discovered that two hundred metres of track near the bunkhouse were buried under the snout of the surging Swan glacier.
They found the foreman lying on the floor of his cabin, without blankets, shivering. He came down with pneumonia and spent a week in bed, feverish and incoherent.
âI was babbling of green fields, the foreman said. And the whore of Babylon, too, no doubt.
The rail workers kept bonfires burning for two weeks, to speed up the melting of the glacier. At last the buried stretch of line was exposed. They shovelled away heaps of slush and found a section of track torn up from its gravel bed, the two steel rails twisted around each other like twining snakes.
17
Two days later Byrne returns from the construction site. He and Elspeth make an excursion to the till plain. Clouds shroud the peaks and a cold mist descends around them. Byrne shrugs.
âIâm sorry I canât predict the weather.
âI grew up with this, she says. Itâs the Scot way of basking in the sun.
âIn the glasshouse you were wondering about the origin of the townâs name. Thatâs what I wanted to see you about the other day, before I was called out to the accident.
âYes?
âWarden Langford traces the name to an early fur trader named Jasper Hawes. But I think it was possibly derived from the French phrase
jâesp
è
re:
I hope.
âWhy is that?
âAn early surveyor spelled it
Jespare
in his published journal. What local meaning this phrase has I donât know. But on one old map the region is labeled
Despair,
which might be a further corruption of the original French phrase.
âWell, the next time Iâm asked about the name, Iâll have an answer.
A spruce tree appears ahead of them. Its branches emerge out of the haze into sudden sharp clarity. A tree so green in the shrouded landscape itseems to be the only living thing in a world of ghosts.
Taking shelter under the branches of the tree, they share coffee from Elspethâs vacuum flask. Byrne holds his tin cup in both hands, near his mouth. It has been a long time since he has been alone with a woman. And she is almost a stranger. When Elspeth is not looking he studies her bare, slender neck, her hair neatly gathered under her straw hat, the small pale wrinkle beside her mouth when she smiles, perhaps a scar from a childhood injury.
âFrank told me you were the last person he expected to see in Jasper again.
âThatâs what I thought, too.
18
Bundled up in Swiftâs cart as the Collie expedition headed for Edmonton, he told himself he would never return.
When the sooty arches of the Victoria railway terminus appeared out of a grey London drizzle, he was certain of that. He was home.
There was no one at the station to greet him, as he had planned. He had written to his father, and to Martha, while still in hospital in Edmonton, but had been deliberately vague about when he would be arriving. This way he would be free, at least for a while,from questions and concerns about his health. He felt there was an invisible boundary he had to pass through, alone and in silence, in order to reenter the world he had left only five months before.
The first thing he did upon entering his flat was to light a fire in the grate, with the remnants left in the coal scuttle. He stood by the door in his overcoat, waiting for warmth to make the room his own again.
19
He tells Elspeth of his discovery of the ice-cored moraine running through the chalet grounds.
âIt was about a week after I first arrived. Frank took me out here to show off his creation, and I saw right away that there would be a problem.
He said nothing at first to Trask, whose one complaint about the site was that the well buckets often came up filled with slush.
For some time he was busy studying a detailed relief map. At last he wrote a letter to the railway company.
An ancient glacial moraine runs under part of the railroad grade, and alongside
They found the foreman lying on the floor of his cabin, without blankets, shivering. He came down with pneumonia and spent a week in bed, feverish and incoherent.
âI was babbling of green fields, the foreman said. And the whore of Babylon, too, no doubt.
The rail workers kept bonfires burning for two weeks, to speed up the melting of the glacier. At last the buried stretch of line was exposed. They shovelled away heaps of slush and found a section of track torn up from its gravel bed, the two steel rails twisted around each other like twining snakes.
17
Two days later Byrne returns from the construction site. He and Elspeth make an excursion to the till plain. Clouds shroud the peaks and a cold mist descends around them. Byrne shrugs.
âIâm sorry I canât predict the weather.
âI grew up with this, she says. Itâs the Scot way of basking in the sun.
âIn the glasshouse you were wondering about the origin of the townâs name. Thatâs what I wanted to see you about the other day, before I was called out to the accident.
âYes?
âWarden Langford traces the name to an early fur trader named Jasper Hawes. But I think it was possibly derived from the French phrase
jâesp
è
re:
I hope.
âWhy is that?
âAn early surveyor spelled it
Jespare
in his published journal. What local meaning this phrase has I donât know. But on one old map the region is labeled
Despair,
which might be a further corruption of the original French phrase.
âWell, the next time Iâm asked about the name, Iâll have an answer.
A spruce tree appears ahead of them. Its branches emerge out of the haze into sudden sharp clarity. A tree so green in the shrouded landscape itseems to be the only living thing in a world of ghosts.
Taking shelter under the branches of the tree, they share coffee from Elspethâs vacuum flask. Byrne holds his tin cup in both hands, near his mouth. It has been a long time since he has been alone with a woman. And she is almost a stranger. When Elspeth is not looking he studies her bare, slender neck, her hair neatly gathered under her straw hat, the small pale wrinkle beside her mouth when she smiles, perhaps a scar from a childhood injury.
âFrank told me you were the last person he expected to see in Jasper again.
âThatâs what I thought, too.
18
Bundled up in Swiftâs cart as the Collie expedition headed for Edmonton, he told himself he would never return.
When the sooty arches of the Victoria railway terminus appeared out of a grey London drizzle, he was certain of that. He was home.
There was no one at the station to greet him, as he had planned. He had written to his father, and to Martha, while still in hospital in Edmonton, but had been deliberately vague about when he would be arriving. This way he would be free, at least for a while,from questions and concerns about his health. He felt there was an invisible boundary he had to pass through, alone and in silence, in order to reenter the world he had left only five months before.
The first thing he did upon entering his flat was to light a fire in the grate, with the remnants left in the coal scuttle. He stood by the door in his overcoat, waiting for warmth to make the room his own again.
19
He tells Elspeth of his discovery of the ice-cored moraine running through the chalet grounds.
âIt was about a week after I first arrived. Frank took me out here to show off his creation, and I saw right away that there would be a problem.
He said nothing at first to Trask, whose one complaint about the site was that the well buckets often came up filled with slush.
For some time he was busy studying a detailed relief map. At last he wrote a letter to the railway company.
An ancient glacial moraine runs under part of the railroad grade, and alongside
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