Headwaters

Switchback is a 20th century history of Glacier National Park. A collection of turning points in the American story as seen from Glacier National Park. The series explores moments when perspectives changed and when people reconsidered who, and what, belongs in a national park.

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

TRAILER 1 Peri: [building synth music] Headwaters is a podcast about how Glacier National Park is connected to everything else. Sound effects: [Door squealing open, footsteps] Daniel [to Peri]: Okay, Peri, we're going into the library. What are you. What are you hoping to find today? Peri [to Daniel]: So this season, which we're calling "Switchback," has a lot of primary research in it. It's about 20th century history. Daniel [to Peri]: Yeah, we've interviewed historians, we've gone in the archives... you know— Peri [to Daniel]: We've also gotten to talk to and interview a lot of people who lived through these stories. Daniel [to Peri]: It's not just about Glacier. Peri [to Daniel]: Yeah, it is about Glacier, but it's also about a lot more. [drumbeat] Peri: We tell natural and cultural stories about the role that national parks play in the American project. Peri [to Daniel]: That's one of the things we've done a lot, is look through old newspapers. And the back issues are bound in this [laughing] gigantic book that's like three feet tall. Each of these weighs like 15 pounds [paper rustling]. Peri: [synth music fades in] This season of Headwaters is a six-episode exploration of the 20th century history of Glacier National Park, [pages turning] asking what it really means to belong here. Daniel [to Peri]: [pages turning] Okay, so Peri is flipping through the Hungry Horse News. Peri [to Daniel]: There's just random local coverage, like here there's a photo [laughing] of a little boy with a skunk. The caption reads: "Stinky eats dog food, liverwurst, ice cream, and is real affectionate."[beat drops] Peri: The first episode explores changes in fire management over time. Peri [in the field]: [helicopter blades whirring in background] I bet they're going to repel out of that helicopter. [high-pitched] Oh look they dropped the line! Rick Trembath: So in 1967, fire was all bad. We very aggressively fought fire. Jane Kapler Smith: The approach to fire was growing... it was developing. Dr. Stephen Pyne: This was an agency wide trauma. Peri: Then we studied two eras, the 1930s and the 1960s. Moments when the federal government tried to confront its own racism. [beat drops] Dr. Turkiya Lowe: The CCC mandated that there be no discrimination based on race, which at the time, was ab-so-lutely bold. Director Robert Stanton: I lived my first 23 years, under that insidious doctrine of separate but equal. Peri: Next, [beat drops] a caravan of cars plows through wilderness and a road is built to nowhere. Suzanne Nobles: The projects and the funding in Mission 66 literally went to roads and car infrastructure. Dr. Perri Meldon: We wouldn't have been able to enjoy the park in the way we did if it weren't for these roads. Suzanne Nobles: Environmental groups felt like natural spaces were essentially just being trounced. Mary Ann Donovan: I did come across a tarred-over amphibian [laughs]. Daniel [to Mary Ann Donovan]: Oh wow. Like it had gotten run over and then it had gotten paved over? Mary Ann Donovan: [laughing] And then it got tarr— paved-over. Daniel [to Mary Ann Donovan]: Wow. Peri: In an episode about World War Two, Glacier becomes a surprising crucible for antiwar movements. People fight for their convictions, for better and worse. Marc Johnson: There was no year that was more tumultuous than 1941. Titus Peachey: My whole life has been very shaped by the issues of war and peace. Marc Johnson: He was making common cause with anybody. He did not do nearly enough to distance himself from the anti-Semitic attitudes that gripped a portion of the America First movement. [beat drops] Peri: Another episode follows Glacier's rivers downstream to the dams that block them. Courtney Stone: What did it mean to protect lands via the National Park Service? If we could flood them with a dam. Dr. Shawn Bailey: Change any one variable? And I think there's a— you know, there's a decent chance this dam gets built. Brian Lipscomb: This is an important cultural site for us. This is a powerful place for us as Tribal people. And you're going to put a dam here. Peri: The final episode is about glaciers, historic gatherings of bald eagles. Migration becomes a theme that challenges our ideas of home. Dave Shea: So our maximum count on one day was 639 bald eagles. Becky Williams: The largest concentration, south of Canada and Alaska. Dave Shea: It was another exotic species in the park. So even though the whole thing was not natural... Mary McFadzen: It was just spectacular. Harriet Allen: I think, you know, recognizing how quickly [laughing] something like that can be lost when you think, oh no, they'll be here forever, and there's so many. Archival Audio: [distorted] Today's national park system is both more and less than it might be. Peri: This season is called Switchback. It's about moments when history's path took a turn. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Music: ["More and Less" by Frank Waln plays]

This season of Headwaters is a six-episode exploration of the 20th century history of Glacier National Park—asking what it really means to belong here.

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Lacy: [music] Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy. Peri: Headwaters is a podcast about how Glacier National Park is connected to everything else. [building synth] Dr. Stephen Pyne: This was an agency wide trauma. Dr. Turkiya Lowe: The CCC mandated that there be no discrimination based on race, which at the time was absolutely bold. [drumbeat starts] Peri: We tell natural and cultural stories about the role that national parks play in the American project. Brian Lipscomb: This is an important cultural site for us. This is a powerful place for us as Tribal people. And you're going to put a dam here. Director Robert Stanton: [tense building synth] I lived my first 23 years of that insidious doctrine of separate but equal. Dr. Turkiya Lowe: This season of Headwaters is a six-episode exploration of the 20th century history of Glacier National Park, asking what it really means to belong here. Dr. Shawn Bailey: Change any one variable. And I think there's a there's a decent chance this dam gets built. Suzanne Nobles: Environmental groups felt like natural spaces were essentially just being... trounced. Marc Johnson: There was no year that was more tumultuous than 1941. Titus Peachey: There were large numbers of people who had deeply held religious convictions against the war. [music fades out] Marc Johnson: He was making common cause with anybody. [building tense synth] He did not do nearly enough to distance himself from the anti-Semitic [drumbeat starts] attitudes that gripped a portion of the America First movement. Jane Kapler Smith: People were astounded and I think also terrified. Peri: This season is called Switchback. It's about moments when history's path took a turn. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Mary Ann Donovan: I did come across a tarred-over amphibian. [laughs] Daniel: Oh wow. Like it had gotten run over, and then had gotten paved over. Mary Ann Donovan: Had gotten tarr—paved over. Daniel: Wow. Music: [music fades out]

How did the Going-to-the-Sun Road get its name? What's the difference between "the east side" and East Glacier? Take a shallow dip into place names of Glacier in this short bonus episode. Send us your questions for future episodes at [email protected] with the subject "Headwaters."

Glacier Conservancy: glacier.org Frank Waln music: www.instagram.com/frankwaln Stella Nall art: stellanall.com

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

[mellow beat playing]

Peri Sasnett: Welcome to Headwaters. This is a science and history show from Glacier National Park.

Daniel Lombardi: I'm Daniel.

Peri: And I'm Peri.

Daniel: This show is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy, as always.

Peri: And this is a bonus episode for those of you planning a trip to Glacier sometime soon.

[mellow beat fading]

Daniel: So not so much as a deep dive, as much as...

Peri: A shallow... a dip.

Daniel: A quick dip. Okay, we're going to talk about place names. [beat plays briefly] I think the place names around here can be a little confusing.

Peri: I remember when I started here and people just were throwing out, like, Many Glacier and the North Fork and the Middle Fork. It's very confusing.

Daniel: There's a lot of forks.

Peri: This is true.

Daniel: So, first of all, we're talking about Glacier National Park in Montana.

Peri: There is also a Glacier National Park in Canada, and also Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska.

Daniel: Not those. We're talking about Montana.

Peri: Okay, so just to note up front, a lot of place names in Glacier come from a lot of different languages, perhaps least of all English. Originally the landscape had a lot of names from Salish, Blackfoot, Kootenai, and Cree languages. Then, French trappers came into the area and lots of other people have come here over the years with lots of different names for many of the same places.

Daniel: So if you're encountering a name that you're not understanding right away, it might be because it's a name coming from a language that you are not familiar with.

Peri: Right, or like a direct translation from a language that is not English. I always reach for a book called "Place Names of Glacier National Park." [beat plays briefly]

Daniel: I got it right here. This is probably the best book that I know of that it's, you know, a few hundred pages of all of the place names from a park map and it's got a little bit of history of all of them.

Peri: Yeah, here's maybe my favorite quote from that book. It says, "Each language portrays a universe of its own and it will often be difficult to fit the universe of one language into the universe of another," which kind of speaks to what we were talking about earlier where all these names come from all these different languages and they don't always make sense in translation.

Daniel: Yeah, I like that. That's interesting. All right, well, with that in mind, Peri, let's, uh, start really broad. [beat plays briefly] Take me around the park. I know that the North Fork has nothing to do with like a spoon or a fork, but it has something to do with a river. So maybe start there. What's the North Fork?

Peri: Okay, so the North Fork refers to the north fork of the Flathead River, which splits into three forks. One comes down from the north along the west edge of the park.

Peri and Daniel: Confusing.

Peri: Yeah.

Peri: The Middle Fork flows along the south of the park, also confusing, and the South Fork is not in the park. Did that help?

Daniel: Uh, okay. But at any rate, they're all forks of the Flathead River and they all come together to form the main stem of the Flathead River.

Peri: Yeah, which flows west of the park towards the Flathead Valley.

Daniel: Right. Now, I hear people talk about the east side a lot. [beat plays briefly] There's more to it than that, though.

Peri: Yes, so the east side of Glacier has a series of big valleys, each with more or less confusing names. So there's Many Glacier, St. Mary, which some people call St. Mary’s, it's controversial, and Two Medicine.

Daniel: Okay.

Peri: And then there's a town called East Glacier, which is not the same as the whole east side. East Glacier also has its own history of many different names.

Daniel: Yeah.

Peri: It, at one point, was called a Glacier Station, because the railroad stops there. And it also was called Midvale.

Daniel: Yeah.

Peri: So in 1950, they changed it to East Glacier. [beat plays briefly] And we are on the west side. We are in the town of West Glacier, which is near Lake McDonald and Apgar.

Daniel: Yeah, okay. Yes, West Glacier, according to the Holterman book, was formerly called Belton, and then they changed the name just so it would be more friendly to tourists, I guess.

Peri: Or more confusing?

Daniel: Maybe. So it used to be called Belton, but today it's called West Glacier. And again, it goes without saying probably that Indigenous people have their own names for these places. The Kootenai have a word for the Belton area that means something like Spotted Foot Mountains.

Peri: Okay, so three of the main entrances to the park are [beat plays briefly] West Glacier, East Glacier, and St. Mary. I feel like we probably confused people even more about those, but.

Daniel: Well, let's zoom in. What's in between West Glacier and St. Mary?

Peri: Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Daniel: That's what everyone's here for.

Peri: This is true.

Daniel: So it's --.

Peri: A road to the sun.

Daniel: Yes, Going-to-the-Sun Road is not between East Glacier and West Glacier.

Peri: That's Highway 2.

Daniel: But between St. Mary and West Glacier is Going-to-the-Sun Road. Now, Jack Holterman here has a little bit of history on the name, Going-to-the-Sun Road. You would expect nothing less.

Peri: I would not.

Daniel: Okay, "This most unforgettable name in Glacier turns out to be a bit disappointing. Well, at least if we follow James Willard Schultz, who bluntly told the Geographic Board of Names in 1929, quote, "I myself named Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, there is no Indian legend in connection with its name."" But then Jack Holterman goes on to explain that there actually were a bunch of different Indigenous legends associated with that mountain and with similar names.

Peri: Okay, so James Willard Schultz is a big character that pops up a lot in Glacier.

Daniel: In early park history.

Peri: Yeah, and something that I learned just a few years ago is that when you look at the map in Glacier, you see a lot of names that you might think are native names for things like Going-to-the-Sun Mountain or Rising Wolf Mountain, all of these places. However, James Willard Schultz actually applied those names to all those features that probably already had different, much longer standing Indigenous names and probably many different ones from many different tribes.

Daniel: So in some ways, some of these names are kind of a blending of Euro-American early trapper explorer names mixed up with the Indigenous names that existed at that time.

Peri: Yeah, and confusingly, James Willard Schultz did a combination of naming things because he thought certain names sounded cool, but also naming places in honor of actual Indigenous people.

Daniel: People he was friends with.

Peri: Yeah, his contemporaries.

Daniel: [beat plays briefly] Yeah, so I guess we've just made this all more confusing than it started.

Peri: I'd like to think we've sparked some interest, perhaps, for people.

Daniel: At the very least, all I can say is, you know, take out your park map and ask some questions.

Peri: Yeah, there's a lot of overlapping eras of history here and a lot different cultures that have been a part of this landscape.

Daniel: And names really kind of capture all of that history in an interesting way.

Peri: Totally.

Daniel: Well, this has just been a quick dive into some park names and history. We'll be releasing some new episodes soon, so stay tuned.

Peri: And if you have more questions in the meantime, or if you wanna try and stump the ranger, we love trivia questions.

Daniel: So you can send us an email.

Peri: Yes. At glac underscore media underscore lab at nps dot gov.

[mellow beat playing]

Daniel: We'll put that in the show notes, too.

Peri: If you want to learn more about what the Glacier Conservancy does, you can visit their website at glacier.org.

Daniel: You can also just support the show directly by leaving a review in Apple podcasts. It used to be called iTunes, but Apple podcast or, you know,

Peri: You're really dating yourself.

Daniel: Whatever app you use for podcasts, go leave us a review, even if you haven't listened to all of Headwaters yet, you're not sure you like it.

Peri: Just give us five stars anyway.

Daniel: Yeah, and then go back and listen to the past five years of episodes that we have. There's a lot of good stuff out there and we got more coming, so stay tuned.

Peri: If you like the show, tell your friends about it.

Daniel: Thanks for listening!

[mellow beat fading]

A conversation with Katie Pfennigs, who is the Director of External Affairs and Energy Services at the Flathead Electric Cooperative. This episode was recorded in May 2024.

Headwaters is created by Daniel Lombardi, Gaby Eseverri, Peri Sasnett, and Madeline Vinh.

Glacier Conservancy: glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: www.instagram.com/stella.nall/

Climate change in Glacier: www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Lacy: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Peri: This is Headwaters, a show about how Glacier National Park is connected to everything else. My name is Peri, and I'm speaking into a microphone pretty much entirely powered with renewable electricity. That's because the Pacific Northwest has a lot of big hydroelectric dams, but also because Glacier has been installing rooftop solar to supplement the power we draw from the grid. This episode is part of our Climate Conversations series about how the world is being altered by the burning of fossil fuels. Over the past century and a half, human activity has emitted enough greenhouse gases to warm the Earth's climate more than one degree Celsius, with more warming on the way. Daniel has been sitting down with experts to talk about how that warming is altering Glacier National Park, our lives and our futures. Like a lot of places, we are transitioning away from fossil fuels here at the park. That means swapping fossil fuel appliances and vehicles with electric alternatives. [mellow beat beginsto play ] As you'll hear in this episode, this is not an easy transition. To do it, we're going to need a lot more electricity -- something like three times more than we currently generate in America. But according to the nonprofit Rewiring America, the good news is that because electricity is so much more efficient, will only need about half as much energy as we're currently using. These climate conversations don't have to be listened to in any order. Each one stands on its own. This one was recorded in the spring of 2024 when my co-host, Daniel, talked with Katie Pfennigs from Flathead Electric Co-op, which is the organization that provides power to the west side of the park. I think I might have learned more from this one than any other in the series, so I hope you enjoy it.

Daniel: Welcome to Headquarters. We're going to talk about climate and electricity and electrical solutions to climate change. Could you introduce yourself? And I'm curious what you like about your job at Flathead Electric Co-op.

Katie: Sure. I'm Katie Pfennigs. I am the community relations manager at Flathead Electric Co-op. It's a lot of fun.

Daniel: Yeah. What do you think's kept you there for almost a decade?

Katie: You know, I grew up in the Flathead. I came back after my undergraduate work, and I just-- I love this area. I love this community. And working at a co-op is so community based. Really, it's just it just feels like a way for me to to have a really positive and significant impact on the community that I love.

Daniel: Yeah, say more about that. What is an electric co-op?

Katie: So kind of a unique, a unique business model. But a cooperative is actually owned by all of the members that we serve. So if you pay a bill to Flathead Electric for your electricity, you are in fact, an owner of the co-op. There is no-- no profit. There are no shareholders. So really, it's just a really neat way to operate a business. Very, very member centric.

Daniel: So nationally there are for-profit electric companies, I assume?

Katie: Yes.

Daniel: And they they create electricity and send it to their customers in order to generate a profit. But that's not what Flathead electric Co-op does.

Katie: Exactly.

Daniel: It's community owned.

Katie: Exactly. Yes. Yep. We were, you know, when we we were very first started it was during the time right after the Rural Electrification Act, which, you know, that act was landmark legislation that that really changed the way that rural America looked in that it provided opportunities for some of the rural parts of our country that had no access to electricity. You know, Flathead Electric is is like all other co-ops in that we had a group of farmers who who came together and pooled resources and got some funding through the Rural Electrification Act to start Flathead Electric Co-op and started very, very small. And we've grown today to serve just over 58,000 members.

Daniel: So the Rural Electrification Act, REA, it was a New Deal, Great Depression-era program. 1936.

Katie: Yes. And then Flathead Electric was was founded in 1937. Following that.

Daniel: My understanding was basically rural areas like this one, like Montana, there wasn't enough money to be made for for-profit electric companies to string power lines out to ranches and small towns.

Katie: You've got it. Yeah. At the time. At the time, a lot of people thought that electrifying the rural parts of our country just was not economically feasible or just could not happen. So it did take legislation to accomplish that, that goal.

Daniel: Wow. And now so that was it was about 90 years ago. And Flathead Electric Co-op has been here ever since then.

Katie: We have. And we've grown and, you know, since then went through a fairly large acquisition. And and we're somewhat unique in that we don't only serve rural areas. A lot of the co-ops in the country just serve the the rural areas, the outskirts of the the municipalities. But Flathead Electric actually serves the municipal areas of, you know, Kalispell, Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Bigfork, and then all the way up to Libby as well, which does make us a little bit unique in the co-op world and also contributes to us being the largest co-op in in the state of Montana by a long shot and second largest utility to Northwestern Energy that's an investor owned utility.

Daniel: Okay. Do you think Flathead Electric, is it also a an energy utility? Is that the category you'd put it in or is that a little different?

Katie: I would put us in the category of an electric utility.

Daniel: Okay.

Katie: Energy really is a much broader concept than electricity. You know, energy really is just the ability to to do work. And electricity is a form of energy where you're taking that work and running it through some sort of a generation facility, you know, whether that's hydropower, so-- which is what powers most of our area, you're right. But that's, you know, taking that that running water, that motion and running it through a hydroelectric dam to generate electricity and then transmitting that to power homes to do a different type of work. Right? In homes and businesses.

Daniel: Yeah. Okay. Here in Glacier, we are then dealing with multiple utilities because we use we're using propane or using natural gas often to heat our buildings. But then we're working with Flathead Electric Co-op. We're getting electricity to run our computers and turn the lights on and everything.

Katie: You know, when someone has access to natural gas, typically that's what they're using for their home, home heating and water heating, which are the two biggest users of electricity or energy in a home, and then the park is very similar. So you might have electrically powered lights and outlets and, you know, whatever whatever else your needs are that aren't hooked to natural gas, aren't hooked to propane.

Daniel: Yeah, exactly. We have a combination of both in Glacier. And one of the downsides to that is that there's quite a bit more greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning fossil fuels like gas and propane. But before we get into that, a big thing that you deal with then is the grid. What is the grid?

Katie: Right. So the grid, if we're just talking about the physical grid, is everything from the generating facility -- so again, I'll use hydropower as as my example here because that's the world I live in. And so everything from the hydroelectric dam, And then that power is then transmitted, right? You have to always have to get power from where it's generated to where it's needed. And the way that that's done is through the rest of the grid, which is a transmission system of of high voltage transmission lines and then a series of substations and transformers that transform that, that high-voltage electricity into a lower voltage that can be carried over a series of distribution lines. And that's what Flathead Electric does as a-- we're a distribution co-op. So we build the distribution system, which is the part of the grid that carries it carries that power to homes and businesses in our service area where that power is again stepped down. So that it can be served right into your your home or your business or whatever that need may be. So there's another another step in that grid.

Daniel: Okay.

Katie: So everything from the generating facility through the transmission system in the substations and then our distribution system and right to where it gets to your your home would be considered the grid.

Daniel: Well, then let's go to the first step in that process. Generation, electrical generation around here, we have several hydroelectric facilities and like regionally, there's a lot of hydroelectric power. So where does Flathead Electric get its electricity?

Katie: Yeah. So the vast majority of our power comes from the Bonneville Power Administration, which is the federal power marketing agency that was formed to market the power coming from federal projects. Most of those federal projects are the federal Columbia River Hydropower System, which is a series of 31 federal hydro projects all throughout the Columbia River Basin, including two that happen to live right in our service area, right? The one I drove by as I was coming up here, Hungry Horse Dam, is what most people are familiar with in our area, but we also serve-- our service area goes up to Libby Montana, which is where the Libby Dam is located. And both of those are federal hydro projects. So, yes, that power is generated by those dams and then a series throughout the rest of the Columbia River basin all the way out to the Pacific Ocean. So everywhere between here and here and there, Idaho, Washington, Oregon.

Daniel: So for the most part, most of the electricity used at least on the west side of Glacier National Park, it's coming from hydroelectric facilities.

Katie: Yes. Well, all the electricity, I mean, really almost all the electricity purchased from Flathead Electric specifically would be coming from those hydroelectric facilities. Yes.

Daniel: But that said, there are wires that all connect to a greater grid that's regionally greater and I suppose even nationally larger.

Katie: Yes. So we are we're part of-- from the transmission system perspective, we're part of what's called the Western Interconnect. And that's really... Most of the Western United States is all interconnected through a giant transmission system. And that allows us to balance the grid, which is obviously very important. You have to to keep the lights on. You have to have the supply of electricity and the demand for electricity have to match up exactly at any given minute to keep the grid in balance. And so having, you know, more of that interconnection helps us regionally do more of that.

Daniel: And on that larger grid than there are lots of generating facilities. There's coal plants and not just hydro, there's solar, there's all kinds of things, right? But locally we can say that pretty much all the electrons we're getting here are from hydroelectric.

Katie: Yeah, I would say I think it's about 85% of our power mix is, you know, those large hydro projects. We've also got, Bonneville also markets a nuclear project, which is about 10% of our portfolio. But overall, yes, Flathead Electric's power mix is 96% carbon free, which is it's just really great for our service area. We're very, very proud of that.

Daniel: That's cool.

Katie: Yeah, we have developed a few local generation projects. They're fairly small projects, but they're still just a great addition to our power mix and locally generated power, which is pretty exciting. So we've got two existing community solar projects and then one that we'll be breaking ground on early this summer. Actually, we're just in the final stages of selling the generation from that project. And then we've also got a landfill gas to energy. So it's methane, taking the methane gas that is produced at a landfill and turning that into electricity. And then we've also got partnership with Stoltza here for a biomass generator. We purchase the power that is created at that facility, and we've got a couple of partnerships for some small hydro projects within our service area as well. And then more and more we're seeing, you know, our members are also joining us as part of the of the generation mix in that they're generating some of their own power as well, not unlike the park up here with the with the solar panels and small hydro projects that exist here. [mellow beat begins to play]

Daniel: Yeah, we've got solar panels on this rooftop right here.

Katie: You do. [beat finishes playing, marking the transition]

Daniel: Well, we're lucky then, here at Glacier National Park because we're looking for electricity that comes without much or any greenhouse gas emissions. So we're really lucky that we have solar here, but we have that most of the electricity where we're getting is relatively carbon-free coming from hydroelectric systems.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah. We're very, very fortunate to have access to the federal hydro system, not only as, you know, hydropower, non-carbon generating resource, but it's also an extremely affordable and reliable, you know, most importantly, as we as, we start to look at significant resource adequacy concerns on our our grid as a whole, that reliability piece is really critical. And what makes it reliable is the ability to ramp it up and down instantaneously to meet the demand that's on the system, right? So we talked about that supply and demand having to be in constant balance and hydropower allows us to keep that in balance as well.

Daniel: So the other great thing about hydro is that it's like the gas- or the coal-fired power plants that are adjustable in that you can pretty easily adjust the amount of electricity you're you're creating and that it's creating electricity, whether it's dark out, whether it's winter or summer. There are real baseload source of electricity.

Katie: Yeah, it's an incredible resource. My favorite by far and, you know, completely renewable. Obviously, the water continues to go through the river and, and it rains and snows again, and it melts, and it-- and the whole system starts over. And yes, we can ramp it up. We can ramp it down to meet expected loads. So, I mean, really, it's kind of the original renewable. Yeah, that's what I like to refer to it as.

Daniel: So hydro is a really important part of the electric transition. It's really important. Part of our solution to climate change really is, you know, getting us a lot of baseload electricity that's relatively carbon free. That said, there are some downsides. We don't want to dam every river for a lot of reasons.

Katie: Right, yes.

Daniel: And that, you know, a lot of the good hydro spots are taken. They're established. It's not like we can just scale up hydro very easily anymore.

Katie: No, we're not going to be building any more large hydro projects. I mean, it's very difficult to site any generation project. But yes, I don't see us-- I don't see us doing that.

Daniel: Yeah. Because then as we're-- as Glacier, as the country, as the region is looking to get more and more of our electricity from sources that don't release greenhouse gases that warm the climate, we are going to need more electricity and less natural gas, less propane, that kind of thing. So there's only so much hydro we can build. So we have, there's some other resources like solar and wind. Let's compare that then to the landfill gas. What do you call that?

Katie: Yes. Landfill methane gas to energy plant.

Daniel: How does that one work?

Katie: So in that case, we are-- we've actually got wells drilled at the landfill. So they're like vertical and horizontal pipes that run through the the trash itself, because methane gas is is generated by all of our garbage. Right. And that's what typically what gets flared off at a landfill. That's where you see the flares. They're burning off that methane because you don't want to put methane straight, methane into the atmosphere. Right.

Daniel: So as the garbage, as the-- as our trash...

Katie: Decomposes.

Daniel: It releases methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Either way, whether you burn it off or just release it, you are releasing greenhouse gases. Yeah. But the idea is you might as well, if you're releasing it, you might as well get some electricity from it.

Katie: So you're actually able to extract that gas out of the landfill through the the piping system, vacuum it out and run it through. Cleaning process and then through a very large generator that's right there on the facility that's interconnected into our grid. And we can produce electricity literally from our trash, which is pretty amazing.

Daniel: Yeah, that's interesting. Lots of the Flathead Electric Co-op members have solar panels on the roof, including us, including in this building. That's great. What are the downsides to that? I mean, the upside is that it creates electricity for free from the sun with pretty much no greenhouse gases. Yeah, it's good for the climate, but we maybe live in a climate, you know, that's it's like it's very cloudy.

Katie: You're looking outside at the cloudy, cloudy, rainy day, right? [laughing].

Daniel: Yeah.

Katie: I the challenge with with solar and wind is really in its intermittency.

Daniel: Meaning it it's not happening all the time. It's not always sunny.

Katie: Yeah. And so we're able to produce a lot of electricity actually. You know, in some cases when you look to the California market, for instance, they're producing way too much, right? So that creates a whole another challenge. They're producing way too much solar when they don't don't need it. But the difficulty, you know, especially when you look at at our area, is that when we need power most to meet like that instantaneous load at peak load, typically there is almost no solar energy being produced and the wind is typically not blowing in those cases either.

Daniel: So is that because our peak loads are like at dawn and dusk when it's not as bright out?

Katie: Exactly. Or they're happening-- you know, we're a winter peaking facility or winter peaking utility, which means that our peak load happens in the winter months. And those-- our daylight hours are short, right?

Daniel: Yeah.

Katie: So almost all of our winter peaks happen in the dark. You know, from a utility planning standpoint, what we're concerned about are only really the peaks. It really isn't that we don't have enough electricity, we don't have an electricity shortage -- we have an electricity shortage during our peaks. And it's not just a shortage of power. It's also a shortage of the transmission that we need to get power from one place to another. Our system's historical peak load that we've ever hit just happened in January during that extraordinarily cold snap, right? Mid January. None of us are going to forget that one.[chuckles] And we hit, you know, what, -40?

Daniel: It was cold.

Katie: It was cold! And we I mean, our system was really it was pushed to the brink. And not just, you know, our system, but regionally. We were we were pushed to the brink of what we have to meet those peaks from a transmission and generation standpoint. And that's pretty scary as we start talking about, you know, resources going away that are helping us meet those peak demands and replacing those resources with something that wasn't generating any power when we needed it. Right then, there was no wind and no solar being generated when we hit that peak.

Daniel: So we're in kind of a bind with climate change, in that globally, there's a tremendous need to reduce our emissions that come from generating electricity through gas and coal power plants. But on the other hand, global warming is not significant enough in Montana that we don't still have cold snaps, that it's not still dark and cold in the winter. So we still need electricity when...

Katie: We do [laughs]. We do. It's it is a challenge. And, you know, I think ultimately most of us all want the same thing. Right? But the how we get there is the challenge. And from a utility planning perspective, it's definitely a concerning time as we look at what this transition is going to look like and not only from a again, a reliability perspective, but how do we keep electric rates affordable with the amount of generating resources and transmission infrastructure that needs to be built to support the load growth expected in our region? I -- it keeps me up at night.

Daniel: So one of the challenges you're describing is that we are phasing out things like coal and natural gas because.

Katie: Yes, those "always on" resources, right?

Daniel: Yeah, those have a lot of greenhouse gas emissions associated with them, a lot of air pollution associated with them. So in many ways this is a good transition to be making. But the problem is at the same time we're increasing the amount of electricity we need.

Katie: Yes. So that's that's a challenge.

Daniel: That's a challenge.

Katie: No matter how you look at it. That's a challenge that we have to overcome. Right?

Daniel: And that we're increasing the need, partly because we're building data centers, we're building like, server farms, but also just population growth is increasing.

Katie: Yeah.

Daniel: People are plugging more things in. On top of that, on sort of the user end, there is an electrification transition happening, where people are electrifying their weed eaters and lawnmowers.

Katie: Yep.

Daniel: They're electrifying their cars. All of these have really positive effects as well. Like there's a lot of air pollution and greenhouse gases associated with those tools.

Katie: Right.

Daniel: Those small two stroke engines generate a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. They generate a lot of air pollution. It's great to electrify them. Plus they're quieter and more efficient.

Katie: A lot of people like them a lot better. Right?

Daniel: Yeah. But that increases the need for more electricity on the grid.

Katie: You've got it.

Daniel: Another thing then, I guess, is locally, solar can't fill in all the gaps. Wind can't fill in all the gaps. We've got hydro. That's great. But we can't fill in all the gaps with other renewables. If we zoom out and look at a bigger region, you know, our region or nationally, you could imagine that we could get solar electricity from Arizona when we're having a cold snap here in Montana. But it's not that simple, right?

Katie: It's not that simple.

Daniel: What's the problem there?

Katie: So the transmission system itself needs significant infrastructure additions to be able to facilitate that.

Daniel: Basically, they're the wires that connect us, that connect Montana to the solar panels in Southern California -- those wires don't exist to a good enough degree to to get us out of this.

Katie: Right. And who pays for that infrastructure need, you know, the billions and billions of dollars of infrastructure that would be needed to make something like that happen. So, you know, that that in and of itself is a massive challenge. And we really, you know, can't possibly overstate that, from not only the cost challenge associated with it, but also just the permitting and, I mean the same way that it's very, very challenging to site generation, it's that much more challenging to site massive transmission lines. Nobody, you know, everybody wants to have power, but nobody wants to look at transmission lines.

Daniel: Of course.

Katie: And so getting those things sited and built, it's massively challenging. There are so many, so many roadblocks. And even I mean, even to get renewable generation built, there are massive, massive roadblocks. Another challenge with wind and solar is just is the land mass challenge, you know, because really today, to accommodate for the intermittency of those resources, even pairing them with batteries, you need about five to-- five to one in terms of the generating capacity to replace a baseload generation resource.

Daniel: So it's this transition in theory, totally works. You know, we have sun shine-- always shining somewhere. We've got wind always blowing somewhere. Plus with our hydro, you know, kind of pulling us along. The problem is that to connect all of this and scale it up costs a lot of money. It takes a lot of work. And paying for that is not easy.

Katie: Paying for that is not easy. Building it in the first place is not easy. Talking about the buildout of, you know, the wind generation, the solar generation, the batteries from a natural resources and rare earth minerals standpoint is challenging. I think we're moving in some positive directions, but it's a much, much larger transition than I think than than we hope, right?

Daniel: If someone's been listening to the other conversations that I've been having in the series, like the consequences of climate change are extraordinary and that on a global scale, the math pencils out pretty well, that it's worth paying for this transition. But those costs are not-- they're not being billed evenly.

Katie: Right. Globally, certainly. Right.

Daniel: Yeah. So the the cost of getting our electricity over the past century and a half from coal and gas has been that it's heated our climate by over a degree Celsius already. It's melting the Park's glaciers. It's doubling the amount of wildfire we're seeing in the past couple of decades already. And all of those impacts are going to continue to get worse. Not to mention all the air pollution that comes from just the burning of those fossil fuels. So it's a critical transition to be making. But it's that doesn't mean it's easy.

Katie: Far from.

Daniel: And then on top of that, some of the impacts of climate change are actually making some of this transition even harder, like wildfire. How is that impacting electric transmission, for example?

Katie: Right. Yes. Speaking of things that keep us up at night, right? I mean, obviously, our region has has seen a lot more wildfire. And it's really, really difficult keeping poles and wires safe and and also not having any of of our system cause wildfire.

Daniel: That is basically that since it's getting hotter and drier, the risk of lighting-- or accidentally starting...

Katie: Of igniting...

Daniel: A wildfire from a power line... That's a real serious risk.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely.

Daniel: Another one could be climate change-exacerbated drought or, you know, if we have really low snowpack, we're a little low this year if we have--

Katie: We're quite low this year.

Daniel: Yeah. So that matters for electricity generation when we're so dependent on hydro.

Katie: It does. Yeah. That has certainly has an impact on the hydro system. You know, we've been very fortunate to have our hydro system have excellent years. But, you know, certainly.

Daniel: This is something you're watching.

Katie: Certainly something we're watching. You know, the other thing that I would mention is just extreme weather in general and the strain that it can create on the grid. So again, we're winter peaking. So we saw some of our coldest temperatures we've ever seen just this past winter. And that was, you know, that produced our peak loads in our area. But in other parts of the region where they're summer peaking, and maybe seeing some more extreme temperatures on the warmer side, you know, that that creates, you know, high loads as well that need to be met, which produces grid strain. Right? The higher the load, the higher the peak demand that needs to be met, the more potential strain on the grid. So just extreme weather in both directions, hot or cold has a grid impact. And, of course, extreme weather events like storms, you know, wind, flooding.

Daniel: Yeah.

Katie: All of which we've seen we just dealt with in our service area with flooding, here in the last couple of years as well. That took out a whole bunch of our system. So, yes, extreme weather in general is a threat to us, to the grid.

Daniel: Yeah. Maybe just to reiterate one of these points, it's frustrating that climate change is obviously increasing the temperatures in the winter in this area and all over the place. It's-- it's the winters are getting on average warmer and so are the summers. The summers are getting on average hotter. But we're not struggling to generate the electricity so much with the average, we're struggling to generate electricity...

Katie: With the peak.

Daniel: With the peaks.

Katie: Yes.

Daniel: And climate change is not eliminating cold snaps in the winter. So we still need-- we still have high peak demands for electricity during those cold snaps in the winter.

Katie: Absolutely. We are in an extraordinarily challenging time. And, you know, I'm a-- I'm an optimist and I think my role in the utility has also led me to be a realist about some of the energy crisis that we are facing at this time. But I also, as an optimist, I always look for opportunity in these challenges.

Daniel: Do you think you get some of your optimism from the fact knowing that Flathead Electric Co-op was created in a moment of great challenge and transition?

Katie: You know, almost 100 years ago, we were-- we were in a transition. Right, that felt daunting. And that we banded together and formed co-ops.

Daniel: A century or more ago when the Rural Electrification Act was passed. That was a time of great transition, too.

Katie: Yeah.

Daniel: Basically, no one in this area had electricity. There wasn't a grid. So we've overcome big infrastructural transitions like this before.

Katie: We have. Yes. Our predecessors faced significant challenges in electrifying all of rural America. And I think, you know, that that movement really, you know, transformed our our nation and laid a groundwork for, you know, a lot of the prosperity that we enjoy today. And we are definitely sitting at the at the cusp of another of another challenging transition and a time that has potential to be, to be very transformative. Power and electricity, while it was, in the rural electrification times, it was very, very nice to have. Now it's, it's essential. It's an essential part of all of our lives. So we we have to find solutions to keep the lights on. You know, the closest that we've come in our region to not being able to keep the lights on -- and many other regions have already have already experienced rolling blackouts, right? That's what happens when you when you don't have the grid in balance. You either take a take a blackout, right, or you do rolling blackouts across an interconnected grid to balance loads. But the closest that we've come to not being able to to meet those reliability needs is during extreme weather events. And particularly when there is, like, a generating system down, right? So there was a weather event in 2021 where one of the main federal hydro systems was having some maintenance issues. And during that event, you know, we came very, very close to not being able to meet peak demands. We were pushed to the brink again, just here in this winter event that was, you know, a regional cold snap. We were pushing our our grid right up close to the to the edge. We're sitting here talking about it and everyone's like, "yeah, but it's fine. Like, it's been fine." And we're sweating [laughing] as the utility, because we've been working really hard to make sure it's fine. And I don't think we understand how close that we that we have come or could come in the case of an extreme weather event or a generation system going down or a transmission system going down or...

Daniel: You're standing next to a cliff that you're looking at carefully. And most people are like, "what cliff?"

Katie: Right. Exactly. Yes. And then in-- we're also looking at growth forecasts is in the, in the northwest the latest snapshots on the load and demand -- that's the growth that's being forecast -- is between 2024 and 2033. So, you know, more or less the next ten years or less. Is like an eight-- over 18% annual energy growth and a 15% demand growth. And those numbers are huge. Unprecedented. We haven't met growth numbers like that before.

Daniel: You're describing a gap between the amount of electricity needed at peak times and the amount of electricity generated at peak times.

Katie: And transmission.

Daniel: Yeah. So it seems like you could try and solve that problem, overcome that challenge from two different directions. You could try and generate more electricity during peak times by building more solar or whatever. Or you could also try and solve that problem by reducing the peaks, getting people to use less electricity during the peaks, get it-- or getting them to use less electricity overall or less electricity at peak times and use it at different times. I suppose you're trying all of these things.

Katie: Great point. Yes, we-- and we are trying all these things. In fact, in fact, Flathead Electric was just awarded a federal grant. It's called the CIDER Grant. And we're one of five co-ops in the nation who is in this national research study on how distribution co-ops can develop distributed energy programs to work with their-- work closely with their members to control loads during peak times, or incentivize their members to control loads during peak times to to help reduce that grid strain and hopefully reduce the amount of new generation transmission that needs to be built, right. So, you know, right now we are in the midst of an engineering study to look at which programs might work in our area. One of those programs might be working with people who have smart thermostats in their homes to reduce the, you know, the temperature settings by a couple of degrees if we're expecting a peak load event in the summer. Which brings down down our loads, brings on energy costs for everyone. Or in the winter, you know, as the case may be here. Another program that the co-op has has actually offered in the past is a similar program that reduces your water heating load during peak times, which, you know, is good from the standpoint that, of course, it reduces our system load, but it also reduces your own personal load at your home, so it reduces your monthly energy costs and people-- electricity costs, and people really like that.

Daniel: Yeah.

Katie: So it's kind of a win win some of these programs, right? And that's what we're starting to see more of on that, you know, that collaboration side is, yes, regionally collaborating, but also the utilities collaborating more with with their members, as we like to say, as, you know, more grid partners.

Daniel: You're describing-- to me, it sounds like a lot of different ways of making the grid and the way we use electricity... making it smarter,.

Katie: Smarter and more flexible.

Daniel: This is something that utilities, I'm sure, have done for decades or the past century, is just charge more during peak times to try and get people to use less and spread their usage out more.

Katie: Interestingly, yes and no.

Daniel: Hm.

Katie: I think Flathead Electric was probably one of the earlier utilities -- not that there weren't others out there that did that -- we we have historically charged more as you used more energy, right. So this is again, this is that difference between our overall energy, so overall kilowatt hours that you utilize in a month, versus what your peak load at your house was, right. So that demand. And historically we've charged more as you've used more energy as an incentive to for you to not use as much energy. But what we've started doing is actually less emphasis on that piece and more emphasis on what we're, what is called a demand charge, which is based on your your peak demand at your own house. What was your highest load that you hit during our peak hours when where we know when we're strained and we're paying more for power? You know, what was your contribution to that load? And then charging for that accordingly to try to help reduce those peaks. Because again, not-- you know, we're not facing the, the shortage of overall electricity. We're really right now, facing that shortage during those peaks. Which is why, you know, us as the utility or the co-op, you know, we pay more during our our system peaks. And so that really mirrors the way that we're paying for power, to charge our members that way. And it incentivizes them to, you know, make choices that are good for the overall grid as well. But what these these other programs that we're talking about do is add a layer to that, you know, that foundational rate design concept that hopefully makes it more meaningful or more achievable for them to take part in those programs and actually reduce their loads.

Daniel: It's an interesting way to think about it that you're so concerned with peak loads rather than just average loads that your payment structure is actually designed for, that you're able to say like, it's not really about how much electricity you use overall, it's more about when you use it that we're concerned with.

Katie: Right. Yes. Which goes right back into that generation conversation, right. The really-- the generation we're concerned about is the generation that can happen during our peaks. That's when we-- that's when we need it. That's when it costs everyone more for us to buy it, and that's when we need it.

Daniel: If someone wants to pay a little bit less for their electricity, they should use their electric clothes dryer in the middle of the day or the middle of the night. Not use it during those peak load hours.

Katie: Depending on how their utilities rates are structured.

Daniel: Yeah.

Katie: If they're a Flathead Electric--Electric member. Yes. [laughs]

Daniel: And in the future, or even now, technologies that automate that will be really helpful in reducing peak loads.

Katie: Yes.

Daniel: Basically smart thermostats or just a dryer, clothes dryer, that's smart enough to know to run when there's less demand on the system.

Katie: Yeah. And what most people now can really relate to is their dishwasher. Like that's the easy one, right? To me, you know, I'm a-- I'm a mom. I've got two young kids. I've got a full time job. It's really difficult for me to not do laundry when I need to do laundry at this point. But my dishwasher, that's an easy one because I can just set it to run four hours later. So I'm not hitting those peaks.

Daniel: As long as they're clean when you get home...

Katie: Yeah, as long as they're clean when I wake up, then I'm good.

Daniel: What you're looking at, then it's just like, okay, well, how do we actually do that?

Katie: Right? Yeah, it sounds great. And it is. But, but figuring out...

Daniel: Is it something that the utility does? Is it something that the homeowner does? Is it something that the car does, or all three together?

Katie: Like, there are all those options. Yeah. And then even from the utility perspective, is it something that like a regional entity does instead so that there's more of a regional spread, right? So Flathead Electric is a member of PNGC, which is a generation and transmission cooperative that has 18 other public power members throughout the Pacific Northwest. So they have more of a regional look at the grid. So does it make sense to do, you know, some of this load control at the regional perspective, or does it make sense for us as a utility to do it to help more control our distribution grid? So there's all of these questions and all of these considerations and factors that go into it. And then you get down to that more granular piece of, okay but how do we actually do it?

Daniel: Yeah.

Katie: What devices are we actually helping a member manage? How are we actually managing those devices? We're looking also at water heaters, we're looking also at generators, we're looking at battery energy storage systems and net metered systems. And, you know, there are all sorts of potential programs that we could be looking at.

Daniel: And it's kind of an exciting area because it's all unknown. But one or a combination of these things will work. And the solution's there -- like it's, it's not as overwhelming as some of these other challenges we're talking about.

Katie: Right.

Daniel: That's cool.

Daniel: Katie, maybe you can talk to us about kind of-- your predictions. The electrification of this region that started in the 1930s... it took decades. And now it's been growing into what it is over the past century. Now we're in the 2020s. What do you see for the rest of this century for electricity in this region?

Katie: Diversification. For sure. Right? You know, as a utility, we're looking at where we can partner to build new generation resources, where we can partner to build transmission and distribution infrastructure that's going to be needed to meet our peaks. We are partnering more closely with members on what's called distributed energy resources. Right. And that's that would include things like, like solar panels that are on this building. But any resource that's distributed outside of the main grid, right, the main point of generation transmission to distribution. So smaller generation projects, you know, that we're seeing more and more of those, you know, those smaller local gen projects. And we're seeing more and more and more of our members become grid partners with us. And I don't really see a future where we don't have increased energy costs, unfortunately. And, you know, I think we'll see, you know, a grid that that hopefully becomes smarter and more able to incorporate, you know, more of those resources because we're going to have to I think we are going to need an all of the above approach to just to meet the load growth, right. Even if we weren't trying to replace a whole bunch of generation that that's set to retire.

Daniel: You're describing a future that's more collaborative that-- where the "public" part of public power is, is more important. What should the average person listening to this-- what would you encourage them to do to get more involved?

Katie: You know, I would encourage them to maybe go on a little bit of an educational journey. And at least have a better understanding of what happens when they flip the switch.

Daniel: Basically, you're encouraging people to find out where their electricity is coming from.

Katie: Yes. I think a lot of people in our area don't understand that they're served by an electric co-op or what that means or that, you know, their their heating is coming from natural gas. That's that's a different utility. And that their light switches and other appliances are being powered by electricity or that if they're outside of, you know, the city limits, maybe they are all electrically heated. And I don't think that... that mostly the general public has a great understanding of of that. And so I think that's a really, really good place to start is is kind of that like grid 101, right. That's where I would start, is just making sure that you have an understanding of what's happening in your own home and your own business. And where it's, you know, where it's ultimately coming from. And then I think you can start to kind of grasp that bigger picture.

Daniel: Yeah, I like that you said, you know, start your education journey. Find out what happens when you flip the switch. And I can imagine a lot of benefit from people saying, okay, so I realize now my stove is natural gas.

Katie: Yep.

Daniel: It's wearing out. I need to upgrade it. Am I going to switch to electricity? There's a lot of climate and air pollution benefits to that. But maybe I should be thinking about efficiency. Maybe I should be thinking about how I'm powering that, you know, with a battery when the power goes out. Or with solar panels on my roof, or just thinking through some of these transitions from fossil fuels to electricity that are happening inside the home.

Katie: Yeah. The reality is that you have more energy choices than ever, right. And our website's a great place to start. And even if you're not a member of Flathead Electric, you're welcome to use those resources.

Daniel: So find out what electric co-op you might be part of, but also go check out Flathead Electric if you need help.

Katie: Yeah, exactly. We try to be very careful to not be alarmist, but just be realistic about the challenges that that we're facing in hopes that our members will be better educated, that they will be better informed, and that they will take a little bit more active role in their in their co-op, in their energy future. And I think that that is that's one of the benefits of of the cooperative business model is that we are very focused in that way.

Daniel: Yeah. That for better or worse, we're living through an era of big change. [chimey music begins to play]

Katie: Yes.

Daniel: And it's going to take all of us getting involved and paying attention to get through that. [beat joins in]

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

Daniel: Well, thanks so much for talking with us today on Headwaters.

Katie: Sure. Thank you very much for having us. [song continues to play under the credits]

Peri: Headwaters is funded by donations to the Glacier National Park Conservancy. As an organization dedicated to supporting the park, the Conservancy funds a lot of sustainability initiatives. From solar panels on park buildings to storytelling projects like this one, the Conservancy is doing critical work to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. You can learn more about what they do and about how to get involved at glacier.org. The Headwaters team includes Daniel Lombardi, Michael Faist, Gaby Eseverri, Madeline Vinh, Sophia Britto, and me, Peri Sasnett. That said, Headwaters wouldn't exist without friends like Lacy Kowalski, Grace Kinzler, Melissa Sladek, Kristen Friesen and so many others. Our music is made fresh by Frank Waln, and the show's cover art was created by Stella Nall. Check out Frank and Stella's work with the links in the show notes. I recommend following both of them on Instagram. Besides sharing this episode with a friend who might appreciate it, you can support us by leaving us a review in your podcast app. Thanks for listening! [music resolves and fades out]

A lively debate between Michael Faist and Peri Sasnett about the best activities in Glacier, moderated by Sophia Britto. If you're planning a visit to the park, this episode might give you some ideas!

Glacier Conservancy: glacier.org Frank Waln music: instagram.com/frankwaln Stella Nall art: instagram.com/stella.nall Glacier National Park: nps.gov/glac

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Sophia Britto: Our purpose is to tell unexpected stories about how Glacier is connected to everything else. But today's bonus episode will be a little different. Instead of telling a story, I'm hosting a debate between Michael and Peri about the best activities to do in Glacier.

Michael Faist: Oof. [Gameshow music starts, then fades to background]

Sophia: Hi, I'm Sophia, you're listening to. Headwaters, a podcast from Glacier National Park.

Peri Sasnett: I'm Peri.

Michael: I'm Michael.

Sophia: Here in my hands, I have a ranger hat full of little pieces of paper with different activities you could do in Glacier National Park.

Michael: Okay.

Sophia: I will pull one of these pieces of paper, and on it will be an activity. And whoever speaks first, that's their stance. And the other person has to argue the opposite.

Peri: Oh...okay.

Michael: Here we go.

Peri: Michael and I can get in a fight about anything.

Michael: That's that's the easy part. It's winning the fight... that's the hard part.

Peri: I'm ready.

Sophia: So let's pull the first topic and get started.

Michael: [Paper rusting sounds] Okay. Camping. [Electronic selection sound] Well, I love camping. That's my stance. If you come to a national park, odds are you're here to kind of disconnect from normal life. Unplug, so to speak. Sounds corny, [Peri laughs] but how often do you get to wake up with the sunrise, go to sleep at the sunset. Show off your ability, or lack thereof, to build a campfire. Have s'mores. It's just the perfect national park experience.

Peri: Well, I hate camping. There are way too many bugs. Glacier can be very mosquito at certain times of year. Also, you say "great, you get to see the sunsets and wake up with the sunrise!" In Glacier, in the summer, that is too late and too early. You're not getting enough sleep and fundamentally you're paying someone to sleep on the ground. Hard pass. [Michael laughs]

Sophia: I would give that one to Michael. I feel like bug spray is a thing. [Peri and Michael laugh] If I'm in my tent, I'm relatively safe from the bugs. I'm going to enjoy the great outdoors occasionally. I don't have to do it all the time.

Michael: Okay.

Peri: [Paper rusting sounds] All right. Floating slash tubing. [Electronic selection sound] Love it. Floating the stretch of Lower McDonald Creek from Apgar to West Glacier is right outside my house. And really easy to do after work. And I love that I get to see a part of the park that's right by my house, but from a totally different perspective than I would see it otherwise. Also, great birds.

Michael: I hate floating and tubing because it requires you to have two different vehicles. You've got to put one in where you start, and you have to park one where you get out and you have to spend all that time, waste all that time, I would say, shuttling back and forth. Whereas hiking, you can start and end at the same place, no problem there. Loop hikes, there are not loop rivers. Anti floating. [Peri laughs] You're just baking in the sun the whole time. Sophia: Personally, I didn't grow up near rivers, so I am loving them here. So, I'm sorry Michael I have to side with Peri floating and tubing. That's pretty fun.

Peri: Yes.

Michael: This is too bad. All right... What's next. [Paper rusting sounds] Stargazing. [Electronic selection sound] Well, I love stargazing, and here's why: I don't know the names of almost any constellations, [Peri laughs] and that doesn't matter. I can pick out the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper. Beyond that, it's just like, Earth's screensaver. You could stare at it. It's mesmerizing. It's special to look for comments. It's... I mean, what's better than staring up at the night sky?

Peri: Okay. Night skies. Thumbs up. Stargazing. Thumbs down. You have to stay up. Way too late. Here in Glacier. In the summer. It's not even fully dark till well after midnight. There's too much to be doing during the day. We don't have time to be stargazing at night. It's my bedtime.

Michael: During the daytime that she's so excited about. It's been like, 95 degrees. Nighttime. Cool 70s. Beautiful skies. And also, coffee exists, so.

Sophia: I'm siding with Michael here. Yeah. Love the stars here. You can see the Milky Way in Glacier National Park, which is pretty special. Yeah.

Michael: I'm glad I drew first on that one.

Peri: [Paper rusting sounds] Okay. Fishing. [Electronic selection sound] I don't have a lot to say about fishing. Those who've listened to Season Two will recall that the last time I went fishing, I was six and an alligator ate my bobber. [Michael laughs] So it's just adding work to another activity I'd rather be doing. Like I'm floating down the river on a boat? I just want to enjoy that. It feels like a lot of work to be sitting there, waving a fishing rod around. Or if I'm like, fly fishing, standing in the shallows. Like, I could just be swimming, or eating, or picnicking, you know? I don't need it.

Michael: Well, I love fishing. It is one of the most meditative ways to gain a deep understanding of an ecosystem in Glacier. The park only encourages you to catch or touch one type of animal in the park, and it's fish. [Peri laughs] You're allowed to catch them. There are some that you aren't, but it's just such a unique experience in the park to be able to get to know the aquatic wildlife and have an excuse to just go stand in a river for two hours.

Peri: Michael, how many times have you been fishing in Glacier?

Michael: Twice. [Peri and Sophia laugh]

Sophia: Maybe I need to become a fish girl. I've never been fishing before, which is surprising for being from Texas. But your arguments pretty convincing. Michael. I know you can find out more information about fishing regulations on our website, so if anybody else is interested in hopping on the fish train, check it out.

Michael: Fish train!

Peri: No. [Michael and Sophia laugh}

Michael: [Paper rusting sounds] Driving Going-to-the-Sun Road. [Electronic selection sound] Big fan. Love it. I mean, it's like the ultimate experience here, it's the experience that put Glacier on the map for people to come visit. It's where I would say 90% of the pictures of the park come from, is from driving Going-to-the-Sun, maybe 75.

Peri: Mmm...

And that is because you get to witness three different distinct ecosystems in one two-hour drive. You get to have incredible wildlife sightings from the safety of your vehicle, from bears, to bighorn sheep, mountain goats. You get to drive to over 6600ft. What's not to love?

Peri: Here's what's not to love: driving. What if you take a shuttle so you don't have to drive Going-to-the-Sun Road? You can see all those things, but you can spend way more time actually looking at them. Instead of having to spend all that thought and energy looking at the road, avoiding other cars and said, bighorn sheep and mountain goats. And if you just sit on a shuttle, and let someone else do the driving, you can appreciate the scenery. Its type one fun. There you go.

Sophia: Honestly, the shuttle sounds pretty nice to me. Or being a passenger, I would say. Yeah, I'm siding with Peri on this. [Peri laughs].

Michael: Dang it!

Peri: All right. [Paper rusting sounds] One more... Birding! [Electronic selection sound] I love birding. I love trying to figure out who they are, what they look like, who's singing and... you may not get to see a grizzly bear when you come here. I'm sure you won't see a mountain lion. I'm. A few of you might... But I never have. But almost everywhere you go in Glacier, you'll find birds. You can come at any time of year and see birds. And especially if you come in the spring. They're constantly singing and calling and just making this place richer and more beautiful.

Michael: Well, here's my hot take on birding. [Peri laughs] I love birds. I mean, they are the soundtrack to our mental image of nature itself. But as you said, they are everywhere. I could see birds where I grew up in Ohio, and I can ID them and have a very similar experience. If I wanted to see a grizzly bear, I'd have to go to the zoo. So, birding in Glacier? It's fun to hear birds as you go out and hike, but it's not an activity in its own right. Birds are the background to experiences you could only have here, and that people are coming from across the country to have because they can't have it at home. So that's that's my hot take on birding.

Peri: I'm never taking you birding again. [Michael and Sophia laugh]

Sophia: Honestly, Peri, your passion for birding speaks to me. There's hundreds of birds you could see here, and that's a very special experience. So, I have to side with Peri here, Michael.

Michael: Okay. I disagree, but it has been decided. [Peri laughs]

Peri: It's okay. I won... you... just accept it. [Gameshow music starts, then fades into background] I feel like we covered a lot, but there are so many other activities that we didn't talk about.

Michael: What's another activity?

Peri: I would say berry picking.

Michael: Yeah.

Peri: I love picking huckleberries.

Michael: Classic.

Peri: It's an iconic part of a Glacier summer... just wouldn't be the same without it.

Michael: If you are trying to plan a trip to Glacier and interested in what sort of activities you can find here, check out our website at nps.gov/GLAC and it can help you plan a great trip.

Sophia: We're hard at work on the next season of Headwaters. Stay tuned for bonus content like this and more episodes about your favorite national park.

Peri: Headwaters is made possible with support from our nonprofit partner at the Glacier National Park Conservancy. We are so grateful for all that they do for us. Check them out at Glacier.org. And if you have a moment to leave us a review and your podcast app, that helps us so much. Thanks for listening.

Michael: You know, one activity we missed?

Peri: Hm?

Michael: Podcasting. [Peri laughs] I mean, there are more activities here than we could cut up and put in a ranger hat. I like them all.

Peri: Me too. Despite everything that we just said.

A conversation with Jennifer Gibson, who coordinates post-wildfire response for the National Park Service. This episode was recorded in May 2024.

Headwaters is created by Daniel Lombardi, Gaby Eseverri, Peri Sasnett, and Madeline Vinh.

Glacier Conservancy: glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: www.instagram.com/stella.nall/

Climate change in Glacier: www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm Whiskeytown National Recreation Area: www.nps.gov/whis

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Peri Sasnett: This is Headwaters, a show about how Glacier National Park is connected to everything else. My name is Peri, and I find the ecology and politics of wildfire endlessly interesting. However, I also recognize that wildfire can be challenging and scary to live with, and at times even deadly. And all of this is made worse by a warmer climate. For this episode, my co-host Daniel interviewed Jennifer Gibson in the spring of 2024. She's the post-wildfire coordinator for the National Park Service. She tells a gripping, emotional, and frankly stressful story about when the park unit she was working at burned almost entirely in a matter of days during the 2018 Carr fire. You probably remember hearing about that fire on the news, and just for clarity, it spelled C-A-R-R, not like a car that you drive. That fire eventually burned 230,000 acres and killed eight people. [mellow beat begins to play] And this story is not as unique as you might think. In 2022, 95% of Sunset Crater National Monument burned. That same summer, a wildfire burned over 95% of Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. A year later, three national parks in the famously wet Pacific Northwest all had their largest fires on record: Olympic, North Cascades and Redwood. So this conversation is about one person surviving a deadly wildfire. But it's also about how the National Park Service is surviving in a new reality of wildfire, accelerated by climate change. [beat plays for a few seconds and resolves, marking a transition into the interview]

Daniel Lombardi: Jennifer Gibson, welcome to Headwaters. Thanks for coming on. Maybe start with just telling us what's your job.

Jennifer Gibson: Hi. Thanks for having me. My job now is the National Park Service's post-wildfire programs coordinator. So I'm based out of the National Interagency Fire Center. My job now is to assist and help parks in recovering from wildfire. And that's essentially overseeing the Burned Area Emergency Response program.

Daniel: What did-- what was your title during the Carr Fire at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area?

Jennifer: The Chief of Resources and Interpretation.

Daniel: We're talking specifically about the Carr Fire in Northern California. But this story, as dramatic and shocking as it is, it could very easily happen pretty much anywhere in the American West. Of course, it could happen here in Glacier National Park. Obviously, we have big wildfires here, but the kind of unprecedented, fast moving and property and life threatening wildfire that you're describing, there's no reason that couldn't happen here in Glacier.

Jennifer: Yeah, it can happen in Glacier. It can happen in North Cascades. You know, it could be another Whiskeytown or, some parks are burning down, like 70% of Lassen Volcanic National Park burned in the Dixie Fire, 80% of Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation burned in the Woolsey Fire. Look at Lava Beds. So 70% of Lava Beds burned in 2020, the remaining 30% burned in 2021.

Daniel: And we're not necessarily pinpointing any one of these fires and saying this is, this burned the way that it did because of climate change. But larger, more frequent, more intense wildfires is exactly what we expect in a hotter climate that we now have.

Jennifer: Yeah, Whiskeytown had the hottest days on record and the lowest fuel moisture for 1000 hour fuels on record. It's not just one thing. When it comes down to it, it's this... Is it climate change or is it everything coming into an alignment with climate change as a contributing factor? And that could be a really dangerous combination, because I really don't think I don't think science is keeping up with the changing environment. I don't think our management and policy is keeping up with the changing environment. I feel like a bunch of us resource staff or park staff, all of us together, interpreters, whomever, facility managers, we're all standing here now in this age, 2024, and we're watching our parks rapidly change around us. Like, I think this cohort that we have now working in national parks, we are definitely challenged with this whole new unexpected thing called climate change. And with that's intermixed with all these other factors. I feel like we're witnessing the change in our national parks.

Daniel: Yeah. The entering, into a, not a new reality, but a, an unstable and ever-shifting reality. [beat plays to mark a transition] So Whiskeytown has kind of a funny name. What-- what is Whiskeytown, really simply? It's, it's a national recreation area, part of the Park Service.

Jennifer: It is. It's a unit of the National Park Service. It follows the mission of the National Park Service. It is a recreation area, so it's really like the, it's like Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. It's really about recreation for the local visitors.

Daniel: And living there for 20 years, it probably became like a pretty important place to you to.

Jennifer: Yeah, I lived, one mile from the park boundary, so I had a really short commute. So my weekends, if I wanted to get a hike in, if I wanted to go botanizing, kayaking, I always went up to the park. The whole community loved Whiskeytown.

Daniel: For someone who doesn't-- isn't familiar with Whiskeytown, one of the key features is a large dam and a reservoir, a huge lake right in the middle of the park unit. There's a lot of urban areas right next to the the park unit, and it's all a pretty mountainous, forested area.

Jennifer: It is extremely diverse. It goes from 600ft in elevation, up to 6200ft in a really short distance. So it's really steep. So it goes from oak woodlands and grass up to subalpine fir, like Red Fir forest and montane chaparral. It has old growth forests and spotted owls in the higher elevations, but in the lower elevations it has chaparral and chamise and things that you would see at Santa Monica mountains. So that's one of the reasons why I love that park so much, because it was so incredibly diverse.

Daniel: It's basically like all of California smushed into one park unit.

Jennifer: Yeah, totally. And it was great. Like really crazy biotic assemblages living together in the same location, like Pacific giant salamanders and whiptail lizards, like something from a, Pacific Northwest meets the desert, you know, in the same campground. So it's, it's a really cool place, but it has waterfalls, lots of biking trails, lots of hiking trails, kayaking. It's-- it's a really nice place.

Daniel: So we're going to talk about what happened at Whiskeytown in 2018, which was a big wildfire. Just big picture, this was one of the larger fires in California history. What's wild is it's moved down a lot of notches on that records list since then. But this happened in 2018 and it burned-- this is in Northern California around the town of Redding. When did the Carr Fire start for you?

Jennifer: It started the day of initial attack in July 2018. It was hot. We were on the, I think, July in Redding and Shasta County, we were at, triple digit weather, like, it was hot even for Redding for July. About 1:00, 1:30, we heard over the radio that there was a fire near Carr Powerhouse Road, which is next to our historic district, the Tower House Historic District, which is like a concentration of your most important cultural resources, layers of history there, prehistoric, historic.

Daniel: So it's July 2018. The temperatures are getting up into the low 100 degrees. It's very hot. I'm imagining it's not cooling off a whole lot at night.

Jennifer: I think it was like 113, 114, we were bumping up against the highest temperatures ever recorded in the park.

Daniel: Wow. So it's very hot, very dry. And you hear on the radio, okay, there's a fire. And I bet-- I'm guessing that at that point that wasn't unusual. You've heard a lot of fires come in over the radio, maybe even some that summer. And so you go to check it out. At that point, everything feels routine, I guess.

Jennifer: Yeah. No, we -- it was something we do regularly, like, you know, there's fire. We could stand on the highway, tie in with the duty officer, make sure, you know, just be there if they need information, not get in the way. We give them advice if they need it. This is what we do. But this one just went completely sideways. Seeing fire taking off so... spreading so rapidly and erratically, the weirdest thing that I saw was fire zipped around a hillside sideways. Like fire goes uphill, right, naturally, and it follows winds. And it wasn't really that windy out, but it went around sideways, and I'm like, well, that's really weird. And then the fire spotted into this historic orchard where we have these really old orchard trees that were planted in the 1800s so they're unique heirloom varieties. And all of a sudden I started watching them burn and I'm like, oh my God, it's like 20 years of restoration, if not more, trying to save these orchard trees and stabilize them, and we've been working so hard, and we'd just grazed this whole area with goats to keep the weeds down and for fire suppression. And I was standing there on the highway going like, is this really happening? And then it burned down a historic structure that we just restored. And then it spotted behind me on the other side of the highway where that historic house is. It's one of the oldest homes in Shasta County. This was not ever something I could fathom happening at such a rapid pace. And there's water drops, dozers are being pushed, helicopters were overhead... And yeah, within the, the first couple hours it was completely chaotic, like there was nothing we could have done to stop that fire. I think the hard part was, there was a seasonal, she was screaming into the radio, like, "somebody get my therapy dog!" And we're like, oh my god, her therapy dog's in park housing, which is up the canyon. And two of the guys I work with, they went up there, kicked the door down, grabbed the dog -- they got the therapy dog right before the building burned down. And it was it was really, really intense -- like, all the things that I could never, ever wrap my head around were happening so fast. And that was the first hour of the Carr Fire. I'm not proud of a lot of the decisions that I made, but I never thought I would be pushed into making rapid fire decisions like this.

Daniel: So right away, one of your biggest concerns is that because of where the fire starts, some historic buildings, some Indigenous archeological sites, you know, a historic orchard, and park housing, you know right from the start that all of those are threatened by this fire. And so you're making calculations and decisions about how to protect those resources from the very start.

Jennifer: Yep. Yeah. Correct.

Daniel: And some of those choices are hard. Like, I imagine when you're fighting fire, you don't usually want to just, send the bulldozers and all the heavy equipment in right away, because those are obviously destructive in their own way. But if it's a choice between bulldozers or burning up in a fire, you pick the bulldozers. And so that was one of the first hard choices you have to make, it sounds like.

Jennifer: Yeah, so in urban interface parks like Santa Monica Mountains and Whiskeytown, you know, working with bulldozers is a part of, of life. Like you, you have to accept some level of impact to protect communities. So it's-- it's life and property first. More wilderness parks, you know, like parks with sequoias, it might be... life and sequoias might be your priority.

Daniel: That's the kind of decision that you're actually probably used to making. You've been around fires you, and usually you have hours, if not days, to kind of think through the balance between bulldozers and letting a certain area burn or not, like there's usually more time. But in this case, it went from thinking about those questions to then almost instantly it just being about putting the fire out as fast as possible because things were burning so fast.

Jennifer: Yeah. No, the whole park burned in three days, three operational periods. We lost structures, park housing, infrastructure, the community on of French Gulch lost homes, the community of Old Shasta was wiped out, the um, Keswick was wiped out like, by the F3 fire tornado went through Keswick, and then the west side communities. It was completely devastating. And then never could have imagined a F3 fire tornado going into a community, a town where there's homes and a Chase Bank, you know? [laughs in disbelief] So that's unimaginable to me. But again, you know, keep in mind also that the Carr Fire was just, what was it, 4 or 5 months right before the Camp Fire and the Woolsey Fire. And these were other destructive fires. And the Camp Fire was far more destructive than the Carr Fire. So the Carr Fire should have been a wake up call for everybody else. But it caught those communities off guard, too.

Daniel: Yeah. So you said that those first few hours were a literal whirlwind. What happened next?

Jennifer: You know, I had to regroup with my staff. And almost everybody is a qualified and experienced Resource Advisor. So they knew-- they're experienced with fire, they knew what to do. They put on their Nomex and-- but for some reason, throughout the fire, like we kept thinking that we would catch it. Because resources were not limited, like there were no other fires going on in the area. So Redding has like, you know, you have Cal Fire, you have Redding smokejumpers, hotshots, Forest Service, you have all these resources right there in Redding. And so when resources aren't limited, you know, you kind of think like, well, you know, you can throw the world at this thing and we can get it out. But we did. We threw the world at it. And it was we could not put that fire out. And, we launched dozers immediately. And I kept thinking to myself, like, well, we'll catch it, we'll catch it. And, it ended up like each time we, we couldn't catch it. And, we were completely shocked. And I was just completely like, each time I went home, at the end of the day, I'm like, I should start making piles to evacuate, you know? So I would make piles and, but I'm like, "we'll catch it. This can't be." And it was this, state of disbelief, I think. But, I think the third night, about 10:00 at night, I had a coworker call me, and he's like, Jen, you have to go to Whiskeytown Dam. You have to see this. And, I'm like, "it's 10:00 at night. It's hot out, like what's happening?" So I drove up to the park and went to the dam, and there was like hundreds of people on the dam, visitors like-- and they're all out there watching the fire blow up, and it's nighttime. So this is when you have-- the humidity's supposed to go up. Fire behavior is supposed to go down. You're supposed to have some nighttime recovery. But it was still really hot. It was probably like 110 at night. And the fire was plume-dominated fire behavior at night. Like it was behaving like it was three in the afternoon. And my neighborhood was quiet, and I made some piles. I called my neighbor, I'm like, "hey, you guys should think about making piles. I don't-- I think we got another day or so to evacuate. But, you know, this isn't looking good." And I went to sleep and then, about two in the morning, a friend of mine, he's working dispatch for the park, he called me. It's like-- so nobody shows up. You don't get a sheriff doesn't knock on your door. This guy called me and says, "Jen, you need to evacuate now." And I went outside and it was like, a war zone. And there's, like, embers raining down. I could hear propane tanks blowing up. The lights were flickering and the sky was, like, seething. Like like somebody was using a massive giant bellows to just stoke the fire because the whole sky was covered with smoke and this weird orange haze. But it was just like going up and down, and I was like, what the hell's happening? Called my neighbors, they're like, "we're packing." And, then I just grabbed all that I could, and, and my chimes were like, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, just the chimes hanging on the deck were just, like, going in circles. It was really bizarre. I went inside, I said goodbye to my house, said goodbye to my house plants. Which is a really weird thing to do. I watered them all and I'm like, "I'll be right back, guys, hang in there." And I thought my house would make it. I really did. And at this time I'm really worried about park staff because I, you know, we already lost seasonal housing and I'm like, where is everybody? You know, it's four in the morning. I called her administrative officer. She's like, "I got tabs on everybody. Don't worry. Just get out of there." So my dog and I, with my great grandmother's table, evacuated to a motel. You know, leaving the driveway, I said goodbye to my neighbors and hugged them and showed up at a Motel 6 in Redding and-- with a bunch of other disheveled people, like at four in the morning, just like they're in shock, you know? And I know that they just evacuated. So we were all checking into hotels. So at this point, a significant portion of the west side of Redding evacuated to the east, to evacuation shelters, friends homes, you know, motels. But, you know, we thought that like, you know, maybe everything was going to be okay. You know, maybe the house will make it. You know, "I've been burning piles around my house. It's in good shape, it'll make it." It is just being in a state of shock.

Daniel: Wow. Over the course of those first few days then the fire, you know, is potentially moving towards your own home and you're in a state of kind of disbelief that it could burn your own home.

Jennifer: Yeah. We evacuated the north side of the park where the fire was. But on the south side of the park we still had visitors. We still had people in park housing. But we thought there was no way the fire was going to cross the lake. Well, sure enough, there was a fire, mini fire tornado or vortex set up, and it lay down horizontally across the ground, according -- I wasn't there -- and spotted across the lake. So this launched a massive evacuation on the south side of the lake of people that were camping and on that side and park housing units. And this was important because I to me, a lot of the law enforcement personnel, a lot of us lived in Old Shasta. We lived on the boundary of the park. They had to make a choice between evacuating, helping their-- their spouses and families evacuate, and they had to make the choice to evacuate visitors. So I think that was really hard on a lot of those emergency responders being at that point. And then they had to clear all those people off the dam who were watching this. It was, again, you know, we never knew this would happen. Yeah.

Daniel: So we talked about, those first hours, we talked about the intensity and challenge of the first few days, and then how on the third and fourth day, people are evacuated, housing is being burned down, and there are vortexes of fire, basically conditions so hot and intense that there's tornadoes made of flames burning and spotting across the entire lake. And the fire is beyond apocalyptic. It's it's really into something new.

Jennifer: When I evacuated the motel, it was, you know, you didn't sleep. You know, you show up at your motel at four, you're like, what is happening? And then, that morning was all about like, "where-- where are the interns? Where are the seasonals? Are they okay?" We got them into hotels. Like, where is everybody on the west side of Redding? Like, you know, people that live there. Is everybody okay? So the park's in a shambles. And I heard that the fire had passed through my neighborhood, but my house had made it and my neighbor's house hadmade it. And I was like, "all right, I did it! You know, like, all my fuels treatments, weed whacking, all my work, you know, I was like, I knew it, I knew I could make it." And so that day was really about sitting and waiting, having park meetings, seeing where everybody's at and trying to get an Incident Management Team in to help, and watching the news and texting. So there's like group texts of park staff going back and forth. And, and it wasn't until like the evening, like the fire activity picked up again and the lights in the motel started flickering, you know, and then the power went off, and I'm like, oh my God, what the hell's happening out there? And I went to another location I saw that had power and air conditioning. And I was watching the news and I could see-- and there's my neighborhood, like where my house is, my neighbor's house is -- it's a crown fire. And people are texting me like, "Jen, your your street's on fire on the news" and the local State Parks superintendent, she's out there hosing down State Park, you know, buildings. And it was pretty traumatic. And people had to evacuate a second time in Redding. So this was another wave. So people in evacuation centers had to evacuate, people in homes that evacuated. So people had to evacuate the second time, I had to evacuate a second time. And that's one of my lessons learned. If you evacuate the first time, don't unpack, because you might have to evacuate the second time. And I got with my dog in my car, and I got on the I-5 and it was packed with people, like it was jammed. And I looked up and I could see that fire tornado. And that's when I really thought -- like it was totally irrational, like, but maybe I was just so exhausted, I had so much adrenaline in my blood, and I really thought that that tornado was going to get me. And I was stopped in traffic on the highway. And that's one of my things, you know, like I get stuck on a highway in traffic when a fire comes. And so I managed to get on an off ramp. And then going north on I-5 was a lot clearer. And I made progress. And I just kept driving. And each hotel they were were packed with people, like there was no vacancy, especially no dog friendly vacancy. So I just ended up driving all night. I drove all the way to Oregon, and it was on that drive that I found out that I lost my house. A firefighter checked on my property and he's like, "Jen, it's gone." And he sent me a text with a picture of it on fire. And, you know, it was good that he let me know. And I'm like, I was just in shock. So it was-- finally made it to Oregon, made it to a safe space.

Daniel: Wow. So it only took a matter of days. But all of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, this entire park unit, the whole thing burned, right?

Jennifer: Yeah. 97% of the park burned. So the final statistics were 47 structures destroyed. A third of the park staff lost their homes. And then there was significant damage to the concessionaire operations and to a... we have an environmental school, an environmental camp. So all in all, the Carr Fire was 229,000 acres. 1604 structures were lost overall, and eight fatalities.

Daniel: So I'm guessing then the next several weeks were a continued state of anxiety and chaos for you. But of course, it doesn't end there. A lot of your work, I think, then was on the aftermath of the fire and, okay, what happens now that the fire's out?

Jennifer: So the hard thing is that when you have a fire in your park, you're going to sprint. Like you're going to sprint as hard as you can, and you're going to run as fast as you can. But there's like a finish line. You know, it's like you're gonna just -- you're going to just exhaust yourself to that finish line. Once you cross that finish line, the post-fire world is a marathon. Whiskeytown has significant infrastructure. We have the dam infrastructure with Bureau of Reclamation. We have the telecommunications site for the sheriff's office at the top of the peak, highest mountain. And then we had, a major highway goes through the middle of the park. And then we have Pacific Gas and Electric. So we had all these power lines, we have all this infrastructure, and they all had to get online. And to do that we needed to be Resource Advisors again. Even though it's an emergency, you need some level of compliance a little bit, you know, to make sure there's no prehistoric site there you know. You know, I just-- my first day back after I found out my house burned and we had a meeting of the archeologists, myself, and our acting superintendent. And here's this room full of engineers, you know, highway engineers, there's like 25 of them, and they're like, "we've got X amount of million dollars to install these structures to protect our highway, and you guys need to do the compliance." [laughs incredulously] So it's like, so we, we we really kept going and going and going. It was really hard to stop and process.

Daniel: Yeah Jen, talk to me-- talk to me about the mental health impacts of going through something like this. For you, but for the, for the community and for the staff of a national park. What's that like?

Jennifer: It's like the grief that keeps on giving. It's layers and layers of grief. It's grieving my house, my memories and my property that I love so much. Grieving my park and you know, the restoration, all that work put into that park and places that I loved. Grieving my community, my neighbors all moved away. Like grieving with them. You go to all their going away parties, and then you get tired of it. And then park staff start to leave, so you're you're going to they're going away parties. [laughs] And everybody processes it very differently. And that has to be okay. Like, I, saw some people got very emotional right away and they wanted to talk to CISM right away. I couldn't talk to the Critical Incident Stress Management people because I felt like if I took that moment, I wouldn't be able to put myself back together again and keep going. I had to keep going. And we were so busy with trying to get power up and internet up and back in our offices and, utility companies and get the BAER implemented, it-- it took us until we got a superintendent, a permanent superintendent showed up, and he was like, "wow, this-- these people need help." And so he got-- he called EAP, Employee Assistance Program, and he got a clinical psychologist to come and talk to us as a group. And it was like the first time in nine months -- nine months -- that we all sat together as a, you know, employees, and talked it out. And she got up there and she was like, "well, all the other agencies like Cal Fire, the Sheriff's Department, PG&E, all these different entities and agencies, they got employee assistance like the week after the fire. Why did it take the National Park Service nine months? And we were ground zero. We were the most impacted. So that was I think a real important point to me is, you need to get that help in soon.

Daniel: You know, one thing that struck me that you said was that it felt out of control, it felt chaotic, and that maybe even you're not proud of all of the decisions that were made, but that that is the result of the chaos in a moment of such intensity like that. Maybe that's one of the lessons that you have taken from the fire in general, is what's possible in those first intense hours.

Jennifer: We were completely caught off guard. And I don't know if it's complacency, like, you know, you know your park, you know your ecosystems, you know your fire, and you think you know what's going to happen. But it's one of those situations where everything went sideways, like what you knew was no longer reality. And that, to me, is a really good lesson learned. And it translates well over to other parks where, some parks have been doing fire/climate scenario workshops, where they're trying to really think like, what is the worst thing? And the worst thing that can happen, like happened to them that year. Like Lassen had the Dixie fire, Sequoia has lost 20% of their monarch sequoias. Like these things are happening this year, not 20 years out. And so the Carr Fire to me was the worst thing that could happen. Like it was unimaginable, not even 20 years out. It would be like, oh God, I couldn't even fathom having this happen to my park. But it did. It happened in 2018. And that's one of the things that's consistently happening in national parks with not only just fire, but other climate-related disasters. We're completely being caught off guard time and time again.

Daniel: Wow. In your most climate apocalyptic vision of the future, you never thought that the Carr fire could happen. Like it-- that was that was your worst case scenario, darkest imagination of what the future might be. And then it actually happened.

Jennifer: You can see, like what's happening in Yosemite National Park, where there's actually parts of the park that's type converting due to the frequency of fire. And what happened at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is also really relevant in that, you know, I think they did climate/fire scenario planning in the late 2000s, maybe 2018, 2017. I'm not sure of the year. But again, they did that thing of "what's the worst thing that can happen to the sequoias? You know, they're pest resistant. They're fire resistant. What's the worst thing that can happen?" And it was like, "well, they become susceptible to pests, and then they become susceptible to fire." And then sure enough, you know, they had the Castle Rattlesnake Complex, I think 2020, I believe. And that took out a significant portion of the large monarch sequoia trees. And then they were like, oh my God, we gotta do something. And then in 2021, they didn't have a chance to strategize, come up with a plan. In 2021, it took out another big chunk of large monarch sequoia trees, which are supposed to be fire resistant. And so 20% of the large trees are dead, like they're a thousand year old trees. And they've survived tons and tons of fire, and we're watching them just disappear. So the park is taking some radical actions. They're being really proactive, and they're really trying to hold the ground on the remaining sequoias. And I'm really-- and so is Yosemite, with their groves.

Daniel: So this is a case study of these, just the really big sequoia trees. And people didn't think they were susceptible to wildfire because they have such thick bark and they're adapted to it. But now we're seeing with climate change, the conditions are just different that the fire is happening in. And it turns out these big trees, they can be susceptible to wildfire. And in recent years they have been and they have been lost.

Jennifer: Yeah. And it's, you know, two years. Like, you know, 2020-2021. Like that's a short time frame to come up with a quick strategy. All right Park, what are you going to do? [laughs] How are you going to hold the line and save the rest of them? You know it'd be nice if you had ten, twenty years to develop a plan and a strategy. But parks are having to pivot pretty quickly and decide what ecosystems, what resources are priorities, what are they going to save and what can you save and then what you can't. So similar to like, probably like glaciers. What can you do?

Daniel: I mean, it sounds like the advice you would give is that like, you're trying to tell people this is a wake up call. Everyone needs to be paying attention and ready to move way faster than they think they need to move. What-- I mean, is there other advice, or is there another lesson that has come across in watching these fires for you?

Jennifer: To me, I-- after the Carr Fire, like I had this sense of panic and urgency where I want to see, you know, people take fuels reduction and defensive space seriously. It's been hard because after going through something like that, oftentimes people perceive you as being like, "well, she's been traumatized. You know, like this is just her processing." I'm like, no, like I think the Park Service needs to invest in preparedness, response and helping parks recover. We have great people working in preparedness, but it's typically in law enforcement or in fire. But it needs to be an interdisciplinary approach. And I'm a fan of facilitated scenario planning workshops where everybody's at the table and you run through scenarios of it, whether it's flooding or fire or whatever. You run through scenarios to make sure you have evacuation plans. You figure out where the gaps are in your plans, and your weaknesses, and you address them. And then make sure you're all on the same page with your priorities. Like if if you did have to evacuate your park. And again, it has to be top down and a priority from your superintendent, all the way up to your regional director and the director. I think another thing parks can do is invest in your Resource Advisor program. If you care about your natural and cultural resources in your park, and you're a fire park, or have the potential of fire, the best thing you can do is get your staff trained, send them out, get them experience. If you talk to these people that have gone through the Camp Fire, or firefighters who have seen fire severity change across the West, I'm sure they will say the same thing. It's just like, I feel like it's Groundhog Day, right? Like park after park is just-- we're doing the same thing every day. Are we getting more prepared? Are we getting better at responding? We need definitely need to get better at helping parks recover. But I don't, you know-- we need to start moving in those directions a lot quicker.

Daniel: This should be a wake up call. They should be expecting the worst case scenario. Jen, I'm curious if you feel like you're healed, if you have fully processed the Carr Fire, or if that's an ongoing thing. And then I'm also curious if, you know, helping other parks and talking to other parks about their intense fire experiences, if that's been a helpful process or, or not so helpful in your own kind of coming to terms with with wildfire.

Jennifer: I think trauma is a bad thing in general, but it's made me wiser or wary. I'm all about being prepared. And going through any sort of traumatic event, it could be like a loss of a loved one, you know, or, whatever it may be, it's horrid, absolutely horrid. But there are moments of beauty and love intermixed, which makes it a really complex emotion. So the strong bonds that I formed with the staff at Whiskeytown going through this with them will always, forever be there. My neighbors and my community, they will always be my neighbors. We'll always reach out to each other. We always send Christmas cards or holiday cards. We're always there for each other. We have this common bond now that we went through something and we made it together, and I think that's the beauty in it.

[beat begins to play]

Daniel: Jennifer Gibson, thanks so much for sharing your story. This has been really valuable.

Jennifer: Yeah, thanks you guys for doing this. I'm so impressed. And thanks for listening.

[music plays under the credits]

Peri: We spent most of this episode talking about a national recreation area in California; Whiskey Town. They have lots more details about fire and climate change on their website, nps.gov/WHIS you can learn more about fire and climate change on Glacier’s website too, nps.gov/GLAC. It is worth underlining how easily this story could be about any other national park, including Glacier. Wildfires burn here almost every single summer—most recently, we had quite intense fire seasons in 2015, 2017, and 2018. Famously, the Sprague fire burned down part of the beloved Sperry Chalet in 2017. A key partner in helping rebuild the Sperry Chalet was our non-profit partner, the Glacier National Park Conservancy. Beyond fire, the Conservancy helps Glacier with many sustainability efforts: from solar panels on park buildings to storytelling projects like this one, the Conservancy is doing critical work to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. You can learn more about what they do and about how to get involved at Glacier.org. This show is created by Daniel Lombardi, Michael Faist, Gabi Eseverri, and me, Peri Sasnett. We get critical support from Lacy Kowalski, Melissa Sladek, Kristen Friesen, and so many good people with Glacier's natural and cultural resource teams. Our music was made by the brilliant Frank Waln, and the show's cover art is by our sweet friend Stella Nall. Check out Frank and Stella's work at the links in the show notes. Besides sharing this episode with a friend who might appreciate it, you can help us out by leaving a rating and review in your podcast app. Thanks for listening.

Planning a trip to Glacier and don't know what to wear? We've got fashion tips for you, along with the latest news from the park.

Glacier Conservancy: glacier.org Frank Waln music: www.instagram.com/frankwaln Stella Nall art: stellanall.com

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Lacy: Headquarters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Peri: Welcome to Headwaters. I'm Peri.

Madeline: And I'm Madeline.

Peri: Headwaters is a science and history show about Glacier National Park. And this is a special bonus episode for those of you considering coming to the park this summer or fall. And today we have for you a series of breaking news headlines, each followed by some fashion advice from Madeline.

Madeline: That's right.

Peri: We should just play the little like breaking news. *Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun* [Newscaster music starts] Going-to-the-Sun Road is open all the way to Logan Pass. And do remember you need a vehicle reservation if you're coming in from the west side between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. Madeline, what fashion advice would you give to someone driving the road?

Madeline: I think people hear "driving," and they're like, all I need are my driving flip flops, what they don't think about is you're going to want to get out of your car. At least once I'd say.

Peri: At least once.

Madeline: Statistically.

Peri: Probably.

Madeline: So pack your hiking flipflops as well.

Peri: Great advice.

Madeline: Thank you.

Peri: All right. [Newscaster music] As of July 3rd, the Highline Trail is not open. The upper half of the Grinnell Glacier Trail is also not open, and something to keep in mind is that even trails that are open, anything at high elevation you may encounter snow, including on the trail to Hidden Lake Overlook. Snow is always wet. It's always cold. It can be pretty slippery or even dangerous, so keep that in mind for at least a few more weeks if you're hiking in the park. Madeline, what do people need if they're hiking on snow?

Madeline: I have two boxes in my head. I've got waterproofing and traction. There's a lot of ways to accomplish that. Maybe hiking boots.

Peri: Sure.

Madeline: If you don't have hiking boots, maybe you have grocery bags and soccer cleats. Why not combine those? So put those grocery bags on your feet. Put those feet in your soccer cleats. Suddenly you're checking those boxes.

Peri: I love that. It's very childhood snow day chic. [Newscaster music] The free shuttles are up and running for the season. You can take the shuttle bus instead of driving, and you don't need a vehicle reservation for that. And you can stop at a bunch of different places along going to the town road. Do expect the shuttles to be full and busy, though. They're quite popular. Madeline, what should people consider wearing for the shuttle bus?

Madeline: The tagline for that whole experience is see and be seen. There are strangers around you. Suddenly you're part of the attraction of the road. If that is something you care about, just wear your favorite outfit.

Peri: Totally. [Newscaster music] In other news, park lakes are open to paddling. Lake McDonald, Bowman, Kintla, Two Medicine are all open to personal non-motorized watercraft if you get them inspected before heading out to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species. Some park lakes are also open to motorized boats, but those require more extensive inspection. Madeline. What fashion advice do you have for people doing paddling?

Madeline: Everyone knows that you're on water. I don't think enough people are thinking about water getting on you. So maybe think about a poncho.

Peri: Love a poncho.

Madeline: Preferably clear, so that others can see your life jacket and be inspired by your sartorial example.

Peri: Love that. [Newscaster music] The longest running Indigenous speaker series in the National Park Service is in full swing for the summer. That means almost every night somewhere in the park one of Glacier's Tribal partners is giving a public presentation for free. Madeline, what do you wear when you go to an NAS program?

Madeline: I want to be able to focus, so bug protection is top of mind for me.

Peri: Yes.

Madeline: This is the time for a head to toe bodysuit. Pull that out of the back of your closet. If you don't have that, bug net over a wide brimmed hat. Ankle protection. Close toed shoes.

Peri: Yes. Protect the hands and feet.

Madeline: The probisci of the mosquito here? They're strong and they're long. [Peri laughs] And you don't want that getting anywhere near your skin.

Peri: That's great advice.

Madeline: Thank you.

Peri: Finally, our last headline. [Newscaster music] The fishing season is open for summer 2024. Within park boundaries, you do not need a fishing license, but there are still a variety of rules and regulations, so be familiar with those. And remember that all native fish you catch have to be released. Madeline, what's your fishing fit?

Madeline: All right, I've gone fishing twice, [Peri laughs] so I feel pretty qualified to talk about this. I've also seen lots of pictures of people holding fish. So from both those things, I'm going to say pockets.

Peri: Like those vests with all the pockets.

Madeline: Yes.

Peri: Do you put the fish in the pockets?

Madeline: Like, if you want to. I think that's... With pockets, you have options so you can put the fish in there. You can put snacks in there. You can put snacks for the fish in there. And then you also don't want to forget a big smile. That seems to be pretty key.

Peri: The best accessory.

Madeline: Yeah. So it's like people have a really big fish and then they have a really big smile. And...

Peri: And the pocket.

Madeline: They seem correlated. Yeah.

Peri: Well, thanks for the advice, Madeline, and thanks everyone for tuning in. We have more bonus episodes coming soon, and we are also working on a new big season of Headwaters that will be released next year.

Madeline: Headwaters is made possible by our partner, the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Peri: We could not do this without them, and if you want to help us out, you could leave a review in iTunes or your podcast app and share the show with your friends.

Madeline: ITunes? Does that even exist anymore? [Newscaster music fades in]

Peri: Yeah, maybe I'll say Apple.

Madeline: Thank you for listening!

Peri: And Happy Fourth of July.

A mini mailbag episode answering listener-submitted questions. Send us your questions for future episodes at [email protected] with the subject "Headwaters."

Glacier Conservancy: glacier.org Frank Waln music: www.instagram.com/frankwaln Stella Nall art: stellanall.com

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Gaby Eseverri: [mellow beat playing] Hi, I'm Gaby. You're listening to Headwaters, a podcast from Glacier National Park.

Daniel Lombardi: Hey, Gaby, I'm Daniel.

Gaby: [laughs] Hi, Daniel.

Daniel: And this is the mailbag or Q&A episode. We're answering questions.

Gaby: Yeah. So listeners have provided questions for us over the last week or so. [music fades out] And I'll be asking you what the people want to know.

Daniel: Oh, you're asking me?

Gaby: I'll be asking you.

Daniel: I'm not ready for this.

Gaby: We're releasing bonus episodes this spring and summer to help visitors plan their trips to the park, or to just generally get a feel for what's going on.

Daniel: What do you got for me?

Gaby: What do you think was our most asked question?

Daniel: I think the question that rangers get asked the most is where is the bathroom? But I bet you people want to know when is Going-to-the-Sun Road going to open for the summer.

Gaby: Ding ding ding.

Daniel: That's right?

Gaby: Yeah yeah,.

Daniel: Yeah. Everyone, everyone wants to know when is Going-to-the-Sun Road going to open for the summer because it feels like it's not summer till the sun road opens. Well, sorry, we don't have an answer.

Gaby: We really don't know. We don't have any, like, further, more information than what you know.

Daniel: I could say that it seems to usually open in June -- the roads crew are actively plowing it right now -- sometimes early July, but generally it's sometime in June. If it's like a low snow year and we don't have a whole lot of snow in the winter, then it opens in the earlier side of June. If it is a big snowy winter, then it's probably going to be later in June, if not early summer.

Gaby: Or a rainy spring.

Daniel: Yeah, spring weather matters a lot too. Yeah, yeah. Bad weather, avalanches, all that slows the work down.

Gaby: Yeah. Hopefully it'll be open soon. I'm excited. It will definitely mark the arrival of summer. Angela says, can you just talk about beargrass?

Daniel: I… I will try. Uh, beargrass is not a grass, it is a member of the corn lily family. I mean, it is a flower, basically. It has grass on the bottom, and what people love then is that every few years, each plant will shoot up a big asparagus- Dr. Seuss-type flower that looks like a giant q-tip, sometimes like 3 or 4 feet tall.

Gaby: They don't pop up yearly, right?

Daniel: Right. You know, as spring comes along like this, we're always like, is this going to be a big flower year? When was the last time we had a big bear grass year? But there's always there's always some bear grass and...

Gaby: Yeah.

Daniel: I love it.

Gaby: I guess we'll see what this year looks like. [beat plays briefly] Sridevi asks, what are the places to visit without a vehicle reservation? That's a, that's a big one.

Daniel: Yeah. So in 2024 you do need a vehicle reservation, but that's only to get into the busiest parts of the park during the busiest hours of the day in the peak summer season. So if you're visiting in the fall, you don't need to worry about it. If you like to get up early or drive into the park late, again, you don't need to worry about it. It's just for those peak hours. Now, also, it's not for every area of the park. In summer 2024, entering into Two Medicine or the east side of Going-to-the-Sun Road at St Mary. You don't need a vehicle reservation for those areas either. And I promise they are spectacular areas of the park.

Gaby: Truly amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, awesome. Hopefully that's helpful. And as always, check nps.gov/glac for more information and all of the details about vehicle reservation. [beat plays briefly] Claire wants to know, what's it like working for the park. You've been working for the park for seven years, right?

Daniel: This park, yeah. I've made a career out of working for the Park Service, and I love it. The best part about working for the Park Service is that you are working in and getting to, you know, be a part of these amazing places. I love being a part of something that is like, iconic of our country and our landscape and a thing that we all share together. Working for the parks is amazing. I highly recommend it. Go to USAjobs.gov and watch for ranger postings. [beat plays briefly] Give me another one. Give me a hard one.

Gaby: Okay. Olive asks, what are people most surprised about after visiting?

Daniel: Maybe a big surprise is how cold and how like wet the weather can be, especially in the first half of summer.

Gaby: Totally like in West Glacier or East Glacier it'll be beautiful and sunny, and then you go up to Logan Pass and it's snowing.

Daniel: Like literally snowing. Yeah. The other thing I think that can surprise people about the weather is how in the second half of summer, how hot it can be. They'll be like, oh, it's Glacier National Park, it's the mountains. It'll be cool. But then they start going on a hike with one little water bottle and they're like, oh...

Gaby: It's hot and.

Daniel: It's over 90 degrees. And yeah, it's kind of humid. And yeah, it can get really hot.

Gaby: Yeah. Last summer it hit 100.

Daniel: Wow.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] So Jack has a question about construction.

Daniel: Okay, Jack, here's the situation. In Montana, we have two seasons: winter and construction.

Gaby: Ha ha. [sarcastic laugh]

Daniel: Yeah. And here we are entering construction season. There's all kinds of jokes about this. You know, the traffic cones, that they put out around construction sites?

Gaby: The bright neon orange.

Daniel: I've heard people joke that that's, you know, Montana State flower. I think other states make these jokes, too.

Gaby: Definitely, yeah.

Daniel: But it's true, the window for construction in Glacier National Park is pretty small because we have such a long winter season, so you have to squeeze all the repair and update, you know, projects into a pretty narrow window. So you can hear the construction going on outside right now. There is construction going on in the park, a whole bunch of different areas, you know, they're working on bridges, they're putting in new sewer lines.

Gaby: They're doing a lot of work. So it will most likely be a part of your visit. Yeah.

Daniel: But if you're just flexible, like it shouldn't be a big deal.

Gaby: Yeah. Not a big deal at all. Check nps.gov/glac for all of those construction updates and all those details as to where those projects are going to be.

Daniel: Yeah, that's basically the answer to everything. Go on our website. Check it out. Yeah. Plan ahead.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] Okay. This is [laughs] maybe one of my favorite questions that we got. MissCurlyGirly asks, is the damage reversible?

Daniel: This question is sort of silly and also like kind of deep, right, which is fun. Having no idea what curlygirly is actually asking about, I would say let's be optimistic. Let's envision a better future than the one we're living in, you know?

Gaby: Totally.

Daniel: The damage is reversible. We can fix things that are broken and we can...

Gaby: Imagine better futures.

Daniel: Absolutely.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] This is a little bit of a history question. Are you ready for this?

Daniel: I'll give it a shot.

Gaby: Zach wants to know, how did the whole Glacier-Waterton connection come to be?

Daniel: Well, that is a good question. Basically, there was Rotary Clubs, these are like community social clubs, and they started talking about how these two national parks that share an international border could be and should be an example to the world about international peaceful cooperation. And they sort of developed the concept and everyone liked it, got behind it, and in the 1930s, the international, the world's first international peace park was born.

Gaby: Glacier-Waterton.

Daniel: Well, technically, it's Waterton Glacier International Peace Park.

Gaby: And Zach, if you want to learn more, I would recommend going back to Season One and listening to the Goat Haunt episode where Michael and Andrew dive deeper into Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Daniel: Yeah, that's a good idea. I was I thought you were going to say go to the website. I'm like, oh, people are going to be tired of hearing that.

Gaby: Oh no no, no.

Daniel: Yeah. But it's so true though.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] I have three from Elizabeth.

Daniel: [laughing] I didn't know three questions was allowed, but okay, let's hear them.

Gaby: What do we do when we see fellow tourists not following Leave No Trace principles? Ooh.

Daniel: Yeah, that's hard. I mean, it's not your job to police other people. That's said, I feel like if you have the social skills and the situation is... allows for it, find a way to be friendly and...

Gaby: And be curious, yeah, I would say ask some questions before we make assumptions as to what people are doing or if they're doing something quote unquote wrong.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you see something dangerous or blatantly illegal happening, you should definitely tell a ranger. But trust that everyone's doing their best.

Gaby: Totally.

Daniel: And that being friendly goes a long way.

Gaby: Absolutely. How do we convince people that nature is worth protecting as much as people?

Daniel: That's a good question. I like that one. You know, people are nature. The national parks operate with the belief that a really important part about getting people to care about the world around them, and to care about this country's history and making the world a better place is learning and experiencing and making connections firsthand. So that is a really central part of the mission of the National Park Service is to give people an opportunity to come visit natural places like Glacier National Park and make those connections and realize why that's so important to protect and preserve and honor.

Gaby: Yeah, totally. Okay. Elizabeth has one more question.

Daniel: Oh is it, what's my favorite beetle? I knew it.

Gaby: That's exactly right.

Daniel: Mountain pine beetles. A natural insect that eats away at pine trees in the park. It's not good for those pine trees, but it's good for the ecosystem as a whole. And they're cool little beetles.

Gaby: Are these the beetles on whitebark pines?

Daniel: Pretty much every species of tree in the park has an associated species of beetle. So, yeah, whitebark pine included.

Gaby: That's so cool. And if you want to know more about beetles or whitebark pine, you can go listen to Season Two of the podcast. Of course. Thanks, Elizabeth, for those questions. [beat plays briefly] Okay, so the next question is from Lane, who wants to know how has climate change impacted the way the park is managed?

Daniel: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's... it would actually probably be simpler to say how has climate change not impacted the way the park is managed, because it it infiltrates every decision made in the National Park Service at this point. There are broadly four big categories in how the National Park Service is responding to climate change. One is through communication. So just doing things like podcast episodes about, you know, educating on the topic. Then there's science. There are scientists actively studying how a shifting climate is directly impacting the resources or the plants, animals, history, culture and all of that. How that's being impacted. But then on top of communication and science, there is also a whole lot of adaptation work. Basically people studying and thinking about how, okay, we have more wildfire now because of climate change, how do we need to shift our response to wildfire in the face of that? Right. And then the fourth big area of the National Park Service's response to climate change is mitigation. And that means that we're trying to actively reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that are emitted inside the national park, reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned, stuff like that.

Gaby: How are we doing that?

Daniel: Putting solar panels on roofs, switching to more fuel efficient or zero emission vehicles, recycling, composting basically anywhere we can find ways to reduce the park's emissions, we're trying to do that.

Gaby: And that's not just here, right? That's across the National Park Service.

Daniel: Yeah, it's across the federal government in general.

Gaby: That's great. How might visitors see and/or experience everything that you talked about?

Daniel: Well, if you come to Glacier National Park in your electric vehicle, you can plug it in and charge it with pretty much renewable energy resources that we have here, with hydropower. You're going to see solar panels on the roofs of some buildings. But you're also going to experience the impacts of climate change. Almost inevitably, it gets a lot hotter here in the summers than it used to. We have a lot more wildfire smoke than we used to.

Gaby: And of course, the namesake of this park.

Daniel: Everyone wants to come and hike to a glacier, or take a look at the glaciers as they melt. So that's a big part of the visitor experience these days.

Gaby: [beat plays briefly] Okay Daniel, I'm going to close it out with one more question.

Daniel: Okay.

Gaby: Okay. What snakes are in the park?

Daniel: We have two kinds of snakes. They're both garter snakes, we have two species of garter snakes. And neither of them are venomous or dangerous. Snakes are cool. A lot of people don't come here for the snakes, but they really should.

Gaby: [laughing] It's always, "where can I see a grizzly bear?"

Daniel: Never "where can I see a garter snake?"

Gaby: [laughing]

Daniel: Yeah. All right, well, if people have more questions, they can, you know, hit us up on social media or email us here at the podcast.

Gaby: [email protected] [mellow beat begins to play]

Daniel: We'll put it in the show notes too. Our music's by Frank Waln and our art is by Stella Nall.

Gaby: They're both great. Check out their work.

Daniel: Info's in the show notes.

Gaby: Headwaters is made possible with support from our nonprofit partner, the Glacier National Park Conservancy. We absolutely could not be doing this without them. Check them out at glacier.org. If you have a moment to leave us a review in your podcast app, that helps so much.

Daniel: Thanks for listening. [music fades out]

A mini episode on the various ways to plan a trip to Glacier. Tune in to our next bonus episode where we'll answer listener-submitted questions on the show. Email your questions to [email protected] with the subject, "Headwaters." Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters/ Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: https://stellanall.com/

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

[drum and synth beat starts to play]

Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Daniel Lombardi: Hello. You're listening to Headwaters, a podcast from Glacier National Park. I'm Daniel.

Madeline Vinh: Hi, I'm Madeline.

[beat concludes]

Daniel: And the point of this show is to tell stories about how Glacier is connected to everything else.

Madeline: This bonus episode is a little different, though. It'll just be Daniel and I chatting about different resources and strategies for planning a trip to Glacier.

Daniel: We are talking trip tips.

Madeline: Trip tips.

Daniel: Trip tips.

Madeline: We are here in the park. We're here in Headquarters in West Glacier and the Park is pretty quiet right now. But the best time to plan for a trip to Glacier is well before you get here.

Daniel: Mhm.

Madeline: So, Daniel, what are some of the resources that you'd suggest people look into?

Daniel: Well, I think we have to start with official sources. Right? We have a website, nps.gov that stands for National Park Service dot government nps.gov/glac. "GLAC" is short for Glacier. That is your primary resource. That's going to have everything you need to plan a trip to the Park.

Madeline: Okay.

Daniel: Glacier maybe is a hard park to plan for because it's a big place. It's a complicated place, but there are a few other things I think people should know about.

Madeline: Officially or unofficially?

Daniel: Both.

Madeline: Okay.

Daniel: Officially, we have a podcast that's called Headwaters.

Madeline: What?

Daniel: You're listening to it right now. Also officially, we have social media channels. We're always Glacier NPS, whether it's on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or whatever. You can look us up. Follow us and that should help you plan a trip.

Madeline: Cool. Okay, so there are a lot of great sounding official resources but you've kind of hinted at unofficial resources. What do the unofficial resources have that the official ones don't?

Daniel: In general, I think people are sleeping on unofficial trip planning resources. So think of things like Facebook groups, YouTube channels, general blogs, books.

Madeline: Mhm.

Daniel: Let me back out and say that official resources are great. The Park website is going to have when campgrounds open and close. How much things cost? How far are distances between things? When are campfire programs? The park website has all of that stuff and you can trust it. It's a .gov website. You know you can trust nps.gov/glac, but if you're on a Facebook group, I think you shouldn't be expecting to get the facts and the dates and the numbers. You go to a Facebook group to get the opinionated, subjective, you know, human personal-.

Madeline: Mhm.

Daniel: -answers. Let me show you one on the laptop here, if I can get this to open up.

Madeline: Daniel is typing. He's using one finger at a time. He's typing aggressively. You might sometimes hear that.

Daniel: Sometimes I can use two fingers.

Madeline: But today is not one of those days.

Daniel: Okay, so I just went on Facebook and I searched Glacier National Park or National Parks. There are tons, dozens, maybe hundreds of Facebook groups. Gosh, yeah. And they are dedicated to helping people plan trips to national parks. It's an amazing resource that I don't think enough people know about.

Madeline: It sounds like thousands of people know about them.

Daniel: You, you got me there.

Madeline: But I'll compare that to the millions that visit national, national parks.

Daniel: Okay, so this group is it's a private Facebook group that anyone can request to join. It's called "National Park Trip Planning Advice and Help By The National Park Obsessed." And to give you an example of what it's like... Here's a post by Caitlin. Here, maybe I should have you read this.

Madeline: Caitlin says, "Just curious. In your opinion, what has been the hardest national park to plan? I've just started traveling to the parks and will hit my fifth this year, but so far for me, mine has been Glacier.".

Daniel: Ooh.

Madeline: Tough.

Daniel: I liked this one comment that someone responded to Caitlin with. Millie said Glacier was hardest for me, too, because quote, "because of the sheer number of amazing things to see and hikes to do, etc."

Madeline: You know, I don't hate that you can't go wrong here.

Daniel: Here's another unofficial source that I recommend people check out if they're if they're interested in this kind of thing. Go on YouTube. Type in Glacier National Park and look up travel vlogs. You're not going to get dates of campground opening closure, but just getting a visual look at what it's like in the park at a certain time of year, what it feels like to travel. It can be really helpful preparing you before you come visit.

Madeline: Just if you maybe want a little bit more of a visual. Sounds like vlogs are great.

Daniel: So here's a vlog from Nicole from last year. This is vlog "Video 13 Northern Montana and Glacier National Park Solo Female Traveler."

Madeline: Okay, so that's kind of like a POV, day in the life.

Daniel: Yeah, I love it. So this is one woman's experience visiting Glacier, traveling alone. You want to know what that's like okay. This person has already done it and recorded it, and you can get their opinion about it.

Nicole: So I just pulled over to see what the deal with reservations were for Glacier and-.

Madeline: Sounds great. People can look into those. Are there any hazards that people need to be aware of venturing into those territories?

Daniel: Any unofficial source you're using to plan a trip. I think you take it with a grain of salt. So if you're on a Facebook group and you're like reading the comments, it might be helpful. But also just, you know, keep some skepticism in your mind when you're reading through that kind of thing. Or if you're watching, you know, some random YouTube video about the park.

Madeline: Right. Okay. So it makes sense that that would be both a pro and a con. If you're looking for someone's opinion, sometimes you'll agree with that, sometimes you won't. So you still might need to have a little bit of a critical lens going in.

Daniel: Exactly.

Madeline: Okay.

Daniel: All right. Well, this has been just a little bonus episode. We are actively working on future seasons of the podcast, but they're not going to be coming out for a while. So stay tuned. Stay patient, stay subscribed, stay hydrated.

Madeline: All right. Headwaters is made possible with support from our nonprofit partner, the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Daniel: You should check them out at their website. It's glacier dot org because they're our nonprofit partner. The Park's official website though nps.gov/glac.

[drum and synth beat starts to play]

Madeline: If you have a moment to leave us a review in your podcast app, we'd appreciate it. It helps a lot.

Daniel: Next time we're going to do a mailbag episode. So if you have any questions that you want the Headwaters team to answer on this podcast, just send us an email, put Headwaters in the subject line and our email address is [email protected]. We'll put it in the show notes too. Thanks for listening.

[beat fades out]

A conversation with Dr. Danielle Buttke, who works for the National Park Service at the intersection of human, wildlife, and environmental health. This episode was recorded in September 2023.

Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: https://www.instagram.com/stella.nall/

Climate change in Glacier: https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm Public health in National Parks: https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1735/index.ht

---

TRANSCRIPT:

---

Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

Peri Sasnett: This is Headwaters, a podcast made in the verdant wonderland that is Glacier National Park. Millions of people come here each year looking for a break from the stresses of everyday life. My name is Peri, and this episode is an interview that my co-host Daniel did with Dr. Danielle Buttke, talking about the intersection of climate change and public health. They talk about how the health of our climate, environment, and communities is all intertwined. This episode is part of a series of conversations we've been having with a wide variety of climate change experts. These episodes don't have to be listened to in any order, each one stands on its own. And they all focus on a particular aspect of the way the world is being altered by the burning of fossil fuels. Over the past century and a half, human activity has released enough greenhouse gases to warm the Earth's climate over one degree Celsius, with only more warming on the way. Throughout 2023, Daniel sat down with experts to talk about how that warming is altering Glacier National Park, our lives and our futures.

[drum and synth beat starts to play]

Peri: I've always been interested in the idea that people and nature are deeply connected. Maybe you know that already, if you listened to our season on whitebark pine. Still, I don't think I was prepared to hear Dr. Buttke explain these interconnections with so much scientific rigor. I was also struck by how profoundly our health is connected to our climate. I think this interview is essential listening.

[beat concludes]

Daniel Lombardi: So thanks for talking to us. We wanted to talk to you, Dr. Buttke, about public health and climate change and how climate change is impacting human health and the health of our natural environment, and how those two things are intertwined and all tangled up together.

Danielle Buttke: I'm excited to be here today.

Daniel: So you have an impressive background, right? You have a Master's in public health. You've studied environmental sciences, and you also have a degree in veterinary medicine, the health and epidemiology of animals. Is that kind of a good summary of that?

Danielle: It is, yeah. I had a little bit of a circuitous route to where I am today. Originally wanted to study and work in environmental science and wildlife conservation, which was where my, my Ph.D. work really focused, and realized somewhat early on that animals knew how to survive just fine. It was really that humans were, were taking over the resources and had basic needs that, that needed to be met before we could ask them to conserve resources for tomorrow. And that's when I switched to public health.

Daniel: So what's your job now? Tell us about where you work and what you do.

Danielle: So I currently lead the One Health program for the National Park Service, and One Health is simply the recognition that both human health, animal health and environmental health are all completely interdependent and interlinked. And when we think about the multiplicity of health outcomes and players, when we're looking at a specific problem, we all benefit when we think about health as a more holistic construct.

Daniel: A lot of times I think your job gets really kicked into high gear when like there's a hantavirus outbreak or something in a national park. Is that right?

Danielle: It is, yeah. Because we share so much of the same biology with other species, we often share a lot of the same diseases. Diseases that pass between humans and animals -- and they can often go in either direction -- SARS-CoV-2 or COVID is a perfect example of that, you know, they're called zoonotic diseases. And that's really where I got my start and where a lot of my work is focused, on those infectious diseases that can pass between humans and animals. Hantavirus is a perfect example of one of those. And so increasingly in our work, we're finding that when the environment is healthy, when we keep those ecosystems healthy, those ecosystem processes are occurring in the way that nature intended. We have many, many fewer disease risks and many, many fewer disease spillover events.

Daniel: Interesting. So I think one thing that's maybe surprising to some people, but talking with you, it seems pretty obvious, that like one approach to studying climate change or thinking about climate change is to think about it through a lens of public health, of environmental health. Do you encounter people that find that surprising, or that's a new idea for them. That these that climate change and environmental health and human health are connected.

Danielle: It's really surprising to me to hear and see how many people have not thought about that connection. In every aspect of the way in which climate change impacts the environment, has a similar impact on human health. And yet studies have shown that few people are aware of those impacts, even if they've personally been impacted by a climate disaster or climate emergency. Because when people understand climate change as an impact to their daily lives and their personal health and their family's health, I think it really helps people to understand why it's so important they take action. And it also helps to clarify the ways in which they can personally take action in their local community, in their home and the environment around them.

Daniel: Yeah. Do you think it's helpful for us to define the difference between health and disease?

Danielle: I think that Western medicine, and my own profession, has focused heavily on disease because it's really easy to see. It's very easy to measure. We have specific tests for specific diseases, and oftentimes it's it's something that we can directly treat. Health is a really difficult thing to measure. Health is not simply the absence of disease, but an individual's ability to thrive within the environment that they exist in, whether it's a human or an animal. And it's therefore a lot easier to understand why health is more directly impacted by climate change than disease per se. Even though we do know that climate change dramatically influences the rate, the types and the severity of infectious diseases. But again, health is much broader than just disease, and therefore the impacts of climate change are much broader than just disease.

[drumbeat plays, marking a transition]

Daniel: What are some examples of climate change really impacting wildlife health and wildlife disease that you've come across in your work?

Danielle: Climate change can influence the actual reproduction of a bacterium or a virus. Under warmer temperatures, or higher or sometimes even lower amounts of precipitation, certain bacteria and viruses can replicate faster, to a higher level, or for a longer period of time. Mosquito-borne viruses are a perfect example of this. When you have a longer, warmer summer, mosquitoes can replicate much more quickly and rapidly, they're present for a longer period of time throughout the year, and those viruses within those mosquitoes can also replicate more rapidly under those warming temperatures. We're also seeing that infectious diseases are changed under climate change because of the ways in which the environment influences where those animals thrive and survive. Avian malaria in Hawaii is a perfect example of this. While neither the mosquitoes nor the the parasite that causes malaria are native to Hawaii, they have become endemic in bird populations and in mosquito populations there. Prior to the warmer temperatures we've seen under climate change, a lot of the native bird species were able to only survive and evade malaria at very high elevations on the mountains in Hawaii. With climate change, those mosquito vectors are moving up in elevation, and those native bird species that are extremely susceptible to malaria, because they didn't evolve with this non-native parasite, are dying out from malaria. And as the mosquitoes move up, there's fewer and fewer refugia, or safe places, for those birds to survive and hide from both the mosquito and the malaria parasite. And we've seen a lot of those native birds go completely extinct because of this parasite. In fact, there's a variety of studies show that there's probably only a few more years left for some of these native bird species to survive without going extinct, if we don't take action now to eradicate that non-native mosquito and that non-native parasite that's present on the island.

Daniel: Wow. So basically, in the case of Hawaii and the birds there, it's a story of climate change and a story of invasive or non-native species in that the mosquitoes and the malaria is historically wasn't there. But this is -- generally, all around the world, what's happening is as the climate warms, these mosquitoes and the diseases they carry are able to spread into new places and impact more people and new species of wildlife as well. Is that right?

Danielle: That's absolutely correct.

Daniel: So we're seeing the potential for these mosquitoes to expand their ranges. Does their range contract alongside, too? As it gets hotter and hotter, they can move to higher elevations and farther north, but then does their the southern end or the lower end of their ranges shrink at the same time? Or are they able to tolerate the heat better?

Danielle: For for many species, absolutely. There is not necessarily an expansion of range. Oftentimes, it's just a shift in the range in which these organisms can survive. However, it's not just climate change that's happening on the landscape. It's also human development of landscapes. And humans create microclimates that are oftentimes much more conducive to having these parasites, whether it's ticks, mosquitoes, pathogens themselves, survive. So, for example, here in Colorado, on the Front Range, we have a lot of irrigation because people like green lawns, they like having trees that might not otherwise be able to live on this landscape. And when we have irrigation, we know we have dramatically increased rates of mosquito-borne disease, such as West Nile virus. And so we have, by altering the landscape, changed the way in which these pathogens can survive and interact. And you have kind of a one-two double whammy of that land-use change that's expanding the range, as well as those, those changes from climate change that are expanding the season under which these pathogens can thrive. But I want to be clear it's not always a unidirectional: more disease because of climate change. If we're seeing decreases in precipitation or longer periods of time between which we have rainfall events, that can impact the survival of of ticks. And so it's not always that climate change is causing more pathogens to occur on the landscape. And maybe in some circumstances that's causing them to contract their range or be present for a shorter period of time. But at the end of the day, humans and animals evolved under very specific, discrete conditions. And when we have more rapid and more unpredictable changes in weather and conditions, this means that we are more susceptible to diseases. And diseases are more able to opportunistically take advantage of new niches.

Daniel: What I'm hearing you say is that, yes, the shift in mosquitoes and disease, the shift in range and the lengthening of the season, those are concerning. But maybe something that's understated here then is that climate change is just increasing kind of the chaos in the system, and the complexity, which makes all of this just harder to manage.

Danielle: That's a perfect way to put it.

Daniel: Well, let's talk about the pika research, then. What's happening with pika and climate change and disease?

Danielle: So pika are amazing little creatures that have evolved to fill a very specific niche at these very high elevation sites. So a big study that we have going on now is to understand how climate change may be influencing the other small mammals that are moving up to those higher-elevation sites. Because they're seeing warmer temperatures up at those higher-elevation sites, they're able to survive and interact with new populations and they're often bringing their diseases with them. And indeed, there's previous studies that have found, you know, certain species of small mammal that are known to be impacted by plague and carry fleas that can very easily and readily transmit the plague bacterium. They are now found at higher elevation sites where pika are also found. So we're really interested in looking at how those warmer temperatures may be driving new species to interact with pika, and they may be bringing the diseases that could potentially kill pika with them.

Daniel: Wow. So if someone hasn't heard of pika before, pikas are these really cute little mammals that are related to rabbits. So they're not really like mouse-like, they're much cuter than that. Size of potatoes, they love to live under the rocks high in the mountains and then like store up flowers for the winter because they don't actually hibernate. They don't sleep through the winter, right? They just hide under the rocks and eat their hay pile all winter long.

Danielle: Yeah. An adorable squeaky potato is a great way to put it.

Daniel: [laughs] So to stay warm in the winter, they hide under, you know, heavy, deep snows. And that keeps it, you know, it doesn't really get a whole lot colder than freezing point -- than 32 degrees. The snow actually insulates them from the colder air blowing around at the tops of the mountains. But then if you have changes in the amount of snow you're getting, or how warm the winters are, you might get less snow. And that could really hurt their ability to survive through the winter. So that's the general climate impact facing pika. But now you're describing something much more nuanced and complicated, and that is all these other animals, squirrels and mice and all kinds of little creatures that that have fleas, that have potentially diseases. And they're moving up the mountains because it's getting warmer up there and it's nice. And so they're interacting with the pika more, potentially sharing diseases. Am I getting that relationship right?

Danielle: Exactly. And I think it also really highlights what we talked about earlier, that interplay between health and disease. It's not just about whether or not a disease is present, it's how healthy is that population to begin with? How resilient is it to changes in its environment, in the introduction to new diseases? When you both have the loss of snowpack happening, as well as the introduction of a new disease, you're much more likely to see declines in that population because they don't have that resilience.

Daniel: So it's like, yeah, bringing some new diseases into a population of pikas isn't great, but so long -- if they're really healthy, then maybe that's not a big deal. But if they're really stressed and not very healthy because they've been freezing all winter long and really struggling, well then disease is going to hit a lot harder when it shows up.

Danielle: It's sometimes even native diseases that these populations may have evolved to handle or withstand the impacts of these diseases under normal conditions. But maybe under the land use changes that humans are causing, combined with climate change, those native diseases that they've previously evolved some sort of equilibrium or balance with are now having really detrimental impacts.

[drumbeat plays to mark a transition]

Daniel: Well, let's shift a little bit and talk about some of the impacts of climate change on human health that are a little, a little different than what we've been talking about. One of the primary examples is that well, burning fossil fuels like driving a car or running a coal power plant, that produces, in addition to greenhouse gases which are warming the climate, it's also producing air pollution, which has a big impact on human health. And I'm wondering if you could kind of lay that out a little bit. How does just the use of fossil fuels, aside from causing climate change, how does that impact human health?

Danielle: I don't think we can state strongly enough the negative impact of fossil fuel combustion on human health. Because that pollution that's created, we're directly breathing it, because it's often created in the communities in which we live. It's our actions -- driving our car to work, heating our homes, transporting the food that we eat to the grocery store -- all of those things are happening in the places that we live and work, and therefore we're directly exposed to a lot of this pollution. It's estimated that the combustion of fossil fuels and the resulting air pollution is responsible for anywhere from 8 to 10 million deaths every single year. That is more than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis kills -- combined -- every single year. And so it's really easy to make the business case for for clean energy, for for stopping climate change, because even if we're only looking at the direct health impacts of fossil fuel combustion, we can pay for clean energy. We can pay for that transition away from fossil fuels, away from combustion engines, just from the health care savings that we see. By stopping all of those premature deaths, it's decreasing our lifespans. No matter where you live and who you are. Although obviously individuals that live in more polluted communities, which unfortunately is often disadvantaged populations, whether it's people that live in rural parts of the country, people of color, people with lower income, those people obviously you see the brunt of it to a greater extent than more privileged communities. But even people in privileged communities are dying at much faster rates because of exposure to air pollution. It can get very deep into our lungs and it can cross into our bloodstream where our blood is pumped throughout our body. And those little tiny particles of pollution get lodged in our tissues. One of the most direct impacts is when it's lodged in our brain where it can cause a stroke or it leads to dementia. We see much higher rates of dementia in communities with higher rates of pollution. Or it can be in your heart or your blood vessels and it can lead to a heart attack or other types of cardiovascular disease. And so you've certainly met someone, know someone, have personally been impacted by stroke, heart attack, cardiovascular disease. All of those diseases are much worse and much more common because of fossil fuel combustion, because of our exposure to air pollution. And that's really just the start. There's a myriad of other ways in which that burning of fossil fuels impacts our health, but those are the most obvious.

Daniel: Wow. So if someone you know has a stroke, the medical report probably isn't going to say anything about air pollution because we're just not looking into the details that carefully anytime someone has a stroke. You know, we're just trying to help them get better and recover. But in reality, the air pollution is contributing at least some amount to that likelihood of a stroke happening.

Danielle: Absolutely. It's, you know, similar to the interplay of health and disease, we focus on that end result, that stroke. We focus on that disease, but we're not thinking enough about all of those factors that caused that stroke to occur in the first place. And exposure to pollution is is a really, really important one. There was, however, recently one of the first death certificates that had climate change listed. It was in, an I believe, a young person who had died from an asthma attack. And asthma is a much more direct, much more obvious way in which climate change and the burning of fossil fuels impacts our health. But there's there's many less obvious ways and many more insidious ways than simply dying from an asthma attack.

Daniel: It's difficult to parse out how much worse their particular case of asthma is because of burning fossil fuels. But it's certainly exacerbating and worsening these breathing and lung conditions that people might already have or might not already have.

Danielle: And it's not just direct exposure to fossil fuel combustion. It's also those secondary impacts of burning fossil fuels. So under these warmer temperatures, we know that wildfire is dramatically increasing. You know, and the the particles that are released during a wildfire event are having that secondary and compounding impact on increasing rates of asthma, increasing hospital admissions, increasing stroke, increasing heart attack. So it's oftentimes multifactorial, but increasingly, those events are linked to impacts of climate change. We know that, you know, somewhat surprisingly, increased precipitation from climate change in some parts of the country are increasing pollen counts and worsening asthma and other types of air pollution, whereas in other parts of the country, such as the desert southwest, those increased droughts and increased temperatures are worsening the dust, sometimes worsening fungal pollen spores that can cause different infectious diseases such as Valley Fever and worsening the rates of asthma, the rates of of general lung disease and other impacts because of those warmer temperatures.

Daniel: So here in Glacier, what what's probably happening is we're getting longer summers, warmer summers. So there's allergy season in the summer and the season in which plants are pollinating. Like that's lengthening, too. So if you're allergic to tree pollen, like when there's just longer time periods with that pollen in the air.

Danielle: These are oftentimes synergistic, especially when you have warmer temperatures. When the body is overheated, when we have higher, hotter ambient temperatures, it's a lot harder for our body to respond to especially those cardiovascular insults. We see much higher rates of cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular attacks when you have these compound exposures. So it is, as you said earlier, it's just increased chaos.

Daniel: Yeah, increased chaos because it's one thing if your allergies are way worse because of the pollen or your asthma is way worse because of the smoke. But then you have to add on top of that, like, oh, also a heat wave and you don't have air conditioning. Like now you're suddenly really susceptible to like just a common cold, I would think is going to hit way harder when your body is run down from heat and smoke and everything.

Danielle: And we saw this with COVID. We saw that populations that were experiencing greater amounts of air pollution had much more severe rates of COVID-19 disease and death. We know that when your body is responding to pollution and responding to particulate matter, it's much more difficult to fight off infectious diseases, even things such as as seemingly benign as the common cold.

Daniel: Wow. Well, let's talk about the heat, then, because ultimately, that's what we most typically associated with climate change, is burning fossil fuels, is releasing greenhouse gases, and that's heating the planet. And heat is ultimately very dangerous.

Danielle: Most folks are often surprised to hear and learn that heat kills more people than any other severe weather event. And it isn't just direct heat exposure, just as it isn't direct fossil fuel pollution exposure that kills people. Repeated exposure to high temperatures in which your body's not able to cool itself well can cause a lot of long term health impacts. It can decrease kidney function. There's some studies suggesting it may influence the development of other chronic diseases, such as diabetes. It can have long term impacts on your cardiovascular system, and it can influence your ability to withstand those severe heat events in future years. And so it's not just simply did you survive that extreme heat event that you saw. It's what long term consequences are occurring to your body when when you have these, these heat exposure in these extreme heat events.

Daniel: There's two themes emerging in this conversation so far, Danielle. One of them is that the impacts of climate change on health are not evenly distributed. They're impacting some people more than others. Another theme that's emerging, that if it's not obvious already, is that none of these impacts are acting alone. They're all interacting together and exacerbating and influencing each other. Well, I want to ask you something more about heat. In Phoenix this summer, they had like almost the entire month of July over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. And that's incredible. Glacier National Park here in West Glacier, I think our record high temperature ever is 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's just it doesn't get that hot here. But I'm guessing that you can say more about how it's not necessarily the number that causes health issues. It's not the exact temperature. There's other factors, right?

Danielle: It is often unexpected heat that causes the worst health impacts and outcomes because people are neither behaviorally able to adapt -- maybe you didn't bring sun protection, maybe you didn't plan your hike so that you can take shade breaks, maybe you didn't bring enough water -- as well as physiologically adapt. When your body is gradually exposed to increasing heat, it's able to cool itself more efficiently over time, provided that it has the resources that needed it needs. So it's unexpected heat that's oftentimes the greatest killer. But what our study found was where we had the most severe health impacts and the most number of heat illness events and deaths was in the shoulder seasons. It's when people didn't expect the heat that they suffered the worst.

[drumbeat plays to mark a transition]

Daniel: So far, we've talked about impacts of climate change on wildlife health and disease. And we've talked about the impacts of climate change on human health and disease. And now I was going to ask you, let's talk more about where those overlap and intersect, how human and wildlife and environmental health are really inseparable and tied together. Do you think the best examples might be like Lyme disease, hantavirus, West Nile? Should we talk about those?

Danielle: I think those are some of the the most salient examples of how human, environmental and wildlife health are interlinked. However, they're not the most powerful examples in terms of overall health benefits or overall health detriments. Lyme disease and West Nile and hantavirus are all infectious diseases that can be spread from wildlife and or insects to humans, and oftentimes vice versa. And we know that each of these diseases occurs at higher rates and spills over to humans more often when there are aspects of that environment that aren't healthy. We know, for example, West Nile virus occurs at the highest rates in the human population when there are the least number of bird species present and when there is not a very diverse community of wildlife present. It's something that's been referred to as the dilution effect, although that simplifies it quite a bit. It's much more complex than that. But it's the idea that when you have diverse wildlife populations that are present in healthy ecosystems, they essentially can dilute out that disease because they're not all susceptible to it, and therefore it can't simply amplify by passing from one animal to the next to the next. And that means that when you don't have that complete community of birds present, when you don't have that diverse assemblage of wildlife species present, you can see greater rates of some of these diseases. Lyme disease is another example of that. We know that when you have more predators present on the landscape, you have lower numbers and lower rates of transmission in the mouse populations, either because those predators are eating that mouse species that is uniquely capable of maintaining high numbers of the Lyme disease-causing bacteria, or oftentimes because those mice aren't as often to go out there and transmit disease more readily because they're afraid that a predator is watching them. And that's why when we have more natural predators present, when we have a more diverse wildlife community present on the landscape, we have lower rates of Lyme disease in those human communities and that part of of the environment. Wow. So we know that when that ecosystem is diverse and healthy, we generally have lower rates of disease transmission.

Daniel: That's really amazing. To underline that, you're saying that more biodiversity results in less disease for wildlife and people.

Danielle: For many diseases yes, that is -- and generally that is the case.

Daniel: Wow. Can we dig into each of these a little bit then? What is it about having more birds that helps with West Nile disease?

Danielle: Yeah, this is a great question and a really important example of this mechanism of of how biodiversity protects us. There are certain bird species that are really susceptible to West Nile virus, and those bird species can make a whole lot of virus in their bloodstream when they get infected. Corvids, which are things like jays and crows, are examples of birds that that make a whole lot of virus when they get infected. And that's oftentimes why they die from West Nile virus. But before they die, they can infect a lot of mosquitoes, because every single time a mosquito takes blood from that animal, they can pick up a ton of virus because it's at such high density in the blood of that bird species. Compare that to other types of songbirds that are probably more rare, probably don't like living around humans to the same extent that those corvids species do. They may get infected with West Nile virus, but they're much less likely to die from it, and they don't make as much virus when they have it or they never get it in the first place. So when you have those songbirds present that aren't very capable at transmitting West Nile virus, you essentially stop those mosquitoes from feeding on those those jays and those crows and those other species that are really good at transmitting it. And therefore, a fewer percentage of the mosquitoes in that population are going to be transmitting and carrying West Nile virus. The thing is, those species that are really good at transmitting West Nile virus are some of the most resilient to human disturbance. That's why those are the birds you see in neighborhoods, because those are some of the only ones that are tolerant of night lighting that occurs oftentimes in human developments or the noises that occur or the very, very impoverished numbers of trees and diversity of of plant species. A lot of those songbirds need more food than is present in an urban landscape, and therefore they can't live there. And so that's why having more bird species present, as we see in more diverse communities, is associated with having fewer human infections with West Nile virus.

Daniel: This is kind of blowing my mind. And so when we're talking about these diseases and the overlap between wildlife health and biodiversity and human health and human disease, the climate impact is not quite as direct as some of the other things we've talked about, but it's still a factor in that climate change is disrupting the life patterns and the existence of a bunch of these animals and changing the amount of like generalist species, like ravens versus sensitive warbler species that are being impacted by climate change, am I understanding that. Right?

Danielle: Absolutely. And I think it's probably easier to see climate impacts in these wildlife diseases and populations if instead of looking at the negative side of things, we look at the positive side of things because we know that when you have more tree canopy present in a location that's supposed to be forested, you have much greater rates of biodiversity. So more species of birds present, so less or lower rates of West Nile virus transmission occurring there. And you're more resilient against heat illness because you've got shade there, you have evapotranspiration happening from those trees. So they create cooler, more humid micro environments that help your body cool and all of those other species that are just as susceptible to heat illness oftentimes as humans are. It cleans the water. It means you're more you're less susceptible to flooding because the roots of those trees will take that water away. It regulates our environment in so many ways that it both decreases the risk of a lot of these infectious diseases, as well as protects us from severe heat, extreme weather, extreme flooding, drought, etc.. And so, you know, it's it's not just, again, about disease. It's it's really about health writ large.

Daniel: At the end of the day, those diseases are not our greatest killers. They don't have the greatest health impacts. And other infectious diseases where biodiversity can regulate or reduce the rate of disease transmission may have be more important from a number standpoint, even if the example by which biodiversity regulates disease transmission isn't as obvious.

Daniel: Are you saying that, well, hantavirus, Lyme disease, this is kind of scary, but ultimately, like from a public health perspective, asthma, and air quality, that kind of stuff is just way more impactful. Way more important.

Danielle: Exactly. Exactly. When you look at the top ten killers, not just in the United States, but globally, they're not infectious diseases. They're chronic diseases, they're cancer. They're diseases from air pollution. They're, you know, factors and health impacts that are influenced both by climate change increasingly, as well as access to nature. [drumbeat plays to mark a transition]

Daniel: So you're describing the health and disease benefits of basically just having more greenspace, having more trees and grass around where you live. Right.

Danielle: Most people can probably think about the way in which being outside might make you feel better. It's not just a feeling. We know that when you are exposed to nature, even if it's in short periods of time, very small segments or what we would think of as not very natural nature, such as a dense city park or even house plants, it can have really profound physiologic impacts that last for quite a long time on us. We know that kids that are exposed to nature, if they walk through a tree lined street on their way to school, they're going to concentrate better. They have better immune function, they have better recall and memory and and better behavioral characteristics. There are studies that have found that kids that are exposed to nature on a regular basis can sometimes even eliminate the need for medication to deal with things such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit disorder, simply from exposure to nature. We also know that we have significant increases in, for example, natural killer cell function and other immune markers when we are exposed to some of the phytochemicals that trees release, or simply exposed to greenspace, our immune system is better able to deal with pollution as well as infectious diseases when we're exposed to nature. We also know that there's a lot of mental health benefits, not just memory and mental function, but also decreased rates of anxiety, depression, lower rates of crime in communities that have green space present. And all of these is really has been found to be a direct measure or impact of of the presence of nature, even when we control for things such as socioeconomic conditions present in that environment, other other factors that can influence any of these outcomes. You know, regardless of of what your background is or where you live, there's a health impact of nature exposure that we can see if we're increasing the amount of nature you're exposed to.

Daniel: Wow.

Danielle: Yeah. And I think this is really important because while diseases such as West Nile virus, hantavirus, Lyme disease are important, they actually don't kill that many people. They can have a devastating impact on your life if you have some of those long term sequelae of Lyme disease infection. But in reality, the impacts of those diseases pale in comparison with a lot of the chronic diseases such as depression, such as substance abuse, such as suicide, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, these chronic diseases that kill far more people than those infectious diseases. But those chronic diseases that can be alleviated, if not completely cured or prevented if we have more nature present in our environment and if we have access to nature. We know that people are more likely to participate in healthy behaviors when they have more nature present in their community and environment. We know that people are more likely to be connected to others and their community when they have more greenspace present. And that dramatically increases life span and lessens your risk of dying from any type of extreme event, severe weather, emergency fire or otherwise. Because people are going to check on you. You're less likely to die of diseases of despair such as alcoholism, drug use disorder, and other forms of of mental illness deaths when you have exposure to nature and a stronger, more closer knit community. And so it really influences and improves our health in a variety of ways. Those impacts are much harder to measure than diseases from infectious causes, but they're no less real. Just because we maybe can't can't measure them in the same way.

Daniel: And so oftentimes, like defining what is nature is messy or complicated, but in this case, we're like really loosely defining it, I think, right. Like it's we're talking about just having grass and trees and plants around you. That's what you mean by exposure to nature for the most part. Right?

Danielle: Yeah. And in fact, one of the first seminal studies showing this effect simply looked at whether or not hospital patients recovering from gallbladder surgery could see nature outside of their window, or if they were on a side of the hospital that looked out at other buildings. And they found much faster rates of recovery and better outcomes in those patients who had views of trees outside of their hospital window. And so there hasn't been that much work done to really quantify what types of nature have what types of impact. But the good news is the bar is pretty low. Any nature, whether it's native or not or pristine or not or large or small, is going to have some positive benefit on your mental health, on your physical health, and your community health, and your chance of living longer and healthier and happier. And studies that look at infectious disease, studies that look at chronic disease, studies that look at school performance, anxiety, the list goes on and on. And the other thing that's really important about this is a lot of these diseases are impacted by climate change, but a lot of the benefits of nature go beyond some of the things we've just talked about to, again, reducing your risk of extreme heat, reducing your exposure to air pollution. Trees are one of the best sources of of air filters, right? Trees clean our air to a greater extent than nearly any other type of technology, and trees draw down carbon. They both help us adapt to climate change as well as help to reverse or stop some of the climate warming pollution, pull it down back into the ground so that we're not still seeing the heating impact of that carbon that's in the air. So nature is is so beneficial on so many so many levels. And climate change is really compounding a lot of these diseases that we're exposed to, a lot of these health impacts that we're exposed to. But access to nature can both have a direct impact on our risk of those diseases, as well as reverse or mitigate some of our future risk by by helping us adapt to and mitigate climate change directly.

Daniel: And to be clear, you're not talking about like some special whitebark pine tree in the top of a national park. You're talking about literally any tree is improving our air quality and health while also drawing down carbon along the way.

Danielle: Yes. And this is actually a really important point because the tree that's going to have the greatest influence on your health is the one that's closest to you. But it's local nature that has the greatest health impact because you have the greatest exposure to it. It doesn't have to be large scale. It doesn't have to be as big or beautiful as you'd like it to be. Any nature is going to have a positive health benefit for you if you're exposed to it at a higher rate.

Daniel: Not everybody has the same access to a neighborhood filled with trees and streets lined with trees. Some neighborhoods have more than others.

Danielle: And this is why those health impacts of climate change fall very unequally on communities and hit those vulnerable communities with the least resources. Most significantly, because those communities are less likely to have tree canopy, you're both less likely to have the money or the housing for air conditioning or well sealed housing that can keep that wildfire smoke out, and you're less likely to have tree canopy that's going to clean up that pollution that's there or shade your house so that you're less impacted by the lack of air conditioning during a heat wave. Greenspace is one way in which we can dramatically improve the health of those vulnerable communities, because there's both the really, really beneficial health aspects of having that exposure to greenspace, as well as that really significant need to help them adapt to warmer temperatures, to more air pollution, to more diseases present, to more flooding, to more drought. Trees are going to help with all of those things, and they're beneficial whether or not you're experiencing one of those extreme weather events.

Daniel: So altogether, it's like kind of scary to really realize like how unhealthy and how negatively our environment is being impacted by climate change. But it's also kind of inspiring or exciting that like there's so many benefits to our health from fostering a healthy environment and addressing climate change. That like we have the solutions and those solutions for a lot of these is just like engaging with and encouraging more greenspace in your own neighborhood.

Danielle: And even better, if they could be a food source to you or to to local wildlife, which you know is another impact of climate change we haven't talked about is food scarcity and food insecurity, because we're having more droughts and heat waves and greater chaos. You can't grow crops very well if you don't know whether or not the rain is going to come or how hot that temperature is going to be that summer. And so having more nature present and more types of nature present is going to make you more adaptable and more resilient. And the other really important aspect of having more nature present is that it is one of the only things that the American public universally supports. It does not matter your political views, your economic background, your your ethnic background, everyone universally, over 93% of Americans support protecting more greenspace, whether it's national parks or otherwise, for the benefit and well-being of other Americans. And so it's something we can all get behind as as a climate solution, as an equity solution, as a health solution of having more greenspace present. And if we use that greenspace to to also then, you know, grow local food or have more educational opportunities for kids or have more spaces for us to connect with each other, we're going to see a myriad of other health benefits and resilience benefits against some of these climate changes in the future.

Daniel: Well, this is all been incredible. Thank you, Dr. Buttke, for taking the time to come and chat with us about this.

Danielle: Thank you for the time. But at the end of the day, the the story is is really one of hope and and nature, the health benefits of nature. The best way for you to have an impact. The best way for you to take climate action is right where you are, influencing the people that will listen to you most readily and most willingly and in the way in which you you best know how. Any action you can take is going to be beneficial, but it's going to be most beneficial if it's it's local to you and in with people that that trust and are more likely to follow in your footsteps. And again, everyone supports more nature. Everyone supports more green space. So it's a really good place to start.

Daniel: We have so much to gain by addressing climate change. I love that.

Danielle: It's important to recognize that there's extreme disparity in this country in particular, and access to greenspace and access to shade and access to parks. And it's not simply about what zip code you live in and whether or not you have money to take that vacation and travel to to a national park. It's more about the ways in which our cities were designed and developed that excluded people of color, in particular from living in certain neighborhoods and parts of certain cities because of institutional and structural racism that existed. We know that the practice of redlining prohibited people of color from owning homes in certain parts of the city that were more likely to have greenspace and parks present. And that's why today, one of the thing that predicts your likelihood of having shade or having urban tree canopy or access to green space is sadly the color of your skin. This is a an absolute health disparity in addition to just simply being wrong that we really need to to to remedy not only because it's the right thing to do, but because it has dramatic health benefits and it helps those vulnerable communities adapt to and mitigate climate change in a way that they need it most.

Daniel: So, Danielle, some of what you're describing is the benefits of green space, not just on human health and mitigating human disease, but also just improving like mental health to being in green space. And I'm also curious to see what you think about the benefits of mental health, of like taking action, doing something in your community about green space or about climate change. Like, does that have an impact on mental health or any other kind of health?

Danielle: I think oftentimes we think about it backwards. It isn't that if you have hope, you take action. It's that if you take action that brings you hope. Taking action actually dramatically improves your mental health. And oftentimes people don't know where to start or where to act. The good news is, is that anything you can do in your neighborhood is going to have the biggest impact. And any action you're taking in your local, local neighborhood or community is also more likely to have that positive impact on your health. If you're advocating for a park, if you're planting trees, if you're starting a community garden, we are going to have so much more hope when we take action and we're going to have such a greater impact when we do it through nature based solutions, because they have health benefits that extend far beyond the direct impact on climate and health benefits or impacts. We are increasingly dependent on our local communities to meet our needs, to take care of each other, to support each other through these extreme weather events and these climate impacts and action that we can take, such as improving greenspace locally, is going to make our community more prepared for these events. It's going to provide us a resource that helps mitigate and reduce the impacts of those severe events. And it's just going to make us healthier, happier and more resilient long term. So it's it's really, I think one of the best ways for us to find hope is by taking action to find those nature based solutions where you live and work, because they'll have the greatest impact and you'll see those benefits quite clearly.

[hopeful guitar and drumbeat plays]

Daniel: Yeah, that's great. We have so much to gain by taking action to address climate change from creating more greenspace. I love it.

Peri: Headwaters is funded by donations to the Glacier National Park Conservancy. As an organization dedicated to supporting the park, the Conservancy funds a lot of sustainability initiatives from solar panels on park buildings to storytelling projects like this one. The Conservancy is doing critical work to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. You can learn more about what they do and about how to get involved at Glacier.org. This show is created by Daniel Lombardi, Michael Faist, Gaby Eseverri, and me, Peri Sasnett. We get critical support from Lacy Kowalski, Melissa Sladek, Kristen Friesen, and so many good people with Glacier's, natural and cultural resource teams. Our music was made by the brilliant Frank Waln, and the show's cover art is by our sweet friend Stella Nall. Check out Frank and Stella's work at the links in the show notes. Besides sharing this episode with a friend who might appreciate it, you can help us out by leaving a rating and review in your podcast app. Thanks for listening.

[music concludes]