Where Chief Mountain Towers 
By J. B. MONROE 
I T is twenty-five years since I first saw the 
St. Mary’s Lake region, which is now being 
talked about as a part of the proposed 
Glacier National Park. I have visited it at all 
seasons of the year, and every time I come to 
the top of the hill where the lakes and moun¬ 
tains come into plain view, I pause and wonder 
how many years more may be granted me to 
gaze upon its strange beauties and to camp upon 
its peaceful shores. 
I was brought up in the mountains and know 
all the Rocky Mountain chain from the Mexican 
line to the Canadian boundary, and I do not 
believe that in the United States there is another 
piece of country that in beauty and grandeur 
can compare with this. Besides, it is the natural 
home of the bighorn and mountain white goat, 
and its high plateaux and grassy slopes might 
furnish feed for thousands of these animals at 
all seasons of the year. The warm chinook 
winds coming from the west keep the southern 
slopes bare in the hardest winters, and when the 
game is once protected from its natural enemies 
and from man, its increase will be very rapid. 
This was once the hunting ground of the 
Stony and Kootenai Indians, but since the forest 
service has held the region as a reserve, there 
has been a marked increase of game. 
In 1898 I was in this region with Gifford 
Pinchot and was with him also on one of his 
trips when we went from the head of Swan 
Lake on the Lewjs and Clark Forest Reserve 
to the Northern Pacific Railroad, a distance of 
150 miles, with a rifle apiece, a can of cocoa 
and a blanket for the two of us. 
On this trip I lost some valuable bear dogs 
and Mr. Pinchot got a fine bear, and between 
the bears and looking for the dogs we were sev¬ 
eral days behind our schedule time. One day 
we walked twenty-three hours out of twenty- 
four, and between short grub and steady travel¬ 
ing I had lost fifteen pounds of good hard flesh 
when we reached civilization. Our appetites 
were such that we ran out of cash and were 
forced to hold up the sheriff of Flathead county 
at Ravalli for funds to reach Kalispell. 
On this trip I made the acquaintance of the 
great John Muir who was with the commission 
of, I think, five eminent men who were looking 
at the country with a view to having it set 
aside as a forest reserve. Mr. Muir camped 
with us, while the rest of the commission en¬ 
joyed the luxuries of a rough and tumble hotel 
at Lake MacDonald. A camp-fire seems to make 
all men friends, and Mr. Muir’s frankly told 
tales of California and Alaska life will be re¬ 
membered as long as I can build a camp-fire 
and fork a cayuse. 
I was with Mr. Pinchot at Priest Lake and 
Lake Chelan. Both these lakes are very fine 
and some day may become famous, but they 
have not the endless variety of parks, aspens, 
pines and impressive mountain peaks that make 
the St. Mary’s Lake region so attractive. 
GOAT COUNTRY. 
Photo by John Jay White, Jr. 
While lying in the sun one day in May in 
1886, a young grizzly walked up within forty 
feet of me. The day was hot and I was drowsy, 
but hearing a rock fall, I looked up and re¬ 
ceived my first introduction to the grizzlies of 
this region. I had seen those that inhabit the 
Rockies further south, 'but it has always seemed 
to me that that Chief Mountain grizzly has a bar 
of silver-colored fur running across his shoul¬ 
ders and down well on his fore legs that I do 
not remember to have seen on the grizzlies fur¬ 
ther south. He got away and I think he yet 
wanders the country, for occasionally I hear of 
a very large grizzly or its track being seen upon 
the steep sides of Goat Mountain where I saw 
this one. May his days be long in this land. 
Chief Mountain, which is within the lines of 
the proposed Glacier Park, is the most conspicu¬ 
ous landmark in Northern Montana. I believe 
it is the most interesting and conspicuous land¬ 
mark in any country. An Indian’s conception 
of a great chief is one who stands out ahead 
and in advance of his following; hence the In¬ 
dian name Chief Mountain, for it stands out in 
the plain in advance of the ranks of its fellows 
in the main chain. The traveler from Sun 
River to the North Saskatchewan, raising his 
eyes from the level prairie and above sordid 
things of life, rests them at once upon the mass 
of Chief Mountain, which seems to change as he 
moves along. 
The Indians have a legend that the man who 
sets foot on the summit of the Chief should 
settle all his earthly affairs and make provision 
for life in the sandhills or the happy hunting 
ground of the great hereafter. Your hunter, 
trapper, prospector or old-time prairie traveler 
rolls his eye to its rugged summit and softly 
swears that he will never tackle the job of 
climbing it unless someone is shooting at him 
and he has to climb to save his hide. 
Matters stood thus until perhaps 1894 when 
Chief Mountain was climbed by two New York 
men and a Blackfoot Indian who had associated 
so much with the whites that he had forgotten 
the superstitious legends and medicine of his 
forefathers. 
In 1903 I was out with two New York men 
and their wives. We camped near Chief Moun¬ 
tain, and when the ladies learned that no women 
had ever been on Chief Mountain they deter¬ 
mined to go down to posterity as the first to 
stand upon its crown. 
From early morning until late in the evening, 
sometimes through a foot of snow, most of the 
way on a narrow crest, where sheer cliffs fell 
away for hundreds of feet, and where the trail 
was so dangerous that one of our horse wrang¬ 
lers got down on hands and knees to cross a 
hard-looking place, these ladies stood the trip 
with the best of us. How they ever endured 
