Page 117 - Flathead Living Fall 2014

erched on the remote north shoulder of heaven’s peak, on the edge of an abrupt, 1,000-foot
drop, this mountain’s namesake fire look- out looms over one of the most rugged portions of glacier national park, where steep mountainsides bristle with dense forests of alder and devil’s club, support- ing the highest concentration of grizzly bears in the entire northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and relegating human traffic to a negligible trickle.
Built into the existing rock and anchored to a prominent point on the 7,245-foot-high ridge, the native stone- masonry employed 70 years ago by members of the historic peace churches – conscientious objectors to World War ii – remains intact, giving the structure
the organic appearance of sprouting from the landscape.
These workers were Mennonites, amish, hutterites, Quakers, Jehova’s Witnesses, and even some Baptists and Mormons who, as members of the Civil- ian public service, made a long list of contributions to the park, including fire- fighting, trail maintenance, and orga- nizing and cataloging the park’s library holdings.
They also built one of glacier national park’s most enduring manmade lega- cies, a lookout that was active from its construction in 1945 through the 1953 fire season when, along with the Mount reynolds and Bear Mountain look- outs, it was abandoned in favor of aerial wildfire detection.
Heaven’s Peak lookout.
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PHoTo by TriSTan ScoTT