270 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



House; Jasper Hawes and the ''yellowhead" halfbreed whose 

 name is perpetuated in Yellowhead Pass and the Tete Jaune 

 Cache — these are names famiUar to all lovers of the early his- 

 tory of the Northwest. 



My companion, Miss Lulie Nettleton, and I had only a day 

 at Jasper, the administrative center and principal settlement. 

 There we played the unwonted part of tourists, conveyed 

 about in carriages. From the Tent City on Lake Beauvert we 

 drove to Pyramid Lake and the curiously sculptured and pot- 

 holed Maligne Canon. The roads had a novel interest, as they 

 had been built by interned Austrians and Germans the first 

 year of the war. These national parks were created so shortly 

 before war-crippled times that only by such haphazard means 

 has their development been possible. 



Lack of roads, however, is no deterrent to mountaineers, 

 but rather the contrary. We had hoped to take a horseback 

 journey to Mount Cavell and over the Athabasca Trail to Ma- 

 ligne Lake, but all our available time was given to the Robson 

 country, where tent cities there are none and trails are almost 

 as negligible. There, in war time at least, is only Donald 

 Phillips, guide, trapper, hunter, cook and king of the whole 

 mountain wilderness. 



Donald looked distinctly amused that afternoon, when we 

 descended from the train, demanding in the first breath that he 

 take us up Mount Robson. Donald was one of the Robson 

 pioneers, and since he and Mr. George Kinney made their 

 climb in 1909, only three other men — Captain McCarthy, Mr. 

 F. W. Foster, and their guide, Conrad Kain — have succeeded 

 in reaching the summit. Donald's ascent had been made before 

 the building of the railroad, and they had traveled with a pack- 

 train all the way from Edmonton. In addition to hardships 

 that included three defeats by storms and "ninety-six hours 

 spent above ten thousand feet altitude," they had suffered from 

 a shortage of food. "We ate squirrels till we could taste the 

 stripes," was Donald's vivid way of describing it. Small won- 

 der that his eyes twinkled as he advised us to wait till the 

 clouds Hfted and we got a good look at Robson before we de- 

 cided to climb. 



After spending a night at Donald's camp on the Fraser we 



