How did the Garden Wall receive its name?

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The Garden Wall is an imposing, saw-toothed arête that stretches roughly 8 miles from Logan Pass to Swiftcurrent Pass in Glacier National Park. Separating the Many Glacier valley from the Lake McDonald valley, the wall also forms the Continental Divide in this area. Being an arête, the Garden Wall was created by two glaciers that carved the ridge into a thin rock spine.

The Garden Wall received its name from a popular song that was making the rounds in the late 1800s. While camping near Grinnell Lake during a trip guided by George Bird Grinnell in 1897, the party gathered around the campfire to sing songs. The event that led to the naming of the geological feature is described in The Father of Glacier National Park:

“One evening, around a campfire, they were singing the then-popular song, ‘Over the Garden Wall’, when one of the party remarked, “There is one wall we cannot get over.” The name was immediately applied to the ridge — The Garden Wall”

Over the Garden Wall was composed by G. D. Fox in 1882, and the words to the song were written by Harry Hunter. Here’s the first verse:

Oh, my love stood under the walnut tree,
Over the garden wall,
She whispered and said she’d be true to me,
Over the garden wall,
She’d beautiful eyes and beautiful hair,
Se was not very tall,
So she stood on a chair,
And many a time have I kissed her there.
Over the garden wall,

The song continues with three more verses.

Over the course of seven trips to Glacier spanning 13 years, Grinnell named 43 geological features within the future national park. This included Iceberg Lake, Swiftcurrent Mountain and Gunsight Mountain.

Jeff
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