North Shore purchase adds to public ownership along Flathead Lake

Slowly and very surely, the north shore of Flathead Lake is being protected for future generations.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks last week agreed on a proposal that will ask the state fish and game commission to purchase about 80 acres of farmland along the north shore of Flathead Lake about two miles west of Bigfork.

The purchase is adjacent to a 179-acre farm on Montana Highway 82 that FWP purchased last year. Combined there is now about 2,700 acres of public land preserved on the north shore of Flathead Lake between Bigfork and Somers.

Funding for the lastest project, which is near the S-curves on Montana Highway 82, would be provided by the federal Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act. The primary purpose of the proposed land acquisition is to protect and manage the property to improve wetland habitats, to continue annual crop production to benefit resident and migratory waterfowl, to improve and maintain habitat for other wildlife, and to provide public recreation. The state proposes to incorporate this parcel into its wildlife management area program, and the land would become part of the existing North Shore Wildlife Management Area.

The Flathead Land Trust has been instrumental in initiation of this and several projects with FWP on the north shore of Flathead Lake. Flathead Land Trust helped initiate this project with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “This adds more important protected land to our beloved north shore of Flathead Lake,” Land Trust executive director Paul Travis said. “The property adds an important puzzle piece to over 2,700 acres of protected land already along the north shore and will greatly benefit waterfowl, wildlife and public access.  It is also important to conserve this land in order to maintain the high water quality of Flathead Lake.”

The draft environmental assessment for the state’s purchase was out for a 30-day public review from Nov. 6 through Dec. 5, 2015, and a public hearing was held in Somers on Nov. 24. Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks will now recommend that the Fish and Wildlife Commission approve the proposed purchase of the North Shore addition. This action will also require the approval of the State Land Board.

The price for the property is $489,000, while the land appraised at $652,000, FWP resource specialist Kris Tempel said.

The property the state is purchasing is adjacent to 179 acres that the state bought last year. That land was once homesteaded by a Canadian family.

“I’m so honored and proud of this,” Donetta Antonovich said at the dedication ceremony of the state’s purchase last year. 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.

The property changed hands again in the 1950s. It sold to the Wittlake family, who then sold it to Darrell Worm in 1989.

The acquisition of the Darrell Worm property 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 to purchase Worm’s property 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. BPA has retained a perpetual conservation easement on that property to ensure long-term protection of the property.