in his 1854 book, Narrative of a voyage..., Gabriel Franchere wrote that the Rockesi stretched from the 35th latitute to the mouth of the Mackenzie River at 65 or 66th latitude.
this distance was 30 degrees, 750 leagues or 2250 English miles. (p. 299)
Each league equalling three English miles.
He says the Rockies were just the mean side of a right-angled triangle,
with the base being 25 degrees of longitude at the 35 degree latitude,
or about 1600 miles long.
while the chain of mountains forms the hypotenuse, 3000 miles in length from SE to NW.
at latitude 54, the latitude of Edmonton, it took Franchere eight days to cross the Rockies so he estimated the Rockies were about 200 miles across, thus he estimated he was travelling about 25 miles per day, or almost a marathon each day.
(Gabriel Franchere, Narrative of a voyage..., Peel's PP website)
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