Glacier Park Montana Sept3 -6

Pats spans the divide

"Jammer" Touring Car

We fled Lake Louise before the Labor Day crowd arrived, and pushed on south not knowing how long it would take to get to the border. We drove south on a secondary highway (22) avoiding Calgary and the major traffic we would expect on a major freeway.  Much to our surprise we covered the 220 miles to the border in about 5 hours and decided to drive on in to Glacier at Saint Mary.

  We crossed into Montana at Big Chief border crossing, a little used border station on the top of a mountain pass.  We were the only car there at the time.  The border guard asked us if we had any thing to declare and we said "No"  He asked us if we had any citrus fruit and we said we had a lime in the fridge.  He asked us for the keys to the trailer to do a search.  He emerged with our lime that had one section cut out of it and said we were free to proceed.  I hope that lime worked out for him when he made Margaritas that evening.

We stayed in a Glacier Park campground that was full of ripe huckleberries.  We were told by the rangers that huckleberries are a bears favorite food and that this time of year is when the bears are especially fond of them.  That made us feel real safe in the middle of the night or in the morning, expecting to fine a grizzly bear just out side our door.We did see bears four different times, but thankfully not in our camp.

Glacier is 100 years old as a national park this year.  Over 2.2million visitors have arrived this season, the place was pretty busy.  It is a park of rugged beauty, with massive peaks and lots of blue lakes.  It was developed by the Great Northern Railroad as were the Canadian parks by the Canadian Railways.
The railroad barons built these wonderful old hotels out of native trees and stone and they still operate today.  Glacier has 5 of them at various places around the park.  When guests arrived by train they needed away to get around the park to see the sights.  The park had special red limousines called jammers that could carry 30 or so people.  They were convertibles with a canvas roof that could be retracted so the passengers could look up at the mountains through the roof of the vehicle.  Lap blankets were provided to keep warm.  One hundred of these 1930 vintage limos were built.  Some years ago, Ford Motors refurbished these limos for free, with the understanding that they were to continue to be used in the park and that they sport the "FORD" emblem on the rear trunk.  With modern engines and transmissions they no longer are called "jammers" which was derived from the sound they made when the drivers tried to jam the car into gear while going up and down the steep mountain passes.

Along with the old hotels, and cars, there is a fleet of wooden launches built in the 20s that still ply the lakes for the tourist trade.  They too have been meticulously cared for. 

We didn't see as much wild life as we a had hoped.  We saw bears eating the huckleberries, some mountain goats way high on the slopes, but no moose or elk which we expected to see.  There was an osprey nest near the ranger station and we got to see a program about the ospreys that live in the park.  Again we had a lot of unseasonable weather, rain, snow, wind.  We were able to get out most mornings but many of the afternoons were  too cold and wet to venture out.