4 GLACIERS OP THE CANADIAN ROCKIES AND SELKIRKS. 



Ottawa. The topographic work of the mountains is now in the hands of Mr. 

 Arthur O. Wheeler and there is being issued an enlarged map (scale 5,000 feet 

 to an inch) of a section of the mountains lying between the railway and the 

 Great Divide and extending from the Kicking Horse to the Vermilion Pass. 

 This map includes completely the regions surrounding the Victoria, Horseshoe, 

 and Wenkchemna glaciers, with corrected elevations, essentially the same 

 territory covered by Wilcox's map, 1896, on the scale of an inch and a half to 

 the mile. Based upon work done during the seasons of 1901 and 1902, there 

 will be issued with vol. n of Wheeler's Selkirk Range an admirable piece of 

 mountain mapping, extending from the Columbia to the Columbia, across the 

 Selkirks along the line of the railway. 



The opening of the railway and the wonderful attractions of the region 

 brought in a body of non-professional explorers and mountaineers, among the 

 first of whom was the Rev. W. S. Green, Carrigaline, Ireland. He spent the 

 working season of 1888 in the Selkirks, using Glacier House as a base, and gathered 

 material for an interesting volume, Among the Selkirk Glaciers, Macmillan & 

 Co., 1890. The map accompanying the volume, originally published in the 

 Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xi, 1889, was the first attempt 

 at detailed mapping in the Selkirks. One year earlier than Green, in 1887, 

 Messrs. George and William Vaux, Jr., of Philadelphia, visited Glacier House, 

 secured a valuable collection of photographs and began a series of observations 

 upon the glaciers to which frequent reference will be made in the later chapters 

 of this report. During the closing decade of the last century, and the opening 

 decade of the new, there has been much work done in the region of an exploratory 

 and mountaineering character. There should be mentioned especially the names 

 of Wilcox, Fay, Parker, Collie, Stutfield, Allen, Habel, Topham, Thompson, 

 Huber, Sulzer, Noyes, and the English ladies Benham, Tuzo, and Berens. 

 Besides three superbly illustrated and attractively written volumes by Wilcox, 

 Wheeler, and, conjointly, by Stutfield and Collie, 1 there have been prepared 

 a number of descriptive papers for the scientific societies and magazines. A 

 bibliography of the region, full but not complete, will be found in Appalachia, 

 vol. x, 1903, pp. 179 to 186. The Canadian artist, F. M. Bell-Smith, of Toronto, 

 has spent many seasons in the mountains and, based upon the various maps, 

 photographs, and original sketches, has prepared relief maps of the best known 

 areas of the Rockies and Selkirks. Copies of these maps are placed in the hotels 

 operated by the railroad. 



It is not likely that these mountain valleys ever supported anything more 

 than a scant Indian population, owing to the scarcity of fish, game, and available 

 pasture. Providing food, en route, has always been a precarious matter for 

 exploring parties. Aside from the marmot and rock-rabbit and an occasional 

 porcupine, there is a strange and impressive feeling of desertion. The few 



1 Camping in the Canadian Rockies, Wilcox. G. P. Putnam's Sons, N. Y., 1896. The Rockies of Canada, 

 Wilcox. Putnams, 1903. Climbs and Explorations in the Canadian Rockies, Stutfield and Collie. Longmans, 

 Green & Co., N. Y., 1903. The Selkirk Range, Wheeler. Government Printing Bureau, Ottawa, 1905. 



