One hundred and fifty years ago, James Carnegie, the ninth Earl of Southesk came through the Rocky Mountains, becoming the first white tourist to go through what is now Jasper National Park, discovering a world of wilderness and beauty unknown to his home country.

Now, a century and a half later David Carnegie, the 13th Earl of Southesk and great-great-grandson to the historic, exploring tourist has just returned from a 14-day backcountry horseback trip with his wife, three sons, six guides and wranglers and 20 horses to re-trace the 9th Earl’s footsteps through Jasper.

The ninth Earl traveled through the Jasper area Rocky Mountains with the desire for ‘traveling some part of the world where good sport could be met with among the larger animals, and where at the same time I might recruit my health by an active open-air life in a healthy climate.’

Traveling through un-cut trails, carrying a rubber bathtub and leading a group of 75 others, he most certainly did not have the same luxuries as his 21st century family counterparts did, but the scenery has not changed much.

“He writes in his book about the things he sees, and you can literally, as you go along the trail – we don’t know exactly what trail he took – but it must have been pretty much the same place because you can see the places that he’s describing. So that was quite special. And just reading about the way he traveled, and the hardships of his travels were a lot harder than what we had to put up with,” said David Carnegie on Sunday during a reception and celebration of the anniversary at the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum & Archives.

The 13th Earl said that they had the luxury of Thermorest mattresses, nylon tents, and most importantly, mosquito nets, none of which his ancestor had.

“We were also very lucky, we had some lovely weather and some special moments. Particularly when we climbed the Southesk Cairn,” he said. He (one of their guides) took us up there on a really, really, lovely sunshiny afternoon. We were able to have a 360 degree panorama from the point there, which was better than I’m afraid the ninth Earl found – he went up in low tide mist and saw nothing.”

Several landscape features on the east end of Jasper National Park are named after him, including Mount Southesk, Southesk Cairn Mountain, Southesk River and many more, as well as many that he named for friends back home.

David and his family went to many of these spots in their trip, which he described as not having a single moment when traveling that they had anything less than spectacular scenery, making even the colder weather moments bearable.

The family climbed 2575 metre high Southesk Cairn where they found the actual, six-foot high stone cairn that the ninth Earl had built.

“It was a very special moment actually to be able to stand by that cairn… and to think that he stood there on his trip.”

Although the family traveled on trails, some were very overgrown and narrow. They also endured steep terrain and long days (the longest being a ten hour day, nine of those on horseback).

“Some of the trails were really steep. Some of the trails go along some pretty steep drops. You just have to have faith that your horse knows exactly what it’s doing,” David said, adding that sometimes even six inches of a horse’s step to one side and they could have fallen.

The Carnegie family’s tour of Jasper also included an invitation to the Jasper Heritage Rodeo on Saturday night, which David was very thankful of.

“I have to say I thought it was fairly mad what we were doing, but having seen the rodeo, I can see that it’s perfectly normal behaviour,” he joked.