Distinctly Montana Magazine

43 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m Glacier-carved terrain is deceiving. Wide, flat-bottomed valleys suddenly end where the freeze-melt cycle had chewed into a headwall, dropping the debris on a convey- or belt of moving ice. The promising valley between Razoredge and Tinkham mountains in Glacier National Park is no exception. Tinkham discovered that when he found himself atop a narrow divide now known as Pita- makan Pass. The 7,861-foot crossing was often just wide enough for a horse, and wholly impractical for wagons, he reported. Marias Pass wasn't a secret to locals, such as the McDonald fam- ily of the Hudson's Bay Company post at St. Ignatius, Montana. However, Native Americans knew lower wasn't always better. Just across the Canadian border is Crowsnest Pass, a measly 4,453 feet high. But it was largely ignored because of fallen timber in the dense forest. The Kootenais had nearly as many names for variations of deadfalls as the Eskimos do for snow. Tribal trails to buffalo country on the Great Plains were notori- ous for their grueling ascents over mountain ridges. The pass remained officially undiscovered until 1889, when the Canadian James Hill was pushing his St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway west across North Dakota and Montana. He had reached Great Falls, with a spur to Butte. But Hill had more ambitious plans—a competitor to the Northern Pacific that would extend to Seattle. It would be called the Great Northern Railway, copying the name of a famous predecessor in England. Hill wanted a more direct route than Rogers Pass, near Lincoln, Montana. The pass that Tinkham had found would require a two-and-a-half-mile tunnel. It was the rumored Marias Pass that stood out. Construction west would start in the following spring, and it was already November of 1889. Hill pushed his chief engineer, E. H. Beckler, for instant results. Beckler telegraphed for John Stevens, a self-taught surveyor. Stevens traveled by rail to Havre, and then 160 miles cross country to Brown- ing. There he discovered none of the Blackfeet would guide him. The pass had evil spirits linked to a smallpox epidemic, they said. So, with a supposed whiskey bribe, he recruited a reluctant Flathead named Coonsah and headed into the mountains with a wagon, mule, saddle horse and snowshoes. Coonsah's courage and tolerance for the bitter cold ran out once in the mountains, at a site known as False Summit. Stevens con- tinued on five miles through the minus 40-degree cold to the ac- tual summit. A short distance later he came to Bear Creek, where quick work with a hatchet proved it flowed west—the true test of the Continental Divide. His barometer put the height at 5,000 feet. Afraid to rest in the subzero cold, he walked in a circle until day- light. According to accounts, he felt even taking time to gather wood for fire was too risky. It was December 11, 1889. Hill was overjoyed with the news. By the end of 1891 the rail- road reached Kalispell. Stevens became chief engineer for the Great Northern, discovered Stevens Pass through the Cascade Mountains and went on to build the Panama Canal and oversee railroads in Russia during World War I. The railroad eventually commissioned a statue of Stevens, and unveiled it in a ceremony on the summit in July, 1925. There were some who felt the courage of Stevens's trek in 1889 was overstated. Slippery Bill, a famed local resident, supposedly spoke up at the dedication and said Stevens could have spent the night in his nearby cabin. The summit is marked by an obelisk that tops out exact- ly one mile above sea level. For years the obe- lisk was in the middle of the highway, before it was gently moved to an adjoining park and rest area. PULL UP MONTANA'S 1864 TERRITORIAL MAP AND YOU'LL SEE MARIAS PASS PROMINENTLY MARKED. THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THE MAP IS WRONG. MARIAS PASS MARIAS PASS

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