Page:The Selkirk mountains (1912).djvu/138

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Along the Columbia River.

the peer of Baron Munchausen. He told his tales to humble and eminent alike, with a quaint and whimsical innocence, and his auditors were wont to say that the Sheriff came to believe them himself. They ought to have gone into black and white, and so into the literature of the country. Many of them are still retold, but only the Sheriff could have presented them in dramatic shape to the reading public. A human type of another sort was "Father Pat," a gentle Anglican Cleryman with a roving missionary commission whom navvy and miner worshipped as preacher and man, and whose tragic death occurred many years after in Montreal. No typical town of the far West contained richer material for literature than Donald, but it vanished like many nomadic settlements of the eighties and early nineties.

About one and a half miles west of Donald the railway crosses the Columbia which presently enters one of those picturesque savage gorges peculiar to the mountains. The canyon is long and narrow, confining the river by steep rock-bluff's with many a buttress capped by stately conifers, extending into the torrent and disputing it« passage. The railway track follows the curves of the river and pro vides a delightful excursion on foot.

Redgrave—Name: By the C.P.R. Company, after Sheriff Red grave of local fame as a modern Munchausen. Altitude: 2,540 feet. Location: A "siding" on the railway, seven miles from Beavermouth, where the gorge is very narrow, and close to steep overhanging cliffs. A watchman is stationed here to guard the track from falling rocks. A short distance below are two wildly foaming rapids worth a visit. Not far below the second one, the canyon widens out into wooded levels as far as Beavermouth, and the river resumes its gentler flow.

Smoking Room, Club House