by Kelly Edwards

Eight or ten years ago, when I was around the fiftyish mark in my life, a small dream of mine became a reality, when complementary longings arose (no not that kind!), between me and a friend. He needed a little cash to buy a piece of his dream in Costa Rica, and I longed for an affordable foot hold anywhere near to the North Fork of the Flathead River. What resulted was my acquisition of his little cabin, which sat on an acre of land in the township of Polebridge, Montana . This is an area to which I have returned time after time over the years. Come June, as soon as I was finished teaching and loosed for the summer, I happily traipsed over thousands of miles, driving from California, or Texas, or Illinois to reach this beautiful river valley in far northwest Montana. What seemed at first remote, the end of the road, the furthest northern reach of the US border, came to feel more like the Canadian Riviera, and I was dying to get (a piece)(the peace) of it.

Then, as if on cue, when everything seemed to be falling into place nicely, a series of tanglesome and unexpected financial obstacles leapt up just as we were set to sign the deal. The financial shenanigans of the fraudulent rat bastards in charge of the institution in which I kept my own and my children’s pittance of cash savings caused the implosion of the whole investment company. Instant bankruptcy and so, zee money, she disappear! This was actually the beginning of a nationwide meltdown that I had somehow neglected to notice, but at the moment what bothered me was that it threatened to undermine my little deal. Those funds were to have been a substantial down payment for the cabin, which would have kept the mortgage payments nice and low. We held a family conference, considering pros and cons, trying to strategize and to form an alternative plan. There weren’t a whole lot of alternatives available however. No money, no cabin. But, so, yeah, in the midst of the chorus of wounded screams of real estate and financial tycoons nationwide, and with the last flickering glimmer of hope for rising real estate prices, and the promise of rapid appreciation in an agony of death throes, I floated a loan.

You know when I say dream cabin? You need to understand what I am talking about. After all, we all have dreams, and each of them is unaccountably unique. This little jewel that I acquired was by all measures, a modest one. How shall I describe it? Built about seventy years ago, by rough and self sufficient types, it had not a single true 90 degree angle. The lumber used was strong, but on the scrappy side, sort of whatever came to hand over a period of time, while funds were accumulated for the project. Passed from hand to hand through a series of owners, this somewhat impromptu structure became increasingly eccentric. At the time that I became the proud owner, it had become known as the `Bat Chalet’, for reasons that are too clear to mention, and it sported a tall, stone, irregular, and sharply tapering chimney, which gave it the look of something out of a child’s fairy tale. Attached to the chimney, inside the cabin, was a stove created from a 55 gallon barrel, outfitted with a smoke stack that swayed in a state of imperfectly jointed instability, threatening to disassemble at the slightest insult. The floors were of ancient, smoothed plywood, the ceiling of the downstairs living room presented an elegant convex curve, sort of like a Turkish pillow and fabric ceiling, only made of wood; very old wood. Inside (Thank heavens, as lots of folks up there have them outside!), was a manually powered water pump drawing from a well dug right under the kitchen floor and a real cast iron sink, and next to it a propane gas stove, greasy but fully functional on both back burners. The upstairs attic was mercifully dark, no beam of light entering to reveal the accumulated rubble of fifty years of use by creatures human and otherwise, and anyway, I didn’t have the urge (or the courage) to look very deeply. Outside, was a humble one-seat outhouse, with an awning in front which gave a little shelter in rain or snow conditions, and a crescent moon cut out of the back wall for freshness, a pretty rare commodity in that well used and tightly closed space. So as the song goes, “…no phone, no pool, no pets…” Well, there were some pets, and at night they were busy searching for anything they could find to eat, scurrying, buzzing, and flapping around, long after I was in bed, working my way towards sleep, by way of a prolonged battle between elation and horror.

Let me also clarify that when I say `township’, I’m talking about the place you pull into after a 24 mile drive on a gravel, dirt, stone road guaranteed to shred tires under six ply. The maximum posted speed limit is 35 mph. but the actual survivable velocity is more like 20 mph. (in summer dust), and 10 mph. (on winter ice). The trip up this final leg of the journey gives you plenty of time to detach from the stresses of city life and work. Actual retinal detachment is also possible. When, and if, you arrive at the Polebridge turn off, you enter into a place that feels as if someone has turned back the clock, to say, the 1900’s (except perhaps for the sound of a young rocker, practicing his licks on a drum set, in back of the stage built for the ‘Aurora Music Festival’ the annual gathering of all things alternative). This is a town that boasts one general store, The Polebridge Mercantile where an effort is made to meet all basic needs and to cater as well, to the good coffee and great fresh baked pastry maven in all of us. The Northern Lights is the saloon-cum-restaurant-cum-local -live-music venue-cum-community volleyball court where adventurers meet and eat and compare feats. The third piece of the commercial trilogy of Polebridge is the not to be missed, verging on famous, North Fork Hostel. It’s the multicultural center of the town, where you may meet anyone, from anywhere, at any time, doing anything…..and highly encouraged in this behavior (as long as it doesn’t adversely affect the environment), by the Hostel-Meister, Oliver. He hails from Germany originally, but has gone entirely native, in every sense of the word. Captivated twenty years ago by the beauty he found in and around the area and the lifestyle of relative freedom, he simply never left. Oliver created a niche for himself by becoming an indispensable assistant in and around the hostel, which was owned and run at the time by John Frederick, an earlier wanderer, stopped dead in his tracks by his love for the area, who with characteristic adventursomeness established the guest hostel, organized the force of the community on a variety of issues, and over the last 30 years in residence, has come to be known as the honorary mayor of the community. He is a wild and wily original, an indomitable, fearless, force behind the many activities in defense of wilderness protections and preservation of North Fork watershed from extractive industries (logging, mining), over development and speculative subdivision.

Year round residents are relatively few, due to the harsh winters and far remove of the North Fork area. In fact people in general are fairly few in number, and the overall demographics of this community are somewhat difficult to convey. Actually, I’d bet that they defy categorization in any collective or useful fashion, and that a statistician might just go right out of his/her mind trying to crunch any numbers based on this group of individuals. The citizens of the North Fork are variously, descendents of original homesteaders, environmental activists, painters, potters, outfitters, photographers, wealthy magnates and owners of log cabin castles complete with hot-tubs and orchid green houses, drifters, wolf biologists, snow birds from Texas and Florida, Oxford scholars taking a break from their doctoral studies, counter culture and alternative life style types, vegans, hunters, peak baggers, lotharios, musicians, and itinerant souls searching for themselves, some of whom are well off the track.

In a very short time I, like others, have come to love this place and the living river that runs through it, like nowhere else on earth. The North Fork Valley, in which Polebridge is located, extends for many miles from north of Columbia Falls, up to and across the Canadian Border. The North Fork Road, which runs the full length of the valley, roughly following the course of the river, used to give access to southwest British Columbia. It is no longer an open border crossing point, and the road at the old check point sports a six foot high bull dozer sculpted berm , a `severe penalities’ warning sign, several remote controlled cameras, and the occasional white Border Patrol pick-up with agents checking to see if some misbegotten terrorists or smugglers might try and breach the divide. Truth is that they’re far more likely to end up discovering a patch of huckleberries or with a little luck, maybe catch a glimpse of a big chocolate colored bull-moose, a pair of wolves crossing their territory, or a lone grizzly bear on the prowl. People who venture up this far are there to back pack into Glacier Park’s more remote areas, or else to `put in’ to the river in kayaks, canoes, rafts and even the occasional adventurous inner-tube rider set to spend the day floating the river, watching for wildlife, nesting eagles and kingfishers, pulling into a quiet beach for lunch or a quick nap in the sun, and arriving in the late afternoon at a `pull out’ point, ready to join friends at the Northern Lights Saloon for drinks or dinner and to share the stories of their day on the river and consider the latest community controversy.

Throughout this pristine valley where elk, and deer, and wolves, and bear, and mountain lions, are all still present, loops the magnificent North Fork of the Flathead River, finding its way southward, through the untrammeled natural beauty that surrounds it on all sides. To the east, where the sun rises, are the craggy mountains, the `crown of the continent’ which form Glacier National Park, and still shelter small patches of snow well into July. Below the peaks a dramatic skirted expanse of dark green forest. At the base of the forest a wide spreading meadowland divided with grace and whimsy by the powerfully flowing pristine river that gives life to everything around it, as its waters flow southward to meet the Middle and South Forks, joining together to form the enormous body of water which feeds the immense Flathead Lake.

The North Fork River runs along its ancient ever changing course with an equally changeable temper and mien, according to the season and the dictates of nature. In summer it runs alternately clear, deep and calm or thrashing and boiling its way through rock gardens, giddily swooping around sharp turns carved into the surrounding terrain during raging snow melt floods. In winter it is a ribbon of ice covered pewter, its power hidden, a quiet whisper, buried under a blanket of deep snow. In fall, with the water at low ebb, in the early mornings, pockets of chilly mist linger low on the water and later in the day its quiet pools reflect the brilliant gold of the tree leaves basking in the sharp sunlight of autumn. In the spring swollen, milky, glacier-melt torrents plunge and roar, pulling and shoving with such force that trees and boulders are loosed from their moorings, and rolled around haphazardly as the river rises in tumult, and breaks free of the last year’s boundaries.

It is this great River that gives life to the valley and all the creatures in it. It is the key to the existence of everything around it. It is a river that we in the community of Polebridge fight to protect from all potential sources of damage and degradation, working together to create long term protective and sustainable conditions for these waters that travel through the land we love. Seeking a permanent ban on extractive industries upstream across the Canadian border in the headwaters area, limiting the subdivision of properties and development throughout the valley and along the banks of the river, developing the means to regulate and avoid recreational overuse or abuse of the river, and creating binding zoning and growth plans. As a community up against some very strong odds, we are holding the line in defense of the North Fork of the Flathead.

I discovered this river and the great joy that it brings to all who know and love it, pretty well along in the arc of my lifetime, and what I know is that I and many others who came before me and the many that will be here long after me, will spend years of their lives working to protect and preserve this river we love.

That’s my `river story’.