CHAPTER V

CANAL FLATS TO BEAVERMOUTH

Chester's instructions respecting the two new pictures he wanted us to work on came through to Roos the day following our return to Windermere. One of these was to be confined entirely to the Big Bend voyage. Essaying again my role of "gentleman-cum-sportsman," I was to get off the train at Beavermouth, meet my boatman, launch the boat and start off down the river. The various things seen and done _en voyage_ were to make up the picture.

In the other picture I was to play the part of a young rancher who was farming his hard-won clearing on the banks of the Columbia near its source. With the last of his crops in, he is assailed one day with a great longing to see the ocean. Suddenly it occurs to him that the river flowing right by his door runs all the way to the sea, and the sight of a prospector friend, about to push off with a sack of samples for the smelter many hundreds of miles below, suggests a means of making the journey. And so the two of them start off down the Columbia. What happened to them on their way was to be told in the picture. The introductory scenes of this picture were to be made somewhere in the vicinity of Windermere, but the thread of the story was to be picked up below the Arrow Lakes after the Big Bend voyage was over.

Hunting "location" and rainy weather kept us four or five days in Windermere and vicinity, giving an opportunity we otherwise would have missed to meet and become acquainted with the always kindly and hospitable and often highly distinguished people of this beautiful and interesting community. From the time of David Thompson, the great astronomer and explorer of the Northwest Company who wintered there in 1810, down to the present Windermere seems always to have attracted the right sort of people. The predominant class is what one might call the gentleman-farmer, with the stress perhaps on "gentleman." I mean to say, that is, that while a number of them have failed of outstanding achievement as farmers, there was none that I met who would not have qualified as a gentleman, and in the very best sense of the word. Sportsmen and lovers of the out-of-doors, there was this fine bond of fellowship between all of them. Nowhere have I encountered a fresher, more wholesome social atmosphere than that of this fine community of the upper Columbia.

That genial and big-hearted old Scot, Randolph Bruce, I recall with especial affection, as must every one of the many who has known the hospitality of his great log lodge on a bay of the lake below Invermere. An Edinburgh engineer, Bruce was one of the builders of the Canadian Pacific, and as such an associate and intimate of Van Horne, O'Shaughnessy and the rest of those sturdy pioneers who pushed to accomplishment the most notable piece of railway construction the world has ever known. In love with the West by the time the railway was finished, he built him a home in the most beautiful spot he knew--such a spot as few even among the Scottish lochs could rival--and associated himself with various projects for the advancement of the country. At the present time he is the owner of the Paradise mine, one of the richest silver-lead properties in British Columbia, and the head of an enterprise which purposes to bring the Windermere region to its own among the grandest of the playgrounds of North America.

We made the preliminary scenes for the "farmer" picture at a gem of a little mountain ranch in a clearing to the west of Lake Windermere. Shooting through one of his favourite "sylvan frames," Roos picked me up violently shocking hay at the end of a long narrow field which the labour of a young Scotch immigrant had reclaimed from the encompassing forest. (As a matter of fact the hay was already in shocks when we arrived, and I had to unshock a few shocks so as to shock them up again before the camera and thus give the impression that this was the last of my season's crop.) Then I threw up a couple of shocks for him set up at closer range, with more attention to "technique." (This latter came easy for me, as I had been pitching hay for a fortnight on my California ranch earlier in the summer.) Finally I stopped work, leaned on my fork and gazed into the distance with visioning eyes. (I was supposed to be thinking of the sea, Roos explained, and in the finished picture there would be a "cut-in" of breakers at this point.) Then I registered "impatience" and "restlessness," hardening to "firm resolve." At this juncture I threw down my fork and strode purposefully out of the right side of the picture. (The cabin to which I was supposed to be striding was really on my left, but Roos explained that some sort of a movie Median law made it imperative always to exit to right.) Then we went over to make the cabin shots.

The owner of the cabin was away at the moment, but his young Scotch wife--a bonnie bit of a lass who might have been the inspiration for "Annie Laurie"--was on hand and mightily interested. She asked if I was Bill Hart, and Roos made the tactical error of guffawing, as though the idea was absurd. She was a good deal disappointed at that, but still very ready to help with anything calculated to immortalize her wee home by emblazoning it on the imperishable celluloid. First I strode into the cabin, but almost immediately to emerge unfolding a map. Going over to a convenient stump, I sat down and disposed of a considerable footage of "intent study." Then we made a close-up of the map--the Pacific Northwest--with my index finger starting at Windermere and tracing the course of the Columbia on its long winding way to the sea. That proved that there was water transit all the way to that previous cut-in of breakers which my visioning eyes had conjured up just before I threw down my fork. I stood up and gazed at the nearby river (which was really Lake Windermere, a mile distant), and presently stiffened to my full height, registering "discovery." What I was supposed to see was a prospector tinkering with his boat. As this latter scene could not be made until we had bought a boat and signed up a "prospector," all that was left to do here was to shoot me striding away from the cabin on the way to discuss ways and means with my mythical companion, and then striding back, getting my roll of blankets and exiting in a final fade-out. As we had neglected to provide a roll of blankets for this shot, we had to improvise one from such material as was available. I forget all that went to make up that fearful and wonderful package; but it is just as well the precariously-roped bundle didn't resolve into its component parts until the fade-out was pretty nearly complete.

Roos tried hard to introduce "human interest" and "heart appeal" by staging a farewell scene with "wife and child," both of which were ready to hand. I was adamant, however, even when he agreed to compromise by leaving out the child. He was rather stubborn about it, refusing to admit the validity of my argument to the effect that a would-be screen hero who deserted so fair a wife would alienate the sympathies of the crowd at the outset. Finally it was decided for us. "It's too late noo," cooed a wee voice in which I thought I detected both reproach and relief; "while ye're talkin', yon cooms Jock."

It _was_ too late all right; even Roos was ready to grant that. Jock was about six-feet-three, and built in proportion. Also a wee bitty dour, I thought. At least he glowered redly under his bushy brows when he discovered that I had wrapped up his own and another _nicht-goon_ in my hastily assembled blanket-roll. If that bothered him, I hate to think what might have happened had he surprised that farewell scene, especially as Roos--with his Mack Sennett training and D. W. Griffith ideals--would have tried to stage it.

Roos was young and inexperienced, and lacking in both finesse and subtlety. I granted that this wouldn't have cramped his style much in doing "old home town stuff;" but farther afield it was electric with dangerous possibilities. Driving back to the hotel I quoted to him what Kipling's hero in "The Man Who Would Be King" said on the subject, paraphrasing it slightly so he would understand. "A man has no business shooting farewell scenes with borrowed brides in foreign parts be he three times a crowned movie director," was the way I put it.

It was my original intention to start the boating part of my Columbia trip from Golden, at the head of the Big Bend, the point at which the calm open reaches of the upper river give way to really swift water. The decision to make the push-off from Beavermouth, twenty-nine miles farther down, was come to merely because it was much easier to get the boat into the water at the latter point. There was little swift-water boating worthy of the name above Beavermouth. Donald Canyon was about the only rough water, and even that, I was assured, was not to be mentioned in the same breath with scores of rapids farther down the Bend. In the ninety miles between the foot of Lake Windermere and Golden there were but twenty-five feet of fall, so that the winding river was hardly more than a series of lagoon-like reaches, with a current of from one to four miles an hour. Between Columbia Lake--practically the head of the main channel of the river--and Mud Lake, and between the latter and the head of Lake Windermere, there was a stream of fairly swift current, but at this time of year not carrying enough water to permit the passage of even a canoe without much lining and portaging.

From the practical aspect, therefore, I was quite content with the plan to start my voyage from Beavermouth. For the sake of sentiment, however, I _did_ want to make some kind of a push-off from the very highest point that offered sufficient water to float a boat at the end of September. This, I was assured in Invermere, would be Canal Flats, just above the head of Columbia Lake and immediately below the abandoned locks which at one time made navigation possible between the Kootenay and the Columbia. Although these crude log-built locks have never been restored since they were damaged by a great freshet in the nineties, and although the traffic they passed in the few years of their operation was almost negligible, it may be of interest to give a brief description of the remarkable terrain that made their construction possible by the simplest of engineering work, and to tell how the removal of a few shovelfuls of earth effected the practical insulation of the whole great range of the Selkirks.

As a consequence of recent geological study, it has been definitely established that the divide between the Columbia and Kootenay rivers, now at Canal Flats, was originally a hundred and fifty miles farther north, or approximately where Donald Canyon occurs. That is to say, a great wall of rock at the latter point backed up a long, narrow lake between the Rockies on the east and the Selkirks on the west. This lake, unable to find outlet to the north, had risen until its waters were sufficiently above the lower southern barriers to give it drainage in that direction. At that time it was doubtless the main source of the Kootenay River, and its waters did not reach the Columbia until after a long and devious southerly course into what is now Montana, thence northward into Kootenay Lake, and finally, by a dizzy westerly plunge, into a much-extended Arrow Lake. An upheaval which carried away the dyke at Donald provided a northward drainage for the lake, and the divide was ultimately established at what is now called Canal Flats. It was a shifting and precarious division, however, for the Kootenay--which rises some distance to the northward in the Rockies and is here a sizable stream--discharged a considerable overflow to the Columbia basin at high water. It was this latter fact which called attention to the comparative ease with which navigation could be established between the two rivers by means of a canal. For an account of how this canal came to be built I am indebted to E. M. Sandilands, Esq., Mining Recorder for the British Columbia Government at Wilmer, who has the distinction of being, to use his own language, "the person who made the Selkirk Mts. an Island by connecting the Columbia and Kootenay rivers."

Mr. Sandilands, in a recent letter, tells how an ex-big-game hunter by the name of Baillie-Grohman obtained, in 1886, a concession from the Provincial Government of British Columbia for 35,000 acres of land along the Kootenay River. In return for this he was to construct at his own expense a canal connecting the Columbia and Kootenay. This cut was for the ostensible purpose of opening up navigation between the two streams, but as nothing was stipulated in respect of dredging approaches the obligation of the concessionaire was limited to the construction of the canal and locks. "For this reason," writes Mr. Sandilands, who was working on the job at the time, "our 'Grand Canal' was practically useless. Nevertheless, in 1888, it was opened with due form and pomp, engineer, contractor and concessionaire paddling up to the lock in a canoe well laden with the 'good cheer' demanded by such an occasion. I was driving a team attached to a 'slush-scraper,' and together with a jovial Irish spirit who rejoiced in the name of Thomas Haggerty, was ordered by the foreman to scrape out the false dam holding the Kootenay back from the canal. This we did as long as we dared. Then I was deputed, with gum-boots and shovel, to dig a hole through what was left of the false dam, and allow the Kootenay into the canal and the Columbia. This being done, the fact was wired to the Provincial Government at Victoria ..., and the promised concession of land was asked for and granted. I little thought at the time," Mr. Sandilands concludes, "how distinguished a part I was playing, that I was making the Selkirk Mountains an 'Island,' a fact which few people realize to this day."

Later a little dredging was done, so that finally, by dint of much "capstaning," a shallow-draught stern-wheeler was worked up to and through the lock and canal, and on down the Kootenay to Jennings, Montana. It was Captain F. P. Armstrong who performed this remarkable feat, only to lose the historic little craft later in one of the treacherous canyons of the Kootenay. His also was the distinction, after maintaining an intermittent service between the Columbia and Kootenay for a number of years, of being the captain and owner of the last boat to make that amazing passage.

We reached Canal Flats at the end of a forty-mile auto-ride from Invermere. Traces of the old dredged channel were still visible running up from the head of Columbia Lake and coming to an abrupt end against a caving wall of logs which must at one time have been a gate of the inter-river lock. Out of the tangle of maiden hair fern which draped the rotting logs came a clear trickle of water, seeping through from the other side of the divide. This was what was popularly called the source of the Columbia. I could just manage to scoop the river dry with a quick sweep of my cupped palm.

A hundred yards below the source the old channel opened out into a quiet currentless pool, and here I found a half-filled Peterboro belonging to a neighbouring farmer, which I had engaged for the first leg of my voyage down the Columbia. It leaked rather faster than I could bail, but even at that it floated as long as there was water to float it. Fifty yards farther down a broad mudbank blocked the channel all the way across, and in attempting to drag the old canoe out for the portage, I pulled it in two amidships. I had made my start from almost chock-a-block against the source, however. Sentiment was satisfied. I was now ready for the Bend. Groping my way back to the car through an almost impenetrable pall of mosquitoes, I rejoined Roos and we returned to Invermere.

A wire from Blackmore stating that it would still be several days before his boat was ready for the Bend offered us a chance to make the journey to Golden by river if we so desired. There was nothing in it on the boating side, but Roos thought there might be a chance for some effective scenic shots. I, also, was rather inclined to favour the trip, for the chance it would give of hardening up my hands and pulling muscles before tackling the Bend. An unpropitious coincidence in the matter of an Indian name defeated the plan. Roos and I were trying out on Lake Windermere a sweet little skiff which Randolph Bruce had kindly volunteered to let us have for the quiet run down to Golden. "By hard pulling," I said, "we ought just about to make Spillimacheen at the end of the first day." "Spill a what?" ejaculated Roos anxiously; "you didn't say 'machine,' did you?" "Yes; Spillimacheen," I replied. "It's the name of a river that flows down to the Columbia from the Selkirks." "Then that settles it for me," he said decisively. "I don't want to spill my machine. It cost fifteen hundred dollars. I'm not superstitious; but, just the same, starting out for a place with a name like that is too much like asking for trouble to suit yours truly." And so we went down to Golden by train and put in the extra time outfitting for the Bend.

Golden, superbly situated where the Kicking Horse comes tumbling down to join the Columbia, is a typical Western mining and lumbering town. Save for their penchant for dramatizing the perils of the Big Bend, the people are delightful. It is true that the hospitable spirit of one Goldenite _did_ get me in rather bad; but perhaps the fault was more mine than his. Meeting him on the railway platform just as he was about to leave for Vancouver, he spoke with great enthusiasm of his garden, and said that he feared some of his fine strawberries might be going to waste in his absence for lack of some one to eat them. I gulped with eagerness at that, and then told him bluntly--and truthfully--that I would willingly steal to get strawberries and cream, provided, of course, that they couldn't be acquired in some more conventional way. He hastened to reassure me, saying that it wouldn't be necessary to go outside the law in this case. "The first chance you get," he said with a twinkle in his eye, "just slip over and make love to my housekeeper, and tell her I said to give you your fill of berries and cream, and I have no doubt she'll provide for you."

If his Vancouver-bound train had not started to pull out just then, perhaps he would have explained that that accursed "love stuff" formula was a figure of speech. Or perhaps he felt sure that I would understand it that way, if not at once, at least when the time came. And I would have, ordinarily. But my strawberry-and-cream appetite is so overpowering that, like the lions at feeding time, my finer psychological instincts are blunted where satiation is in sight. That was why I blurted out my hospitable friend's directions almost verbatim when I saw that the door of his home (to which I had rushed at my first opportunity) had been opened by a female. It was only after I had spoken that I saw that she was lean, angular, gimlet-eyed, and had hatred of all malekind indelibly stamped upon her dour visage. She drew in her breath whistlingly; then controlled herself with an effort. "I suppose I must give you the berries and cream," she said slowly and deliberately, the clearly enunciated words falling icily like the drip from the glacial grottoes at the head of the Columbia; "but the--the other matter you would find a little difficult."

"Ye-es, ma'am," I quavered shiveringly, "I would. If you'll please send the strawberries and cream to the hotel I am quite content to have it a cash transaction."

Considering the way that rapier-thrust punctured me through and through, I felt that I deserved no little credit for sticking to my guns in the matter of the strawberries and cream. For the rest, I was floored. The next time any one tries to send me into the Hesperides after free fruit I am going to know who is guarding the apples; and I am _not_ going to approach the delectable garden by the love-path.

I had taken especial pains to warn Roos what he would have to expect from Golden in the matter of warnings about the Big Bend, but in spite of all, that garrulous social centre, the town pool-room, did manage to slip one rather good one over on him before we got away. "How long does it take to go round the Bend?" he had asked of a circle of trappers and lumber-jacks who were busily engaged in their favourite winter indoor-sport of decorating the pool-room stove with a frieze of tobacco juice. "Figger it fer yerself, sonny," replied a corpulent woodsman with a bandaged jaw. "If yer gets inter yer boat an' lets it go in that ten-twent'-thirt' mile current, it's a simpl' problum of 'rithmatick. If yer ain't dished in a souse-hole, yer _has_ ter make Revelstoke insider one day. As yer has ter do sum linin' to keep right side up, it's sum slower. Best time any of us makes it in is two days. But we never rushes it even like that 'nless we're hurryin' the cor'ner down ter sit on sum drownded body."

As the whole court had nodded solemn acquiescence to this, and as none had cracked anything remotely resembling a smile, Roos was considerably impressed--not to say depressed. (So had I been the first time I heard that coroner yarn.) Nor did he find great comfort in the hotel proprietor's really well-meant attempt at reassurance. "Don't let that story bother you, my boy," the genial McConnell had said; "they _never_ did take the coroner round the Big Bend. Fact is, there _never_ was a coroner here that had the guts to tackle it!"

We met Blackmore at Beavermouth the afternoon of the twenty-eighth of September. He reported that his boat had been shipped from Revelstoke by that morning's way freight, and should arrive the following day. As I had been unable to engage a boatman in Golden, and as Blackmore had found only one in Revelstoke to suit him, it was decided to give me an oar and a pike-pole and make out the best we could without another man. I had brought provisions for a fortnight with me from Golden, and Blackmore had tents and canvases. Through the efforts of influential friends in Golden I had also been able to secure two bottles of prime Demerara rum. Knowing that I was going to pick up at least one cask of Scotch on the way, and perhaps two or three, I had not been very keen about bothering with the rum. But on the assurance that it might well be two or three days before any whisky was found, and that getting wet in the Columbia without something to restore the circulation was as good as suicide, I allowed myself to be persuaded. It was wonderful stuff--thirty per cent. over-proof; which means that it could be diluted with four parts of water and still retain enough potency to make an ordinary man blink if he tried to bolt it. We did find one man--but he was not ordinary by any means; far from it. I will tell about "Wild Bill" in the proper place.

There was a wonderful _aurora borealis_ that night--quite the finest display of the kind I recall ever having seen in either the northern or southern hemispheres. Blackmore--weather-wise from long experience--regarded the marvellous display of lambently licking light streamers with mixed feelings. "Yes, it's a fine show," he said, following the opalescent glimmer of the fluttering pennants with a dubious eye; "but I'm afraid we'll have to pay through the nose for it. It means that in a couple of days more the rain will be streaming down as fast as those lights are streaming up. Just about the time we get well into Surprise Rapids there will be about as much water in the air as in the river. However, it won't matter much," he concluded philosophically, "for we'll be soaked anyway, whether we're running or lining, and rain water's ten degrees warmer than river water."