Although the park as a park did not exist until long after his visit, and good roads and trails now take the place of the rough paths he had to follow, William Spotswood Green's _Among the Selkirk Glaciers_, is still the most satisfactory and entertaining introduction that one can find, or wish for, to this mountain playground. Green came to the Selkirks in 1888, after years of delightful experience in the Alps and the great mountains of New Zealand. He left with the conviction that he had seen nothing elsewhere more impressive or more fascinating than these mountains of British Columbia. "Dark green forest, rushing streams, purple peaks, silvery ice, a cloudless sky, and a most transparent atmosphere," he says, "all combine to form a perfect Alpine paradise." One of his first visits was to the Illecillewaet Glacier, which then entailed a slow and more or less painful scramble through a wilderness of fallen timber, tangled thickets of alder scrub, and the appropriately named devil's club. To-day one reaches the foot of the glacier by way of a delightful and well-kept trail through the forest, the trail starting from the doors of Glacier House, the large and comfortable hotel maintained by the Canadian Pacific Railway at the headquarters of the park. On the way he had an opportunity of observing the tremendous destructive power of avalanches. "The hemlock, balsam, and Douglas firs, though as stout as ships' masts, had been snapped off close to their roots; some were torn up and driven long distances from where they grew, and lay in heaps, but the general position of the trunks pointed distinctly to the direction from which the destroying avalanche had come. Even the boulders of the moraine showed signs of having been shifted, some of them huge blocks of quartzite, one I measured 50 X 33 X 24 feet. No better illustration could be presented of the overwhelming power of an avalanche, though composed of nothing else than the accumulation of a winter's snow." On this or another expedition, Green was introduced to the idiosyncrasies of the Indian pony or cayuse. One had been taken as a pack horse, and picked his way demurely along the trail for some time, with that air of meek innocence which always imposes upon the tenderfoot. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, and for no apparent reason, he was "seized with a paroxysm of buck-jumping; the packs flew off, he rolled down through the ferns and rocks, and then, perfectly satisfied with his performance, stood patiently while we restored our goods on his back." The incident will bring back many similar experiences to those who have camped in the Rocky Mountains. One is almost tempted to chuckle over Green's bewilderment. It is generally found that there is reason in the pony's madness. When he runs unexpectedly into a hornet's nest, the most natural thing in the world is to get away from it as quickly as possible, and as a rule the quickest way is to roll down hill.