Glacier Park, high school, team up for cabin program
From left, Durgen Wieringa, Kyle Thompson, Gage Redd, Keegan McCracken, Sutter Stolte, Kobie Larsen , Dakota Reeves and Cody Brothwell are some of the students working on a new cabin for Glacier National Park.
It’s good for Glacier National Park. It’s a great learning experience for Columbia Falls High School students and in the end, it will be a comfy new home for park employees.
That’s the gist of a new partnership between the Park Service and the high school to build housing cabins for the park.
Sixteen students in the school’s building trades program have already built the floor for the first cabin — one of several that will be eventually built for the Park Service. They work under he tutelage of wood shop instructor Jeff Remiker and Bob Jellison from the park.
The first cabin is 18-by-26 feet and features a bathroom and two bedrooms.
The cabin will be completed and then hauled to the site at Polebridge via truck.
The students have already been on the site and learned how to use survey equipment.
The program got started by primary funding of $269,000 from the Park Service and will cover the costs of building materials, special tools, and contracting with a transportation company to move the finished cabin to the site. The public got a look at the work during an open house last week.
The Glacier National Park Conservancy provided $15,000 in funding to bring power to the school’s new pole barn. The district paid about $55,000 for the barn itself.
Glacier got the idea of having students work with the park on building the cabins from former deputy superintendent Eric Smith. Smith oversaw a similar program in Denali National Park, where high school students built cabins for that park.
Glacier Park superintendent Jeff Mow said the Park needs to replace seven trailers it removed from St. Mary housing years ago. Just like the private sector, the park is also experiencing a housing crunch and these new cabins will go a long way in providing employee housing down the line for the Park Service.
“It’s a big winner in a lot of ways,” Mow noted.
Mow said the hope is the program also will bring skilled labor to the valley’s workforce. Students can also enter apprenticeship programs through the state of Montana after high school graduation.
The kids are learning as they go.
“It’s pretty fun,” said student Dakota Reeves. “I’ve learned a lot of new things in the first couple of weeks.”
One of those lessons was getting the building square — using the good old Pythagorean theorem, the boys were able to tweak their work to get the floor dead on — when they started it was off by an inch and half.
“We have a great group of kids and that’s why we’re here,” Jellison said.