for locating a route through the mountains. In 1885, the CPR constructed a line through Rogers Pass and the following year trains were travelling west to the Pacific for the first time in Canada. The federal government and the CPR quickly realized the tourism potential of the mountainous, heavily glaciated area. Following a trip by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and his wife Agnes through the Rockies on the newly completed Trancontinental Railroad, he returned to Ottawa inspired, and led the creation of Glacier and Yoho National Parks, both established on October 10, 1886. They were the second and third national parks in the country, after Banff, a year earlier. Glacier House The grade of the railway approaching Rogers Pass was too steep to allow for dining cars on the trains, so the CPR built a hotel west of the pass in 1886. This added to a collection of CPR-owned hotels across Canada, including Mount Stephen House in Yoho National Park, built in the same year and with the same floor plan. Glacier House, located near the terminus of the Illecillewaet Glacier (called the Great Glacier at the time), became a centre for tourism, mountaineering, glaciology, and photography in the Selkirks. The hotel was expanded in 1905 and 1911. It was considered one of western Canada's premier tourist destinations at the turn of the twentieth century. The hotel attracted alpinists from around the world. Owing to its elevation, climbers could be in the high alpine within hours of leaving their room. In 1899, the CPR contracted the services of several Swiss guides to assist the less mountain-savvy tourists through the high country. Throughout the Glacier House period, many first ascents were made on peaks within the park. The hotel also attracted naturalists and scientists keen to study the mountain environment. Mary Vaux Walcott and her brothers, George and William Vaux, visited the area many times, and began the first scientific studies of the Illecillewaet Glacier. Mountaineering Glacier House is considered "the first center (sic) of alpinism" in North America by American Alpine Club historian William Lowell Putnam. It saw an influx of European and American professional climbers in its first two decades of operation. William Spotswood Green was the first European climber to make note of the excellent climbing possibilities of peaks near the CPR line. Green and Henry Swanzy made the first recorded ascents of major peaks in the