Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness Campaign: Proposal

BIRTH OF THE WHITEFISH RANGE
The Whitefish Range formed 75-100 million years ago from sand and clay eroded from tall, now-vanished mountains. Rivers carried these mountains away one grain of mud and silt at a time, to a vast sea. The sediments built upon themselves in the sea in even, cake-like layers and eventually, over millions of years, hardened into rock. The newly formed rock, siltstone, mudstone and limestone, reached thousands of feet in depth.

The bedrock of the Whitefish Range actually originated some 40 to 50 miles west of its present location. The extreme pressure created by the perpetual shifting of the earth’s crust forced the rock of the Whitefish Range to shift upward toward the sky as well as to slide eastward to its present location. Eventually, the crust’s compression eased and the mountain blocks settled, creating the valleys of the North Fork and Stillwater Rivers, part of the Rocky Mountain Trench system.

The Whitefish Range formed 75-100 million years ago from sand and clay eroded from tall, now-vanished mountains.

No sooner uplifted into new mountains, erosion began the gradual sculpting of the Whitefish Range, resulting after more millions of years in the familiar landscape we know today. About two million years ago, a continental ice sheet, or glacier, flowed south out of Canada filling the main valleys. Smaller valley glaciers originated in the Whitefish Range, grinding and slipping east into the North Fork and west into the Stillwater areas. These glaciers carved and smoothed the jagged features of the range, leaving its valley floors strewn with unsorted rocks, boulders, gravel, sand and other debris. Smaller glacial epochs have since come and gone, the last retreating some 10,000 years ago. Time, water, ice and weather created the varied features of the Whitefish Range. Today, a richness of valleys connects mountain passes north and south. Plants and animals including man traveled to and established themselves in this once raw country. In a relatively short period, the story of life has been written across this sublime land.

Plants settled into the Whitefish Range like hardy homesteaders. The peaks and valleys are in the “Pacific Maritime” climate, strongly influenced by weather moving in from the Pacific coast. Precipitation in the lower valleys and foothills averages 16.5 inches of rain and 65 inches of snow. The surrounding mountains receive, on average, twice this amount. All this moisture makes good habitat for trees, shrubs, grasses and smaller flowering plants. Conditions have been made better by the fertilizing effect of volcanic ash from active volcanoes on the West coast, deposited here by prevailing easterly winds. The last such event was the Mount St. Helen eruption in Washington state in 1980.

Trees, mountains and climate in the Whitefish Range create spectacular vistas. They also set the stage for a significant natural phenomenon: wildfire.

Trees, like all living things, have their preferred habitats. In the Whitefish Range Western red cedar, western hemlock, and grand fir thrive in the wettest sites: creek bottoms and lower north facing slopes. Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir and white pine do best at mid elevation on moist sites. Sub alpine fir flourishes at mid to higher elevations, often becoming shrub-like (krummolz) at tree line. Western larch, Ponderosa and lodge pole pine grow better on sites that face south, or where the soil allows water to drain. White bark pine colonizes the higher ridge tops where there is abundant moisture in the fall and spring, but little during the short summer season.

Trees, mountains and climate in the Whitefish Range create spectacular vistas. They also set the stage for a significant natural phenomenon: wildfire. Western larch, ponderosa, white bark and lodge pole pine all require fire to get started or maintain dominance. Wildfire influences which trees grow, where they grow, the age of forest stands, and the types of shrubs and forbs growing beneath the trees.

In the Whitefish Range, major wild fires burned in 1910, 1929, 1988 and 2001. These fires altered large areas of the forest and account in large part for the diversity of wildlife habitat found throughout the range. For example, the huckleberry, a critical food for grizzly bears, now grows so abundantly in the area that the U.S. Forest Service protected most of Trail Creek drainage as a special grizzly bear management area.

HABITAT FOR WILDLIFE
Biologists view the proposed Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness and neighboring landscapes as one of the most critical areas in North America for wildlife conservation.

Geology, climate, and plant life comprise animal habitat, or niches. Habitat in the Whitefish Range is abundant and diverse. Every wildlife species (except the mountain caribou) that lived in these mountains at the time of European colonization survives here. Grizzly, black bear, gray wolf, mountain lion, lynx, bob cat, wolverine, fisher, marten, white tail and mule deer, elk, bighorn, moose, beaver, otter, mink, bald and golden eagle, owls, bull and cutthroat trout, toads, frogs, salamanders, and many lesser species make their living in these hills and waterways.

The North Fork is one of the most biologically rich, ecologically important valleys anywhere in North America.

Scientists believe survival of such species as bull trout, bears, and other large carnivores depends on their habitats’ connecting across the U.S.-Canadian border encompassing the proposed wilderness’s northern boundary. Fish and wildlife are unaware of international borders, yet wildlife studies show conclusively that local wildlife populations use seasonal habitats on north and south sides of this one.

Dr. John Weaver, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, concluded that the North Fork valley is “perhaps the most important watershed for predators in North America.” Dr. Jack Stanford, Director of the University of Montana Biological Station on Flathead Lake, has observed that the North Fork “is one of the most biologically rich, ecologically important valleys anywhere in North America.”

HUMAN PRESENCE
Humans, like earlier animals, first walked into the region following valley trenches left by eons of mountain uplifting and settling, glacier gouging, and river carving.

The Ktunaxa, called the Kootenai in the U.S. and the Kootenay in Canada, came from the north bringing a culture of tool making and human society at least 10,000 years ago. The Ktunaxa themselves relate that they “trace their roots back to the beginning of time...from when the first sun rose in the sky and human beings were equal to the animals.” The Ktunaxa settled in this habitat, becoming intimately familiar with the land and its other wild occupants, establishing trails and place names throughout the Whitefish Range. The Ktunaxa language describes many landmarks within the proposed Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness: Akinkoka Mountain (place of red willows), Nasukoin Mountain (chief), Tuchuck Mountain(thumb), Yakinikak Creek (moose trail).

There has never been permanent human settlement in the proposed Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness. However, humanity as been increasingly busy at its perimeter.

The Hudson Bay Company traded with the Ktunaxa in the years after British explorer David Thompson discovered the upper Columbia River in the early 1800s. The Company established a trading post in the Tobacco Valley west of the Whitefish Range, and later kept a short-lived post at Red Meadow Creek in the North Fork Valley. The British and U.S. settled the dispute over the location of the international boundary in the treaty of 1846.

In 1897 President Grover S. Cleveland established the Lewis and Clark Forest Reserve, which includes the land area of the proposed Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness. Homesteaders made inroads into the North Fork valley beginning in the late 1890s. By 1910 there were 14 homesteads on the west side of the river and 44 on the east. In total, about 150 parcels were settled. U.S. Post Offices operated at Bowman Lake, Trail Creek, Kintla Lake, and Polebridge.

The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and homesteaders opposed the creation of the Park, saying it locked up timber and potential farmland that had “no particular scenic value” and would never attract tourists.

Winton Weydemeyer’s grandparents settled in the Tobacco Valley in the late 1890s as well. The Tobacco Valley saw more rapid settlement than the North Fork due in part to a better agricultural environment and the building of the Great Northern Railroad. The rough road first established in the early days has since been transformed into a modern highway, forming a commercial artery between Canada and the U.S.

Bear pelts smelling of kerosene prompted short-lived oil prospecting at Kintla Lake in what is now Glacier National Park. Oil prospectors cleared the first road and hauled drilling equipment up the east side of the North Fork River. These efforts failed to discover oil and prospecting in the basin ended in 1903 for several decades.

Glacier National Park was established in 1910 across the North Fork River to the east from the Whitefish Range. The area’s burgeoning human population debated the worthiness of the idea. The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and homesteaders opposed the creation of the Park, saying it locked up timber and potential farmland that had “no particular scenic value” and would never attract tourists. Now, 90-plus years later, Glacier is the Crown Jewel, not only of the continent, but also of the area’s tourism economy. Many have found peace and delight in the elemental wonders of Glacier’s wilderness.

WILDLAND DEVELOPMENT AND RESTORATION
In establishing the National Forest System, Theodore Roosevelt intended that prudent and scientific means be used in management of federal forest lands. He wanted America to use its forests, but he also meant for this new national system to protect them from the pillage of unregulated clear cuts as experienced in the country’s east and mid-west.

Winton Weydemeyer was born in 1903 at the beginning of the modern national forest era. When he first saw it, the Whitefish Range remained an unbroken wilderness of almost a half million acres. Over the course of his lifetime he watched this truly wild landscape change as roads penetrated to area once reserved for the hiker or horseback rider. The Great Depression and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal ushered in industrial forestry. The forest wilderness that had stretched unbroken from the Kootenai River to Glacier Park began to recede.

In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) built a road north from Olney on the Stillwater River to the Whitefish Divide at Red Meadow Pass, then down Red Meadow Creek to the North Fork. The CCC also built roads up Fitzsimmons Creek and over Martson Ridge. Forest Service roads soon followed. Graves Creek Road penetrated all the way to the Terriault Lakes in the Ten Lakes area, with spur roads built into many tributaries.

After World War II timber harvest on national forests accelerated. Roads preceded timber harvests up Trail Creek, Yakinikak Creek, Teepee Creek, Whale Creek, Moose Creek, and tributaries. For decades the timber industry pushed cutting of public forests. Such cuts often exceeded sustainable levels of harvest for years, leaving wildlife habitat denuded, scarred, and inhospitable.

The Forest Service finally curtailed the amount of timber cut in the Whitefish Range to a fraction of the historic volume. But industry had already cut the big trees of the valley bottoms and lower slopes and left less than five percent of the old growth. The over-cutting caught up with the industry at the same time that Canadian importation of lumber escalated and the public demanded better stewardship of endangered species, water quality, and the public purse. These events have led to the rest and restoration of a landscape that was worked hard for decades.

In recent years, some impacts to wildlife and water quality associated with forest roads and timber harvest been reversed. The map illustrated the net loss of roads in the north end of the Whitefish Range. Concern over the security of habitat for elk started a process to close unnecessary Forest Service roads. Concerns over habitat security for grizzly bears followed. The Flathead National Forest adopted Amendment 19 to the Forest Plan in 1989 that set limits on the density of roads in the Forest. More recently, declining Forest Service budgets have necessitated further closures of roads and reduced spending on road maintenance. In the Whitefish Range this has translated into more secure wildlife habitat, the restoration of fish spawning streams, and a landscape that people visit and cherish for its wild character.

THE WINTON WEYDEMEYER WILDERNESS: A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE
The eons that produced the natural wonders of the Whitefish Range have brought us to a moment ripe for decisions. In the few years since WWII, hard-working people have extensively roaded and logged the range. The Whitefish Range was altered by force of will as our society changed and grew. Change continues even now.

Weydemeyer valued wild nature for its own sake well before society recognized and enshrined that value in the National Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964.

Today the future of the Whitefish Range rests in part on the public and political will to establish a 171,000 acre Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness. Many factors recommend this action. The Winton Weydemeyer Wilderness would protect:

• the integrity of the landscape for growing backcountry and visitor use that complements the same visitor population of Glacier National Park;
• the critical habitat of the densest inland population of grizzly bears in North America;
• important seasonal habitat for migrating and international elk and moose populations;
• the continuity of wildlife habitat across the US – Canadian border, and
• the headwaters of important spawning habitat for the threatened bull trout and west slop cutthroat trout, and the tributaries to the North Fork and Kootenai Rivers.

Lastly, this proposal honors Winton Weydemeyer, a Montanan who understood in 1925 society’s simultaneous need for natural resources and the spiritual refreshment found in wild country. He recognized wilderness as an essential – and vanishing - component of our nation’s heritage. Weydemeyer valued wild nature for its own sake well before society recognized and enshrined that value in the National Wilderness Preservation Act of 1964.