Bear Paw Meanderings

A couple of weeks ago Keith Hanson, Duke Pursley and I were having a conversation in “The Mountaineer” office in Big Sandy about fish. Duke had said that he hoped it warmed up soon because he wanted to catch some of the fish in his privately stocked pond. I asked him if the fish were rainbow. He scoffed at the idea and said it was only brookies for him. He loves them about ten inches long and all the bones come out when the back bone is removed.

That led me to dream about our Clear Creek cabins of my youth. My Grandpa Lucke used a cabin called the White House on Clear Creek as his cabin. It was owned by John Anderson and was between Henderson and Anderson Creeks and had some of the greatest brook trout fishing in the mountains. Across the road in an old log school house, that was the Lou Lucke Company cabin for a good many years. That cabin was a wonderful place for young kids to learn about fishing. Henderson Creek was just a few yards down a hill from the cabin. We kids learned to bait up a fly fishing pole with a couple of worms and crawl to the tiny creek that was maybe a couple of feet across and two feet deep The idea was that the fish could not see our shadow above so we would crawl to the hole, dangle the hook quietly in and wait. It usually didn’t take long to hook a large brook trout. Usually we had a mess of seven or eight for breakfast the next morning in a half hour. They were from ten inches to fifteen inches and wonderful eating.

My Uncles Scott and Al along with my dad were all wonderful breakfast cooks. And, even though the main meal of the day was much later, I think that for me at least, breakfast was the best meal of the day and some of the best meals ever cooked in the Bear Paw Mountains.

Whoever was cooking would pan fry the fish, cook mounds of crunchy hash browns, serve light and fluffy pancakes with huckleberry syrup (someone had always gone to the North Fork of the Flathead the year before and picked gallons of huckleberries and they were canned into syrup for pancakes.) Maybe we would have bacon, maybe not or if it was a gourmet cook, maybe the bacon would be wrapped around the fish. There was always lots of butter on the table and for those who did not like huckleberry syrup or if it was not available, there was always the maple syrup that came in a tin log cabin with the chimney being the pouring spout.

At Grandma Lucke’s house, for some reason pie was often served as a breakfast dessert so it was not unusual that Grandma Lucke had sent out a couple of June berry pies or fresh rhubarb pies so there was pie after all else was finished for breakfast. Those meals were wonderful but it was always the brook trout that got the gold star of attention at breakfast time. I would cut up my fish and mix it in with the hash browns. Man that was a taste treat.

Well, the Lou Lucke Company cabin and the White House are all gone now. Drive by Henderson and Anderson Creeks and for me all there are is an abundance of memories.

And most of those memories are about the food. I can taste it yet. Keith Hanson and Duke Pursley brought it all back the other day and my goodness, I am hungry!