“Along the Bow River you wend your way, vast snow-topped mountains on every side, and the trail winding now over steep shale slopes, with the panorama of sparkling glaciers, rushing rivers, and deep canyons; again, plunging into a pine forest where the ground is covered with delicate pink twin flowers and white anemones; riding all day and sleeping out under the blue sky where, if you are fortunate, the Northern Lights flash in flames of red and gold. Here one wants to linger indefinitely. “Passing Pyramid Peak, with its almost insurmountable overhanging cliffs, Mount Murchison, calm and majestic, at last you reach the Saskatchewan River. The horses plunge up to their withers in icy water which rushes by foaming around the knees of the rider, but the other side is reached in safety. Sometimes your camping ground is by an old wigwam of the Stoney Indians, littered with grotesque, carved wooden animals and people, made by the children, with here and there a discarded moccasin or broken knife; again you may find an Indian ‘sweat-bath’ made of saplings bent in a half circle; the Indians cover this framework with blankets and pour water over red-hot stones which are placed at one end, making a regular Turkish bath. Usually, however, the trail is unmarred by signs of man; in many places great trees have fallen across the path and have to be cut away before you can ride on. “Mount Athabaska and Mount Wilcox loom before you, or perhaps you turn to the north, into the Brazeau country, where the mountain sheep roam in great flocks. But ever you follow the sparkling rivers, now passing deep blue-green lakes nestling among the rocks and now crossing high, treeless passes, or barren, boulder-strewn hillsides, and always surrounded by the mountains with their ever-changing colours, now gray and sombre, now red, amber, and purple as they catch the glow of the sinking sun. “The solitude and stillness are broken only by the thunder of a distant avalanche, or murmur of a near-by stream, the glorious scenery and the wildness of it all catching and holding you with a fascination that cannot be cast off.”[1] CHAPTER TWO GLACIER NATIONAL PARK AND THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK The main features of interest to the average American traveller in this Northern Rocky Mountain region are, of course, Glacier National Park and the Yellowstone National Park. Glacier Park is situated in the northwest of Montana. The reservation comprises 915,000 acres and contains 260 lakes and 60 glaciers, varying from five square miles to a few acres in area. Here as in all the other great national parks of our western country, camps have been provided, and every kind of accommodation, from this to elaborate hotels, is to be had there.