Montana Memories

By Thomas Bullock

Montana Memories is a fun adventure with young boys challenging the great outdoors in Montana’s spectacular landscape. In order to find fun and adventure, considering the tight family budgets and rationing of goods, the boys had to rely on their wits, imagination and reckless daring. The boys daring sometimes gets them into precarious positions, but they always managed to survive and have fun doing so. Besides hunting and fishing, the boys enjoy hockey on the frozen Gibson Park pond in Great Falls, Montana, and in the rinks in many of the small farming communities in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. It is a story of young adventurous boys overcoming hardships brought on by the Great Depression, World War II and the post war exigencies. However, despite the hardships mid-twentieth century Great Falls was a great place to grow up. The nearby mountains, rivers, waterfalls, creeks, caves and canyons offered unlimited places for exploration and adventure for spirited youngsters. Within easy reach of the city were outstanding fishing and hunting venues. The mountains and prairies were alive with deer, elk, pronghorn antelope, Canada geese, mallard ducks, grouse, prairie chickens, and ring-neck pheasants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Bullock
• Release date: Dec 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465843982

Book preview

Montana Memories

By

Thomas Bullock

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Published by Smashwords. Inc.

Copyright 2011 by Thomas Bullock

ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-4658-4398-2

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Cover photo, The Dearborn River, courtesy wunderground.com

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Chapter 1 –

Across The Wide Missouri

Our clumsy craft bucked the waves as it struggled against the brawny current of the mighty Missouri River as we attempted to sail across to Three-Mile Island.

It was summer time in Great Falls, Montana, over a half a century ago during World War II. We, my brother and two friends and I, were embarking on a new adventure.

In order to find fun and adventure, considering tight family budgets and rationing of ordinary goods because of the war, we had to rely on our wits, imagination and reckless daring.

A vacant lot became a battlefield where we were knights of the roundtable hacking away at imaginary foes with wooden swords; a stand of trees became a dark, dangerous forest where we tracked down and vanquished wild Indians with silver plated, pearl handled, cap guns; a grassy expanse in the park became the Polo Grounds where we played for the national football championship; Gibson Pond in the winter became the Boston Garden where we vied for the Stanley Cup.

We fashioned our swords from wooden laths and fashioned rubber-guns from pieces of wood, clothe pins and strips of synthetic rubber (real rubber was a scarce, critical, war material). The ammunition was made from narrow bands cut from the inner tubes and knotted to add stability and clout. Slingshots were whittled from tree limbs. Nice round pebbles or marbles used for ammunition. We made kitchen match shooters out of spring-loaded clothespins and rubber bands, and it’s a wonder we didn't burn the whole town down. We built forts out of tree branches and scrap lumber. We dug trenches and caves along the railroad embankment where we fought off imaginary enemies, until the railroad police found and demolished the strongholds.

We climbed trees, buildings and water towers. We hooked freight trains and rode them to the railroad yards where we scavenged leftover fruit from partially empty boxcars. Watermelons were a favorite.

Sometimes our talents got us into a pile of trouble as it did one summer day on our voyage across the mighty Missouri River.

Great Falls is located near the edge of the western limit of the Great Plains. The Rocky Mountains, straddling the continental divide, are about 80 miles to the west. To the southwest and south are the Little Belt and Big Belt Mountains. The Missouri River rushes out of a rocky canyon in the Big Belts on its 2500-mile journey to a point near St. Louis, Missouri, where it merges with the Mississippi River. As the river flows past the city it plunges over a series of cascades; Black Eagle Falls, Rainbow Falls, Horseshoe Falls and finally the Great Falls of the Missouri, the first in the series of cascades that confronted Lewis and Clark on their historic voyage up the Missouri.

Some fifteen miles east of the city are the Highwood Mountains, and to the north the rolling plains stretching way, way up into Canada. The only barrier against the northern artic blizzards blowing out of the Canadian prairies is a three stranded, barbed wire fence along the Hi-Line marking the border between U.S. and Canada.

The city is surrounded by huge wheat ranches, measured in the thousand of acres, where wheat and barley now flourish on the land where huge herds of buffalo once grazed on lush prairie grass.

Back then it was a great place to grow up. The nearby mountains, rivers, waterfalls, creeks, caves and canyons offered unlimited places for exploration and adventure for spirited youngsters. The lakes and streams abounded in native trout. Within easy reach of Great Falls were outstanding fishing and hunting venues. The mountains and prairies were alive with deer, elk, pronghorn antelope, Canada geese, mallard ducks, grouse, prairie chickens, and ring-neck pheasants.

It was the river that offered the greatest venue for our escapades. Like a magnet, it attracted adventure-seeking pre-teenage boys, who peed in alleys, carried matches and drank water from garden hoses, to its shores. We swam in it, waded in its shallows, rafted on its backwaters and sloughs, fished from its shores, trapped crawfish, scavenged along its banks for driftwood and other treasures, and scaled the rocky cliffs overlooking its roaring waterfalls.

There we were, four gutsy, young squirts challenging the turbulent, treacherous river in a makeshift boat pretending to be U.S. Marines assaulting a Japanese stronghold on the island. Our crew consisted of my eleven-year-old big brother Jim, our two ten-year-old buddies, Elmer and Jock, and I, just nine years old and barely able to swim. Our assault weapons consisted of a Daisy Red Rider BB gun, two hand made-made wooden rifles and three holstered toy six shooters.

Our clumsy craft was a contrivance used by bricklayers and plasterers for mixing sand, cement and water called a mortar boat. It had a flat, rusty, sheet metal bottom with a slight upward curve in bow. Its back and sides were fashioned from weather worn two-by-eight-inch wood boards with traces of dried cement. Across the bow, just above the upper edge of the sheet metal bottom was a one-by-two-inch wood brace that we used as a handhold for hauling the craft from an abandoned construction site scrap pile to the edge of the river.

The clumsy craft was just large enough to hold the four of us as we crouched on our knees in our designated stations; Captain Jim in the bow acting as pilot and looking for snags or submerged rocks that could cause us to capsize and flounder, Elmer and Jock were on the port and starboard sides manning the oars shaped from pieces of driftwood. I was in the stern with a rusty tin can bailing out the silt-laden water that splashed through the space between the upper edge of the curved bottom and the brace in the bow, and over the low gunnels.

It was late morning when we had pushed off from a point just below the First Street bridge and well upstream of the island across the river to allow for the drift of the current to carry us to our destination. The four of us knelt down in order to avoid capsizing. We soon realized capsizing wasn't our biggest problem; swamping in the cold, turbid, river water, or worse, being carried down stream by the powerful current to Black Eagle Dam and the waterfalls was the more threatening peril.

We weren't more than a twenty or so yards from shore when we were caught and held us in the rivers current. Wind driven spray and waves broke over the bow and soaked us to the skin.

The little flat-bottomed skiff only had a few inches of draft. We were in constant peril of swamping or hitting a snag that would sink us.

Maybe we should turn around, this is more dangerous than we bargained for, Elmer shouted above the wind and spray.

No way, it will be just as hard getting back to the launch site as it is to get to the island, our undaunted captain decreed.

We pressed onward, the waves continued breaking over the bow. The surging current and gusty wind continued to rock our clumsy craft. We had little control of the rudderless, flat-bottomed boat.

Three-Mile Island was still several hundred yards away as we struggled against the wind and current, unaware that a passing driver along the river road recognized the four of us and had witnessed our departure. He called Jock's mother telling her that we were in grave danger; drifting down the river on a raft towards Black Eagle Dam.

She in turn called the fire department!

Keep bailing, Captain Jim ordered as the muddy river water kept pouring in.

I was the smallest, with dubious swimming capabilities, of the crew so I had plenty of incentive to keep the water from flooding the boat. I tried flattening the can in order to better scoop up the water, but it seemed a losing proposition. My knuckles were scratched and bleeding, but the thought of sinking in the fast current hastened my attempt to keep us from being swamped.

I'm going as fast as I can, but the waters coming in faster than I can bail it out and my hands are cut, I cried.

Quit whining and keep bailing, the captain ordered.

As we continued across the river, I looked up I saw the Cottonwood trees and underbrush of Three-Mile Island slipping past on the port side. We headed downstream much faster than our self-appointed captain/navigator had calculated.

Jim ordered Jock and Elmer to paddle faster.

We're going past the island. Jim said.

We're doing the best we can, but the current is too strong, they replied in unison.

They kept paddling and I kept bailing and Jim kept barking orders as we passed the lower end of the island and into the channel between the island and the opposite shore. Once we were on the leeward side of the island the wind and current slacked off and the waves stopped lapping over the sides of the boat. We were safe—for the moment.

Let's head for the shore, Jim reluctantly called out. I guess we won't get to the island today. He was disappointed that his first sailing command had missed its mark and it appeared we were not going to rid the island of the imaginary Japanese invaders.

Elmer, Jock and I weren't disappointed, we were just glad we hadn't swamped or had been carried down river to the dam, and drowned in the maelstrom below the dam.

As we approached the high cut-bank along the far shore, four city firemen greeted us.

What the hell do you kids think your doing, they shouted down at us. Get out of that boat and get up here right now. Your parents are worried sick.

Don't you know you can drown in that river? One of them needlessly informed us.

We beached the boat, scampered out and climbed up the steep, muddy bank. One of firemen climbed down and tied a rope to the brace on the front of our boat. Then the four of them hauled it up to the top of embankment.

What are you going to do with our boat? Jim asked.

Boat! This is no boat. You dumb kids. Where did you find this contraption? Or did you steal it? One of the firemen barked at us.

We didn't steal it. We found it, Jim answered.

Don't get smart with me, you little brat, the fireman retorted. You're lucky we came by when we did.

Then our gallant rescuers proceeded to chop the boat up with their fire axes.

We were now on an isolated stretch of shore across the river from town and home between the First Street Bridge, about 3 miles up steam, and the Sixth Street Bridge about the same distance down stream. Our shoes and clothes were wet and muddy, and we had nothing to eat or drink.

Our gallant captain had forgot to lie in supplies before we cast off.

Can we have a ride back to town? We asked in unison as the firemen climbed into the fire truck.

No, it against the law for civilians to ride on city fire trucks. Besides, it will teach you kids a lesson to walk home. Think of how much you worried your parents while you're walking. Came the answer as they roared away leaving us marooned, on foot and without our intrepid craft.

So the four us, wet, muddy, tired and hungry trudged on home arriving just before dinner. When we got in the house, Mom asked Jim and me, Where have you been?

By this time our clothes had dried and we had brushed off the most of the mud. It was obvious she hadn't yet heard about our adventure on the river, or our confrontation with the fire department, so we gave her the standard answer.

Out.

The next day in the local paper there was a front-page article headlined, Firemen Save Children From Watery Grave. It then went on about how the courageous firemen pulled the four of us (naming names) from the raging Missouri River.

It didn't say anything about abandoning us across the river and several miles from home afoot, with no food or water.

This was one of our many adventures, or misadventures, growing up in Great Falls, Montana a half a century ago.

My older brother Jim, our friends and I, endeavored to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the nearby fishing and hunting locales, even if it meant a little hardship. Many of our adventures, or, misadventures involved our friend Bob.

Bob was one of our best friends when we were growing up in Great Falls. His passions were fishing and hunting. He knew all the best spots for catching native trout and bagging big game. We were glad to go with him even though many of his secret spots entailed a fair amount trudging along steep mountain trails or through prickly underbrush and across raging torrents. We nicknamed him just around the next bend Bob because as we tramped along a narrow winding trail with heavy packs we would shout, how much further? His answer was always the same, just around the next bend. Thinking back, I guess Bob enjoyed the challenge as much or more than the trophies. He had the stamina of mountain goat and led us on some fantastic fishing ventures where we experienced plenty of challenges in the backwoods of Montana.

Chapter 2 –

Lesson in Punctuality Along the Dearborn River

One of our earliest fishing adventures or rather misadventure with Bob was on the South Fork of the Dearborn River with our dad, and his friend Harry Rickter. It was supposed to be an easy day trip, leaving early in the morning and returning in the late afternoon. Bob thought it may too tame but agreed to go anyhow.

It turned out to be a hard learned lesson in punctuality.

In those days the delineation between parents and kids was unmistakable. The parents were the