Crown of the Continent Exhibit Preview

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park is the ecological heart of the Crown of the Continent ecosystem.

Here, a bighorn sheep stands near the boundary between Glacier National Park and the adjacent Blackfeet tribal roadless areas. While they are well-protected within the park, bighorn sheep often cross boundaries invisible to them, and roam into the Badger-Two Medicine Roadless Area, or onto private lands. For the health of these herds, it is important that public land managers and private landowners collaborate as stewards of America’s great inheritance.

Glacier National Park and surrounding wildlands support the largest number of grizzly bears south of Canada.

The Crown’s Rocky Mountain Front is the only place in the Lower 48 where grizzly bears still roam from the mountains to their historic range on the plains. In fact, the Crown remains fully intact, the last ecosystem in America to have entirely escaped post-settlement extinctions. In addition to grizzly bears, the Crown’s “charismatic megafauna” include wolves, wolverines, mountain lions, Canada lynx, and bobcats. These predators pursue elk, deer, moose, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep—as they have for millennia.

Powerful winds have sculpted aspen groves, shaping the wild landscape of the Rocky Mountain Front.

The Front represents a tapestry of complementary public and working lands. Unique partnerships on the Front have led to the protection of 200,000 acres of private ranching lands through conservation easements. This protection recently was matched on adjoining public lands, managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, with the passage of the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act.

The Badger-Two Medicine Roadless Area, a 160,000-acre swath of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, is seen here from the top of Kiyo Crag. Named for two rivers—the Badger and the Two-Medicine—whose headwaters spill from its mountain heights, this region is the sacred home of the Blackfeet people’s most ancient cultural traditions. This as-yet unprotected wildland is bordered by Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

This is a living landscape: to this day, tribal members undertake vision quests and hold religious ceremonies throughout the Badger-Two Medicine. In 2014, faced with renewed development threats to their sacred lands, the Blackfoot Confederacy—which includes Alberta’s First Nations—were joined by all tribes in Montana and Wyoming in calling for protection of this important landscape and cultural touchstone.

Horses race through prairie foothills in the Badger-Two Medicine Roadless Area.

The Badger-Two Medicine lies at the heart of a vast wilderness ecosystem that is home to elk, gray wolves, moose, lynx, eagles, harlequin ducks, wolverines, and more. But it is also a cultural landscape filled with spirits, heroes, and historic figures central to Blackfeet religion and traditional lifeways. It’s why the Blackfeet have consistently opposed efforts that might degrade these sacred lands.

Catch-and-release fishing on the North Fork Flathead River The North Fork Flathead River springs from the heights of British Columbia’s Rockies before flowing south across the international border, where it forms the western boundary of Glacier National Park.

Managing this river has demanded cooperation between the United States, Canada, and many sovereign tribal nations. In 2010, a UNESCO and International Union for Conservation of Nature team reviewed this transboundary waterway for the World Heritage program, noting that “The Flathead is regarded as one of the last of America’s remaining wild rivers of global ecological significance.” In 2014, Montana’s entire Congressional delegation joined in bipartisan support of successful legislation—the North Fork Watershed Protection Act—safeguarding the watershed from future industrialization.

Megan Lee works on her family’s ranch outside of Choteau, Montana, on the Rocky Mountain Front. She says, “It’s the land that sustains us, in so many ways. Sure, we could make an easier living somewhere else. But that would mean living somewhere else.”

She is among those many longtime stewards who sought to protect the region’s heritage of ranching, hunting, and fishing by promoting the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, which in 2014 added protections to approximately 250,000 acres of public land.

Pauline Matt, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, is an herbalist who practices traditional methods. She is a strong champion for her tribal land and the healing power of wilderness, and has joined her tribal leadership in seeking permanent protections for critical ecological and cultural landscapes.

As she told University of Montana students during a recent interview, “Those mountains will take care of you. Those mountains have that medicine, that healing power.�

Matt guides wilderness trips in order to help other women find the same healing and inner strength that she has experienced over many years in these mountains.

The North Fork Flathead River forms the western border of Glacier National Park. It is one of only four Wild and Scenic Rivers in Montana, and flows through one of the most pristine watersheds in the country.

International efforts to protect the North Fork began nearly four decades ago, when Canadian coal mining proposals first threatened mountaintops in Glacier National Park’s headwaters. In 2010, Montana reached a historic accord with British Columbia’s leadership, pledging to work together to protect the wild and scenic transboundary region. Canadian lawmakers upheld their portion of the agreement in 2011, while former Montana Senator Max Baucus introduced similar legislation in the US Congress.

Following his appointment as ambassador to China, his bill was adopted by Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont), Representative Steve Daines (R-Mont), and Senator John Walsh (D-Mont). Their bipartisan bill, the North Fork Watershed Protection Act, was signed into law in 2014 and limits private industrial leasing on these remarkable public lands.

A yellow-rumped warbler along the Rocky Mountain Front in Alberta, Canada The mix of prairie, forest, and alpine tundra found in the Rocky Mountain Front provides habitat for grassland birds, waterfowl, including the trumpeter swan, and at least 21 species of raptors. The Crown of the Continent ecosystem, with its wild diversity of habitat niches and rich, low-elevation valleys, remains home to a remarkable 300 species of birds.

No trip to the North Fork Flathead River Valley is complete without a stop at the Polebridge Mercantile for a huckleberry bearclaw and mug of hot coffee.

This remote outpost serves as a “backdoor” entrance to the wildest corners of Glacier National Park, and is a reminder of the important interplay between the Crown’s human inhabitants and their untamed neighbors.

The wild Crown is a choice, and North Forkers from all walks of life choose a life of stewardship, leaving a public land legacy for the generations to come, and for all Americans.

CROWN OF THE CONTINENT | BACKBONE OF THE WORLD One of the wildest and most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world is located at the confluence of Alberta, British Columbia, and Montana, covering 18 million alpine acres along the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains.

In the early 1890s, naturalist George Bird Grinnell named this transboundary region the “Crown of the Continent,” with spectacular Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park centered as its crown jewel. Grinnell recognized the region’s geographical importance as the headwaters of our continent, from which cold, clear waters flow through 16 states and 4 provinces to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans.

To the Blackfeet Indian Nation, these rugged peaks have long been known as the “Backbone of the World,” a place of deep and sacred cultural origins.

With the recent passage of two popular public land bills, the tremendous natural and cultural values of this region have gained important protections, advanced by Montana’s entire bipartisan Congressional delegation.

The North Fork Watershed Protection Act safeguards the North Fork Flathead River Valley, headwaters to Glacier National Park and Flathead Lake; and the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act adds 275,000 acres of permanent designations (including 67,000 acres of new Wilderness) on the dramatic east slope of the Rockies. These measures safeguard Montana’s most iconic landscapes, marking the first new Wilderness designation for Montana in three decades.

These successes are the result of local ranchers, sportsmen, tribal members, business owners, community leaders, elected officials, and conservationists finding enough common ground to leave a public land legacy for the next generation.

Many challenges still remain for the Crown, such as proposed industrialization in the heart of the wild Badger-Two Medicine Roadless Area, the sacred homeland of the Blackfeet Indian Nation. But by working together as partners, Montanans will continue to meet these challenges head on.

Step inside to explore this inspiring natural region.

THE CROWN OF THE CONTINENT ECOSYSTEM Bounded by the Rocky Mountain Trench on the west and the prairie foothills to the east, the Crown of the Continent extends north from Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex to the Highwood River in Alberta and far into the headwaters of British Columbia’s Elk River Valley.

This world-class ecosystem contains high peaks, conifer forests, aspen glades, native grasslands, and clean-flowing rivers and streams.

The Crown is home to more than 65 species of mammals, 300 species of birds, and more than 1,400 species of native plants. It also is home to 160,000 people, stewards of this national treasure.