XIV
ON THE MOOSE RIVER TRAIL
A PLEASANT evening had been spent on the shores of Berg Lake, admiring the wonderful views of Robson and its encircling glaciers, with Mount Resplendant, the Dome and the Helmet, Whitehorn Peak off to the right, Rearguard immediately over Berg Lake, Ptarmigan Peak to our left, and Mount Mumm, named after the well-known English Alpine climber, behind us; surely an unrivalled collection of gigantic ice-crowned peaks, encircling one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. A few days before two members of the Alpine Club with the Swiss guide Konrad Kain had climbed to the summit of Robson, and while we were in camp another party came down, unsuccessful, after three days spent on the peak. They had been driven back when within a few hundred feet of the summit by a dangerous snow storm. After the sun went down we walked over to the big camp-fire of the Alpine Club, and listened to the climbing experiences of the mountaineers, regretting that our plans would not permit us to join one of the parties in an attack on one of the less formidable peaks.
Through the good offices of the Superintendent of Jasper Park, we had been fortunate enough to secure the services of Fred Stephens to take us through the Moose River country. So much has been said about guides, that it may not be amiss to explain, for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the Canadian Rockies, that there are two quite distinct classes of mountain guides, one possessing special knowledge of the high peaks and how to get up them, the other knowing like a book the intricate wilderness that lies about their feet. The climbing guides are Swiss, trained in the Alps. Two or three of them were engaged by the Canadian Pacific Railway some years ago, when mountain climbers first began to realise the splendid possibilities of the country about Laggan, Field and Glacier. The guides spent the summer in the Rockies, and returned to Switzerland for the winter. Since then the number has steadily increased, and now many of the Swiss guides have settled permanently in the Canadian Alps, which are now rapidly becoming popular as a winter as well as a summer resort.
The trail guides are an entirely different class of men. They belong to the west, have been trained there, and know its ways. Some of them have been trappers or traders, many are hunters, and not a few have been cowboys, or miners. All know the mountains and the mountain trails, and most of them are good companions either in camp or on the trail, quietly competent when work is to be done, resourceful in the innumerable emergencies of mountain travel, and a fountain of shrewd wisdom and anecdote around the camp fire. And of all trail guides in the Canadian Rockies none is the superior of Fred Stephens, whether as guide, philosopher or comrade. We who had heard his praises sung by others, congratulated ourselves when we learned that he was to take us through the Moose River country.
Early next morning we were up and doing. Breakfast was despatched, the tents struck, the horses driven in to camp, packs made up and securely fastened to the backs of the pack-horses by means of the famous diamond hitch, our own ponies saddled, and we were off for Moose Pass, waving a reluctant farewell to our hosts of the Alpine Club as we trotted through the camp – a tent city gay with bunting, and instinct with the wholesome enthusiasm, good-fellowship, and hospitality of the mountaineers.
As we crossed the slight ridge at the foot of Robson Glacier, which at this point forms the continental divide, we paused to study for a moment the curious family history of two great water systems, born in the same glacier. From two blue ice caves in the Robson Glacier, one on either side of the ridge of the terminal moraine, flow two sparkling streams. One flows southwest into Berg Lake, the Grand Fork, the Fraser, and the Pacific Ocean; the other flows northeast into Lake Adolphus, the Smoky, Peace River, Slave River, Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie, and the Arctic Ocean. Turning our backs on the Berg Lake tributary, after wishing it a pleasant journey to the Pacific, we followed its brother down to Lake Adolphus and for some miles beyond, when we turned east up Calumet Creek toward Moose Pass.
Near the summit of the pass we found ourselves in the midst of one of the most exquisite of Alpine meadows. Imagine a great bowl of dark rock relieved here and there with patches of fresh snow, and at the foot of this bowl a soft emerald carpet, the green almost hidden by glowing patches of flowers, asters and arbutus and harebell, purple and white heather, lady's tresses and columbine, moss campion, the twin flower and the forget-me-not. Think of it, you who treasure a little patch of forget-me-nots in your garden, think of walking your horse reverently through an acre of forget-me-nots, growing so thickly that the blue of them could be seen long before one reached the place where they grew, so thickly that one was compelled to the sacrilege of treading down thousands of blossoms as we crossed the meadow. In honour of the lady of our party, whom we believed to be the first white woman to pass this way, we named this beautiful spot Merwin Meadow.
Before we leave the meadow, listen for a moment to a writer who combines the imagination of a poet with the exact knowledge of a scientist, Dr. A. P. Coleman:
"If one halts by chance anywhere on a mountain pass, all sorts of thrilling things are going on around. Lovely flowers are opening eagerly to the sun and wind of Spring – in mid-August, with September's snows just at hand, a whole year's work of blossom and seed to be accomplished before the ten months' winter sleep begins. Bees are tumbling over them intoxicated with honey and the joy of life while it is summer. Even the humming-birds, with jewels on their breast as if straight from the tropics, are not afraid to skim up the mountain sides, poise over a bunch of white heather, and pass with a flash from flower to flower. The marmots with aldermanic vests are whistling and 'making hay while the sun shines,' and one may see their bundles of choice herbs spread on a flat stone to dry, while the little striped gophers are busy too. Time enough to rest in the winter.
"Everything full of bustle and haste and of joy, what could be more inspiring than the flowery meadows above tree-line when the warm sun shines in the six weeks of summer! The full splendour and ecstasy of a whole year's life piled into six weeks after snow has thawed and before it falls again!
"Higher up even the snow itself is alive with the red snow plant and the black glacier flea, like the rest of the world making the most of summer; and as you take your way across the snow to the mountain top, what a wonderful world opens out! How strangely the world has been built, bed after bed of limestone or slate or quartzite, pale grey or pale green or dark red or purple, built into cathedrals or castles, or crumpled like coloured cloths from the rag-bag, squeezed together into arches and troughs, into V's and S's and M's ten miles long and two miles high; or else sheets of rock twenty thousand feet thick have been sliced into blocks and tilted up to play leapfrog with one another.
"And then the sculpturing that is going on! One is right in the midst of the workshop bustle where mountains are being carved into pinnacles, magnificent cathedral doors that never open, towers that never had a keeper – all being shaped before one's eyes of the mighty beds and blocks of limestone and quartzite that were once the sea bottom. You can watch the tools at work, the chisel and gouge, the file and the sandpaper. All the workmen are hard at it this spring morning in August; the quarryman Frost has been busy over night, as you hear from the thunder of big blocks quarried from the cliffs across the valley; there is a dazzling gleam on the moist, polished rocks which Craftsman Glacier has just handed over to the daylight; and you can watch how recklessly the waterfall is cutting its way down, slicing the great banks of rock with canyons! It is inspiring to visit the mountains any day in the year, but especially so in the July or August springtime, when a fresh start is made, and plants, animals, patient glaciers, hustling torrents, roaring rivers, shining lakes are all hard at work rough-hewing or putting finishing touches on an ever new world."
We tried to keep our minds on such thoughts as these, as we left the meadow behind and crossed a ridge of most abominably sharp scree, hard on our feet and footwear as we trudged sulkily through it, and still harder on the unshod horses who followed patiently after. The ridge led to a long slope down the British Columbia side of the pass – for between the foot of Robson Glacier and Moose Pass we had crossed a wedge of Alberta – and then mile upon mile of muskeg, where as we floundered slowly ahead we alternately admired Fred Stephens' unerring skill in following a trail that only became faintly visible for a foot or two every three or four hundred yards, and damned him heartily for leading us into such a slough of despond. However, even the worst muskeg must have an end, and at last we and our weary horses pulled out on the other side, trotted happily through a bit of virgin forest, and cheered the guide when he pointed ahead to our camping ground, an ideal spot in a clearing beside the East Branch of the Moose River. We had made twenty miles from Berg Lake, pretty good going in such a country, a third of the journey being through heavy muskeg; and our second meal that day was at seven in the evening. Fred Stephens is without a peer as a guide, but he would never qualify as instructor in a cooking school. Nevertheless his bannocks that night seemed to us the very food of the gods. It may have been because he made them in a gold pan, or it may have been the dry humour of his stories, or perhaps it was the fact that breakfast seemed so remote that we had forgotten the existence of such a meal, but the fact remains that that luncheon-supper of bannocks and bacon left us at peace with the world.
Behind the camp rose an attractive little mountain offering some rather interesting rock climbing, and one of us made up his mind to have a try at it the following morning before breakfast. He managed to get into his clothes without disturbing the rest of the party, and pocketing a cold bannock started off for the mountain. The first obstacle appeared in the shape of a lively branch of the Moose, which had not been noticed the night before. A rapid survey up and down stream revealed no means of getting across dry, and there was nothing for it but to plunge in and wade across. It was waist deep in midstream, and the water was not only wet but most exceedingly cold. However, there was exercise enough ahead to overcome the chill of the reception.
A long scramble up a slope covered with closely matted bushes led at last to the rocks, and the rocks to a series of ledges. Being a novice, the climber lost much time in searching for practicable routes to the summit, and in an attempt to get up a chimney sent down such an avalanche of rock that the camp was aroused and began to contemplate a searching expedition for the remains of a fool climber. However, fate had some other end in view, and the climber went on his way. A steep slope of very fine, loose shale ending in a sheer drop of some hundred feet finally brought him to a standstill. He had little more than an hour to get back to camp, and it would take all of that to find another way up to the summit. That little mountain remained unconquered. He scrambled down to a draw between the hills, crossed a snow patch, swung down a long slope, plunged through the uninviting creek, and was back in time to find the party packed and ready to march.
Our way lay down the East Branch, partly over a fairly good trail, partly through a repetition of yesterday's muskeg. One of the pack-horses took it into his head to do pioneer work in opening up new trails through the bush, and was sent in disgrace to the rear of the string where the guide's helper could keep a watchful eye on him. The helper was a plucky but inexperienced little chap, and his limited vocabulary filled the pack-horses with contempt. Throughout that day we who were ahead with the guide could hear every little while far in the rear the faint cry, "Buckskin! Oh, Bu-u-ck-skin!" Finally the cry changed to, "O Fred! Pack's off!" and the philosophic guide cantered back to bring pack and pack-horse together again. Nothing could possibly look more meek and inoffensive than the mild-eyed Buckskin when he marched into camp that night, but he had given more trouble than the rest of the thirteen horses combined. He probably said to himself that he was a horse ahead of his generation, and that pioneers were generally misunderstood.
We camped on the West Branch of the Moose, about a mile above its junction with the East Branch, having again made twenty miles from our last camp. Once more we camped by the river's side, with a fine range of mountains opposite, and a splendid view of the Reef Glaciers at the head of the valley. Resplendent and Robson were off to the west, but hidden behind intervening ridges. We had been hoping all day to see mountain goat, but found nothing but a wisp of wool on a bush above a salt lick.
The following morning we started down the Moose, with a succession of beautiful views up and down the valley. A deep creek which had been roughly bridged with logs gave us some trouble. One of the pack-horses – not the unfortunate Buckskin – went through, and it needed the united exertions of four men to get him out. The other horses, who had seen the accident and were still on the wrong side of the stream, refused to have anything to do with the bridge, and even after we had repaired it they were only with the utmost difficulty coaxed across one at a time.
Finally we topped the last ridge, and looked down into the valley of the Fraser. The railway track, looking like a thread in the distance, seemed utterly unfamiliar after our few days on the trail. We had made a wide circle around Robson, starting from Robson station, and coming back to the railway at what was known to the construction gangs as "Mile 17." We had supper in Reading's Camp, near the mouth of Grant Brook, and took the eastbound train back to Jasper.
A day or two later we turned our faces toward the east, leaving behind more than one friend that we had learned to know and appreciate in the simple, human life of trail and camp-fire; and carrying with us eternal memories of this region of glorious mountains and pine-scented valleys, lakes of turquoise and emerald, rushing crystal streams, waterfalls innumerable, glaciers and snow-fields, rugged cliffs and green-clad slopes, rock-strewn ridges and flower-bedecked meadows, and of the marvellously clear and intoxicating air of the mountains lifting the soul out of the mire and attuning it to a purer and more noble outlook. We had had glimpses of these wonderlands of the Canadian West, and we were resolved that another day should see our footsteps once more turned toward the beckoning hills.
To-day, with the "storm-winds of autumn" rushing by from the east, we feel like saying, with Matthew Arnold:
"Ye are bound for the mountains —
Ah, with you let me go
Where your cold distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lift dimly
Its white peaks in air —
How deep is their stillness!
Ah, would I were there!"
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