The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

The neatest scene I ever saw regarding Christmas Trees in the Bear Paw Mountains would have meant little or nothing if I hadn’t been an English teacher and loved to teach Macbeth.

During those days a friend or two and I would go up to the tops of mountains and cut down several trees that would barely fit into our living rooms. But they were so beautiful and after all, I always had the huge Christmas trees of Francis and Laened Black as patterns. If they could have a Griswold Christmas tree, why couldn’t I?

What we always wanted was the top twelve feet of a huge Douglas fir. One in our midst loved to climb so he would climb up a promising tree and cut down the top twelve feet. Unfortunately many times it was very cold so when the tree top hit the ground there was not a single needle left on It., They all broke off in the cold Bear Paw freeze.

To tell the truth, I only found one really perfect Christmas tree in our Christmas tree excursions. That was a Frazer fir and what that was doing in the Bear Paws I will never know. I was always sad that I cut it down. It would probably be growing yet.

Getting back to Macbeth, in that play the witches, who have the gift of prophecy, told Macbeth that he would remain King until the trees in a certain forest that surrounded the Royal Castle started moving closer to the castle. Well, Macbeth knew that was never going to happen. Who ever heard of moving trees so he knew he was going to be King forever!

Well, one day he looked out of the Castle window and he saw that forest on the move toward his Castle. What had happened is that a large army was going to kill Macbeth. Not to alarm Macbeth, they cut down a lot of trees and moved them in front of them, hoping Macbeth would never see them. Macbeth did see them and that was the end of him.

Well, one day a friend and I were driving along a road in the Bear Paws just sort of scouting for a Christmas tree. We were having no luck but I kept looking up into the forest. All of a sudden I screamed for my friend to “STOP!” There on a small trail far above us were four trees marching along seemingly with their own power. It was amazing. Macbeth revisited on a mountain in the Bear Paw Mountains!

Come to find out those people hiding behind the movable trees, did not want to be seen so they thought no one would see a movable tree. Were they wrong!

All that made an indelible mark on me. I will never forget that scene until my dying day.