Park's Camas Road placed on historic registry

Stopping a dam in the North Fork, connecting Glacier National Park to Waterton Lakes National Park, and diverting increasing traffic on the Going-to-the-Sun Road were three reasons the National Park Service supported construction of the Camas Road in 1960-1967.

The Camas Creek Cutoff Road, AKA the International Park Road or Glacier Route 8, was recently placed on the federal National Register of Historic Places as “a place of statewide historic significance.”

Completed at a cost of $2.5 million under the Park Service’s Mission 66 program, the 11.7-mile long two-lane, paved road starts at the T-intersection with the Sun Road near Apgar Village, crosses the 160-foot long McDonald Creek Bridge, climbs to 3,900 feet elevation at McGee Meadow, and continues west to the 400-foot long North Fork Flathead River Bridge, where it intersects with the unpaved North Fork Road about 22 miles north of Columbia Falls.

Construction of the Camas Road was one of the largest Mission 66 projects in Glacier Park and one of the largest entirely new roadways built under the Mission 66 program, which was created by Congress in 1956.

The road’s history, however, can be traced back to 1915, when the Canadian Chief Superintendent of Dominion Parks advocated for a road linking Glacier and Waterton national parks via Akamina Pass and the North Fork Valley.

The Montana State Highway Commission, Columbia Falls Commercial Club, Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and others, however, advocated for a east-west route through Glacier Park, and construction efforts focused on what later became the Sun Road.

A proposal in 1943 to build the 416-foot high Glacier View Dam across the North Fork near Big Creek revived interest in the international highway. While Flathead businesses and newspapers and Rep. Mike Mansfield supported the dam proposal, the Park Service and Sierra Club opposed it.

The reservoir behind the $95 million dam would have extended all the way to the Canada border and flooded thousands of acres of Glacier Park, including large tracts of prime winter wildlife habitat. Building the Camas Road to bring tourists to the North Fork was seen by the Park Service as a way to stop the dam project, “a paradoxical situation where increased development was seen as a necessary step in preventing yet more development,” the historic registry application form states.

But there was a second reason to support construction of the Camas Road — “the fear that ever-increasing visitor numbers would ultimately put an impossible strain on the Park’s constricted roadway network,” the application states. Diverting Sun Road traffic to the North Fork was seen as a solution.

That second concern has not gone away. The Park Service is currently studying impacts of traffic congestion in the Sun Road corridor and its possible impacts on trail use, wildlife and other Park resources. But the Park Service no longer mans the Camas Road entrance gate, and the road is not plowed in winter.

And while local support for damming the North Fork is hard to find today, city and civic leaders in Columbia Falls have been promoting paving of the North Fork Road at least as far as the Camas Road for about a decade. The goal is to draw tourists headed to Glacier Park off U.S. 2 and up Nucleus Avenue as a way to revitalize the town.

The completion of the Camas Road in 1967 marked the end of work on the proposed International Loop Road. Construction of the Kishenehn Creek portion of the route never happened, and the Park Service considered it “pointless to build a ‘connector’ road that simply dead-ended at the Canada border,” the application states.

“Indeed, there is little evidence that the Canadian government ever seriously considered construction of its segment of the Kishenehn-Akamina route, although Waterton-area businessmen were understandably enthusiastic about the project,” the application states.

Stopping a dam in the North Fork, connecting Glacier National Park to Waterton Lakes National Park, and diverting increasing traffic on the Going-to-the-Sun Road were three reasons the National Park Service supported construction of the Camas Road in 1960-1967.

The Camas Creek Cutoff Road, AKA the International Park Road or Glacier Route 8, was recently placed on the federal National Register of Historic Places as “a place of statewide historic significance.”

Completed at a cost of $2.5 million under the Park Service’s Mission 66 program, the 11.7-mile long two-lane, paved road starts at the T-intersection with the Sun Road near Apgar Village, crosses the 160-foot long McDonald Creek Bridge, climbs to 3,900 feet elevation at McGee Meadow, and continues west to the 400-foot long North Fork Flathead River Bridge, where it intersects with the unpaved North Fork Road about 22 miles north of Columbia Falls.

Construction of the Camas Road was one of the largest Mission 66 projects in Glacier Park and one of the largest entirely new roadways built under the Mission 66 program, which was created by Congress in 1956.

The road’s history, however, can be traced back to 1915, when the Canadian Chief Superintendent of Dominion Parks advocated for a road linking Glacier and Waterton national parks via Akamina Pass and the North Fork Valley.

The Montana State Highway Commission, Columbia Falls Commercial Club, Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and others, however, advocated for a east-west route through Glacier Park, and construction efforts focused on what later became the Sun Road.

A proposal in 1943 to build the 416-foot high Glacier View Dam across the North Fork near Big Creek revived interest in the international highway. While Flathead businesses and newspapers and Rep. Mike Mansfield supported the dam proposal, the Park Service and Sierra Club opposed it.

The reservoir behind the $95 million dam would have extended all the way to the Canada border and flooded thousands of acres of Glacier Park, including large tracts of prime winter wildlife habitat. Building the Camas Road to bring tourists to the North Fork was seen by the Park Service as a way to stop the dam project, “a paradoxical situation where increased development was seen as a necessary step in preventing yet more development,” the historic registry application form states.

But there was a second reason to support construction of the Camas Road — “the fear that ever-increasing visitor numbers would ultimately put an impossible strain on the Park’s constricted roadway network,” the application states. Diverting Sun Road traffic to the North Fork was seen as a solution.

That second concern has not gone away. The Park Service is currently studying impacts of traffic congestion in the Sun Road corridor and its possible impacts on trail use, wildlife and other Park resources. But the Park Service no longer mans the Camas Road entrance gate, and the road is not plowed in winter.

And while local support for damming the North Fork is hard to find today, city and civic leaders in Columbia Falls have been promoting paving of the North Fork Road at least as far as the Camas Road for about a decade. The goal is to draw tourists headed to Glacier Park off U.S. 2 and up Nucleus Avenue as a way to revitalize the town.

The completion of the Camas Road in 1967 marked the end of work on the proposed International Loop Road. Construction of the Kishenehn Creek portion of the route never happened, and the Park Service considered it “pointless to build a ‘connector’ road that simply dead-ended at the Canada border,” the application states.

“Indeed, there is little evidence that the Canadian government ever seriously considered construction of its segment of the Kishenehn-Akamina route, although Waterton-area businessmen were understandably enthusiastic about the project,” the application states.