Glacier National Park

An audio postcard. Beth Anne talks with Darryl, Nancy and Ray about their three-generation family road trip from Pennsylvania to Montana.  Nancy narrates the trip itinerary, from Falling Water in Pennsylvania to a farm in Ohio, from giant sand dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan to Buffalo Bill State Park in Wyoming. Darryl recalls an unusual encounter with a familiar four-legged critter in Yellowstone National Park in 1948. Twelve-year-old Ray chimes in with his perspective, including an alternative vision for the scenic Dry Fork drainage on the east side of Glacier National Park.

After 70 years the bulk of the businesses in West Glacier have changed hands from one family, to an Arizona-based Corporation. Glacier Park Incorporated runs several hotels and businesses in the area surrounding Glacier Park, and had been the concessions contractor for the in-Park hotels for thirty-plus years before losing the contract to Xanterra last year.

Waterton-Glacier International Peace park connects over the US-Canada border between Montana and Alberta. However, the two parks don’t match up in their cross-border boundary.

Glacier Park stretches west to encompass the North Fork Flathead River Valley, but the Canadian Flathead is not part of the Park. The Canadian Flathead is Provincial land, akin to state or forest service land in the US, and offering the potential for logging or mineral development. Conservationists have been angling to “Complete the Park” by expanding Waterton into the North Fork Valley.

Hiker Jake Bramante reached his destination, just on the other side of Gable Pass in Glacier National Park. He was looking to find an area he had seen once before, a limestone boulder field he knew was home to a population of one of his favorite animals—the pika.

“Any time I get to see them it’s always a special thing,” Bramante said. “They’re just cute and I love how hearty they are.”

Hearty in the right climate, anyway.

  “Some of these high elevation species that are dependent on cold, they may have some problems here in the Northern Rockies,”

Barricades came down, open signs switched on, and employees went back to work as Glacier National Park reopened. The partial government shutdown closed the national parks October first.

Public Affairs Officer Denise Germann says the Park had about 20 to 30 people working during the shutdown. As of Thursday about 250 employees were back on.

She said a lot of the work going on right now involves getting housing and lodging buttoned up for the winter.

If reporters have a question about Glacier National Park, they usually first call the park's public affairs officer, Denise Germann.