Michael Jamison did a nice article on John Frederick’s pending retirement and the changing of the guard at the North Fork Hostel. It appeared in the Monday, October 15, 2007 online edition of the Missoulian . . .
His first impulse was to run, to turn tail and never look back at that ramshackle stack of logs the real estate agent kept calling a cabin.
A few months ago, someone noticed that the northforkhostel.com web address actually pointed to the web site of a competitor, the Home Ranch Bottoms. Same for northernlightssaloon.com. The correct address for the hostel is, of course, nfhostel.com and the Northern Lights Saloon has no web site. This generated a certain amount of commentary of the eye-rolling, “give me a break” variety.
Northforkhostel.com now takes you to Montanans For Multiple Use, while northernlightssaloon.com points at a Marine Corp recruiting site.
Sigh . . .
Karen Craver got a very nice write-up in the Monday, October 15, 2007 online edition of the Missoulian — another one of Michael Jamison’s excellent articles . . .
She calls him
The Saturday, October 13, 2007 online edition of the New York Times carried an article on increased sales to private individuals of property on the margins of federal lands. A great deal of the story focuses on Montana and the Flathead Valley, in particular . . .
William P. Foley II pointed to the mountain. Owns it, mostly. A timber company began logging in view of his front yard a few years back. He thought they were cutting too much, so he bought the land.
Mr. Foley belongs to a new wave of investors and landowners across the West who are snapping up open spaces as private playgrounds on the borders of national parks and national forests.
Read the entire article . . .
From the Thursday, October 11, 2007 online edition of the Whitefish Pilot . . .
The Whitefish City Council learned Oct. 1 about the idea of a joint resolution between Whitefish and Fernie, British Columbia, urging Gov. Brian Schweitzer and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell to meet and discuss “transboundary issues” — that is, potential impacts to the Flathead River by coal-mining upstream in Canada.
Mayor Cris Coughlin told the council she received a copy of the resolution from Will Hammerquist, a program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.
Read the entire article . . .
This article appeared in the Monday, October 8, 2007 online edition of the Missoulian. A public meeting to present the study information mentioned here will be held at 7 p.m. October 9 in rooms 144 A and B of the Arts and Technology Building at Flathead Valley Community College.
High in the mountain wilderness of Glacier National Park, far from the modern world’s smokestacks and industries, pristine has officially been downgraded.
Chemicals and contaminants have tainted the park’s most remote corners, with some backcountry fish so toxic they could prove dangerous to the wildlife that eats them.
Such are the stunning results of a three-year field study exploring how airborne pollutants poison national parks by filtering down out of the atmosphere.
On Tuesday in Kalispell, Dixon Landers will share his findings in a presentation titled
Posted on Wednesday, October 3, 2007 to the MSNBC news site . . .
U.S. and Canadian officials plan to meet this month in Paris to discuss how an international park on their border could be protected from a proposed coal mine nearby.
The Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park was designated by the United Nations as a World Heritage Site in 1995. The mine would be north of Montana’s Glacier National Park, which abuts Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, where the province meets British Columbia. The two parks make up the international park.
“Proposed energy development north of Glacier has the potential to be a big problem,” said U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., who said the U.S. Interior Department told him arrangements will be worked out this week for the meeting during the World Heritage Convention on Oct. 24-25.
Read the entire article . . .
From the Wednesday, October 3, 2007 online edition of the Flathead Beacon . . .
Everyone from high school students to community groups are getting involved in air quality study in the Flathead Valley, as testing for one University of Montana [study] ends and another begins.
Tony Ward, a UM research assistant professor, made a dual-purpose trip last week, introducing Whitefish High School chemistry students to an air quality sampling program and collecting months of samples from the North Fork Road Coalition for Health and Safety.
From the Wednesday, October 3, 2007 online edition of the Missoulian . . .
The nation’s top-level land managers are looking to meet with their Canadian counterparts in France later this month to discuss controversial mining projects planned upstream of Glacier National Park.
From the Wednesday, October 3, 2007 online edition of the Flathead Beacon . . .
The media storm by Montana