FOREST AND STREAM 
139 
either branch. The southwestern branch presents 
many canyons which necessitate a sharp climb 
over the great spur which forms the canyon wall 
ere the foot of the superb Queen Mary glacier 
is reached. This noble glacier sweeps down from 
the snows of Queen Mary’s peak and from its 
grotto gushes forth a stream turbid with glacial 
silt. The foot of the glacier lies about three 
miles above the camp and the scenery is of the 
grandest and wildest description. The surface of 
the glacier is broken with superb serraco and the 
peak presents snow and ice climbing of the first 
order. The southeast fork of the Chaba like¬ 
wise gushes from the grotto of a great glacier 
falling from a tongue of the Columbia Ice Field 
back of Mt. King Edward VII. The approach 
to it is through virgin forest along the brink of 
a deep canyon which ultimately falls away into 
a fairly broad valley where the river widens and 
is broken by gravel bars, a characteristic feature 
of these northern rivers. The length of this 
branch is from six to eight miles and the trail 
lies through the forest intersected by innumer¬ 
able game trails along which the black tailed 
deer ranges in great numbers. The parent glacier 
to this stream lies in the extreme head of the 
valley, flowing in a gentle slope with compara¬ 
tively smooth surface, though there are some 
dangerous crevasses. 
Much new work remains to be done around 
these lately discovered sources of the great river. 
It is of special importance that the two glaciers 
and their parent peaks be ascended in order to 
determine the problem of the possible continuity 
of their ice fields, and whether continuous with 
the Columbia Ice Field as well as to obtain a 
view over the divide into the totally unknown 
country on the Pacific side. Fortress Lake is 
still to be navigated to its head and the region 
explored between Wood River and Misty Moun¬ 
tain on the one hand and the Committee’s Punch 
Bowl and Athabaska Pass on the other. This 
in the old days was the scene of the annual fur 
exchanges between the more northern Indians 
and the Hudson’s Bay men from Henry House. 
It has never since then been visited and no rec¬ 
ord or map has been left by these old coureurs 
de bois. 
Another delightful trip for the amateur ex¬ 
plorer is to follow the same route as above from 
Jasper to the Sun Wapta; thence up the Sun 
Wapta either to the Pobokton, following this up 
to the Jonas Shoulder and returning via Maligne 
Lake, or the Brazeau; or one could march up the 
Sun Wapta to its source on Wilcox Pass, the 
scenic center of the Canadian Rockies. The lat¬ 
ter portions of these two routes have been 
traversed but seldom, and much that is new and 
valuable may be accomplished in the way of 
mapping and photography. Starting again from 
Jasper, one may reach practically new country by 
crossing the Athabaska, passing the marvellous 
Maligne Gorge where the entire river emerging 
from a long subterraneous flow dashes in fury 
through a deep and narrow canyon, contracted in 
many places to five or six feet in width. Thence 
a detour is made to Medicine Lake whose changes 
of level, sudden and startling and sometimes as 
much as sixty feet in a season, form one of the 
marvels of the region. These extraordinary 
changes are supposed to be due to the alternate 
choking and opening of the subterranean channel 
of the Maligne. Jacques’ Lake is then visited 
where is found probably the most wonderful fly 
A 300-Pound Sturgeon Caught With Line in 
the Nechaco River, near Vanderhoof, B. C. 
fishing for trout in the world. The most hazard¬ 
ous feature of the journey is the progress up 
the practically unknown Rocky River to its 
source in a tremendous pass lined with perpetual 
ice and snow and supposed to be over ten thou¬ 
sand feet high. If aneroid measurements con¬ 
firm this, it will probably prove to be the highest 
pass in the Canadian Rockies practicable for 
horses. So far it has been visited only by a 
hunting party. 
Another magnificent trip offering great oppor¬ 
tunities for climbs and side expeditions afoot 
is to be had by rail from Jasper to Grant Brook 
and thence up the Moose River to its source 
amid the glories of Moose Pass. The Moose 
River has been traversed a few times but it is 
an extremely difficult route because of the end¬ 
less muskegs. A route must ultimately be found 
high along the mountain sides in order to avoid 
the worst of these traps. However, even as it 
is the trip will repay the hardships endured if 
only to see the superb flower-starred avenue of 
approach to the pass. Twenty-nine varieties of 
flowers in bloom have been counted crossing this 
pass without dismounting from the horse. The 
timber on Moose Pass is magnificent. On other 
high passes the timber gradually decreases in 
size with the increase in altitude. On the north¬ 
western slope of Moose Pass particularly, the 
heavy timber continues close to the timber line 
and ceases as suddenly as if cleared by hand. A 
great maze of unknown and unnamed peaks 
surrounds the traveller on this splendid pass and 
the eye may wander far to the north down the 
valley of the Smoky and to the absolutely un¬ 
known beyond. This valley was penetrated for 
the first time in 1914 by Miss Jobe to the dis- 
•tance of about one hundred miles, the expedition 
resulting in the discovery, mapping and partial 
ascent of an extraordinary new peak. This 
journey is of the first order of difficulty and the 
region, with the exception of the one hundred 
miles of the waterway as well as everything to 
either side back from the river, has not been 
penetrated. Unknown country may also be reach¬ 
ed afoot with shoulder packs over the Mural 
Glacier near Mt. Robson. Horses cannot be 
taken into this section. 
As one descends the Grand Fork of the Fraser 
River, far to the southwest is seen a wonderful 
mass of peaks with great display of snow and 
ice. They are the peaks of the Gold Range and 
the Caribou country beyond the Big Bend of the 
Columbia. Veritable “terra incognita” are these 
forbidding peaks, and owing to the tremendous 
timber and impenetrable underbrush of the 
Pacific slopes of mountains here, it is probable 
that they will never be explored except on foot. 
This is a journey which should be attempted 
only by experienced men. Further to the west, 
unknown and untravelled country of the utmost 
interest—both geographical and ethnological— 
opens up, especially to the northward of the rail¬ 
way. The Babine Lake and river, swarming with 
the fine salmon and steelhead trout, may be 
reached from Hazleton by a trail journey of 
about seventy miles. This is a particularly fas¬ 
cinating journey due to the presence of the quaint 
Babine Indians; an interior tribe of totem Indians 
of which anthropologists for a time denied the 
existence claiming that all totem Indians were 
maritime. These Indians present a curious ming¬ 
ling of barbarism and primitive customs with a 
bit of Hudson’s Bay Company civilization and 
traces of missionary influence in earlier times-. 
Further toward the coast the great ranges 
stretching ever northward beckon the adventurer 
with their lure of mystery. If all the new 
country now opened up to the sportsman and 
nature lover was to be described in detail, this 
sketch would expand into a volume, but enough 
has been said to show that the name earned by 
the latest American transcontinental line, ‘‘The 
Explorer’s Route” is well merited. 
AN APPRECIATION FROM FLORIDA. 
Wabasso, Fla., Feb. 21, 1915. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
So many writers have given their O. K. to 
your making Forest and Stream into a monthly 
that it is with fear and tremble that I venture to 
give my views. Ever since 1898 your journal has 
brought to me, as no other magazine or paper 
ever has, the true spirit of the outdoors. Its 
pages reek with the odor of the pines, of the 
smoke of the hunter’s camp fire and with the 
keen air of the mountains. The tang of the salt 
sea pervades its pages, and the call of the Red 
Gods is never ceasing. It is a paper which for 
forty years has been the true sportsman’s jour¬ 
nal of America. 
I am disgusted with most present day sports¬ 
man’s magazines, which by the way should be 
known rather as “Sporting” journals, but dear 
old Forest and Stream remains the same. 
I like the paper in its monthly form but there 
are now 40 weeks in the year when I shall miss 
it. It is like having to call on your best girl once 
a month, instead of in the good old fashioned 
once a week style. I am pleased with your re¬ 
view of latest outdoor books. With best wishes 
to our old friend in its new form. 
C. A. VANDIVEER. 
