from Mentors, Masters & Mrs. MacGregor:

Soaring, glacier-studded peaks, hungry grizzlies, bugling elk, rare glacier lilies and snowy mountain goats. Four walls could never contain one of my greatest teachers, not when the “classrooms” were Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rockies!

This shy “flatlander” first met Danny On when I took a summer job at a lodge on the east side of Glacier Park. (A tremendous leap of faith considering I had never been west of the Mississippi or seen a mountain up close before.) There I was in a sea of over 500 summer park employees. One day I waited on a friendly smiling Asian-American man, and the rest is history. (Little did I know my “teacher-to-be” was a famous photographer and forester, much beloved in the West!)

After he learned I was a genuine “flatlander,” Danny taught me to see through “mountain eyes,” ever patiently opening mine to the majesty of the high country. One of my favorite lessons was on a seemingly blank rock face. “Look at that mountain as a clock,” he said. “Go down to about 2:00. Follow the little hand out to the rock outcropping. See it?” Sure enough! There was a tiny patch of snowy white, a sure-footed mountain goat making its way along the rocks. This was truly a special treat I cherish to this day, a treat I never would have seen with my “city eyes.”
On our days off, Danny often took a few of us on grand adventures, from hiking up to find a rare red-anthered glacier lily to cross-country skiing in summer clothes high at Logan Pass. He even took a small group of us up to the magnificent Canadian Rockies one color-splashed autumn to see great wildlife, like elk bugling in the frosty mountain air or a grizzly rooting for dinner along the road.

Danny would surprise me every now and then with one of his popular 16” x 20” nature photographs. (His snowy mountain goat – my favorite – still graces my wall.) After I returned to Minnesota, he sent me carefully labeled boxes of his breath-taking outdoor slides from Montana to Alaska, to “continue my education.”

Danny took such pleasure when he could help me see some facet of nature with new eyes. He was playful and warm, always full of surprises and fun! He taught me how to love the mountains and all their treasures. As I finish writing this tribute, I’m riding the Alaska state ferry up the spectacular mountain-lined Inside Passage on a sunny October day. I recall with a smile Danny’s Alaska slides and his great enthusiasm for this vast land.

Sadly, Danny was killed in a skiing accident only a few short years after we met, but his spirit still lives on for me throughout this spectacular trip. He truly inspired me to be a “mountain woman” and wherever my travels take me from the snow-splashed Alps to the rugged Caucasus Mountains in the Georgian Republic, I’m forever grateful for his patient nurturing of this eager young “flatlander.”

FROM: Mentors, Masters and Mr. MacGregor: Stories of Teachers Making A Difference compiled by Dr. Jane Bluestein (Health Communications, Inc., 1996)

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