Note: The Howe Ridge Fire started in Glacier National Park started on Saturday and has now destroyed a number of historic structures. The roof of the historic Lake McDonald Ranger Station, featured in this photo diary, caught fire, but firefighters managed to save the structure.
Glacier National Park in Montana has seen record-breaking visitations for both annual visitations and monthly visitations. In June of this year there were 556,00 visitors as compared with 287,000 in June ten years ago. While the National Park Service struggles to keep up with the impact of millions of visitors on the infrastructure and ecology of Glacier Park, budgets have decreased which means that staffing has decreased, and maintenance has been deferred. Volunteers are involved with helping in many aspects of Park maintenance.
Each year, volunteers from the Flathead Area Secular Humanists Association spend a day working in Glacier National Park. This year the volunteers did some cosmetic painting on the Lake McDonald Ranger Station which was built in 1924 to provide seasonal accommodations for one of the Park’s rangers.
View from the Ranger Station
The building
Before Painting
Maintenance of old buildings is an ongoing problem for the National Park Service.
Painting the Building
After Painting
Inside