Historic images show destiny undone by fire

BELLINGHAM — They don't call it a Magic Lantern for nothing.

The moment the lights dim in the grand hall of the stately Whatcom Museum, the past comes to light: Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker, the twin sentinels of the North Cascades, in their wild glory of the 1920s and '30s.

The images, locked in glass slides shot by notable explorer, photographer, engineer and promoter Bert W. Huntoon, are dropped, one by one on a recent Sunday, into the Magic Lantern, a turn-of-the-century slide projector, by Laura Jacoby, the granddaughter of Galen Biery of Bellingham, who compiled a 35,000-image historical photo collection that includes much of Huntoon's work.

Magic, indeed. Most of these glass slides are hand-tinted by Huntoon. They're glorious, colorized glimpses into era when men like Huntoon, in Bellingham, and Edward and Asahel Curtis, in Seattle, were using camera lenses to introduce the rest of the world to the glories of the Northwest and Alaska.

Huntoon's specialty, and his love, was the upper Nooksack River drainage, which he came to know with back-of-the-hand familiarity while scouting a route for a cross-Cascades highway.

The highway, obviously, never went through the place we now call Heather Meadows, which sits in a saddle between Shuksan and Baker. But Huntoon became a tireless proponent of road access to the area, which he hoped would bring throngs of fellow nature lovers and, eventually, national-park status.

In 1923, before the road was even complete all the way to the top, Huntoon leased five acres of land there from the Forest Service, and on it, began to erect his dream: Mount Baker Lodge.

Huntoon's images — many of them on display through next spring at the Whatcom Museum — reveal the splendor and comfort of a place most of us could never imagine in what today has reverted to a wild alpine valley with no electricity or telephone service.

Built in Swiss-chalet style, entirely from local timber and stone, the lodge opened in 1927 with 100 rooms, 60 with baths and telephones, all with electricity. The grand lobby was 130 feet long and 50 feet wide. Its columnar basalt fireplace had a hearth wide enough to accept a 10-foot log. Outside, tourists swam in a small pond, took horse treks up to Austin Pass, fished, canoed, and even played miniature golf.

The lodge was a sensation, drawing crowds from around the world and inviting comparisons to Yellowstone's Old Faithful Inn. Had it stood in place, in a flat area now occupied by service buildings for Mount Baker Ski Area, Mount Baker may indeed have become one of America's most splendid national parks.

But an electrical fire burned the building to the ground on Aug. 5, 1931, leaving only the stone chimneys and tower standing. The lone "permanent" human mark on Heather Meadows was wiped off the side of the mountain in a single morning. And it never really returned.

Staring at the splendid images on the museum walls, you wonder what Huntoon would have thought of what had become — or had not — of the place he loved. You wonder whether he and his can-do compatriots of the '30s were torn, like most of us, between building amenities in wild places to attract tourists, and just leaving them alone.

Mount Baker eventually did find protection, not in adjacent North Cascades National Park, which came along much later, but as federal wilderness area. Today, Heather Meadows walks a fine line between civilized and wild. The only structures here belong to the ski area, and that's not likely to change.

The Mount Baker Highway, a marvel in itself, leads to a place roads really shouldn't be allowed to go. But once you're there, it's impossible to curse the ghost of old Bert Huntoon, because you'll be too busy thanking him for getting you up there.

Late summer is a grand time to do just that. And this year, a visit to Heather Meadows and Artist Point before the snows of October close the road can be made even more memorable by a stop on the way at the Whatcom Museum to see the place as it was, through the eyes — and lens — of Bert Huntoon.

It's not often we get a chance to look a long way back and see a wild place more developed than it is now. Is that progress? The answer is all in the eyes of the beholder.

Ron Judd's Trail Mix column appears here every Thursday, 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com.