Triple Divide Peak is another place that has a peculiarly wild, romantic appeal. This sharp-pointed peak is 8001 feet above the sea. Close together in its summit slopes, surrounded by a maze of alpine mountains, three streams start almost from a common source, each to go on its separate, scenic way to the ocean.
The Red Eagle travels towards the North Pole through the north country and empties into that vast ice-formed basin, Hudson Bay. The waters of the Cut Bank choose the channel of the Missouri in which to travel the long journey to the inland sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and perhaps from this to flow north into the Gulf Stream. The Nyack goes to the Pacific through the crooked international channel of the scenic Columbia River.
HISTORY OF THE GLACIER NATIONAL PARK
George Bird Grinnell was a loyal and helpful friend to the Yellowstone National Park during its trying years. He also rendered the public the distinguished service of originating the Glacier National Park idea and helping to bring about its realization. In 1885, accompanied by James Willard Schultz, he visited a number of its now famous lakes and glaciers. On his return he published a series of articles entitled "To the Walled-in Lakes." A peak, a glacier, and a lake have been named in his honor. Year after year he returned to this region to enjoy the scenery and to study the language and customs of the Blackfeet Indian. In 1891, accompanied by Harry L. Stimpson, he discovered the Blackfoot Glacier, the largest in the Park, and a little later he wrote an article concerning it. In an article entitled "The Crown of the Continent" he gave a good account of the region.
James Willard Schultz lived for years with the Blackfeet Indians and spent a number of years with them in this territory. He says that Hugh Monroe was the first white man to see the Glacier National Park region. This was in 1815. Grinnell states that James Doty visited it in 1853. The same year, apparently, A. W. Tinkham, a government engineer, crossed through Cut Bank Pass. The American and British boundary-line survey commissioners visited the region in 1861.
I had a few weeks in the region in the autumn of 1896. For most other National Parks I have recommended enlargements, feeling that some adjacent and important scenic territory had been left outside the Park lines. But with the vast Glacier National Park no additions appear to be needed.
In an old notebook, under date of September 17, 1891, I found not long ago the following remark: "How would it do to start a movement to buy the St. Mary country, say thirty by thirty miles, from the Piegan Indians at a fair valuation, and turn it into a national reservation or park?"
This idea, in the course of the next ten years, grew in my mind. It was, I think, the first suggestion, in words, of the Glacier National Park. About the year 1893 indications of copper were found in the foothills. It was believed that the country contained mines, and before long strong pressure was brought to bear on Congress to purchase the land from the Indians and throw it open to settlement. The mountain region was not used by the Indians. They lived on the plains. In 1895, Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith sent out Commissioners W. C. Pollock, George Bird Grinnell, and W. M. Clements, to treat with the Blackfeet for this territory, and a majority of the commission went into the mountains and made a hasty inspection of the region. An agreement was made with the Indians, and was ratified by Congress, and about two years later the territory was thrown open to settlement....
Soon after 1902 I spoke to Senator T. H. Carter about setting aside this recently purchased tract as a National Park, and found that he was disposed to favor the suggestion. I then took up the matter with friends in Montana, and induced them to write to Senator Carter about the project. The result was that a little later he introduced a bill, which passed the Senate once or twice, and at last, in 1910, passed both houses, and was signed by President Taft, May 12, 1910, and the Glacier National Park became a fact.