Winter in Bear Lake Valley



Doug and Elaine Alder
 

 By Doug Alder, Historian                                      

The original settlers to Bear Lake Valley knew they would encounter intense winters.  That is why Brigham Young chose Salt Lake Valley over Cache Valley and Bear Lake Valley that some fur trappers recommended as preferable for the Mormon settlers. The church leaders waited for 15 years before considering Bear Lake seriously. Then they undertook the effort partly because the 1862 Homestead Act could have attracted “outsiders” there.  They wanted the valley to be part of the Mormon empire.  Knowing that the winters there could be severe, they undertook it anyway.  The winters indeed fulfilled their expectations but they also provided a greater supply of water than elsewhere in Utah.

 

In his book A History of Rich County, Robert Parson includes this report of continuing winters:  “A resident of Laketown commented in 1884 that ‘never, even during the experience of the oldest inhabitants, has there been so much snow upon the ground as at present.’  Two to three feet of snow covered the valley with drifts up to eight feet deep.  This kind of precipitation, occurring for a ten-year period from the mid-1870s to the mid-1880s, made supplemental irrigation in some cases unnecessary.” (p.79)

 

Nearly a century later my wife, Elaine, and I were invited to Laketown to speak to the high school students during the winter.  As I recall, there were six of them in the senior class.  When we got to Garden City in freezing weather, we turned south.  The snow was piled high on the side of the road, higher than the roof of the car.  We were frankly frightened.   We did not know if our old car would make the return trip.  We confided that to the principal.  He had a colleague address the problem.  He put a large piece of cardboard over the front of our radiator so that the freezing air would not get into the engine on the trip home.

 

As we watch the news each evening in St. George, we have kept close track of the snow level at Bear Lake for 35 years.   We know that our friends there have often seen three feet of snow, especially on the Sweetwater Hill, and that they have to get professional snow plowers to clear roads so they can get to their homes.  That is likely why the population of the county is still modest and why summertime visitors enjoy the quietude and richness of the vegetation when we arrive in the spring.  Please keep shoveling.