THE GEAR JAMMERS CONVENTION

It really wasn’t fair. The worst weather so far this fall -- and we’ve had spates of pretty uncomfortable weather (worse that than if you’re trying to harvest)-- hit just as the Glacier National Park Gear Jammers convention celebrated the Centennial anniversary of the Park itself in East Glacier. Ray Djuff was there -- usually it snows when Ray gets to the Park -- once so badly that he woke up to discover he was the only one left in his motel. Even the owners had gone, leaving him a note and a shovel.

This time Ray was an organizer and had asked me to speak about Bob Scriver, specifically in terms of the Scriver Museum of Montana Wildlife, which had been on the Park tours for the last fifty years. Since I couldn’t remember what time I was supposed to be scheduled, I went up in near-dark to get there by nine AM. I was a little daunted to drive through the underpass and confront the Big Hotel with a giant white marquee tent -- the kind used for weddings in the Hamptons -- pitched in the middle of the putting green out front of the grand old log hulk of the lodge. The famous English border garden along the front path was only a little raggedy but the footing was uncertainly slick.

Leaving everything (including the bronze of “Lone Cowboy” I had brought for show and tell) in the pickup, I went up to the lobby, seething with masses of middle-aged to outright elderly former Gear-Jammers and their wives. The majority of attendees were being loaded into the famous Thirties open tour buses, now proudly rebuilt and restored to their bright red glory, to cross Logan Pass in the fog. In a way they wouldn’t even notice because their heads and talk were so full of stories from the past: embarrassments, near-deaths, pickles and triumphs. As one man said, “That summer job as a Gear Jammer opened up the world for me. I was never the same again.” He became a geologist. (Also a Unitarian.)

These men (no women) were carefully chosen for good judgment, mechanical savvy, person skills, and (I suspect) good looks. Most of them seemed to have hung on to those qualities. The oldest Gear Jammer was in his nineties. Some wives had been maids at the complex of hotels, or waitresses (there were also waiters) who were given preference if they had musical or theatrical skills. The performances at Many Glacier were seedbeds for many careers, great and small but always proud.

The original pattern for this complex of hotels was European with hiking paths connecting lodges. The idea was for the Great Northern to be the feeder for the destination. Since the headquarters of the railroad was in Minneapolis, at first many of the employees were healthy Scandinavian descendants of Minneapolis railroad employees, but the advertising leaned heavily on the mythology of the American Indian, specifically Blackfeet, among whom the conviction had taken deep root that Two Guns Whitecalf was the model for the head of the Buffalo Nickel. Ray has been investigating this claim along with his other treks through archives and stacks. For a while Blackfeet in splendid buckskin parade suits and full Sioux headdress met all the trains and presenting evening programs.

But ordinary rez folks were not welcome, including Bob Scriver and I. The idea was that this was an elegant resort and people should be dressed up, which we weren’t. Then in the days of Red Empowerment it occurred to the tribe that employment in the Park was a no-brainer and they forced the issue, so almost every clerk and maid was Indian. Now the tide is running towards Europe again. Brownie’s, which admittedly is not the Big Hotel but houses many kids for the summer in the Youth Hostel upstairs, employs SIX Lithuanian women (young and beautiful, oh yes) who return year after year. In the winter they go to ski resorts. They are, quite simply, resort professionals. Now once again after supper the Blackfeet come to the lodge to give talks in front of the giant fireplaces, but they are the likes of Jack Gladstone, CD’s available, professional Blackfeet troubadour.

Not many people attended my talk, maybe twenty, but they held their focus while slowly freezing and didn’t leave quickly. My own breath was coming in a plume. They did remember and they had stories to tell, though many were retired and it was clear that the world had passed some of them by -- sometimes in ways they were not aware of, like all the computer access. “Where can I get this?” “Go to the computer.” “Oh, I never touch those things.” “Get a twelve-year-old to help you.” I thought twelve was not too embarrassingly young. Actually most five-year-olds are fairly competent now.

The Great National Park systems were brilliant in several ways. First of all, they really were cathedrals to a lot of people, though I get sick of hearing them raved about just because they are steep mountains and you can see a long way. Second, for the people who work there in summer -- often returning year after year -- they are a reservoir of friendship, experience, and testing that is quite comparable and maybe superior to a classroom. Third, for the local people who actually interact with these folks, they are access to the “outside.” When you live in “God’s Country,” as we arrogantly claim, it’s easy to ignore the rest of the world.

But I could NOT get my audience to understand who Indians are, as various and unaccountable as any other group. I could not get them to see writing as anything but a clever bourgeois pursuit rather like needlepoint, best devoted to friendly subjects. I didn’t even try to get them to see (and did not try) that the “glaciers” are nearly gone and that it is near the end of whatever the warming period of the planet is called. But I think that the man to whom plate tectonics came as a thunderclap in the news while he was driving a red bus full of Minneapolis matrons over Logan Pass -- that man understands without me having to tell him. I said, “Geology is nearly theology,” and he nodded.