Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-08-16
The Uncouth Giants

The Uncouth Giants
That's the way the rest of us felt about
1t The mountains that surround Banff-
the little village seems as If set down at the
bottom of a gigantic teacup-are big and
rude and uncouth and awe-inspiring They
are not the kind of mountains you can be-
come confidential with or call by their first
names. They keep you at a distance and
make you feel little and mean aid WORTH
less. In their presence you begin to recol-
lect whole lot of things that you wish
you hadn't done. You remember with pain
the time you hit Tower with a fence rail
because he wouldn't beg, and the fateful
day when you threw the cat over the back
fence. And you wonder, with a half-pity-
ing thought for your own insignifcance, II,
perhaps, the gods are not enthroned on
these seats of the mighty, looking down,
patient and tolerant and smiling.
1 never thought the time would come
when I'd stand stock still with my eyes
and my mouth wide open and say nothing
but An" and oh for half an hour. Did
you ever get tangled up with crowd
at a fireworks display and hear the
"A-h-h-h" that goes up when BONN
bursts way up in the heavens and lets
loose the imprisoned stars and makes
and things? Well. except for disparI,y
in numbers, our party behaved just the
same way this morning as We stool on
the station platform at Bann and let that
line of scenery get on our nerves. And
after about half an hour of that sort OF
thing we all seemed to wake up stimuli
taneously. The funny thing about it. too,
was that none of us felt bit foolish
>Of course, as the day wore on we sort
of became used to the premises. We got
so after awhile that any one of US could
take a long look around without his lower
Jaw becoming Unmatched and swinging
| loose on it's hinges. And then we really
began to enjoy it. 1 know did. Before
| that my interior mechanism was entirely
| too futtery and my mental equipment
i to- c-f1 Of
Banff order in allopathfc doses is danger
Gus to the transient from the unmoun-
famous east
Slathers of Scenery.
There's one grand thing about this Banfr
place There's nothing around here to take
ones mind off the scenery. And there s
plenty of the latter to keep the visitor busy
using all the eyes he has. After breakfast
we walked the winding road that leads along
| the side of one of the biggest of the big
mountains up to the &. Z. X. Hotel which,
| l venture to say, has the finest site of any
| hotel this side of Never Never Land. l be-
| gan to realize, too, during this interesting
| stroll, that Banff, even If 1t is at the bot
| tom of a great teacup, is still pretty high
| up in the air. For hadn't walked an ordi-
| nary city block before l was putting and
| blowing like porpoise. And there wasn't
| a man in the party who was in any better
shape. Right in this connection l may men,
ton that one of those big peakS-Rundle,
| think 1t isis so high that you can boil an
| egg in ice water at the top of 1t. / don't
| know that any driveling idiot ever tried it,
| so I'll put it merely as scientific fact.
| Banh is within the confines of the Cana
| dian Rocky Mountain park. very much like
| our own Yellowstone as to management and
purpose, but comprising 5000 square miles
| and when the hotel was reached Howard
| Douglass, the car of all that domain was
! waiting with couple of northwest mounted
| police teams to take the party on a drive
| And hair-raising experience 1t was. The
| road winds, corkscrew fashion, up the side
OF big mountain and down again AT
| times the wheels of the vehicles-driven as
| they were by policemen whose nerves had
| been removed when they Joined the force
| passed SO close to the edge of the road
| that loose stones rolled from under the iron
| tires down a couple of million feet more OF
| less, into the bottom of the teacup below
| l was scared stiff. and don't mind admit
| ting 1t now. but at the time / was sure
| everybody thought / was enjoying myself
1t wasn't until my return to the hotel wher
one of the party informed me that during
particularly perilous portion of the drive
| my face reSembled a plaster cast of the
late Mark Anteny's classic countenance
that ! realized that my feelings were moi
| at all times under control But as the
same kind friend who made this crushins
comment confessed to me that he hac
| tainted thirteen times at as many crucia
moments during the little pleasure trip.
i didn't feel so badly about 1t.
The Alps Are Nowhere.
I can understand, after today, why It ).
that the eyes of the world lately have
been more and more directed to the ex
traordinary wonderland of the Canadian
Rockies. and why lovers of Alpine scenery
are going there in constantly increasing