Revisiting Camp Tuffit

Today was a real washout in Northwestern Montana.  Thunderstorms and hail were predicted for Missoula; Going-To-The-Sun Road was closed until 11:00 this morning due to risks of mudslides; the National Park Service cancelled all backcountry camping permits for today due to risks from lightning, hail and mudslides.  Here in Kalispell, we watched it drizzle, sprinkle and pour, variously, all day long. Seemed so much like the Pacific Northwest.  The Montanans are all doing a happy dance - they need the rain.

We decided this was a perfect day to take our trip down memory lane.  When David was 12 years old, he and his brother Laird, then 10, and his sister Leslie, then 8, were put on a Greyhound Bus by their parents and ventured off alone to visit their grandparents in Wallace, Idaho, just west on present Interstate 90 from Missoula.  The kids stayed a spell with Grandpa and Grandma Harris.  During that time, the grandparents and grandkids took a car trip to Lake Mary Ronan, here in the Flathead Valley not far west of Flathead Lake.

The three kids have fond memories of the trip.  Here is a photo of Laird outside the cabin they stayed in.  The date was August 1963 - fifty years ago this month!

We decided to visit Camp Tuffit and, if possible, locate the same cabin the kids stayed in with G&G Harris.  We knew from visiting the Camp Tuffit website that the camp has been left virtually unchanged since it was first established in 1917.  We hoped we could find a few things David remembered.

We were not disappointed!

Here is the sign welcoming us to Camp Tuffit, just as it did 50 years ago:

We drove up to the camp office, hopped out, and introduced ourselves to the present owner, Mark Thomas, who is the grandson of old pipe-smoking Charlie Thomas, such a Scots-looking fellow.  Mark and his son now run the place.  They were entertained by our trip down memory lane.  We told them the story of the Scranton children and showed them the photo of Laird above in front of the cabin.  They immediately identified as the cabin known then and now as "Amos & Andy."  So we ambled over and Kathy snapped a "now" photo of David in front of the cabin to echo Laird in 1963:

Not yet finished with hunting down memories, we found the old boat dock where Grandpa Harris took the boys fishing in a small rowboat with an Evinrude motor.  We can't swear this is the same boat, but it certainly replicates the old dinghy.  In the distance, you can see across the lake to the point opposite where the boys set their lines in the water and hooked some sunnies or crappies on little worms or salmon eggs:

That's not all!  The Camp still has some of the old signs.  Here's one David didn't remember until he saw it:

And some others:

The kids remember sitting in a pavilion where old Charlie Thomas presided over a campfire and talent show.  We found the pavilion, still standing in its original condition.  David even remembered sitting on the left end of the bench in the foreground,  with the stage to the left.

But perhaps the best surprise was that the Camp still held captive the baby rattler that the boys found when they visited 50 years ago:

Sorry, Laird, the old spring is no more.

Camp Tuffit is a wonderful, rustic destination and is all Montana.   Here is a wonderful article about it.