. S., 142 INDEX 263 Green Timber Creek, 227 Grotto, Mt., 28, 89, 91, 99 Habel, Dr. Jean, 236 Habel Glacier, 169 Hamilton, Ont., 118 Harmon, Byron, 125 Harriott, John, 50 Harrison, Constable, 182 Harrison, George, 219 Hartley, Bill, 209 Hasler, C. Sen., 168 Healy Creek, 41, 220 Hearne, Samuel, 237 Hector, Sir James, 5, 96, 97 Hector, Mt., 102, 111 Hector Station, 91, 197 Helena, Mont, 131 Henry, Alexander, 12 Henshaw, Mrs. Julia, 93 Highland Gathering, 244, 245 Highwood River, 28 Hogarth, Jack, 125 Hole-in-the-Wall, Mt., 100 Holt City, 141, 148 Hooker, Prof., 85, 86 Hooker, Mt., 33, 54, 97, 150, 153 Horetzky, Charles, 91 House, Rocky Mountain, 19, 24, 25, 27, 31, 32, 50, 69, 104 How, Li, 227 Howse Pass, 19, 22, 29, 30, 110 Hudson Bay, 44 Hudson's Bay Company, 13, 26, 51, 61, 62, 73, 87, 117 Hunter, Edwin, 139 Hunter, Rev., 71 Ice River Valley, 147, 219 Indians .Assiniboine or Stoney, 1, 79, 91, 101 Blackfoot, 52,69, 115 Blood, 126, 129 Cree, 69,71, 104, 114 Flathead, 30 Iroquois, 53 Kootenay, 20, 27 Piegan, 31 Shushwap, 121 Sioux, 1 Innes, Frances, 158 Invermere, B.C., 42 Irwin, Rev. Henry, 156 Isle a la Crosse, 35 Jacob, Jimmie, 151 Jasper Alta., 22, 55, 146 House, 53, 63, 64, 97, 107, 108 Lake 32 National Park, 45, 82,120,206, 236 Job Creek, 6 Johnson Creek, 79, 141 Jonas, James, 7 Jonas Pass, 153 Jumping Pound Creek, 28 Kain, Conrad, 171, 203 Kalmakoff, John, 181 Kamloops, B.C., 87, 117, 121, 122, 158 Kananaskis Lake, 4 Kane, Paul, 60 Kaufmann, Christian, 168 Kelsey, Henry, 83 Kennedy, Margaret, 241 Kew Gardens, 89 Kicking Horse Pass, 96, 101, 173 Riv.er, 29, 97, 149, 191 Valley, 188 Kinbasket Lake, 150 Kinjg George, H.M., 189, 247 Knight, Norman, 165 Konuck, Sarkey, 177 Kootenay Crossing, 47, 100 Lake, 30 Plain, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29, 31, 103, 152 River, 30 Kutschera, Victor, 165 Lacombe, Father, 39, 57, 77, 110, 226 Lacombe Home, 144 Laggan, Alberta, 148, 220 Le Frain, Father, 77 Lefroy, Mt., 142 Li, Yee, 227 Lillooet, 123 Louise, Lake, Alta., 22,96,101,110, 138, 146, 148, 177, 189, 191 Love, Timoleon, 113 264 INDEX Lyell, Mt., 167 Lytton, B.C., 159 Macleod, Alta., 133, 179 Macoun, John, 90, 91, 92 Maligne Lake, 6, 147, 206 Manelek, 176, 179 Marble Canyon, 100 Marvel Lake, 170 Midnapore, Alta., 144 Milton, Lord, 117, 239 Minnewanka Lake, 4, 41, 99, 134, 232 Missouri River, 129 Mistaya River, 207 Moberly, Factor, 77, 108 Monarch Mine, 188 Montreal, Que., 113 Moraine Lake, 4 Morigeau, 47 Morley, Alta., 7, 9, 11, 91, 129,138 Morrow, Mr., 119 Mosquito Creek, 183 Moulton Theatre, 145 Moyie River, 30 Murchison Rapids, 122 McAulay, Christina, 243 McCalla, William, 94 McCulloch Creek, 150 McDougall, David, 126 McDougall, George, 11, 129 McDougall, John, 7 McDougall, Minnie, 140 McGavan, 152 McGillveray, 67 Mclnnes, Campbell, 241 McLeod River, 77, 91 Neish, Bill, 183 Nelson's Mts., 30 New Westminster, B.C., 91, 158 New Zealand, 111, 204 Nimrod, 5, 98, 100 Nordegg, Alta., 6, 78, 103, 147 Norquay, Mt., 189 North Saskatchewan River, 27, 77, 96,102,168,217 North Thompson River, 117, 121 North West Company, 26, 30, 36 Norway House, 86 Numme, Old, 75 O'Byrne, Felix, 117 Ogden, Mt., 193 O'Hara Lake, 4 O'Hare, Catherine, 116 Okanagan, 159 Outlook, Sask., 76 Outram, Sir James, 167 Palliser, Capt, 88, 98, 110 Palliser Expedition, 5, 97 Panet, Maj.-Gen., 255 Paris, Ted, 165 Partridge, Seth, 194 Patrick, Allan, 127 Peace River Pass, 91 Peacock, Ross, 8 Peechee Lake, 41 Mt., 43 Pelly, Sask., 181 Pembina River, 120 Peyto, Bill, 168 Pigeon, Mt., 99, 176 Pinto Lake, 153 Pipestone Pass, 79,110, 139 Pitt, Fort, 39, 61, 69,117 Poboktan Pass, 4 Police, R.C.M., 255 Portage la Prairie, 18 Posnikoff, Joe, 181 Potica-poo-tis, 62 President, Mt., 167 Price, Dr., 223 Priest Rapid, 34 Prince Albert, Sask., 13, 35, 97 Prince of Wales, Fort, 237 Purcell Range, 30 Purdue University, 170 Qu'appelle, Sask., 76, 114, 119 Queen Elizabeth, H.M., 189, 247 Quesnel, B.C., 87, 91, 121 Radium, B.C., 42 Rainy Lake, Ont., 30 " Rapid of the Dead ", 34, 66 Rapid River, 29 Red Deer, Alta., 84, 105, 243 River, 27, 106, 220 Red River, 2,15, 74, 114 Revelstoke, B.C., 66, 111, 149, 150 Richardson, Sir John, 83 Riel Rebellion, 135 Robson, Mt., 153 Rochette, 114 INDEX 265 Rocky Mt. House, 19, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 45, 50, 59, 104 Roll-in-the-Mud, 10 Rossland, B.C., 159 Rowand, John, 39, 42, 52 Rundle, Rev. Robert T., 41, 51, 71, 99 Rundle Mt., 4 Rungius, Carl, 201, 244 Ryan, Sgt. Dennis, 176 Ste. Ann, Alta., 52, 77, 109, 119 St. Boniface, Man., 217 St. John, Fort, 91 St. Lawrence River, 44 St. Louis, 57 St. Martin's, Que., 47 St. Mary's, Mont., 56 St. Thomas, Ont., 113 Sandwich Islands, 87 Sanson, Norman B., 254 Sapperton, B.C., 160 Sarbach, Peter, 162 Saskatchewan River, 19, 22, 59 Sawback Range, 79, 100, 138 Schaeffer, Mary T.S., 94 Schaeffer, Mt., 94 Schoeppe, Detective, 177 Schubert, Augustus, 112 Schubert, Catherine, 112 Schubert, Rose, 123 Scone, Perth., 84 Selkirk Mts., 30, 147 Sellar, John, M., 119 Shaw, Constable, 181 Short, James, 75 Sibbald, Andrew, 11, 126, 135 Sibbald, Elsie, 126 Sibbald, Frank, 5, 126 Sibbald, Howard, 124 Siberia, 204 Sillitoe, Bishop, 157 Silver City, 138 Simpson, Sir George, 38, 53, 60, 63 Simpson, James, 168, 201, 220 Simpson Pass, 41 River, 42 Sinclair Canyon, 30, 42, 47 Sir Donald, Mt., 212, 213 Sitting Bull, 57 Small, Charlotte, 35 Smart, " Cappie ", 177 Smith, Donald, 96 Smith, James, 142 Smithsonian Institute, 95, 204 Smoking Weed River, 41 Sokoloff, Afancy, 177 Southesk, Earl of, 73, 84 Spillimacheen, B.C., 149 Spokane River, 34 Spray Lakes, 4 River, 4, 54 Valley, 49, 124 Staley, Rev., 10 Steel, Fort, B.C., 30 Steele's Scouts, 135 Stephen, Mt., 173, 186, 191 Stone, Dr. Winthrop, 170 Stone, Mrs. W., 170 Stoney Squaw Mt., 189 Strathcona, Lord, 213 Stroud, Ont., 126 Sun River, 131 Sunshine Lodge, 41, 220 Sunwapta River, 4, 153 Superior, Lake, 2 Surprise Rapids, 150 Susie, the Stoney, 7 Swan River, Man., 181 Sweet Grass Hills, 132 Tabiteau, Fred, 199 Tache, Bishop, 114 Temple, Mt., 142 Terrace, Mt., 99 Tete Jaune Cache, B.C., 121 Thibault, Father, 71 Thomson, Prof. Arthur, 187 Thompson, C.S., 162 Thompson, David, 26, 83 Thompson River, 36, 87 Three Rivers, Que., 113 Three Sisters Mt., 89 Toronto, Ont., 113 Trail, B.C., 159 " Travelling Sun, The ", 53 Tunnel Mt., 252 Turner Valley, Alta., 28 Tweedsmuir, Lord, 250 Twin, William, 136 Two-Young-Man, 151 Unwin, S.J., 206 Unwin, Mt., 206 INDEX Vancouver Fort, 43, 45, 66, 86 Island, 199 Vavasour, Lieut., 54 Vegreville, Alberta, 116 Vermilion Lake, 80, 100, 256 Pass, 96 River, 42, 48 Victoria, B.C., 117 Voiken, Pete, 181 Wainwright, Constable, 181 Walcott, Charles D., 185 Walcott, Mary Vaux, 95 Walla Walla, Wash., 35 Wallace, Sgt., 182 Wapta Falls, 100 Mt., 188 Waputik Range, 4 Warre, Lieut., 54 Warren, Mrs. William, 94 Waterfowl Lake, 206 Watt, James, 245 Wenkchemna Mt., 4 Wetaskiwin, Alta, 32, 41,104 Wheeler, A.O., 92 Whirlpool River, 32, 54, 109 White Man Pass, 49, 54 White. Mud Fort, 13 Whitehorn Mt., 203 White Horse Plains, 114 Wilcox, Walter D., 4, 7 William, Fort, Ont., 44 Williams Creek, 27 Williams Lake, B.C., 121 Wilmer, B.C., 205 Wilson, John, 175 Wilson, Tom, 139 Wilson, Mt., 154 Wind Mt., 89, 99 Windermere, B.C., 33, 46 Highway, 100 Lake 29 St. Peer's Church, 160 Winnipeg, Man., 243 Wolverine Plateau, 100 Wood River, 55, 65 Woolsey, Rev. Thomas, 113 Yale University, 213 Yellowhead Pass, 118 Yoho National Park, 167, 195 Valley, 84, 169, 194, 199 York, Duke and Duchess of, 255 York Factory, 54, 62, 86 tyiedd Ca/nsnesit on Outdoors with a Camera in Canada By DAN McCOWAN $2.00 | A book of delightful photographs with short descriptive notes by one of the best known Canadian naturalists. The notes will be of interest mainly to those who know Canada and Canadian wild-life well, but the photographs will please everyone who has the least interest in a good picture carefully conceived and successfully achieved, i The Field (England) " This volume, in substance an album, contains a selection of truly choice photographs with simple, nutshell biographies of the creatures and plants portrayed. . . . Mr. McCowan's pictures seem to us to be specimens of the photographic art at its best. " Ottawa Evening Citizen " Our 'official' naturalist at Banff, genial guide and radio lecturer, has brought together some fifty full page photographs of wild life and scenes, and on the opposite pages has described them in a lively friendly manner, spicing the descriptions with little twists of his own well-known brand of humour. . . . Those who know his voice on the air will hear it again as they read, for the Scotch is still there ! They will delight in his easy interpretations of the wonders of the mountain wildernesses and his genuine love for everything 'outdoors' from the flower to the cloud." Vancouver Daily Province MACMILLAN DAN McCOWAN I the mountains man, " was born in Perthshire, Scotland, within sight of the Grampian Hills and he has settled into the Canadian Rockies as into his natural habitat. He is known from one end of Canada to the other because of his more than twenty years of lecturing, his widely followed CBC broadcasts, and his delightful books on Canadian outdoor life. Following a lecture tour of Great Britain in 1936 he was made a Fellow of the Zoological Society in London. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED 70 BOND STREET TORONTO
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Northwest, Canadian--Description and travel
Canadian Rockies (B.C. and Alta.)
Hill-top tales
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