In Horth-Wed Canada. 103 



Two hours later the gorge suddenly expands, and we see 

 before us high up against the sky a jagged line of sunny 

 peaks of new forms and colours. A wide, deep, forest-covered 

 valley intervenes, holding a broad and rapid river. This is the 

 Columbia. The new mountains before us are the Selkirks, 

 and we have now crossed the Rockies. We reach the town of 

 Golden on the Columbia river, and from here a steamer makes 

 regular trips up the river to the lakes at its head, distant 

 about 100 miles, thiis offering an easy and most attractive 

 route to a fine game district. Here caribou deer, bears, and 

 other animals are found in the forests borderinef the river, and 

 a great variety of ducks and waterfowl also abound. Sweeping 

 round into the ColundDia valley we have a glorious mountain 

 view. To the north and south, as far as the eye can reach, we 

 have the Rockies on the one hand and the Selkirks on the 

 other, widely differing in aspect, but each indescribably grand. 

 Both rise from the river in a succession of tree-clad benches, 

 and soon, leaving the trees behind, shoot up to the regions of 

 perpetual snow and ice. 



Crossing the Columbia and following down through a great 

 canon, through tunnels and deep rock -cuttings, we shortly 

 enter Beaver Valley, and commence the ascent of the Selkirks, 

 and then for twenty miles we climl) along the mountain sides, 

 through dense forests of enormous trees until near the summit 

 we find ourselves in the midst of a wonderful group of peaks 

 of fantastic shapes and many colours. At the summit, four 

 thousand live hundred feet above tide-water, is a natural 

 resting-place, a broad level area surrounded by mountain 

 monarchs, all of them in the deadly embrace of glaciers. 

 Strange under this warm summer sky to see this battle going 

 on between rocks and ice, — a battle begun ajons ago and to 

 continue for aeons to come ! To the north and so near us that 

 we imagine that we hear the crackling of the ice, is a great 

 glacier whose green fissures we can plainly see. To the south 

 is another, vastly larger, by the side of which the greatest of 

 those of the Alps would be insignificant. Smaller glaciers 

 find lodgment in all the mountain benches and slopes, whence 



