Soon after starting this morning we came to a hill, about 400 feet high, from which I took a set of bearings, and got a fine view of the mountains. Through a deep valley to the southwest is a very massive mountain, completely snow capped. To the S.E., down the valley, there is also a snowcapped mountain, but up the valley there is quite a number of peaks, none of them very prominent, but all glittering with white. Castle Mountain I now saw to be connected with the east side of the valley.
"Nimrod," who had been seeing many wapite tracks yesterday, was ahead of the party to-day hunting, and after travelling three hours we saw him on a hill at a distance, making signs. On joining him I found that he had tracked up a moose deer, and got one shot, and had hit it in the rump. In chasing it he had fallen on his knife, which was stuck in his girdle, and broken it, and one of the pieces had hurt his back severely. Notwithstanding this he had tracked up the moose for about four miles, and now knowing where it was hidden the Indian wished me to have a shot. When wounded these animals generally run for some miles, and then seek to hide in a thicket. However, even in summer, when the ground is hard and baked, an Indian can follow their track as easily as we could follow a footpath. And so Nimrod had done in this instance, for a wary turn through the woods for half a mile brought us to the game, and advancing against the wind without disturbing a branch we got within 40 yards of him, standing with his long nose straight out, and his antlers laid back on his flanks. I gave him the benefit of both my rifie barrels, which was the first notice he had of our proximity. After that he only bounded about 70 yards before he fell. When we approached him, however, he showed fight, and got up again, but it would not do, as he was fast going.
During the afternoon we got entangled in fallen woods that lay breast high to our horses, and gave us a great deal of trouble. After three hours work we had only made five miles, which brought us to the place where we cross Bow River for the Vermilion Pass.
We camped by the side of a small clear stream, and for the first time put up the little wigwam I had traded from the " Stoneys," as I intended to remain here a couple of nights and prepare the moose meat. Peter Erasmus, who had gone off hunting yesterday afternoon, lost himself, and slept out in the mountains, without even his coat, as it was hot when he started, and he had left it with his horse.
August 19, 1858
Our camp was right opposite to Castle Mountain, so that early this morning, taking Sutherland with me, I started to ascend it. We had a tedious walk through woods for five miles before we made much of an ascent, but then we began to rise very rapidly It was 8 p.m. when we got back to camp, having had 12 hours hard walking.
August 20, 1858
The moose meat having been sliced and partially smoked, we started to cross the river at 9 a.m., having spent the morning searching for a ford. The place where we crossed the river is only 60 yards wide, but very rapid, and taking our horses above the girth if they kept the oblique line of the ford we had discovered, but some of them that turned to go more directly were obliged to swim.
The little Vermilion Creek, which comes down from the height of land, joins Bow River below the ford, so that we did not see it. At first we had a tough climb up the face of a terrace of loose shingle for 150 feet, but by going a little round we might have ascended it where less steep.
We at first followed the brink of a valley, which the creek has cut through these superficial deposits. We then struck through the wood to the south-west, which clothe the gentle sloping and wide valley that leads to the height of land. Finding the lowest ground of the valley to be rather soft, although we were away from the creek a considerable distance, I kept up more on the mountain side, so that we had to make a descent to the real watershed, the position of which so near to Bow River and so slightly elevated, took me quite by surprise.
We had been travelling six hours through the woods when we came to the height of land...The valley at this point is several miles wide, and the mountains on either hand are still wooded a long way up the slope. The source of the stream flowing to the east is from a deep lake with rocky margins, composed of quartz rock, in thick strata, dipping 20° W.S.W. A stream of muddy water, about I2 feet broad, descends from the north-west, and when within 300 yards of this lake turns off to the south-west, forming the first water we had seen flowing to the Pacific.
We encamped beside this stream, ... I then ascended the mountain to the east for 1000 feet above our camp, reaching the limit of the woods after 500 feet.
The mountain... is a mere spur from a large central mass of snow-capped mountains to the south-east, which I named Mount Ball, after the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (in 1857).
On the opposite side of the valley I saw that the Vermilion River rises from a glacier of small size in a high valley of Mount Lefroy.
The small quantity of water flowing from the mountains hitherto has astonished me, being a great hardship in climbing them, as it is almost impossible to get a drink except now and then from a trickling stream in a fissure, which disappears before it reaches the valley.
We got a shot at a white goat, being the first we had seen, and wounded it, but it escaped by its better knowledge of the rocks. They are very large animals and walk in a deliberate manner, picking their steps over the rocks as if their feet were tender. It was long after dark before we got back to camp, and we had some difficulty in getting down the mountain.
August 21, 1858
Heavy soaking mist this morning, which soon wetted everything we had, for the first time since entering the mountains. Nimrod had been absent all night, as he went off yesterday while we were ascending to the height of land, upon a fresh moose track. It was a buck, and he followed him back all the way to Bow River, and killed it in the evening, but too far from where he expected us to camp to bring any of the meat, so he slept beside it and ate what he could.
We descended the valley of Vermilion River for four hours to the south-west, making equal to six miles in a straight line. The valley is tolerably open, and the descent is uniform. The dense woods often compelled us to cross and recross the stream, it being so much easier to travel on the shingle in the channel than chop our way through the forest; but there is no want of level land on both sides of the stream along which a trail might be cut, which might be followed in any state of the stream.
Several small streams come from both sides of the valley, so that the river increases rapidly in size... we arrived at a sudden bend which the river makes to the south-east, changing its course at right angles.
Here, in the corner of the valley on the right side, is the Vermilion Plain, which is about a mile in extent, with a small stream flowing through it. Its surface is entirely covered with yellow ochre, washed down from the ferruginous shales in the mountains. The Kootanie Indians come to this place sometimes, and we found the remains of a camp and of a large fire which they had used to convert the ochre into the red oxide which they take away to trade to the Indians of the low country, and also to the Blackfeet as a pigment, calling it vermilion.
In a valley facing us, we turned to the south, is a glacier of fair size,which comes lower down than any ice I have seen in this district of the mountains. We now kept along the left bank of the stream on a fine level shelf 60 or 80 feet above the water. The valley is now quite open on this side, but on the other the mountains slope up rather suddenly, but not precipitously, while the woods have all been burnt, giving it a naked bald look. The fire must have " run" several times, as even the fallen trees had been burnt, which allowed us to pass along freely. We camped on a flat, with good pasture close to the stream, but 50 feet above the level. The banks are rocky..We found raspberries and small fruit of different kinds very abundant near our camp, but as yet there is no marked difference in the vegetation from the east slope of the mountains.
Back to Our Heritage Home Page