THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



277 



and the cowboy. Cabins and "false-fronted" stores of the 

 cattle days are yet to be 5;limpsed — relics of the vanishing 

 old West. 



l*'ollo\ving the Missuuri first — for more than a hundred 

 miles — the track traverses the For I'eck Indian Reserva- 

 tion countrx' ; on their lands some 1,800 Assinaboine and 

 Yankton Siou.x, many of whom took part in Sitting Buirs 

 campaigns, are nowadays thriftily farming. Poplar (692 

 miles) is the agency headquarters. The Milk river is 

 followed next — for nearly two hundred miles. Much of 

 that grain growing that has made Montana the champion 

 of the United States in bushels to the acre is carried on 

 along the Milk. Near Chinook (894 miles) is the bat- 

 tlefield on which United States troops under General 

 Miles defeated Chief Joseph and his Nez Perces. Near 

 Havre (915 miles) is the old Fort Assinaboine; the Bear 

 Paw mountains, outposts of the Rockies, rise out of the 

 plains. 



At Cut Bank in the foothills (1,0-14 miles, altitude 

 3,698 feet) the Great Northern begins its climb up the 

 long east slope of the main range of the Rocky mountains 

 — across the reservation of the Blackfeet Indians; 3,000 

 of that one-time proud nation are here. Browning 

 (1,078 miles; altitude. 4,440 feet) is the agency town. 



One thousand and ninety-one miles out from St. Paul, 

 at an altitude of 4,785 feet, the Great Northern reaches 

 the log-built station of Glacier Park, the gateway to 

 Glacier National Park. 



The tremendous mountainland of Glacier National 

 Park sits high up in the splendid Rocky mountains of 

 northwestern Montana — on and about the Continental 

 r)ivide. (ilacier Park's mountains outstretch fnini the 

 Great Northern's track all of the way northward to the 

 Canadian border, and from the reservation of the Black- 

 feet westward to the F"lathead river — a mountainland 

 that is 1,525 square miles in extent. With Mount Cleve- 

 land (10,438 feet). Mount Jackson (10,023 feet) and 

 Mount Si}eh (10,004 feet), its generals, a veritable arm\- 

 of magnificent peaks, giants of the divide, for all time 

 is encamped here — peaks that rear from 8,000 to 10,000 

 feet above sea level, with their bases thickly forested up 

 to the timber line, and their limestone crests by sun and 

 wind painted in many colors — reds and browns, and blues 

 and purples. The "roof of America" is what this region 

 is oftentimes termed ; from these heights waters start 

 on journeys west to the Pacific ocean, north to Hudson's 

 bay and south to the Gulf of Mexico. 



Atop these mountains are eighty living glaciers that 

 are every bit as inspiring as those ice fields Americans 

 have been crossing to Switzerland to see ; of these the 

 great Blackfeet Glacier has an area of five square miles. 

 Up in these high places, too, are droves of nimble-footed 

 Rocky mountain goats — and deer and elk. Among these 

 mountains, in the forested valleys where gorgeous wild- 

 flowers riot, are 250 glacier-fed blue mountain lakes, and 

 scores of noble cataracts and rollicking mountain streams. 

 Many of nature's phenomena are within the park besides 

 — like the Iceberg Lake, wdiere, between flower-carpeted 

 shores, icebergs serenely float the summer through. 



At Glacier National Park the superintendents' Special 

 will tarry a day. Dirring' fhis stop-over memorable pil- 

 grimages luiH he available to the superintendents. By 

 auto-stagfes they may journey up the 50-mJle .-\utomobile 

 Highway to the mammoth new mountain hostelry, the 

 "Many-Glacier." Plere. in the park's heart, are beauti- 

 ful ]\lcDermott McDermott Lake and Falls, Grinnell 

 Mountain and Glacier, Gould Mountain, Mount Wilbur, 

 Iceberg Lake, Swiftcurrent Pass and the Garden Wall. 

 By launch they may cruise up St. Mary's Lake, the finest 

 of the mountain lakes of America, to Going-to-the-Sun 

 Chalets, where grand Going-to-the-Sun Alountain is, and 



Little Chief and Red Eagle, and Fusilade and Citadel. 

 * )r b\ auto-stage they may gain the Two-Medicine coun- 

 try, where the Two Aledicine Lakes and Trick Falls and 

 Rising Wolf, and Appistoki and Triple Divide are. 



On westward from Cjlacier Park the Great Northern 

 sets its course along (llacier Park's southern boundary, 

 the only transcontinental track in the United States that 

 lies alongside a national playground. 



Summit (1,104 miles) marks the spot where the Great 

 Northern scales the Continental Divide — through that 

 gap in the Rockies that's called Marias Pass — 5,202 feet 

 above sea-level. 



The ride down the steep west slope of the main range 

 of the Rocky mountains — from Summit down to Colum- 

 bia Flails — is a fine one. In a distance of 60 miles the rail- 

 way descends 2,100 feet; in the first fifteen of these miles 

 the descent totals 1,200 feet. The track lies all among 

 majestic mountains, among the tall pines of the Flathead 

 National F'orest, and follows close beside rushing moun- 

 tain streams — Bear Creek first, the middle fork of the 

 Flathead river next, and finall)- the Mathead itself. F'rom 

 the horseshoe curve at Skyland a wonderful view is had 

 down into the Bear Creek Valley, its floor a thousand 

 feet below the railroad. The middle fork of the Flat- 

 head, from Java station followed for 35 miles, is a 

 mountain river particularly beautiful. Belton (1,149 

 miles) stands at the western gate to Glacier Park. 



Then from Rexford (1,234 miles) the Great Northern 

 Railway does some more mountaineering — through the 

 can\on of the Kootenai. The Kootenai river has its 

 source in the high glaciers of the Canadian Rockies, 

 hastens southward into the States — a big, vivid-green 

 river — and among the west spurs of our own Rockies de- 

 scribes a wide horseshoe through the northwestern cor- 

 ner of Montana and the "Panhandle" of Idaho. Enter- 

 ing the Kootenai's canyon at Rexford, crossing the 

 Montana-Idaho line just beyond Yakt (1,314 miles), and 

 leaving the canyon at lionner's Ferry (1,339 miles), the 

 Great Northern for 105 miles follows this horseshoe of 

 the Kootenai's — through the Wolf Range, the Purcell 

 Range and the Cabinet mountains — another very fine rail 

 ride. 



The Kootenai National Forest, the Libby Creek and 

 Yakt river placer gold fields, the lively saw-milling towns 

 of Libby in Montana and of Bonner's h'erry in Idaho ; 

 the rugged Cabinets where mountain lions and bears 

 roam — these are interesting things in and about the 

 Kootenai Canyon. Out of Idaho (from Sand Point 

 1,372 miles) the track follows another brawny and green 

 mountain river — the Pend Oreille. 



The State of Washington the Great Northern enters at 

 Newport on the Pend Oreille (1,391 miles) ; 1,447 miles 

 out from St. Paul the Great Northern reaches Spokane. 



Spokane, about the mighty falls of the Spokane river — 

 makers of 400,000 horsepower for electrical purposes — 

 is the hub of eastern Washington, of Idaho and of west- 

 ern Montana — of what's called the Inland Empire. 

 Spokane in 1880 was a village of 300; today, with 120,000 

 people, it's Washington's second city. In the shelter 

 of the Cabinet and Coeur d'Alene ranges, a chain of fine 

 apple-growing valleys surrounds it. Hayden Lake— an 

 hour away — is a delightful resort in the Coeur d'Alenes. 



Westward from Spokane the railway makes across the 

 high prairies of the eastern Washington Big Bend coun- 

 try — taking its name from the big bend of the Columbia 

 river off to the north and west of it — a wheat-growing 

 land of 7,000 square miles. 



From the little depot that's called Crater (1,.590 miles) 

 the Great Northern descends from the highlands to the 

 east bank of the mighty Columbia — by a track that winds 

 down the walls of the weird, volcano-rent Crater Coulee. 



