Over the Great Divide and across the mighty ranges of the Rockies!

Hundreds of miles between ice-clad peaks and over snow-covered plains!

Up and down the ragged passes of towering mountains, their heads capped with blue glaciers, and their faces rough with beards of frosty pines!

For the last week I have been travelling across the western highland of Canada. I have gone over the backbone of the continent, which reaches north to Alaska and south to the Strait of Magellan. Here in Canada the Rockies extend in three ranges from western Alberta throughout the entire width of British Columbia. The easternmost marks a part of the boundary line between the provinces and the westernmost range rises steeply from the Pacific Ocean. All between is high plateaus and broken mountain chains spotted with glaciers.

This vast sea of mountains is said to be the equal of twenty-four Switzerlands, and I can well believe it. It is only five hours by rail across the Swiss Alps from Lucerne to Como, but the fastest Canadian Pacific trains cannot make the trip from Cochrane, Alberta, to Vancouver in less than twenty-three hours. Switzerland is noted the world over for its glaciers, yet here in the Selkirk range alone there are as many glaciers as in all the Alps thrown together.

I have visited the great mountain regions of the world. I have stood on the hills of Darjiling and watched the sun rise on Mount Everest. From the tops of the Andes, three miles above the level of the sea, I have taken a hair-raising ride in a hand-car down to the Pacific. I have looked into the sulphurous crater of old Popocatepetl, and I have stood among the Alpine glaciers on the top of the Jungfrau. But nowhere have I found Mother Nature more lavish in scenes of rugged grandeur than right here in Canada not far from our own northern boundary.

The mountains change at every turn of the wheels of our train. Now they rise almost straight up on both sides of the track for hundreds upon hundreds of feet. They shut out the sun and their tops touch the sky. Now we shoot out into the open, and there is a long vista of jagged hills rising one above the other until they fade away into the peaks on the horizon. We ride for miles where there is no sign of the works of man except the gleaming track, the snow sheds here and there, and the little mountain stations, where the shriek of our engine reverberates and echoes throughout the valley.

Each mile we cover seems to bring a new wonder. It may be a majestic waterfall, a towering peak, an over-hanging cliff, a glacier sparkling under the rays of the winter sun, or a vast panorama of glittering snow and ice standing out in bold contrast against the dark rocks and forests. It takes my breath away, and I think of the Texas cowboy who had made his pile and had started out to see the world. His life had been spent on the plains, and at his first visit to these Canadian mountains their grandeur so filled his soul that, unable to contain himself, he threw his hat into the air and yelled:

“Hurrah for God!”

One gets his first view of the mountains at Calgary. As we travelled through the foothills our train climbed steadily, and at Banff, eighty miles to the west, we had reached a height of almost a mile above sea level. The region about Banff has been set aside by the government as Rocky Mountain Park. It is known as the Yosemite Valley of the North, and has become the finest mountain resort of Canada. Here the Canadian Pacific Railway has built a magnificent hotel. It stands high above the confluence of the Bow and Spray rivers and affords a splendid view of Mount Assiniboine.

In summer the attractions at Banff include hot sulphur baths, open-air swimming pools, tennis courts, and golf links, and in winter there are snow carnivals and ski-jumping contests. The surrounding country offers mountain climbing of all kinds, from easy slopes for the inexperienced tenderfoot to almost inaccessible peaks that challenge the skill of the most expert climber. The region outside the park limits contains some of the finest game lands on the continent, and is a Mecca for the fisherman and the hunter.

In addition to the railway, Banff is reached by a ninety-mile motor road from Calgary. In 1923 this road was extended southwesterly across the Vermilion Pass to Lake Windermere in British Columbia. The construction of that stretch completed the last link in the “circle tour” motor route that now runs from Lake Windermere via Seattle to southern California, thence through the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and Glacier National parks, and back to the Canadian boundary.

Thirty miles west of Banff, and almost six thousand feet above the level of the sea, is the gem-like Lake Louise in its setting of dark forests and snow-clad mountains, and not far away is the famous Valley of the Ten Peaks. A few miles farther on we reach the Great Divide, which marks the boundary between Alberta and British Columbia. Here we see the waters of a single stream divide, one part going west to the Pacific and the other flowing to the east and eventually losing itself in Hudson Bay.

Between Calgary and the Great Divide the railway track climbs three eighths of a mile. It goes over the main range through the Kicking Horse Pass, more than a mile above sea level, and then drops down to the valley of the Columbia River. It rises again a quarter of a mile where it crosses the Selkirks through the five-mile-long Connaught tunnel, and then winds its way downward through the coast ranges to the great western ocean.

The Kicking Horse Pass was so named from an incident that occurred when the surveyors for the railway were searching for a route over the mountains. At this point one of the men was kicked by a pack horse and apparently killed. His companions had even dug a grave for him, but just then the supposedly dead man showed signs of life. He soon was fully recovered and the party proceeded onward. Later, his curiosity led him to revisit the scene of his narrowly averted burial, and in so doing he discovered this gap in the mountains.

The Kicking Horse was Canada’s first, and for years its only, railway pass over the Rockies. The construction of the railway through it was considered a great feat of civil engineering, but it has been much improved. In 1909 two spiral tunnels were built for the descent to the Kicking Horse River, twelve hundred feet below. Here the track, sloping downward, makes two almost complete circles inside the mountain, and the tunnels have so cut down the steep grade that the number of engines required for a train has been reduced from four to two.

Another line of the Canadian Pacific climbs over the mountains through the Crow’s Nest Pass, not far north of the United States boundary. A third gateway to the ocean is the Yellowhead Pass, west of Edmonton, by which the Canadian National lines cross the Rockies. Beyond that pass the tracks branch out, one section ending at Prince Rupert and the other at Vancouver. The Yellowhead, though the lowest of the three passes, is under the very shadow of some of the loftiest of these mountains. Near it is Mount Robson, the highest peak in Canada, which rises in a mighty cone almost two miles above the surrounding range and more than thirteen thousand feet above the sea.

The Yellowhead route passes through Jasper Park, the greatest of Canada’s western game and forest reserves. That park is almost four times the size of Rhode Island, and much larger than Rocky Mountain Park, which we saw at Banff. It contains the beautiful Lac Beauvert, on the shores of which a hotel and several lodges are operated by the Canadian National Railways. Mount Robson Park adjoins Jasper Park at the west, and farther south are Yoko, Waterton Lakes, and other great national playgrounds.

One of the most interesting of Canada’s twelve Dominion parks is that at Wainwright, Alberta. I saw something of it on my way from Saskatoon to Edmonton. There a hundred thousand acres of land is fenced in as a reserve for the largest herd of buffalo in America. The seven hundred and six animals of the original herd were purchased by the Canadian government from a Montana rancher. That was less than twenty years ago, but the herd increased so rapidly that it soon numbered between seven and eight thousand. This was more than could be provided for on the ranging grounds of the park, and it was found necessary to slaughter two thousand of the animals. Some of the meat was sold as buffalo steak, and the rest was dried and made into pemmican for the arctic regions. An animal called the cattalo, a cross between buffaloes and domestic cattle, which is noted for its beef qualities, has been raised in large numbers at the Wainwright Park.

When a transcontinental railway to the Pacific coast was first proposed, the objectors to the project sarcastically called British Columbia and western Alberta a “sea of mountains.” To-day these same mountains, once considered merely an expensive barrier in the path of the railways, have proved to be one of the largest factors in building up what is said to be the fourth industry of Canada—its tourist traffic. The business of “selling the scenery” has been developed to such a degree that it is estimated that the national parks of the Dominion yield an annual revenue of twenty-five million dollars. In a year, more than one hundred thousand people travel over the C. P. R. route alone. It is interesting to note that eighty per cent. of them are Americans, and that there are more from New York City than from the entire Dominion of Canada.

The Canadian Pacific has for years led in exploiting the scenic wonders of Canada. It carries tourists over the mountains in summer in open observation cars, and adds to their comfort by using oil-burning locomotives on its passenger trains. It has a half dozen resorts in the Rockies where one may enjoy all the comforts of a modern city hotel or the rugged pleasures of a wilderness camp. It has established a colony of Swiss mountaineers brought from the Alps to act as guides for mountain climbers. It has cut new trails through the country and has sent out geologists to map the unexplored territory.

Even the names of scores of peaks and valleys originated with the Canadian Pacific. Mount Sir Donald, one of the mightiest of the Selkirks, was so called in honour of Lord Strathcona, who was a power behind the building of the railway, and who drove the final spike uniting the east and west sections of the transcontinental line. Mount Stephen was named after the first president, and Mount Shaughnessy after a later one. The Van Horne Glacier in the Selkirks and the Van Horne Range have the same name as the famous builder of the Canadian Pacific, and Mount Hector was named after the intrepid explorer who discovered the Kicking Horse Pass.

Indeed, that railway has become so great a booster of the Dominion’s natural show places that it has even been given credit for supplementing nature in the matter of scenery. The story is told of a woman who had just had her first view of the mighty crystal mass of the Illecillewaet Glacier towering thousands of feet above the railway. She stared in open-eyed and incredulous wonder. Then she exclaimed:

“It ain’t real! The Canadian Pacific put it there for advertising!”