[Illustration: THE STEEL ARCH BRIDGE ACROSS STONEY CREEK IN THE SELKIRK MOUNTAINS This graceful structure replaced a wooden bridge supported on timber towers 200 feet in height.] Rogers’ Pass, as this defile through the Selkirks was named in honour of the discoverer, was followed. It did not offer any great difficulties from the grading point of view. The greatest enemy was snow and avalanche. The snowfall among these mountains is the heaviest along the line, while the avalanches are of terrible frequency. Consequently the absorbing question was how to keep the line intact after once it had been laid. It was impossible to avoid the defined paths of the snow movements entirely, and in these cases huge sheds had to be erected to carry the avalanche harmlessly over the track to expend its violence in the gulch below. The extent of snow-shedding through the Selkirks is amazing, and it has proved terribly costly. [Illustration: THE RAILWAY TRAVERSING THE TUMBLED THOMPSON RIVER CANYON] When the engineers attacked this country, as the laying of the track was the paramount requirement it was pushed forward with all speed during the short summer, and parties of men equipped with meteorological instruments, and vehicles for movement during winter, and supplies of stores, were left at different points to study the snow question, so as to collect data for the situation of the snow-sheds. There was no difficulty in determining this latter point, for the avalanches appeared to rain down upon the track from all sides. The question was not so much where to introduce the sheds, but where they could be omitted. It appeared as if the line would have to be carried almost continuously through a wooden tunnel to ensure its safety. That the snow-fiend is no mean enemy was brought home forcibly some three years ago. While a snow, train was climbing up the western slope, clearing away the accumulated mass of snow and debris deposited by a slide upon the track, another avalanche swept down upon the little band working so desperately to cut a path for the mail. Over 100 men were on the train when the terror of the mountains struck them and swept the whole into the gulch below, the locomotives and plough weighing over 50 tons being bowled over and over like an india-rubber ball as they were hurtled down the steep slopes. Over fifty lives were lost in that catastrophe, and it was but one of many which have happened since the Selkirks were first gridironed by the railway.