CHAPTER X 



Prairie conflagrations — Outposts of the Rockies — Drab flats 

 and purple crags — In the glacier track— Geological action — 

 The Three Sisters — Between Canmore and Bankhead — The 

 National Park — Surviving specimens of big game — Rundle 

 Mountains — Minnewauka Lakes — Laggan — Lakes in the Clouds 

 — The glacier region and its rivers — Hector monument — The 

 Kicking Horse River — A great engineering feat — Douglas pines 

 — Victims of forest fires — The Selkirks — The track of the 

 avalanche — The Eagle River — The Fraser and Thompson — 

 The Pacific — The flora of prairie and mountains — Vancouver — 

 Shipping and trading. 



ALL along the railway track a wide furrow is 

 ploughed on both sides. Its object is to 

 check the spread of fire caused by sparks from the 

 engine. Prairie conflagrations are terrible scourges. 

 Travelling between Calgary and Edmonton on my 

 return, the sky was clouded with the smoke of one 

 that must have been ten miles away. For hours we 

 were within sight of it, the air was laden with the 

 smell of burning. With a strong wind it travels at 

 enormous pace, licking up everything in its way, and 

 sending birds, cattle and wild beasts before it in mad 

 flight. 



It was early morning when the outlying ranges 

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