WEST GLACIER – Glacier National Park is a magnet for human beings of all sorts – those who venture here to experience wildness not available elsewhere, those who seek solitude, those who love history, and even those who enjoy a drive along narrow alpine highways.
And with each human interaction in the wild, there are natural consequences, many of them involving the large and varied breadth of plant life within the park’s boundaries.
These incidents might seem small, like the removal of some greenery along the side of a road during construction. But in a place like Glacier, where the mission is preservation and conservation, these disturbances fall within the purview of the team at the park’s Native Plant Nursery.
The nursery, located next door to the garages for the park’s iconic Red Buses and shuttles, is a tiny microcosm of Glacier Park flora. Garden beds full of green shoots and tiny trees warm under the July sun, and seeds collected by various volunteer groups lie on tables in the greenhouse, drying and waiting to be sorted.
Sonya Hartmann, the nursery manager, said when the nursery was first built in 1989, the staff knew how to grow about 20 native plants. In the time since, thanks to a lot of research and a fair dose of luck, the nursery now has the capability and understanding to grow more than 230 types of plants found in Glacier.
It started with funding allocated in 1987 for rehabilitating Going-to-the-Sun Road, and then the restoration work that would come with that project.
All of the seeds and seedlings are of pure Glacier lineage, Hartmann said, collected from within the park and either grown at the nursery or at the numerous facilities working with it. Some plants are grown for the nursery at Columbia Falls High School, for example, while others are sent to a facility in Bridger, Montana that has more space and better temperature control than is available in West Glacier.
Crews from the nursery work under the direction of restoration biologist Dawn LaFleur on re-vegetating disturbed areas, as well as managing pests like noxious weeds and pesky creatures, and hazard-tree removal. Botanists with the program work on rare plant surveys and monitor past restoration projects.
Last year, the crews planted 5,388 plants in the park and collected more than 80 pounds of seeds.
“We depend highly on our volunteers,” Hartmann said.
Each Tuesday, the public is invited to volunteer at the nursery, and there is already a stable of consistent, hardworking volunteers who make the drive to spend time giving back to the park.
One such volunteer, Joe Daily, started working at the nursery eight years ago. At 81, his experiences in life have led him to this point of service, he said.
“For me, it’s a spiritual journey,” Daily said. “The natural world is in very bad shape. To do something, albeit small, to contribute to the preservation of whatever remains … for me it’s something that I need to do. I love it.”
Individual volunteers can contribute in myriad ways, doing tasks from seed collecting to counting to separating to planting. Sometimes it’s as simple as clearing the saplings of fluff and sap from the nearby cottonwood trees.
Groups of volunteers also work in the nursery, from school groups to Boy Scout troops. Hartmann said families also schedule an hour or two to bring their kids and put them to work, showing them the value of plants within the park.
It’s this idea that truly propels the nursery forward, to educate the people who love the park on its plants so that they may come to know Glacier better and care more for all living beings inhabiting it.
Hartmann said the term “green haze” typically describes what visitors see when they come here: a wall of green, beautiful but indistinguishable. Learning about the individual plants and their uses and backgrounds gives the forest even more life, she said, turning a visitor into a steward.
“Awareness is a really important part of what we do here,” she said. “We’re saying, ‘This is important and you can help.’ All of the people who come here, I make it clear that this is yours.”
The people who work at the nursery are a strong, cohesive team, Daily said. In his 81 years, he said he’s rarely seen administration work so well toward a goal, especially when the goal is education.
“If you don’t teach the kids, the rest aren’t going to matter anymore,” Daily said. “(The nursery staff) all love what they do. I just wish everybody else had the same commitment.”
For more information on the Native Plant Nursery in Glacier National Park, visit www.nps.gov/glac/learn/education/service-learning-and-stewardship.htm or call 406-888-7835.