Glacier National Park Chat

I was at the hotel before opening this year and the staff was planning a weekly hootenanny. Staff members were practising in the lobby in preparation for the event while I was there. Check with the hotel for which day of the week it is being held. The National Park Service provides regular tours, wi...

Hello, Lyman: Thanks for posting that link to the Flathead Beacon article on the Motor Vessel International. Unfortunately, the article is riddled with errors, a few of which I'll mention to make my point. In the first paragraph, the article indicates the Canada-U.S. border is at the 45th Parallel. ...

I jumped the gun on the 80 mph. Sorry. I thought I'd seen a photo of someone in Montana posting the new signs so was under the belief it was now in effect.

There's more truth to your imperial/metric conversion remark than I want to admit. Too many Alberta drivers are speed demons, and doing 10, 20 or even 30 km/h over the posted 110 km/h limit on major highways is perceived as normal. They will honk and flash their lights at people doing the speed limi...

We Canadians love that "fast lane" and Montana's 80 mph speed limit. Gotta get home with our bargain American purchases (although less of a bargain now with out deflated dollar).

Dan: About two to three inches of snow in Calgary today. Roads are clear, just wet. Should be OK driving to Glacier. Just beware of wind gusts between Calgary and Fort Macleod. Can blow big rigs off the road. Better weather, as in the high 60s, low 70s with sunshine, expected for weekend and early n...

It was definitely a great day at Lake McDonald Lodge, despite the rain. Pitimakan's talk was a hoot and dinner with him, rjm and his wife was a wonderful cap to the day's events. I got soaked helping NPS archivist Deirdre Shaw do walking tours of the hotel. Pitimakan seemed to have a proper rain-pro...

One of my favorite haunts is Fort Benton and, if the budget allows, a stay at the historic Grand Union Hotel. Great food at the hotel, one of the oldest in the state, and lots to see in town, all within walking distance. Check out Old Fort Benton, which preserves some of the original fort and recrea...

A funeral was held Monday, Aug. 12, in East Glacier for Joyce Clarke Turvey, who operated the John L. Clarke museum and shop in East Glacier since 1977. I'm sure many chatters have visited the shop over the years and possibly purchased a piece of artwork from her. Joyce was the adopted daughter of B...

Thanks for the link, Lyman. It's an interesting story and not badly done, as long as you don't take the historical information as fact -- a recurring problem. The article states: Glacier National Park was established in 1910. Soon after, in 1914, the park began offering automobile tours, first in to...

Well, my friend Eileen McCormack, who co-wrote The Dutiful Son and was an archivist with the Hill papers for decades, got back to me quickly. As I suspected, she'd never heard of the claim that Louis Hill was deathly afraid of water. Eileen wrote: "That is a new one. I would doubt very much tha...

Hello, Tibber: That's interesting about Louis Hill supposedly being afraid of water and walking to the chalets on the south side of St. Mary Lake. I've seen one or two photos of Louis Hill on the boat dock at St. Mary Chalets waiting for the Motor Vessel St. Mary to take him and his entourage to Sun...

Pitamakan: I have not seen good photos of the Hill chalets across from Sun Point, but some images do exist. I do have an image of two of Louis Hill's boys looking out the window of the cabin on the spit looking across at Going-to-the-Sun Chalets. Quite an unusual view. You can find a similar view in...

There seems to be some confusion about the two cabins Hill had built across from Sun Point. The two buildings were a single compound, separate structures but serving a single purpose. What Ron refers to as the "artist's cabin" on the mountainside, where he found lots of downed lumber, that...

Hello, petedoc: Good catch on the location of Going-to-the-Sun Chalets. The map has the location way too far to the west. They were definitely at what is now called Sun Point. If you want to learn more about Gunsight Chalets, pick up a copy of my book Glacier's Historic Hotels and Chalets -- View Wi...