Shadows

I can see my shadow! I can see my shadow! I admit this may not seem worthy of a journal entry to you, but after yet another night of the "R" word (we're no longer allowed to use that four letter word), a shadow is something worth celebrating. (Just ask Peter Pan.)

We began our day by driving in drizzle (notice that I didn't use the forbidden "R" word). Route 1 took us to the end of Yoho into Canada's Glacier Park. The mountains of Canada all seem to have a story to tell and those of the Silkirk range in Glacier Park are no different. The story of the Silkirks is one of man's struggle with nature. "The Snow War", as it is referred to, tells the history of a vital transportation corridor through Rogers Pass.

By 1881, a century of searching had located only one route across the Silkirks. Railway surveyor Major A. B. Rogers and his crew struggled across fallen trees, through constant dripping rain, through shoulder high Devil's Club whose spikes can rip clothing, across steep rocky slopes, swamps and skunk cabbage to arrive at a narrow pass at the summit of the Silkirks. That pass now bears his name and the founding of it marked the beginning of the first railway across the Silkirks and Columbia Mountains.

The story told at the visitor center at Rogers Pass and on trails around the park details the difficult job of building this railway. The undertaking was hindered by constant forest fires followed by wet weather, that overflowed rivers to wash away bridge foundations. But the force which would eventually change the course of history at Rogers Pass was the white death - the avalanche.

Avalanches speed down slopes at velocities of 325 km an hour, snapping trees in their paths like matchsticks. During the building of the railway, avalanches were bigger than anticipated. They buried lines in more than twelve meters of snow, killing several men in their paths.

Thirty one snowsheds were constructed to protect the line from the worst slide paths known. But on March 4, 1910, a half hour before midnight, an unexpected avalanche swept down the side of a mountain encasing 62 men in a snow-walled tomb. The event was devestating and the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) acknowledge defeat and prepared to retreat from the summit of the pass.

It was three years later, in 1913, that construction began again. But this time from underground. In December of 1916, the first train pulled through the 8 km Connaught Tunnel, the longest railway tunnel in Canada.

Today the rail line is an impressive sight looping four times to cross two rivers and winding ultimately through numerous mountains to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific.