SOURCES OF THE SASKATCHEWAN 131 



to fall, which was a cause for no little apprehension, as Ave were 

 far from the railroad. 



On Friday, October 21, the sky was still threatening, though 

 very little snow had fallen. We were on the march soon after 

 ten o'clock, and reached the summit of the Howse pass in an 

 hour. This pass was made known to the traders of the North- 

 west Fur Company about 1810 by a man of the name of Howse 

 or Hawes, and was at one time much used by the Kootenai 

 Indians, who came over the mountains and bartered with the 

 fur-traders at a place about three days' journey down the Sas- 

 katchewan, now known'from this circumstance as the Kootenai 

 plain. This route is now impassable, as fire has run through the 

 forests in the lower part of the Blaeberry valley, and the timber 

 has fallen for many miles. The pass itself is about 18 miles 

 from the Little Fork and 5,300 feet in altitude. 



At this point we were seven days' journey from the railroad by 

 either of two routes, the one by which we had come, or another, 

 which, by going down the Blaeberry one day's march and then 

 over a pass to the southeast, would bring us to the Kicking Horse 

 river, and so to Field, in British Columbia. The latter route 

 seemed preferable, as it would be through a new region. 



The descent into the Blaeberry is one of the most trying ex- 

 ploits that the mountains offer. We commenced to descend 

 ra | >idly the channel of a brawling mountain torrent, crossing from 

 side to side constantly, so that our horses were compelled to 

 climb up and down steep banks, to scramble over immense logs, 

 or sometimes to force a way down the boulder-strewn bed of the 

 stream. As there was no trail, Peyto had to lead the way by 

 whatever route appeared best, and in several places our horses 

 had to slide on their haunches down steep banks forty or fifty 

 feet high, jump into the torrent, cross it, and then ascend a similar 

 bank on the other side at the greatest risk of accident and to the 

 in) little trial of our own nerves. A trail appeared after three 

 hours of such labor, and we camped about ten miles down the 

 valley. It rained hard all night, turning to snow in the morning. 



On Saturday, October 22, we followed a branch stream which 

 comes in from the southeast for a mile or so, and then ascended 

 2.1)00 feet without a trail through a heavy forest. The snow, 

 which was hardly apparent in the Blaeberry valley, became 

 eighteen inches deep near the tree-line. Snow also fell at fre- 

 quent intervals throughout the day and shutout the landscape, 

 so that our bearings were mostly by compass. Almost at night- 



