Winter memories

When I was a boy, winter was a favorite time of year. When I was twelve or so, my buddies and I would hike from our homes on Kalispell’s east side and camp at Lone Pine. At that time there was no organized park. In fact, I don’t remember even a road. We would usually camp on the flat between the cliffs or clear on top near the ruins of the “Boy Scout” cabin.

In high school, I belonged to a Boy Scout Explorer Post and out specialty was winter camping – even in blizzards. I still have the special ski troop mountain tent from my dad’s World War II 10th Mountain Division, although it is pretty cracked and dry today and my old mummy bag is long gone. Best remnant from those days is an old alpaca coat that must weight 20 pounds. With it on, you could be out in minus 20 degree weather and just enjoy the blowing snow. Now, I can barely carry it.

To top it off, my folks bought Kintla Ranch on the North Fork and that added horses to my outdoor activities plus adjoining Glacier Park to explore.

In those “early” days the North Fork Road was only plowed if there was a logging sale, so when we visited Madge and Ollie Terrian at Moose City, we would sometimes snowshoe from Polebridge to the border or, if we were lucky, from Trail Creek Road to the border. Miles of snowshoeing were not hard, it was just a matter of planning for enough daylight to finish the hike.

When we cut across the Terrian’s hay meadow and got close to the Terrians, we would shoot our .22 rifles at their chimney and Madge would have dinner on the table by the time we reached the house. Ollie was always especially glad to see us. He knew we would help feed the stock and go out on his trap line with him. Most of all, Madge would break out the peanut butter only when the “kids” were there. She always mentioned that his tobacco for rolling cigarettes was so expensive he was not allowed peanut butter on a regular basis.

Without electricity, there was no TV, limited battery radio and only the constantly monitored Aladdin lamp for light. We went to bed early. Of course, all day outside took a lot of energy, so we slept easily. The one exception was when Ollie trapped the wolverine.

Normally, furs were handled outside in the woodshed, but on this occasion Ollie wanted to show us the wolverine he had caught earlier that day. He had hit it on the head with his axe and placed it in his pack. When he brought the pack in and dumped the wolverine out on the floor we got a real surprise.

He had only stunned the animal with his axe. Now we had one mad wolverine loose in the kitchen! My friend and I bolted up the stairs. Madge, all five feet of her, jumped onto the kitchen table without knocking over the lamp. Not Ollie. Dressed only in long johns, he grabbed a chunk of firewood and went after the snarling wolverine. When it crouched and snarled, Ollie struck and killed it with the firewood. We didn’t need Ollie’s adventure stories for entertainment that night! I will share some of them in my future columns.

Larry Wilson’s North Fork Views appears weekly in the Hungry Horse News.