But snow-shedding, while securing the safety of the line, has its drawbacks. If a structure is made too lengthy it becomes filled with suffocating smoke which obscures all signals, and deadens all sounds. In summer another danger exists. The district threaded is one ravaged heavily by forest fires, and the danger from this enemy was only too vividly apparent. At this juncture Mr. W. C. Van Horne came to the rescue of the engineers, as he had done on many previous occasions, to extricate them from their difficulty. He suggested that the maximum length of a single shed should be 3000 feet, and where the conditions demanded a long continuous length of this protection, that it should be broken up into units with wide, clear intervals of open line between. To prevent these “breaks” becoming filled with debris he resorted to an ingenious expedient. Up on the mountain side he built what is known as a “split fence.” This is a triangular erection, with the apex pointing towards the mountain top, of heavy massive construction and filled and banked with masonry. The descending slide strikes this obstruction, becomes split in twain, one half is deflected so as to roll over the roof of the snow-shed on one side, and the other half caused to glance off in a similar manner on the other side. If one of these constructions did not secure the desired end, then another was planted above it higher up the mountain side. The success of this system has been remarkable, and it has enabled the company to reduce the lengths of the sheds very appreciably. Shortly after the line was opened the protective handiwork of the engineers was subjected to trying tests. The winter of 1886–7 was one of excessive severity even for the Selkirks. In less than a week 8½ feet of snow fell, and the blizzard raged continuously for three weeks. Slides were of daily occurrence, the silence of the mountains being broken by the continuous roar of the avalanche. The snowfall on the summits exceeded 35 feet, and the white mantle was piled upon the roofs of the sheds to a depth of 50 feet. The slides were of terrific fury, some rattling down the slopes with such force and speed as to rebound 300 feet or so up the opposite mountain side. Thousands of tons of rock, some pieces as large as a small villa, were caught up in their frantic rushes, while tall, thick trees were snapped off like matches and tossed about like straws. Yet with one exception the sheds withstood the terrible bombardments to which they were subjected. The solitary case had the roof torn off completely to be thrown well above the track on the mountain side.