LAKE ANGUS McDONALD AND THE MAN FOR WHOM IT WAS NAMED
Within the range of Sin-yal-min, which rises abruptly from the valley of
the Flathead to altitudes of perpetual snow, in a ravine sunk deep into
the heart of the mountains, is Lake Angus McDonald. Though but a few
miles distant the bells of Saint Ignatius Mission gather the children of
the soil to prayer, no hand has marred the untamed beauty of this lake
and its surrounding mountain steeps where the eagle builds his nest in
security and the mountain goat and bighorn sheep play unmolested and
unafraid.
The prospect is a magnificent one as the roadway uncoils its irregular,
tawny length from rolling hills into the level sea of green where only
a year or two ago the buffalo grazed in peace. Beyond, the jagged
summits of Sin-yal-min toss their crests against the sky, their own
impalpable blue a shade more intense than the summer heavens, their
silvered pinnacles one with the drifting cloud. A delicate, shimmering
thread like the gossamer tissue of a spider's web spins its length from
the ethereal brow of the mountains to the lifted arms of the foothills
below. The yellow road runs through the valley, passes the emerald patch
around the Mission and thence onward to blue shadows of peaks where
gorges flow like purple seas and distant trees are points of azure. The
swelling foothills bear one up, the valley melts away far beneath and
sweet-breathed woods sigh their balsam on the breeze. The pass becomes
more difficult, the growth thickens. Among the trees broad-leafed
thimble berry, brew berry and goose berry blossom and bear; wild
clematis builds pyramids of green and white over the bushes; syringa
bursts into pale-starred flower, and a shrub, feathery, delicate, sends
forth long, tender stems which break into an intangible mist of bloom.
Suddenly out of the tangled forests, a sheet of water, smooth and clear,
appears, spreading its quicksilver depths among peaks that still bear
their burden of the glacial age. And in the polished mirror of those
waters is reflected the perfect image of its mountain crown. First, the
purplish green of timbered slopes, then the naked, beetling crags and
deep crevasse with its heart of ice. A heavy silence broods here, broken
only by the wildly lonesome cry of the raven quavering in lessening
undulations of tone through the recesses of the crags. Two Indians near
the shore flit away among the leaves, timid as deer in their native
haunts. Such is Lake Angus McDonald, and yonder, presiding over all,
shouldering its perpetual burden of ice, is McDonald's Peak. Strangely
beautiful are these living monuments to the name and fame of a man, and
one naturally asks who was this Angus McDonald that his memory should
endure in the eternal mountains within the crystal cup of this snow-fed
lake?
The question is worth the answering. Angus McDonald was a Highland
Scotchman, sent out into the western wilderness by the Hudson Bay
Company. There must have lurked in his robust blood the mastering love
of freedom and adventure which led the scions of the House of McDonald
to such strange and varied destinies; which made such characters in the
Scottish hills as Rob Roy and clothed the kilted clans with a romantic
colour totally wanting in their stolid brethren of the Lowlands. In any
event, it is certain that Angus McDonald, once within the magic of the
wild, flung aside the ties that bound him to the outer world and became
in dress, in manner of life and in heart, an Indian. He took unto
himself an Indian wife, begot sons who were Indians in colour and form
and like his adopted people, he hunted upon the heights, moved his tipi
from valley to mountain as capricious notion prompted, and finally made
for himself and his family a home in the valley of Sin-yal-min not far
below that lake and peak which do honor to his memory. Physically he was
a man of towering stature, standing over six feet in his moccasins; his
shoulders were broad and he was very erect. His leonine head was clad
with a heavy shock of hair, and his beard, during his later years, snow
white, hung to his waist. His complexion was ruddy, his eyes, clear,
blue and penetrating. A picturesque figure he must have been, clad in
full buckskin leggins and shirt with a blanket wrapped around him. He
was known among the Indians and whites through the length and breadth of
the country about, and no more strange or striking character quickened
the adventure-bearing epoch which we call the Early Days.
As he was free to the point of lightness in his nature, trampling down
and discarding every shackle of conventionality, he was likewise bound
but nominally by the Christian creed. He believed in reincarnation and
his one desire was that in the hereafter, when his soul should be sent
to tenant the new body, he might be re-born in the form of a wild,
white horse, with proud, arched neck and earth-scorning hoofs, dashing
wind-swift over the broad prairies into the sheltering hills.
So it seems fitting that McDonald's Peak and Lake should remain untamed
even as their namesake; that the eddying whirlpool of life should pass
them by and that in their embrace the native creatures should live and
range as of yore. And may it be that within those shadowy gorges, remote
from the sight and hearing of man, a wild, white horse goes bounding
through the night?
_SOME INDIAN MISSIONS_