Party, passion fill Flathead Lakers 50th anniversary celebration

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

The main room at the Glacier Camp and Conference Center near Deep Bay was a veritable Who's Who of conservationists and involved local residents last Wednesday as the Flathead Lakers held their annual meeting and celebrated 50 years protecting the lake.

Lakers President Dan Barz read letters of support from Sen. John Tester (D-MT) and Governor Brian Schweitzer, both of whom commended the organization for its commitment to Flathead Lake and the Flathead watershed.

University of Montana professor and Montana Magazine founder Rick Graetz gave a short presentation with his wife, Susie, about the Crown of the Continent and an initiative he's undertaking with UM by the same name.

The pair showed off some of their photography from the area and gave a quick history lesson, but mostly just exuded their passion for the "Crown" which was defined by Rick as being bound from the north and south by Crow's Nest Pass in British Columbia and Rogers Pass in Montana and on the east and west by Rocky Mountain Front and Flathead Lake.

The name "Crown of the Continent" was first used in a magazine story by editor George Bird Grinnell, who might be more famous in this neck of the woods for the glacier in Glacier National Park that bears his name. Grinnell came to investigate the historically Blackfeet area in 1885 when he discovered the glacier that later was given his name. He returned each summer for the next 41 years, Graetz said.

"The Crown is the most protected area of wilderness south of the Brooks Range in Alaska," Rick said.

"Get out and see this incredible landscape," he urged the group. "I know gas is expensive, but carpool and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

The Lakers also presented their annual Stewardship Award, which is given to a person or group each year in recognition for work to protect the watershed. This year's prize was presented to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes, represented at the meeting by Paula Webster, of the tribes' Water Quality Program.

Not only was the day noteworthy because of the award, Webster told the crowd, but it was also her birthday and the anniversary of the signing of the Hellgate Treaty, which ceded most of the tribes' land in Western Montana to the U.S. government.

The event was catered by Simply Delicious catering and the whole celebration was organized by A Big Sky Event planners.