Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park
There is a history behind each lake in Glacier National Park. The Kootenai Indian name for Lake McDonald translates as "Sacred Dancing" and it is believed to refer to ceremonies that Kootenai’s performed at the foot of the lake. I have visited Glacier National park three times but I never got a chance to spend time by Lake McDonald and to know about its history. So this time, we had planned a hour boat ride with Glacier Boat Company.
After spending the night at the hotel in Spokane Valley, we started a little bit late from the hotel to Glacier National Park. On the way we stopped by Wake Up call - Liberty Lake for Breakfast pickup. Coffee, Bagel and Muffin were really good. On our journey we crossed many lakes, mountains and small towns. Coeur d'alene lake and Flathead lake were big and beautiful, so we wanted to stop by but we couldn't as we had some plan for the evening, so we halted by the view points and took couple of photos.
Finally, we took turn to enter the West entrance of the Beautiful Glacier National park. We stopped by the entrance to fill gas, bought bear spray and got some food to eat. There are couple of restaurants, gift shops and boat tours offices near the entrance, as there is no restaurant or gas station inside the park it better to stock up here itself. Last year we did river rafting so we didn't plan it for this year.
This year, we require a separate entrance pass to enter Glacier National Park, luckily I was able to purchased it in https://www.recreation.gov/ by the end of May. I keyed in the address shown by google map to Glacier Boat Company and it took us to Apgar Visitor Center, was able to get parking quickly. Apgar Visitor Center is usually crowded and its very difficult to get parking during afternoon or evening. Now, we had to find the boat company for our tour. I had asked few folks about this place and they told me to check by the lodge. We were searching for the company, finally we came across a very small board with boat company's name :). But I knew this was not the place, as I could only see kayak, canoe and paddleboard so we waited in line to get confirmation. After waiting for 1hr, they told us that boating company would be near Lake McDonald Lodge. Then we made our way to Lake McDonald lodge, but still we couldn't find the boating company, then I stopped the car and went and asked the lodge staff, they told me the boating company is behind the Lodge. Finally, I saw a big boat and the boat company board.
We had 2hrs for our boat trip so we drove towards 'Going-to-the-sun' Road then stopped at Lake McDonald falls and took couple of photos and went little ahead, stopped at another waterfall. This is my most favorite place in the park, we walked towards a small bridge and then sat next to a stream, it was so peaceful. This place is called Sacred Dancing Cascades, we spent almost 20mins by the stream and then went back to the Boat Company.
After waiting for an hour they called us to onboard the boat. It was sunny and we had an hour to enjoy in the boat, so we sat at the rear end of the boat. Most of the people sat in the front and middle so this area of boat was less crowded and we could nicely enjoy the vast mountain views and lake. We met an Indian family with kid in the boat, kid was so excited and very energetic. The captain and crew were really nice, they spoke about the lake, names and history of the mountains along the tour. It was a nice small tour, saw a deer and an eagle along the shores of the lake and there were a lot of burned trees from past wildfire.
We visited this lake again on our way back home and spent some time. There are rentals along the lake for kayak, row boat or paddleboads so you can always plan for it, we tried kayaking and it was fun. If we get a chance, we would want to come here during winter and witness the Sacred Dancing ritual being performed by the local people.
