R E C RE ATI ON 



VOL. XXIII. 



AUGUST, 1905 



No. 2 



THE CHARM OF ILLEC1LLEWAET 



A TRIP TO AND UP THE FAMOUS CANADIAN GLACIER UNDER 



THE BROW OF SIR DONALD 



By L. F. BROWN 



ESTWARD we jour- 

 neyed until 2,500 

 miles stretched be- 

 tween us and Mon- 

 treal. We watched 

 the mountains, 

 ravines, snowy pin- 

 nacles, and furious 

 streams where mist- 

 wraiths rose from 

 winding green wa- 

 ter. Scenery until 

 the tired senses re- 

 belled, and we grew 

 listless ! Bare, desolate black peaks ris- 

 ing, sombre, lone, almost piercing dark, 

 sullen clouds ; snow-fields by hundreds 

 of square miles and stretching away to 

 unknown fastness, on which wan sun- 

 light rested as it came through the 

 widening cloud-rifts. Lower, masses 

 of ice glittering under sunnier skies 

 whose blue distances held faint mant- 

 lings of shadows. Yet lower, lofty 

 tops of conifer trees along far-reaching 

 slopes and down into gloom of canons. 

 Occasional titanic cliffs with bare walls 

 in fantastic splotches of gray, pink, 

 ochre and dull red. A jumbled world 

 of tremendous hills sticking up on edge 

 nearly a mile. 



Before us were more astonishing 

 mountains, every detail plain in the 



marvelously clear air which made the 

 distances so deceptive. Just back of 

 the hotel rose more lofty firs, and be- 

 yond, not a half-mile away, was the 

 forefoot or "snout" of the great Ille- 

 cillewaet Glacier. 



Coldness and lack of passion in at- 

 tempting to describe it are proof of 

 weakness and lack of knowledge. But 

 the picture given herewith will tell 

 something of its majesty. If this small 

 illustration in mere black and white, 

 and which the reader can cover with 

 his hand, can tell such a story of it, 

 think what it must be as one views those 

 mile-wide ice masses stretching back 

 for long leagues ; of its witchery under 

 sunshine, moonlight and cloud-shad- 

 ows, all never alike for two con- 

 secutive instants. That slow, relent- 

 less ice-flow of silence and appalling 

 power seems to have actual life as well 

 as titanic force. Note the line of stones 

 which the advancing ice has pushed 

 aside. In the pedantic language of the 

 mountain-climber, that is the "mo- 

 raine/' See how the crystal masses of 

 the couloir, slanting down that ridge 

 on the upper right of the picture, give 

 a climax of almost unearthly effect to 

 the scene. While this poor attempt to 

 describe it in words may not escape the 

 charge of rhapsody, it is yet true that 



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