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Havre and Glacier share common historyHowdy Beaver

Havre and Glacier share common history

Howdy Beaver

What a beautiful time of year this is on both sides of Montana. Of course, we need more rain or snow or sleet or even mist. However, west of the Rockies, there is so much water anyway that it is hard to tell if things are dry or not.

One thing is for sure, though, this year, and that is that at least the Milk River should have enough water in it to last half the summer. The Many Glacier and St. Mary drainages of Glacier are just loaded with snow, and if you have looked at the old Milk lately, it is running bank full in an effort to fill both Fresno and Nelson reservoirs as soon as possible.

The other thing that gives us hope is that this spring has been so late and so cold that our rain season of May might be pushed right into June this year. That will put everything out of whack as far as haying is concerned, but that is all right. Better to have a late haying season than nothing at all to hay.

We always remember Leonard Faber telling us that the Fourth of July in the beautiful Bear Paws was good for new potatoes, new peas and the first haying of the year. That might be true this year for spuds and peas, but probably not hay. Even if haying this year only happens in August because of a cold and wet June, that's fine. Let's just hope that wet is the operative word.

We spent some time at the North Fork of the Flathead River the other day. We are always amazed by water and glad that we don't live next to a great river. The North Fork was running brown and bank full that day. Awesome and sort of scary. There were three groups of floaters on the river and they were busy paddling around huge stumps and logs rushing down the river. Looked like anything but fun to us.

That made us think of the times that our family ventured to the North Fork later in the summer when the river was calm and the fishing was as good as any in Montana.

There was a whole group of Havre people who had summer homes in Glacier National Park on the way to Kintla Lake just across the river from Polebridge. There were so many people there from Havre that more than a few old Glacier maps had the name Havreville on the map where all those Havre people lived. No one from Havre there now. No signs. However, in the book, "Place Names of Glacier/Waterton National Parks" by Jack Holterman, there is a mention of the Havre colony. It is found under the place name of "Big Prairie."

"Big Prairie lies along the North Fork River north of Polebridge. Some people from Havre had private homes here, calling their settlement, Havreville.'"

Maybe we just missed Havre that day, but we were surely sad that Havreville is no more.

 

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