Carol Guthrie, noted Glacier Park author, dies

Ann Fagre first met Carol Guthrie back in the 1990s. Guthrie was doing research for a book on the Going-to-the-Sun Road and was visiting the Glacier Park’s archives, where Fagre worked at the time as a technician.

“She was dressed to the nines,” Fagre recalled. Guthrie had her hands on her hips, her laptop open and was ready to go to work.

“We hit it off immediately,” Fagre said.

Fagre would go on to collaborate with Guthrie as a research assistant on several book projects over the years and co-authored “Death and Survival in Glacier National Park” with her husband Dan, and Guthrie in 2017.

On Aug. 11, Guthrie died of natural causes at her Ninemile Home near Missoula. She was 82.

Farcountry Press just a few weeks before had re-released her first Montana book “First Rangers” which chronicles the life and times of early Flathead rangers Frank Liebig and Fred Herrig. The new edition features more photos, copies of handwritten letters and other items from the rangers’ tenure in and around Glacier National Park.

The book is entertaining and thrilling — Liebig, for example, tries to wrestle a mountain goat and even shoots and kills a grizzly bear with a .22 rifle — with one shot no less.

Guthrie began her writing career later in life. She wrote “First Rangers” when she was 58.

Guthrie was a civilian employee for the Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base for 30 years and retired as a deputy comptroller. Her husband, Joe, was a test pilot, said her son, Michael Wade.

Her first professional writing was a TV script back in 1964, Wade recalled. The couple retired from the Air Force in 1991 and moved to a spread in the Ninemile Valley.

“She was great a researcher,” Wade recalled. “She was known for that at Edwards.”

All told, Guthrie wrote six books on Glacier history, including “The First Ranger,” “Glacier, The First 100 Years,” “All Aboard for Glacier,” “Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier’s Highway to the Sky,” “Glacier National Park: Legends and Lore Along Going-to-the-Sun Road,” and “Death and Survival in Glacier National Park.”

She also wrote “Pony Express” and ghost wrote “Lady Long Rider.”

Guthrie was planning to write a biography of her husband, Wade said and had several other book projects in the works before her death.

She was also active in the Ninemile Community and was instrumental in getting the community center there placed on the National Register of Historic places, Wade said.

Fagre said Guthrie will be greatly missed.

“She was a class act all the way around,” she said.

Copies of “First Rangers” and Guthrie’s other titles are available at local bookstores and online.