Calgary is the capital of Alberta and is in the centre of a great ranche country. Like all these towns out west it is an unfinished conglomeration of houses, laid out in imaginary streets at right angles, in which there are few houses and more gaps. The whole is held together by a principal street, in which there are two or three pretentious new stone buildings. From here the houses straggle away into the country, the unoccupied lots being joined to them by a boarded foot-path. These towns have no depth, they are all surface and length. Laid down on the prairie there are no trees near them and they have a bare unfinished ugliness, peculiar to their new growth.
You are reminded at every turn of the reason for Calgary's existence, for its shops indicate the ranchers' wants. There are many saddlers, displaying Californian saddles, stock whips and lassoos; others have camp bedding and furniture; canned goods, that stand-by of the rancher, are evidently in great demand. The dry-goods stores are full of flannel shirts, slouching broad-brimmed hats and "chaps," or the cowboy's leather leggings reaching to the thigh. Nearly everyone you meet is English, there are few born Canadians.
The streets are full of cowboys riding their long-tailed, half-groomed bronchos at a hand gallop, or of sulkies with the unmistakable rancher, with shirt open at the throat, slouch hat, and tanned face. The chief subject of conversation is the dimensions of the ranches, the number of head of cattle and horses on each.
In the afternoon a Police team came with Mrs. McIllree, to drive us out to see one of these ranches. Out here anything from a single horse to a four-in-hand is called a "team," but this was one in our sense of the term.
We galloped across a trail on the prairie, and then wound through a "coolie," as they call the little valleys lying in between the rolling hills, and which are so frequent in this country. There are hundreds of gophers popping out of their holes, and as we see them close, sitting up with their long bodies, they look like tiny kangaroos. We espy coveys of prairie chickens, which are like our grouse.
As we reach the open ground there is a splendid country spread out before us. Far as the eye can reach, extending into the foot-hills at the base of the Rockies, there are miles and miles of rolling upland pastures, that resemble our Wiltshire downs. The whole of this vast area has been "taken up," and is a succession of ranches. We can see the little wooden houses with their outbuildings, scattered at long intervals. Those innumerable specks on the downs are the cattle and horses, literally "feeding on a thousand hills." We are following the sweeping bends of the Elbow river, which lies below us in a cool green ravine, full of trees, in pleasant contrast to the brown hills around.
The ranche we are going to belongs to Mr. Robinson, and used to be called the Elbow Ranche, but has lately changed its name to the Chippenham, in accordance with the idea of calling the ranches hereabouts after the great English hunts. Messrs. Martin, Jameson, and Gordon-Cumming (the latter of whom we met at the hotel with his pet black bear), have called their ranche the Quorn. One ranche differs not from the other, except in degrees of comfort. They are all built of wood, generally with verandahs, and after the simplest model of a square house, with a door in the centre and windows on each side. There are no trees or shrubs, or creepers scarcely even an attempt at a garden; a rough paling alone divides them from the prairie. Dogs walk in and out and are part of the family. The plains are bare. Yet what a world of romance lingers round the expression, "out ranching in the West." We dream of sunrise and sunset on the open prairie, of wild gallops in the early morning with the dew on the grass, of camping out under the starlight. But I trow the reality is far removed from the ideal, and that it ends with a bunk in the cowboy's hut wrapped up in a blanket, with tough prairie beef and doughy bread for their fare. I am sure if some fond mother could see her darling boy in his cowboy's dress, and his quarters in the log hut, she would never be happy until she had him by her side again. It is clearly a case of "where ignorance is bliss," etc. But still, for a strong constitution there is nothing to fear, and sobriety and industry may lead to fortune.
We look at the "corral" or wooden pen, subdivided into partitions, where, after the animals have been driven in, the one required is gradually separated by being shut off in pen after pen, until a narrow passage is reached. Here wooden barriers are let down and he is thus confined in a cage. They can then brand him with an iron stamped with the mark of the ranche. If it is a colt to be broken, they saddle, bridle and mount him before leaving the pen. Then comes the struggle, in which the rough rider requires great skill, tact, and experience, for a horse will do anything to unseat his rider the first time. Unmercifully sharp bits are used, but the horse is guided more by the rein on the neck. The boys ride loosely when galloping over the prairie, leaving the horse to look out for the holes, and he rarely makes a mistake.
The horses on this ranche are bronchos, but they have not sufficient blood for the English market, and, added to this, the branding detracts from their value. They are worth about 120 dols. each. This firing is said to be a necessity, as the ranches are often 500 acres in extent. The animals roam at will, with perhaps a couple of men, living in a log hut twenty miles away from the ranche, told off to look after them. Twice a year they "round up;" that is, the owners meet and appoint a place, where the cattle are driven in and claimed by their owners, who know them by their brands, and colts and calves are then marked. This rounding up is done in the spring and the fall of every year, and is beginning now. The brands are some of them very ingenious in device. Settlers advertise in the newspapers for lost animals, giving their brands, which are well known to all the country round.
Does ranching pay? They tell us it can and does, but, as in every other walk of life, hard work, capital and experience are required. Those who are wise, before beginning ranching on their own account, go through a cowboy apprenticeship on some ranche. Our driver in Calgary confided to us "that them young men didn't do no good to themselves out here, but they did good to the country, for they freely spent the remittances from home."
We came home by the Indian Sarcee Reserve. On an open space over the river we saw some poles placed together with a suspended hook. It is the place where the Indians "make their braves." In this terrible ordeal their young men have this hook twisted into the muscles of their chests and are drawn up by it. They must utter no cry of pain. Indian encampments are met with all over the prairie. You know their "topee" tents, by the poles sticking up in the centre, in distinction to the ordinary tents of the half-breeds. They have numerous horses and cattle, which are rounded up with others. They are kept by an inspector within their reserves, and there is a large fine for anyone selling them intoxicating drink. They appear innocent and harmless, and only given to paltry thieving.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CANADIAN ROCKIES AND THE SELKIRKS
Since our arrival at Calgary we have been manœuvring to see by what means we could escape the start at 2 o'clock in the morning. As the C.P.R. has only one train westward each day, you must continue your journey at the same time as you previously arrived. Now we have received permission to travel by a freight train, and Mr. Niblock, the Superintendent of the division, has kindly lent us his private car.
The freight train was due between six and seven o'clock, and it was somewhat annoying, as we had risen at 5 o'clock, to have to wait about the platform at the station until nine. Early as it was, the town was astir with sportsmen in their buggies with their guns and dogs, off for a day's shooting on the prairie. For this bright morning is the 1st of September, their 12th of August, and there will be massacre amongst the prairie chickens ere nightfall. The shooting is open to all, and you may roam over anybody's land.
We can see the "Rockies" for the first time this morning. Since we have been at Calgary the mountains have sulked in clouds and mist, and Calgary does not, as some people would have you believe, lie under the Rockies, but fifty miles away. In the clear morning air, they appear nearer to us than they really are.
We are soon well into the foot-hills, those grassy rounded slopes, which are the first rising ground from off the prairie, and which lead up to and end in the Rocky Mountains. The blue Bow river flows merrily in the valley; there are hundreds of horses and cattle feeding on these river terraces, for there are ranches lying up to and under the foot of the Rockies.
The great amphitheatre of mountains, which has been coming nearer by leaps and bounds, is beginning to impress us with its barren purple scars, and just as we are entering among them our guard stops the train, and takes us out to see the Kananaskis Falls in the Bow river. We hear their dull and distant thunder before we see the clear mountain torrent, sliding down over ledges of rock, forming a long white-flecked rapid, before taking a final leap over a precipice. The conductor then invites us to climb up into the caboose, and scrambling up, we are perched inside the turret of the van, where there are windows that command the view on all sides. We share this elevated position with the brakesman, who is ready to run along the platform on the top of the waggons, and turn on the brakes, for each waggon has a separate one, connected with a wheel at the top. We subsequently discussed whether to give this amiable conductor a tip, but came to the conclusion that it was superfluous, on learning from the car attendant that his salary, calculated at three cents a mile, gave him an income of 500l. a year.
We are now breaking through the outer barrier of the Rockies, and penetrating deeper into the mountains by a valley. The railway is challenging the monarchs, for they rise up on every side and could so easily crush us, as we wander through the green valley by the side of the Bow river, our travelling comrade for many days to come. Its waters are pale emerald green now, but later on will be milk-blue with the melting snow and ground-up moraine, brought down by its mountain tributaries.
We shoot "the gap," described as "two vertical walls of dizzy height." It would be truer to say that the line turns sharply round a projection of rock, whilst a mountain approaches from the other side. It is a fraud! At Canmore we rest an hour. As we get out of the cars, the intense stillness of the valley strikes us. We look up to, and are covered by the shadows of the three well-defined slanting peaks of the Three Sisters and the Wind mountain. When we start again the mountains continue to increase in grandeur, though I think that Baroness Macdonald's rhapsodies quoted in the Annotated Time Table, exaggerate the beauty of this part of the Rockies. It is curious to notice the remarkable difference between the two ranges we are passing through. Those to the left are fantastically broken into varied shapes and forms penetrated by crevasses, full of deep blue and purple-red shadows. Whilst the range to the right is formed of grey and white hoary-headed peaks, and look brilliantly cold and white, in the strong sunlight.
We approach the Cascade Mountain. "This enormous mass seems to advance towards us and meet us." It entirely blocks our further progress, and the train seems to be going to travel up it. We appear to touch it, but in reality it is many miles away. This Cascade Mountain gives you more idea than anything else of the colossal proportion of the mountains, which you lose by proximity, and by their uniformly large scale. It also shows you the deception caused by the clearness of the atmosphere. For the silver cascade which we see falling down its side is ten feet across, and yet it looks like a thread of cotton. The mountain we could well-nigh touch is five miles or more away. It is a striking sensation.
Another half-hour and we reach Banff. As a whole, I think this part of the scenery disappointing, but people talk so much about it, because it is their first experience of the mountains, coming as it does too after a thousand miles of prairie.
We are hot and tired after our journey, and have long to wait for "the rig," which is repeatedly telephoned for. When it does appear it is drawn by a vicious roan, fresh from a ranche, which shies and bolts in a terrifying way. There are two miles of a badish road, which we do not see for the clouds of dust that accompany us. This dust is the drawback to Banff. The mountains have not come up to our expectations. Will it be so also with Banff? To-morrow will show.
Wednesday, September 2nd.—A day to be remembered. A day of complete satisfaction.
Cradled in the stillness of the mountains, closed in by them in solemnity and darkness, the babble of the Bow River joining its waters with the Spray, we fell asleep. This morning, the sun of a most perfect day awakes us, and the sound of the rushing waters is the first to greet our ears. My windows form two sides of the room, and I dress with the sun streaming in at the one and the breeze at the other, and a panorama of mountains seen from them both. The air is exhilarating to intoxication; the atmosphere intensely clear. We do nothing all day, we live in the companionship of the mountains.
We have been with them in the early morning, when the pale-rose tints, the opalescent blue, the delicate pearl-grey, lay lightly on their rugged summits, and made them seem so near and tender. We have seen them in the heat of noon, looking strong and hard, with black shadows in the crevasses and their great stony veins and muscles standing out in relief in the sunshine. They seem full of manhood, defiant, and self-sufficient. We have watched these same mountains in the glamour of declining days, soften again as the shadows steal up the pine woods, leaving patches of sunlight. One side of the valley is in gloom, whilst the other is bathed in golden light. Their grey peaks stand out as if cut with a sharp-edged knife against the even paleness of the sky. A few fir trees at their summit look like green needle-points, and the trail of pines climbing up the mountain, like soldiers marching in single file trying to scale the fortress heights.
In the centre of the valley, there are two great mountains, and as I write they are becoming wrapped in purple-blue gloom, with sable shadows in their granite sides, and whilst the valley is in darkness, the peaks are still bright with the last gleams of fading daylight. Behind this mountain again, there are three acute peaks, which stand from behind its dark shoulder, and they are rosy-red with an Alpine after-glow.
As we sit out after dinner in the gloaming, the mountains are still dimly visible. They have lost their individuality, and their soft full outlines are limned against the luminous sky. Stars rise from behind them; there is one of intense brightness, and several shooting ones make a bright pathway across the mountains.
There are mountains of every description at Banff. It is this variety that gives such charm to the place. Some are entirely clothed with pines, others partly so, with barren summits. Others again are nothing but rock and granite from base to summit, from earth almost to heaven, and down their sides there are marked deep slides, where the rock and limestone has crumbled into an avalanche of stone and dust. The changes on their unchanging surfaces are the most beautiful. Like human nature, hard on the surface, they have hidden soft and susceptible moods. The pine-clad mountains are sunnier and more pleasing, but it is those of adamantine rock that fascinate you.
They say that no view is perfect without water. The Bow River here gives the poetry of motion, and makes music to echo against the hills. It has the most perfect miniature falls I ever saw. They are pretty, yet not tame; they are noisy, yet not thundering; they murmur and quarrel without producing soul-agonizing sounds. They charm, but do not exercise the dangerous fascination of Niagara. Their water is creamy blue in the sunlight, and cerulean in the shadow of the ravine, down which in bars and trails of foam it rushes, until it throws itself over the fall, in a snow-white cloud, flecking the rocks on the banks with froth.
All the mountains have names—such as the Twin Brothers, the Sentinel, the Devil's head; but these names are meaningless. You know and grow to love each by its own individual characteristic. The hotel in their midst scarcely mars the scene, for it is a picturesque structure perched on a natural platform, built of yellow wood, and with a roof of warm red shingles, and green trellises to cover the foundations. Its situation is so perfect that you scarcely improve your view, or want to drive about the valleys. You may, perhaps, come a little nearer to the mountains, or see their reverse sides. There is one, however, the Twin Brethren, which gains by coming near to it, because you can stand absolutely under a mammoth rampart of granite, shot straight into mid air, horizontally upward. It strikes fear into you as you gaze up to it, and as with these mountains comparison is the only thing which gives you even the remotest idea of their superb size, a great rock, as big as a small hill in itself, broke off some years ago and lies on the ground, amid smaller stones, as we ought to call them, but which are really large rocks. We can trace the exact place where it cracked away from the symmetry of rock, leaving an unseemly cavity and a long moraine of débris. The air is so dry that everything is like tinder. Forest fires are frequent, and we mark their track up the mountain sides and see the smoke of one or two. A few mutilated trees are all that are left of the magnificent primeval forest, and the pines we see are a second and third growth.
Though the mountains stand around so silent and stately, there is a great unrest beneath them. A volcano burns below, which may break forth at any time, for Banff has several hot mineral pools and springs, sure indication that the earth here is only an upper crust, with hell-fire beneath.
The temperature of these springs is 127 degrees Fahrenheit, and there are baths for the outer man, and taps of water for the inner.
Thursday, September 3rd.—A day of blankest disappointment. A cruel change from yesterday. From early morning the mountains have been blurred and blotted out by an impenetrable haze of smoke. The sun, though ready to give us all it did yesterday, has not shone, and has been only a fiery ball suspended in the air. It is caused by a forest fire raging destruction, it may be, many miles from here, but the smoke, from the smouldering, spreads and hangs like a curtain, lasting often for many days. We canoed up the Bow River to the pretty Vermilion Lakes.
Friday, September 4th.—I could not resist a peep out of my window at four o'clock. The outlook was more promising I thought, and went back to bed cheered. We left the hotel at six. Cold despair settled on us all, for the mountains loomed gloomily through a colourless haze. Exceedingly cold and depressed, we huddled into the sheltered corner of the Observation Car, a car for the view, open on all sides. I had heard so much of the magnificent scenery that I had looked forward keenly to this crossing of the Rockies, and it seemed I was to be disappointed. After all, it is only like the disappointments you meet with in life, as, nine times out of ten, the thing most wished for, is a disillusionment when it comes.
Range after range of mountains is unfolding before us. They approach: we pass immediately under them, and they recede, only to give place to others as grand and massive. All are of solid rock, colossal masonry piled up to magnificent proportions, their zeniths crowned with pinnacles and spires, with square and round and pointed towers. In one place you distinctly see the steps leading up to a broken column. The most impressive one is Castle Mountain, though the isolated helmet-shaped peak of Lefroy, 11,200 feet, is the loftiest. This mountain stands in solitary majesty by itself in the valley. There is no ascending or descending range near it. You can see the battlements, with their loop-holes regularly jagged out at the summit of the bastions, and a tower at either end. They are faintly yet clearly discernible. It is truly a Giant's Keep, and I think the finest mountain in the range, though they are all so sublime and grand in this wonderful valley that it is scarcely fair to discriminate. Running concurrently with the track is our dear old friend, the Bow. We have lived continuously with it for three days, and feel quite friendly towards it.
Soon we see the beginning of the glacier range, and feel the awe inspired by those eternal ice-bound regions where winter reigns for ever, and none can live, and where even nature cannot vegetate. The glaciers lie frozen on to their surface, finding foothold in a crevasse or basin, hollowed out probably by their own action. Under one of these glaciers lie the Trinity of Lakes, called the Lonely Lakes of the Rocky Mountains, one beneath the other, with Lake Agnes touched by the glacier. At Laggan we have a heavier engine attached, and extra bolts and brakes screwed on.
We begin the ascent of the Rockies; the crossing of the Great Divide. It is gradual and not nearly such a dramatic incident as the crossing of the Great Divide of the Americans. In fact, the gradients are so gently engineered that, though the engine makes a great noise about it, you scarcely believe you have reached the top, and are looking for something more exciting when you see the wooden arch at the summit, on which is inscribed "The Great Divide." In this case it alludes mockingly to the tiny stream which here divides and flows towards the Atlantic on one side, and the Pacific on the other. There is here a deep green lake, called Summit Lake.
We begin the descent by a succession of perfectly equal curves that incline first to the right and then to the left, bearing us downwards all the time. And now comes what is by far the most memorable scene in the Rockies. It is deeply impressive, and is only too swiftly passed. It is called the Kicking Horse Pass. We must turn for a moment from the sublime to the ridiculous for the origin of this name. When the party of surveyors reached the summit of the pass a white pony kicked off its pack. This gave it the name, which will now always cling to it. We cross the Wapta river on to its left side, and plunge wildly, recklessly, into a deep gorge. Deeper and deeper we rush down into the canyon, darker and more impressive the situation becomes as we cling to the mountain side, whilst the river tears down yet deeper than us, until it appears a caldron of foaming silver in the gloom at the bottom of the gorge. And, look, up on one side is a perpendicular mountain of which, so far down are we, we cannot see the summit; on the other, there are those supremely graceful spires of Cathedral Mount, pointing with silent finger to the sky. If you look down into that immensity of depth, and then up as far as the eye can reach, this is what you see. First, the silver river gleaming in its black channel; on a level and opposite to you a bank of bright green moss and ferns and tangled growth; then tiers and tiers of pine trees wending skywards, until they reach the base of the rock, whence spring those airy towers. The great Duomo head of Mount Stephen beyond forms a superb dome to these sentinel spires that are so light and gracefully poised in such close proximity to heaven. Straight, in front, and shutting in this marvellous gorge, is the angular peak of Mount Field. Just past the summit there are a number of graves of men who died of mountain fever, which broke out whilst they were making the line.
Mount Stephen, called after the first President of the Railway, Lord Mount-Stephen, absorbs our attention next. It is certainly the most superb mountain of the Rockies. On its "swelling shoulder" is seen a shining green glacier, "which is slowly pressing forward and over a vertical cliff of great height." The cyclopean masses of rock are richly veined in red and purple. As the train humbly creeps round the base, the summit is entirely lost to us. Opposite are the swelling mountains of the Van Horne range; they touch the muddy, shingly bed of a river.
We breakfast at the pretty hotel at Field, and feel disgusted that the claims of nature must be satisfied, whilst Mount Stephen in its glorious might and strength, and its limitless surface of adamantine rock, raises its hoary zenith immediately above us. We made the greatest mistake in not staying a day here, and, by ascending a neighbouring mountain, being still more impressed with its colossal proportions.
On leaving Field, we travel between the "orderly array of peaks of the two ranges of Otter-Tail and the Beaver Foots."
At Palliser, the driver allows us to ride on the engine through the Second Kicking Horse Pass. It runs madly down into growing darkness, closer and higher the mountains draw. The boiling river disputes the narrow chasm with us, and it is a hand-to-hand struggle in which the line has frequently to give up to the river, and to cross over from side to side to gain a footing. The engine tears wildly down hill, reeling round the sharp curves at an angle of 20°, with the train doubling itself. You cannot hear yourself speak for the noise of the foaming river and the panting of the engine. As we plunge into the dread darkness of a tunnel, the engine whistles, and the echo is dying, dying, dead, to us—as we are lost in blackness. It is wonderful to see the driver control this huge, puffing, black monster by a gentle pressure on two valve handles, which it resents with an indignant snort. We emerge into light and space again at Golden. We come suddenly back to a commonplace life, as represented by this wooden mining village. It is farewell to the Rockies.
I think most people have an idea that the engineering feats of the Pacific Railway were performed in the crossing of the Rockies. They do not realize, any more than we did, that we have another and far more difficult range to surmount, before reaching the Pacific coast. The Selkirk range is more beautiful and grander. It has more snow and glacier peaks than the Rockies.
We are in a green valley, with the Selkirks dimly seen to the left, whilst the Rockies are diminishing to a low range to the right, and we have found a new river in the broad Columbia. We are reminded that we have crossed the Great Dividing Watershed, for this river is running the opposite way down to the ocean.
It is but a short breathing space, for almost at once the mountains close together, and we are in another of those lovely gorges, each one of which, would make famous any railway. Through a perfectly formed natural gateway of rock, so narrow that it can be crossed by a slender sapling, the tempestuous waters of the Beaver River hurry to join the Columbia. This is a smiling little valley, full of blue-green pines, mingling with the tender greens of young poplars, and the yellow moss and lichens covering the rocks. From this valley we pass into the heart of the Selkirks.
We have become accustomed to the line climbing up the mountain side, and we can tell how rapidly we are now doing this by the dwindling of the Beaver River, by whose side we were a minute ago, and which is now far away down in the valley. Its pale green waters trace out the most perfect curves of the letter S, and flow in a park with pine woods. And it is all so far away—down, down—and would be such a terrific fall. Immediately opposite to us are the mountains, and we are equal to about half way up them, and through the haze they appear to us so very near, and so very large. The panorama is magnificent; the detailed picture is impressive, when, from gazing down boundless depths, the eye is lifted through miles of pine forests, up to grey crags, too high for vegetation.
Growing by the side of the line there are gigantic pines, Douglas fir and cedar. They are so straight, without curve, or be knot, that one cannot help thinking what splendid masts they would make for some big ship. Many of their tops are on a level with us, whilst, by peering down, we can with difficulty see their roots. But like all these Canadian forests, the finest trees are dismembered or mutilated by burning, and their graceful, fringe-like foliage is often brown and singed.
The railway is now going to cross several deep gullies on wooden trestle-bridges. These bridges appear frail and weak for the purpose, the valleys being deep, and the trains so heavy. They creak and groan ominously as the train passes on them. Water-butts and a watcher are stationed on them, in case of fire from a spark of the engine. The Stony Creek Bridge, over a sleep V-shaped valley, is one of the loftiest railway bridges in the world; hundreds of square yards of timber were used in its construction, and it rests on three piers, 295 feet above the ravine. We have enchanting peeps up these bright green gullies, with their noisy rills jumping and scrambling down anyhow, so long as they reach the bottom of the valley, and we rush to one side of the car to be pleased by this, and then to the other, to be frightened by gazing into space.
Roger's Pass, the culminating beauty of the Selkirks—named after the engineer—is approaching. There are two mountains, Mount Macdonald and Mount Hermit, but they are so mighty, that if you have not seen them you have no chance of picturing them to yourself. To give you some idea of their colossal proportions, Mount Macdonald is one mile and a quarter in a vertical line above the railway. The bottom is a stone's throw from the car. Mount Hermit is equal in size on the other side. These mountains were united, but some great convulsion of nature has split them apart. This is a moment in your existence, and you would give much to prolong it; the scene is indescribable. The other mountains of this pass are covered with snow, and seven or eight thousand feet above us are many glistening glaciers, pure as crystal.