Canada -- Description and travel; Canadian poetry -- History and criticism
Two beautiful lakes, Pyramid and Patricia, are in the very shadow of
Pyramid Mountain, only four miles from Jasper station. At this
station are the Park superintendent and his staff, who are ever ready
with help and information and who effectually banish from the mind of
the tourist any fear of strangeness or solitude. While hunting is
not permitted in Jasper Park, the angler may, if he likes, fish all
day in the clear lakes. They are well stocked with trout. The
complete ban upon hunting or any use of firearms is a great safeguard
to the wanderer through woods and valleys, making accidents of this
nature impossible. Maligne Cañon and Maligne Lake have been already
discussed in the chapter already alluded to on summer resorts, but no
description could convey any idea of the spectacular {166} beauty of
the excursion leading past Lakes Edith and Beauvert, through dense
forests of spruce and cottonwood, with the walls of the cañon rising
300 feet in height on either side. Here is a trip of thirty-five
miles from the cañon to Maligne Lake, that sheet of pure, emerald
water--an excursion amid such magnificence of beauty as to defy
adequate description.
Jasper Park is now enriched by the presence of an imperishable
monument that will endure throughout the ages; one to which thousands
of travellers, in the years to come, will make their pilgrimage as to
a shrine. It is a memorial that not only lends its glory to the
Dominion, but to the entire continent as well; for not unaccompanied
by faithful hearts from her great sister nation across the border
shall Canadians seek this mystic altar to which every wind wafts
aromatic fire. For it is a shrine consecrate to all that is noblest
in womanhood, all that is most heroic and divine in our common
humanity. The Dominion, the States, are at one in their reverent
appreciation of the greatness of simple fidelity to duty. He who
keeps faith with his ideals is the true hero. It is he who enters
into the fellowship of the mystery. He may go down to death in
apparent darkness and defeat; he rises in eternal glory. For to be
spiritually-minded is life and peace, even the life eternal.
It is fitting that Edith Cavell, who gave her life for her country;
who died the death of the martyr {167} rather than betray her trust,
should be commemorated with a memorial whose monumental grandeur
exceeds that of any Egyptian king or Assyrian monarch of remote
antiquity.
A marvel of glory is this mountain peak now christened Mount Edith
Cavell. It rises in solitary majesty out of this morning-world,
lifting its head into the faint, transparent azure of ethereal
spaces, while its base is rooted amid the rocky fastnesses of the
great range. The naming of Mount Edith Cavell is the tribute of the
Dominion to one great-souled woman, and thus to all that makes for
the greatness of womanhood. On its precipitous slopes may be read by
all who have the inner vision the scroll of human fate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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