This Yellowhead Pass had been, for some generations, the great natural highway of the fur trade. The Hudson Bay post was established here as early as in 1800, and the name of a yellow-haired trader, known to the Indians as "Tête Jaunne" (otherwise Jasper Hawes), led to the present name of this historic spot. One cannot but dwell a little on the Yellowhead Pass itself, as one of the special features of the trip; not merely a passage-way to traverse, but as a region rich in novel points of beauty, never { 164} twice the same, but varying with every atmospheric change and from every new angle of vision. Traverse the Yellowhead Pass by day in the brilliant sunlight; or on one of the marvellous moonlit nights, when every peak rises in silver sheens; when the stars look down as if they were great globes of light near at hand, and the walls of sheer rock are so softened under the mystic light as to be no more mere rocky precipices, but the field of the weird dances of the Brocken. Gnomes and sprites emerge from some unseen caverns; the cliffs tower into the sky and bring the stars down to earth, so as to make them seem as accessible as electric lights. There are projecting balconies far above where perhaps the Spirits of the Solitudes congregate.
The eastern approach to the Yellowhead Pass is guarded by the Boule Roche and the Roche à Perdrix Mountains, these marking, also, the entrance to Jasper Park. The fabled Valley of the Cashmere is hardly less familiar to the great tide of summer travel than is this Yellowhead region. In a preceding chapter (on the summer resorts of Canada) the pleasure resources of Jasper Park were somewhat suggested, and Mount Robson Park will doubtless also become one of the great favourites of the world. The great natural reserve of Jasper Park comprising 4400 square miles is one that for all time will be preserved in its absolute integrity. No spoliation will be permitted. It is not only a national but a continental pleasure-ground for all time. Mountain-climbers { 165} will find here the fullest scope for their prowess. More and more will the Mountaineering enthusiasts of Britain be allured to Canada instead of to Switzerland--a part of the great Empire, calling with a thousand voices to every trueborn Briton. To many visitors the best use they have for a mountain peak is to look at it rather than to ascend it. Why tramp about when the eye registers all its supreme splendour and the tourist may luxuriate in the shaded portico outside his camp and revel in the changeful panorama of colour and beauty? Or he may stroll in fertile valleys, brilliant with flowers; he may ride, or drive, along good trails with new enchantments meeting him at every turn.