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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
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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
Notes
Signed by author - addressed to Hans Gmoser
ISBN
0930410130
Accession Number
AC637
Call Number
01.4 P98t reference
Collection
Archives Library
URL Notes
Link to book review on American Alpine Club website
Websites
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This material is presented as originally created; it may contain outdated cultural descriptions and potentially offensive content. Read more.

Remembering the Ice River Valley

https://archives.whyte.org/en/permalink/catalogue20006
Medium
Library - Periodical
Author
Kellerhalls, Heather
Publisher
Alpine Club of Canada
Call Number
P
  1 website  
Author
Kellerhalls, Heather
Publisher
Alpine Club of Canada
Physical Description
p.18 - 19
Medium
Library - Periodical
Subjects
Ice
Rivers
Camps
Camps, Alpine Club of Canada
Alpine Club of Canada
Perren, Walter
Goodsir, Mount
Yoho National Park
Films
Munday, Phyllis
Gibson, Rex
Notes
In The Gazette of the Alpine Club of Canada, vol.34, no.2, summer 2019
Call Number
P
Collection
Archives Library
URL Notes
Article can be read online at this site
Websites
Less detail
This material is presented as originally created; it may contain outdated cultural descriptions and potentially offensive content. Read more.
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