Yesterdays:
Jasper and Howard Johnston gathering wood up the North Fork near Canyon Creek, Dec. 4, 1950. (Mel Ruder photo)
70 years ago
Dec. 22 1950
Glacier assistant chief ranger A.D. Cannavina handed out a creosote-smelling substance for headquarters residents to spray on their Christmas wreaths in hopes of preventing deer from browsing on the decorations which had proved as “tasty morsels” for the cervids in the past.
60 years ago
Dec. 16 1960
Mel Ruder wrote a piece on Fish and Game biologist Charles Jonkel’s research on black bears in the North Fork of the Flathead river corridor. During the previous two summers, Jonkel had tagged 85 black bears in an 80 square mile sector along Big Creek, north of Columbia Falls.
50 years ago
Dec. 18 1970
Everett Lundgren, member of the Lions committee in charge of the West Glacier ski slope near Stevens Meadow, reported that the “sitz marks” of sleeping elk, bedding down on the slope at night, were creating minor pitfalls for skiers.
The Hungry Horse News reported that 32 snowmobilers had checked through the west entrance to sled in Glacier National Park the previous Sunday.
40 years ago
Dec. 11 1980
The Creston Fish Hatchery received 70,000 kokanee eggs harvested earlier that morning from 15 to 16 inch “salmon” caught in Flathead Lake earlier that morning. After hatching, the fry were to be released in Whitefish Lake the following summer.
A Park Service survey counted just five eagles on McDonald Creek and the Middle Fork of the Flathead river, down from a count of 320 just two years earlier.
30 years ago
Dec. 20 1990
The staff at West View Elementary selected a new name for their school, Ruder Elementary, in honor of former Hungry Horse News publisher Mel Ruder who was a “staunch supporter of education.”
Police dogs conducted a formal drug search at the Columbia Falls High School for the first time in its history. No drugs were found.
20 years ago
Dec. 21 2000
An avalanche off Slippery Bill Mountain in the Middle Fork of the Flathead drainage killed two snowmobilers from Cut Bank.
Glacier Park launched a “Heritage Preservation Campaign” that sought funding for an archivist internship as well as for restoration projects on historic buildings like the Bowman Lake ranger station and the McCarthy homestead near Big Prairie.
10 years ago
Dec. 15 2010
Glacier Park’s major concessions company, GPI, entered negotiations to buy Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish.
The Columbia Falls library was planning to move to the remodeled Glacier Discovery Square, a plan that never came to fruition, as it’s now the building that houses Hellroaring Crossfit.