Flathead Lake is in the pilot phase of being “mapped” like never before, thanks to an ardent lakeshore resident with access to the world’s most state-of-the-art technology.
Celine Gerson, president of Fugro USA, tells me her passion for safeguarding fragile jewels like Flathead Lake is shared by her prodigious Dutch-based company, the world leader in geo-data mapping and monitoring of the earth’s surface and subsurface.
“We have some of the top scientists in the world, hydrographers and others, who are very much passionate about giving back,” the east shore resident explains.
So how did such an opportunity fall into the laps of the lake’s myriad communities and stakeholders?
I sat down with Gerson and Julie Bottum, executive director of the Bigfork Arts & Cultural Center (BACC), who is mastermind of the groundbreaking Flathead Maritime Archeology Project.
“So when I met Julie and understood in greater detail what the [underwater archaeological] project is about I felt that there was a very good connection with Fugro,” Gerson begins. “Our purpose and mission of Fugro is to create a safe and livable world. And I felt it is a fantastic project, not just because I live here, but more importantly because it is very much in line with the type of company that we are and our core values.”
Bottum recalls with amusement her initial chance meeting with the French-born Gerson, who before discovering the Flathead lived and worked throughout the world (Fugro has a presence in 60 countries). Bottum was explaining the slow-but-steady progress with the BACC’s two-plus-year-old project, its notable discoveries, and its commitment to leave all identified relics — indigenous artifacts to sunken steamboats — unrecovered and in the position they are found.
“So I meet Celine and she tells me how she looked at the pace we were doing this and said, ‘It might take 100 years if you do it with a little ROV and meanwhile we’re mapping the entire ocean, so I think I can help you!’
“And I said really?”
Fast forward to October 2024 and not only has Fugro recently become a partner in helping to locate and document the lake’s cultural heritage sites, it’s weighing a potentially far larger project to map Flathead Lake in its entirety.
Apart from the oceans “we’re very much involved in doing mapping on lakes and riverbeds all over the world,” Gerson continues. “There are different communities obviously here: we have newcomers, we have people who have been here two-three-four-five generations, and then we have the indigenous people who have been here for thousands of years.
“I think what’s fascinating about this project is how do we find a way of undertaking the mapping of the lake, understanding the environment and biodiversity, and how do we take all those various stakeholders and find a way of doing it not only [in a] stable way, but also in a respectful manner?”
Given the unabated bulldozing and construction — “and this lake being in the top ten cleanest lakes in the world — I’m personally very much interested in understanding how we can protect not only the cultural heritage of the lake, but also as we’re building additional infrastructure around the lake how do we first of all understand the baseline?” Gerson educates.
“So we need to map the baseline: how are those new infrastructures going to be built and how can we do it in a sustainable way so this lake remains as pristine as possible?”
Which is where Fugro comes in with its arsenal of cutting-edge technology: manned surface vessels (one Fugro research vessel in recent weeks began collecting high-quality lakebed data) and remotely operated vehicles (“maneuvered from the shore or even from Houston; we have a remote operation center in Houston whereby we can actually operate ROVs,” Gerson says) to multi-beam echo sounders, side scan sonars, and tethered cameras propelled by mini turbines that all provide 2D and 3D modeling and imaging that is bolstered by satellites, airplanes and drones.
“All data and imaging will be used to demonstrate what could be expected from a larger, longer campaign [by Fugro] next year,” Gerson points out.
Additionally serving as “Director of the Americas,” overseeing every spit of Fugro-mapped land and water from the Yukon to Argentina, Gerson explains that “before anything is built … we want to understand how the earth, how the ocean is going to react to it.”
Or in this case how Flathead Lake has been impacted and will continue to respond to additional infrastructure, which is obviously inevitable (a friend and I recently navigated much of the lake’s shoreline, islands included, and construction obviously continues east to west).
So what would a larger mapping consist of?
“We utilize different technologies, from understanding the biodiversity, or the environmental DNA, to understanding the rock, to basically create a baseline that allows us to do various scenario planning depending on the project, understanding how to build those projects, and more importantly how to understand the environmental impact of [building] decisions that are made,” Gerson replies.
With 185 miles of shoreline, 200-plus square miles of surface area, and a subsurface hidden beneath upwards of 371 feet of water, there’d be a whole lot of Flathead Lake to map.
From a scientific perspective, Fugro has already begun studying the lake’s data.
“We have access to all the satellite imagery and we started doing modeling [from] the past five years and [man’s] impact on the flows coming from the Flathead River,” Gerson reveals. “And you can see the changes already happening to the lake on the north side. Which is fascinating because that is the type of information that we need to have, to not only understand how you develop, but more importantly in this case how you preserve [what] we have.”
Given the lake’s lower half is an integral part of the Flathead Indian Reservation, Bottum has made it her priority to communicate with influential members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the tribal council, and Salish Kootenai College, to explain and encourage their participation in the historical survey and more recently to update the indigenous community on the “really generous” opportunities Fugro has brought to the table.
“We’ve actually postponed the project by months just to make sure they’re up to date with all the narratives,” the BACC’s executive director tells me. “The first peoples are … the most important in my mind because this waterway was [their] superhighway” for thousands of years.
Gerson has similarly assured tribal elders that “the technology we’re going to be using is ‘non-intrusive’ … meaning it’s going to be scanning and mapping while doing the most accurate detail design of the bottom of the lake.”
She foresees a possible “blueprint” from Flathead mapping that could be shared with indigenous populations near and far with similar rich histories.
“There’s so many lakes in North America,” Gerson notes. “In Canada we have a lot of indigenous people, and we can do these projects in a respectful manner. It’s a very exciting thing.”
The BACC survey, which has enlisted the expertise of Montana native Dr. Calvin Mires of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is already providing “endless” educational opportunities for local students of all ages. As Bottum notes, Salish Kootenai College for one has departments in both historical preservation and hydrology that mirror what’s underway on the lake.
“Which all fits in beautifully and they’re very interested in it,” she says. “To learn about these technologies … and teach them to their students … is an experience they could never get anywhere else.”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author.