Opening day nears for Cabela's Outpost store

The new Cabela’s Outpost store opened its doors to media Thursday, showing off a fully stocked and decorated interior bustling with employees who continue to train and prepare the store for a Nov. 7 grand opening.

“We still have some work to do, but it’s coming along. Our outfitters have done all of this,” general manager David Hayward said. At Cabela’s, employees are “outfitters,” rather than salespeople or associates.

More than 125 have been hired, almost all of them from the Flathead Valley, an area that has an abundance of people who are passionate about the outdoors and skilled in outdoor pursuits.

“There’s such a passion for outdoor sports here, so coming to Kalispell has been easy,” said Wes Remmer, a Cabela’s corporate spokesman who was on hand to help guide media.

Robyn Talley, for instance, climbed her first mountain at the age of 7 and has reached the summit of 11 mountains in Glacier National Park.

Another outfitter is Preston Cannady, an outdoorsman since 1969, a taxidermist and the author of “Hunting Mature Whitetail Bucks: A Definitive Road Map for Achieving Your Goals Hunting Monster Whitetail Bucks.”

Dressed in some fine Cabela’s hunting camo, Steve White roamed the store demonstrating elk bugling. White has lived in the valley since 1989 and has been a hunter education instructor for 16 years.

He said that after moving to the valley from Texas, he quickly learned that outdoor survival skills in Montana are essential, and survival skills have become one of his specialties.

Hayward recalls the interviewing process, which involved candidates answering questions about retail but also sharing stories about their outdoor experiences.

“It was so rewarding listening to them tell their stories,” said Hayward, a Maine native who started working for Cabela’s in Arizona. “These guys and gals are true experts in their field.”

Training got underway at the end of September at the 42,000-square-foot store that was built on the publicly traded company’s “Outpost” concept for establishing a presence in smaller markets. The company has some “Legacy” stores, including its largest, a 250,000-square-foot store in Hamburg, Pa. And it has “Next Generation” stores that range between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet.

The Kalispell store is the company’s 50th, and it is designed to reflect the Northwest Montana region.

“Every store has its own look and feel,” Remmer said.

The Kalispell store has mounts of moose, bucks, mountain goats, mountain lions, bighorn sheep and other critters that roam the region. There is a mural of a Glacier National Park vista, and an entire wall dedicated to Glacier Park photos and memorabilia.

The store’s firearms section features hundreds of makes and models of rifles, shotguns and handguns.  There is a two-lane archery range where customers can be fitted with bows and fine tune their equipment.

The store and staff are set up for demonstrations on game calls, fly casting and other outdoor pursuits that can be done indoors.

And Hayward says the store’s appearance will constantly evolve to reflect seasonal changes and the region’s market demands.

“We’ll change the floor four to six times a year,” he said.

Knowing the region’s market demands is something that Cabela’s has a leg up on, despite being a new store in town. Seeing the bricks and mortar of a store, people may forget that the company has a long-established local presence through its catalog sales, which go back 52 years, and its more recent online presence.

Remmer said that in preparing the store and its merchandise, Cabela’s has to a degree tapped into data about the things local customers have bought in the past.

The store’s grand opening is scheduled for 11 a.m. Nov. 7. Details about grand opening attractions will be released over the next week.