Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/38

Rh and will continue to convey millions of passengers, througfh one of the great mountain regions of the globe.

Taking up the narrative at Calgary, the travelling party had hoped to learn at this place all that was then known of the territory to be traversed. We had reached the point on our journey where the accessories of modern travel ceased to be at our disposal. Before us lay the mountain zone to Kamloops, the distance across which, as the crow flies, is about three hundred miles. We failed to obtain any reliable information of the country through which we had to pass. Indeed, it was by no means a certainty that there was a practicable route through it. But it should not be forgotten that this uncertainty was understood to be the prime reason why Lord Mountstephen was so desirous that I should undertake the examination.

Before leaving the then canvas town of Calgary, I entered a tent where a printing press was in the act of striking off the first, or a very early issue, of the Calgary Herald, a journal which is still published. The day's journey brought us to "Morley," the home of the Stonies or Rocky Mountain Indians, where we obtained shelter. Next day, we proceeded nearly twenty miles, through a fine valley from three to eight miles wide, once the haunt of the buffalo, which a few years earlier, so we were informed at Morley, were numbered by hundrds of thousands.

The prairie diminishes as we advance, the valley contracts to half a mile. Evidently we are about to enter the portals of the mountains. To the north, the bare precipitous rock is stratified and strongly contorted. The geological features are most striking and the exposure is on a grand scale. A great bluff rises almost vertical to a height of possibly fifteen hundred feet, and is about two miles in length. Four miles