The Nakimu Caves Glacier Dominion Park, B. C. [Illustration: On the road to the Caves—Ross Peak in centre.] DOMINION PARKS BRANCH Department of the Interior OTTAWA 1914 THE NAKIMU CAVES GLACIER DOMINION PARK, B.C. Near the summit of the Selkirk range of mountains in British Columbia is one of the most curious series of subterranean caves in the world. Being of recent discovery and, up to the present, almost inaccessible except to the most agile and daring they remain practically unknown to the world at large, but to those bold spirits who have dared their black depths they have offered an experience, weird, thrilling and wonderful. Less than a thousand visitors at present make the journey to the Caves each year. To the graphic description of Arthur O. Wheeler, president and founder of the Canadian Alpine Club, together with the report of W. S. Ayres, the mining engineer who was commissioned by this department to report on the Caves, the substance of this pamphlet is indebted. The Dominion Government is at present having work done which will render accessible to the public this unusual and somewhat gruesome curiosity. A good road is already built between the little alplike town of Glacier to within 6,000 feet of the Caves and a trail connects this point with the entrance. The distance is about seven miles by saddle pony from the beautiful Canadian Pacific Railway hotel at Glacier to the end of the road, and the whole journey can be finished on foot in five hours. The ride is through scenes almost incomparable, perhaps even in the Rocky or Selkirk mountains. The Yoho valley, in which flows the Cougar Creek, in the bed of which are the Caves, possesses magnificent vistas of varied mountain scenery. To quote Wheeler:—“It is difficult to express the wonder of the colour contrasts that meet the eye in the ever changing panorama of snow-clad peak, rock precipice dazzling névé, shining glacier ice and bronze-green forest of pines, midst which nestle magic lakes of changing shades of blue and green.” Mr. Wheeler remarks that the Cougar valley, in the bed of which are the Caves, is of special interest for two reasons other than the Caves:— 1. “It is of that special type known as ‘a hanging valley,’ or one that has been carved out in a U-shaped cross-section by the action of glacial erosion, and not in the form of a V, as would have occurred through the action of water erosion alone. It is, moreover, a very pronounced form of its type. The numerous small glaciers that still line the sides and head of the valley give it exceeding great beauty and interest in summer time.” 2. “I know of no other spot in the Selkirks where alpine flora is more abundant and varied, and this fact alone is an attraction not to be despised.”