Glacier's go-to guy

Need a horsepacker, or someone to blast snow from a trail? Call Jack Potter. Need to identify a rare flower or plant? Find Jack Potter. Need a manager who knows Glacier National Park's history, resources and issues?

Say it again - Jack Potter.

Glacier's assistant chief of science and resource management is in the 35th year of a remarkable career that started with busboy work at the Swiftcurrent Cafe. In the time since then, Potter has become a walking encyclopedia on Glacier, most of his knowledge gathered along park trails, ridges and peaks.

"When you count hiking, skiing, horseback riding and climbing, I'm sure I'm way over 20,000 miles inside the park," said Potter, who still frequently ventures into Glacier's backcountry, but not nearly as much as he did in the early years.

"He is a wealth of information about the resource. He's passionate about what he does, and he believes in what he does," said Glacier wilderness manager Kyle Johnson, who has worked with Potter since 1986 and is now his next door neighbor in Columbia Falls.

Johnson marvels over Potter's knowledge on Glacier.

"It's without question, the best in the park," he said. "He's been all over the park, spent time everywhere."

If someone has a picture of an obscure area in the park, it is Potter who can identify the location and what direction the camera was pointing. It is Potter who can identify most plants in the park by their Latin names.

Glacier Superintendent Mick Holm said Potter is a go-to guy for perspective on management decisions.

"To many people, Jack Potter is Glacier National Park just because of his knowledge of the park and the contributions he's made," Holm said.

"When I've been in the field with him, I've found that he's certainly a master of many skills, and he certainly knows the resource," he said.

Potter got his start in Glacier as a busboy at the Swiftcurrent Cafe when he was 19. Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, he was attracted to the Big West at an early age.

"I was fortunate enough to come out a couple of times. We came out on the train," he said. "After that, I kind of had that lure of the West."

After the busboy job, Potter was hired onto a summer trail crew for work that involved lengthy hitches in the park's backcountry. He did that for eight years, working his way up to crew foreman on the park's west side at the age of 28.

During the offseasons, he earned a political science degree from Colgate University in New York and a forestry degree from the University of Montana.

Potter was hired as Glacier's trails supervisor, the backcountry trails supervisor and eventually as the park's assistant chief ranger.

"Not only did I like the area, but I was also able to get a permanent position and I was able to work my way up" through different jobs in the park, Potter said.

"There aren't that many people who stay in one park and are able to move through a series of jobs," he said.

Staying in Glacier was just fine for Potter and his wife, Rachel, who have an 11-year-old daughter, Elena.

Potter, 54, has fond memories of his early years in the park.

"Aside from being fun, it was a time when I was really curious about everything in the park," he said. "I spent a lot of time in the backcountry."

"Over all these years, I've been very fortunate with grizzly bears," he said. "I've had them snapping their teeth or doing a bluff charge, but nothing more serious than that."

He's seen wolverines and every other kind of animal in Glacier except one: "I've never seen a lynx in the park," he said.

Potter said he's witnessed significant but gradual changes in the park over the last three decades: the proliferation of weeds; the disappearance of whitebark pine, high elevation trees that have been killed off by a fungus called blister rust; the emergence of frequent wildfires; and the recession of the park's glaciers.

"The glaciers and snowfields have shrunk visibly in the time since I've been here," he said. "I've watched it happen."

The verdant forests on the park's west side and on neighboring national forest lands were long jokingly referred to as the "asbestos forest" because of their apparent resistance to fire. But that changed in 1988, with the Red Bench Fire in the North Fork Flathead drainage.

In the years since then, Potter said, the park's west side has experienced a series of large wildfires that he largely attributes to drier conditions - and outright drought in recent years.

Potter contends that Glacier's backcountry is in better shape than it was 30 years ago, largely because of policy changes.

"You used to be able to build a fire anywhere you wanted, and you could take in as many horses as you wanted," he said. "You can't do that anymore."

But the park's front-country areas, particularly along Going-to-the-Sun Road, have experienced increased impacts because of growing use.

Cory Shea, the park's west side trails manager, worked under Potter for most of his 30 years in Glacier.

"What's neat about Jack is that he's really got the respect of employees in the park, because he's come up through the ranks and he's been out in the park," Shea said. "He's been there and done that, and he's got the respect of so many park employees as a result."

But Potter says experience, by itself, doesn't make an effective manager.

"Longevity isn't the key," he said. "It also has to do with your ability to communicate and participate."

His new job - which came about after a reorganization last fall - took Potter out of the field and put him in charge of resource management. A large part of that job involves organizing and getting funding for scientific research that will enable park management to make the best possible decisions.

Holm acknowledges that Potter is "probably more comfortable in the field," but he is considered an invaluable part of the park's management team.

"There are many occasions where I've gone to Jack Potter to find out the history of an issue … to better inform me when decisions have to be made," Holm said.

Although Potter is behind a desk more often these days, he still goes out of his way to get into the park's backcountry.

"I used to want to try to cover as many miles as I could," he said. "But now, I appreciate the seasons a lot more and I just don't need to go as far."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com