Following Frank

Every time I start this I become mired in uncertainty so, to get it – and me – going, here are some basic things about my grandfather, starting with the picture of him that hung in our various houses when I was a child.  It was – is – huge: bigger than me when I was little, or so it seemed.

During WWII Frank went to the Canadian Rockies to train the Lovat Scouts, a Scottish unit of the British Army, in mountain warfare.  After the war he returned to Canada and two books came out of this: Rocky Mountains (1948)  and Climbs in the Canadian Rockies, published posthumously in 1950.  There is also an account of his trip across Canada in Mountains in Colour (1949). 

Sixty-five years after Frank, I’m in Jasper too.  Along with Banff, this is one of the two main bases for exploring the Rockies.  It’s a bit like Ambleside in the English Lakes, with a proliferation of gear shops and cafes, although the mountains ringing the town are at least 2-3 times higher.

On Monday I went looking for Mount Smythe (height 3,246m, or 10,650 ft).   This meant driving about 80 km south along the Icefield’s Parkway, or Route 93, claimed to be one of the top ten drives in the world.

I felt a bit of a fraud in my rented Nissan something-or-other, with automatic everything including gears and boot lock.   Frank has many accounts of tramping through rain/snow/rivers/lightening/gales, carrying a rucksack of up to 30 kilos for days on end before he got to a mountain, never mind began the actual climb.   Even taking pictures felt like cheating with a do-everything digital compact: Rocky Mountains has three pages of techno-speak, about such mysteries as the 3¼ by 2¼inch roll-film Voigtländer, F.3.5 Heliar lens, fast emulsions and parallax.  I took some pictures of what might have been the mountain, but probably wasn’t.  But I did find Mount Brussels, a peak that Frank attempted twice but was beaten back by “impassable overhangs”, “a crumbling precipice” and, finally, an approaching storm.  It was only later that evening that I realised my picture....

..must have been taken at almost the exact same spot as his.....

I wondered if it’s even the same tree.  

I also took a snap of this...

“Supposing it was  the regular thing for all mountaineers to use pitons on their climbs, would it not be a sign of the degeneracy of man?.... I still regard Mount Brussels as unclimbed, and my feelings are no different from those I should have were ... a helicopter ... to deposit its passenger on the summit...”

This is really a short P.S. to the first entry, headed Sixty-five years on...   In the past few days, I’ve found that as much as looking for Mount Smythe, I’ve become caught up in following Frank’s footsteps (tho’ that doesn’t include actually going up any serious mountains, far too weedy for that).  But I’m intrigued by what’s changed, and what hasn’t, and why?   And I find myself speculating what he might think of those changes.   In Rocky Mountains, he considers the possibilities offered by “..the recent construction of a motor road between Banff and Jasper [the Icefields Parkway opened in 1940] ... the enthusiastic mountaineer may leave Banff in the morning, motor to the Athabaska Glacier, scale Mount Athabaska and return the same day, travelling through country that a few years ago took weeks to negotiate.”  I wonder what he’d make of exploring the glacier like this....

I managed to locate Mount Smythe, theoretically, thanks to the internet, various maps, the gps co-ordinates (Latitude 52; 21; 20 Longitude 117; 28; 30)  and man called Eric Coulthard who has a fantastically extensive website of the Canadian Rockies (see link left).   He must spend every waking hour there (except that he also has job – what dedication).  This (with his permission, thanks Eric) is one of his pictures...

And in case the writing is too tiny on the web, Mt Smythe is the second peak from the right.   It’s in the Winston Churchill Range, a collection of mountains starting around 65 km south-east of Jasper, to the immediate west of the Icefields Parkway.   At 31km long and 23 km wide, it’s a drop in the vast expanse of the Rockies’ ocean.    This is another of Frank’s pictures, taken from the air on a clear day, showing around 200 of the 5,000 – yes, five thousand – miles of mountains running the length of the north American continent.

Very luckily, in all this huge, huge mass, Mt Smythe is within five miles of the Icefields Parkway and, even more exciting, it looks to be the highest point from the road.   But despite various enquiries, I couldn’t establish in advance whether it would be visible from the highway.   I hadn’t asked for gps on my rental car, but it came anyway.  I’ve been a Luddite about this technology, reckoning that the time I can’t read a map anymore is probably the time to stop driving, but I thought that it might be useful now. Yes and no, as it turned out.  No, because although I can programme it to find the nearest McDonalds, it won’t let me put in the co-ords of where I want to go.  But yes, because by pressing various buttons, and ignoring annoying beeps, the thing will eventually give me the co-ordinates of where I actually am.  

So the day after I got to Jasper, I drove to N 52; 21; 20. and pointed my camera west.

“I don't think those are the peaks. They don't look nearly high enough ....   If you drive South of Mount Smythe to the very highest point in the road you might be able to make it out in the distance by looking North. It would have 2 peaks visible from that angle. Both of which would look very steep.”

As well as seeing the mountain, I came to the Rockies to try and find out why it was called Mount Smythe, who by, and when.   Again, the internet had provided some answers but raised many more questions, so I had a morning in the Jasper Yellowhead Museum Archive.   The name Smythe produced a slightly quizzical frown from Meghan the archivist but she cheered up at mention of the Lovat Scouts and showed me to a computer squeezed into a corner in the bowels of the building.    As I was clicking through images of soldiers on skis or building an iglu, Meghan brought me a brown envelope and pair of white cotton gloves that I had to wear to extract the photo inside.

Meghan had other treats in store.   Among them was a copy of vol. XXXV of the Canadian Alpine Journal, published in 1952, with an article by Charles H Wilts describing the first ascent of Mount Smythe.

Before leaving town, I had breakfast with Anastasia, Jasper Tourism’s PR & media person.   She had already been in a touch with a local guide who’d advised that Smythe is a ‘striking mountain’ but hiking anywhere to see it would be an issue at this time of year because of the snow.    She was also looking into the cost of a flight over the Winston Churchill Range, and we laughed about what Frank would think about that, given his caustic views on the ascent of Brussels Peak.

That night, I stayed in Beauty Creek wilderness hostel, just off the Icefields Parkway.

'Wilderness' in this case means no plumbing or electricity.   As I squatted on the snowy bank, filling a flagon with water that must be boiled for five minutes to make it safe, I gazed across the Sunwapta River, knowing that just five miles behind the slopes before me, almost directly opposite, was Frank’s mountain.

No-one else was booked into Beauty Creek that evening, a blissful prospect after three nights in a 24 (or was it 26?)-bed dormitory in Jasper.   Then three people suddenly bounded down to the river.  “Is this a hostel?  Wow!   We can stay here!”     “You have to book in advance,” I told them, truthfully, in a not very hospitable tone.   They drove off, leaving me with a slight feeling of guilt, but not much and not for long.   I boiled up some pasta on the propane ring, threw in some veg and didn’t really care when I couldn’t find a can opener for the tomatoes.  I ate out of the pan to save washing up, sitting semi-outside.

Again, I felt I was cheating, taking the easy life, with a cabin instead of a tent, a bunk in place of spruce boughs, but I had sense of what Frank talks about in Rocky Mountains, even if I wasn’t a proper mountaineer walking miles through the bush to his climb:

“He will sit by his camp fire with the tall trees ranked about him and above...a million stars gleaming like jewels over his solitary encampment... he will know peace; he will feel himself to be in touch once again with infinite and elemental things.  Life will resolve itself into something simple... The tortuous and complex affairs of that other life which have vexed his spirit cannot exist side by side with his simple and primeval life...  This is what the simple life in the Canadian bush can achieve, and a month there is worth a thousand doctors and psychoanalysts.”

There was absolutely no evidence of any bears anywhere about but - just in case - I sang loudly, making up stupid rhymes when I went to the outhouse.   I couldn’t be bothered to work out the propane heater, and the mantles in eight of the 10 lamps were broken, but that didn’t matter either.  As the daylight disappeared and the temperature dropped to around zero, I snuggled into my sleeping bag.   By the beam of my tiny head-torch, I read Charles Wilts’ account of the 'nearly two days of back-breaking work' it took just to establish a base camp, six decades ago this coming summer, in the valley just beyond my view.

The following day I went on to Lake Louise, a drive of around 85 miles.  The hostel in the village is probably the cleanest and best equipped I’ve ever stayed in, with very friendly and helpful staff; it has no shortage of can openers or lights, and no danger of bears en route to the en suite loo.   But I wished I was still at Beauty Creek, getting water from the river instead of from a tap, and boiling it for five minutes before using one of my socks as a coffee filter.   Very soon after leaving there, I stopped at the high point Eric Coulthard had suggested, and as I looked north for the double peak of Mt Smythe, cloud filled the V between the two nearest slopes and all I saw was this:

Charles (Chuck) Wilts, his wife Ellen Wilts and Gil Roberts took 17 hours to climb Mount Smythe.  Chuck’s account is full of words like ‘fresh snow’ (it was August), ‘continuing storms’, ‘glaze of ice’, ‘unreliable rock’ and ‘treacherous’.    And that was immediately after the two ‘back-breaking’ days of getting to base camp.  My legs turn to jelly just reading it, but their fortitude was rewarded:

“As we reached the summit at 4.00 P.M., the storm abruptly ceased and through the clearing mists we had breathtaking views of the glaciers below.” 

Sadly, the pictures in my photocopy of Chuck’s article are too poor to reproduce.  They include one of Ellen, edging around a tiny ledge covered in loose scree and snow, and another of the two of them, with Mount Alberta in the background, reckoned by many to be the finest, most challenging climb in the Canadian Rockies (and one that defeated Frank).    So in the absence of anything from their ascent, here is another view of Mt Smythe, the ‘pointy peak’ on the far right.

There was a mistake on the internet (now corrected) so until I got a copy of Charles Wilts’ article, I hadn’t realised that a woman was in that first group to climb Mt Smythe.    I wonder what on earth Frank would have made of that.      To be fair to him, I don’t know all his books, not by a long way, but what I had read of him on the subject of women did not enchant me.    It’s one reason why I resisted knowing much about him for so long, that and the fact I loved Kathleen, my grandmother, and even as quite a young child something didn’t seem right to me.    It didn’t seem right that she blamed herself for the failure of her marriage, when he was off doing derring-do and being famous and she was left holding his babies.

For me, no account of Frank can be complete without something of Kathleen too, so here is just a tiny hint of her.

I first saw this photo shortly after she died.  She had mounted it, with a handwritten title: “When cats were cats in 1914.”  Forty years later, the baby she’s holding in this one is me:

I think I was around 10 when she turned her garden into a clock-golf course, which kept me and the rest of her grandchildren, and her 100s of piano pupils, occupied for decades. 1 o’clock (or was it 7?) was a tricky hole, because it meant negotiating the replica Mount Everest that she built in lieu of a rockery.   She rode a rickety old brakeless bicycle, into her 70s, although her balance had gone to pot.  And we could giggle almost to the very end:

When I was about 30, she gave me a copy of ‘Spirit of the Hills’, Frank’s meditation on mountains, climbing and the meaning of life (and death).  It is lyrical, mystical almost, in places.  I think she believed that I was becoming mature enough to begin to appreciate what he might have to offer me, and to understand his complexity.     I hope I am finally living up to her faith in me.     Quite recently I came across a piece Frank wrote, and photographed, on the subject of women wearing trousers.   Even allowing for the era – 1948 – I find him scathing, to the point of cruel.    One time it would have made me angry but now it almost makes me embarrassed for him, so I’m not going to reproduce it here.    I just wish he’d lived to a ripe old age so I could have talked to him about it, and about Ellen Wilts amazing achievement, even if she and her fellow climbers did resort to pitons for the final few feet. 

Skier, mountaineer, writer, climber, organiser, lecturer and guide, Chic Scott has a chapter on the Lovat Scouts in his book “Powder Pioneers.  Ski stories from the Canadian Rockies and Columbia Mountains”.  It makes various references to Frank (not entirely complimentary) so I’d got in touch with Chic several months earlier: we had some email correspondence, and I took him up on his offer to meet if I should ever find myself in Banff.    I suggested the Banff Springs, not just because it’s possibly the most famous hotel in Canada, but because I wanted to try and replicate the picture Frank took when he stayed here in 1946.

Frank liked Banff.  "This little town..." is now, according to The Rough Guide to Canada, "..the largest and busiest urban focus of any national park anywhere in the world."   For Chic, nothing could be better: he's on the doorstep of the most fabulous mountains and wilderness AND of a vibrant arts and culture scene.  

When it came to taking the picture, alterations to the building meant that I couldn’t get close to where Frank might have held his camera, added to which was my lack of skill and a rather overcast evening.

The Whyte Museum of the Rockies in Banff was opened some 20 years after Frank’s photo of the town.  It's behind the row of trees indicated by the red arrow.

“Examination of the topographic maps and guide has led us to think that this may be the highest unnamed (separate) peak left in the Rockies.  It also is a difficult and spectacular mountain in the most beautiful area we have found there.   From its vicinity one gets an unbelievable view of the N face of Alberta.   For these reasons we think this peak worthy of a name and our main purpose in writing you is to inquire about this.

“We felt that with the recent death of Frank Smythe, a peak might be named after him in the Rockies, and would like to suggest that this peak be named Mt. Smythe.  Assuming that the peak is of sufficient ‘caliber’ to bear his name, certainly the inverse is true.   It is possibly appropriate that this peak is very near one of Smythe’s attempts in the Rockies (Alberta).  We would appreciate your comments as to the suitability and possibility of such a name.”

I was taken aback to find that reading this brought a small lump to my throat.  But that sensation was in conflict with the uncomfortable feeling that has lurked throughout this quest, a discomfort summed up by Frank in Rocky Mountains:

“... the Rockies now possess the unenviable distinction of the ugliest and most haphazard nomenclature of any range in the world.  They have been named anyhow: after those who climbed and explored them, after those who had never seen them, after kings and queens, generals, politicians, cities, places and notorieties of all kinds...after anything and everything.  Such naming offends against good taste; it is an insult to Nature that man should seek to commemorate himself by imposing on her his worthless titles.

“There is only one sound principle to be adopted ... to discover a native or traditional name, and failing that, to invent one.”

Intellectually I largely agree with him, but there is an emotional pull in other directions.  There are no replies to Wilts’ letters in the Whyte archives so nothing to tell me why “Mount Smythe” is still the unofficial name, while the peaks surrounding it all have the stamp of approval.   I wonder why, whether it’s some kind of administrative issue, an oversight perhaps? Or could it be the revenge of someone Frank had offended?  Maybe there is an ancient traditional name?    I asked Andrew’s supervisor if she knew anything about official and unofficial names.  She replied that it’s all a mess.   “Mount Fifi is named after a dog.  And that’s official.” 

An unanswerable question is what Frank himself would have thought about being immortalised in this way.   Maybe he’d have stuck to the views I’ve quoted here, but maybe he’d have felt like Richard Cautley, the surveyor who delineated much of the boundary between Alberta and British Columbia early in the 20th century.  He did not believe that mountains should be called after people but when the Geographic Board of Canada named a peak in his honour he admitted:

"In theory I know that it is perfectly absurd that one of the Creator's stupendous mountains should be named after any man, but I was awfully pleased at this particular negation of my theory."

For now, I shall carry on looking for answers from my home in England and conclude this blog, at least for the time being.   I still hope to see Mount Smythe with my own eyes one day, and in the meantime sign off with another of Eric's photographs...