New pollinator gardens and park signs in Whitefish

What happens when the Whitefish Park Sign Plan meets and marries an idea for pollinator gardens? 

Whitefish Parks and Recreation Director Maria Butts and Community Services Director Carla Belski have been working on the city’s Park Sign Plan since 2020, the same year that Children’s House Montessori School suggested a pollinator garden in Memorial Park. 

Merging the two projects seemed natural and, recently, a dozen city parks received pollinator gardens and new monument signs.

Round rock walls contain native plants including birch-leaved spirea, plains coreopsis, purple prairie coneflower and beebalm to attract butterflies, bees and other pollinators. Monument signs denoting the name of the park rise from the center of the garden on rustic yet tidy posts.

Butts and Belski teamed up with graphic designer Cassie Lasson of Front Desk Inc., to create signs to replace all the signs within the park system. For years, the park signs have been a mix of styles and sizes.

“We had a random assortment of signs, unique to each park,” Butts said. “They were reactionary signs because we would have signs on top of signs on a post.”

The team worked on making monument signs, rules signs, welcome signs including the history of the park, and orientation signs with maps to help people navigate the trails around town. They also made interpretive signs like one at City Beach about lake ecology. 

“It took a lot of time to figure out what signs we needed, what rules we needed and what we wanted to include, then to graphically represent those,” Belski said. “We’re really excited to see them all come to fruition and be able to start putting them up.”

The signs have the same color scheme, fonts and design. Each sign features a dark green-blue background with rivers, lakes, mountains and dark silhouettes of native evergreen trees. 

“The point of that is to brand it with the same colors, lettering, fonts so that people can recognize that as a city park … so it helps with identifying location, information, rules,” Butts said. “It's been a long process but it's been a thoughtful process.” 

It was important to the team that the signs were easy to read. Lasson created icons for the park rules that are able to be understood regardless of one’s ability to read English.

While the signs have a similar look, careful attention to detail is evident. The Dave Olseth Memorial Skatepark sign shows his last name in his own hand and includes some of his original artwork. The bullet points are paw prints on the dog park sign and stars on the Armory Park sign.

Belski said a fun part of the project was researching the history of the parks and how they were developed.

“The history part was important to us, too, because we’re watching our community change and we want to preserve that history and share it with the public,” Butts said. “We’re preserving the history for the community.”

Most of the pollinator gardens are installed, but the signs are going up in phases. Armory Park’s signs will be installed this summer and City Beach’s will arrive in the spring with the rest of the park signs expected next summer.

“Because we are installing and fabricating with staff, in house, in addition to all the other work we do during the spring and summer months in parks, it’s going to take some time to have it all finally installed,” Belski said. “But again, we’re doing it right.”

Careful consideration was also given to the construction of the signs. After pricing patinated metal and finding it to be too expensive, the team looked in house.

“Jeff Brown is our facilities foreman and he is welding steel and fabricating the actual sign posts and then he’s treating them as well to give them that rusty look,” Belski said. “They’re very durable and will last a long time. We’re saving a lot of money by fabricating those in house instead of buying pre-made signposts.”

The signs are printed on vinyl that’s wrapped around Sintra board then laminated. They are resistant to fading and scratching.

“We are also in the digital age whereas previously, signs were routed out in wood,” Belski said. “We have branding now.” 

The city has received $15,000 in sponsorships to date and each one, except Bakke Park, has been sponsored by individuals or organizations. 

Children’s House Montessori School sponsors the Memorial Park garden. Armory Park, Grouse Mountain and Kay Beller Parks are sponsored by Explore Whitefish. Garrett and Pricilla Turner sponsor Whitefish City Beach Park, while Riverside and Baker Parks are sponsored by Whitefish Community Foundation.

    An example of the old, reactionary signs stands at Grouse Mountain. (Julie Engler/Whitefish Pilot)
  

    One of the new Bee Kind signs posted in city parks that includes information about pollinator gardens. (Julie Engler/Whitefish Pilot)
  

    The new pollinator garden and park sign welcome visitors to Grouse Mountain Park. (Julie Engler/Whitefish Pilot)