Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/1380851
N O R M A N M A C L E A N S P E C I A L I S S U E 1 9 FROM CHAPTER EIGHT "FATHERS AND SONS" My younger son, John Fitzroy, whom we call JohnFitz, and I came west together and joined my father at the cabin several times during the years he was at work on the Mann Gulch story [Young Men and Fire]. My dad was in his early eighties, but he still drove alone to Montana from Chicago. After a stint at the City News Bureau, JohnFitz had been a reporter at the Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Ala- bama, covering among other things a cross burning by the Klu Klux Klan in the southeastern corner of the state. But he was headed for law school. He went on to become a public defender for the state of Maryland, working in the division defending ju- veniles, and established his own family, his wife, Amy; daughter; Ashlyn; and son, Evan Fitzroy. The first time JohnFitz, my dad, and I were at the cabin together, we decided to take a hike to Morrell Lake at the headwaters of Morrell Creek. The lake is a wonder spot. You can look from there to the tops of the rugged Swan Range that form the western edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. That's where Morrell Creek gets its start, up around seven thousand feet where snow and ice can last into August. The creek comes down the mountains in a dramatic series of wa- terfalls, and the last one right before Morrell Lake is big and picturesque. Back in the old days, when my dad was young, he'd had to hike more than twenty miles to reach Morrell Lake. But as logging roads extended into the backcountry, the trailhead moved closer to the lake and the hike shortened. By the time the three of us walked into the lake, the trail was down to about two and a half miles. On that trip we found a makeshift raft pulled up on the lakeshore, left by a previous outfit. Those remote mountain lakes are often ringed by timber and difficult to fish from shore, and fishermen who build rafts out of drift- wood or fallen logs often leave them for the next group. JohnFitz was too young to have taken up fly fishing, but he happily got on the raft and draped the harness of my wicker fishing basket over his shoulders. I waded out pulling the raft, using it as a float when we reached deep water, and hung on to the raft with one hand while casting with the other. When I caught a fish, I flopped it onto the raft, and JohnFitz unhooked it and put it in my basket. He was content as keeper of the fish. My dad sat on a log on the shore and he was happy, too, watch- ing me fish in this odd manner with his grandson. I caught a gorgeous mess of cutthroat trout, the ones with the lush Morrell Creek coloring. CONTINUED