LAKE McDONALD AND ITS TRAIL
In the northern part of Montana, towards the Canadian border, the Main
Range of the Rocky Mountains has been rent and carved by glacial action
during ages gone by, until the peaks, like tusks, stand separate and
distinct in a mighty, serrated line. No one of these reaches so great a
height as Shasta, Rainier or Hood, but here the huge, horned spine rises
almost sheer from the sweep of tawny prairie, and not one, but hosts of
pinnacles, sharp as lances, stand clean cut against the sky. Approaching
the range from the East, in the saffron glow of sunset, one might fancy
it was wrought of amethyst, so intense and pure is the colour, so clear
and true the minutest detail of the grandly sculptured outline. Within
the ice-locked barriers of those heights live glaciers still grind
their passages through channels of stone; down in shadowy ravines,
voiceful with silver-tongued falls, lie fair lakes in the embrace of
over-shadowing altitudes. The largest of these lakes, McDonald, is the
heart of a vast and marvelous country, the center of many trails.
The road to Lake McDonald winds along the shores of the Flathead River
for half a mile or more, skirting the swift current now churned into
white foam by rapids, then calm and transparent, revealing the least
stone and tress of moss in its bed, in shades of limpid emerald. Leaving
the river, the way lies through dense forests of pine and tamarack,
cedar and spruce, and so closely do the spreading boughs interlace that
the sun falls but slightly, in quivering, pale gold splashes upon the
pads of moss and the fragrant damp mold which bursts into brilliant
orange-coloured fungus and viciously bright toadstools. Each fallen
log, each boulder wrested from its place and hurled down by glacier
or avalanche, is dressed in a faery garb of moss and tiny, fragrant
shell-pink bells called twinflowers, because two blossoms, perfect
twins, always hang pendent from a single stem as slender as spun
glass, and these small bells scent the air with an odour as sweet as
heliotrope. Within the forest dim with perpetual twilight, one feels the
vastness of great spaces, the silence of great solitudes.
Suddenly there bursts upon one, with all the up-bearing exhilaration of
a first sight of the sea, a scene which, once engraved upon the heart,
will remain forever. The trees part like a curtain drawn aside and the
distance opens magnificently. The intense blue of the cloudless sky
arches overhead, the royal waters of the lake flow blue and green with
the colours of a peacock's tail or the variegated beauty of an abalone
shell; sweeping upward from the shores are tall, timbered hills, so
thickly sown with pine that each tree seems but a spear of grass and the
whole forest but a lawn, and towering beyond, yet seeming very near in
the pure, white light, is a host of peaks silvered with the benediction
of the clouds--the deathless snow. The haze that tints their base is of
a shade one sometimes finds in violets, in amethysts, in dreams. Indeed,
these mountains seem to descend from heaven to earth rather than to soar
from earth towards heaven, so great is their sublimity.
As one floats away on the lake the view changes. New vistas open and
close, new peaks appear above and beyond as though their legion would
never come to an end. Straight ahead two irregular, rugged mountains
with roots of stone emplanted in the water, rise like a mighty portal,
and between the two, seeming to bridge them, is a ridge called the
"Garden Wall." The detail of the more immediate steeps grows distinct
and we see from their naked crests down their timbered sides, deep
furrows, the tracks of avalanches which have rushed from the snow fields
of Winter, uprooting trees and crushing them in the fury of the mad
descent. A long, comparatively level stretch, not unlike a gun sight
set among the bristling, craggy summits, is the "Gunsight Pass," the
difficult way to the Great St. Mary's Lakes, the Blackfeet Glacier and
the wonderful, remote region on the Eastern slope of the range. Huge,
white patches mark glaciers and snow fields, for it is within these same
mountains that the Piegan (Sperry) and many others lie. And as we drift
on and on across the smooth expanse of water, the magic of it steals
upon our souls. For there is about the lake a charm apart from the
beauty of the waters and the glory of the peaks; of spirit rather than
substance; of soul-essence rather than earthly form. That mysterious
force, whatever it may be, rising from the water and the forest
solitudes and descending from the mountain tops, flows into our veins
with the amber sunshine and we feel the sweeping uplift of altitudes
heaven-aspiring that take us back through infinite ages to the Source
which is Nature and God.
[Illustration: GLACIER CAMP]
The good old captain of the little craft weaves fact and fancy into
wonderful yarns as he steers his launch straight for the long,
purplish-green point which is the landing. To him no ocean greyhound is
more seaworthy than his boat, and he likes to tell of timid tender-feet
entreating him to keep to shore when the lake was tumultuous with storm,
and how he, spurning danger, guided them all safely through the trough
of the waves. He keeps a little log wherein each passenger is asked to
write his name. The poor old man has a maimed hand, his eyes are filmy
with years and his gums are all but toothless, but it would seem that
nature has compensated him for his afflictions by concentrating his
whole strength in his tongue. He knows each landmark well, and gravely
points out to the credulous traveller, the highest mountain in the
world; calls attention to the 18,000 fathoms of lake depth whence no
drowned man ever rises, and other marvels, each the greatest of its kind
upon the circumference of the globe. There came a day soon after when
the lake chafed beneath a lashing gale and the little craft and her
gallant captain were dumped ingloriously upon the beach. But accidents
happen to the best of seamen, and the launch, after a furious expulsion
of steam, and much hiccoughing, was dragged once more into her place
upon the wave.
Although there is evidence that Lake McDonald was long ago frequented
by some of the Indian tribes, it was not known to the world until
comparatively recent times. There are two stories of its discovery and
naming, both of which have a foundation of truth. The first is that Sir
John McDonald, the famous Canadian politician, riding across the border
with a party, cut a trail through the pathless woods and happening to
penetrate to the lake, blazed his name upon a tree to commemorate the
event, thus linking his fame with the newly found natural treasure. The
old trail remains--probably the virgin way into the wilderness. The
second story--which is from the lips of Duncan McDonald, son of Angus,
runs thus: He and a little band of Selish were crossing from their own
land of the Jocko into the country of the Blackfeet which lies East
of the Main Range, to recover some ponies stolen by the latter tribe,
when they came in view of this lake hitherto unknown to them. Duncan
McDonald, who was the leader or _partizan_, as the French-Canadians say,
blazed the name "McDonald" upon some pines along the shore. It matters
little who was actually the first to set foot on these unpeopled banks,
but it is a strange coincidence that the two pathfinders should have
borne the same name.
The purplish-green point draws nearer, log cabins appear among the
trees, each one decorated with a bear skin hung near its door. This
is a fur trading center as well as a resort of nature lovers, and
upon the broad porch of the club house is a heap of pelts of silver
tip, black and brown bear, mountain lion and lynx, and from the walls
within, bighorn sheep and mountain goats' heads peer down. The trappers
themselves, quaint, old hunters of the wilderness, come out of their
retreats to trade. But even now their day is passing. With the advent
of outside life these characters, scarcely less shy than the game they
seek, move farther back into uncontaminated solitudes. They are the
last, lingering fragment of that old West which is so nearly a sad,
sweet memory, a loving regret.
Each hour of the day traces its lapse in light and shadow on the lake,
until the sunset flowing in a copper tide, draws aureoles of golden
cloud over the white-browed peaks, transforming their huge and rugged
bulk into luminous light-giving bodies of faded roses and lavender.
As the evening wanes the mountains burn out in ashes of roses, still
lightened here and there upon their ultimate heights, with a glow as
faint as the memory of a dead love, and the living halo of the clouds
deepens into coral crowns. Then the lake becomes a vast opal, kindling
with fires that flash and die in the growing dusk.
The dark forests that cloak the lake shores, are threaded with trails
each leading to some treasure store of Nature far off in the secrecy
of the hills. One of great beauty starts from the head of the lake,
beneath the shadow of the mountains, and overhangs the boisterous,
rock-rent torrent of McDonald's Creek. The narrow way is padded thick
with pine needles ground into sweet, brown powder which deadens the
least intrusive footfall, as though the whole wood were harkening to
the singing of the waters through the silence of the trees. Along the
trail are mosses of multitudinous kinds. The delicate star moss unfolds
its feathery points of green; a strange variety with thick, mottled
leaves grows like a full blown rose around decayed trees, and a small,
pale, gray-green trumpet-shaped moss rears hosts of elfin horns. Only
a skilled botanist could classify these rich carpets which Nature has
spread over the dead royalty of her forests, so that even in their death
there is resurrection; even in their decay, new life. Bluebells and
twinflowers, those delicate faery-bells of pink, sweet grass, pigeon
berry and many another blossom beautiful in its strangeness, weave their
colour into gay patterns on the green; blend their fragrance with the
balsam sweetness of the woods. And all around, the stately pine trees
grow bearded with long, gray moss which marks their antiquity and
foretells their doom. The stream below, flowing between steep banks
that it has cut during centuries of ceaseless washing, raises its song
to a roar as it flings its swift current over a parapet of stone in a
banner of shimmering, white foam. Above, the water breaks in whirling
rapids and farther still is another fall. Towering in the distance is an
exalted peak, the father of this stream, whose snowy gift pours down its
perennial blessing into the clear tide of the lake.
So it is, the streams that issue from the glaciers yield their pure
tribute to Lake McDonald, and all the trails, uncoiling their devious
and dizzy ways over the mountains, bring us back to these shores. And
every time that we return it breaks upon us with renewed freshness of
mood. It may be ridden by a wind that lashes it into running waves
of purple and wine colour, marked with the white foot-prints of the
gale. It may be still as the first thought of love, holding in its
broad mirror the bending sky and mountains peering into its secrecy. It
may be ephemeral with mist that dims the mountains into pale, shadowy
ghosts; or it may be like a voluptuous beauty glittering with jewels
and clad in robes of silken sheen; again, it may be Quakerish in its
pallid monotone. The changing cycle of the day and night each brings its
different gift of beauty, and likewise, the passing seasons deck the
mountains and the waters with a glory all their own, until, with martial
hosts of cloud, with banners streaming silver and emblazoned with
lightning-gleam, Winter spreads its garment of white upon the mystery of
the wild. Perhaps the lake is never so exquisite as then. At least it
seems so, as with closed eyes and passive soul, a memory undimmed arises
out of the past.
It is night in the dead of Winter. The silence of deep sleep and
isolation is on the world. The snow has fallen like a flock of white
birds and the air has cleared to the degree of scintillating brilliance
that mocks the diamond's flash. The full moon is beneath a cloud and
its veiled light, filtering through the vapor, shows dimly the shadowy
waters and the wan peaks fainting far away. Then the cloud passes. The
moon leaps into the heavens and a flood of white light illumines the
water, the sky and the mountains, transforming the whole into a faery
scene of arctic splendour. It is as though the last breath of life had
vanished in that chaste frozen atmosphere, and the earth had become a
Palace of Dreams.
And though that Palace of Dreams vanishes as dreams must, like a melting
snow crystal or a frosty sigh upon the night, there remains in our
hearts a yearning which shall bear us back to the reality of beauty
that rewards each pilgrim who returns to the deathless glory of the
mountain-married lake.
_ABOVE THE CLOUDS_