Park wilderness

In response to the Quartz Lake fish barrier in Glacier National Park, I am wondering: Where is the dam on the Going-to-the-Sun Road for non-native cars? The dam for non-native low-flying aircraft? The dam for non-native chainsaws, Pionjars and dynamite used by trail crews? The dam for non-native motorboats used by biologists on backcountry lakes? It has become a joke that Glacier is even “managed” as wilderness.

Management attempts like this, which hope to fix past wrongs, are only further augmenting the biotic integrity of the landscape — making it into even more of a human-created artifact of wildness. We had the foresight to set aside land, but we still don’t have the ability to see that we need to then leave it alone from human, self-interest management.

If the Park really cared anything about the biological integrity of Glacier Park, they’d close the Going-to-the-Sun Road today and start hauling the pavement out of the Park tomorrow. They’d get that abhorrent visitor center and parking lot off the alpine meadows of Logan Pass, stop fighting fires, ground the scenic helicopter flights (number one visitor complaint), quit playing God with species and science, and allow the land to begin to write its story again.

The land and animals wouldn’t be preserved for the benefit of the visitor, or for the sake of job preservation and the precious economy of the Park, but for the intrinsic benefit of the wild land and life therein.

Matt Holloway

Columbia Falls