FOURTH EXPLORATION, 1880 157 



tract, agreed to build a road through the mountain barrier, de- 

 clared by Palliser to be impossible. Parties were organized in 

 the month of June, 1871, for the purpose of making an instru- 

 mental survey and gathering knowledge of that little known 

 country extending from Ottawa to the Pacific, that would enable 

 our engineers to locate a railway line with an easy grade from 

 west to east. Mr. Sand ford Fleming was appointed the Chief 

 Engineer and, with characteristic energy, he set to work. Parties 

 were at once organized and the first detachment left by the River 

 Ottawa for the interior on the 10th of June. On the west coast, 

 a party of the staff left Victoria for the mountains the very day 

 that British Columbia entered the union, July 20th, 1871. 

 Besides examining the country generally, two of the Rocky Moun- 

 tain passes were to be carefully explored; the Yellowhead Pass, 

 entering the mountains by the Athabasca River, and Howe's 

 Pass, which is the source of the North Saskatchewan. The year 

 1871 closed with the knowledge that no insuperable barrier pre- 

 vented the union of British Columbia with the east by an iron 

 road. The magnitude of the undertaking now became apparent 

 and the necessity of building a road over 2,730 miles through an 

 almost wholly unknown region was laughed at in the United 

 States and the project was looked upon as chimerical by the 

 people of the Mother Country and opposed by the "Grits" of our 

 own country. 



Early in the summer of 1872, the Chief Engineer decided on 

 crossing the country himself and, by a mere chance, as described 

 elsewhere, I went with him. On our arrival at Edmonton, the 

 party separated and Mr. Horetzky and myself started for the 

 country bordering on the great Peace River, to examine this Pass 

 and reach the Pacific by the best means in our power. Two 

 months of hardship, found us west of the Rocky Mountains and, 

 instead of one Pass, we found two ; the Peace River and the Pine 

 River Pass. On his return, the Rev. G. M. Grant published his 

 work, "Ocean to Ocean" and at once the ideas of the reading 

 public were turned to this wonderful country which he described 

 in such glowing terms. My report of what I saw was published 

 in 1874, and, as I frequently stated what I believed, my report 



