138 
FOREST AND STREAM 
“The Explorer’s Route” 
An Article That Tells of a 
HO is not affected by the spell 
of the new and the unknown? 
There is a thrill in scenes that 
are strange to human eyes. That 
great maze of mountains and 
of wilderness of northwestern 
Canada at last conquered by the 
steam horse offers to the true 
traveller a region of rare beauty and interest. 
Here, indeed, is an explorer’s and sportsman’s 
paradise, with numberless lofty peaks, many a 
“river of doubt” and not a few jewels of lakes 
which have long been hidden from man. Now all 
these, thanks to the work of the railway pio¬ 
neers, have been made accessible to the pack- 
train traveller. 
Not only to the gentleman rover is opened this 
enticing territory. The achievements of women 
explorers have attracted wide attention and some 
of the best work in the exploration of the 
Canadian Rockies has been accomplished by 
women; notably Mrs. Mary T. S. Schaffer of 
Banff and Miss Mary L. Jobe of New York. The 
life of the wilderness trail is not exhausting in 
these latitudes as it undeniably is in the tropics. 
On the contrary, it is exhilarating in the high¬ 
est degree. As a matter of hazard, there are 
more real “hair breadth escapes” in a day’s dodg¬ 
ing of automobiles in a city street than one would 
experience in a year’s travel in the wilderness, 
granting adequate preparation and proper pre¬ 
caution. 
The new regions into which the newly opened 
Grand Trunk Pacific leads are the sources of 
the Athabaska River, first visited by the author 
and Henry G. Bryant, F. R. G. S., of Philadel¬ 
phia, accompanied by four ladies during the 
summer of 1914. Properly equipped for the 
journey a similar party would probably cross the 
Athabaska by the newly constructed pile bridge 
and proceed up the right (east) bank of the 
Athabaska. This is indeed a glorious pathway. 
Magnificent mountains lie on either hand; on the 
right bank, Mt. Hardisty, the Hardisty range 
and the singularly regular serrations of the End¬ 
less chain; on the left bank, the splendid Selwyn 
Range with its crowning peak of Mt. Geikie, 
nearly 12,000 feet in altitude and as yet unclimb¬ 
ed and including also Whirlpool Peak and the 
Galleon, the latter a huge strangely formed 
triple peak shaped like some great Spanish treas¬ 
ure-ship of the olden days; the mast of which— 
an enormous perpendicular tower of black rock, 
apparently a volcanic eruption—will one day clip 
ambitious wings for many an Alpinist. High 
points on the trail along the slopes of Hardisty 
give splendid vistas up the untravelled Whirl¬ 
pool River and of the snow fields around the 
famous peaks of Mt. Hooker and Mt. Brown. 
From the last camp before fording the Sun 
New Scenic Wonderland and Game 
Backbone of This Continent 
By B. W. Mitchell. 
Wapta, one of the main tributaries of the 
Athabaska, can be seen far away the two giants 
of the central group of the Rockies, Mt. Alberta 
and Mt. Columbia. Once across the Sun Wapta, 
a somewhat serious ford, quite impracticable in 
a high stage of water, the march continues up 
the main Athabaska. From the high foothills on 
the left over which the trail leads can be seen 
the superb masses of snow and ice and rock 
which form the goal of the expedition. There is 
the ice-crowned Blackfriar with Fortress Peak 
opposite, and between them in the extreme dis¬ 
tance a spotlessly pure white mountain armored 
with solid ice and snow between 11,000 and 12,- 
000 feet in altitude, first visited in 1914 and 
named Queen Mary’s Peak. 
The trail now lies alternately high along the 
fire-swept flanks of the range and along the 
river where bits of muskeg and quivering atoll 
rims of shaky mud and sand between the rush¬ 
ing river and bottomless bogs of muskeg offer 
a precarious trail only from three to five feet 
wide. 
A few days marches of this character bring the 
party to another great tributary river, the Mt. 
Columbia branch, sweeping fiercely down from 
the great peak and ice field, 220 square miles of 
ice from 500 to 1,500 feet in thickness. Mt. 
Columbia is nearly 13,000 feet in altitude, a per¬ 
fect pyramid of rare beauty, and a glorious group 
surrounds and protects the giant—the Dome, the 
Twins, Mt. King Edward VII and many others. 
The detour here offered to Mt. Columbia is of 
considerable difficulty except in extreme low 
and Fish Paradise on the 
water to muskeg and a perfect network of fallen 
timber lying in enormous slashes, the logs heap¬ 
ed eight to ten feet above the ground and utterly 
impassable for horses. The march can then be 
made up the river bars, fording channel after 
channel with always the somewhat exciting 
possibility of an occasional swim. Unfortunately, 
horse feed is lacking up this branch of the river 
and any dash to Mt. Columbia must be made in 
haste and with much hardship to the horses. 
However, the trip will well repay the temporary 
hardship as the mountains are of surpassing 
grandeur and game abounds, black tailed deer, 
caribou, goat and bear. Mt. Columbia is believ¬ 
ed to be the only mountain in the world whose 
snows drain into three oceans; the Atlantic 
through the Saskatchewan, the Arctic through 
the Athabaska and the Pacific through the Bush 
River, a tributary of the Columbia. 
The main river above the junction with the 
Mt. Columbia Branch is known as the Chaba, 
although it is the main Athabaska both in volume 
and direction. The march is made up this stream 
usually in the bars in practicable stages of water 
to the beautiful Fortress Lake, lying exactly on 
the Continental Divide and discharging into the 
Athabaska by a subterranean outlet discovered in 
1913, and into the Pacific Ocean by the Wood 
River, a tributary of the Columbia. A few hours 
march up the bars, mindful of the quicksands, 
brings the party to the confluence of the two 
forks of the Chaba. At this point the horses 
must be sent back to Fortress Lake under suit¬ 
able guard as there is no feed for them along 
Horses Swimming the Athabasca at Swifts, Jasper Park, Canadian Rocky Mountains. 
