SNOW SLIDES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES. 



G. 0. SHIELDS. 



As a loyal American, I dislike to think 

 that Canada has anything greater or better 

 than the United States have ; but candor 

 compels me to admit that the Canadian 

 Rockies are far higher, greater, and grand- 

 er in every way than anything we have on 

 this side of the boundary line. 



In British Columbia the Rockies and the 

 Selkirks pierce the clouds in every direc- 

 tion. There is probably no range of moun- 

 tains on the earth that excels in picturesque 

 grandeur and in the great number of high 

 peaks to the square inch those to be found 

 in that region. 



My friend, W. E. Coffin, has described 

 these as "Geography mountains." He says 

 they are the only mountains he lias ever 

 seen that fill the specifications laid 

 down in the old school books. In these 

 British Columbia ranges the peaks tower 

 almost out of sight and are sharp at the 

 top. If these mountains ever were round 

 shouldered, as the Rockies are in Mon- 

 tana, Wyoming, Idaho and in other West- 

 ern States, those slopes have slipped off or 

 worn away until now all that remains 

 above timber line, or, say, above an altitude 

 of 3,000 to 5,000 feet, is bare walls of gran- 

 ite, clad in perpetual snow, wherever there 

 are benches or fissures to hold it. Over 

 large areas of these great crags, however, 

 the rock walls are so precipitous that snow 

 can not adhere to them ; so, for a greater 

 portion of the year, the walls simply glim- 

 mer in the sun, or shade into the hovering 

 clouds in such grandeur as to fairly chill 

 the blood of the observer. 



Some of these great columns of rock have 

 flat summits. Others have depressions or 

 basins on their tops, of great expanse. 

 These are, in the main, filled with ice that 

 has lain there thousands or perhaps mil- 

 lions of years. These glaciers usually dip to 

 one or another side of the mountain, and 

 the great beds of ice gradually drift away, 

 though the motion is so slow as not to be 

 perceptible. It can only be determined by 

 careful measurements. 



Other peaks, and other great mountain 

 walls, in that country are so shaped that 

 the heavy snows of winter lodge on them 

 and rest there until softened by the sun or 

 by the warm breezes of approaching spring. 

 Then come the snow slides. 



The wise men of old tell us of the 7 won- 

 ders of the world. If they had lived in 

 this age, and if they had traveled in the 

 great Northwest, they would have recorded 

 another. This eighth would have been des- 



ignated, collectively, as the snow slides in 

 the Canadian Rockies. 



I spent a month in the Selkirks last 

 spring and had- exceptional opportunities 

 to observe and study these marvelous phe- 

 nomena. Our party went up one of the 

 several great canyons that terminate in 

 Slocan lake, B. C. Through this canyon 

 flows a large mountain stream, called in 

 that country a creek, but which in the 

 East would be called a river. Even at a 

 low stage of water its torrent is irresistible 

 and appalling. It is safe to assume that 

 this stream runs 25 miles an hour. We 

 camped on its banks at an altitude of 

 3.200 feet, and estimated its fall at 100 

 feet to the mile. 



So great is the force of the water that 

 frequently large boulders which are loos- 

 ened by it go pounding down the stream, 

 giving forth the most doleful and puzzling 

 sounds imaginable as they are forced along 

 over the granite bed. 



The walls of this canyon slope up to the 

 North and to the South at an angle of 

 perhaps 50 degrees, or possibly Go. We 

 climbed these mountains at various places 

 and to various heights above camp, and 

 my friends insisted that though a man 

 might step 3 feet at each stride he would 

 not move more than 6 inches in a straight 

 line ahead. I carried an aneroid and in 

 several cases where I climbed a mile up 

 the mountain would find myself 2,000 feet 

 higher than the camp.. 



The creek bottom, wherever there is 

 any, is covered with heavy timber, though 

 in most cases the mountains come down 

 to the very banks of the stream on both 

 sides. The canyon walls are also heavily 

 timbered wherever there is soil enough for 

 trees to get a foothold and wherever the 

 sliding snows have allowed the trees to 

 stand and grow ; but every here and there 

 the traveler finds broad avenues cut 

 through the trees, from timber line clear 

 to the bottom of the canyon. These lanes 

 have been cut by the snow slides, and the 

 trees which once grew on the mountain 

 side, varying in diameter from 6 inches to 

 3 feet and in length from 50 to 300 feet, 

 have been shaved off or uprooted by the 

 great mountains of snow and ice that have 

 accumulated above them, and have been 

 piled in the bottom of the canyon in 

 the most formidable and forbidding masses 

 ever dreamed of. 



The snowfalls are much heavier some 

 years than others, and of course the more 



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