3226901The Selkirk MountainsArthur Oliver Wheeler


"ONE WORD MORE."

Perhaps it is not too much to say that no guide book was ever prepared with so much heart and haste as this Guide to the Selkirks. Mr. Wheeler's heart is there. He has travelled every foot of the mountaineering regions radiating from Glacier, for which he provided the data. He knows the country, loving it zealously, and hiscollaborator, who merely knows well the easy regions contiguous to Glacier House, had not wrought long with the data and studied his book "The Selkirk Range" ere she, too, was working can amore and had learned the secret of Mr. Wheeler's thrall to these mountains. When the visitor, who may or may not come again to Glacier House, thinks of the Selkirks in terms of the Sir Donald Range, the Hermit Range, the Illecillewaet Glacier and the Asulkan, Mr. Wheeler and the men who have literally lived in the ranges south of the sky-line, think of an extensive ice-world beyond and the rich forests below it. For what crudeness and what errors concerning this region the book may possibly contain, the fault is partly owing to the haste of preparation, the data only beginning to get itself in shape in February, partly to the redactor’stopographical stupidity; and partly to the i600 miles separating Sidney. Vancouver Island, from Winnipeg. All the material dealingwith the section "Glacier" was carefully prepared by Mr. Wheeler,and in expanding the text, she often used his own words. Shehopes that no perversion of arithmetic nor wrong impression has crept into the text by means of the pain so generously over-rated by her collaborator.

Concerning those sections dealing with Golden and the Windermere Country, and with Revelstnke and its region, it is not now possible to prepare an adequate or absolutely correct guide book. Much remains to be done by the topngrapher and the researcher, are sufficient material will be available for the redactor. Nevertheless, we hope that this little book will be useful to pilgrims and climbers in those parts also.

ELIZABETH PARKER.

Winnipeg, May 17, 1911.