Susan Gallagher did a nice Associated Press piece about the North Fork that is getting national and world-wide distribution today. Just for fun, the “continue reading” link below sends you to New Zealand to read the rest of her article . . .
The Blackfeet Tribe named the greater Glacier National Park ecosystem “the backbone of the world.” Use the park’s remote, northwestern entrance and the bumpy access road will have you feeling like you drove over each vertebra. But you’ll be grateful you made the trip.
For an out-of-the-mainstream take on America’s 10th national park, go to its northwestern expanse, the North Fork. It invites “a more self-reliant visitor,” the National Park Service says in its Glacier literature.
The North Fork doesn’t have the grand old lodges like those near Glacier’s principal gateways, but this piece of paradise isn’t without comforts. Rustic, marvelously tasty and memorable, they are in Polebridge, a mile (1.6 kilometre) from the park’s northwestern entrance. This off-the-grid community increasingly reliant on solar power is the hub for an area where the summer population numbers maybe a few hundred, up from five to 10 in the winter.