I fell in love with this navy blue lake as a baby. I used to sit there until my lips turned purple, splashing my chubby two-year-old legs in this sacred water. We called it Ocqui, what we think is the Blackfeet name for “clear water.” My three siblings and I grew up there. We spent our favorite part of each year in this lake. The deep blue water froze us, shocked us into life one summer after another. Our view of the lake was gentle, with hills lowering into one another and far off mountains forming a view of soft blue curves, a stark contrast to the view from the other end of the lake, Apgar, of the jagged mountains behind the head of the lake.
There was the summer that I learned to swim in that icy water, or rather, I learned a comfortable doggy paddle and reliable water-tread. I was a swim-school-dropout, but dad would go on long swims, and I wanted to be like him, something of a second-child mentality. Something of a, “Look at me; I can be a boy too!” mentality as a middle child of two brothers.
My siblings and I would swim every day, and we learned that there was nothing stagnant about this lake, as many days were full of violent angry waves. It was the closest thing I got to being a child of the seashore, so I would try my best to pretend. I pestered dad, convinced him to tell me there were sharks swimming in the waters depths. I wanted all of this lake’s magic, and sharks seemed magical enough to a child of Montana.
Most of the time though, there was magic enough in the lake’s abundance. The ten mile long, 500 foot-deep lake was free of boat traffic and lined by one small, windy road that went only around half of the lake. Consequently, the land beside this water was infused with the magic of wildness. My siblings and I would take long walks on these lakeside rocks, and sometimes I would feel adventurous and go on my own. There was a certain magic in knowing the stories of the mountain lion who also enjoyed summers on this lakeside. I knew that “looking big” was the only way to survive an encounter with a mountain lion who was stalking you, so I’d explore the shore with the biggest stick I could find and disguise it as a walking stick. I figured I could outsmart those cats if I had to.
Somehow, this magic remained. I couldn’t cover my ears anymore one day in grade school when my friends told me Santa Claus wasn’t real, and then of course, I had the subsequent realizations that the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and all the beautiful mysteries of childhood must also be a sham. And, with that, I was less than a happy-camper. The magic of Lake McDonald held fast though, as I returned each summer to its brilliantly cold water.
