The small lakeside town of Bigfork has a big Fourth of July tradition. Every float in the long parade has its own story, and the best way to get acquainted is to show up for the festivities. But first, meet a few characters without whom the celebration wouldn’t be complete.
Penelope
Penelope is 39. She is a big brass organ on wheels – a calliope, which, pronounced Kuh-ly-o-pee, rhymes with her name. She has traveled across the United States from Texas to Alaska, producing cheerful full-bodied tones that have likely created a nation of jealous ice cream truck drivers.
Mostly, now, she spends her time in a barn on the Kuntz family cherry farm in Bigfork. But as is a 25-year-old tradition, Frank and Sandy Kuntz wheel her out every summer on July 4 for the Bigfork parade, which Sandy calls “the parade of parades. And,” she continued, “we’ve been to a lot of parades.”
Though the word calliope, which means “beautiful voice,” is Greek, the instrument itself is patriotic through and through, and not just because Penelope is decorated red, white, and blue with a circus motif.
“It really is an American invention – it’s the calliope and the banjo,” Kuntz says.
Joshua C. Stoddard, an inventor who lived in Massachusetts in the 1850s, patented the instrument and demonstrated its sound for the first time as Civil War tensions rose. Since then, steamboat drivers, carnival directors, and circus showmen have employed calliope organs. Even the famous P.T. Barnum liked to announce his circus’ arrival in town with a horse-drawn calliope.
“When the breeze is just right and the dandelion are in full bloom, it makes the sound of summertime,” one spectator is said to have swooned.
In other words, the calliope produces a perfect soundtrack for the Fourth of July. Yet the whimsical organ’s heyday lives in the past, and the Kuntzes believe Penelope is the only calliope in Montana. Chalk it up to the dedication of Penelope’s creator, Frank’s father, Frank Sr., a craftsman, who spent nearly a decade building his own instrument from scratch.
When he finally finished, Penelope’s sound rang through the house, loud enough to shake the crystal in the cabinets. Though her sound is sweet, it is bright and sharp and can be heard even above the noise of the thousands of parade attendees.
“This parade is homegrown, everybody comes out and decorates whatever they have that they can ride or push or drive, it’s really an incredible event,” Kuntz says. “It’s very hard to go somewhere else on the Fourth.”
Uncle Sam and Summer
Uncle Sam is ageless. Summer the donkey is 11. Ed Rothfuss is somewhere in between, a retired National Park Service employee who volunteers in Glacier National Park, runs a used and rare bookstore in Creston with his wife, Marge, and has dressed up in red-striped pants and a star-spangled hat for a decade of Bigfork parades.
“One of my favorite holidays is the Fourth of July,” Rothfuss says. “The excitement, the significance historically – I feel very patriotic and this is my way of showing patriotism, by being Uncle Sam out there.”
For Rothfuss, who retired in 1994 after a 36-year career as a ranger and naturalist in 10 national parks across the country, including Glacier Park, the history of the United States is one and the same as the history of our protected wild lands. The majority of historical texts in his store address Glacier and natural lands directly, but Rothfuss says he has also set aside “a big long section on the Civil War, a bit on World War I, and a lot on World War II, because it’s all part of American history and really closely related to national parks.”
While serving as the superintendent of Death Valley National Park, Rothfuss was tasked with eradicating destructive feral burros, a donkey used as pack animals, from the land. As he relocated over 6,000 wild burros, placing many in adoptive homes, he developed a soft spot.
“I came to love them, and to prove my love for them, we adopted two of them,” Rothfuss says. “They make wonderful pets.”
Eventually, he decided to put them to good use in a show of patriotism. So he bought an Uncle Sam outfit in a Las Vegas theatrical costume shop, and found a red, white, and blue blanket for Summer. The following summer, now 10 years ago, he and Summer made their debut in the Bigfork parade as symbols of the United States and of democracy. For a few years, he even grew a small white beard to complete the look. And though he’s had a decade to refine the costume, he jokes that there is still one missing piece.
“I once had a couple of gentlemen yell from the crowd, ‘Where is the elephant?’” Rothfuss says, noting with a laugh that he’ll happily bring an elephant along next year if only someone would find him one.
The Kalispell parade kicks off downtown at 10 a.m. on July 4, followed by the 12 p.m. parades in Bigfork, Polebridge, and Polson.