Waves of the Ocean

In the early winter of 1800, David Thompson journeyed from Rocky Mountain House to the Bow River in southern Alberts. Once he reached the Bow, he traveled east, downstream, to the Highwood River at which point he ascended the Highwood for several kilometers after which Thompson traveled north west overland. He reached the Bow River again on 29 November where he camped. The following day, he traveled west up the Bow River to a point below present-day Loder Peak. Wanting “to examine the country”, Thompson along with Duncan McGillivray and Mr. Dumond ascended Loder Peak and examined the vast Prairie to the east and the Rocky Mountains to the west of which Thompson wrote the flowing in his journal.

“Our view from the heights to the eastward was vast & unbounded. To the westward, hills & rocks rose to our view, covered with snow, here rising, there subsiding, but their tops nearly of equal height everywhere. Never before did I behold so just, so powerful a resemblance to the waves of the ocean in the wintry storm. When looking upon them & attentively considering their wild order & appearance, the imagination is apt to say, there must once have been liquid, & that in that state when swelled to its greatest agitation, suddenly congealed & made solid by power Omnipotent.”

David Thompson
November 30, 1800