Glacier’s August visitation was robust

While visitation to Glacier National Park is down overall, the number of visitors to the Park’s west entrances — the only ones that are open — is either nearly the same as last August, or way up.

The west entrance recorded 365,352 visitors in August this year, a drop of just 0.2% over last year. That’s about 11,785 visitors a day.

Polebridge, however, was up 23.4 percent over last year, with 24,119 turning the gates at the North Fork entrance.

The Polebridge entrance was up in July as well. To date, Polebridge has seen 73,520 visits, up 10.5% over last year, a remarkable figure considering Glacier was closed for two months due to coronavirus concerns.

Even with the east side of Glacier closed due to coronavirus concerns on the Blackfeet Reservation, the park has still seen 1.171 million visitors this year. That’s a drop of 52.1%, however.

— Hungry Horse News

Matriarch griz killed while crossing U.S. 93

PABLO — A 25-year-old female grizzly known to wildlife biologists as Griz-40 died Sept. 4 after being struck at about 2 a.m. by a vehicle while crossing U.S. 93, according to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The incident occurred in the area of Post Creek and the Ninepipe wetland complex.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has captured nine bears over the years that were identified as offspring of Griz-40, and her offspring have produced at least 11 offspring of their own, according to the tribes.

Griz-40 was originally captured by state biologists in the Swan Valley in 2001 and was among the first grizzlies to be monitored by collar for the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem trend monitoring study. She had never turned up in the Mission Valley as a conflict bear.

Becker said 25 years is a long life for a grizzly in the wild, though Griz-40 showed no signs of being in dangerously ill health after her death. He said he’s heard of grizzlies living as long as 50 years in captivity, “but 15 to 20 yers in the wild is an old animal.”

He was told that the vehicle involved in the incident was an ambulance responding to the call, and that no one in the ambulance was seriously injured but that enough damage was done to require a replacement ambulance to respond instead.

— Lake County Leader

Housing market hot in Lincoln County

The Lincoln County Clerk and Recorder’s Office has processed a near record number of deeds and mortgages in recent months, the Tobacco Valley News reports. Deputy Clerk Clyde Ross said “it has been unbelievably busy.

Shannon Wolleat of First American Title told the Tobacco Valley News her office has been working weekends and sometimes putting in 10 to 12-hour days. During normal times Wolleat said she could call on other offices in the company’s network to help out, but everyone is busy — “stretched to the max.”

Lincoln County processed 225 deeds and 152 mortgages last month. Since 2000 the county has averaged 162 deeds per year, the newspaper reported.

— Tobacco Valley News

Lincoln County fields election questions

With traditional voting plans upended by the coronavirus pandemic, Lincoln County officials have received a slew of questions and concerns from residents about new election procedures.

Chris Nelson, election administrator, said many of those who have contacted him simply want clarification on the process. Some, however, have expressed anger based on misinterpretations of the new system or misinformation circulating online.

A major misnomer, which kept Nelson’s phone ringing last week, is that Lincoln County ballots will be counted out of state.

“It was over nine people over a couple day period,” he said on Sept. 18.

Nelson stressed that Lincoln County ballots will be counted by local judges. While he said that he could not find the source of the misinformation, he suspected it originated in rumors floating on social media or confusion of national news for regional news.

Nelson has also received calls about a U.S. Postal Service flyer that led residents to think they were not registered to vote. Politico reported that the USPS started sending every American household a mailer providing basic information on the mail voting process. In many areas, including Lincoln County, the information doesn’t correspond with local election plans.

Another source of unfounded concern among Lincoln County voters is that the process for counting mail-in ballots is unsecure.

Nelson said the procedure for tabulating mailed ballots is a multi-step process designed to verify the validity of each vote while keeping the voter’s identity separate from their preferences.

While some voters have complained about when mail-in ballots will be sent out, Nelson said it was state officials who set the dates. Under the county’s mail-in election process, officials will mail out the bulk of ballots to active voters Oct. 9

— The Western News