North Fork Preservation Association

Potential mining projects in the Canadian Flathead seem slowed for now, but a new project just outside the Flathead is in its early stages.

Flathead County commissioners voted last week on two contentious policy issues stemming from a Montana Supreme Court ruling last January over a West Valley community group and a West Valley gravel pit.

One hundred years ago, when Glacier National Park first became a park, grizzly bears roamed along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, north into Canada, south into Sun River country, west to the Cabinets and east onto lowland plains.

These mountains have always been old, weighed heavy with age and rooted in deep time, the kind of place where you can heft a handful of early, early earth and wonder at the world before.

Ever wonder what a bear really does in the woods? Scientists finally are answering that question, thanks to some high-tech cameras hooked to an equally high-tech Internet uplink. More important, the solar-powered remote sensors also are helping biologists to catch just the bear they want, when they want.

As the United States suffers from ongoing wars and a wheezing economy, the nation’s political establishment remains transfixed by such trivial presidential issues as proper tire inflation, John McCain’s $520 Italian loafers and whether Barack Obama is too skinny. It’s enough to make Peter Moore’s campaign for the presidency look downright serious.

Here we go again, folks. Fire season is starting to heat up in the Flathead Valley. For current forest and wildfire information and related material, see our Fire Information Links page.

It has been called one of North America’s wildest places. Just north of the US-Canada border, the wooded slopes of the Canadian Rockies channel unpolluted water into a valley that remains free of human development. Grizzly bears, cougars and wolverines prowl the banks of the Flathead river. Outside of a national park, there is probably no wilderness like it on the continent. But outside of a national park could mean outside of legal protection.