A Northwest Montana Paradise and its Rich Past, Still There

Editor's note: Former Libby resident Rick Applegate was gracious to share his fond memories of time spent growing up in Lincoln County with The Western News and we are pleased to share it with our readers. Rick is seeking more recollections from area residents. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Dedicated to the memory of my brother Vick (March 4, 1948-Dec. 20, 2025)

Those of us who have been fortunate to experience the stunning beauty of the sparkling high lakes and awe-inspiring peaks of the Cabinet Mountains; the elk and moose of the valleys (even wandering through downtown on occasion); and the once fish-clogged tributaries feeding the Kootenai can be forgiven if we get a bit nervous that those memories and that life could end up diluted and diminished. 

Too many modern distractions and the unyielding pull of our new world of digital algorithms, intrusive pop-ups and an unabated tsunami of targeted commercial ads can confuse, re-shape, distort and overwhelm the quality of life and obstruct our collective memories and the collective pursuit of better days ahead. To counteract all that, it is often helpful and sometimes necessary to just sit back, relax and remember where we came from, to recall the key details of our histories and reflect on our time in Kootenai country.

Let’s begin with a journey that is part of my family’s story, some of which my brother Vick and I were fortunate to have lived and part of which we became more aware of just prior to his unexpected death this past holiday season. Let’s dig deeper together into what we experienced and what we learned along the way.

Our Grandfather Benjamin Harrison Applegate was the long-time minister in the Church of God in Libby; and his son, WW II veteran Paul Warner Applegate married Mildred Ann Larson in 1947. Nearly a dozen years ago she, Mil as she preferred in her later years, passed away at 87 in Missoula. Our father preceded her in death by some 25 years. They had lived together in Libby for short of a half century. 

Like so many others in the area, Dad worked at the local lumber mill; and helped the town gain access to the three major black and white television networks through a publicly installed translator on Dome Mountain. Mil was employed by the local phone company when they met. 191-J was our number on one of those often-clogged semi-public party lines. She also worked in the venerable Geringer’s hardware store and eventually as dental assistant to Dr. Ed Johnston.

Late in the summers, she was meticulous as she cleaned the huckleberries that we had picked, happy and relieved at the end of the day to be away from the large too close bears that shook the bushes nearby as we filled our buckets. Vick and I sold those berries door to door at fifty cents a pint…a buck a quart…to help pay for our school clothes.

Vick became an Eagle Scout, shepherded as I was by our father who received the Silver Beaver award, one of the highest given by the Scouting organization. Vick was especially well known around town and in the nearby forests and mountains that were like a second home for him and his hiking buddies. Together they often hauled their overstuffed backpacks into the wilds, frequently lugging even more when they came out. He and Herb Stout tagged large sturgeon below the Kootenai falls, resulting in a program I know well, a promising and ongoing effort to restore Kootenai River sturgeon. We also fished after dark for the burbot /ling that could be found in the river. Appeared sort of like a cross between a cod and an eel. Tasted great.

Over time Vick and I learned more about the history of our family. Our Mom’s Mother, Grandmother Elizabeth Mary Ayotte had married quite young in 1915. Her Swedish immigrant husband was Augustus Victor Larson. He sharpened saws at the mill and in his later years dug graves in the cemetery to make ends meet. Of course we never met Elizabeth’s father who was Quebec-born David Ayotte. He became known to us through sketchy but intriguing stories as our trapper/packer Canadian Great Grandfather. He had migrated out of Canada to North Dakota and then to the Libby area to farm on a small homestead where he likely continued his trapping profession. At that time, he was married to Louise Chamberlain Emlin Ayotte, his second wife, reported to be half-Mandan or Cree depending on which census or other documents are relied on. And we learned even more.

In the late 19th century Louise and David raised a large family in a floorless cabin overlooking the Swamp Creek. We know that from a variety of family stories, genealogical sources and more recently from an informative essay about him that was collected in a fine cache of Libby stories “In the Shadow of the Cabinets”. It was compiled and published in 1976 by the Libby Writers Group (no longer in existence in its original form as I learned from the very helpful head of the reconstituted artists’ group now in Kalispell).

The booklet includes many enjoyable and revealing essays and photos about early life in Northwest Montana. It is not an easy publication to find, but the Libby library has a copy, along with another fine “Nuggets to Timber” booklet that is also difficult to round up unless you get lucky in a used bookstore or drop by the Library where Inez Herrig once oversaw a large collection of Keystone stereoviews that Vick and I squinted at and marveled over after our family dinners. Those cards were our way of traveling the US and the world in the late 50s and 60s.

The chapter on David Ayotte in the Shadows compilation was written by Grace Kelenty. In a few short pages, her lean and well-written prose plunged quickly into David’s hard life and that of his amazing younger wife and family. It included a photo of an early twentieth century picnic at the Rodden School, with a number of locals standing outside the

entrance. My grandmother Elizabeth and her mother Louise are in that photo. (insert photo from the booklet here…if you have room and if not a copyright issue). Grace was apparently a member of a close neighboring family that occasionally provided Louise with an apron full of vegetables to carry home to feed her clan.

Grace’s marvelous and revealing essay and other records confirm that David had come West from Montreal as he plied the fur trade. Eventually, he left the prairie lands in central Canada where he had been a trapper and packer and maybe even owned a plot of worked land. Grace reported that his move was spurred by an accident he stumbled upon when he discovered frozen human remains in a neglected bear trap that was likely one on his own.

David lived with Louise near Libby for years, their large family teetering very close to the proverbial bone. At times he even used burlap bags to substitute for shoes since they were not available or affordable for him. Failing that, he went barefoot, leaving visible blood stains in the snow. He lost several toes in the process….So Grace reported…and you can’t make this stuff up.

David and Louise endured at least one of their sons passing at a very early age. The essay records the family dealing with what had to be a staggering loss, his death in the woods attended by loving siblings who understood his impending fate, noting afterward that he “…was missed by all who knew him.”

In her telling, Grace marveled at how Louise kept such a clean dwelling with no real floor and so many of her living children scampering about. Each year she apparently had to add some “jumping blocks”, steps imbedded in the floor during springtime’s higher flows, retrieved presumably from the nearby creek. The stream provided a reliable bounty of native trout for their food. The stones had another purpose, placed around their homemade table and in a path that led to the front door where the younger kids had to jump to gain footing on another set of stones on the path outside. One of the Ayotte daughters, probably my Grandmother worked for neighbors to earn “…food and clothing which she helped make.” Each and all of these are bracing insights into a tough life that in many variations may have been fairly common in Northwest Montana back then.

Louise spent her later days living with my Grandmother’s family in their small Libby home where “…she could continue to enjoy the clouds, the mountains, the sounds of running water, the trees, every bird, each flower, the sun, the moon and all the stars of the Universe.”

That’s the kind of memory many Kootenai area residents experienced back in the day. Still can, if fortunate to live there for a time, as my brother Vick and I knew very well during our gifted early lives. While growing up he and I shared so much, including hours in the home

of John Blackford, a nationally published Libby nature writer and photographer in the 50s. He lived right across the alley from our home, an alley we stood in and were dampened as low-flying aircraft passed over, spraying for mosquitos. In his dark room, we watched miracles emerge as he developed his black and white images. He gave us an inscribed copy of his Western Wonderlands book, a fine collection of his bird photographs organized not by species as most were in those days and later, but by the type of habitat in which you would expect to find specific birds. In that, he was inspired no doubt by the insights of another writer he knew about, the not yet famous Aldo Leopold.

A big day in Libby was to go to Spokane, there to see Norm and Larry Sherry, Willie and Tommy Davis, Maury Wills and Frank Howard play minor league baseball with the Spokane Indians. Many of them joined the Dodgers for a time, doing well with some participating in 1959 and 1963 World Series victories.

Stepping back, what we found to be important in those days was a combination of enormous gratitude for our family and our ancestors’ lives; and for what we had. We came to respect the place where we came of age and those Montanans and Canadians we encountered along the way.

I am of course very interested in learning more from folks who know about those times, ours and theirs. Whether by personal knowledge, heard stories, family recollections, found materials…whatever counts for you….In particular about the families and descendants who have familiarity with the Swamp Creek area, about Libby, the Cabinets, days in the Kootenai River watershed; or knowledge of the centuries of indigenous inhabitants and of the Ayottes, Larsons and Applegates who were more recent residents there and nearby. Any and all from those who knew about them and possibly shared or heard about some of their lived experiences. No algorithms or ads involved. Just the memorable stories….

Last, for those living in Northwest Montana now…in what was at various times part of the Oregon, Washington and Idaho territories, its residents always close to their many welcome friends across the more relaxed border where they often entered and returned from Canada…my hope is that your lives, modern frustrations aside, are rewarding and going reasonably well in that still-treasured slice of paradise.

Thank you for sharing whatever comes to mind at [email protected]. 

Take care, Rick