Canadian Rocky Mountains. 28*7 



by portions of the Columbia, Kootanie and other rivers, 

 and is known to preserve its general direction and char- 

 acter for over six hundred miles. 



Since the- early part of the century, the trade of the great 

 fur companies has crossed the Eocky Mountains chiefly by 

 the Athabasca and Peace Eiver Passes, the first complete 

 traverse of the continent having, in fact, been accomplished 

 by the latter route by that most adventurous of travellers 

 Sir Alexander MacKenzie, thirteen years before the same 

 feat was performed further south by the much advertised 

 Lewis and Clark expedition. Posts once established to 

 the west, these routes became familiar to the traders and 

 voyageurs of the Companies, who in their modest records 

 speak with as much indifference of starting from the mouth 

 of the Columbia or Vancouver Island for Montreal — a 

 journey occupying, under the most favourable circumstances, 

 almost an entire season — as might the modern traveller 

 who makes the traverse by rail in a few days. With the 

 exception, however, of the geographer David Thompson, 

 these adventurers gave little or no information as to the 

 geography of the mountains, which were mapped for them 

 only in days' journeys, and till the date of the explorations 

 carried out under Captain Palliser in this region in 1858 

 and 1859, nothing was known in detail of the features of 

 the Eocky Mountain Eange within the British Possessions. 

 At the inception of explorations for the Canadian Pacific 

 Eailway, Palliser's map was still the only one on which 

 any reliance could be placed, and it applied merely to that 

 portion of the range south of the Athabasca Pass. During 

 the progress of the railway explorations a number of passes 

 were examined more or less in detail, including in fact all 

 those which appeared likely to be of service, between the 

 International Boundary on the 49th and the Peace Eiver 

 Pass on the 56th degree of latitude, and the general fact 

 was developed that the gaps became lower toward the 

 north, the Peace Eiver, where it breaks across the range, 

 being, in fact, 2000 feet only above the sea-level. Directness 

 of route and other considerations, however, led finally to 

 the adoption of the Kicking Horse Pass, by which the 



