by Oliver Meister

Celebrating John

THE DAILY ROUNDUP | FEBRUARY 9, 2026
Greetings, Beacon Nation! In September 1988, the Red Bench fire exploded in the mountains above Polebridge and tore through the off-grid community on Glacier Park’s western edge, destroying more than two dozen homes and the ranger station before vaulting the North Fork Flathead River to the park’s interior. (In the photo below, longtime North Fork resident Larry Wilson captured the community’s namesake “pole bridge” burning.)At its peak, more than 1,600 people were assigned to fight the destructive wildfire or provide support. But on Sept. 7, 1988, when the fire made its most dramatic run through the remote outpost, a modest group of neighbors and residents banded together to protect their homes and businesses in a display of community spirit that endures today.More so than anyone, that spirit was personified by the late John Frederick, an affable innkeeper and ecowarrior who owned the North Fork Hostel and, on the infamous night of the Red Bench run, laid down a “shake-and-bake tent” — or fire shelter — in the hostel’s yard and, reasoning that a ball field and copse of cottonwood trees would provide an adequate firebreak, stood guard and braced for the blaze’s arrival.“The fire was close enough that it browned a curtain that was facing the fire,” Frederick, who died Nov. 15, 2017 at the age of 74, told the historian Debo Powers.
But Frederick’s heroic efforts to save the hostel pale in comparison to the powerful undercurrent of his conservation legacy, which traces the North Fork from Polebridge to beyond the Canadian border and includes his decision 30 years ago today to permanently protect his property fronting the wild and scenic river from development.“Today, we are honoring the heritage of a true pillar of the North Fork: John Frederick,” according to the Flathead Land Trust’s social media channels. “Three decades ago today, John Frederick made a permanent promise to the land he loved. In 1996, he placed his property near the North Fork Flathead River under a conservation easement — Flathead Land Trust’s third ever.”Frederick’s 31-acre property now joins more than 20,000 protected acres that Flathead Land Trust has preserved in perpetuity, but Frederick’s singular legacy stands alone.I’m Tristan Scott, here to tell you more about it in this Monday edition of the Daily Roundup.

As the unofficial “Mayor of Polebridge,” Frederick (pictured above in a photograph by Steven Gnam) presided over his community with humility, leaving it to others to boast about the Herculean environmental safeguards he fostered.A fervent wilderness advocate, Frederick arrived in Montana in 1976, a pony-tailed back-to-the-lander seeking wild and rustic country and simple living, which he found in Polebridge, the tiny northwoods outpost situated well beyond the terminus of power lines and pavement, after the trappings of modern civilization have receded and the grizzly bears begin to outnumber the year-round residents.In 1978, he bought a ramshackle cabin in Polebridge that he eventually converted into the North Fork Hostel, also known as the Square Peg Ranch, which he managed with welcoming grace for nearly 30 years, furnishing travelers from around the world with comfortable and hospitable quarters, and providing a popular gathering place for North Fork events.Beyond the walls of the hostel, life up the North Fork kept Frederick plenty busy as he came to occupy a role as its staunchest guardian. In 1982, he founded the North Fork Preservation Association to advocate against paving the North Fork Road and to promote protection of the North Fork Flathead River, which was threatened by proposed coal mining operations in the Canadian Flathead. He served as president of the organization for nearly 30 years.When an open-pit coal mine in southeastern British Columbia threatened the Flathead Watershed in the 1980s, Frederick bought stock in the company, Rio Algom, and traveled to Toronto for six years to attend the annual stockholders’ meetings, making motions against the coal mine and effectively derailing it.When North Fork neighbors learned that Cenex was planning to drill exploratory wells along the North Fork to search for oil and gas reserves four miles south of Polebridge, near Home Bottom Ranch, Frederick spearheaded the effort to sue the state, arguing that the Montana Board of Oil and Gas violated the Montana constitution’s provision for open meetings, the public’s right to know and its right to participate.”It changed everything and required a public process,” recalled Roger Sullivan, the Kalispell attorney who represented the North Fork Preservation Association and the Montana Environmental Information Center in the case. “Today, it’s widely recognized that they have to comply with public participation, open meeting laws and the Montana Environmental Policy Act. That hadn’t been the case up until then.”The lawsuit forced Cenex to halt production at all of its drilling operations, and a hearing was scheduled for both sides to present findings about the environmental impacts oil and gas drilling would have on the western boundary of Glacier Park.Today, oil and gas leases have been retired and permanent protections that prohibit development are furnished on the North Fork Flathead River.”I think it is fair to say that because of the efforts of John Frederick the North Fork is one of the few areas that I don’t think will ever be developed for minerals or oil and gas,” Sullivan said after Frederick’s death. “That is part of John’s legacy. We would not be here without him.”

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