I was two the first time we summered on Priest Lake at Indian Creek Diamond Match Camp. The following year we moved up the lake to a more remote camp named Camp Nine, just north of Canoe Point and before you reach Lion Head. My brother 4 and baby sister were the only kids in camp! The only way in at that point was by water (1951). My father was head of the logging for Diamond Match and in order that we could be with him, a cabin was set up for my family just over the small creek & foot bridge from the main camp. The mail boat arrived daily and supplies were brought in by barges that docked at the massive docks . Logs were boomed down the lake by tugs and the camp closed each winter once the ice froze over. We spent the next three summers there in that magical place swimming, picking berries, fishing and loving the sand. Our first summer there a logger brought a newly born fawn (whose mother had been killed) to my mom as she had an infant with a bottle. The fawn quickly became a pet of the camp and later the town of Coolin. This would have been 1951/52 – does anyone out there remember Fauleen? If so we were the kids in Camp nine who fed her with the baby bottle. I have faint memories of Steve’s, Bishops Marina, and Headquarters near Coolin. The family returned several years later – after being transferred to Montana. We returned by taking the Steelhead(name of the supply and mail boat) back into the camp and spent yet another wonder but too short of vacation here. Then one other trip was taken in by road – passable as it was. I have always wanted to return someday and take a tour of the lake again. Thank you for this site – it was my pleasure to remember when..
Carie (Mathison) Graham
Jan. 9, 2009
