10 The Mountaineer 
locomotive whistle of what nay eventually be a part of the 
main line of the Canadian Pacifie will awaken the mountain 
echoes. It is a marvelously beautiful valley, holding out 
alluring prospects for the rancher and tourist. 
A six-mile trip from Athelmer landed us at our Windermere 
village headquarters, on the east shore of Lake Windermere, 
the lower of the two Columbia lakes. The village is beautifully 
situated on one of the benches. These rise to successive levels 
and terrace back into the hills, showing the breadth of the river | 
in past ages and the way it has carved these giant steps with 
its continually narrowing channel. The even, broad surfaces, 
only interrupted by occasional deep-gashed ravines made by 
the side streams from the mountains, are sparsely sprinkled at 
curiously regular intervals with fine specimens of the Douglas 
fir. These are the only trees on the benches, although the 
ravines are more or less choked with alders and other small 
growth. 
Our explorations were to lead us along the side creeks or 
tributaries of the Columbia, which form natural gateways for 
men and pack animals into the high, backlying Alpine country. 
But the thick smoke from the forest fires of Montana, just to 
the south—which later prevented a proposed visit to the new 
Glacier National Park—enforced two weeks of idleness. We 
planned the ascent of an unsealed 10,500 or 11,000 foot peak 
of the Rockies, which seemed to offer a splendid viewpoint, 
but the blanket of smoke would not lift. A partial clearing 
enabled a young rancher and myself to visit the upper Colum- 
bia lake, getting a tantalizing suggestion of some magnificent, 
precipitous scenery; and near the foot of the lake, on the steep 
rock walls of a narrow pass where Indian tradition says the 
local Kootenays in the remote past ambushed and overwhelmed 
an invading force of the previously dominant Blackfeet, we 
found and photographed some ancient Indian pictographs 
which evidently recorded the battle. We were also interested 
in two Indian praying places near by, where the present-day 
braves who pass still deposit small fir branches broken from 
neighboring trees as they ride along, keeping up, in spite of 
the efforts of the priests, the primitive votive offerings to their 
old gods. 
Gleason had raved about Toby Creek, a western tributary 
of the river which offered an approach to the high, back-lying 
