[ERMATINGER] YORK FACTORY EXPRESS JOURNAL 131 
dashed over cascades, and formed cauldrons of lime-stone and basalt. 
Seven miles below the pass, as do the tributaries of the Columbia on the 
the western side, so the Athabasca widens into a narrow lake, and has a 
much greater distance than the Columbia. At this point, the snow had 
nearly disappeared, and the temperature was greatly increased. Many 
of the mountains on the right hand are at all seasons tipped with glaciers. 
At ten we stopped to breakfast, fifteen miles from the ridge, where we 
remained for four hours. The thermometer stood at 2° below Zero this 
morning, and had risen to 57° at two p.m., a heat which we found dread- 
fully oppressive. This afternoon, having set off a little before the 
party, I missed my way, and wandered from the path. As the sun 
was edging on the mountains, I descried about a mile off to the Last, 
behind a low knoll, a curling blue smoke, rising from above the trees, a 
sign which gave me infinite pleasure. I quickened my steps, and soon 
came up to it, when I found Jacques Cardinal, who had come to the 
Moose Encampment, and brought with him eight horses to help us on 
our way. He treated me with an excellent supper of mutton, the flesh of 
Ovis montana (Geoff.), and regretted he had no spirits to offer me. 
Pointing to the stream, he jocularly said, “there’s my barrel and it is 
always running.” The kind fellow also afforded me a part of his hut. 
On the next morning, Thursday the 3rd, the whole party were 
brought up by Cardinal; they had been very uneasy at my non-appear- 
ance the preceding night. We breakfasted and proceeded by the banks 
of the stream, I preferring walking, though the ground was still soft 
from the recently melted snow, and strewed with timber of small size. 
The difference of climate and soil, with the amazing disparity in the 
variety and stature of the vegetation, is truly astonishing, one would 
suppose it was another hemisphere, the change is so sudden and so great. 
We crossed the principal branch of the Athabasca, which becomes a 
river seventy yards broad, when joined by the stream on the banks of 
which we had descended. Here it was our intention to camp for the 
night, but Cardinal found his horses so unexpectedly strong, that the 
route was continued to the Rocky Mountains’ House [Henry House] 
where we were to find canoes, and which we gained soon after six p.m. 
Several partridges were killed, but the only plant new to me this day, 
was Anemone Nuttalliana (A. patens, Hook), which was in full flower. 
The scenery here is very fine, with a small lake and open valley, 
commanding a sublime prospect of the mountains. Our distance 
to-day was thirty-four miles. On the following day (Friday) we em- 
barked at day-light in two fine light birch canoes, and went rapidly 
before the stream, the banks of which are low and woody, in some 
places narrow, in others widening into narrow lakes full of sand shoals. 
We stayed to breakfast on a small low island in the Upper [Jasper] 
Sec. II., 1912. 9. 
