CHAPTER VII

EXPLORING THE MOUNTAINS
[1883-1904]

HE foregoing pages have had much to say about

travelling. Itis nowonder. They relate to the

deeds of a missionary. Nowa missionary is one
who is sent out' and who, of course, acts accordingly,
that is travels in order to fulfil his mission. But as
could have been expected of one who always mani-
fested so versatile tastes and dabbled in so many dif-
ferent ventures not necessarily connected with his
priestly vocation, it was only right to imagine that he
would make his travellings serve other ends than the
welfare of human souls. He never saw anything
wrong in having them at the same time further the
interests of geographical science, and, whenever he had
time or opportunity, he would not scruple either to
undertake special journeys exclusively with that
object in view.

Father Morice was living in a country little known
outside of a few well-beaten tracks. It was not so very
long since Trutch’s map of British Columbia had in-
vested the best known of the lakes of his district with
the most fantastic shapes and allotted to them most
generous, but greatly exaggerated, dimensions; so our
missionary thought he would see for himself what
others had mapped from hearsay. With this end
in view, even while on his essentially ecclesiastical
trips, he would often divert his route into unknown
channels in order to survey new ground. There was
a short season in the year, generally from the second

1 Latin missus; hence missio, English “mission.”
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