230 NORTH-WEST REBELLION OF 1885 



due north of the mountain now called Avalanche Mountain, and 

 we decided to ascend it the day after we arrived. The lower part 

 of the mountain was then covered with dense wood, chiefly alder, 

 all sloping downwards, and we could only ascend by pulling our- 

 selves up by the trunks of the small trees. When we got above 

 this, the climbing was easy, only, when we approached the summit, 

 it was both steep and slippery, as it was covered with short grass 

 and the mountain heather. We had no nails in our boots and 

 my son was unable to climb, so I advised him to take off his boots 

 and walk in his stocking feet, which he did for the last five hund- 

 red feet. When we attained the summit, we could look down to 

 the east and see, almost at our feet, the Great Glacier and, it being 

 the first time we had ever seen it, we sat down and studied it for 

 some time. The broken slope, as we saw it at that time, was 

 very rough and apparently filled with chasms, as the water, in 

 some places, spouted out of the openings a distance of from eight 

 to ten feet and bore down the broad face, upon which we looked, 

 with tremendous force. This was about the 20th of August, 

 1885, and quite warm weather. The descent was much easier 

 than the ascent and, of course, we carried the same articles that 

 we did in all our climbing while in the mountains. Our gun had 

 two barrels and one, we kept loaded with buck shot, and the other 

 was the one that Willie used to kill small birds. Our gun was 

 loaded for bear and my instructions to my son were to not shoot 

 until the bear hoisted and then for him to let him have it in the 

 head. By good luck, we never saw a bear but smelt them very 

 often. The day before we reached the mountains, a wounded 

 grizzly had attacked two men when one of them was drinking at 

 a little creek. The bear sprang upon his back and a young French 

 boy who was with him had a gun and he put no less than eight 

 bullets into the bear before he killed it, and the skin of the bear 

 was hung up in the camp for everyone to see and yet, my son and 

 myself did not seem to take any stock in it, as we went our way as 

 usual. 



A day or two after this, we made an ascent on this side of 

 Mount Cheops. We climbed up to it from a little creek that ran 

 down almost to our camp and we went up a large part of the as- 



