Walk remembers two of Bigfork's best

By ALEX STRICKLAND

Bigfork Eagle

The woods south of Swan Lake were alive with memories Oct. 5 as folks from all over Western Montana came to walk the Sprunger-Whitney Nature Trail and reminisce about the men for whom it is named.

Jack Whitney and Elmer Sprunger were more than familiar faces in Bigfork, in many ways they were its conscience. And, according to everyone in attendance, the two loved these woods along the Swan River as much as anywhere in the world.

Jerry Sprunger, Elmer's son, said it was familiar territory for their families as they used to walk the area the trail now encircles often.

"Dad and Jack had such a knowledge of these woods it was incredible," he said.

"We used to go on walks with granddad and he'd take a blade of grass and play a tune," said Elmer's granddaughter Dawn Jackson. "He was really an interesting man."

The trail, built and maintained by the Friends of the Swan, is a lifetime's achievement in itself, and by all accounts Jack and Elmer were the driving forces in saving the area from the sawyer's blade.

"In 1987 Jack and Elmer noticed paint on some trees," said Friends of the Swan Program Director Arlene Montgomery. "The State was planning a timber sale."

So the two friends went to Friends of the Swan and the group's efforts eventually culminated in a lawsuit against the State of Montana to save the old growth forest. A settlement was reached out of court that allowed the land to be leased and a nature trail constructed.

A few more years were lost before the trail work could begin as the state conducted multiple environmental impact studies to determine what areas could be adversely affected by trail traffic. Ironic, Montgomery said to chuckles from the group, since it was slated to be clear cut not long before.

The woods along the Swan River here, six miles south of the lake, are thick with ferns and downed timber being half-consumed by moss and pillar after pillar of old growth trees of a size not often seen in western forests anymore.

"There's about 5,000 board feet of timber right there," said Dale Burk, a friend of both Elmer and Jack who hails from Stevensville, as he eyeballed one particularly stout pine. "And it's still here."

The woods may be thick, but wildlife is often seen, Montgomery and naturalist Ann Morley said. Hikers on the memorial walk had to step over some no-too-old bear scat squarely on the path.

The density of a wide variety of species in the area is part of what drove so many to try to conserve it, Montgomery said. Interpretive signs are placed along the trail to point out various plant species and other natural phenomenal like lightning strikes or trees used as glorified scratching-posts for bears.

The beauty of the spot, and it's seclusion, won at least one new follower in Bo Nelson of Missoula, who came on the hike after reading a story about it in his local paper.

"It's going to be rare that I drive by here without stopping now," he said.

It's what Jack and Elmer would have wanted, all agreed, to have people out enjoying the land as they did, it's why they fought so hard to preserve it.

Larry Whitney, Jack's nephew, said that as a kid growing up in Washington his uncle would take him out and build trails in the woods near his home. As he walked along the Sprunger-Whitney Nature Trail Friday he mused, "I guess he's still doing it."

The trail was constructed with plentiful help from the Montana Conservation Corps and the group continues to come out each spring to improve the trail and ready it for summer traffic. It was during one of those construction sessions — the first one — back in 1996 that Elmer stumbled upon a white lupine.

"He always asked me if I'd seen another one," Montgomery said. "I found two white lupines this spring."

One for each.