228 NORTH-WEST REBELLION OF 1885 



moved to Hector and camped there for some weeks and climbed 

 a number of mountains, one of them being Mt. Paget, north of 

 Kicking Horse Lake. We also went to Sherbrooke Lake which, 

 at that time, was nameless, and climbed the mountain to the 

 west of it and, as my son will remember, going up the ravine, he 

 loosened a stone that passed me rather rapidly and we could see 

 it further down the mountain tumbling more than fifty feet in 

 the air as it sped to the bottom; this was on the 29th of July, 

 1885. 



We moved from there to Donald, which was then the head- 

 quarters of the Canadian Pacific Railway construction. Here, we 

 fraternized with the officials and got many favors from them in 

 regard to going up and down the road while we were engaged in 

 collecting and examining the country. Golden, at this time, was 

 a point of some importance, as it was there that the railway first 

 touched the Columbia River and we were surprised to find wild 

 geese breeding on the hummocks bordering the river marshes. 

 We made many discoveries in the Columbia River Valley and 

 lived quite close to the headquarters of the C.P.R. At that 

 time there were three Donalds; one, where we lived; another, the 

 commercial village, and the third may be nameless at present. 



After a time, we moved from Donald and went on as far as 

 Six Mile Creek, which was six miles above Beaver Mouth, where 

 the railroad left the Columbia. At Six Mile Creek, we remained 

 for possibly two weeks and made many excursions. One, in par- 

 ticular, when Willie and I walked up the track from where we were 

 staying to the bridge that was being built over Stoney Creek and 

 my son will remember that he fired a number of shots at small 

 birds up in the trees and never killed one. We could not make 

 out the reason he couldn't kill any and found out afterwards that 

 it was because the trees were so tall and the branches were so high 

 up that the charges did not carry high enough for them. All the 

 trees were at least one hundred feet high without a branch and my 

 son's charges were only to kill at thirty yards. The day we 

 went up the track to Stoney Creek Bridge, we went down into 

 the valley of the Beaver River, nearly 1 ,000 feet below and walked 

 down on the tote road to Six Mile Creek, which was on a level 



