What’s in a name?
Kalispell native and avid explorer Blake Passmore began asking that question the more he frequented one of his favorite destinations: Glacier National Park.
Peril Peak. Heavy Runner Mountain. Bird Woman Falls.
There’s a story behind just about every nook and cranny in the Crown Jewel of the Continent, and Passmore, 50, spent the past year digging through archives, books and other historical data for his latest book, “What They Called It: Stories of Glacier’s Names Along Going-to-the-Sun Road.”
The 101-page book was recently published alongside “Up on the Roof: Views from Glacier’s High Places,” a photographic exploration of the national park’s towering summits. The two books join Passmore’s well-known climbing guides as new additions to his Glacier Park collection, which helps readers better understand and explore the iconic park.
Many of the sites in Glacier Park no longer bear the original names that were given by the Indian tribes who lived and explored the area well before white settlers arrived. Passmore explores this rich history, combining the research of well-known historic author James Willard Schultz and bringing the pages to life with expansive color photos.
“The Blackfeet are the aristocrats among American Indians,” he wrote in his introduction. “They were the buffalo hunters, and this great region was once theirs. To the mountains and lakes of what is now Glacier Park, they attached their legends, which are their literature.”
The Beacon caught up with Passmore last week to discuss his latest release.
Flathead Beacon: How did you come up with the idea for “What They Called It?”
Blake Passmore: In all of my research from my climbing guides, I started looking into the history of names for the peaks in Glacier Park. For example, Reynolds Mountain, Clements, Mount Siyeh, those types of places. And the more I got into it the more fascinating it got as far as the different layers and different levels of names. And well I’m a history major, so I started delving into it and that’s how I got started. The deeper I dug, the more information I found and thought, “This is so cool.”
Beacon: How did you do all research for this book?
Passmore: I started reading a bunch of books and went to the archives and I talked to the library here. Katherine Schmidt over at the Kalispell library was really helpful, and (National Park Service Museum Curator) Deirdre Shaw was really helpful. There’s just lots and lots of information and you start searching through and finding little tidbits. All of that stuff just bombarded me with information, and I just sifted through it all.
Beacon: When you were studying the history of the names, what stood out to you? Were there any themes that stood out?
Passmore: Well it’s really interesting. (Historic author) James Willard Schultz was really tied in with the Blackfeet and their tradition … I just have little glimpses of what Schultz had to say in “Signposts of Adventure.” It’s really fascinating to read the stories about the different people who Schultz said the peaks should’ve been named for. They took dignitaries of the Blackfeet Nation and worked their way up from Marias Pass to Goat Haunt, naming them. Then the Flathead and Kootenai, they worked down the west side of the park with their names. So that was really fascinating just to see the stories about the men and the women of the Blackfeet Nation that were so significant, and we’ve sort of lost them because of the renaming with the English names.
Beacon: Were there any tidbits that really surprised you?
Passmore: It cost $75 to build a trail from Lake McDonald to Avalanche. That stood out. What would that cost now? That was pretty amazing. Another one that I didn’t find out anything more about was the Grinnell Glacier Overlook Trail; that used to be called Pratt’s Path. And I don’t know why and I don’t know who Pratt was. I assume he’s the guy who built it but I don’t know. And just finding some first-hand accounts of people who hiked along the Highline Trail the first year it was made, it was real fascinating finding out what their experience was like.
Beacon: Is there one story behind a name that is a favorite?
Passmore: Well I think one of the most significant names that we have right up by Logan Pass is Heavy Runner Mountain. It’s named for Chief Heavy Runner who was killed in the Baker Massacre. That’s a pretty significant time. That really reminds us about the importance of the Native Americans and how they were mistreated so horribly by the white people, especially the soldiers. They didn’t give them the proper respect that they deserved. So every time I see Heavy Runner Mountain, I think about Chief Heavy Runner and him being massacred along with 170 other people in his camp just because a soldier had ignored somebody’s information. It’s just sad. I wrote in the book that it’s one of the darkest deeds ever perpetrated by white soldiers on the Native Americans in this area, because it really was. It’s very sad. Also, the name for Going-to-the-Sun Mountain. Schultz admitted that he made it all up. The legend wasn’t really there. So there’s a little bit of controversy there. And also there’s controversy over who really was the first white guy on Sperry Glacier, because (Lyman) Sperry always claimed to be that guy and it wasn’t him, not according to what I found.
Beacon: You’ve spent a lot of time in Glacier National Park over the years. What keeps bringing you back?
Passmore: It’s restorative. Going back to Glacier is a way for me to recharge my batteries. And I would do that even if I wasn’t writing and all of that stuff because that’s just one of the things I do to recharge myself and to take care of myself. The writing and selling books, that’s just icing on the cake.
Find Passmore’s books at area bookstores and sporting goods retailers, or online at www.climbglacier.com.