History

"The view that lay before us in the evening light was one which does not often fall to the lot of modern mountaineers. A new world was spread at our feet; to the westward stretched a vast Icefield probably never seen by human eye and surrounded by entirely unknown, unnamed and unclimbed peaks".

Norman Collie wrote this paragraph upon his co-discovery of the Columbia Icefield, on August 18^th, 1898. While exploring the mountains along the Great Divide in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies, Collie and Hermann Woolley climbed to the summit of Mt. Athabasca and were the first recorded people to look out over the great plateau of ice now known as the Columbia Icefield.

Over the next 40 years, a few mountaineers and early tourists trickled along their route, and in the 1920s Jim Brewster operated his “Great Glacier Trail” horseback outfitting excursion through the Columbia Icefield area while traveling between the railway outposts of Jasper and Lake Louise. His hardy clients could stop in the Castleguard Meadows to explore the edges of the great Icefield. Excursions onto the dangerous Icefield and its glaciers were guided events, on foot, snowshoes or even on horses equipped with spiked horseshoes to better grip the ice.

In 1936, work began on a road along Collie and Woolley’s, and Jim Brewster’s routes, linking Jasper and Lake Louise. The Brewsters recognized the importance of the Columbia Icefield and built the Icefield Chalet, opening to the traveling public at the same time as the 230 km road was completed in 1939. Unfortunately, World War II was soon raging in Europe and the new road and Chalet saw few visitors. One group to take advantage of the gravel route was the U.S. Army’s 87^th Mountain Division who set up camp near the Saskatchewan Glacier, and tested over-snow vehicles on the Columbia Icefield.

Following the war, tourists and adventurers began arriving in increasing numbers, many of them anxious to explore the surface of the Columbia Icefield. In 1948, Allan Watt introduced the first motorized glacier tour using a 1929 Ford truck modified to run on tank-like tracks and skis. In the 1950s and 1960s a fleet of 10 passenger Bombardier snowmobiles replaced the half-track. In the fall of 1968, Brewster Tours bought the concession and began experimenting with different tracked equipment, including Greyhound bus bodies mounted on tracks. This experimentation led to the design and construction of a vehicle specifically to provide safe and comfortable excursions on the Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefield, and in July 1981, the first ‘SnoCoach’ went into service. Now called the ‘Ice Explorer’, Brewster’s fleet includes 22 of these 56 passenger 6-wheel drive machines, including 9 that are wheelchair accessible.

In 1998, we celebrated the 100^th anniversary of the discovery of the Columbia Icefield by Collie and Woolley. Since 1898, over 10 million visitors from around the world have stood on the mass of ice and felt Collie's wonder and exhilaration.