CENTENNIALA Wild Goose Chase CELEBRATING GLACIER’Spast Wild HUNDREDTH Goose Island
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Voice of the Glacier Park Foundation ☐ Summer 2011 ☐ Volume XXVI, No. 1 CENTENNIALA Wild Goose Chase CELEBRATING GLACIER’SPast Wild HUNDREDTH Goose Island and other JAmmer TAles (Photo courtesy of Paul Meierding) Also In this issue: • Baggage Tales • Hiking Through Glacier in 1947 • The Great Blizzard of 1948 • From Korea to McD in 1954 • More Memories of Sid Couch • Heading North - The Story of Chief Mountain Road • Deadheading: A Wild Goose Chase Past Wild Goose Island • A Jammer’s Journey • Legends Pass From the Glacier Stage The Inside Trail ◆ Winter 2005 ◆ 1 BULLETIN BOARD A Letter To the EditoR many friends. With John to inspire us, HELP PLAN LoDGE REUNIoNS GPF is shaking off years of procrastina- I am not sure if I am the oldest member tion and assembling an e-mail list-serve Planning is in progress to celebrate the of the Glacier Park Foundation, but I of our members. We’ll use it to forward centennials of Glacier Park Lodge (2013), may be close to it. I celebrated my 95th Park Service press releases and other Lake McDonald Lodge (2014), and birthday last October. And I still feel news of Glacier. If you’d like to be in- Many Glacier Hotel (2015). If you’d like I could drive my old Red Bus, # 99, cluded, please send your e-mail address like to take part, please contact John across Logan Pass, and negotiate every to [email protected]. Dobbertin ([email protected]) or Joe curve without incident … even dead- Blair ([email protected]) for GPL; Janet head from Belton over Marias Pass, with SEND US YoUR SToRIES! Eisner Cornish ([email protected]) or a carefully timed stop at the Rocky The frequency with which we publish Mark Hufstetler ([email protected]) Mountain Inn, and arrive at East Gla- The Inside Trail depends in large part for LML; or Beth Beckelhymer Hattox cier at the set scheduled time. It’s easy on submission of stories to us by our ([email protected]) for MGH. to dream and reminisce when you’re 95! members. The more material we get, MEETING SNoWED oUT I send my sincere thanks and gratitude the more quickly we can assemble an to you and your staff for keeping the issue. When you daydream of the Park, The 2010 GPF annual meeting, spirit of Glacier Park alive through all please set down some memories to share scheduled for last December, had to be the many interesting articles published with our 500 members. cancelled because of a 17-inch bliz- in The Inside Trail. Each time I read zard which halted all travel in the Twin We welcome submissions ranging from the experiences of the Glacier alumni it Cities. It was impossible to reschedule single anecdotes to lengthy articles. If brings back wonderful memories of the the meeting before the end of the year. possible, please send submissions by best summers of my life! The meeting will be combined with the Word attachment to [email protected] 2011 annual meeting this fall. Notice John Turner, Gearjammer 1936-41 and [email protected]. Hard of the meeting will be mailed to GPF Send US Your E-Mail copy also can be submitted at our postal members with our next issue. address below. We welcome photos and VISIT GPF oN FACEBooK John Turner may be our oldest mem- other illustrations! ber, but he’s one of the most adept at Post a message and interact with other maintaining e-mail contact with his alumni at GPF’s Facebook page. Note the post about the Glacier Park quarter Officers: Glacier Park Foundation recently put into circulation by the U.S. John Hagen, President P.O. Box 15641 Treasury. Minneapolis, MN 55415 Einar Hanson, First Vice President www.glacierparkfoundation.org Carol Dahle, Vice President - Membership [email protected] Mac Willemssen, Secretary Tessie Bundick, Historian Board of Directors: The Inside Trail takes its name Jim Lees, Treasurer Tessie Bundick Laura Chihara, Webmaster from the famous old trail Laura Chihara Rolf Larson, Inside Trail Editor which connected Glacier Janet Eisner Cornish Park Lodge with the vanished Carol Repulski Dahle The Glacier Park Foundation was Joyce Daugaard formed by Glacier Park employees chalets at Two Medicine, Ray Djuff and visitors who have a deep love for Cut Bank, and St. Mary. The this special place. The Foundation is Glenn Elvig commited both to the importance name thus emphasizes the John Hagen of wilderness preservation and to publication’s focus on the Einar Hanson the importance of places like Glacier Paul Hoff as classrooms where people can lore and history of Glacier Mark Hufstetler experience wilderness in intense National Park. We invite meaningful ways, learning not only a Jeff Kuhn submission of historical, 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, Leroy Lott has a special interest in Glacier Park’s Greg Notess history, traditions and visitor facilities. or artwork for publication in Rick Taylor future issues. Mac Willemssen 2 ☐ Summer 2011 ☐ The Inside Trail Legends Pass from the Glacier Stage Three legendary figures of Glacier Park Service to leave the Chalet immediately 1970s. One was of the north face of Mt. history died in early 2011. We welcome after dinner. Of course the guests were Cleveland, the other of the north face of Mt. remembrances of them (and of other Park slowly approaching the panic stage when Siyeh, both involving thousands of feet of veterans, both storied and obscure) for I served, yet in my Swiss costume, with exposure on brittle sedimentary rock. These publication in future issues. the customary “formality”, the usual climbs are among the most remarkable feats dinner. What seemed to surprise them in the history of the Park. Millie Jean Perkins was the choice of beverage -- tea? or cof- Roger Stephens Millie Perkins assisted her famous mother, fee? They handled that with control, but Ema “Ma” Perkins, in managing Granite when the tea drinkers were asked, “green Roger Stephens was the assistant manager Park Chalet from 1935 through 1949. or black?” they literally cracked up. That at Many Glacier Hotel and was director of Dick Schwab (Many Glacier 1947-52) was the ice breaker. We left the chalet the Broadway musicals there in the 1960s recalls Millie as follows: about six o’clock, carrying wet blankets. and early ‘70s. He collaborated with We were instructed to leave possessions Ian B. Tippet, Many’s manager and the “I keep thinking of how young she was behind, but a few of our guests (there producer of those shows. Together they when we knew her in the Ma Perkins era were about six) insisted on toting their staged How to Succeed in Business Without and what a handsome-looking lady she backpacks, which the staff ended up car- Really Trying (1967), Fiorello (1968), Three was, slightly older than my group of col- rying because they pooped out. We were Penny Opera (1969), Little Mary Sunshine lege student employees. She was underage, met at midnight at Logan Pass by one of (1970), I Do, I Do! and The Fantasticks I think fifteen, when she came with Ma in the red touring buses.” (1971), You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown their first year at the Chalet, unpaid free and Barefoot in the Park (1972), Fiddler on labor for the Great Northern owners of Jim Kanzler the Roof (1973) and One Hundred and Ten the facility (although the General Manager Jim Kanzler was one of the most ac- in the Shade (1975). had said she could keep her tips!). She was complished mountain climbers in one of the heroines of the hurried exodus Roger was physically imposing. He had Glacier Park history. He was one of a when the great fire of 1936 swept up to been a college football player, and bol- famous climbing family, whose his- the Chalet from the McDonald Valley and stered Many Glacier’s roster in the annual tory was clouded by terrible tragedy. over the Continental Divide, to roar down flag football showdowns with Glacier In 1963, at the age of 15, he climbed to Many Glacier. Park Lodge. He was an actor (playing the Mount St. Nicholas (Glacier’s most husband in I Do! I Do!) and an excellent “Her personality was, of course, eclipsed forbidding peak) with his father Hal vocalist. He directed the Many Glacier by the super nova of Ma Perkins’ character, and his brother Jerry. Jerry and four singers and sang baritone solos on the but without her Ma could never have daily companions were killed by an avalanche Thursday Serenade. He also was a pilot, lit up the whole Granite Park area. Millie attempting to Mt. Cleveland a few days kept a small plane at Babb, and took many was the attractive, quiet pillar of support after Christmas in 1969. employees barnstorming over the Park. always present but in the background -- an Kanzler made a number of remarkable essential facilitator of all the fine experiences Roger had a distinguished career as a profes- first ascents in Glacier Park. In 1965, he the guests had there during that era. She sor at several schools. He was Director of and Dan Cook climbed the sheer south was the major factotum, handling the “room Opera at Northern Michigan, Director of face of Chief Mountain. In 1967, he clerk” function, being the chief waitress and Music at Ohio University, and finally Direc- and his brother Jerry climbed the most a significant part of the cooking operation, tor of the School of Music at the University prominent of the Cathedral Spires, on chamber maid, and water carrier.