"Goose Prairie, three miles below Bumping Lake, is a natural meadow of a few hundred acres set in a thick forest of pine and fir.
In June it is ablaze with color. Acres of lupine paint huge streaks of blue across it. There are lesser streaks of yellow and white and red. At such a time Goose Prairie is richer and more varied in color than any of man s creations.
The Goose Prairie flower I saw as a boy that I remember best is the vanilla leaf or sweet-after-death. The leaves when drying do
indeed have a sweet odor, for they contain some coumarin. Its slender cluster of white flowers stands high on a single stem that rises above one leaf divided into three broad leaflets like the strawberry. They have no petals or sepals, only naked stamens and pistils. The plant is sometimes called the butterfly, for when the center leaf is removed the two side ones resemble a huge butterfly with wings spread. The plant carpets the region around Goose Prairie. It is found in the shade along the road as well as in the meadow. It is the finest of all mountain grass or leaves in which to wrap trout.
Goose Prairie was the homestead of Tom Fife and his father John who laid their claim in 1886. They came to this country from
Fifeshire, Scotland in 1866, and first worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, later moving to Wyoming where they prospected for
a while. Then followed two years work on the Mormon Temple at Salt Lake City. They pushed west, came up the Yakima Valley,
passed through the town itself, and headed up the Naches Canyon, where the quiet and cool of the fir and the pine beckoned. They
soon came to Goose Prairie and at once laid claim to it as a homestead. Not many years later Tom christened it for a lone goose that
visited the meadow one evening and stayed the night.
Today Goose Prairie has a store and a post office, and is most famous for the Double K Ranch where Kay Kershaw and Pat Kane
give dudes of all degrees a warm welcome, and show them on skis, on horseback, or afoot the glories of the Cascades. The Boy Scouts fine camp at its northwest edge was a gift from Tom Fife.
Tom loved Goose Prairie with all the love man is able to bestow on land. From the beginning it was a symbol of freedom for him and
his father. Here the grass is knee-high in June, The air is pure and clear. Old Scab, Buffalo, and Baldy watch over the meadow from the
south. At dusk there are deer on its edge. Scotch bluebells reign. There are rainbow in the Bumping River, whose clear waters carry
even in midsummer the chill of snow and ice. Here a man can be free. He can trap and hunt and fish and run stock if he wishes. There is
no bell or whistle to summon him to the mines.
Tom built a small y-by-g cabin with a fireplace at one end where the cooking was done. He had but one book, and that was a collection
of Bobby Burns poems. Tom lived there most of each year until his death in 1922. When Tom s father died in 1890, Tom made a coffin
of tamarack and dug the grave. But the coffin was too heavy to be lowered alone, so Tom walked 23 miles to get a man to help him
pkce the casket in the grave. Today Tom lies buried beside his father.
I saw Tom Fife many times when I was a boy. He seemed a gruff man, but those who knew him say he was warm and friendly and
understanding. According to Jack Nelson, his heart was "as big as a frying pan/ One day Tom returned from Yakima with a badly needed
pair of shoes. Some miners stopped at his cabin on their way out prospecting. Tom was a prospector. He had mining claims at Gold
Hill on the American River, and on the Rattlesnake. None of them ever panned out, but he was sentimental about them, naming the
first one Blue Bell in memory of his native land. Tom knew the ways of prospectors, their problems and their adversities, and the long
trail down which these prospectors were headed. When he saw that the shoes of one of the party were virtually gone, Tom presented this unknown character with the new shoes.
By commercial standards Tom was not a success, for he probably made but a few hundred dollars a year. Even his cougar traps baited
with chickens did not work. But there was always a pot of beans on the stove; and any wayfarer was welcome to share them.
Jack likes to tell about the Christmas dinner he and Kitty had at Tom s cabin. They had been down to the American River to fix
up a ramshackle log cabin as a halfway house for winter use. When they had cleaned it, plugged up ratholes, and put in a supply of fire
wood, they loaded their packs and started the return on skis to Bumping Lake. They were weary by the time they had traveled the nine
miles to Goose Prairie. Uncle Tom stuck his head out of his cabin and called to them to come and "break bread" with him, A big black
pot hung over the fire, steaming an odor that was most appetizing. Tom with pride removed the cover and told his guests to take a look.
"It was an eyeful/ says Jack. "There, full life size, floated several pine squirrels with heads, eyes, and toe nails intact.
"Red squirrel mulligan/ is what Tom called it. They ate it with fresh scones and coffee.
"No Christmas dinner ever tasted better/ 7 says Jack.
Kitty adds, "Let s say none was ever more unique."
Shortly before his death Tom decided he must do something for his adopted country. The utmost expression of his affection could be
made only by a gift of that which he prized more than anything else Goose Prairie. But how could Goose Prairie be useful to America?
One day an idea came to him. It was a wonderful idea. He must tell someone. So he raced the three miles to Bumping Lake to break the
news to his closest friend, Jack Nelson. He burst in on Jack, breathless. "I've got it! I've got it! I know what I can do for my country. I will give a part of Goose Prairie to the Boy Scouts. They can learn to be men up here." The old man choked up, with tears in his eyes. He could say no more. Thus did a mountain meadow reach deep into the heart of a Scot. Fifes Peaks lie north of Goose Prairie. They are sheer cliffs with jagged points rising above a ridge. They stand erect and confident and proud like Tom Fife himself..."
