Arthur Philemon Coleman was a passionate Canadian and one of the first to truly discover the beauty and majesty of this country''s mountain ranges as an explorer, geologist and mountaineer. In 1884, before the railway traversed the Rocky and Columbia mountains, Coleman headed west on the first of what would be eight mountaineering expeditions, making his way on foot and pack horse, with Native guides and without, over passes in Alberta and British Columbia. First published in 1911, this new edition gives modern-day readers a glimpse of the early days of mountaineering in the Canadian west. It paints a sympathetic picture of the rugged men and women who opened the region and of the hardships they endured. In his travels he encountered some of the main characters in Canadian mountaineering history, including Mary Schdffer, Joby Beaver, Frank Sibbald, Reverend George Kinney and Adolphus Moberly.
