| |
| advertisement |
| -------- |
| advertisement |
|
Bow Pass The Icefields Parkway can
be neatly divided into two passes and their
approaches. Bow Pass is the southern summit
of these two, traversing the highest road
altitude between Lake Louise and
Saskatchewan River Crossing. It is also the
highest point on the Icefields Parkway. A
ride over the pass is described in more
detail on this
page, under the heading "la promenade
des glaciers - the Icefields Parkway".
Approaches From South. This road is a wide
highway with a shoulder the size of almost
another road. The shoulder is however
sacrificed for a climbing lane for cars on the
way to Bow Lake.
From North. Again it is surprising,
just how few turns this highway has to make to
reach a pass surrounded by glaciers. Tours Extended Tour. The
Icefields Parkway is where vacationing bicycle
tourists converge in the summer. While the
rest of the continent may be ruled by
stinking, polluting ATVs, and noisy 4wd
trucks, Bow Pass is filled with cycle tourists
from around the world, touring in pairs,
groups or solo. There is a youth hostel
network along the road. However, campground do
not make special provisions for cyclists. The
800hp camping rigs with motorized lifts and
awnings, satellite dishes and noisy propane
electricity generators still rule this
continent.  History
Exploration by military and official expeditions: The Palliser Expedition. (<Kicking Horse Pass|) The period prior to the civil war was a time when many of the northern Montana passes became officially mapped. This also prompted a push for more exploration to the north in the Canadian Rockies. Far less populated and still under British control, many of the commonly used passes during fur trading days were all but forgotten. Meanwhile Canada and the American states had settled on the 49th parallel as their boundary. For the majority of Columbia River bound Canadian travelers, this made it necessary to cross into the US in order to get across the Rocky Mountains. This situation had to be remedied, especially if there was ever going to be a Canadian transcontinental railroad. The result was the Palliser Expedition. Its independent group of British, Scottish-French halfbreeds and one American managed to split into three groups and rediscover many "new" passes. But their most important discovery was really caused by an accident, when a a horse plunging into a river caused injury, the loss of food, and a desperate search for a quick way back. This resulted in the discovery of aptly named "Kicking Horse" Pass. Nobody knew it at the time, but Kicking Horse Pass would later become the answer to the real lasting impact of the Palliser Survey: the route for a Canadian transcontinental railroad. A recorded crossing over Bow Pass was an anticlimactic afterthought during that same fall in 1858. One of the three group leaders of the Palliser expedition, John Hector had an Indian guide. His name is recorded as "Nimrod", because Hector could not pronounce it. According to Marshall Spraque's "The Great Gates", Nimrod guided a number of members of the Palliser Expedition under James Hector over Bow Pass down the Mistaya River to the North Saskatchewan and winter quarters at Fort Edmunton. The next June Hector would go Frazier River hunting again. His Indian guide eventually vanished into thin air, and Hector redsicovered another "new" passes from the fur trader days that is still a trail today, Howse Pass.
Modern Highways (<Sunwapta
Pass|) The Icefields Parkway was a
late result of the road building frenzy
that followed WW1 in both the US
and Canada. The first Canadian Rockies
Pass to be crossed by a highway was
Vermillion Pass in 1923. Kicking Horse,
Crowsnest, Yellowhead and Sinclair
followed. Finally Canada's first
commissioner of Public Parks planned a
route north along the main range from
Banff. Sunwapta Pass was crossed first
and the early version of the highway was
completed in 1940. |
