BNSF grant funds Glacier exhibit

HELENA — If Glacier National Park could speak, what stories would its mountains and meadows tell about the first 100 years of federal preservation and protection?

There's no need to imagine the answer, now that the Montana Historical Society has gathered hundreds of items — from Mel Ruder's photography of the Park for the Hungry Horse News to the sturdy bear trap his pictures made famous — for a new exhibit, "Land of Many Stories: The People and History of Glacier National Park."

The exhibit is funded in part by a $500,000 grant from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Foundation to exhibit sponsor Glacier National Park Fund. About 250 GNP Fund donors got a first look at the display last Thursday at the Montana Museum in Helena. The exhibit runs through Feb. 26, 2011.

President Howard Taft signed legislation creating the Park on May 11, 1910.

Gus Melonas, regional director of corporate relations for BNSF's Northern tier states, said the railroad's foundation made the donation to show BNSF's "continuing support of the significant natural resources in the state of Montana."

"We are extremely pleased to be the lead donor with Glacier National Park Fund and will continue to be a partner in protecting the park in future years to come," said Melonas, a 24-year veteran of the company.

Among the 280 exhibit items collected by Jennifer Bottomly-O'Looney, the museum's curator of collections and art: a 1925-era "Swiss Miss' waitress uniform and Willow Ware china provided by Glacier Park Lodge, built by the founder of Great Northern Railway; an original Winold Reiss painting created for one of the railway's highly collectible employee calendars; and a 1915 Glacier Trail sign with Great Northern's famous "Rocky" logo, loaned by Bill and Diane Lundgren of West Glacier Village.

Richard Sims, museum director, said there were a lot of "moving parts' to the $175,000 exhibit.

"There's a formula to these exhibits," he said, "from conceptualizing the exhibit, developing the storyline and script, selecting the artifacts to support the storyline, the constant editing to fit the artifacts in the gallery space available. Budgets tend to grow up to opening night. … ANd we had one of our bigger opening-night crowds."

Railroads figure prominently in the exhibit because of the role Great Northern, and now BNSF, played in bringing people to the Park, said Tim Cahill, an award-winning travel writer from Livingston and keynote speaker for the exhibit's opening night.

"In the 1920s and 30s, there really weren't such things as reliable roads in the area — a big contrast to today, you might say," Cahill told an audience of 200 GNP donors gathered at the state Capitol. "In any case, the way people could get to Glacier was by rail, specifically the Great Northern Empire Builder, specifically out of St. Paul or Seattle."

The BNSF rail line hugs the southern border of the Park, along the middle fork of the Flathead River.

Cahill quoted a string of writers and journalists who helped build popular support for the Park over the last century. Among Cahill's favorites is a passage from Sierra Club founder John Muir, written in 1901 about what was then called the Flathead Reserve: "Wander here a whole summer, if you can. Thousands of God's wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted."

Cahill said he is often asked, "Why have you identified the location of this special place in a national magazine with a million readers?"

Cahill said his reason is a "paradox."

"The places we wish to remain protected and wild cannot become so unless visited and appreciated," Cahill said.

To support his point of view, Cahill quoted adventure writer Richard Bangs: "The crucial vector is in the survival of a landscape is' – more often than not — the number of visitors who trekked the land, floated the river, climbed the mountain. When such a place becomes threatened, there is a ready-made constituency for whom the place was personal, a collective force ready to lend energy, monies and time to preservation."

The Montana Museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. It remains open till 8 p.m. on Thursdays. Admission is $5 for adults, $1 for children and $12 for families. Admission is free for members of the Montana Historical Society. An individual membership is $45. The Museum is across the street from the state Capitol at 225 N. Roberts St.