In and around St. Ignatious

Mission Lake is just on the outskirts of town, and there are lower falls and upper falls.

The lower falls you can drive to, although it's a pretty bumpy road to get there.

The upper falls is a 3 mile hike up the mountain.

We did find huckleberries along the way.

And we could see the upper falls across the valley.

And here you can see the runoff coming all the way down the mountain.  But after about 2 miles, the trail got pretty steep and we all decided to turn around and go back down.

The only wildlife we saw that day was this garter snake.

St. Ignatious started as a mission in 1854.

The orginal log cabin built by the missionaries.

Inside the church, built in 1891.  The church was built from native bricks and there are 58 mural on the interior walls.  The murals were painted by Brother Joseph Carignano, an untrained artist, who was the mission cook.

This trading post was built in the 1870s,  by Duncan McDonald, son of the first Hudson Bay fur traders in the area.  Originally built as a home, it was later used as a store and eventually a bunkhouse for the construction crews during the building of the Northern Pacific Railroad.  It was purchased and moved here to again be used as a store.

Notice how the logs are notched together on the corners.  This is known as saddleback construction.

The trading post is a commercial venture, with several older building having been moved here to reconstruct what would have been a trading post of the early to mid 1800s.  This building was built on site, but it was built to look like a fort outpost building with the top floor being larger than the bottom.

Found on the back of a pickup.

Dancing to the live band at St. Ignatius Good Old Days.

The band was mostly country, but became more rock and roll as the night wore on.