Page:The Selkirk mountains (1912).djvu/28

16 and in the valleys below the dense timber seemed but a narrow shadow which marked their course. We had no wood for a fire, no bouglis for beds, were wet with perspiration and eating snow to quench our thirst—not a pleasant prospect for camp; but the grandeur of the view, sublime beyond conception, crowded out all thoughts of our discomforts.

"Standing upon a narrow ridge at that great elevation, mid Nature crowned by solitude, where a single false move would land one in the great beyond, man feels his weakness and realizes how small is human effort when compared with the evidences of Nature's forces.

"Crawling along this ridge we came to a small ledge protected from the wind by a great perpendicular rock. Here we decided to wait until the crust again formed on the snow and the morning light enabled us to travel. At ten o'clock it was still twilight on the peaks, but the valleys below were filled with deepest gloom. We wrapped ourselves in our blankets and nibbled at our dry meat and bannock, stamping our feet in the snow to keep them from freezing, and taking turns at whipping each other with pack straps to keep up circulation."

In the following year, 1882, the exploration was completed by ascending the Beaver River Valley, on the eastern slopes, to Bear Creek, a tributary stream; then up that stream, through the rugged defile between Mts. Macdonald and Tupper to the summit of the pass and over to the Illecillewaet Valley.

Thus was discovered the celebrated Rogers Pass and the present route of the C.P.R. located across the Selkirks, leading to the establishment of Glacier Station and Glacier House, one of the most popular and attractive of the Railway Company's many delightful tourist resorts.

The first Alpine Club of Canada (1883).—Two years after Major Rogers' successful expedition, the C.P.R. surveys had been carried through the pass; and in August of 1883 Sir Sandford Fleming, who has been chief engineer of the railway up to the time it passed into the hands of the syndicate, was induced as a railway expert to make an examination and report upon the proposed route through the mountains by way of the Kicking Horse and Rogers Passes. A graphic accotmt of this expedition is fotuid in Sir Sandford's book, "England and Canada, a Summer Tour between Old and New Westminster," published in 1884. Two passages from it are quoted below, describing the arrival at the summit of Rogers Pass and the subsequent journey down the Illecillewaet river.

The first passage tells of the picturesque incident on the summit of Rogers Pass, the inspiration of a moment, when a Canadian Alpine Club was organized, a proposal made to climb the boldest virgin summit in sight, the club drinking its own health in a sparkling little stream—and so ending. More than one member of the Alpine Club has for high sentiment's sake, sought some stream in the vicinity and drank to the romantic memory of the first Canadian Club. This quaint expedition appealed to the mind and heart of Mr. Wheeler, the topographical historian of the Selkirks. He describes it: "Few people know that a Canadian Alpine Club was duly organized during the summer of 1883. The organization took place at