Disc. 20, 1890.] 



make about eight miles per hour and carries a. crew of 

 fiye. The large cockpit aft gives space outdoors, a great 

 convenience in warm weather. The Bristol cruised all 

 last winter on the Halifax and Indian rivers and Lake 

 Worth, Mr. Ingraham extending a generous hospitality 

 to his friends. She will be sailed this winter by his son. 

 Tropic, Florida. W. 



MAROONING IN HIGH ALTITUDES. 



BY CHARLES HALLOCK. 

 Chapter IF I. 

 Has any living person, be be geographer or explorer? 

 scientist or layman, any approximate conception of the 

 magnitude and superficial extent of the mountain system 

 of the great Northwest, lying between the Great Plains 

 and the Pacific Ocean? Only a veteran mineral prospec- 

 tor wbo has eked out a weary life in wandering from 

 belt to belt and range to range can possibly know. 

 Twenty Bwitzerlands are to be found in Montana, Idaho 

 and Washington. In the Cascades are sentinel peaks 

 higher far than Mont Blanc, whose white and lofty sutn- 

 raits are strangers to human feet. The AUeghanies and 

 the White Mountains are mere foothills in comparison. 

 In British Columbia the ranges are even higher in the 

 aggregate and far more extensive. There are at least 

 seven distinct groups and parallel chains, with inter- 

 mediate fluvial systems carrying more navigable water 

 - than any in New England or the Middle States. The 

 Kootenai Columbia and Okanagon, with their tributaries, 

 are greater than the Ohio, while the Flathead, Pend 

 d'Oreille, Fraser and Thompson vie with the.Merrimacand 

 Connecticut, All of these grand bodies of water are 

 I crossed by the line of the Pacific extension of the Great 

 f Northern Railroad. 



The Kootenai River itself has 3 to 4 miles of navigable 

 water. At least nine steamboats ply upon it, albeit the 

 country has hardly been open one year, and accessible by 

 rail only since the middle of last August. This river and 

 the Columbia interlock in a most remarkable manner in 

 their search for a passage through the intricate mazes of 

 the mountains. The upper Kootenai starts a little north 

 of the ijist parallel of latitude, and runs due south three 

 degrees to about the 48th parallel ; then swings sharp 

 around the terminal spur of the Purcell range, and flows 

 due north to nearly the same latitude it started from and 

 only some 40 miles west of the point of departure. The 

 Columbia starts a little north of latitude 50 degrees, at a 

 point within a mile of the Kootenai channel and flows 

 due north to the 52d parallel, when it likewise makes an 

 abrupt turn called the "Big Bend'" around the terminal 

 abutment of the Selkirk range, and runs due south to 

 about the 46th parallel, mea.nwhile uniting its waters 

 with an outlet of Kootenai Lake at a point midway be- 

 tween the 49 bh and 50th parallel. The courses of the two 

 rivers are exactly reversed, like two letters U inverted 

 and interlocked/ 



The district drained by the Kootenai occupies a tract 

 SCO miles wide, lying mainly between the 115th and 118th 

 meridians. It comprises the East and West Kootenai 

 Divisions, the first being reached by steamboat from 

 Jennings, Montana, and the latter from Bonner's Ferry, 

 in Idaho, both on the line of the Great Northern. The 

 distance between these two stations is 63 miles, and the 

 railroad follows the river the entire distance, passing the 

 Kootenai Falls en route. This is a wild bit of scenery, 

 beginning with a chute of white water lashing mid- 

 channel rocks, and then tumbling over a series of steps, 

 followed by a double plunge of twelve feet or so, and a 

 succession of white and green whirls, and finishing with 

 a tumult of angry rapids and a rush through a gorge 

 twenty-five feet deep, with crags and mountains on each 

 side, and a rock forty-five feet high in mid-stream 

 crowned with trees. It is very charming. 



The stern- wheel steamboat " Annerly," Capt. Dupuy, 

 95 feet long, runs from Jennings twice a week to Fort 

 Steele, a Hudson Bay Company's post established in 1864, 

 A distance of 165 miles. Just above Jennings Fisher 

 'Creek joins the Kootenai. Here is a great game country, 

 ■with deer and bears in the lower ranges, and grizzlies 

 ihigher up ; trout in the stream, grouse and pheasants in 

 the bottoms, geese and ducks in the river. Blue grouse 

 .are found in the hills, pheasants and fool hens among the 

 brush in the coulees. The pheasant has white meat and is 

 .tbe analogue of the New England partridge. For a long 

 •distance above this point the river bottom widens to 

 several miles and forms a remarkable agricultural valley 

 inown as Tobacco Plains, where fine crops of oats, hay, 

 potatoes and vegetables are raised by irrigation. At 

 Tobacco Plains Landing is a store and a permanent camp 

 of Kootenai Indians living in log houses. Above the 

 Plains the Elk and Bull rivers come in, famous for elk 

 and deer. At Fort Steele the river divides into several 

 branches, with rolling uplands and high benches, trout 

 brooks flowing out of the foothills, and high mountains a 

 few miles to the north, where much gold, silver and 

 copper-bearing quartz has been found and several lucra- 

 tive mines developed. Eight milps south of the post 

 there is a princely domain of 18,000 acres of bottom land 

 called " Cranbrook Ranche," owned by Hon. .Tames 

 Baker, M. P., who raises wheat, barley, oats, blue grass, 

 red top, hops, tobacco, fruit and dairy products. He also 

 controls 200,000 acres of grazing lands which pasture 

 large herds of graded cattle— altogether quite an anom- 

 aly in a rough mountain region. 



The river trip is interesting, though incompai-able with 

 the trip down the Lower Kootenai, the two fluvial divis- 

 ions being united by a long succession of impassable 

 rapids, of which the Falls are the scenic culmination. 



Bonner's Perry is the head of navigation for the Lower 

 Kootenai. It occupies an elevated flood plain above the 

 reach of the ordinaiy spring rise. The town was started only 

 last spring and now has 600 population, being the largest 

 town in the Idaho panhandle, which is but 56 miles wide. 

 Adjacent portions of the bottom are overflowed in June, 

 and when the flood subsides it leaves expansive lagoons 

 and sloughs, some of which remain permanent and be- 

 come the resort of various kinds of ducks and waders. 

 One of these ponds lies within a mile of town, separated 

 from the river by a natural dyke or levee 10 rods wide, 

 partly of rock formation, overgrown with trees. This 

 neck is an ideal camping ground. One calm morning 

 near the close of September I found the surface of the 

 lake fairly alive with ducks and geese moving about in 

 the center out of gun range, but a few properly disposed 

 stools and blinds set out the night before would have 



given some good sport. It was Sunday, and 1 contented 

 myself with rambling alone about the rocks. Whenever 

 I sat quietly for a few moments, congregations of blue- 

 jays, magpies, camp robliers, crows, ravens and wood- 

 peckers would gather on the fences and trees, and squawk, 

 scold, chatter and scream like parrots. The ravens had 

 an apparently extensive gamut and vocabulary. There 

 are a few large trout in the river, but the bottom is clay 

 and not favorable. Suckers and squawfish are abundant, 

 and the latter gather in schools around the steamboat 

 landine, picking up waste from the kitchen of the boat. 

 From Bonner there is a horse trail leading up to the 

 Moyea River and lake, both of which are full of cut- 

 throat trout. Two of us rode out 11 miles and took five 

 dozen in a cou pie of hours' fishing. 



The American steamer Spokane, Capt. Robt. Gray, an 

 ardent sportsman, leaves for northern landings on Sun- 

 days and Wednesdays, and the Canadian steamer Nelson 

 on' Mondays and Thursdays. Both are commodious 

 boats, 180ft. long, with stateroom accommodations for 

 thii-ty or more cabin passengers, and excellent table, sup- 

 plied with landlocked salmon from Kootenai Lake, frogs' 

 legs and wild game. There are six other steam craft 

 plying on the lake, five of them freighting for the mills 

 and mines. From Bonner to the rival custom houses on 

 tlie international boundary the distance is 62 miles; from 

 the boundary to the head of the lake 32 miles; from head 

 of the lake to Pilot Bay 30 miles; from Pilot Bay bo the Hot 

 Springs and town of Ainsworth 8 miles; from Ainsworth 

 to Kaslo 13 miieF ; from Kaslo to Balfour and Nelson a6 

 miles, and from Kaslo to foot of the lake 28 miles. The 

 Hot Springs are the sole surviving relic of the ancient 

 volcanic disturbances which upset this region. Kootenai 

 Lake is eighty miles long and six miles wide. The places 

 named are all mining towns which have been built up 

 within a year or two. Kaslo has 600 population, Nelson 

 1,200, and Ainsworth 200. Each has its quota of hotels, 

 stores, banks, sawmills, electric plants, newspapers, 

 schools, churches, sidewalks, real estate oSices, etc. 

 Pilot Bay is the site of the Kootenai Smelting and Reduc- 

 tion Company, which operates a plant of fourteen im- 

 mense buildings worth $250,000. These towns are all on 

 the lake. The passenger steamer Ainsworth runs from 

 Kaslo to Nelson by an' offset or outlet of the lake near its 

 center, and at Nelson connects with a railway twenty- 

 eight miles long which runs to the town of Robson, on 

 the Columbia River, where connection is had with boats 

 running south to Little Dalles, Wash., and north to 

 R^velstoke, B. C, on the Canadian Pacific Railway. 



To those who have been accustomed from childhood to 

 regard this part of the continent as an untracked wilder- 



KOOTENAI BIRCH CANOE. 



ness, its recent development is a marvel. Within less 

 than two years, communication by railroad, wagon, 

 steamboat, canal and telegraph has been established be- 

 tween every important business and mining center, in 

 spite of almost insurmountable engineering diificulties. 

 In some cases wagon roads have cost an average of $1,000 

 per mile. The magnitude of all these improvements is 

 wonderful to contemplate. A great deal has been done 

 by American capital, but the Canadians are energetic, 

 too. To this vast inter-montane system the great North- 

 ern Railway is the key and conclusion. It unites and 

 binds the whole by no less than eight transverse connec- 

 tions which cross the boundary and touch the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway at Port Moody, Sicamoose, Keveistoke, 

 Letheridge, Regina, Deloraine, Gretna and Emerson, the 

 two last named running to Winnipeg. 



Steamboat service on Kootenai waters is subject to the 

 Great Northern schedule; and as the regular trains 

 arrive and depart at midnight at Bonner, it was not 

 until 3 o'clock A. M. that the Spokane blew her warning 

 whistle and got under way for the lower landings. The 

 river runs north from Bonner, so that down river is 

 north. The tourist will require to bear this always in 

 mind. At 7 o'clock. Sept, 28, the weather was so warm 

 that an overcoat was not needed. The water was green 

 as emerald and its surface without a ripple. j^^H the 

 trees and shrubs were reflected. Ducks and muskrats 

 swimming left a wake as long as the boat. Clumsy 

 dragon flies plumped into the drink, and after a brief 

 struggle were pulled under by the squawfish. Occasion- 

 ally we met the quaint birch canoes of the I^ootenai In- 

 dians, who are an association of runagates from sundry 

 tribes on both sides of the boundary, whose model is 

 something like that of the modern war ship, with sub- 

 merged beak at both ends. I have never seen canoes of 

 this pattern except in Alaska. 



The river is for the most part deep and sinuous, and its 

 features are much alike for the entire distance of 63 miles 

 to the lake; banks wooded and so high that one can sel- 

 dom look over them from the roof of the pilot house. At 

 meridian the sun is warm, but by 4 o'clock in the even- 

 ing the temperature falls. The difference is noticeable 

 when we pass under the shadow of an impinging moun- 

 tain, and anon into the sunshine of a broad bend. Place 

 a prairie four or five miles wide between two mountain 

 ranges, slash it with a tortuous channel which swings 

 alternatelv from one to the other, fringe the banks with 

 poplar and balm of Gilead, and you will have the general 

 features. These high mountains, gray, blue, green and 

 white, rising out of a waste of forested foothills, are con- 

 tinuously present. There are perhaps *50 shacks, claim 

 shanties, farm houses, Indian hovels and cattle ranches 

 on the bank of the river, some with garden patches 

 green with cabbages and turnips, and others surrounded 

 by big mounds of hay worth $25 per ton— a product quite 

 as remunerative as some of the captivating ore beds 

 which venturesome men endure so many hardships to 

 develop. One ranch grazes 500 head of cattle and an- 

 other cuts 200 tons of hay. There are six cattle ranches 

 aU told. 



Haying is a winsome occupation, I ween. The crop is 

 harvested while the summer skies are brightest, and 

 cheerfulness broods like a dove over the lea. But the 

 miner's task is ever in Cimmerian gloom, deep in the 

 earth. Hia v?eary bones know no perfect rest day or 



night. Bent under the weight of grub sack, blankets 

 and pick, he trudges over the ranges year after year; 

 delving and prospecting, until at last he bends for aye 

 under the weight of adversity and a,coumulating years, 

 and lies prone. But then, the precious ore is so alluring ! 

 It glitters; it shinesi More than all, a nainer is apt to 

 strike it rich at any time and so become independent fdr 

 life. This is the incentive which attracts and holds him 

 —ever glistening, ever tempting, ever present, but yet. 

 forsooth, always distant, like the pot of gold at the base 

 of the rainbow. 



Into these precincts of the gnomes and the grottoes of 

 Monte Christo, an Apj)ian way is being built, and scores 

 of workmen are busily making the rough places smooth. 

 By the first of Januai-y it is expected that an incompar- 

 able wagon road, 35 miles long, will be completed across 

 the rich Slocan mineraL district from Kaslo to the ^Arrow 

 Lake country lying west, over mountains 8,000 feet above 

 sea level, and steamboats will run to its termini all win- 

 ter, breaking the ice whenever it forms. New tramways 

 are being constructed in all directions, and all is hurry 

 and stir and busy preparation for the anticipated output 

 of ore which the mines are promising for the coming 

 year. All this is interesting to sportsmen because it 

 makes a broken country so accessible. 



Ever and anon a new settler comes in and squats or 

 stakes out a claim and raises his little edifice of logs, 

 which looks so neat and clean and cosy when it is spick- 

 span new ; and they come and come, silently, without 

 notice or premonition, and in numbers so widespread 

 that already a population of 200,000 has gathered within 

 a radius of 150 miles of Spokane where there were only a 

 few hundreds twelve years ago. Spokane itself has 30,- 

 000 inhabitants, and in all its progressive features is fully 

 abreast of any city of its size. 



About fifty miles down river from Bonner is a landine 

 at the beginning of a trail which runs across country 15 

 miles to the Pend d'Oreille, or Priest River district, which 

 is a favorite resort for goat and bighorn hunters. At the 

 international boundary are the two neat custom houses, 

 one mile apart, and here the unwilling passenger is in- 

 continently cinched. Opium is the point d'appui of 

 scrutiny. Consistent protectionists may here put one 

 foot on each side of the line and behold the beautiful 

 workings of the principle in all its varied phases. Its 

 operation is cheerful. It inspires patriotism. 



Just at this point begins the great dyke, 110 miles long, 

 of the Kootenai Bottom Reclamation Co., which is to be 

 finished in five years. The land at present is subject 

 to overflow in spring whep the ice melts on the moun- 

 tains, the river rising from 14 to 20ft. It is expected that 

 600,000 acres will be reclaimed, and the coast is estimated 

 at $2,000,000. This is of course a Canadian venture. It 

 may pay. At present the outflow forms innumerable 

 lagoons which become the breeding places for the various 

 kinds of wild fowl. There is a big one ten miles below 

 the mouth of the inlet where a market hunter would 

 fairly revel. Another grand and gigantic enterprise 

 already undertaken by the Dominion Government in 

 British Columbia is, to run the Columbia River through 

 an ancient bed known as the Grand Coulee, which will 

 then form a ship canal sixty miles long, shorten, river 

 navigation 100 miles, flank eighteen rapids and irrigate 

 3,500,000 acres of arid land at a cost of only a quarter of 

 a million of dollars— a bold and happy conception. 



In due coiu-se of the voyage the steamboat turns an 

 abrupt bend of the river and the tourist comes unexpect- 

 edly upon one of the grandest views in the world. 

 Kootenai Lake is before him, the Cabinet Range is on 

 his right hand and the stupendous Selkirks on his left 

 —a continuation of the same marvellous range of giant- 

 peaks which has made the Canadian Pacific Railway 

 famous among tourists. Looking down an illimitable 

 vista, which seems to terminate in blue haze, he beholds 

 a mighty alignment, bold, snow-capped and scored by 

 avalanches, looming up to an average height of 6,000ft. 

 on either side as far as the eye can reach, and dropping 

 down in mighty inclines to depths more profound than 

 the measureless Saguenay, Eighty miles of continuous 

 wall rock climbing to the sky and interrupted only at 

 mighty intervals by canons hundreds of feet deep, but 

 modified to mere scratches on the surface by the distance. 

 Capes Eternity and Trinity all the way! Who can grasp 

 the titanic proportions? The sense is bewildered by such 

 a combination of height and depth, and immensity of 

 space. It is Alaska condensed. Then such reflections 

 of all upon the water! Every detail of these sublime ex- 

 pressions is repeated with startling distinctness. Nay, 

 more. I have sometimes seen, not only individual 

 reflection, but reflection laid upon reflection like the 

 colors of a chromo, where at some favoring angle the 

 shadows from a projecting point of land, with its gay 

 autumnal foliage, were thrown athwart the foundation " 

 picture. 



It will be perceived that Kootenai Lake occupies a 

 mighty V-shaped chasm in this vast realm of depression 

 and upheaval, whose proportions are in scale with the 

 entire stupendous formation. Yet, in spite of its dimen- 

 sions the inflow of melting snow in spring is so immense 

 as to raise its surface level some fourteen to twenty feet, 

 the marks of its high water line being visible on the ver- 

 tical cliffs along its shores. At that season the scarred 

 and rifted mountain sides fairly gush with deluges of 

 water from the accumulations of snow which the warm 

 Chinook winds are dissolving. Hundreds of waterfalls 

 higher than Yosemite leap from parapet and shelf. Tor- 

 rents pour out of the caiions and ravines, and there is a 

 continuous roar and resonance from height to height 

 which simulates the ocean surf in a storm. Rocks tum- 

 ble from high eminences and ledges are wrenched from 

 the flanks of the cliffs. Such wild ravage and commotion 

 is in marked contrast with the calm repose of the autumn, 

 when these grand forces of nature are in quiescence, and 

 mosquitoes come not to annoy. These pests of the forest 

 and stream all disappear with the subsidence of the floods. 

 But they are mighty while they last. 



If .you have a friend, good and true, whom you 

 would like to remind of /n's friend, fifty-two times 

 in fliB y;eg,r— once every week — whyjiot ask us to see 

 that a Forest and Stream wrapper has his name 

 on it, with your initials in the corner of the address 

 label? 



