I watched the rain drizzle down the truck window as we made our way up the bumpy dirt road. This was my first time to the old trapper cabin out on Squaw Creek. I sat next to my friend Alice in the back seat of her father's business truck. We were laughing at all the other students of the Montana Heritage Class. They were goofing around in the bed of the truck we were in and in the one our teacher, Mr. Gruber, was driving in front of us. I'm not sure how long we drove up and down the hills, but after awhile we descended a long tree-filled slope. At the bottom, to the left, the trees opened into a small field. Its gray fence gave hints to an older day where once young, energetic horses filled the grassy area, their hooves beating the ground with a noise similar to the thunder that rolled across the clouds above my head. On the right stood a cabin built of a material that looked a lot like cement. It appeared, as we got out of the truck and stepped into the drizzle, that the sky was weeping at the loss of days gone by, sad that never again would a rugged mountain man stay in the cabin which it watched over.

We made a horseshoe shape around Mark White and listened to his historical account of the area. He told of Indian tribes, which passed through the area, how they would make camp. As the men hunted the women would walk through the forest searching for trees to pill for food. Later white men built the house for a trapping and mining cabin.

After he was finished Wayne Maahs got up and explained how The Northern Pacific Railroad owned the land, then through many different land transactions a local family was able to buy the land. Once we had heard the history Mr. Gruber suggested we go explore and try to find some of the trees Mr. White had told us about. We needed no prodding; Alice and I set out towards the field.

As we trotted through the rain-dampened grass in the meadow, I let my imagination run free. I looked down at my blue jeans and work boots and could almost see them transform into a deer hide dress and mocassins. In my hand, instead of a camera, I held a basket for gathering grass for weaving or berries for food. Maybe instead I wore hide pants and held a bow, searching for a generous deer that would give up his body so my family could eat. A few more steps and I was standing by a corral long ago abandoned. No longer did my imagination see me as an Indian but a cowboy with a hat and stir-ups, trying to rope my first horse. My thoughts went back and forth between cowboy and Indian, depending on what my eyes saw, the whole time we walked the property.

It was beautiful. When God made Montana He must have wanted to make a heaven on earth. For the scenes I saw as I stood and took in the tree-filled mountains, gray sky and yellow speckled grass were nothing short of paradise. No artist could capture the beauty I saw. They dare not try, because only One holds the power to make a sight like this so overpowering and awesomely majestic. Could anything be more beautiful than Montana? I could have sat the whole day and taken in that scene, but there was work to be done and I needed to get busy.

My job was to rake pine needles and drag them to a burn pile and to clear away the brush around the walkway. It might not sound so bad, but it was a tedious task. Never-the-less I enjoyed myself because it was nice to see hard work pays off. I enjoyed experiencing what a mountain man had to go through to get his house looking good.

Interested in how these men lived, I went inside the cabin. It wasn't what I had expected. Instead of the graying wood I anticipated, there was green paint from ceiling to floor. There was no bear rug or deer head mounted on the wall. No clue to the mountain man's legacy was in that room. The first thing I noticed was the pungent smell of rat mixed with an old smell, the kind of smell that comes from an old box that's been sitting in some forgotten place for many years. Next I saw the bunk beds on the far side, pictures on the walls, a table near the door, and a fire place complete with a wood basket and a broom. To my left was another room, the kitchen, supplied with the necessities of cooking; no food, but all the utensils. Adjoining this was a spare room.

The inside of the cabin was not of great interest to me, so I left and started clearing the walkway on the hill, between the outhouse and the fire pit. This area, behind the house, was overgrown up with all sorts of bushes and thistles. Once the other students and I got done clearing the brush, Tyler, another student, started making steps. Alice, Amy, and I tried to help with the manual part of the job, but soon gave up. We instead used our energy to gather flat stones from the nearby creek for the top of the stairs. After we had picked up enough rocks we sat, talked, and gave suggestions to Tyler. He's one of those people who won't stop till his work is done. No matter how hard Mr. Gruber or the rest of us urged him to take a break and eat lunch with the class, he wouldn't quit till the stairs were complete. He inspected each one to make sure it was solid and flat. Then, when they were to his satisfaction, he took his break and ate.

Lunch was fun. The whole class sat around the fire roasting hotdogs or grilling hamburgers. Mr. Gruber even brought the ingredients for s'mores, complete with Hershey chocolate and graham crackers. After lunch we goofed off for awhile and then loaded back in the trucks. On the way back home, as I watched the trees past my window, I thought back over those memories I'd made that day and purposed to forever remember them.