I was two the first time we summered on Priest Lake at Indian Creek Diamond Match Camp. The following year we moved up the lake to a more remote camp named Camp Nine, just north of Canoe Point and before you reach Lion Head. My brother 4 and baby sister were the only kids in camp! The only way in at that point was by water (1951). My father was head of the logging for Diamond Match and in order that we could be with him, a cabin was set up for my family just over the small creek & foot bridge from the main camp. The mail boat arrived daily and supplies were brought in by barges that docked at the massive docks . Logs were boomed down the lake by tugs and the camp closed each winter once the ice froze over. We spent the next three summers there in that magical place swimming, picking berries, fishing and loving the sand. Our first summer there a logger brought a newly born fawn (whose mother had been killed) to my mom as she had an infant with a bottle. The fawn quickly became a pet of the camp and later the town of Coolin. This would have been 1951/52 – does anyone out there remember Fauleen? If so we were the kids in Camp nine who fed her with the baby bottle. I have faint memories of Steve’s, Bishops Marina, and Headquarters near Coolin. The family returned several years later – after being transferred to Montana. We returned by taking the Steelhead(name of the supply and mail boat) back into the camp and spent yet another wonder but too short of vacation here. Then one other trip was taken in by road – passable as it was. I have always wanted to return someday and take a tour of the lake again. Thank you for this site – it was my pleasure to remember when..

-Carie (Mathison) Graham
posted Jan. 9, 2009

I was 13 years old, and lucky enough to spend two weeks at Reeder Bay in July. There were lots of kids there, my age, younger, and older. One of them was Mary (not her real name, but it'll do), who was 16 years old and absolutely lovely.

At 13, I was emerging from the fog of childhood just in time to be thrust into the wilderness of puberty and desire ... and Mary, oh my. Mary. I've follwed Mary's life. Her parents divorced; she grew up, moved to Seattle, married, bore a child, divorced, took a lover at Priest Lake, left him, remained beautiful, suffered a mother's death ... But on that particular summer day, on that wide beach at Reeder Bay, Mary organized a game of tag in the water ... someone was "it" and had to tag someone else.

Mary was a superb swimmer --- she actually knew how to swim, how to make speed in the water. I was (and am) an unremarkable swimmer. Mary became "it" and searched around. I was near. She swam toward me, in waist deep water, in her blue and white bikini. Dear lord, I can still see her, slender, muscular; hips, curves, buxom, churning toward me. There was no hope of evading her with my swimming skills, and no desire to avoid her with my 13 year old mind awash in Desire.

I remember making a feeble attempt to evade her; felt her tag me. Then I leapt to tag her back --- although I could not swim well, I was young and strong and male and 13: I could leap. And I tagged her. Although she could outswim me, I probably was stronger. I tagged her, then bolted away. The water boiled, she swam after me. And tagged me. I leapt, and tagged her, leapt away. The water boiled as she swam after me and tagged me a third time. I leapt towards her, tagged her again ... touching her breast. I did not mean to. Could not take it back. Also, did not want to. I was 13, and powerful chemicals flooded me.

I was not familiar with their force of those things. There was a pause, the water settled. She looked at me, in a contemplative way. She swam away to find a less troublesome victim. In the evening I was on the beach again at Reeder Bay. She came walking down the beach, holding the hand of a ten year old boy. She was wearing warmer clothes, a grey sweatshirt which (to my eyes) did nothing at all to hide her beauty.

She wore sandals, short pants, which shouted to the world (I thought) the fact of her luxurious legs. She greeted the band of kids I was with, and then she continued strolling down the beach towards Elkins Resort, holding the hand of that boy. I would have liked to kill him, that I might substitute my hand for his, in hers.. Many years have passed.

Mary has had an interesting life, and I have had my own interesting life. I have married, I have a child, I have brought my family to Priest Lake many, many times. I have been to Priest Lake over a hundred times since that hot July day. Mary and I are not close. But Mary, as a young woman, gave me a day of magical desire, on the edge of becoming a man. I will remember that day when it is time for me to draw my last breath. I hope that my son will have a similar experience. He will be 13 in a three years.

- Leofwyn Wolfssen

 I remember when my wife and I made our first visit to Priest Lake. Our history with the lake is short compared to most of you. We enjoy a rather convoluted connection to the lake - as my wife's sister's husband's family (confused yet) have had a cabin on the east side, at the narrows, since the 40s or 50s. Immediate family members each get a week during "the season" to enjoy the cabin. So by luck of marrying well (I love you honey), we were lucky enough to be invited to the cabin during my wife's sister's week - starting about 1992. With our first glimpse of Priest Lake, my wife and I became converts to a new religion. After a couple years of those few precious days at "the cabin", we needed more. We bought used touring kayaks and spent a week camping on Kalispell Island. The experience was indescribably life changing and we have not been able to quench our thirst for the beauty of the lake since. The years since have been kind to us - we still have those yellow and blue plastic kayaks and you can find us paddling for miles north and south of the narrows on any given summer day. We also have a pontoon boat now and are blessed to have a slip at Granite Creek - which we are privileged to call our home base. Being 60ish we cherish every moment we are there and are saddened by those who abuse it or take it for granted. Priest Lake has enhanced our lives beyond words and with each visit we discover a peace and tranquility found nowhere else. My wife and I are water people - we are drawn to it - it touches us spiritually - and some day our ashes will be scattered upon it.

-Gerry & Valori Steinauer

During the summers that we ended up having more rain than sunshine we were never at loss for things to do at the lake. What we normally did was head down to the Outlet Resort Store where there was this old pin ball machine to the left of the front door. A group of two or more of us kids would gather around the pin ball machine, watching whoever was playing try to score 27,000 points in order to win another game in which you would hear a loud click as the number would turn over. If I'm not mistaken there was a point and time that whoever could beat the given score, they would receive a soda pop. Some mastered this game, adding games into the double digits, having to leave them until the next morning or for somebody else the following day. All for one quarter.

On rainy days we would also hang out in the back section of the restaurant listening to the juke box that played Dolly Pardon's, 'Sleeping Single in a Double Bed' amongst other songs. When we got kicked out of the restaurant (because we weren't buying anything~just occupying space) we would head over to somebody's trailer to play some card games. I do recall all of us hanging out on the fronch porch of the Outlet Store often times, talking and just hanging out.

When we were bored we sometimes did things that kids shouldn't, but couldn't resist stirring up a bit of trouble at times. Nothing bad mind you. I do remember that we had smoke bombs because it was near The 4th of July and a few of us were up to no good and put a smoke bomb in the pay telephone coin return on the front of the Outlet Store porch. We also threw a few smoke bombs into the store when it was pretty busy. Of course we all ran like heck and could hear Flo yelling out the front door; "I know who you kids are and I know each and every one of your parents!" I'm quite certain she did.

After all there weren't more than twenty or so of us between all of seven families. At one point and time Dick put in a few arcade games, along with a pool table, and a foosball table in the big aluminum boat shed that heads towards the Outlet Campgrounds. We could play in there until he either locked it up, or until the sun went down and there was no other light to illuminate the large storage unit. Sometimes, some of us would climb up into the boats in the storage unit that were stored up at the very top of the racks. That reminds me of one of the most important things we all did up at the lake during our summer evenings! We did roast our fair share of marshmallows for s'mores, building the biggest bon fires we could possibly make! All of us kids would just sit around the fire until our parents would call for us to come in. That was fun and all, but I have to say that we had the most fun between playing 'kick the can' and 'tower tag'. I'm pretty sure you all know what 'kick the can is', but I am pretty sure that there are those of you that don't know what tower tag is.

A bunch of us had built a tree fort, that had three different levels out towards Lakeshore Road, almost where Berdadish Rd. is at. We had to wait until it was dark before we could play Tower Tag. There were two people that would stand up in the fort with flashlights while everybody else would run out and hide behind the trees or in the shrubs. The objective was to tag the tower/fort without having the flashlight shined on you. Boy, I remember being so scared that a bear or a skunk was going to meet up with me while I was hiding. Sometimes I would get caught on purpose just so I could be safe up in the tower with the flashlight.

Most of our summer days were spent laying out on the docks, working on our tans, slathering on baby oil, so that when we started back to school in the Fall we would be as dark as we could possibly get. There's no mistaking that when you laid out on the dock, that was fair game for a dock fight. There were plenty of those! There were two kinds of docks at the Outlet...the slippery docks and the sliver dock. The sliver dock was one that you didn't want to get caught on during a dock fight because you either gave in and got thrown in the water or you would get drug across the dock and get slivers on your backside.

Back then we all didn't have boats so the poor boat owners that had kids that wanted to waterski would become victim to all of us and would end up pulling kids waterskiing for a few hours at least. After a long day of soaking up the sun, waterskiing, having clay fights (there was green clay out in the water that we would cover ourselves with or throw at one another), swimming, and building things in the sand on the beach, we would head up to our trailers to get cleaned up and have dinner. After dinner we would all meet up again while walking around. I remember smelling the grease that was frying the chicken as I walked between Olive Barnes little home and the corner of the Outlet Store.

We would walk down to the docks, looking out over the calm, serene water, skipping rocks, or looking for arrowheads on the beach. I think I have about six arrowheads that I found between that beach and just at the mouth of the river. One of the dangers about walking on the docks, while fully clothed, is that you essentially risked the fact that you might get thrown in by the person walking next to you! And if it was your birthday up there...anticipate that you would be escorted down to the docks and thrown into the water for however many years old you were turning.

There used to be a time that we would grab the shampoo bottle and a bar of soap, walk down to the dock in our suit, jump into the water getting wet, then grab the shampoo to wash our hair, using the soap to lather up, then dive back into the water to rinse off. (I'm just guessing that this isn't something people do any longer?) Early mornings, before we would head down to the beach, we would go huckleberry picking in big groups. About two or three adults would volunteer to take us up to pick berries. We would bring our gallon cardboard milk cartons and fill them up with huckleberry's, to try to sell them to Hill's Resort for $10-$12.

At the end of the summer it was always a bitter sweet farewell. There were usually tears as we pulled away from the lake, heading towards Hwy 57...looking at the lake where the boat ramp is at The Outlet Resort until you can't see the water any longer. It's been quite some time since those days and I haven't been in touch with any of those kids from years ago, but always will remember them and the great times we had. This memory goes out to The Gavel's, The Rodgers, The Boganrief's, The Melvin's, The Walker's, The Johnson's, and The Bach's.

-Gina

D. Burns

- Byron Buck

 I remember when Jim and Jean McBurney and I discovered the dugout canoe at Hess's Point described in the article by my mother in this same web page. At first  it seemed to be just a log, but we recognized that it had been worked on, and was hollowed out. I think it is more likely to have been 1938 or 39. Jim Ted McBurney didn't start coming out from Chicago to spend the summers until after 1937, as I remember it. But he did verify for us the approximate date when it had been made and used. I also remember watching the Tyee II being built by "Cap'n" Markham in Coolin, on the beach next to what was then Art Moore's Boat Storage & docks, and the Coolin Inn restaurant. I tried to get down to Coolin as often as I could from our cabin facing 4 Mile Island. I was fascinated by it and once I walked all of the way from our cabin along the shore in order to see it. Priest Lake has always been a special place for me. After I was ordained an Episcopal Priest, and took my vows in the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, and could only spend a few days, up to 1 or 2 weeks at the Lake, it took on a spiritual meaning for me, especially looking up the lake at the high mountains near the head of the lake. A few years ago (perhaps about 25) I was making a retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House in Gloucester, MA, and found a biography of Fr. Pierre DeSmet, SJ, who is said to have discovered Priest Lake, which he named for his Superior General, also a classmate, Fr. Roothaan. People found the name hard to pronounce, so they said, "It's named after some priest", and that is what it was then called. In that biography Fr. DeSmet was quoted as saying what a spiritual place the lake seemed to him, and that the Indians whom he met confirmed that by saying that it was a very spiritual place for them. I have many more memories, but this is enough for now.

-David Allen, SSJE

- Don

I remember when at Priest Lake, my family had a cabin on Cape Horn Rd. Early in the morning all you could hear was the sound of logging trucks heading down East side road. You could limit out on silvers by 9AM for a fresh breakfast, I learned to swim, drive a boat, fish, pick huckleberries, and chase the chipmunks! The stress of the day was the water pump losing pressure, and the bears in the garbage! Great childhood memories from the 60's and 70's!! Not much has changed here at Priest Lake. The water is still clear, the berries are still tasty, bears are still getting into garbage cans. The sound of children learning to swim, fish and drive a boat can be heard , you just have to slow down and listen! Great friends, and people are here. Most have never left, aka the smart one's! If anyone asks " So why did you buy the Leonard Paul Store" Our answer is "memories" Because I remember when at Priest Lake....

- Pat Akins

- Bill McPriest Lake

"I remember when at Priest Lake ..... " Mona Bishop would sit out front of Bishop’s Marina with her hands on her knees wearing a straw hat with a flowered hat band. The Tyee and the Ridley were moored at Bishop’s Marina then and if you dared, you could climb up on them. I can still hear Mona yelling, “Get off that boat!” Just after you entered the marina, there was a ramp down to the floating dock where the slips were. When you ran down that ramp it would bounce like trampoline, but if you did, you’d hear Mona yell, “No runnin’ on the dock!” She was a great gal and Russ was a great guy. I think of them still whenever I visit Coolin.

- Jim

"I remember when at Priest Lake ..... " we use to Trick or Treat at Millie’s and Millie and Ward Adams would give us kids our choice of Butterfinger, Payday, or Baby Ruth in a full size candy bar. My costume was a pillow case with eye holes cut in, covering my whole body and I was a ghost.

I can't remember when there was not an east shore road!

- Craig
Photo courtesy of Craig Hill