Glacier: It's not a secret any more

We know some residents would like to keep it a secret, but the word is definitely out about just how great Glacier National Park is.

 In fact, the park just had its busiest summer on record and is on track to have a record year for visitation.

For the three months of summer, there was a combined visitation of 1,708,843 visitors, topping the previous high 1,673,811 visitors in 1983.

For the first eight months of the year, a total 1,885,265 people visited the park, a number that is tracking ahead of the 1,809,339 people who entered the park over the same period in 2010, which the park touts as its busiest year on record with full-year visitation 2,200,048.

This is all certainly good for business in the park and in surrounding gateway communities, and it is a big reminder of just how powerful Glacier National Park is as an economic engine for the region.

And we locals have it all year round, whereas most of the tourists usually only visit for about 10 to 12 weeks in the summer. That’s still our little secret, but we may not be able to keep it much longer!

It’s wonderful to see a group of local citizens step forward to develop a plan for the long-term maintenance of the Demersville Cemetery south of Kalispell.

The historic graveyard is the resting place for some of the Flathead Valley’s earliest pioneer families. For too long the cemetery has been neglected and overgrown, with just the bare minimum of maintenance for weed control and mowing.

Many of the gravestones need repair to be properly preserved. The recently organized work group brought in a nationally known gravestone conservator this week to teach those interested about making repairs. That’s a great first step in the ongoing preservation.

Efforts are also underway to sort out the records of more than 2,000 gravesites at Demersville. Lapses in record-keeping through the decades have made it difficult to determine who’s buried in some plots.

The goal is to have a group that can seek grants, define bylaws and formulate a plan for maintenance. It seems as though this worthy effort is moving forward, and we’re all for it.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.