Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1906-10-17

lumbia and Okanogan Transportation
company. From Wenatchee to Chelan
Falls is distance of but AZ miles, yet
it take sa steamer IL hours to battle
her way against the current, and but
little more than three hours to come
down with it. The trip up the river
to Chelan Falls is one long to be re-
membered, and the time which the
new railroad will save will scarcely be
recompense for the loss it will occa-
sion. On either side of the river for
short distance back the banks are
dotted occasionally with patches of
green, making irrigated farms. Back
of these the foothills rise abruptly.
with their rocks aid huge powders
ground into fantastic shapes, and their
many colors of soil and rock washed
and mingled in natures paint pot and
then by the forces of nature scattered
over the face of the landscape.
The little boats of shallow draught
royal with winding and twisting
stream of narrow channel, filed with
| dangerous rockT, eddies and mael-
stroms rivaling the whirlpool Of the
Niagara gorge. With an average cur
rent of eight miles an hour the river
frequently breaks into a turgid, roar
ing, racing torrent of rapids against
which the little steamer throws her.
! self valiantly.
| At Chelan Falls the Chelan river
comes tumbling down it's cavernous
bed into the Columbia, making the
connection between the snowfed gla-
| clers of the Cascades and the great
river highway to the waters of the
Pacific. In a four-horse stage the
journey to the foot of Lake Chelan is
made through five miles Of wild seen
cry, queerly mingled with domesticity
and agriculture.
At the lower end of Lake Chelan
there is very little promise of the
grandeurs that begin to unfold them:
selves soon after the first turn in the
lake is reached. Around the foot of
the lake and adjacent to the two little
towns pocketed away there from the
outside world are many beautiful
farms nesting among the foothills and
producing their agricultural wealth
only to receive most of it back in the
way of decayed products, wasted be-
cause of the lack of adequate trans
portation and of the excessive cost Of
the present wagon and river trans
portation.
The first wonderful fact about the
lake is that it's waters are the only
ones, in this continent at least, which
are both above and below sea level.
The Yellowstone~ has it's wonderful
lake more than 1000 feet above sea
level, but here are waters whose levels
are more than LOO feet above sea
level and which also extend from 800
to possibly l,400 feet below sea level.
So clear are the waters of the lake
that the picture above and below their
surface is the same. Look at the real
picture, then turn the eyes into the
depths, and there it is mirrored with
a faithfulness and vividness that first
startles, then charms. Regarding the
colors of the waters Of Lake Chelan
artists are ever raving. The blending
of many colors is ever changing with
J the whims of the winds, of the clouds,
with the shivering of the trees and
with every mood of nature herself.
Cold and clear, they are often swept
J. by huge waves, which are beaten by a
wind that comes roaring down the
glacier-cut gorge, gathering strength
and fury with, every mile of canyon
travelled and with every effort to reach
i the world outside the: granite walls.
Ia storm or in calm the grandeur
!. and the beauty are ever there, and are
ever changing. "
!. .:'.:>.", S. GLEN ANDRUS.