Looking back from 2020

Our esteemed sister publication, the Daily Inter Lake, just ran a multi-part series looking back on the biggest news of the last decade.

I'm going to take a somewhat different and, I'll admit, much riskier approach.

Here's my look ahead at the big news of the next 10 years.

Perhaps this highly fanciful, not-at-all scientific and somewhat arrogant exercise will spark some healthy conversation in these pages. Or not. But I do want to know what you think!

2010 — Negotiations between Bonneville Power Administration and Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. over a new power deal go nowhere. The potlines in the largest building in Montana never restart. Instead, the site becomes a multi-year, multimillion-dollar Superfund clean-up project, heroically paid for by Google, which signals its intent to build a 'server farm" at what will become one of the most scenic corporate campuses in America.

Meanwhile, visitors from all over the globe flock to Glacier National Park, enticed by centennial events and propelled by fears that the Park's ice patches will soon disappear.

Below-normal winter snowfall and higher-than-normal summer temps trigger immense wildfires. Tourism season ends with a whimper.

Church attendance climbs as unemployment persists.

And hunters without wolf tags illegally poach the endangered predators, angered that they have decimated the elk population.

2011 — F. H. Stoltze receives federal and state grants to build a co-generation demonstration project in Columbia Falls, giving hope to local timber and hauling contractors devastated and barely hanging on after the Smurfit-Stone closure nearly two years earlier.

Under considerable political pressure, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks revises its wolf policy. But it may be too late. Elk numbers have fallen dramatically.

2012 — First Best Place Task Force, the Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce and North Valley Hospital collaborate in building an arch over Nucleus Avenue at its intersection with U.S. Highway 2. The arch mirrors the design of both the hospital near Whitefish and the hospital's newly completed community education center at Glacier Discovery Square.

With the completion of the new arch and the increased traffic it attracts, the City Council decides to push for stronger measures to make the thoroughfare more attractive. No more boarded-up storefronts and trashed-out empty lots.

2013 — Following the inauguration of Sarah Palin as America's first female president, along with a Republican takeover of Congress, local Montanans in both parties express hope that the Alaska native will understand the state's needs better than did her predecessor.

2014 — The Old Red Bridge is reopened to foot traffic.

2015 — Going-to-the-Sun Road reconstruction and mitigation is virtually complete, and traffic delays are close to nil, in part because so many more visitors decide to take the shuttle than drive.

2016 — President Palin visits the Flathead Valley on an Amtrak campaign stop, and declares her support for continued transformation of the area's economy, emphasizing bioenergy, Park tourism and forest recreation.

2017 — The CFAC site clean-up is complete. Google begins construction of its new campus, hiring local contractors whenever possible. The Stoltze co-generation demonstration project is up and running.

2018 — Democrats barely regain control of Congress, continuing the wide swings in federal politics. But both political parties in Montana have become more "green."

2019 — Google completes its campus. Nucleus Avenue is resplendent, with a variety of attractive, well-conceived shops. North Valley Hospital becomes one of the city's biggest employers. The glaciers in the Park stop receding.

2020 — The editor of the Hungry Horse News awakens from his daydream and immediately recognizes that nothing he predicted happened the way he imagined.