Voice of the Glacier Park Foundation ☐ Fall 2018 ☐ Volume XXXIII, No. 3 HOWE RIDGE For the third time in four years fire forces an evacuation in Glacier In this issue: • The Spirit of Sperry Chalets • Quiet! Glacier: The Issue of Helicopter Overflights • Hootenannies At Many Glacier • An Uncertain Future for Glacier’s Historic Boats • Refurbishing the Red Bus Fleet • Inside News of Glacier Park in the Summer of 2018 No “Quiet Week in Lake Wobegon” Ah, for a quiet week in Lake Wobe- A less urgent but more complex step up to help. We commend the gon! It surely wasn’t a quiet summer crisis is the increasing traffic in the work of the Glacier National Park in Glacier National Park, literally or Park. The number of visitors in Conservancy in raising private funds figuratively speaking. The summer’s 2017 and 2018 (before the fire) was to supplement the Park’s budget. turbulent events are set out exten- unprecedented. Parking problems, The Conservancy admirably has sively in this issue. pedestrian problems on roadways, raised large sums to help rebuild and crowding on trails was often Most prominent of those events, of of Sperry Chalet, in addition to its acute. There are no easy answers course, was the Howe Ridge Fire. normal fundraising. We urge those to these developments. The Park For the third time in four years, a who can to support the Conservancy Service commendably has managed major forest fire shut down much of and its Sperry Action Fund. them day-to-day without overreact- Going-to-the-Sun Road and forced ing. Hard and creative thinking will On the subject of quiet, the Foun- the evacuation of a lodge. The be called for to address them in the dation’s Board of Directors recently evacuation this year occurred ur- long run. voted to join the Quiet!Glacier Co- gently and had to be made close to alition. This effort seeks to eliminate nightfall. The National Park Service, The Park Service is handling double commercial helicopter overflights in the lodge concessioner Xanterra, and the visitation it had about a decade Glacier. Twenty years ago, we sup- local fire departments all worked ago with essentially the same re- ported the goal of eliminating over- admirably in this crisis. sources. Glacier’s friends need to flights set out in Glacier’s General Management Plan. That goal has It surely wasn’t a quiet summer in Glacier National been thwarted by a policy deadlock between two federal agencies (dis- Park, literally or figuratively speaking. The summer’s cussed in an article in this issue). turbulent events are set out extensively in this issue. The noise of the overflights is annoy- ing and distracting to Park visitors, and we hope they can be curtailed. Glacier Park Foundation Officers: P.O. Box 15641 John Hagen, President Happy trails! We all cherish Glacier Minneapolis, MN 55415 Carol Dahle, Vice President www.glacierparkfoundation.org Mac Willemssen, Secretary and its robust community of friends [email protected] Tessie Bundick, Historian and supporters. Board of Directors: Jim Lees, Treasurer Joe Blair Laura Chihara, Webmaster The Inside Trail takes its name Mike Buck Rolf Larson, Inside Trail Editor Tessie Bundick from the famous old trail Laura Chihara which connected Glacier Janet Eisner Cornish Park Lodge with the vanished Brian Cross The Glacier Park Foundation was Carol Repulski Dahle formed by Glacier Park employees chalets at Two Medicine, Joyce Daugaard and visitors who have a deep love for Cut Bank, and St. Mary. The Ray Djuff this special place. The Foundation is name thus emphasizes the Emily Trapp Hackethorn commited both to the importance John Hagen of wilderness preservation and to publication’s focus on the the importance of places like Glacier Einar Hanson as classrooms where people can lore and history of Glacier Paul Hoff experience wilderness in intense National Park. We invite Mark Hufstetler meaningful ways, learning not only a submission of historical, Jeff Kuhn love for the land, but also a respect Linda Young Kuhn that nurtures the skills necessary to scientific, or anecdotal ar- Rolf Larson preserve that land. The Foundation ticles, commentary, poetry, Greg Notess has a special interest in Glacier Park’s John Sauer history, traditions and visitor facilities. or artwork for publication in Rick Taylor future issues. Mac Willemssen 2 ☐ Fall 2018 ☐ The Inside Trail HOWE RIDGE FIRE “It was blazing on “The fire had the west side of ignited two Lake McDonald, days earlier, largely on ground touched off burned fifteen by a lightning years earlier in storm.” the Roberts Fire.” By John Hagen (Many (Photo courtesy of Eric Glacier 1970-1980) Matt.) Early on the evening of August 12, well-rehearsed plan to evacuate Lake Marc Ducharme was playing in a rec- cedar trees killed by the Robert Fire, McDonald lodge. reational hockey league in Whitefish, burning underbrush and burning Xanterra has hard-won expertise in Montana. Marc is general manager thick duff on the ground. Those evacuating lodges in Glacier. Three of Xanterra’s Glacier National Park involved in the meeting were con- times in the past four years, a forest Lodges, the concessioner for Glacier cerned, but thought a crisis unlikely fire has compelled it to do so. Park. A few hours earlier, he had met that night. Ordinarily, cooler night- with Park Service officers at West Gla- time temperatures retard the growth In 2015, the Reynolds Creek Fire ex- cier to discuss the Howe Ridge Fire. of a fire. They agreed to reconvene ploded and forced a quick evacuation in the morning. of Rising Sun Motor Inn. In 2017, The fire had ignited one day earlier, Xanterra decided to evacuate Lake touched off by a lightning storm. It Marc felt no hesitancy in going to McDonald Lodge when smoke from was blazing on the west side of Lake play in the hockey game, but he the Sprague Fire imperiled people’s McDonald, largely on ground that brought his cell phone and left it health. This summer, the lodge had was burned fifteen years earlier in the at rink side. When the first period to be evacuated again, but far more Robert Fire. It had been attacked ended, he checked it. He found rapidly and complicated by nightfall. with Canadian “super scoopers” – thirteen messages, one of which was fixed-wing aircraft that skimmed the a text from Jean Tabbert of the Park The Destruction of Kelly’s Camp surface of the lake, sucked up water Service Concessions Office: “man- The crisis arose very rapidly on the and dropped it on the fire. Heli- datory evacuation in place for Lake early evening of August 12. A great copters carrying buckets joined the McDonald Lodge.” column of smoke, fueled by the suppression effort. Marc rushed to his vehicle unshow- burning snags, was rising vertically from the fire. Strong west winds Those measures did not stop the fire ered, and drove quickly to Xanterra’s knocked the column down, unleash- from spreading toward the north end red bus garage in Columbia Falls. ing a furious ember storm. of the lake. It was burning the snags His twelve-person emergency team (many of them over 100 feet tall) of was mustering there to pursue a The Inside Trail ☐ Fall 2018 ☐ 3 The fire made a terrific run along the ture. Charles and Justin Bilton, a The lake’s proximity saved the Bil- shores of Lake McDonald, giving father and son, were camped on the tons. The heat at Kelly’s Camp was rise to scenes of high drama. Kelly’s north end of Lake McDonald when fantastic. It melted the wheels and Camp, a spot rich in Glacier’s his- the fire made its run. They drove the exhaust manifold of their car, and tory, was almost all destroyed. away through the flaming forest, it melted the rain gutters of the sole recording the scene through their surviving cabin by which they parked Kelly’s Camp is one of the privately- windshield on video. it. After the fire, visitors found pools owned inholdings on Lake McDon- of melted aluminum on the ground ald. The inholdings were acquired The terrifying sequence, shown on before Glacier Park was created in national television, can be seen on The Wheeler Cabin 1910. Kelly’s Camp was established YouTube. Hellish scenes unfold as Among the structures north of Lake by Frank Kelly, who homesteaded the son exclaims, “Dad, the car is McDonald is the historic Wheeler in the 1890s, ran boats on Lake heating up; we’re going to explode … Cabin. The cabin belonged to Bur- McDonald, and rented guest cabins God help us!” Appallingly, the Bil- ton K. Wheeler, who served in the in the early years of the Park. The tons found the road to safety blocked U.S. Senate for Montana from 1923 camp is well known for the depreda- by a fallen tree. Surrounded by fire, to 1947. Wheeler used the cabin to tions of the Trout Lake Bear, which they desperately backed up into the broker an agreement for intertribal stalked people there before killing inferno of Kelly’s Camp. They parked cooperation among Blackfeet, Flat- Michelle Koons on the Night of the beside the one cabin there which ul- head, and Kootenai-Salish leaders. Grizzlies in 1967. timately did not burn, and scrambled The Wheeler Cabin lay in the path to the shore of Lake McDonald. Kelly’s Camp included the “Big of the fire as it made its eastward House,” owned by the National Park Jess Kimball, a Glacier Park Boat run. The cabin and other nearby Service, and many smaller cabins Company captain, happened to structures were defended by fire with private owners.