FOREST AND STREAM 
795 
could not keep the tourist world away. For it is 
a peculiar thing about this tourist world, that it 
keeps always on the alert for new possibilities. 
You pull yourself together, and try to argue 
that it would be wrong not to let others enjoy 
such scenery. For a couple of seconds you are 
magnanimous in the extreme. Then you try to 
look at things in detail. The tortuous rushing 
of the river; the Athabasca, you suppose it is, 
although there are countless smaller ones start¬ 
ing suddenly from the foot of the mountains 
and wandering around aimlessly. Now and then 
you seem to see shimmering somethings appear¬ 
ing on the surface of the water. Just a flash, 
then nothing. You learn that the rivers are full 
of trout. 
You appear to be runnig right into a paradise 
of mountains. “Paradise” seems a sort of ex¬ 
uberance in expression, but in this case one for¬ 
gets that it is a bromide. And there is not one 
of the whole trainful of people who would no! 
be willing to unshoulder his burden of material¬ 
ism, and enter its gates for aye and all. For 
Jasper Park has not been spoiled by excessive 
modernism. Its trees are not hacked into sym¬ 
metry of form, its rivers have not been taught 
that in polite society it is not customary for 
anything to rush and roar, not even a river. 
Now is the time to Set your camera. Now, 
when the train is so considerate, and the dis¬ 
tances. For, as the long snake of cars goes 
slowly around the promontories, they seem to be 
making only the speed of a brisk walk. In reali¬ 
ty, you are going eight or ten miles an hour, 
through the most riotous scenery ever looked 
upon. The purplish mountains—you are right 
in the midst of them now—which seem but a 
stone’s throw distant, are in reality fifteen or 
twenty miles away. The seething, roaring tor¬ 
rent of the Athabasca, away below the promon¬ 
tory, looks, from the train, like a bed of molten 
silver. The giant jack pines rise up, like senti¬ 
nels, on either side of the track. And the clouds 
are like huge, flying masses of wool, now losing 
themselves behind a row of mountains, now 
breaking against a peak and making the purplish 
veil appear less filmy. 
You can hear the voice of the big, bronzed 
camp doctor. He is the center of a group of 
curiosity seekers. He is giving information, but 
you prefer to figure out your own deductions 
about this big, new country. And while it is 
interesting, intensely so, to hear about the In¬ 
dians and their legends, you do not want to 
hear any more details. So you leave the back 
platform and seek the roomy chair of the ob¬ 
servation car, to dream your own dreams. 
But not for long. The train stops. Everyone 
clambers down, for just five minutes, so that the 
camera fiends may not neglect to use the films 
and plates they have brought along. What will 
eventually come within snapping radius of the 
different machines is a question of conjecture. 
If only the different colors could be caught on 
the film! If only you might focus the rushing 
river, the foothills and valley beyond, the riot 
of jack pines and the great, omnipotent range 
of mountains, the climax of everything. If- 
It is a powerful monosyllable! 
Someone has scrambled across the tracks, over 
stumps and brambles, to a row of canvas-covered 
shacks. An infant town is set right in the lap 
of the magnificent scenery, with the great, pur¬ 
ple mountains for a guardian. Bronzed men, in 
khakis, saunter out and look. One or two 
women, secure in the privileges of their sex, 
thrust heads of curiosity out through the win¬ 
dows. Then curiosity leads them still further. 
They walk half way to the train, and stand to 
be snapped. It is so good to see new faces. They 
came up into the mountains, when there were no 
others of their sex. Yes, they could tell of 
hardships—of life in a box car, with the frost 
hovering away below the fifty point; then of a 
great, glorious spring, with millions of buds 
bursting forth, and their fragrance filling the 
valleys; of a world of singing birds, sending 
their notes up toward the towering mountain 
peaks, which had begun to send down hulking 
blocks of ice and snow. 
There is a warning whistle. Skirts are picked 
up, cameras click, and several pairs of ankles dis¬ 
play themselves to the big, bronzed fellows from 
the canvas-covered shacks. Everyone falls into 
“There’s Many a Pool Like This.” 
the vestibule laughing. For there is an intoxica¬ 
tion in the air which mocks at worries. 
There is a sudden silence in the train. Excess 
of beauty will produce silence even among the 
most garrulous. You are winding in and out, 
between a great, irregular wall of mountains; 
a wall which seems close enough to be reached 
by a ten-minute walk, but which, in reality, 
would require careful threading of ways for a 
couple of days. On either side a river rushes 
along, defying science to take away its liberty. 
Away in the distance it swings into a saucy lit¬ 
tle stream, which flirts with the noonday sun and 
wrinkles up its face in a series of crinkly rip¬ 
ples. This is Fiddle creek, and the big rock in 
the distance is known as Folding mountain. 
Here many of the present-day pioneers halt for 
the night and pitch their tents. Therefore, Fid¬ 
dle creek has come to stand for peace, beauty 
and quiet. Here, undoubtedly, is the most beau¬ 
tiful part of the Athabasca valley. And here, 
in spring and summer, bloom the most beautiful 
of all wild flowers, the orchid, the wild rose and 
the honeysuckle. And everywhere are berries. 
A safe prophecy to make is that all the valley 
of the Athabasca will soon be a series of rich 
fruit farms. 
And here, in this spot of matchless beauty, 
the big, bronzed men who are opening up the 
country pitch their tents and tether their horses 
for the night, right in the shelter of the foot¬ 
hills, which snuggle against the side of Folding 
mountain, with riotous wild flowers all about 
them. Who will dare to say that these men, 
immersed in practicalities, are not influenced by 
beauty of scene and fragrance of flower? 
The porter notices the silence in the train, and 
goes his smiling rounds, with the unsolicited in¬ 
formation that it will not be long till you pull 
into Jasper; whereupon everyone gathers his 
chattels about him. 
Jasper is the capital of Jasper Park. It was 
cho'sen because it commands the most inspiring 
view of mountains, foothills, rivers and scenes 
of general beauty. The casual tourist would 
scarcely believe that several waterfalls exist in 
the American continent much higher than Ni¬ 
agara. Niagara has become a sort of trade-mark. 
Likewise, it would be difficult to believe that 
great and mighty rivers have been found, many 
unknown to the map, and almost all which are 
on the map being from fifty to one hundred miles 
out of place. It remained for the surveyors, who 
went up there, to mark out the route of the 
Grand Trunk Pacific through the Yellowhead 
Pass, to glean this information. 
The station is a small, frame building, modern 
enough, and curiously picturesque against the 
great, towering background of snow-capped rock. 
Half-a-dozen men saunter up from camp. They 
all wear the regulation brown khaki and big, 
broad hats. A life out in the open makes one 
indifferent to conventional attire. And peopie 
who are busy in the making of a new country 
have no time to think of clothes. The pale-faced 
tourists naturally are a source of great interest 
to the bronzed fellows of Jasper Park. The 
long, flowing veils of the women, the inevitable 
trade-mark of the globe-trotter, are soon dis¬ 
carded up in the mountains. For there i'S some¬ 
thing in the atmosphere which forbids fussiness. 
The first thing you do is to discard your coat. 
A breeze blows across from the foothills, and 
you want to feel it close to you. So you. stand, 
with coat under arm and hat mercilessly crushed, 
facing the great range of purplish blue, where 
the snow has a perpetual lodging place. And 
you feel that already you have been mor than 
rewarded for your long journey west. 
What will you look at first? There is a little 
general store beyond the station, where you may 
buy anything from a package of milk chocolate 
to ten yards of fishing line. And there is a 
charming little woman there, with a Scotch 
“br-r” to her words, who will be glad to give 
you a cup of tea. flavored with much pleasant 
information about the 'beauty spots of the place. 
She is the wife of the camp doctor, and looks 
after his bandaging. 
Will it be a ramble through the wild roses 
that afternoon, or an expedition with the In¬ 
dian guide, down the river where wary fish jump 
at flies? You choose the winding path which 
leads to the river. It is fringed on either side 
with wild roses. The breeze which cools your 
face, brings their fragrance to you. Clusters of 
them there are. growing out there in sight of the 
great, rugged Rockies, with their perpetual cap 
of snow. Perhaps you will go climbing, the next 
