Scout work comes full circle in Glacier

The Boy Scouts of America built some of the first trails in Glacier National Park. 

That gave Jim Atkinson the idea to have the Boy Scouts do a commemorative project this year, the 100th anniversary of both Glacier Park and the Boy Scouts.

Atkinson (not the one on Kalispell City Council) worked for the National Park Service for 10 years as an interpretive ranger at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado.

A former park superintendent told Atkinson about Eagle Scouts building trails in Glacier Park. Sometime later Atkinson came across a 1931 photo of some Eagle Scouts working at Glacier Park's Bowman Lake. That led him to call the park's archivist, who found four photo albums of the Eagle Scouts working in the park from 1925 to 1934.

During that time period, a group of Eagle Scouts built a number of trails in the park, Atkinson said, including 1.5 miles from Rockwell Falls to Two Medicine Pass, 3 miles from the head of St. Mary Lake to Sun Point and 1.5 miles of the Bowman Lake Trail.

The program started with 19 boys in 1925 and increased to 67 in 1931.

A fire in the park stopped the program in 1926, and the Great Depression resulted in unemployed people doing the work in 1932 and 1933, Atkinson said. There were 34 boys involved in the final year of the project in 1934.

Edgar G. Maclay of Great Falls, scout commissioner of the North Central Montana Council of Boy Scouts of America, came up with the idea for Scouts to construct trails in national parks for Eagle Scout rank.

The program was first implemented in Yellowstone National Park in 1924. It was so successful there that expansion plans were made to take it to Glacier, according to Leslie M. Riley's "History of Boy Scout Trail Construction in Glacier National Park."

Yellowstone did not participate in the program after the first year.

The work was not easy for the Eagle Scouts, since it consisted of using picks and shovels, two-man saws and axes, Atkinson said. The Scouts worked five hours a day for two weeks in August.

The Scouts also got to interact with the Blackfeet Tribe. The boys who best represented the ideals of Scouting were ceremoniously accepted into the tribe and given a Blackfeet name, according to Riley.

Interaction between the Scout and the tribe was encouraged to create acceptance and understanding of other peoples and cultures.

The Boy Scout organization was most interested in teaching young men selfless community service, raising national park consciousness, and gaining understanding of people who are not like oneself.

This year's project included building or refinishing 200 picnic tables, putting gravel on numerous campsites, repainting 50 campground water spigot bases, scraping 18 buildings for repainting, staining four historic buildings and 2,000 feet of bumper logs, and repotting plants and building handicapped-accessible trails at the Glacier Institute.

Atkinson, a member of the Montana Council of Boy Scouts of America's International Committee, said the project lasted from mid-June to mid-August during the centennial summer.

Twenty Boy Scout units participated in the project. All were from Montana except one from Calgary. The project included 372 Scouts and leaders and 4,500 hours of service.

The original Eagle Scout trail project included Scouts from 30 states and the province of Alberta.

Reporter Caleb Soptelean may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at csoptelean@dailyinterlake.com.