The Ascent of Chief Mountain 



In the most northern corner of the Piegans* 

 country, in northwestern Montana, almost 

 grazing the Canadian border with its abrupt 

 side, stands a turret -shaped mountain. Be- 

 hind it the great range of the Rockies, which 

 for hundreds of miles has been trending stead- 

 ily northwood, bends sharply away toward the 

 west, leaving the corner on which the moun- 

 tain stands a huge protruding pedestal for its 

 weird shape. Ninety years ago Lewis and 

 Clarke saw it from far to southward as they 

 passed along the dwindling Missouri and call- 

 ed it Tower Mountain ; but to the Indians it 

 has always been The Chief Mountain. Even 

 those prosaic German geographers to whom 

 we owe so much for information about our 

 own and other lands have either seen it and 

 fallen under the spell of its strange power, or 

 have taken their nomenclature directly from 

 the Piegans, for they have crowned it Kaiser 

 Peak. 



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