It gave me a sense of geographical deficiency in my education to travel three hundred miles on a river I had never heard of before. But it happened on the Milk River, a considerable but not navigable stream, although some six hundred miles long. The broad Milk River Valley is in itself an empire of excellent land, ready for the plough and the wheat-sower. Judging by the grass (which cures into the most nutritious feed as it stands), there had been no lack of rain during the summer; but if there is lack of water, all the land can be irrigated by the Milk River, and it may also be said of the country beyond to Great Falls that frequent streams make irrigation easy, if there is scant rainfall. I should say that this would be the only question about water.
Leaving the Milk River Valley, we began to curve southward, passing Fort Assiniboin on our right. In this region and beyond at Fort Benton great herds of cattle are grazed by Government contractors, who supply the posts with beef. At the Big Sandy Station they were shipping cattle eastward. We crossed the Marias River (originally named Maria’s River), a stream that had the respectful attention of Lewis and Clarke, and the Teton, a wilfully erratic watercourse in a narrow valley, which caused the railway constructors a good deal of trouble. We looked down, in passing, on Fort Benton, nestled in a bend of the Missouri; a smart town, with a daily newspaper, an old trading station. Shortly after leaving Assiniboin we saw on our left the Bear Paw Mountains and the noble Highwood Mountains, fine peaks, snow-dusted, about thirty miles from us, and adjoining them the Belt Mountains. Between them is a shapely little pyramid called the Wolf Butte. Far to our right were the Sweet Grass Hills, on the Canada line, where gold-miners are at work. I have noted of all this country that it is agriculturally fine. After Fort Benton we had glimpses of the Rockies, off to the right (we had seen before the Little Rockies in the south, towards Yellowstone Park); then the Bird-tail Divide came in sight, and the mathematically Square Butte, sometimes called Fort Montana.
At noon, November 20th, we reached Great Falls, where the Sun River, coming in from the west, joins the Missouri. The railway crosses the Sun River, and runs on up the left bank of the Missouri. Great Falls, which lies in a bend of the Missouri on the cast side, was not then, but soon will be, connected with the line by a railway bridge. I wish I could convey to the reader some idea of the beauty of the view as we came out upon the Sun River Valley, or the feeling of exhilaration and elevation we experienced. I had come to no place before that did not seem remote, far from home, lonesome. Here the aspect was friendly, livable, almost home-like. We seemed to have come out, after a long journey, to a place where one might be content to stay for some time—to a far but fair country, on top of the world, as it were. Not that the elevation is great—only about 3000 feet above the sea—nor the horizon illimitable, as on the great plains; its spaciousness is brought within human sympathy by guardian hills and distant mountain ranges.
A more sweet, smiling picture than the Sun River Valley the traveller may go far to see. With an average breadth of not over two and a half to five miles, level, richly grassed, flanked by elevations that swell up to plateaus, through the valley the Sun River, clear, full to the grassy banks, comes down like a ribbon of silver, perhaps 800 feet broad before its junction. Across the far end of it, seventy-five miles distant, but seemingly not more than twenty, run the silver serrated peaks of the Rocky Mountains, snow-clad and sparkling in the sun. At distances of twelve and fifty miles up the valley have been for years prosperous settlements, with school-houses and churches, hitherto cut off from the world.
The whole rolling, arable, though treeless country in view is beautiful, and the far prospects are magnificent. I suppose that something of the homelikeness of the region is due to the presence of the great Missouri River (a connection with the world we know), which is here a rapid, clear stream, in permanent rock-laid banks. At the town a dam has been thrown across it, and the width above the dam, where we crossed it, is about 1800 feet. The day was fair and not cold, but a gale of wind from the south-west blew with such violence that the ferry-boat was unmanageable, and we went over in little skiffs, much tossed about by the white-capped waves.
In June, 1886, there was not a house within twelve miles of this place. The country is now taken up and dotted with claim shanties, and Great Falls is a town of over 1000 inhabitants, regularly laid out, with streets indeed extending far on to the prairie, a handsome and commodious hotel, several brick buildings, and new houses going up in all directions. Central lots, fifty feet by two hundred and fifty, are said to sell for $5000, and I was offered a corner lot on Tenth Street, away out on the prairie, for $1500, including the corner stake.
It is difficult to write of this country without seeming exaggeration, and the habitual frontier boastfulness makes the acquisition of bottom facts difficult. It is plain to be seen that it is a good grazing country, and the experimental fields of wheat near the town show that it is equally well adapted to wheatraising. The vegetables grown there are enormous and solid, especially potatoes and turnips; I have the outline of a turnip which measured seventeen inches across, seven inches deep, and weighed twenty-four pounds. The region is underlaid by bituminous coal, good coking quality, and extensive mines are opening in the neighborhood. I have no doubt from what I saw and heard that iron of good quality (hematite) is abundant. It goes without saying that the Montana mountains are full of other minerals. The present advantage of Great Falls is in the possession of unlimited water-power in the Missouri River.
As to rainfall and climate? The grass shows no lack of rain, and the wheat was raised in 1887 without irrigation. But irrigation from the Missouri and Sun rivers is easy, if needed. The thermometer shows a more temperate and less rigorous climate than Minnesota and north Dakota. Unless everybody fibs, the winters are less severe, and stock ranges and fattens all winter. Less snow falls here than farther east and south, and that which falls does not usually remain long. The truth seems to be that the mercury occasionally goes very low, but that every few days a warm Pacific wind from the south-west, the “Chinook,” blows a gale, which instantly raises the temperature, and sweeps off the snow in twenty-four hours. I was told that ice rarely gets more than ten inches thick, and that ploughing can be done as late as the 20th of December, and recommenced from the 1st to the 15th of March. I did not stay long enough to verify these statements. There had been a slight fall of snow in October, which speedily disappeared. November 20th was pleasant, with a strong Chinook wind. November 21st there was a driving snow-storm.
The region is attractive to the sight-seer. I can speak of only two things, the Springs and the Falls.
There is a series of rapids and falls, for twelve miles below the town; and the river drops down rapidly into a canyon which is in some places nearly 200 feet deep. The first fall is twenty-six feet high. The most beautiful is the Rainbow Fall, six miles from town. This cataract, in a wild, deep gorge, has a width of 1400 feet, nearly as straight across as an artificial dam, with a perpendicular plunge of fifty feet. What makes it impressive is the immense volume of water. Dashed upon the rocks below, it sends up clouds of spray, which the sun tinges with prismatic colors the whole breadth of the magnificent fall. Standing half-way down the precipice another considerable and regular fall is seen above, while below are rapids and falls again at the bend, and beyond, great reaches of tumultuous river in the canon. It is altogether a wild and splendid spectacle. Six miles below, the river takes a continuous though not perpendicular plunge of ninety-six feet.