Homestead passes through generations of owners to current owner: the public

A farm that was homesteaded by a Canadian family this week moved to a new generation of owners: the public.

About 200 people attended a dedication last Thursday of the property between Somers and Bigfork that was purchased through Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

“I’m so honored and proud of this,” Donetta Antonovich said at the dedication ceremony. Antonovich is a great granddaughter of the McClarty family that homesteaded the property. She and cousin Gary McClarty of Kalispell are the two remaining local descendants of the original landowners.

In the early 1900s the Joseph and Catherine McClarty family from southern Alberta ventured from Butte to the Flathead Valley and homestead on 190 acres between Somers and Bigfork. Over four decades the family grew various crops and raised livestock. When Montana Power told the family they were building a dam on Flathead Lake and their property would be inundated with water, the family sold out to the power company.

The property changed hands again in the 1950s. It sold to the Wittlake family, who then sold it to Bigfork resident Darrell Worm in 1989. He sold it to the Bonneville Power Administration, which purchased the property through Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

The public will now have access to another large portion of the north shore of Flathead Lake through this purchase.

Antonovich recalls the stories her family tells about Joe and Catherine McClarty riding to Kalispell from the farm in horse and buggy. Her father and grandfather were born on the property.

Joe would sing and whistle as the buggy bounced along the dirt tracks to town and back to what was then called Holt.

“They were wonderful, sweet, kind people,” Antonovich said. “Nothing ever shook them.”

Darrell Worm works in Kalispell as an attorney, and lives in Bigfork. After he sold the property but stayed on to oversee the barn’s renovation, he would stop by on his daily trips to Kalispell.

“It’s a beautiful place, and it gets to stay that way,” Worm said at the dedication ceremony last week.

Paul Travis, executive director of the Flathead Land Trust, said the conservation of 190 acres for public use is something to be proud of. The acreage ties together a large swath of public land on the north shore. “It’s incredible what’s been preserved here,” Travis said.

The property acquisition was part of the River to Lake initiative, a plan to conserve land and wildlife habitat along the Flathead River to Flathead Lake.  

The River to Lake initiative has now placed about 41 percent of the 100-year flood plain of Flathead River into conservation.

The Flathead Land Trust has helped put conservation easements on 5,000 acres of land in the Flathead Valley, and combining that with other protected lands there are about 11,000 acres protected lands in the River to Lake initiative.

The Bonneville Power Administration provided funding for this project through the state’s fisheries mitigation program. The program is designed to help offset impacts associated with the construction of Hungry Horse dam in the 1940s.

This parcel will now be integrated into wildlife management areas on the north shore and will be designated as the North Shore Wildlife Management Area.