interesting to glance
at the map and notice what an immense curve northward the Columbia has
made in this interval in order to find a passage through the Selkirk
range; and in thus encircling the snowy Selkirks it has, of course,
added to its volume the contents of innumerable glacier streams and
mountain brooks. Its real sources are southeast of Donald, on the summit
of the Rockies, separated by but a short distance from springs which run
down on the eastern side and find their way through the Mississippi into
the Gulf of Mexico. Thus do extremes meet. It would be difficult to find
anything so curious in the course of any other river as this immense,
irregular parallelogram which the Columbia here describes from its
sources to Arrow Lake....

The snow-peaks of the Selkirks are now looming up on all sides, and the
atmosphere becomes more bracing and Alpine as the train slowly creeps up
the mountain-side, doubling up on itself in a loop. The Glacier House is
reached before long, and here every tourist who has time to spare should
get off and spend a day or two, since next to Banff, in the National
Park, this is the finest point along the whole route, scenically
speaking, while the air is even more salubrious, cool, and intoxicating
than at Banff, owing to the nearness of the glacier. It would be
difficult, even in Switzerland, to find a more romantic spot for a hotel
than the location of the Glacier House. High peaks rise up on every
side, so finely moulded, so deeply mantled with snow, and presenting
such various aspects from different points of view, that we forget our
disgust at the fact that, as usual in the West, these grand eternal
peaks have been named after ephemeral mortals,--Browns, Smiths, and
Joneses. The Grizzly and Cougar Mountains are more aptly named, as these
animals will long continue to abound in the impenetrable forests which
adorn these peaks below the snow-line. Looking from the hotel towards
the glacier, to the left is a peak which looks like the Matterhorn, the
most unique mountain in Switzerland, and, what is still more striking,
at its side is another smaller peak, which is an exact copy of the
Little Matterhorn....

The principal difference between the Swiss Alps and the Selkirk range
lies in the aspect of the mountain-sides below the snow-line. These, in
Switzerland, are green meadows dotted with browsing cows, and presenting
one unbroken mass of dark green, except where an avalanche has
tob