1931 Glacier Exploration - PURCELL MOUNTAINS - Rowand

Author: THORINGTON, J. Monroe and CROMWELL, Eaton.
Publisher: London: Royal Geographical Society, 1931

Notes & Condition: This is a captivating chronicle of a mountaineering and mapping expedition, in which is debated earlier discoveries and explorations by David Thompson. The authors made extensive explorations, following Dutch Creek, climbing the Trikootenay glacier, traversing the Toby and Findlay snowfields, and examining random environs, altogether resulting in a better understanding of the Purcell watershed south of Earl Grey Pass, the naming of Mount Rowand, and making great discoveries in the massive snow-clad Canadian Kootenay Region! The Purcell Mountains are a mountain range in British Columbia, Canada, located on the west side of the Columbia Valley and on the east side of the valley of Kootenay Lake.

Narrative is 14 pages, plus black and white photographic illustrations. Also includes a full-page sketch map. These are original pages printed in 1931, in excellent condition. Attractively bound booklet style in modern blue paper covers with label.

Glacier Exploration and Ascents in BC's Purcell Mountains!

The Columbia River, rising in Columbia Lake, South East British Columbia, Canada, flows first North West in the Rocky Mountain trench, then hooks sharply about the Selkirk Mountains to flow South through Upper Arrow Lake and Lower Arrow Lake and receive the Kootenai River before entering the United States. The first white folk to arrive overland were the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the fur traders. The river was the focus of the American settlement that created Oregon, and the river was itself sometimes called the Oregon River or the River of the West.

After 1932 plans gradually developed to use the Columbia River to its ultimate possibility, and the Columbia basin project was established. Its purpose is to establish flood control, which would alleviate the destruction seen in the Columbia's greatest flood, to improve navigation; and to produce hydroelectric power to supply the Pacific Northwest. The Columbia River has created regal gorges by cutting through the Cascades and the Coast Ranges; it is fed by the Cowlitz and Willamette rivers, which drain the Puget trough between those ranges. It was created during the last ice age when the Columbia's course was blocked by ice, forcing it to cut a new channel through the Columbia Plateau. When the ice receded the river resumed its former channel.