Opinion: Summer love in Waterton

By Chris Ashby

Waterton Lakes National Park, 1963.

I have stood on this spot probably over a hundred times and been over taken by the same event. And it has made absolutely no difference whom I was with or even if I was just by myself; the day comes back as if it was yesterday, which in a way it was. I am not a veteran nor have I ever suffered any truly traumatic event in my life, but still it comes back almost like a positive version of PTSD or even a fairy tale: and it’s always the same.

Once upon a time a young woman and I stood beside the Prince of Wales hotel and leaned into the gale-like wind. Our hands were intertwined as we admired the breathtaking view down the length of Waterton Lake. No less impressive to us was the seemingly growing emotion that we felt toward each other. At this point it was probably not love, but it was none the less a rapidly blooming infatuation. It might be said that our feelings for one another were quickly heading toward that most tender of young loves: the summer romance. I was nineteen and she was a newly turned twenty one; I still a boy and she a young woman. A not entirely dangerous combination, but probably not one to lay money on either. Still we were what we were couple was what we were and we had the whole day ahead of us. After drinking in the view a little longer we cruised through the Prince and hiked downtown. Waterton Town Site in those days was almost terminally quaint. It was a very Britishly Canadian small tourist town complete with both china and woolen shops, but nary a tee-shirt was to be found. It was so locked into the past that it even had a real pub complete with separate entrances for the sexes. We pursued all of the shops and settled on lunch at New Franks, where the Chinese owner chastised the young woman for not eating all of her food. It was all in fun however and no harm was done. After a lengthy stroll through town we boarded the launch International and mad our way down the lake laughing and talking and holding hands the entire way. On the way back I unabashedly fished for a commitment, but all I could pry from her was a “lets enjoy the moment.” I was somewhat taken aback, but not really discouraged: after all we had not known each other all that long. The boat trip complete we both decided it was time for a swim. In the town pool, I showed off on the diving board and she paddled around and once in a while even watched me do my amateur flips and twists. After some time in the pool we realized that it was almost time for them to catch our ride back home to Glacier where we both had summer jobs at Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. We dressed quickly and headed for the rendezvous point. On the way she ran into a store and bought some Macintosh Toffee, which she suddenly smashed on the sidewalk. The noise was a sharp crack. She told me this was how it was done and gave me a piece. Soon our ride back to the States came. We were exhausted and soon fell asleep on each other’s shoulder It was the end of a golden day and soon to be the end of an even more magical summer. She and I had our ups and downs as the summer progressed, but by the end of the season we were still together. I even visited her and her parents in St. Paul on my way home to Oklahoma. When we parted at the bus station it was with tears on my part. I was in love. As the Robert Frost poem says, nothing gold can stay. In the nearly sixty years since that wonderful day in Waterton many changes have come about. Waterton is of course still breathtakingly beautiful and quaint, but like most tourist towns over the years only the beauty has remained unchanged. The Pub, the pool and all of the quaint shops and even New Frank’s are but a memory. The town is awash in fancy restaurants, tee-shirts shops, and other assorted gift shops. The stately Prince of Wales still sits on the hill overlooking the town and is probably in better shape than it was those many years ago. Like the early morning fog on Waterton Lake the romance of the boy and girl faded quickly as most summer loves do. At summer’s end she returned to her university in Minnesota and I went back to my small college in Arkansas. At first there was a flurry of letters and phone calls between us; there was even talk about a Christmas visit and even the possibility of my transferring to her school on my part. But gradually the correspondence between us diminished; or at least on one side it did. Then one day a letter arrived which again bore the familiar Minnesota address. However no such return address was necessary for no reply was either wanted or needed for all the letter said was “Good bye” in the best Dear John tradition. I was devastated beyond belief and crashed into a tearful despondency. That fall the trees in the Ozarks never seemed to change into their normal colors of bright red and orange before dropping to the ground. Instead they just turned brown and died as sadly as did my summer romance.

In the over half century since that magical summer day in Waterton I have been back to Waterton many, many times. And no trip to Waterton has ever taken place without my thinking of that very special day. One thing which would always make me think of that was the eating of Macintosh Toffee. For reasons obvious to me it was always a subtle reminder of times gone by. I would buy it when I traveled in Canada, slam it on a hard surface and be instantly transported back in time. On one recent trip to Waterton I stopped by the Prince of Wales hotel. While browsing the gift shop I noticed a display of Macintosh toffee. It was different now for it no longer came in the slammable boxes, but was now packaged in individually wrapped little bite size bits. I bought a package and after unwrapping it I bit into the candy. It was just as good as I remembered, but it wasn’t really the same and I asked myself why the difference? And then it dawned on me. It no longer came with the “sound”, the sound of breaking toffee being hit on a hard surface; a sound I guess I always associated with the breaking of my youthful heart. Time passes as most assuredly time does and in its passage most emotional wounds will eventually heal, mine just seemed to take longer than most. As time passes on into eternity it attaches itself to many stars along the way and one of them is surely the star that determines that somehow once upon a time never comes again.

Chris Ashby was a longtime seasonal employee in Glacier National Park.