The Young Alaskans in the Rockies

Emerson Hough

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• Publié par: islue
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 9
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's The Young Alaskans in the Rockies, by Emerson Hough This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Young Alaskans in the Rockies Author: Emerson Hough Release Date: January 20, 2009 [EBook #27850] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG ALASKANS IN THE ROCKIES *** Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) THE YOUNG ALASKANS IN THE ROCKIES BY EMERSON HOUGH ILLUSTRATED HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON MCMVIII COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HARPER & BROTHERS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1913 A TRAPPER’S SHACK, STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAIN LAKE WHICH LAY GREEN AND MIRROR-LIKE, SURROUNDED ON ALL SIDES BY GREAT MOUNTAIN WALLS CONTENTS Chap. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. ROB, J OHN, AND Page J ESSE IN CAMP 9 18 28 48 ROCKIES 54 63 68 78 85 91 102 116 126 144 156 WHITE GOATS FRASER AT THE FIRESIDE HITTING THE TRAIL WESTWARD HO HIGHER THAN THE THE ATHABASCA AT LAST CROSSING THE ATHABASCA IN HIGH ALTITUDES THE HEART OF THE MOUNTAINS RAINBOW LAKE THE PASS THE WILDERNESS AFTER DOWN THE THE THE GREAT MOUNTAIN XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. AT THE TÊTE J AUNE CACHE LEO THE GRIZZLY-HUNTER SOUTHWARD BOUND ON THE 162 172 180 186 192 198 215 241 247 263 276 283 295 303 315 CANOE RIVER IN CARIBOU CAMP THE FIRST BEAR CAM THE YOUNG GRIZZLY-HUNTERS ONWARD BOUND THE BOAT ENCAMPMENT HISTORY ON DOWN ON THE THE GROUND COLUMBIA THE RAPIDS IN SIGHT OF SAFETY STORIES OF THE COLUMBIA THE END OF THE TRAIL ILLUSTRATIONS A TRAPPER’S SHACK, STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAIN LAKE WHICH LAY GREEN AND MIRRORLIKE, SURROUNDED ON ALL SIDES BY GREAT MOUNTAIN WALLS Facing Frontispiece p. ROB’S GOAT APPROACHING THE GRAND CAÑON ON THE FRASER RIVER TOWERING ABOVE ALL AND DWARFING ALL RIVALRY THERE STOOD BEFORE THEM ONE GREAT, NOBLE WHITETOPPED PEAK—MT. ROBSON THE BIG BEND OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER THE COLUMBIA RIVER, ABOVE THE BOAT ENCAMPMENT ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER REVELSTOKE CAÑON 102 “ 146 “ “ “ “ “ 158 248 252 300 320 YOUNG ALASKANS IN THE ROCKIES I ROB, JOHN, AND JESSE IN CAMP “ Jesse Wilcox, as Well, here we are,atfellows,” saidthe camp-fire. “For he threw Idown an armful of wood the side of my part, believe [Pg 9] this is going to be about the best trip we ever had.” “That’s what I was telling Rob to-day,” said John Hardy, setting down a pail of water near by. “But I hope I won’t have to carry water up a bank a hundred feet high every night.” “We are not as far north this time as we were last summer,” said Jesse, “but the country looks something the same.” “Yes,” replied John, “but last year we were going east and farther away from home every day. Now we’re going west to the Rockies and across [Pg 10] them, getting closer to home all the time.” Rob McIntyre, the oldest of our friends who had made so many trips together in the wilderness, sat silent, as was often his custom, smiling out of his frank blue eyes at his companions. “What do you think about it, Rob?” asked Jesse. “I agree with you, Jess,” replied Rob. “I’ve always wanted to get into this part of the Rocky Mountains. The Yellowhead Pass, over yonder, is the place I’ve always wanted to see. It’s an old pass across the Rockies, but no one seems to know much about it.” “Besides,” went on Jesse, “we ought to get plenty of game and good fishing.” “Surely we will, for this is a country that no one visits, although we are now on the trail of the old fur-traders who came here often enough more than a hundred years ago. On the high ridges in here you can see the old trail cut down a foot deep. And it was made in part by the feet of men, more than a hundred years ago.” “Besides,” added John, “we can see where the engineers have gone ahead of us.” “Yes,” said Rob, “they’ve pretty much followed the trail of the old fur- [Pg 11] traders.” “Didn’t they come by water a good way up here?” asked John. Rob answered by pulling out of his pocket a long piece of heavy paper, a map which they three had worked over many days, laying out for themselves in advance the best they knew how the route which they were to follow and the distances between the main points of interest. “Now, look here,” said he, “and you’ll see that for once we are at a place where the old voyageurs had to leave their boats and take to the land. We’re going to cross the Rockies at the head of the Athabasca River, but you see it runs away northeast from its source at first, at least one hundred miles north of Edmonton. That used to be called Fort Augustus in the old days, and the voyageurs went all the way up there from Montreal by canoe. Sometimes they followed the Saskatchewan from there. That brought them into the Rockies away south of here. They went over the Kootenai Plains there, and over the Howse Pass, which you know is between here and Banff.” “I know,” said Jesse, eagerly. “Uncle Dick told us they used to go down [Pg 12] the Blaeberry Creek to the Columbia River.” “Exactly; and there was a way they could go near the Wood River to the Columbia River. For instance, here on the map is a place near the head of the Big Bend of the Columbia. That’s the old Boat Encampment, of which the old histories tell so much.” “You don’t suppose we’ll ever get there?” said John, doubtfully. “It looks a long ways off from here.” “Of course we will,” said Rob, firmly. “When we’ve pushed up to the head of the Athabasca River and gone over the Yellowhead Pass it will all be downhill. We’ll go fast when we hit the rivers running south. And we’ll come in but a little way from the Boat Encampment, which was a rendezvous for all the old traders who crossed by the Saskatchewan trail below us. But, you see, we’ll be taking a new way; and I agree with Jess that it will be about the best trip we ever had.” “Those old fur-traders were great fellows to travel, weren’t they?” said Jesse, looking curiously at the deep-worn, ancient trail which ran close by their camp. “Yes,” said Rob, “they weren’t afraid of anything. When they got to Fort [Pg 13] Augustus they had three choices of routes west over the Rockies. They could go away north to the Peace River—old Sir Alexander McKenzie’s trail, which we followed last summer; or they could go up the Saskatchewan the way David Thompson used to go to the Columbia River; or they could strike west by cart or pack-horse from Fort Augustus and cross this rolling country until they struck the Athabasca, and then follow up that to the Yellowhead Pass. I shouldn’t wonder if old Jasper Hawse was one of the first trail-makers in here. But, as I was saying, those who came this route had to leave their boats at Edmonton. Here at Wolf Creek we are about one hundred and thirty miles west of there. For a long while they used to have a good wagon trail as far as Saint Anne, and, as you know, it has been pretty much like a road all the way out here.” “I like the narrow trail best,” said John; “one made by feet and not wheels.” “Yes,” went on Rob, “perhaps that’s why we’re so anxious to get on with this trip. The water does not leave any mark when you travel on it, but here is the trail of the old traders worn deep into the soil. A fellow can almost [Pg 14] see them walking or riding along here, with their long rifles and their buckskin clothes.” “That’s what I like about these trips Uncle Dick lays out sometimes,” said Jesse. “A fellow sort of has to read about the country and the men who found it first.” “Yes,” John assented, “reading about these old places makes you begin to see that there is quite a world besides the part of the world where we were born. It seems as though these old fellows in the past weren’t making these trails just for themselves.” “Pshaw! I’ll bet they just wanted furs, that was all,” ventured Jesse. “But, anyhow, they found the paths, all right.” “The Indians found the paths ahead of the traders,” said Rob. “I fancy the white men did not have such hard times learning which way to go. The Indians must have worked backward and forward across almost every pass in the mountains before the white men came. It makes me feel kind of strange to be here, just where the great-grandfathers of white people used to travel, and then to think that before their grandfathers were born this country was all old to the red men, who held it long before the white [Pg 15] men came.” “Well,” said John, who was of a practical turn of mind, “it’s starting in pretty well. We’ve got some whitefish left that we caught at Lake Waubamun, and the grouse which we killed this afternoon will make up a good supper. I s’pose if we were the first to cross over we might have got antelope in here, or, anyhow, deer.” “I’m glad Uncle Dick is going along,” said Jesse. “He went over with the first engineer party, so he knows about all the bad places. We certainly had muskeg enough yesterday and the day before. If it’s any worse ahead than it is behind it’s going to be pretty tough.” “Look yonder, fellows!” said Rob, suddenly rising and pointing to the westward. They followed his gesture and for a moment stood silent with him. “It’s the Rockies!” said they, almost in unison. The clouds had now broken away late in the afternoon, and for the first time they could see across the wide expanse of forest lands which stretched unbroken to the northward and westward, the low white line of [Pg 16] the great backbone of the continent—the Rockies, land of mystery and adventure for bold souls since history began in this part of our con