CONRAD KAIN CONRAD KAIN Letters from a Wandering Mountain Guide, 1906–1933 Edited with an Introduction by ZAC ROBINSON Translated by MARIA AND JOHN KOCH 1 THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA PRESS Published by Index available in print and PdF editions. The University of Alberta Press First edition, first printing, 2014. Ring House 2 First electronic edition, 2014. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1 Copyediting and proofreading by www.uap.ualberta.ca Brendan Wild. Maps by Wendy Johnson. Introduction and annotations copyright © 2014, Indexing by Judy Dunlop. Zac Robinson. Book design by Alan Brownoff. Mountain cairns: a series on the history and All rights reserved. No part of this publica- culture of the Canadian Rocky Mountains tion may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any Library and archives canada means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, cataLoguing in PubLication recording, or otherwise) without prior written Kain, Conrad, 1883–1934 consent. Contact the University of Alberta [Correspondence. Selections. English] Press for further details. Conrad Kain : letters from a wandering mountain guide, 1906–1933 / edited with an The University of Alberta Press gratefully introduction by Zac Robinson ; translated by acknowledges the support received for its Maria and John Koch. publishing program from The Canada Council for the Arts. The University of Alberta Press (Mountain cairns) also gratefully acknowledges the financial Includes bibliographical references and index. support of the Government of Canada Issued in print and electronic formats. through the Canada Book Fund (cbF) and the Letters translated from the German. Government of Alberta through the Alberta ISBN 978–1–77212–004–2 (pbk.).— Media Fund (aMF) for its publishing activities. ISBN 978–1–77212–016–5 (epub).— ISBN 978–1–77212–017–2 (Amazon kindle).— This book has been published with the help ISBN 978–1–77212–018–9 (pdf) of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through 1. Kain, Conrad, 1883–1934—Correspondence. the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, 2. Mountaineering guides (Persons)—Rocky using funds provided by the Social Sciences Mountains, Canadian (B.C. and Alta.)— and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Correspondence. 3. Mountaineers—Rocky Mountains, Canadian (B.C. and Alta.)— Correspondence. 4. Mountaineering—Rocky 6 7 Mountains, Canadian (B.C. and Alta.). I. Koch, W. John, translator II. Koch, Maria, translator III. Robinson, Zac, 1975–, editor IV. Title. V. Title: Correspondence. Selections. English VI. Series: Mountain cairns GV199.92.K34A3 2014 796.522092 C2014-905576-5 C2014-905577-3 For the campfire, and the carefree life … and for Elizabeth, who still writes letters CONTENTS IX Foreword Conrad Kain, Guide and Mountaineer Chic scott XIII Acknowledgements XV Maps XXI Introduction Letters from the Archives 1 Part one A Young Guide in Europe, 1906–1909 57 Part two Your Friend in the Western Woods, 1909–1912 173 Part three The Wanderer, 1912–1916 355 Part Four With Greetings, from Wilmer, 1920–1933 421 Epilogue The Kain–Malek Correspondence: Provenance, 1934–2005 Don bourdon 429 Bibliography 439 Index FOREWORD Conrad Kain, Guide and Mountaineer chic scott Conrad Kain was one of the world’s greatest guides in the early IX decades of the twentieth century, and one of its greatest mountain- eers. Unlike those of his contemporaries, Kain’s exploits ranged across the globe, from the European Alps to the Rocky and Purcell Mountains of Canada, and on to the Southern Alps of New Zealand. He was a master of rock and a master of ice. Despite his short stature, he was of prodigious strength. He loved to build cairns and linger on summits. He was also a master storyteller. Kain’s climbing achievements in Canada are fairly well known to the climbing community, but most people do not realize that he was already a star when he came to Canada in 1909. Kain began his guiding career in 1904. Although he had almost no instruction in the moun- tain arts, within a year he was leading clients on some of Europe’s most challenging climbs. In 1905, for example, he twice led the Delago Tower, one of the breathtakingly spectacular Vajolet Towers in the Dolomites. The following year, in the Mont Blanc Range, high above Chamonix, France, he led the Aiguille du Grépon, twice. First climbed in 1881, the Grépon had a reputation as the hardest climb in the world at that time. In Switzerland, he twice led ascents of the Matterhorn, still a very notable climb in those days; the complex and difficult Weisshorn; and the ice-covered Lyskamm. In 1907, in the Dolomites, he led the spectacular Guglia di Brenta, an impressive spire that sticks up like a pencil from the surrounding meadows and screes. Kain was only the seventh guide to lead the climb. “To this day,” he wrote, “I have never done another bit so exposed.” Finally, in the Dauphiné region of France, Kain led the complex and difficult traverse of Le Meije on several occasions, the Barre des Écrins, and the Pelvoux. It must be remembered that he guided these routes being unable to speak the local language and without the benefit of the detailed guidebooks that we take for granted today. Ropes were made of hemp, there was very little in the way of climbing hardware to protect one’s progress, and the dulfersitz rappel technique, which allowed climbers to slide back down the rope with relative ease, had not yet been developed. And, of course, always behind him were demanding clients who expected to be led without hesitation to their X summits. Kain was such a good guide, and so charming, that he had trou- bles with the local guides wherever he went. Kain made them look Foreword second rate. In the Dolomites, he got into a fight with them; in Chamonix, the French guides chased him back to his hotel room threatening to beat him. In Canada, the Swiss guides felt threatened and challenged his credentials. In New Zealand, local guides had him imprisoned during the First World War, ostensibly because he was of Austrian birth and therefore a potential threat to national security, but in actual fact it was because he had showed them up as guides and was damaging their businesses and reputations. On the other hand, some of the best guides in the world—men like Italian Joseph Petigax, Mattias Zurbriggen from Switzerland, Sepp Innerkofler in the Tyrol, Tita Piaz in the Dolomites, and Peter Graham of New Zealand—treated him with courtesy and respect and welcomed him as one of their own. Kain had a most adventurous spirit and loved to travel. His appe- tite for foreign lands was whetted on his 1906 excursion to Corsica with Albert Gerngross, and his departure for Canada in 1909 was one of the high points of his life. But his travels of 1912–1913 are the most remarkable. In May of 1912, he left from Banff and took the train to Quebec City, where he caught a boat for England. Dr. Tom Longstaff, one of the most prominent mountaineers of the day, hosted him briefly in London, after which he travelled by train to St. Petersburg. Then, with Ned Hollister from the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, he continued to the furthest reaches of Siberia, where he trapped animals for scientific research. His return trip took him back to St. Petersburg, then to Vienna by train, where he visited long-time friends and family. From there, he trav- elled via Paris to London, then by boat through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to Australia and on to New Zealand, where he spent four months working like a slave in the bush. After all this, he boarded a ship in Wellington that took him to San Francisco via Tahiti, and from there to Vancouver where he boarded a train back to Banff. Not bad for the self-proclaimed “breaker of stones” in the first years of the twentieth century. XI But Kain’s reputation rests primarily upon his achievements in Foreword Canada and, to a lesser extent, New Zealand. His ascents of Mount Robson, Mount Louis, Bugaboo Spire, Howser Spire, and Farnham Tower were all outstanding climbs with complex route finding, diffi- cult rock and ice work, cold bivouacs, and unknown descents. And he made all these ascents with clients. They always had confidence in him, and he always brought them back safely. In fact, it is worth noting the calibre of Kain’s clients. Men and women like Dr. Erich Pistor, director of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, who was fluent in twelve languages; Albert Gerngross, also a prominent Viennese businessman; and the Malek sisters, who were among Vienna’s upper crust. In Canada, he was the right- hand man of A.O. Wheeler (one of the founders of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC)) on both the Alberta–BC boundary survey and at the ACC camps. His most loyal client in Canada was Albert MacCarthy, a banker and naval captain from Summit, New Jersey, with whom he made most of his great ascents. On the Mount Robson climb, Kain and MacCarthy were joined by W.W. “Billy” Foster, who was deputy minister of public works and a member of the British Columbia legis- lature. These were all people who expected the very best, and, from Kain, they got it. His solo ascent of Mount Whitehorn is a bit of an anomaly in his career. But what an anomaly! Climbing alone all day to the remote, yet-unclimbed summit, then descending in rain and storm across a crevassed glacier, his path lit only by the flash of lightning strikes. In New Zealand, his first ascents are a testament to his skill, as well.