Students give voice to headquarters history

Year after year, a cluster of buildings just outside Glacier National Park’s west entrance has sat patiently. The structures do little to call attention to themselves, and most visitors, bound for picturesque peaks and hiking trails, give them little thought as they drive by.

But this summer, those interested in finding out more about the buildings that have housed the park’s operational center for nearly a century will get their chance.

Students from Whitefish Independent High School have created a self-guided walking tour of the park’s headquarters district.

To take the tour, visitors may pick up a brochure at park headquarters or, on the weekends, at Apgar Visitor Center. They may then dial the number that will allow them to walk through the district at their leisure with a cellphone tour guide.

Tourists will hear students’ voices at each stop along the tour route. Nine Independent High School students researched 15 buildings in the headquarters district; the information they uncovered is included in the tour.

The initial information they found wasn’t very exciting, said Shawna McConnell, a senior who worked on the project.

“It was all, it was built with this wood. The porch is this wide. It was dry and boring,” she said.

To broaden their research, students visited the park’s archives and talked with historians who knew more about Glacier than the Internet could reveal, senior Tucker Chambers said.

He said he appreciated the opportunity to visit a part of the park that most people never see.

“[I enjoyed] going back to somewhere where usually the general public can’t go and look at ... immense records on everything that has to do with the park,” Chambers said.

The chance to learn more about the park was the reason McConnell signed up for the project in the first place. She had never been to park headquarters before.

“I’ve been [in the park] a lot, but I didn’t know a lot about it,” she said.

Chambers said he was impressed by the sheer magnitude of the operation.

“It’s a huge complex that’s hardly ever seen,” he said. “It’s almost like a small town up there.”

Exposing people to a part of the park they might be unaware of was part of the motivation to create the tour, said Laura Law, Glacier’s education specialist.

“Most people, when they go to Glacier National Park, don’t say they want to look around the administrative center,” she said. “Lon [Johnson, the park’s cultural resource specialist and historical architect], that was sort of his point: It might be something they would want to come and do.”

Law sent out messages in 2008 to local high school principals and curriculum coordinators, to see if any districts were interested in creating a walking tour.

Bobbie Barrett, Whitefish’s curriculum director, replied.

Barrett suggested Law work with Matt Holloway, who then was teaching English at Whitefish High School. When Holloway began teaching at the district’s alternative high school, Law continued their partnership.

“It didn’t matter to me which high school he was at, and Bobbie thought it was a great project for the Independent High School,” Law said.

A $4,000 cultural trust grant from the Montana Arts Council made the project possible. It helped cover substitute teacher wages so Holloway could take students to the park to conduct research and meet with employees. The grant also paid for brochures and the guide-by-self service, Law said.

While this is the park’s first cellphone tour, it isn’t the first to be used in national parks.

“A lot of other national parks are really happy with it,” Law said. “For us, first of all, I wasn’t even sure cell service would work here.”

It does work, although service is “a little fuzzy” in spots, Law said. The park is hoping tourists provide feedback about the tour.

“We’ll try it out for the first year and see what kind of feedback we got,” she said. “If we like it, we’ll look for more funding sources” to keep the cellphone tour running.

Law said she has been pleased with the product the students created. She worried at first that they might not enjoy the work.

“History is kind of a snore for a lot of people. [I thought] it might be hard to get them excited about it,” she said.

“But the cellphone option, [I thought], this is great. They love cellphones. They’re going to be able to use their cellphones to call in and record everything.”

Students actually used a landline to record the narratives they wrote about each building along the tour, McConnell said. After researching the buildings — some students studied more than one — they wrote informational articles about each one, then recorded themselves reading the scripts they’d penned.

In addition to McConnell and Chambers, seniors Jelena Bailey and Jessica Gutierrez, juniors Brook Nelson, Demi Sullivan, Cody Hill and Collin Schwegel, and sophomore Jade Seefeldt worked on the project.

Their final project is a tour that lasts about an hour and takes people on a mile-long walk around the headquarters district. There is one steep, off-pavement section of the tour; the rest is handicapped-accessible, Law said.

“For us, it was pretty much a win-win,” she said of the project. “It’s something we need, letting people know [about park headquarters]. For the students, it was learning about the place they live and getting excited about something they were doing at school.”

Law said the tour will be available starting in mid-June. Those who want to hear the tour now may dial (406) 281-7023.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by email at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.