Search Results - Research Collections - Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies

A tale of two passes : an inquiry into certain alpine literature

https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/catalogue20167

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Published Date: 2008

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Publisher: Flagstaff, Arizona : Light Technology; Co-published by American Alpine Club, Alpine Club of Canada and International Association of Alpine Societies

Call Number: 08 P98 T14

1 website

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Responsibility: William L. Putnam

Publisher: Flagstaff, Arizona : Light Technology; Co-published by American Alpine Club, Alpine Club of Canada and International Association of Alpine Societies

Published Date: 2008

Physical Description: i, 219 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), maps

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Subjects: Mountaineering; Alps; Alps, Italian; History; Passes; Literature

Abstract: Written by AAC Honorary President William L Putnam, "this text is devoted to that pair of passes: the Mont Cenis and the Great Saint Bernard. Both of these mountain crossings appear to have been known and used from pre-Roman times. Both were prominently and frequently used by the Romans inestablishing and maintaining their empire; both were long adorned with hospice/shelters near their crests; and both have been by-passed by modern tunnels but are still crossed by paved highways. Despite these similiarites, their historic prominence derives from distinctly different events and factors. Herein lies the histories of these passes and stories of many travelers amongst the Alps - told as much as possible in their own words." ( from book jacket)

Contents: Introduction; Part I:; Chapter I : Early Alpine Passages; Chapter II : The Terrain; Part II:; Chapter III : Hannibal's Crossing; Chater IV : The Argument; Chapter V : The Railway; Part III:; Chater VI : The Other Route of the Ancients; Chapter VII : Hazards of the Mountain; Chapter VIII : The Great Saint Bernard in Later Literature; Chapter IX : The Early Alpinists; Chapter X : The Largest Crossing; Chapter XI : Popes and Passes; Index

Notes: Signed by author - addressed to Margaret Gmoser - dated October 19th, 2008

ISBN: 1-891824-66-X

Accession Number: AC637

Call Number: 08 P98 T14

Collection: Archives Library

URL Notes: Book available through The American Alpine Club

Websites

https://americanalpineclub.myshopify.com/products/a-tale-of-two-passes-an-inquiry-into-certain-alpine-literature

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Canadian mountain place names : The Rockies and Columbia mountains

https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/catalogue13387

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Published Date: 2006

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Publisher: Calgary : Rocky Mountain Books

Call Number: 02.01 P98c

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Responsibility: William Putnam, Glen W. Boles, Roger W. Laurilla

Publisher: Calgary : Rocky Mountain Books

Published Date: 2006

Physical Description: 279p. : ill

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Notes: Originally published under title: Place names of the Canadian Alps

ISBN: 13-978-1-894765-79-4

Accession Number: 40,000 07-09-05

Call Number: 02.01 P98c

Collection: Archives Library

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A Century of American alpinism, 2002

https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/catalogue20146

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Published Date: 2002

Author: Fay, Charles Ernest; Bent, Allen Herbert; Palmer, Howard; Thorington, James Monroe; Kauffman, Andrew John; Putnam, William Lowell

Publisher: Boulder, CO : American Alpine Club,

Call Number: G505 F39 C46

1 website

Author: Fay, Charles Ernest; Bent, Allen Herbert; Palmer, Howard; Thorington, James Monroe; Kauffman, Andrew John; Putnam, William Lowell

Responsibility: Charles Earnest Fay, Allen Herbert Bent, Howard Palmer, James Monroe Thorington, Andrew John Kauffman, William Lowell Putnam

Publisher: Boulder, CO : American Alpine Club,

Published Date: 2002

Physical Description: ix, 196 pages, xxxii pages of plates : illustrations, portraits

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Subjects: American Alpine Club; History; Mountaineering; Clubs

Abstract: Pertains to a century of American alpinism from 1902 to 2002

Contents: Forward; Preface; I Earliest American Mountaineers; II Pacific Crests; III Later and Farther North; IV Tidewater Alaska; V Early Amerian Ascents in the Alps; VI Appalachian Mountain Club Roots; VII The Social Aspect of Alpinism; VIII To the Top of the Continent; IX Other Mountain Clubs of America; X Momentous Events; XI Afield and at War; XII Changing Mores; XIII Moving West; XIV Not All Sweetness and Light; XV The Study of Mountain Elevations; XVI Exclusiveness or Inclusiveness; XVII Changing Faces; Appendices; Index

Accession Number: AC637

Call Number: G505 F39 C46

Collection: Alpine Club of Canada Library

URL Notes: American Alpine Club link to book

Websites

https://americanalpineclub.myshopify.com/products/a-century-of-american-alpinism

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Place names of the Canadian Alps

https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/catalogue2083

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Published Date: 1990

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Publisher: Revelstoke : Footprint

Call Number: F1086.4 P88 1990

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Publisher: Revelstoke : Footprint

Published Date: 1990

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Call Number: F1086.4 P88 1990

Collection: Alpine Club of Canada Library

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Place names of the Canadian Alps

https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/catalogue11952

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Published Date: 1990

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Publisher: Revelstoke : Footprint Publishing

Call Number: 02.01 P98

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Responsibility: William Putnam, Glen W. Boles, Roger W. Laurilla

Publisher: Revelstoke : Footprint Publishing

Published Date: 1990

Physical Description: xviii, 383 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Notes: Maps on endpapers and in pocket attached to back cover

ISBN: 0969162146

Accession Number: 23500

Call Number: 02.01 P98

Collection: Archives Library

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The Great Glacier and its house : the story of the first center of alpinism in North America, 1885-1925

https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/catalogue20180

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Published Date: 1982

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Publisher: New York : American Alpine Club

Call Number: 01.4 P98t reference

1 website

Author: Putnam, William Lowell

Responsibility: Willaim Lowell Putnam

Publisher: New York : American Alpine Club

Published Date: 1982

Physical Description: 23 pages : illustrations, portraits, map

Medium: Library - Book (including soft-cover and pamphlets)

Subjects: Glacier House; Illecillewaet Glacier; Selkirk Mountains; Railway routes; Railway stations; Railways; Tourism; Mountaineering; American Alpine Club; History

Abstract: he hotel is gone and the passenger trains, now rarely on time, go by only once daily. The Great Glacier has all but vanished. The motor traffic on the fast, modern highway sweeps past in ignorance that this deep, half-forgotten, Illecillewaet valley of the Selkirk Mountains, with its dark forests and glittering summits, was the cradle of professional North American mountaineering and, for several decades, the principal Canadian attraction for climbers from three continents. Surely the time has long since passed for someone to tell the story of the early days when geologists, scientists, alpinists, guides, tourists and more than a few of our continent’s empire builders stopped in Glacier, British Columbia to explore, study, climb, earn a modest living, admire the scenery or just rest from their labors. It is most appropriate that William L. Putnam, one of America’s outstanding experts on the Selkirks, should have undertaken the task of writing a history of the area. It is even more appropriate that this history should have been published by The American Alpine Club, whose first president, Professor Charles E. Fay, spent many sunny days over several seasons scaling the region’s unclimbed summits and, as we learn from the text, many rainy weeks in the Old Glacier House where at idle moments he amused himself by analyzing the comments in the hotel’s guest register. The author has labored hard and gone to great lengths to obtain original source material and to check facts. As might be expected, his story begins with the construction of the Canadian Pacific track through Roger’s Pass; without it, the central Selkirks and the outstanding Matterhorn-like crest of Mount Sir Donald would no doubt still be little known and less visited. The absence of dining cars on the early transcontinental express trains, plus the superb view of what was then the awesome Illecillewaet Glacier, led to the building of a small restaurant-hotel by the track some five miles west of the pass. In time that hotel grew to become the Canadian Pacific’s western show-piece. Tourists, scientists, mountaineers and guides arrived in growing numbers. The peaks were measured and climbed, trails were built, caves explored and an electric generator was constructed to light the premises. A pet bear was even provided on the grounds for the entertainment of guests. Then, slowly, the Great Glacier retreated, the railroad was modernized and rerouted through a five-mile tunnel some distance from the hotel, tourists and climbers alike went off to war on the battlefields of France, and the Canadian Pacific shifted its emphasis to its latter-day attraction at Lake Louise in the nearby Rockies. The old hotel was closed, then torn down, and the valley and its glacier almost forgotten. Such is the skeleton of Putnam’s story. But it is far more. Putnam has labored industriously. He has unearthed, and quoted at length, the original on-the-spot observations of the early visitors in the decades between 1890 and 1920. He has recovered ancient photographs, many excellent, to illustrate the stories and anecdotes he recounts. Thanks to his labor of love, those of us who are familiar only with modern mountaineering now have the opportunity to learn what climbing was like in the good old days around the turn of the century. Despite its deceptive scrapbook style, the work is scholarly. It is also highly nostalgic. The author is at his best with the history of the early climbing. One wishes he had personally said more and quoted less—but, then, many of the quotations are memorable. He might also have omitted, or at least modified, the chapter on distant Mount Sir Sandford, for its story, while essential in any broad account of Selkirk climbing, belongs elsewhere and shifts the focus away from the House and the Glacier at the very moment when the reader has become engrossed in both. But these, however, are minor flaws, overshadowed by good research, an entertaining style, excellent history and magnificent illustrations. Samuel H. Goodhue (from American Alpine Club)

Contents: Introduction; The Railroad Track; The House; The Tourists; First Climbers; Men of Science; Alpina Americana; Britannic Majesty; Canadians at Last; Some of the Best; The Last Big Mountain; The Rest is Silence; Appendices; A: The Guides; B: Place Names in the Central Selkirks; Bibliography; Index