Mount Sir Donald

Item

Identifier

2025.017

Title

Mount Sir Donald

Date

circa 1892-1933, 1936

Creator

Keystone View Company

Description

A stereoscopic print of Mount Sir Donald. Text on front reads "Keystone View Company. Manufacturers Publishers.; Copyrighted. Made in U.S.A. Meadville, Pa., New York, N.Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England. T203. 6831T Mount Sir Donald, the Matterhorn of the North American 'Alps.' British Columbia, Canada.", text on back reads "6831 Mount Sir Donald. 'Matterhorn,' of North American 'Alps.' B.C., Canada. The grandest mountain scenery in North America is in the northern Cordillera from Wyoming to Alaska. The Canadian Pacific railway cuts through these ranges in southern British Columbia whose mountain scenery is of rugged beauty and grandeur, especially in the Selkirk range. Here are great glaciers feeding torrential streams, mountain lakes and tarns of matchless beauty, stately forests in darkest green, and jagged mountain peaks with precipitous walls flanked with everlasting snow. What seems like moss streaking the mountain flank in the middle distance is in reality a forest with trees from fifty to 150 feet high. That little trickling stream in the valley down there, which drains the margin of the two glaciers, is a commendable river, dwarfed in the distance, almost 5,000 feet below us. The jagged peak of Sir Donald is quite characteristic of the Selkirks, and its form is due to the rock structure, being made of heavy bedded quartzite and gneiss. With such materials to work upon, very extensive alpine glaciation, probably of Pleistocene time, has carved these steep walled valleys and cirques, leaving the very sharp ridges and peaks. The recent mild climate has wasted the glaciers back to their very sources, leaving the gaunt open valleys now occupied with puny streams, and valley walls a mile high almost wholly bare of soil. The scenery is quite like that of the Swiss Alps, but on a much grander scale. Copyright by The Keystone View Company". The images are glued to the card, and are black and white. Card is gray with black text. Corners are rounded.

Measurements

3-1/2 x 7 in. (8.89 x 17.78 cm)

Medium

Stereoscopic photograph

Subject

Canada; landscapes; landscape; photograph; photographs; mountains

Condition

Excellent. Card has crease along bottom but is not noticeable from the front, bowed slightly but no major tears and dents. Very slight staining on back.

Source

Gift of David M. Ebitz and Mary Ann Stankiewicz

Copyright statement

These images are posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. Other uses may not be permitted.

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