Points North and East of Kalispell

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Today we travel north to the resort community of Whitefish located on the shores of Lake Whitefish and nestled at the base of Big Mountain which National Geographic named one of the “Top 25 Ski Towns in the World.” 

Under the very warm and sunny skies, people are enjoying swimming and boating on this lovely clear lake. 

The town itself was busy with tourists and we drive by the restored 1927 chalet-like Great Northern Railway Depot

and this unique truck/bus like vehicle which I found was called a “Bruck.”  The terms “Bruck” as defined on the internet is: A bruck (blended from the words bus and truck) is a type of bus or coach built to combine goods and passenger transport where it is most profitable or most convenient compared to separate vehicles. ….. was introduced in the late 1940s as a replacement for unprofitable railway lines……. It was used to transport people from the Whitefish train depot to the community of Kalispell some 15 miles south.  

We also found this rather interesting old church which is now an art gallery with a Thailand theme and this cute deer near the side door. 

I thought this old home was really lovely with the purple and yellow flowers to compliment the paint color on the house.

Leaving Whitefish we headed toward West Glacier to Hungry Horse located on the south fork of Flathead River and so named when in a severe 1900-01 winter two freight horses were lost and starved in the nearby rugged Flathead River wilderness.  Found a month later they were nursed back to health and the mountain and creek were thus named “Hungry Horse” as a result. 

The Hungry Horse Dam (Montana’s highest at 564 feet) was begun in 1948 and completed in 1953.  The Dam was built to harness the Flathead and Columbia Rivers force and help generate electricity. 

 Today the Reservoir (34 miles long and 170 miles of shoreline) provides a variety of outdoor activities such as boating, waterskiing swimming, camping and fishing.

A pretty view of the mountains as we returned to Hungry Horse

Turning back toward Kalispell, we take a route south toward the village of Big Fork which takes us through another part of this huge valley a large part of which is given over to farms growing a number of different crops including wheat, peas and others as well as a few orchards of cherry trees. 

This picturesque and quaint small fishing village is located on a northeastern bay of Flathead Lake and is an artists and writers colony. 

The main street of town barely has room for diagonal parking on each side of the street and a lane going each way in the middle.

Forget wanting to bring a large motorhome in town.  There is also this low one lane bridge with only capacity for cars on the far side of downtown.

If you even got the motorhome this far it would be very difficult to back it up and turn it around without backing traffic behind it back to main street or beyond.   Good thing someone told us as we had thought we might drive through here on our way to Helena next week.  We still plan to go this direction but fortunately the main highway south is found north outside of town. 

Return back to Kalispell after an enjoyable day.  Stay tuned for the Going to the Sun Road Tour on Saturday.