In this episode, the Flathead River reveals our own notions of wilderness, and remarkable fossils. We learn about a glacier with a complicated past—and we climb to a mountaintop to learn that even the park’s most isolated office isn’t as lonely as it seems.

Featuring: Colter Pence, Amanda Wilson, Kurt Constenius, Dale Greenwalt, Christoph Irmscher, Beth Hodder, Karen Reeves, and interviews & letters from Kay Rosengren—courtesy of the NWMT-FFLA.

For more info, visit: go.nps.gov/headwaters

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TRANSCRIPT:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

WILD AND SCENIC RIVERS INTRODUCTION

Andrew: In 1940, biologist, Dr. John Craighead, famous for his pioneering work with grizzly bears, wrote a letter for Montana Wildlife magazine, about a raft trip on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, the southern boundary of Glacier National Park. The following is an excerpt from that letter. Alex (as Dr. Craighead): I have rafted most of the large fast water rivers of the mountain west. There is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most scenic wild rivers in the northwest. One which conservationists should strive hard to save. It is essential to preserve intact a few of the wild rivers of this region for recreation and education of future generations. The aesthetic and recreational values of a river are so very easily destroyed, far more easily destroyed than similar values of hill and mountain country. It is my belief that we should strive to keep intact some wild rivers on the basis that they're essential to our way of life.

Michael: This idea, born on the middle fork of the Flathead River, and articulated in that letter became the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which was signed into law in 1968.

Andrew: Glacier National Park is bounded by two rivers protected under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. So it's really special that this is where the idea for the act first originated. And while part of the Flathead River is in Glacier National Park, most of it actually lies outside of the park's boundaries.

Colter Pence: The three forks of the Flathead primarily flow through the Flathead National Forest.

Andrew: That's Colter Pence. Among other things she's the Wild and Scenic River Program Manager for the Flathead National Forest. As wild and scenic rivers, the forks of the Flathead River flow through the park, the national forest, as well as state and private lands, making their management a deeply collaborative effort.

Colter Pence: And I would say from my work as a forest service employee, it's one of the more interesting parts of my job. Our common work with wild and scenic rivers has us interacting all the time. And that's why I say some of my closest colleagues are even national park staff.

Michael: Of course, the clear clean waters of the rivers make for spectacular recreational opportunities like fishing and boating.

Andrew: But the river also makes corridors for all sorts of wildlife from giant grizzly bears to the smallest of bugs.

Michael: All of it protected by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Andrew: In fact, the corridors around the three forks of the Flathead River are home to an amazing array of resources, which the wild and scenic rivers act refers to as outstandingly remarkable values. Here's Colter Pence, again—

Colter Pence: Of our outstandingly remarkable values, it's fisheries, wildlife, botanic in some places, recreation, scenic, historic, ethnographic, like that prehistory, and even geologic. We have all of those present as outstandingly remarkable, meaning to say they're rare or even unique.

Andrew: The fact that these rivers were protected was not inevitable.

Colter Pence: Yeah, you can't take it for granted that a landscape is protected or that it's always been protected or that it always will be protected.

Andrew: And it's important to keep protecting these places because rivers bring people together. You might think of a river as a dividing line, but it can also be a gathering place and a place where people and nature can come together.

Michael: Welcome to Headwaters - a Glacier National Park Podcast. Brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy, and produced on the traditional lands of many Native American Tribes, including the Blackfeet, Kootenai, Selis and Qlispe people.

Andrew: We’re calling this season: The Confluence, as we look at the ways that nature, culture, the present and the past all come together here.

Michael: I’m Michael.

Andrew: I’m Andrew.

Michael: And we’re both rangers here. Today, we’re headed to the North Fork, the northwest region of Glacier.

Andrew: The North Fork is one of the most rugged, and least developed areas of the park.

Michael: Not a paved road in sight.

Andrew: Which makes it the perfect place for today’s episode.

Michael: Today, we bring you three examples of people coming face to face with the wild and the unknown.

FOSSILS

Michael: Okay, Andrew when we started this episode, you brought up the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. And you mentioned the phrase outstandingly remarkable values.

Andrew: Yeah, I remember that.

Michael: Looking at the act itself and the list of values they included, the word fossils stood out to me. When you hear the word fossils, what do you think of?

Andrew: Well, I guess dinosaurs is probably the first thing?

Michael: Right, me too. Hey Amanda. It's Michael.

Amanda: Hi Michael!

Michael: So I called a friend, an old coworker from Glacier who now works at Dinosaur National Monument.

Amanda: Uh, Amanda Wilson, interpretive park ranger, at Dinosaur National Monument.

Michael: What sort of dinosaurs do you have there? I mean, it's your namesake.

Amanda: So our main like "famous" dinosaurs are dinosaurs like stegosaurus, allosaurus was the dominant carnivore at the time.

Michael: Wow. Creatures straight out of drastic park. So you worked at Glacier, were there fossils like that here?

Amanda: Um, no.

Michael: If I were a visitor, I came up to you and asked about the fossils in Glacier. How would you respond?

Andrew: Well, most of the rock in the park is super ancient, like a billion and a half years old. And it predates most complex life on earth that would leave fossils behind. So really we only have fossil stromatolites, which are these clumps of blue-green algae.

Michael: So most of the rock in the park is too old for fossils more complex than algae or cyanobacteria called stromatolites. And fossil stromatolites are really cool, and certainly it's true that they're the most prevalent fossil in Glacier... But as it turns out, our fossil record has a lot more in common with Jurassic Park than you might think.

Andrew: Wait, what? What do you mean?

Michael: [Laughing]

Andrew: What else is here? I've been telling people for years that stromatolites are virtually the only fossils here I've been lying to all these people?

Michael: Alright don't, don't worry—I think you're the clear. The visible rock in the park is overwhelmingly ancient, and the only fossils anyone are ever likely to see are still stromatolites. And because of that, for a long time, it was believed that they were really the only fossils in the area. But this story taught me that no matter how well you think you know a place, there is a lot to learn if you dig a little deeper. Which is where Kurt comes in.

Kurt: So my name is Kurt Constenius.

Michael: He has a long title.

Kurt: I am an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona and a research associate of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Michael: I spent a day in the field with Kurt and with Dale.

Dale: My name is Dale Greenwalt,

Michael: Who also has a long title.

Dale: ...Research Associate the Natural History of National Museum of, let me start over.

Background: [Laughing]

Dale: Where do I work?

Michael: He works for Smithsonian. Dale and Kurt are some of the foremost experts on a geologic oddity to this area. Outcroppings of fossils unlike anything else in the park. Now, as a ranger here, you learn a lot about the geology of the park, but I'm not a geologist by trade. So I brought a few friends, Emily and Teagan, along as geologic interpreters. To set the stage, Glacier is a mountainous park. The continental divide runs right through it. To the east, you have the great plains stretching flat into the horizon, and to the west, you can see more mountains, but you'll cross valleys or basins to get to them. And this is where I want to challenge you, Andrew.

Andrew: Okay.

Michael: We often describe Glacier's geologic history as having four stages.

Andrew: Yeah. Silt tilt, slide, and glide.

Michael: So to make it difficult, I want you to describe each stage in 10 seconds or less. Okay. You think you can do it?

Andrew: I think I'm up for it. Okay. So silt. Okay. So over a billion years ago, sediment eroded from highlands and collected at the bottom of an ancient sea called the belt sea.

Michael: Nailed it. Tilt?

Andrew: Okay. So about 150 million years ago, this sediment had compacted into rock and tectonic movement lifted up a slab of it that was several miles thick.

Michael: Great. And slide!

Andrew: This is 60 to 70 million years ago, tectonic forces pushed this slab about 50 miles east; this is what we call the Lewis overthrust fault.

Michael: Nailed it, and glide.

Andrew: Okay. Now we're back to about 2 million years ago, the place to see an ice age and large ice sheets, advanced and retreated repeatedly carving out the valleys and sculpting the mountains of the park.

Michael: Perfect. A whirlwind tour of our geologic history. Silt, tilt, slide, and glide represents the deposition of sediments—it turns to mountains, and then glaciers come in and c