Category Archives: News

Polebridge gets a yurt

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Housing in Polebridge is nothing if not eclectic — a motley collection of cabins, a few houses, a trailer or two, a couple of tipis and now, a yurt. The Flathead Beacon has the story . . .

Nomads first used yurts as portable homes in the harsh steppes of Central Asia. Now Will Hammerquist uses one as a rental in Polebridge.

Hammerquist, Glacier program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, owns a piece of property with a friend in Polebridge. Over the weekend, he invited a Troy-based company called Shelter Designs to his property to give a public demonstration on how to set up a yurt and answer any questions people had about the circular dwellings. Hammerquist plans to rent out the yurt.

Read the entire story . . .

Excellent local coverage of Tester’s “new-style wilderness bill”

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The Daily Inter Lake posted a set of well-written articles late last night on Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, including an interesting overview of previous efforts. Looks like Jim Mann had a long, hard day putting all this stuff together.

Here are the links and lead-ins . . .

Tester unveils new-style wilderness bill

Backed by loggers, outfitters, conservationists, hunters and anglers, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., unveiled forest management legislation for the state, with wilderness designations, on Friday in Townsend.

The 80-page Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is largely based on the input of collaborative groups involving diverse interests over the last few years.

Bill includes 25 wilderness areas

The Jobs and Recreation Bill includes 25 new wilderness designations in Montana, many of them small, and Sen. Jon Tester says that is a reflection of how the bill was tailor-made through years of collaborative negotiations.

Williams recalls past wilderness proposal battles

Former Montana Rep. Pat Williams unsuccessfully tried to pass wilderness legislation 16 times during his 18 years in Congress, but he says things have changed since then and Sen. Jon Tester’s proposal stands a better chance.

Tester’s forest plan gets the big reveal

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The Missoulian is all over Senator Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” (mostly called “Tester’s wilderness bill” throughout the week). The big reveal was at a meeting in Townsend Friday afternoon. The Missoulian posted a basic write-up shortly thereafter, followed by two lengthier articles early Saturday morning.

What’s the North Fork connection? The projects in the bill are the thin edge of the wedge. Tester is proposing a fairly basic change in the way the Forest Service works with all local communities.

Here are the links and ledes for the two most recent Missoulian articles, as well as a map showing the areas affected.

The smell of sawdust hung in the air Friday as U.S. Sen. Jon Tester stood in front of a small lumber mill and announced his plans to create almost 700,000 acres of new Montana wilderness, designate a new national recreation area and mandate timber harvests on thousands of forested acres.

Called the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, Tester’s bill is the first effort to set aside new wilderness in Montana in a generation. Most of the new wilderness, more than 500,000 acres, would be in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.

Yet most of the talk Friday was about all the other things Tester’s bill would do, specifically requiring timber harvests, directing different kinds of timber removal — like cutting small trees for biomass generators — and creating new kinds of contracts timber companies could make with the federal government.

Read the entire article . . .

Public lands logging would see big changes if U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act becomes law.

That’s either a needed compromise to break deadlocks in Montana’s wilderness debate, or a step toward breaking up the U.S. Forest Service, depending on whom you talk to.

Read the entire article . . .

And also: A map of the proposed land designations in PDF format.

What the trout tell us

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Dan Testa has an excellent piece in the Flathead Beacon discussing trout studies in the North Fork — on both sides of the border — and the general importance of this sort of baseline study in connection with the upcoming UNESCO scientific mission to study threats to Waterton-Glacier Park.

Here’s a sampler . . .

The research of these scientists is likely to be heavily relied upon by members of a United Nations fact-finding mission arriving in the region some time in the next year to determine whether Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park should be designated a “World Heritage Site in Danger.” The unanimous June vote in Seville, Spain, by a 21-country panel of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) could mean widespread attention will once again be drawn to the issue of threats from mining and drilling operations in southeastern British Columbia along the headwaters of the North Fork, which serves as the western boundary of Glacier National Park.

Read the entire article . . .

Official announcement of Tester’s “wilderness bill” scheduled for 1pm Friday

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OK, it’s official. U.S. Senator Jon Tester will introduce his “forest jobs and stewardship bill” on Friday, July 17 during a 1 p.m. news conference at RY Timber in Townsend. The Missoulian has a brief write-up, including the obligatory, sound-bite quote . . .

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester will introduce his much-anticipated bill designed to create jobs in Montana’s forests while also designating new wilderness areas this Friday, July 17.

Tester has been hearing input on the legislation from dozens of Montana organizations and individuals for more than two years.

Read the entire article . . .

Tester wilderness bill also targets jobs and recreation

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According to today’s Missoulian, Sen. Jon Tester’s office is being a little more forthcoming this week about the wilderness bill he intends to announce Friday. See our previous post for background information. Here’s the lede . . .

There may be more ideas than acres going into an anticipated wilderness bill under construction in Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s office.

And one of those ideas may be a new name.

“There are several major components to the overall legislation (jobs through new logging opportunities, recreational access, etc.), so calling it simply a ‘wilderness bill’ is a mischaracterization,” Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy said Monday. “I’d call it a forest jobs and stewardship bill.”

Tester’s staff has stated the bill would build upon the work of three environmentalist/industry collaboration efforts. The Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership outlined about 322,000 acres of wilderness in the national forest land that stretches between Helena and Monida. Another 87,000 acres are suggested in the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project. And the Three Rivers Challenge in the Yaak designates 30,000 acres as wilderness.

Read the entire article . . .

Good background information on Tester’s wilderness bill

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The High Country News has a lengthy but excellent piece covering some of the background and thinking behind Sen. Jon Tester’s wilderness bill. Although it focuses on the Beavercreek-Deerlodge Partnership, the article includes lots of good supplementary information that helps put Tester’s plans in context. It takes very little reading between the lines to realize that this could have a significant impact on forest management locally.

Recommended reading.

Here’s a taste . . .

They call it the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, but it’s not as warm and fuzzy as it sounds. They’ve hammered out some bold goals, determined to make both the Forest Service and more hard-line environmentalists agree to them. They want increased logging, contentious restoration projects and controversial wilderness designations that would break a 26-year-long gridlock in Montana’s wilderness politics.

Read the entire article . . .

International scientists to visit Flathead to investigate Peace Park threats

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The “Montana’s News Station” web site, which includes KPAX-TV in Missoula and KAJ in Kalispell, posted a short report on the planned World Heritage Committee investigation into threats to Waterton-Glacier Park . . .

International scientists will visit the Flathead Valley in the fall to investigate potential threats to Waterton Glacier International Peace Park from mining proposals in southern British Columbia.

Eleven environmental groups in the United States and Canada asked the World Heritage Committee to declare the world’s first peace park in danger.

Conservationists say the overall goal is not to have Waterton Glacier listed as in danger, but to work with Canada and British Columbia to develop a long term solution to protect the peace park.

Read the entire story . . .

The Inside North Fork Road is open — no, really

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According to an article posted today at the Hungry Horse News web site, the Inside North Fork Road, after two-and-a-half years of dinking around, finally opened again this morning . . .

Glacier National Park officials announced the opening of the Inside North Fork Road to all traffic as of mid-morning Friday, July 10. The Inside North Fork Road is the Park’s oldest, built in 1901 when oil was struck near Kintla Lake. The Inside North Fork Road is a 28-mile narrow, bumpy, gravel road between Fish Creek and Polebridge, providing access to some of the Park’s most pristine wilderness areas.

Read the entire article . . .