794 
FOREST AND STREAM 
In and Out Among The Mountains of Jasper Lake 
Legend and Fact Concerning Canadian National Park 
T HE big, bronzed man in the khaki shirt 
pushed his hat back on his head and swung 
his arm around in a semicircle. 
“The Indians have all sorts of myths and le¬ 
gends about this place up here. For example, 
there is 'that rock over there. See it? Well, at 
certain times and in certain atmospheres, there 
will appear an elephant’s trunk and head, hud¬ 
dling down over the peak. That is an omen. 
Someone has crept in on the Indians’ territory. 
By Margaret Bell. 
cussing prosaic practicalities with your Pullman 
neighbor. 
Sheer curiosity prompts you to raise the shade 
on your window. Your peering into the night is 
rewarded by the uncertain vision of quickly mov¬ 
ing bushes, and a snatch or two of black cloud. 
Then you decide to “turn in’’ for the night. 
Early next morning you are awake. If it is 
your first trip to the mountains, you are lucky. 
For the most beautiful ranges of the Rockies 
wood. You experience a feeling of satisfaction, 
when you think that all of the trees for five 
thousand square miles are preserved from the 
axe of the woodsman. 
At your first glimpse of the Rockies, a sort of 
awe comes over you, and you fear to look at 
them. But you brace your feet firmly, lean to¬ 
ward the side of the platform, and look. Im¬ 
mensity. Mystery. Blues and greys and pur¬ 
ples, with streaks of white here and there. 
Great, rugged spikes which smite the clouds. Can 
this be the land of reality? And can those peo¬ 
ple in the train still sleep? That is all you can 
think. For your head is in a whirl, and your 
eyes are glued to the great blue and white range 
of silent sentinels. 
You whirr past a small station, where smoke 
is beginning to rise lazily from the chimney. A 
man comes out to look after you. In a moment 
you are nothing but a speck on a great whirring 
snake which leaves a tail of blue behind. “Ed- 
son,” you read on the little station. 
People come cackling from the train. You 
frown. Why must people talk? You fly past 
a man, who awaits your fleeting by the side of 
the track. He has a red handkerchief knotted 
about his neck, and he carries a pick. He is a 
pioneer in this new world of unmatchable beau¬ 
ty. If only your camera had been set! 
More stations disappear in the distance. Medi¬ 
cine Ledge—Pedley—Hinton. The porter says 
you are approaching the entrance to Jasper 
Park. 
The long range of blue and grey and purple 
becomes more regular. Now you know that the 
white streaks are patches of snow. You are 
rushing along by the bank of a river. It is the 
McLeod. Away in the distance you notice a 
luxuriance of jack pine and fir and spruce. The 
foothills. It will not be long now. 
You are in the great national park. No, you 
have not passed through any big gates, neither 
is there any fence visible; just the great, un¬ 
fathomable mystery of the newly discovered 
mountains. You ask the porter if they are all 
named. He grins. The grin of a porter is as 
inscrutable as the sphinx. He reckons they are 
not. But that -big peak over there to the south¬ 
west is called Roche Miette. It is eight thou¬ 
sand feet high. The river which rushes along 
almost as fast as your -train is the great Atha¬ 
basca. And there is the beautiful Athabasca 
valley and the mountains beyond. The story of 
the Indian legend comes to your mind. Why, 
the place must be full of them. It is the very 
essence of myths. You seem to breathe myths 
and see legends in every jack pine. 
And then a selfishness seizes you; which shows 
that, after all, one’s selfishness is always ready 
to pop in at the door of one’s better resolutions. 
If you could only keep tourists away and have 
all this wonder and mystery to yourself! This 
unmatchable beauty and intoxicating air! 
But you might as well speak of forbidding the 
glaciers to grind down the mountainside. You 
Near Jasper Lake. 
So they gather together all their tribes, and have 
a celebration of war.” 
The train was winding around one of those 
promontories which make the great national 
park of the Canadian west the rendezvous of 
climbers and camerists and globe-trotters in gen¬ 
eral. In short, Jasper Park. 
Jasper Park is two hundred miles directly west 
of Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, through 
gorgeous scenery. A run through the great, un¬ 
trammelled land, which is to-day just as it was 
ten thousand years ago, before civilized man 
conceived an idea of railroads and Pullman 
berths. 
You do not notice the first few towns west 
of Edmonton. For, if you are an ordinary, prac¬ 
tical being, with rational ideas about sleep and 
rest, you will be in your berth a few minutes 
after handing your check to the porter. If the 
midnight mysticism has a fascination for you, 
you will sit in the smoking compartment or dan¬ 
gle your feet over the edge of your berth, dis- 
are to be seen up around Jasper Park, and that 
region of country recently opened up by the 
building of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. 
The raising of your shade discloses a greyish- 
blue haze rising from the ground, hanging mid¬ 
way between the earth and clouds. Apparently, 
the sun is still hiding. You give yourself a 
figurative clap on the shoulder, and hurry to the 
dressing room. Such energy is commendable. 
Your only wonder is that you do not feel sleepy. 
If you were more accustomed to that part of 
the country, you would understand why. It is 
the mountain air. 
Then for the platform of the observation car. 
The porter grins and says something about “Dis 
heah mountain air is very ’vigoratin’ to stran¬ 
gers,” and goes on dusting the chairs. 
You are about a hundred and twenty miles 
west of Edmonton. You know that the moun¬ 
tains are almost visible. The prairie country 
has gradually assumed the appearance of wooded 
slopes, with thick growths of poplar and cotton¬ 
