The Waputehk Range—Height of the Mountains— Vast Snow Fields and Glaciers—Journey up the Bow—Home of a Prospector—Causes and Frequency of Forest Fires—A Visit to the Lower Bow Lake—Muskegs — A Mountain Flooded with Ice—Delightful Scenes at the Upper Bow Lake—Beauty of the Shores—Lake Trout— The Great Bow Glacier.

THE Summit Range of the Rocky Mountains as they extend northward from the deep and narrow valley of the Kicking Horse River has a special name—the Waputehk Range,—derived, it is said, from a word which in the language of the Stoney Indians means the White Goat.

From the summit of one of the peaks in this range, the climber beholds a sea of mountains running in long, nearly parallel, ridges, sometimes uniting and rising to a higher altitude, and again dividing, so as to form countless spurs and a complicated topography. In this range each ridge usually presents a lofty escarpment and bare precipitous walls of rock on its eastern face, while the opposite slope is more gentle. Here the Cambrian sandstones and shales and the limestones of later ages may be seen in clearly marked strata tilted up, generally, toward the east, though many of the mountains reveal contortions and faults throughout their structure, which indicate the wellnigh inconceivable forces that have here been at work.

The Waputehk Mountains have remained to this day but very little known, and almost totally unexplored, in their interior portions. No passes are known through this range between the Kicking Horse Pass on the south and the Howse Pass on the north. Then another long interval northwards to the Athabasca Pass is said by the Indians to offer an impassable barrier to men and horses. The continuity of the range is well indicated by the fact that, for a distance of one hundred miles, these mountains present only one pass across the range available for horses. The several ridges which form this range rise to a very uniform altitude of 10,000 or 11,000 feet. On Palliser’s map of this region, one peak north of the Howse Pass, Mount Forbes, is accredited with an altitude of 13,400 feet, and the standard atlases have for many years placed the altitude of Mount Brown at 16,000 feet, and that of Mount Hooker at 15,700 feet, but there is much reason to doubt that any mountains attain such heights in this part of the Rocky Mountains.

A heavy snowfall, due to the precipitation brought about by this lofty and continuous range, as the westerly winds ascend and pass over it, and the existence of many elevated plateaus, or large areas having gentle slopes, have conspired to make vast neve regions and boundless snowfields among these mountains. From the snowfields, long tongues of ice and large glaciers descend into the valleys, and thus drain away the surplus material from the

higher altitudes. No other parts of the Rocky Mountains, south of Alaska, have glaciers and snowfields which may compare in size or extent with those of the Waputehk Range.

The desolate though grand extent of gray cliffs and boundless snowfields, extending farther than the eye can reach, when seen from a high altitude, gives no suggestion of the delightful valleys below, where many beautiful lakes nestle among the green forests, and form picturesque mirrors for the surrounding rugged mountains. On the shores of one of these mountain lakes, in the genial warmth of lower altitudes, where the water is hemmed in, and encroached upon, by the trees and luxuriant vegetation fostered by a moist climate, the explorer beholds each mountain peak as the central point of interest in every view. Each cliff or massive snow-covered mountain then appears an unscalable height reaching upward toward the heavens,—a most inspiring work of nature, raising the eyes and the thoughts above the common level of our earth. When seen from high altitudes, a mountain appears merely as a part of a vast panorama or a single element in a wild, limitless scene of desolate peaks, which raise their bare, bleak summits among the sea of mountains far up into the cold regions of the atmosphere, where they become white with eternal snow, and bound by rigid glaciers.

Having become much interested in reports of the vast dimensions of the glaciers in the Waputehk Mountains, and the beauty of the lakes, especially near the sources of the Bow River and the Little Fork of the Saskatchewan, I started on August 14th, 1895, with the intention of visiting those regions and spending some time there. My outfit

consisted of five horses, a cook, and a packer. I had engaged Peyto for the latter service, as he had been most efficient on our trip to Mount Assiniboine. We left Laggan a

little before noon. Not far from the station, there commenced an old tote-road, which runs northward for many miles toward the source of the Bow River. This tote-road had been hastily built for wagons, previous to the construction of the railroad through the Kicking Horse Pass, for at one time it was thought the line would cross the range by the Howse Pass.

Thus for several miles we enjoyed easy and rapid travelling. The weather was mild and pleasant, and my men seemed pleased at the prospect of another month or so in camp.

In the course of a few miles we came to the house of an old prospector. As this was the farthest outpost of civilization, and the old man was reported to be an interesting character, I entered the log-house for a brief visit. The prospector’s name was Hunter. I found him at home and was cordially welcomed. Here, in a state of solitude and absolute loneliness, with no lake or stream to entertain, and surrounded by a bristling maze of bleached bare sticks looking like the masts of countless ships in a great harbor, this man had spent several years of his life, and, moreover, was apparently happy. On his table I saw spread about illustrated magazines from the United States and Canada, newspapers, and books. The house was roughly but comfortably finished inside, and furnished with good chairs and tables evidently imported from civilization.

This isolated dwelling and its solitary inhabitant reminded me somewhat of Thoreau at Walden Pond. Like this lover of nature, Hunter enjoys his hermit life, which he varies occasionally by a visit to the village of Laggan. Hunter had the better house of the two men, but Thoreau must have had much more to entertain him, in his garden, and the beautiful lake with its constant change of light and shadow, and the surrounding forests full of well-known plants and trees, where his bird and animal friends lived in undisturbed possession.

No sooner had we taken leave of this interesting home of the old prospector, than the trail plunged into the intricacies of the burnt timber, and our horses were severely tried. Peyto and another man had been at work on this part of the trail for two days, very fortunately for us, as without some clearing we should not have been able to force our way through.

The fire had run through after the tote-road was built, so that the fallen timber now rendered it nearly impassable in many places. The forest fires have been much more frequent since the country has been opened by the whites, but it would be a great mistake to conclude that before the arrival of civilized men the country was clothed by an uninterrupted primeval forest. When we read the accounts of Alexander Mackenzie, and the earliest explorers in the Rocky Mountains, we find burnt timber frequently mentioned.

However, these accounts only cover the last one hundred years, and records of geology must be sought previous to 1793. Dr. Dawson mentions a place near the Bow River where forest trees at least one hundred years old are growing over a bed of charcoal made by an ancient forest fire. Another bank near the Bow River, not far from Banff, reveals seven layers of charcoal, and under each layer the clay is reddened or otherwise changed by the heat. Thus the oldest records carry us back thousands of years. The cause of these ancient fires was probably, in great part, lightning, and possibly the escaping camp fires of an aboriginal race of men.

Forest fires in the Canadian Rockies only prevail at one season of the year—in July, August, and September, —when the severe heat dries up the underbrush and fallen timber. Earlier than this, everything is saturated by the melting snows of winter, while in autumn the sharp frosts and heavy night dews keep the forests damp. According to the condition of the trees, a forest fire will burn sometimes slowly and sometimes with fearful rapidity. When a long period of dry, hot weather has prevailed, the fire, once started, leaps from tree to tree, while the sparks soar high into the air and, dropping farther, kindle a thousand places at once. The furious uprush of heated air causes a strong draught, which fans the fire into a still more intense heat. Sometimes whirlwinds of smoke and heated air are seen above the forest fires, and at other times the great mass of vapor and smoke rises to such a height that condensation ensues, and clouds are formed. In the summer of 1893, a forest fire was raging about five miles east of Laggan. Standing at an altitude of 9000 feet, I had a grand view of the ascending smoke and vapors, which rose in the form of a great mushroom, or at other times more like a pine tree,—in fact, resembling a volcanic eruption. Judging by the height of Mount Temple, the clouds rose about 13,000 feet above the valley, or to an altitude of 18,000 feet above sea-level. It was a cumulus cloud, shining brilliant in the sunlight, but often revealing a coppery cast from the presence of smoke. The ascending vapors gave a striking example of one of the laws of rising air currents. The tendency of an ascending column of air is to break up into a succession of uprushes, separated by brief intervals of repose, and not to rise steadily and constantly. The law was clearly illustrated by this cloud, which, at intervals of about five or six minutes, would nearly disappear and then rapidly form again and rise to an immense height and magnitude.

In the course of a few years after a forest fire has swept along its destructive course, the work of regeneration begins, and a new crop of trees appears. Sometimes the growth is alike all over the burnt region, young trees springing up spontaneously everywhere, and sometimes the surrounding green forests send out skirmishers, and gradually encroach on the burnt areas. Curiously enough, however, a new kind of tree replaces the old almost invariably. Out on the prairie the poplar usually follows the coniferous trees, but in the Rockies, where the poplar can not grow at high altitudes, the pines follow after spruce and balsam, or vice versa. The contest of species in nature is so keen that the slightest advantage gained by any, is sufficient to cause its universal establishment. This is probably due to the fact that the soil becomes somewhat exhausted in the particular elements needed by one species of tree, so that when they are removed by an unnatural cause, new kinds have the advantage in the renewed struggle for existence. Thus we have a natural rotation of crops illustrated in the replacement of forest trees.

While we have been considering the causes and effects of forest fires, our horses and men have been struggling with the more material side of the question, and as the imagination leaps lightly over all sorts of obstacles, let us now overtake them as they arrive at a good camping place about eight miles from Laggan. Here the Bow is no longer worthy the name of a river, but is rather a broad, shallow stream, flowing with moderate rapidity. Towards evening Peyto shot a black duck on the river, and I caught a fine string of trout, so that our camp fare was much improved.

The next day we marched for about three hours through light forests and extensive swamps, finally pitching our camp near the first Bow Lake. The fishing was remarkably fine in this part of the river. From a single pool I caught, in less than three minutes, five trout which averaged more than one pound each. We camped in this place for two days in order to have time to explore about the lake. This first Bow Lake is about four miles long, by perhaps one mile wide, and occupies the gently curving basin of a valley which here sweeps into that of the Bow. There is something remarkable in the unusual manner in which the Bow River divides itself into two streams some time before it reaches this lake. The lesser of these two ' streams continues in a straight course down the valley, while the larger deviates to the west and flows into the lower end of the lake, only to flow out again about a fourth of a mile farther down, at the extreme end of the lake. The island thus formed is intersected everywhere by the ancient courses of the river, which are now marked by crooked and devious channels, in great part filled with clear water, forming pools everywhere. This whole region must have once formed part of a much larger lake, as for several miles down the valley there are extensive swamps, almost perfectly level and underlaid by large deposits of fine clay.

The drier places in these muskegs are covered with a growth of bushes or clumps of trees, gathered together on hummocks slightly elevated above the general level. A rich growth of grass and sedge covers the lower and wetter places, which often assume all the features of a peat bog, with a thick growth of sphagnum mosses, while the ground trembles, for many yards about, under the tread of men and horses.

The next day Peyto and I crossed the river on one of our best horses known as the “Bay,” and after turning him back towards the meadow, we started on a tramp around the lake. We followed the west shore for the entire distance. The last half mile was over a talus slope of loose stones, broken down from the overhanging mountain, and now disposed at a very steep angle. There was a barely perceptible shelf or beach about six inches wide, just at the edge of the water, which we gladly took advantage of while it lasted.

The glacial stream entering the lake has built out a curious delta, not fan-shaped as we should expect, but almost perfectly straight from shore to shore. This delta is a great gravel wash, nearly level, and quite bare of trees or plants, except a few herbs, the seeds of which have lately been washed down from higher up the valley. All this material has been carried into the lake since the time when, in the great Ice Age, these valleys were flooded with glaciers several thousand feet in depth.

As we turned the corner near the end of the gravel wash, the glaciers at the head of the valley began to

appear, and in a few more steps we commanded a magnificent view of a great mountain, literally covered by a vast sheet of ice and snow, from the very summit down to our level. As we looked up the long gentle slope of this mountain, we could hardly realize that it rose more than 5000 feet above us. The glacier which descended into the valley was not very wide, but showed the lines of flow very clearly. Six converging streams of ice united to form the glacier on our right, while the glacier on the left poured down a steep descent from the east, and formed a beautiful ice cascade, where the sharp-pointed seracs, leaning forward, resembled a cataract suddenly frozen and rendered motionless. As if by way of contrast, a beautiful little waterfall poured gracefully over a dark precipice of rock on the opposite side of the valley, and added motion to this grand expanse of dazzling white snow. The loud-roaring, muddy stream near where we stood, is one of the principal sources of the Bow, and, after depositing its milky sediment in the lake, the waters flow out purified and crystal clear, of that deep blue color characteristic of glacial water. On a smaller scale this lake is like Lake Geneva, with the Rhone entering at one end, muddy and polluted with glacial clays, and flowing out at the other, transparently clear, and blue as the skies above it.

After a partial ascent of Mount Hector on the next day, we moved our camp and continued our progress up the Bow River for about two hours. Here we camped on a terrace near the water, surrounded on all sides by a very light forest in a charming spot. On the following day the trail led us for two miles through some very bad country, where the horses broke through the loose ground between the roots of trees, and in their efforts to extricate themselves were often in great danger of breaking a leg. Fortunately, however, this was not of long duration. The trail soon improved and became very clearly marked like a well made bridle-path. It led us along the banks of the Bow, through groves of black pine, with a few spruces intermingled. The ascent was constant, though gradual, and our altitude was made apparent by the manner in which the trees grew in clumps, and by the fact that the forests were no longer densely luxuriant, but quite open, so that the horses could go easily among the trees in any direction.

In about three hours after leaving camp, our horses entered an open meadow where the trail deserted us, but there was not the slightest difficulty in making good progress. To the south, a great wall of rock rose to an immense height, one of the lower escarpments of the Waputehk Range, and as we progressed through the pleasant' moors a remarkable glacier was gradually revealed, clinging to the cliffs in a three-pronged mass. As, one by one, these branches of the glaciers were disclosed, they appeared first in profile, and owing to the very steep pitch down which the ice was forced to 'descend, the glacier was rent and splintered into deep crevasses, with sharp pinnacles of ice between, which appeared to lean out over the steep descent and threaten to fall at any moment.

The absence of trees to the north of us, and the general depression of the country in that direction, gave us every indication that we were approaching the Upper Bow Lake, nor were our surmises incorrect, for in a few minutes more of progress, after seeing the glacier, glimpses of water surface were to be had in the near distance among the trees. I went ahead of our column of horses and selected a beautiful site for our camp, on the shore of the lake, only a few yards from the water. The surrounding region was certainly the most charming I have seen in the Rocky Mountains. The lake on which we camped was nearly cut off from the main body of water to the north, by a contraction of the shores to a narrow channel. In fact, it might be regarded as a land-locked harbor of the Upper Bow Lake. Just below our camping place the waters were contracted again, and descended in a shallow rapid to another lake, resting against the mountain side on the south. This latter lake is about three or four feet lower than the others, and appeared to -be about two-thirds of a mile in length.

This region, for the artist with pencil and brush, would be a fairy-land of inexhaustible treasures. The shores along these various lakes were of a most irregular nature, and in sweeping curves or sudden turns, formed innumerable coves and bays, no less pleasing by reason of their small extent. Long, low stretches of land, adorned with forest trees, stretched straight and narrow far out into the two larger lakes, their ends dissolving into chains of wooded islands, separated from the mainland by shallow channels of the clearest water. In every direction were charming vistas of wooded isles and bushy shores, while in the distance were the irregular outlines of the mountains, their images often reflected in the surface of the water. The very nature of the shores themselves, besides their irregular contours, varied from place to place in a remarkable manner. In one locality the waters became suddenly deep, the abrupt shores were rocky, and formed low cliffs; in other places the bottom shelved off more gradually, and there would be a narrow beach of sand and small pebbles, ofttimes strewed with the wreckage of some storm,—a massive tree trunk washed upon the beach, or stranded in shallow water near the shore.

There were, moreover, many shallow areas and swampy tracts where a rich, rank growth of water grasses and sedges extended into the lake. Such border regions between the land and water were perhaps the most beautiful and attractive of all the many variations of these delightful shores. The coarse, saw-edged leaves of the sedges, harsh to the touch, are pliant in the gentlest breath of wind. The waving meadows of green banners, or ribbons, rising above the water, uniform in height, and sensitive to the slightest air motion, rustle continuously as the breezes sweep over them, and rub their rough surfaces together.

From this region, wherein were combined so many charming views of nature, with mountain scenery, lakes, islands, and forests, all of the most attractive kind, it proved impossible to move our camp for several days.

During the time that we remained here, our explorations and wanderings took us along all the shores and islands, and up the neighboring mountain slopes. On one of the islands opposite our camp we discovered a small pool of singular formation. The pool was nearly circular, and about ten yards in diameter. The bottom was funnel-shaped, and in the very centre was a black circle—in fact a bottomless hole—apparently connected by dark subterranean channels with the depths of the adjacent lake. Its borders were low and swampy, where the spongy ground quaked as we moved about, and trembled so much that we feared at any moment to be swallowed up. In fact the whole pool became rippled by the movements of its banks.

The glacier opposite was the object of another trip, and this, too, proved interesting. The neve on the flat plateau above discharges its surplus ice for the most part by hanging glaciers, which from time to time break off and fall down the precipice. We were often startled both day and night by the thunder of these avalanches. Two tongues of ice, however, effect a descent of the precipice where the slope is less steep, and though much crevassed and splintered by the rapid motion, they reach the bottom intact. Here the two streams, together with the accumulations of ice constantly falling down from above, become welded into a single glacier, which terminates only a short distance from the lake. The most unusual circumstance about this glacier is the fact that the ice is much higher at the very end than a little farther back, so that a great, swelling mound of ice, about 200 feet thick, forms the termination.

About one fourth of a mile below the end of the glacier, on an old moraine ridge now covered over with luxuriant forest, we saw a towering cliff of rock rising above the trees. This proved, on a closer examination, to be a separate boulder, which must have been carried there by the ice a long time ago. It was of colossal proportions, at least sixty feet high, and nearly as large in its other dimensions. From the top we had an extensive view of the lakes and valleys; while at its base we found on one side an overhanging roof, making so complete a shelter, that it was not difficult to imagine this place to-have been used by savages, in some past age, as a cave dwelling.

Many years ago, not less than one hundred, the forests on the slopes to the east of the valley had been devastated by a fire. The long lapse of time intervening had, however, nearly obliterated the dreary effects of this destruction. The trees had replaced themselves scatteringly among the dead timber, and attained a large size. The fallen trunks showed the great length of time they had lain on the ground by the spongy, decomposed condition of the wood. Many of the trunks had dissolved into red humus, the last stage of slowly decomposing wood, and the fragments were disposed in lines, bare of vegetation, indicating where each tree had found its final resting-place.

The swampy shores and large extent of water surface in this region fostered many varieties of gnats, mosquitoes, and other insects, though, fortunately, not in such great numbers as to be very troublesome. In fact, the season of the year was approaching that period when the mosquitoes suddenly and regularly disappear, for some unexplained reason. I have always noticed that in the Canadian Rockies the mosquitoes become much reduced in numbers between the 15th and 20th of August, and after that time cause little or no trouble. In order, however, that there may be no lack of insect pests, nature has substituted several species of small flies and midgets, which appear about this time and follow in a rotation of species, till the sharp frosts of October put an end to all active insect life. Some of these small pests are no less troublesome than the mosquitoes which have preceded them, though they afford a variation in their manner of annoyance, and are accordingly the more endurable.

Along the reedy shores of the lake and sometimes over its placid surface, when the air was quiet toward evening, we often saw clouds of gnats hovering motionless in one spot, or at times moving restlessly from place to place, like some lightless will-o’-the-wisp, composed of a myriad of black points, darting and circling one about another. Nature seems to love circular motion: for just as the stars composing the cloudy nebulae revolve about their centres of gravity in infinite numbers, moving forever, through an infinity of space; so do these ephemeral creations of our world pass their brief lives in a ceaseless vortex of complicated circles.

On one occasion we built a raft to ferry us across the narrow part of the lake so that we might try the fishing on the farther side. The raft was hastily constructed, and, after we had reached deep water, it proved to be in a state of stable equilibrium only when the upper surface was a yard under water. After a thorough wetting we finally reached the shore, and proceeded to build a more trustworthy craft.

On the 21st of August we moved our camp down to the north end of the lake. Here the nature of the scenery is entirely changed. Whereas the lower end of the lake abounds in land-locked channels and wooded islands, so combined as to make the most pleasing and artistic pictures from every shore, the other part of this lake presents regular shore lines, and everything is formed on a more extensive scale. The north side of the lake is curved in a great arc, so symmetrical in appearance that it seems mathematically perfect, and the eye sweeps along several miles of shore at a single glance as though this were some bay on the sea-coast.

As we neared the north end of the lake, a valley was disclosed toward the west, and an immense glacier appeared descending from the crest of the Waputehk Range. Even at a distance of three or four miles, this glacier revealed: its great size. The lower part descended in several regular falls to nearly the level of the lake. In the lower part, the glacier is less than a mile in width, but above, the ice stream expands to three or four miles, and extends back indefinitely, probably ten miles or more.

This Great Bow Glacier had the same position relatively to the lake, as the glacier we visited at the Lower Bow Lake held to that body of water.

A better knowledge of these lakes revealed a striking similarity between them. Each lake occupies a curving valley, which in each case enters the Bow valley from the south. The two lakes are about the same size and nearly the same shape, a long gentle curve about five times longer than broad. At the head of each, though at slightly different distances, are large glaciers. The glacial streams have likewise formed flat gravel washes, or deltas, which have encroached regularly on the lake and formed a straight line from shore to shore, perfectly similar one to another. A further resemblance might be observed in the presence of two talus slopes from the mountain sides, in each case on the south side of the lake, near the delta. The Lower Bow Lake is about 5500 feet above sea-level, while the upper lake is a little more than 6000 feet. The increased altitude has the effect of making the forest more open, and the country more generally accessible, in the region of the upper lake. From one point on the shores of the upper lake, five large glaciers may be counted, the least of which is two miles long, and the greatest has an unknown extent, but is certainly ten miles in length.

Our camp was pleasantly located in the woods not far from the water. After Peyto had put up the tent and got the camp in order, with the horses enjoying a fine pasture, he set off to explore the lake shore toward the Great Glacier. He returned to camp about five o’clock carrying a fine lake trout which he had caught. This fish

was taken near the shore, and was probably a small one compared with those which live in deeper water; nevertheless, it measured twenty - three inches in length, and weighed about seven

pounds. The Bow lakes have a reputation for abounding in fish of a very large size. So far as I am aware, no boat has ever sailed these waters, and there is no certainty what size the fish may reach in the deeper parts of the lake. Judging by trout which have been caught in Lake Minnewanka, near Banff, it is very probable that they run as high as thirty or forty pounds.

The next day, Peyto and I took a lunch with us and spent the entire day exploring and photographing the glacier and its immediate neighborhood. The ice is not hemmed in by any terminal moraine, but shelves down gradually to a thin edge. In fact the termination of the glacier resembles somewhat the hoof of a horse, or rather that of a rhinoceros, the divided portions being formed by crevasses, while long thin projections of ice spread out between. It is a very easy matter to get on the glacier, and quite safe to proceed a long way on its smooth surface. We had some fine glimpses of crevasses so deep that it was impossible to see the bottom, while the rich blue color of the ice everywhere revealed to us marvels of colored grottoes and hollow-sounding caverns, their sides dripping with the surface waters. There is something peculiarly attractive, perhaps from the danger, pertaining to a deep crevasse in a glacier. One stands near the edge and throws, or pushes, large stones into these caverns, and listens in awe to the hollow echoes from the depths, or the muffled splash as the missile finally reaches a pool of water at the bottom. There is a suggestion of a lingering death, should one make a false step and fall down these horrible crevasses, where, wedged between icy walls far below the surface, one could see the glimmering light of day above, while starvation and cold prolong their agonies. A party of three mountaineers thus lost their lives on Mount Blanc in 1820, and more than forty years later their bodies were found at the foot of the Glacier des Bossons, whither they had been slowly transported, a distance of several miles, by the movement of the ice. The most dangerous crevasses are not those of the so-called “dry glacier,” where the bare ice is everywhere visible, but those of the neve regions where the crevasses are concealed, or obscured by the overlying snow.

Not far from the foot of the glacier the muddy stream flows through a miniature canyon, with walls near together, cut out of a limestone formation. The water here rushes some quarter of a mile, foaming and angry, as it dashes over many a fall and cascade. Where the canyon is deepest an immense block of limestone about twenty-five feet long has fallen down, and with either end resting on the ' canyon walls, it affords a natural bridge over the gloomy chasm. As probably no human being had ever crossed this bridge, we felt a slight hesitation in making the attempt, fearing that even a slight jar might be sufficient to dislodge the great mass. It proved, however, quite safe and will undoubtedly remain where it is for many years and afford a safe crossing-place for those who visit this interesting region.