Glacier National Park rededicated on 100th birthday

From 1936 to 1938, Leo Ost called Glacier National Park home. He worked in Civilian Conservation Corps camps. Started out on trails. Then worked in the kitchens at the camps. And he also unloaded the garbage.

Unloading that garbage. That's what the 89-year-old from Whitefish remembered the most. Back then garbage was tossed into a big pit near headquarters.

The driver would pull up to the pit and Ost would ride in back.

"I'd dump the cans over the side," he recalled.

Ost always feared that one day he'd fall out of that truck. Not that he was afraid of heights. He was afraid of bears. The dump drew bears from all over. Blacks and grizzlies came to partake in the feast.

"If I had fallen off that truck I'd been meat for all those bears," he said with a smile.

Today Glacier Park has no open dumps, though it still has lots of bears.

It also has stories layered upon stories. Tales upon tales. And Tuesday, more than 700 Park officials, dignitaries, politicians, rangers and just plain folks like Ost celebrated all of them, as Glacier turned 100 May 11, 2010.

"I'm very loony," remarked Elly Jones of Columbia Falls. Jones is a volunteer for Glacier's Citizen Science Program. As a volunteer, she goes out and keeps track of loons on many Glacier Park lakes.

One day a bull moose was feeding in a lake, gradually getting closer and closer to a nesting loon Jones was watching from her vantage point above the water. The big bull would submerge its head completely underwater eating plants off the bottom of the lake. But the big animal, not knowing any better, scared the loon away and the bird abandoned its nest. The young chick the adult loon was sitting on died from exposure.

"It was a sad story," Jones recalled. "But just to sit there and see that moose was awesome."

Park Superintendent Chas Cartwright had a story or two of his own. One of the perks of being superintendent is that he gets to go out in the wilds of Glacier, whenever he likes, Cartwright noted.

One memorable trip involved a hike up the Camas drainage with Jack Potter, Glacier's chief of science and resources.

From Arrow Lake, they climbed the flank of Heaven's Peak to Heaven's Peak Lookout.

The climb was arduous and Cartwright finally asked Potter when they would hit the old trail that went to the lookout.

"You're standing on a switchback of the old trail," Potter told Cartwright.

This summer, Glacier will celebrate its 100th birthday by stabilizing the aging lookout, Cartwright noted. And members from the original Mennonite families that built the lookout will help.

Cartwright urged the audience to 'reconnect" with Glacier — take their children to the Park, so they too, can walk away with their own stories and memories.

"So that youth will connect as much as their parents and elders did," he said.

Glacier is the 10th park in the national park system. It 1933, it joined with Waterton Lakes National Park to became the first international peace park. In 1995, it was named a biosphere reserve by the United Nations.

It is a special place for many people. Its history long pre-dates the white man. Native American tribes called it home long before explorers arrived. Archaeological digs have shown humans lived there more than 14,000 years ago.

"To us, our homeland does extend to the Canada border and beyond," said Steve Lozar, tribal secretary for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

The Tribes lived in the region for millennia.

Lozar commended the National Park Service for preserving Glacier.

"I congratulate you on this 100-year anniversary," he said.

Several other speakers congratulated Glacier Tuesday, including Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, acting regional director Mary Gibson Scott, Blackfeet Tribal Chairman Willie Sharp and Steve Doherty, senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

Neither Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, nor the members of Montana's congressional delegation attended, though aides read statements from each.