Whitefish couple honored yet again for conservation work

Mary Sloan sensed she was being followed while hiking near Stanton Lake.

“There were other people along, but I was alone at the time,” she recalled.

Alone, that is, except for the mountain lion that had crept to within about 15 to 20 feet by the time Mary spotted it.

“We stared at each other. I talked to him just a little bit. He finally stepped over the edge of the trail and went down the hill. I never saw him again.”

Gary Sloan once killed and packed out an elk in the vicinity of Red Plume Mountain and returned the next day with a friend who was hoping to accomplish the same. The friend toted a rifle. Gary did not.

The men surprised a grizzly feeding on a gut pile.

“The bear bluff charged four or five times,” stopping about 20 to 30 feet away, Gary recalled.

The friend asked whether he should shoot the grizzly. Gary replied, “No.”

Years later, Gary Sloan, now 86, gazed out a window at the activity fluttering around the suet his wife had recently set out for the birds at their home near Whitefish Lake.

“We’re getting lots of magpies this morning,” he told her. “And a pileated woodpecker.”

Mary Sloan, 84, swiveled in her chair to share in the delight of the man to whom she’s been married for more than 50 years.

The couple met as teachers at Whitefish High School. Gary taught English for 24 years and Mary taught home economics for 25. During their courtship, Mary accompanied Gary on hunting and fishing trips and these experiences, along with her reading about the natural world, forged a bond sealed by a mutual penchant for curiosity and a love for being outdoors.

“I think that has a lot to do with why our life has been so satisfying, so enjoyable,” Mary said.

And laudable, it seems — based on awards the couple has received through the years for volunteering for various conservation organizations and the U.S. Forest Service.

In November, the Flathead Audubon Society honored the Sloans with a Conservation Achievement Recognition Award.

Previously, they received from Flathead National Forest the Danny On Conservation Award, an honor named for a Forest Service silviculturist and former smokejumper who was a renowned nature photographer, conservationist and avid skier who died at age 54 in a skiing accident.

And they received a special achievement award from the Montana Native Plant Society.

Through the years, the Sloans volunteered for The Nature Conservancy, for Flathead Audubon, the Montana Native Plant Society, the Montana Loon Society and Montana Wilderness Association.

A tribute to the Sloans, written by Terry Divoky in the fall 2015 newsletter of the Montana Native Plant Society, noted, “It is impossible to create a complete list of Mary and Gary’s accomplishments. They are humble people and the list is extensive...”

Much of the Sloans’ volunteering occurred after each of the teachers retired in the mid-1980s.

“We usually did it because it was interesting,” Gary said.

Mary agreed.

“These things were interesting to us and sometimes left us feeling that we were helping a person or agency,” she said.

The couple’s long history of volunteering can be traced to work they did years ago for The Nature Conservancy at its Pine Butte Preserve along the Rocky Mountain Front west of Choteau.

“We went there for lots and lots of years and eventually volunteering at the preserve became very popular,” Mary said.

“From that, we found out how interesting it was that there were organizations that understood what we could offer as volunteers,” she said. “It became a way of life.”

Gary said some of the research the couple tackled completed fieldwork that agencies or organizations didn’t have the funding or staff to do.

Mary spent 10 summers helping to collect fire succession information on the Miller Creek Demonstration Forest near Olney. A cross section of a downed larch determined that the tree was about 700 years old and had survived three forest fires.

Both Mary and Gary attended the University of Montana but did not meet until becoming colleagues in 1960 at Whitefish Elementary.

They married in Superior in June 1968.

Mary O’Neill Sloan was born in Deer Lodge but grew up in Superior. She said her father lost everything during the Great Depression and did whatever he could in the years that followed to support the family. Her mother served as Mineral County’s clerk of court and also taught piano and voice lessons.

Gary Sloan, 86, was born and raised in Troy. His father served for many years as a county commissioner and worked also as a road foreman and logger. Gary served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, when he was trained to be a Russian language specialist.

Over time, the English teacher and the teacher of home economics became specialists versed in the language of fire succession, bears and birds and native plants.

According to Flathead Audubon, “Mary and Gary are the brains and brawn behind the native flower herbarium at the Whitefish Community Library, where more than 100 Montana plants were pressed, described and displayed.”

During a recent interview, the octogenarians were asked how they might define a life well-lived.

“I guess it’s having lots of memories you can look back on and appreciate,” Gary said.

Mary offered a similar response.

“Looking back on parts of your life with a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction,” she said.

Reporter Duncan Adams may be reached at dadams@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4407.