The Mother of Rivers (1947)

The seven wonders of the world are out of date. The Sphinx still gazes across the immemorial sands, but where is the Colossus of Rhodes? And who has seen the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? It's high time we made a new list. And when we do, the Columbia Icefield will surely have a place in it. Only a few hours from Jasper Park Lodge, here is one of the great natural wonders of the world. Great mother of rivers, the Columbia Icefield. Whether you take the Canadian National Railway through Jasper from east or west, you pass through regions that owe their life and richness to the waters from the Columbia Icefield. The tributaries of the Thompson, the Fraser, and Columbia rivers are fed by this white mother as they race down the western slopes of the Rockies. Here too is the source of the Saskatchewan, which winds across the plains to Hudson Bay and the Atlantic. Here is born the mighty Athabasca, which flows north to the Mackenzie and the Arctic Sea. Here in Jasper National Park is the birthplace of great rivers, the vast and lonely source of waters that flows to three oceans. A highway, one of the most spectacular motor roads in the world, brings us through the wild magnificence of the Rockies, so that travelers can come to the very foot of her icy throne. 500 ft of ice and snow is her crown, and 50 ft of ice is the hem of her white robe trailing in the valley. There is a chalet at the foot of the glacier, and there are guides who will take you up onto the icefield. One of the largest tongues of the Columbia Icefield is the Athabasca Glacier. Not so long ago, it covered the valley floor. Within human memory, it overran the place where the chalet now stands. Slowly, it has been receding year by year, leaving a moraine of rock and the naked slope. For many years, the mother of rivers crouched aloof and inaccessible among the peaks, and she could be seen only from afar. But since the Canadian government built the highway, visitors from all over the world have come to Jasper National Park and have made their pilgrimage to the icefield. If you want to put the climb on the icefield, your guide will show you how it is done. Armed with steel crampons and alpenstocks, you can scale icy ledges and slopes. For although the field is covered with snow, its base is solid ice, twisted into strange, wild shapes, full of deep crevasses. It is like a sea that has been lashed by the wind and frozen by some magic at the height of its turmoil. On the return journey, the guide will demonstrate how to get home quickly. Glissading, he calls it. The guide makes it look easy, but it's a trick that takes hours of practice, hours on end. Either end. You can see the icefield in an hour if you drive down on one of the sightseeing tours from Jasper Park Lodge, or you can put up at the chalet for a longer stay. Here's a summer hotel where you can look out your window in July or August, when cities are sweltering, and see a view of ice and snow. It's fun to bring your skis, too, for the Columbia Icefield has made skiing one of the popular summer sports of Canada's largest national park. If you like, you can use a pony as a ski tow or just for a ride. The icefield is more than 150 square miles in extent. The ponies are specially shod for ice travel, and they'll take you to the very heart of the icefield, the roof of the Rockies. It's a memorable adventure to reach this climax of the Rocky Mountain system, over deposits of snow and ice that has been there for millions of years. To travel only a few miles from a modern highway and enter the ice age. For up on the Columbia Icefield, not only the centuries, but the seasons are reversed. Down on the snowy slopes, even under the hot sun of midsummer, the skiers proves that Canada can now list skis as a sport for all the year round. Born high on the rugged shoulders of the peaks, ageless and mighty, the mother of the rivers clings to her white throne in the clouds, indifferent to the storms of winter, the mists of spring, the dazzling glare of summer. To visit her is to look back down the long corridors of time, to sense the brevity of human existence, for the span of 100 years is but a moment to this old, white queen of the Rockies. Here you sense the mystery of the birth of a continent and find meaning in the words, "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."