United States or Belgium ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was due to a mysterious dispensation of Providence, and a good deal to Leslie Graeme, that I found myself in the heart of the Selkirks for my Christmas Eve as the year 1882 was dying. It had been my plan to spend my Christmas far away in Toronto, with such Bohemian and boon companions as could be found in that cosmopolitan and kindly city.
We spoke of the racing tides off Vancouver, and the lonely pine-clad ridges running up to the snow-peaks of the Selkirks, to which we had both travelled once upon a time in search of sport.
The Rockies and the Selkirks impressed them very much, and they still consulted their maps, especially at the time when they found themselves approaching the banks of the Columbia River. "This river and the Fraser are cousins," said Rob, "like the Athabasca and the Peace.
As for Carlyle, I never hear him mentioned without seeing the mountains and glaciers of the Selkirks; in his pages is the sound of the wind and rain. There are some novels, too, which have attractions not all their own. I remember once walking into a store at Eagle Pass Landing on the Shushwap Lake and asking for a book.
Then Major Rogers, the engineer whom James J. Hill had suggested to take charge of the location of the mountain section, following up a hint of Moberly, an earlier explorer, found a route, steep but practicable, across the Selkirks, following the Beaver river valley and Bear Creek, and then through Rogers Pass into the valley of the Illecillewaet, and so through Eagle Pass to the settled location at Kamloops.
"I wonder if I done the right thing?" mused Ambrose. The Selkirks had not long disappeared down the river when Ambrose received another visitor. This was a surly native youth who, without greeting, handed him a note, and rode back to the fort. Ambrose's heart beat high as he examined the superscription. He did not need to be told who had written it.
"They say that from the 49th parallel to the headwaters of the Saskatchewan River, sheep are larger than those in the Selkirks and coast ranges; and also that as they go north of the Saskatchewan the sheep become smaller. As to color, they say that the more southerly and western sheep are the lighter; and that as you pass north the sheep are darker in color.
"Why, Elizabeth's not afraid!" cried Philip, scornfully. "This is Roger's Pass, and here we are at the top of the Selkirks," said Anderson, rising. "The train will wait here some twenty minutes. Perhaps you would like to walk about." They descended, all but Philip, who grumbled at the cold, wrapped himself in a rug inside the car, and summoned Yerkes to bring him a cup of coffee.
Word Of The Day