Page 60 - Flathead Living Fall 2014

cLOckwisE FrOm ABOVE The north end of the Chinese Wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Greg and Deborah Schats at the Prarie Reef Lookout in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
A buck is seen below Sock Lake.
Preservation System. Since then, the system has expanded to include 757 wilderness areas across the U.S. encompassing over 100 mil- lion acres, half of which are in Alaska.
four federal agencies are tasked with overseeing these areas: the national Park Service, forest Service, fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of land Management.
The Bob Marshall Wilderness, known today as “The Bob,” was among the origi- nal 1964 designations, eventually expanding to over 1 million acres in 1978. congress established the 240,000-acre Scapegoat Wilderness in 1972 on the southeast border of The Bob, followed by the designation of the 287,000-acre great Bear Wilderness in 1978 on the northwest border.
collectively, the three areas are called the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex, which, at 1.5 million acres, is the third-largest wil- derness complex in the lower 48. By itself, the Bob Marshall is the fifth-largest wil- derness area in the lower 48. Altogether, Montana has 16 designated areas compris- ing about 3.5 million acres.
following the early activity through
“wE SiMPLY NEED THAT wiLD COuNTRY AvAiLABLE TO uS, EvEN if wE NEvER DO MORE THAN DRivE TO iTS EDGE AND LOOk iN. fOR iT CAN BE A MEANS Of REASSuRiNG OuRSELvES Of OuR SANiTY AS CREATuRES, A PART Of THE GEOGRAPHY Of HOPE.”
58 FLATHEAD LIVING | FALL 2014
wALLACE STEGNER, wiLDERNESS LETTER, 1960