Mollie Adams Diary of her Journey in the Canadian Rockies August 3, 1908

Shirt Camp II.

Monday Aug. 3.

               Started at 8.30 and travelled 5 hrs.  All went well over the part they cut out yesterday, and until 11 A.M.; then troubles began again.  Recent fires, windfalls, trails washed off into the river, etc., made lots of cutting, wriggling around bad places, and hunting up of the elusive trail necessary.  We passed a dreary looking camp in a dark, gloomy patch of tall, partly burnt timber, where an Indian had evidently spent part of last winter, probably trapping, although green timber is so scarce that trapping must be pretty poor.  There was a brush teepee [sic], a pair of rather tired snowshoes, and a general look of untidiness, and M. thought spookiness about the place.  U. picked up a tom-tom as he came through, made of a piece of skin stretched over a rim of wood, with a queer drawing on it.  The Indians play them to keep off evil spirits.  The trail then went through a little hillside meadow filled with a mass of rank, tangly growth of what I called “weeds” much to M’s disgust, covering fallen burnt logs.  There were raspberry bushes among them with ripe fruit.  Then, after some waiting and prospecting, we climbed up and up until we were on top of a clay cut-bank probably 100 or more feet high.  The trail of course ran close to the edge to avoid fallen timber, and of course the edge was being constantly more and more undermined, so that what looked like solid ground was often only a thin shelf of roots, moss, etc., and if a horse had stepped on it, he would have dropped through and gone “a-slippin’ and a-slidin’ “down into the river below.  It looked a long way down, too, as we sidled past the bad spots.  W. cut small pine trees and laid them along the edge to keep the pack horses at a safe distance, and all went well.  The place is evidently a great salt lick and meeting place for many goats, their tracks thick everywhere.  We had hoped we could get as far as Buffalo Prairie near the south of the Whirlpool R., today, but at 1.30, seeing nothing but timber ahead, we camped.  An. 3850 ft.  All to bed at 8.30.  The usual rule now seems to be bed at 8.30 and up in the morning at 5:30.