Montana House only shop open all winter in Apgar Village

Going-to-the-Sun Road is quiet these days and Glacier National Park is wreathed in drifts of snow.

The throngs of visitors from the warm months have thinned. Locals and a few dedicated explorers snowshoe up the lonely park road, while all the shops sit dormant, locked up until warmer weather returns.

There’s one lone exception, though.

In Apgar Village the Montana House welcomes visitors no matter what the season, offering warmth and a unique take on Glacier National Park.

Built by Hans and Toni Jungster in 1959, the chalet-style shop opened its doors on Mother's Day in 1960 and is today run by their daughter, Monica. For most of the Montana House's 53-year history it was closed in the winter like all of its neighbors, but a near-disaster changed that.

The decision to stay open year-round came about by pure coincidence, said Monica Jungster.

“After the big fire in 2003 here in the park, we had a restoration company come, and the lady who was doing it said there were people who kept trying to get in,” Jungster said. “I guess they saw people here and thought the shop was open, so the next year, we decided to try it and stayed open all year. I think this would have been part of my father's dream, to be open like this and have our own little community.”

The decision netted enough customers that first year, so Jungster decided to continue the experiment and has remained open year-round since 2004.

“It's nothing like in the summer when it comes to visitors, but we do get people,” Jungster said about staying open in the winter. “A little of it [staying open year-round] is goodwill for the park, because the visitors center is closed, and some of it is for the visitors themselves.”

“There's actually quite a bit of traffic up here in the winter,” she added. “We will never make as much money as in the summer but we get by.”

Jungster said most of those wintertime visitors are locals, enjoying the less-crowded views and snowshoeing or skiing up the closed Going-to-the-Sun Road. But out-of-town visitors continue to find her store.

“We keep a guest register here, and on January 3 this year we had two people who signed in from Germany,” Jungster said. “It's not unusual to see someone international all winter long. Germany, France, England — they're all pretty typical, but we get visitors from all around the world. It's not official data, but we keep all the registers, and it's pretty interesting to see who visits from where. It may be winter, and a lot of the park may be closed, but it's still Glacier Park, and people want to come up and see what it looks like.”

Although foreign visitors are on her list, Jungster said the biggest group of visitors outside of locals are from the southern states.

“We get a lot of people who visit Big Mountain and come over here to take a break and visit,” she said. “We have a huge percentage of visitors from the South, from Georgia and Alabama and places like that, because they can come up here and ski.”

In fact, the Montana House offers park visitors a place to warm up after their excursions or relax in comfort while waiting for skiers or snowshoers to return, a service that has proved popular over the years.

“We have hot coffee, hot cider, cookies, snacks and it's become one of those places people look forward to coming to,” Jungster said. “We get calls from the locals wanting to know when we'll start doing the cider. It's warm here, we have a book room with couches, and if you're with a group that is out skiing or snowshoeing, you can stay here and relax.”

Of course it's not just cider and cookies that has kept the Montana House going through the lean months of winter. In addition to the staples of huckleberry items and Glacier National Park T-shirts, Jungster features items for sale by local artists or artists with connections to the park.

“Right now we have well over 120 items by local artists,” she said. “Some are well-known, and some are small, but they're all important. I like to feature local artists and Native American art. Things that are unique to this area and you can't find elsewhere.”

Since 2007 the Montana House has been offering educational programs, guest speakers and book signings throughout the year, all of which, of course, focus on Glacier Park.

“The speaker programs weren't in the business plan either,” Jungster said. “It just sort of happened, like staying open all year. But when opportunities come up, we are very happy to move forward on them.”

Jungster said changes like that are welcome, and not too surprising, considering how long the business has been around.

“I've seen lots of changes over the years, both here in the park and in the valley in general,” Jungster said. “When we moved here it was much more rural, not just here, but the whole valley. I still live in West Glacier because I like that more rural feeling that it still has. But change is a natural progression, and I'm not surprised by it. There are some things I may not like, but there are advantages to some of the changes and it balances out.”

Reporter Melissa Walther may be reached at 758-4474 or by email at mwalther@dailyinterlake.com.