water, having an odour long to be remembered. Skunk cabbage is here indigenous and is found in acres of stinking perfection. We clamber to the higher ground, hoping to find an easier advance, and we come upon the trail of a caribou, but it leads to the mountains. We try another course, only to become entangled in a windfall of prostrate trees. The rain continues falling; the men, with heavy loads on their backs, made heavier by the water which had soaked them, become completely disheartened, and at half-past two o'clock we decide to camp. Our travelling to-day extended only over three hours. We have only advanced about a mile and a half of actual distance and we all suffer greatly from fatigue. I question if our three days' march has carried us further than ten miles."
Members of the British Association Visit the Selkirks (1884)—William Spotswood Green, M.A., F.R.G.S., A.C., in the opening lines of his charming book "Among the Selkirk Glaciers," writes as follows: "When the British Association met in Canada in 1884 one of the most interesting excursions planned for the members was that provided by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company on the portion of their line then completed to the summit of Hector Pass, or as it was then called, the Kicking Horse Pass, in the Rocky mountains. Among the members of that excursion were two gentlemen, Mr. Richard M. Barrington and the Rev. Henry Swanzy, who, not satisfied with the interesting scenes revealed to them by the completed portion of the railway, determined to continue the journey to the shores of the Pacific, with the aid of pack-horses. After separating from the excursion party on Hector Pass, they experienced very considerable difficulties. The temporary track for construction trains was available only as far as the Ottertail bridge on the western slopes of the Rockies. From this point they had to depend entirely on their horses. Having been ferried across the Columbia River, they followed a very imperfect trail up the valley of Beaver Creek, into the Selkirks and so reached Rogers Pass. Often missing the trail, they were compelled to make the best of their way along the precipitous mountain side, through tangled forest, until descending by the side of the Illecillewaet River they joined the Columbia in the more westerly portion of its course. They ferried once more across its waters and on its farther shore met the trail in the Gold Mountains, which they followed to the shores of Shuswap Lake. Here, taking the steamer to Kamloops, they finally reached the railway at Spence's Bridge in the valley of the Thompson, and so completed their journey to the Pacific."
Expedition (1885)—No sooner were the rails laid across Stony Creek bridge than Professor John Macoun. Dominion Naturalist and Botanist, accompanied by his son, were in the Selkirks. They arrived in August, 1885, before a through train had passed over the route. Glacier House was not then in existence and visitors of the present day cannot possibly imagine the tangle of brush, logs and fallen trees that filled the valley at that point. An expedition was made up the Asulkan Torrent, but the impenetrable bush and windfall proved too much for them. An ascent of the slopes of Mt. Avalanche revealed a bird's-eye view of the Illecillewaet Glacier. Ascents also were made to the Roger's Glacier and to the base of the Pyramid of Cheops.
