Our railway route next goes up the Beaver River gorge to cross the Selkirks through the Rogers Pass at forty-three hundred feet elevation, where Mount Sir Donald guards the Pass. It traverses a region displaying grand scenery, mounting high above the streams, the gorge filled with giant trees between Mounts Sir Donald and Hermit, with frequent airy bridges thrown across the subsidiary ravines, down which come sparkling cataracts. This narrow gorge has frequent avalanches, so that much of the road is covered by ponderous snow-sheds. This is the Rogers Pass, displaying savage grandeur, and was first entered by white men from British Columbia under Major Rogers in 1883, when the railway route was surveyed. It is also reserved for a Canadian National Park. The Hermit Mountain overlooks the pass from the north, while on the south side a range extends westward to the ponderous and lofty pyramidal top of Mount Sir Donald, rising ten thousand seven hundred feet, named for Sir Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona, President of the Bank of Montreal. Alongside is the great glacier of the Selkirks, whose waters flow into the deep valley of the Illecillewaet River, the "Dancing Water," by which the railway goes westward out of the mountains. Having crossed the summit of the pass, the railway makes a short curve into this valley, and gives a grand view of the great glacier covering all of its head. Here is the Glacier House, on a flat surface of delicious greensward alongside the line, having a silvery cascade pouring for a thousand feet down the opposite mountain. Beyond, the Illecillewaet descends rapids and the railway has a difficult task in getting down the steep and contorted gorge by startling loops until, finally emerging from the mountain fastness on the western slope of the Selkirks, it comes a second time to the open Columbia Valley, the river now flowing with greater volume southward towards the United States. Across the Columbia is the Gold range, the third mountain ridge to be crossed. This is done by the Eagle Pass, less difficult than the other passes through the Rockies, the crossing being made at two thousand feet elevation, and the route descending westward along Eagle River and several pleasant lakes that make its source and cover the floor of the higher valley. This stream leads into the Great Shuswap Lake, the largest body of water in British Columbia, spreading its sinuous arms like an octopus among the mountain ridges. This lake has over two hundred miles of coast-line, and is drained westward by Thompson River. To the southward it has a tributary flowing out of the long and slender Okanagan Lake, a sheet of water among the mountains extending seventy miles and having fertile shores.