Backbone of the World
Native Americans originally named the jagged peaks of Glacier National Park the “backbone of the world.” St. Mary’s Visitors Center’s 3-D map of the park’s jagged rock peaks illustrates the aptness of the nickname.
The center also features a 15-minute video that explains the history of the park from its Native American past to its present conservation efforts. One exhibit shows the park 12,000 years ago when covered in hundreds of feet of ice.
I soon set out to explore the rest of the park on a Red Bus Tour. Known as “jammers,” the historic vehicles used on tours have become an iconic part of the park since their initial construction in the 1920s.
Although the tour couldn’t take us along the park’s main Going to the Sun Road because of lingering snow, I delighted in the alternative route that still featured plenty of snowy mountains, wildflowers and intriguing information from Benny, our jammer driver.
“These are the original doors that were used when the jammers were first built in the ’20s,” Benny said as we went around a hairpin turn along the mountainside. “They are made of solid oak. This is bus 86. If you were to try and fit these doors on bus 87, they wouldn’t fit. The doors were custom made for each car.”
Mountains, lakes and valleys went by as I learned more about the early exploration of the park, including John Frank Stevens’ mission to find a route for the railroad that almost ended fatally in a blizzard. The jammer stopped at some of the park’s historic lodges, with a final stop at Lake McDonald Lodge for lunch and a stroll around the lake’s reflective waters.
My weeklong tour ended with another lake view in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. After being dropped off downtown, I explored the former French town’s local shops and restaurants before hiking a trail on the shores of Lake Coeur D’Alene.
I reflected that now I had seen Montana and the surrounding Glacier Country with my own eyes. I could now go home with one less life regret.
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