Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/372

292 We find at Revelstoke that the chief current of tourist travel follows the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Nevertheless, there is a rapidly increasing movement of travellers on the branch by steamboat over the Arrow Lakes and the Kootenai to what is known as the Crow's Nest line from Spokane to Calgary, Winnipeg, and other points east.

The Canadian Pacific line has excellent steamers, the Rossland, the Kootenai, the Kaslo, the Kuskanook, and others of similar grade. The journey on the Rossland or Kootenai down the Arrow Lakes from Arrowhead to Robson is one to dream of, one to recall in waking hours, and even, we almost suspect, in another life. The two lakes together constitute one hundred and thirty miles of steamboating, and every mile has its special charm. It was the peculiar joy of the voyageurs, after having toiled over the snowy and wind-swept Athabasca Pass and buffeted the foamy descent of Death Rapids, to reach the Arrow Lakes and lazily paddle down their tranquil deeps. In fact, pleasant as is our journey on the Rossland, we would rather reconstruct the bateaux of 1840 and in them make the whole long journey to the sea, a thousand miles away.

The traveller learns from the captain, if he can persuade that busy personage to indulge in conversation, that the Arrow Lakes derived their name from the fact that in early times great bundles of arrows could be seen stuck in the clay banks or in the crevices of the rocks at the head of the upper lake. The upper Arrow Lake has mountain banks rising thousands of feet to the zone of eternal snow. The shores are usually precipitous, though it is not uncommon to