The Promised Land of the Big Bend

I have visited the Big Bend country and vicinity and am free to say that my impressions are favorable. The region is somewhat broken and difficult to reach, the ride some 70 to 80 miles being accompanied with considerable fatigue. The Big Bend proper is a plateau some 2,000 feet above the Columbia River, a long stretch of rolling country covered with a rank growth of bunch-grass.

About three miles to the north of Badger Mountain, and out upon the rich black prairie, is located the new, prosperous growing little town of Waterville, the county seat of Douglas County. It boasts two hotels, five or six general stores, a bakery, several blacksmith shops, livery stables, an enterprising newspaper, the Big Bend Empire, edited by Mr. Lucien Kellogg, and a number of the usual professional offices. The village is surrounded by a beautiful farming country, and I was greatly surprised when I saw the advanced state of cultivation much of it was under. Fairly good houses, well fenced fields and broad acres of wheat, barley and oats would do credit to the Willamette or Walla Walla valleys.

And now for the benefit of the people of Seattle in general, I will call your attention to that most beautiful of lakes lying just north and west of the Big Bend, known as Lake Chelan. The foot of the lake is about three miles from the Columbia, and the lake itself is from one to three miles wide and about 60 miles long. The scenery becomes more rugged, wild and grand. Great walls of granite and crystalline rock fence in the lake, and rise and sweep in back. Long spurs of pine and fir clad the mountains, crowning precipitous gray rocks, over which come tumbling, roaring, sparkling streams of water from snow-capped peaks in the background. The climate at and near Lake Chelan is undoubtedly the finest in the territory. The lake never freezes and its depth is so great that it would float the great Eastern ships.