Wild Trails & Tall Tales

- by Roland Cheek

BIG PRAIRIE MUSEUM

How about a historical museum at Big Prairie? Big Prairie is in the Spotted Bear District of the Flathead National Forest. It formerly headquartered a separate U.S. Forest Service ranger district, but it's now the primary work center for the western portion of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Big Prairie is a long trek by trail from the end of any road.

Some folks might think it strange to suggest a historical museum in such a remote area, but maybe the idea isn't as kinky as it sounds. Consider these reasons:

First, in the annals of the U.S. Forest Service, Big Prairie Ranger Station has considerable historical significance. Located as it is at the hub of a key network of wilderness trails, perched upon those picturesque yellow pine/bunchgrass meadows of the upper South Fork of the Flathead, barns and buildings constructed of native wood and stone, Big Prairie Ranger Station has long been synonymous with the epitome of early-day Forest Service.

Assignment at Big Prairie has long been coveted. Just a few years back, the U.S.F.S. Chief (Max Peterson), Regional Forester (Tom Coston) and Flathead Forest Supervisor (John Emerson) had all served early-career apprenticeships on Big Prairie trail crews.

But perhaps the very best reason for suggesting a museum at Big Prairie is that it's all still there, just as it was in yesteryear: old horse-drawn haying equipment, pole fences and corrals, cook stoves to feed a swelled-up force of eager young kids in training to ascend to Smokey Bear's management team.

Climb upstairs in several of the buildings and you'll step into the dusty past: memorabilia of all kinds; horse gear, hand tools, fire fighting equipment, tents, canvas pack covers or rain flies, ropes of all sizes and lengths.

How many readers know that for a while the Forest Service issued disposable paper sleeping bags to their firefighters? Apparently, after use, the paper bags could be burned or used for sanitary purposes. I've not slept in one, but I can imagine their degree of comfort!

In addition to Big Prairie's picture-book location, intact memorabilia and fond thoughts of influential people, it is also the Bob Marshall's most-visited-by-the-public site. Though Big Prairies vast meadows are deep within the wilderness, hundreds -- even thousands -- of hikers, horseback riders and floaters pass the station each season. What a wonderful place to have and maintain a U.S. Forest Service historical museum!

But such a museum will accommodate only a few, you say. Would not a historical museum better serve Montana and America if it were located where more folks could visit?

Perhaps. I suppose it's also true that more folks can and will visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, but that's no reason to not house other museums amidst the countryside. Besides, the Sistine Chapel is where you find it. So is the Parthenon of ancient Greece, and the Mixtec pyramids of Central Mexico.

Sometimes man's greatest works weren't completed amidst man's busiest places. . . .

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