A JF eek Around Mount Rohson 



273 



from hidden crevasses, which with so small a party are always 

 something of a menace. We roped together, however, and had 

 no misadventure. 



Mount Pam stands out beyond the main axis of the wild- 

 est, snowiest mountain chain that I have ever seen. All around 

 us shone literally hundreds of white summits, of which not one 

 in fifty had ever been climbed or named. Far away to the 

 northwest, almost like a cloud on the horizon, Donald pointed 

 out the great peak "Kitchie," visited by Miss Mary Jobe sev- 

 eral seasons ago, but as yet unclimbed. Close beneath us were 

 high, bare plateau regions, the range of caribou herds; blue 

 lakes and dusky valleys showed farther to the east. The whole 

 horizon was rimmed with shining mountains, Robson towering 

 above them all, visible now from its snow cornice to the blue 

 depths of Lake Adolphus at its base. 



Our return late that afternoon over glaciers and down long 

 heather slopes gave a new and still more glorious impression of 

 the wild sea of mountains. The peaks burned with the sun- 

 set; the velvety slopes of Moose Pass grew purple and shadowy 

 in the dusk. Our camp was in a flowery park among groves of 

 spiry balsams. Purple asters and yellow compositae, blue gen- 

 tians and shaggy anemone heads — "Httle owls" Donald called 

 them — made bright garden patches among the trees. We held 

 campfire that night in a tepee, sitting around the tiny blaze on 

 blankets. Many a story Donald told us of trapping days in 

 winter, or of Hudson's Bay Company men, grown old in the 

 wilderness before the railroad came. As we talked and our 

 fire burned low, a strange, unearthly glow shone upon our 

 faces. 



"Northern lights !" said Donald, and we crept outside. 



Flickering bands of greenish light were moving across the 

 sky like figures in a ghostly dance. Suddenly great shafts of 

 light shot upward toward the zenith. All around the horizon, 

 though fainter toward the south, they shone, a tepee of the 

 Great Manitou set in the starry meadows of the sky. 



Here at Moose Pass we were on the outskirts of one of the 

 finest big game regions of the north. We had seen the tracks 

 of moose and caribou and grizzly bears, but except for two 

 goats on Mount Pam, no living animal larger than a porcupine. 



