Mountain Voices: Îyâmnathka
Îyâmnathka: Yamnuska
Written by Ben Gadd
This story comes to us from the book Mountain Voices. Paired with photos from the Mountain Legacy Project, Mountain Voices is a collection of unique short essays from alpinists, activists, artists, and mountain researchers as they share their unique and fascinating perspectives. The ACC is pleased to feature this new monthly series, highlighting a few of the incredible stories from Mountain Voices over the coming year.
To learn more about the book Mountain Voices, or to order a hard copy, visit their website.
The late-afternoon sun slanted across Îyâmnathka’s south face. As a twenty-two-year-old climber newly arrived in Canada from Colorado, I was impressed. So was my brother Morgan, also seeing the peak for the first time. The year was 1968.
I pointed out a crack that ran from base to top. Morgan was a better rock-climber than I. Did he think it was a proper chimney, wide enough to admit the full human body? He squinted over to the cliff, perhaps a half-mile off and a couple of hundred feet high.
“Nah, it’s probably off-width,” he replied, meaning too wide to jam a fist or a boot into yet too narrow to get inside and wriggle up. Difficult to climb.
The following summer I was 213 metres (700 feet) up Îyâmnathka, which was called Yamnuska by those who were not members of the Ĩyãħé Nakoda living nearby. I was trying to climb that crack. It was actually four miles from the highway and wide enough to swallow my car.
If Morgan had been along, he would have worked his way back into the chimney. We would have reached the top rather easily. But Morgan was not there, and the fellow I was climbing with was no better a route-finder than I. We were both so intimidated by that gaping black gash in the mountain that we chose to force our way up beside it, terrified, on very steep rock that refused to accept our pitons and promised us a long fall if we slipped.
Îyâmnathka was committing. In the moth-and-flame manner that climbers know so well, Îyâmnathka was very attractive. And it was only an hour’s drive west of Calgary.
I came back to Îyâmnathka again and again. I learned how close to approach the flame, savouring the adrenalin as I ventured high above my last piton toward an overhang that I might or might not be able to climb.
Looking northward to Îyâmnathka (Yamnuska) from near Exshaw, 1890 (top) and 2010 (bottom). [Top: J. J. McArthur, 1890, Library & Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada; Bottom: MLP, 2010].
After a few years I came to love Îyâmnathka. In exchange, Îyâmnathka didn’t kill me.
In fact, it tolerated my whole family. On June 21st, 1975, my wife Cia and I took our two little boys along the trail up Îyâmnathka’s east ridge. Lying in our sleeping bags, we watched through the night as the sun moved along below the northern horizon. We did this on the summer solstice year after year, sometimes getting chased down into the trees by a midnight thunderstorm.
In 2001, my novel Raven’s End introduced Canadians and Americans to Îyâmnathka. Thousands of additional readers in Italy, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Japan have found themselves in armchair flight via translated editions.
Îyâmnathka means “the flat-faced mountain,” which is most appropriate. Another name is Mount Laurie (Calgary teacher John Laurie was a friend of the tribe.) Whatever you call it, this landform is worth visiting, worth protecting from the cancerous quarrying at its base or the touristy tramway that some corporation is bound to propose.
Pick an autumn morning when the aspen groves are brilliantly yellow against the deep green of the conifers. Take Highway 1A west from Cochrane so you approach from the proper angle. When you get to the bridge over Old Fort Creek, Îyâmnathka’s mile-long, thousand-foot-high precipice dominates the view. Pull over and stop. It’s as if a giant cleaver split the mountain down the middle and glaciers carried half of it away.
You may see a few black specks circling up there—ravens, each with a four-foot wingspan —and they will provide the true scale of the scene. It’s big. It’s old. It’s going to outlast us, no matter how much of the world we reduce to dollars and dust.
Mountain Voices
Discover Canada’s mountains as you’ve never seen them before with gorgeous photography from the Mountain Legacy Project accompanied by gripping essays from mountaineers, artists, and mountain researchers.
Mountain Voices features a diverse array of voices, including Indigenous activists, employees of Canada’s national parks, interdisciplinary scientists dedicated to mountains, alpine adventurers, and historians captivated by tales of mountain pasts. Mountain Voices brings the landscape to life through the passion and devotion of those who love it deeply.
“The stories are personal and universal. The paired images are humbling. Together they make a profound case for stewardship of these alpine environments.” -Carine Salvy, Executive Director, The Alpine Club of Canada
Mountain Voices was published with support from The Alpine Club of Canada’s Environment Grant.
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