C.W. Guthrie | Glacier National Park: The First 100 Years

Published: June 26, 2009

In C.W. Guthrie’s fifth book on her beloved Glacier National Park, the author pays stunning tribute to the 100th birthday of a glorious piece of the natural world, and the people who have worked hard to preserve it for generations to come.

Guthrie, who lives in the Ninemile Valley west of Missoula, has set forth a meticulous chronology of the park’s history, beginning with a geologic explanation of its rock formations and geomorphic setting.

In words and pictures, we move through the era when Native Americans roamed park environs, the arrival of the first white explorers, the railroad years, construction of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway, wildfires, floods, wildlife incidents, the much loved Red Buses, and more.

The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and paintings. Guthrie skillfully recounts everything from the heydays of luxury backcountry camps to our present concerns for over-use and global warming.

The First 100 Years also recounts the influences of a plethora of colorful characters, including railroad magnate James J. Hill, artist Charlie Russell, author James W. Schultz, outlaw and poacher Joe Cosley and naturalist George Bird Grinnell.

The book, published by Farcountry Press in Helena and produced in partnership with the Glacier Natural History Association, won an Independent Book Publishers Association’s 2009 Ben Franklin Award and ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year award. This beautiful tribute to one of our nation’s natural treasures also earned the 2009 Association of Partners for Public Lands Media and Partnership Award.

– Judy Shafter