Seated at his family’s picnic table, Byron Whitney casually observes a steady stream of outdoor enthusiasts—locals and tourists alike, tugged by every breed of canine—parade past his house to behold the Wild Mile.
For all intents and purposes, the Whitney family are both gatekeepers and guardians of the elevated Swan River Nature Trail, looking out over the mile-plus stretch of world-class whitewater bound furiously for Bigfork Bay.
“I mean, we try,” Byron tells me. “It’s my grandfather’s legacy.”
Let’s start though with Byron’s great-great-grandfather, Levi, and his arguably wayward son, Ward, the latter somehow the first to arrive in Bigfork in 1902 or 1903 after Everit Sliter filed the town plat.
“We’re not exactly sure when [Ward came], but I think he was 14,” Byron remarks of his great-grandfather. “I don’t know whether he was a runaway from home or if it was just a different time.
“You know, at that time there weren’t any roads in here. I mean, it was really a wild place. But they had a lot of lumber and [Ward] learned to be a carpenter. Not too long after that his dad came out looking for him, and that would have been Levi.”
Years passed and Art was begotten, “who would be my grandfather, he was born right here in Bigfork,” Byron continues. “And you know when people say they were born in Bigfork a lot of times they mean they went to Kalispell to be born, but he was actually born in a house right across the street from the Methodist church.
“So [Art] lived here his whole life. He had his older brother Ralph, his younger brother Jack, and then a very much younger Wayne Whitney, they all lived here initially. They built this cabin and these cabins over here,” he says, pointing to an adjacent pair of rustic log homes that are still occupied today.
“They built that little cabin first, the little tiny one. They all lived in that. And then they built this one here,” he says. “Every one of those logs is custom fit, it’s very, very tight all the way around each log. I always wondered how they did that, how they were able to get such a nice tight fit without any power tools.”
Well known throughout Bigfork—and eventually Flathead government circles—Art passed away in 1999, and shortly thereafter Byron’s family moved into his cliffside home overlooking the roaring rapids.
“My dad [Jay] said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to come up here,’ and just kind of not let the house go,” he recalls. “So that was a really great opportunity for us. And as soon as we moved here I realized there’s no better place on Earth.”
So splendid a perch that Art in his twilight years worked tirelessly to share it with others.
“We’ve got to get a [head] count,” Byron says of year-round visitors to the 4.2-mile out-and-back trail. “But it’s got to be thousands a day in the summer.”
Hundreds of thousands of people, all told, who were it not for the generosity of the Whitney family, past and present—their property encompassing the first half-mile of the trail and then some—might never have experienced the Wild Mile from such a magnificent vantage point.
Byron’s grandfather “started as near as I can tell about the late 1980s with a proposal” to close an old neglected (read precarious) county road above the rapids and replace it with a scenic walking trail.
“Just recently I found a document where there was massive opposition to it,” he says. “The county rejected the initial closing with the official word: ‘We’re not going to do it because there’s too much opposition to it.’
“It kind of made me laugh,” Byron observes, “because it’s sort of the trail nobody wanted.”
Except Art, who persevered well into the next decade, until at last gaining support of not only Bigfork residents and businesses, but Portland-based energy giant PacifiCorp, owner and operator of the Bigfork Hydroelectric Project: the Swan River diversion dam upstream, historic brick powerhouse downstream, and several hundred pristine acres in between and beyond.
“So in the mid-90s [Art] finally did get approval, although I’ll tell you when they first shut down [the county road] they put this gate in over here and within [no time] somebody came in with an acetylene torch and cut the thing down.
“That’s the way people are I guess,” Byron reflects, “even though I don’t think anybody would disagree that this [scenic trail] has been change for the better. I mean, just as we’re sitting out here so many people are walking by.”
The question suddenly is: for how much longer?
In June, the Flathead Beacon published an out-of-the-blue announcement from PacifiCorp that sent shockwaves from Bigfork Bay to Swan Lake:
“PacifiCorp has notified the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) about its intent to pursue the disposition of the Bigfork Hydroelectric Project after determining required [multi-million-dollar] dam safety upgrades would not be cost effective for our customers. Disposition may include sale of the project or project decommissioning.”
“A change,” Beacon reporter Maggie Dresser wrote, “that residents say would alter the unincorporated community’s identity.”
In the initial phase of this disposition process, PacifiCorp will seek buyers for the federally-licensed project, including 277 forested acres partially bordering the Whitney family’s already protected land.
“Dad and his sisters … agreed to put conservation easements on [our] whole trail corridor, plus about two-thirds of the rest of the property, to prevent future development,” Byron notes. “It’s just such a special place they didn’t want to see it developed—and they could see that coming. So in terms of development protection, the trail itself is protected—at least on our side.
“PacifiCorp and Art set up the public access,” he reminds me. “I guess everybody thought that would just sort of continue forever.”
Owner and operator of the largest privately held transmission system in the entire western United States, PacifiCorp acknowledges the best-case scenario for the Bigfork community would be for a new operator to inherit the current licensing allowing for “public access and recreation” of the Wild Mile, including the lofty trail, Sliter and Pacific parks, Kearney Rapids’ boat launch, and last but not least the celebrated Bigfork Whitewater Festival, now entering its 52nd year.
As for the nightmare scenario?
“I mean, worst-case scenario you could end up with houses all the way up and down [the Wild Mile] to the [Swan River Road] bridge,” Byron replies. “And the trail goes away—except for our half-mile, which [wouldn’t be] much of a trail anymore.”
Well, I offer in jest, at least you wouldn’t have all of these people traipsing through your front yard every day.
“Oh, I can’t be more proud,” the gatekeeper counters. “You know, we always have that one percent of people that frustrate you, but these [visitors] are nice. They honestly keep the place clean. They take ownership of it, which is really nice. That’s part of the reason we want to continue that legacy and make sure it survives.”
Columnist’s note: While whispers of potential project buyers and non-disclosure agreements continue to swirl around Bigfork, PacifiCorp’s years-long decommissioning process would effectively begin with a scheduled Sept. 4th FERC filing. Meanwhile, the community-led Bigfork Outdoor Recreation Alliance (BORA), among other concerned parties, has been brainstorming with American Rivers, a national organization safeguarding rivers and streams that are essential to the strength of local communities like Bigfork, as well as the Flathead Land Trust, which is dedicated to protecting northwest Montana’s land and water legacy through conservation.
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.