Cemetery Island

Only a little more than a dozen miles east of Helena, Montana, the windswept waves of Canyon Ferry Reservoir shuffle overtop of what was once Canton Valley.  In July of 1805, the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery pushed through the valley as they followed the Missouri River.  The river, at that time, looped through fertile bottoms there.  By the end of the late 1800s, Canton Valley boasted a modest population of ranchers and prospectors and all manner of people seeking a beginning in the New West.

After the construction of (the second) Canyon Ferry Dam in the 1950s, the waters of Canyon Ferry Reservoir slowly swallowed the whole valley.  The looping river, the ranches, the first dam, and a small village named Canton—all vanished inch by inch as the waters rose.

As a boy, I spent summers at my Aunt Jo’s cabin on the reservoir.  While fishing from her floating dock in one of the boulder-heaped bays, I imagined trout swimming through underwater mansions. I imagined schools of perch splitting apart like above-water antelope bands to pour right through submerged post-and-rail fences.  I imagined the underwater forests.

Yesterday, that girl and I walked down through the boulders at Overlook to view Cemetery Island.  A cemetery dating back to the days of Canton Valley remains on the isolated land mass there.  Posted are a couple of photographs I captured with my twice-as-smarter-than-me-phone.  One is a photo of that girl standing among the boulders.

    

--Mitchell Hegman