Couple honored for native plant preservation

Gary and Mary Sloan have devoted their retirement years to tromping through the woods searching for native plants and bringing their

knowledge out of the woods to share.

Both retired teachers from Whitefish High School, the couple share’s their passion for plants and nature through an exhibit at the Whitefish Community Library, running the native plant station at the annual Flathead Forestry Expo, and volunteering for a myriad of scientific projects.

“The flowers are so beautiful,” Mary said. “But the natural world is just so big and interesting.”

“Plants fit into the whole ecological pattern of everything,” Gary added.

The Sloans were recently honored for their lifelong dedication to native plants and contribution to the community with a special achievement award from the Montana Native Plant Society. Mary has been a member of the society since 1989 and has served as secretary and president of the Flathead Chapter. A larch tree was planted at the library in their honor.

Terry Divoky, a fellow member the native plant society, nominated them for the award because of their commitment in giving back to their community. She said the couple loves to take other people on hikes and share their knowledge of the natural world.

“I can’t always call these trips into the woods hikes — they are more of explorations,” she said. “We poke around, watching the weather, birds and wildlife, identifying a plant, a track, a rock.”

Steve Wirt said the couple is deserving of the award for sharing so much with so many.

“Some of my fondest memories are with Gary and Mary in the field in search of all things great and small,” he said. “Their enthusiasm for our natural world has been so contagious to so many others.”

Mary’s interest in native plants began when she volunteered to help a researcher in the Tally Lake District and the Miller Creek Demonstration Forest in the Flathead National Forest. She worked with Peter Stickney of the Rocky Mountain Research Station to measure plant succession as spores are seeds are blown to a new area and the impact of fire on plants.

“He needed a recorder and I thought ‘I can do that,’” Mary said. “I didn’t know much, but I learned a great deal. It was interesting and intense.”

Later they created an herbarium for the library that includes 100 Montana native plants. They pressed, described and displayed each plant in a wooden case made by them specifically for the library. Mary also puts together a poster that displays the native plant of the month for the library.

“It seemed like a fun and interesting thing to do,” Mary said. “We decided if we put it in the library then other people might benefit from that.”

In addition, the Sloans volunteered on a fire history study in the Logan Creek drainage where they cut slabs from stumps of Western larch and counted the growth rings and fire scars. Inside the library, one of those large tree cookies is labeled with years matching the rings showing the growth pattern and fire impacts.

“Larch have a really thick bark and so the fires just leave scars that grow over,” Gary said. “It’s interesting to look at the slices of the tree and see what was happening at a particular time.”

A larch tree was chosen to be planted in the couple’s honor because it is Mary’s favorite type of tree.

Mary says she likes larch because it is the only deciduous conifer that loses its needles and the tree is native to the mountains of the Western U.S. and Canada.

“I like it because it’s long lived and grows straight,” she said. “In spring it’s pale green, in summer it’s green, green and in the fall it’s gold.”

The Sloans started the plant identification station at the Flathead Forestry Expo in the early 1990s when they noticed that the topic was not being addressed.

For 10 years, they monitored loons on and near Upper and Lower Stillwater lakes. They are longtime members of both the Montana Wilderness Association and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. They’ve volunteered with the Flathead Audubon and The Nature Conservancy at the Pine Butte Swamp Preserve along the Rocky Mountain Front.

In 1996, Mary and Gary were awarded the Danny On Conservation Award from the Flathead National Forest for their significant contribution to resource conservation.

Gary spurred the preservation of ancient cedars in the Ross Creek Cedars Scenic Area in the Kootenai National Forest. Mary volunteers giving plant walks on the Whitefish Trail.

The Sloans were active participants in the Flathead Forestry Project, a group with authored the Forest Ecosystem Stewardship Demonstration Act of 1995, which focused stewardship contracting on forest management that was both good for the forest and associated communities.

The bill was introduced in Congress by Montana’s then U.S. Rep. Pat Williams, but did not pass. It did lead to demonstration projects on both private, and Department of Natural Resource and Conservation lands and later forest service lands. A rider was added to an appropriations bill in 1998 by then U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana and authorized the forest service to use stewardship contracting on a limited basis and in 2003 that was extended to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.