ESSEX — Over the winter, those in the tiny mountain hamlet of Essex, on the southern edge of Glacier National Park, said something felt amiss around LOGE Glacier, the beloved old railroad lodge better known as the Izaak Walton Inn. Perhaps it was the lackluster snow covering the cross-country trails or the recent departure of a popular employee at the inn, they thought. Even when the trail-grooming machine the inn had been leasing this winter was suddenly repossessed a few weeks ago, locals hoped that maybe someone had made a mistake and missed a payment. 

Regardless of what they thought, no one expected that the inn was just weeks away from shutting down as a result of “significant” financial challenges for its Washington-based parent company, which had purchased and remodeled the inn just a few years ago. 

Now locals in Essex are wondering what their community will do without its beloved gathering spot, and employees are wondering where they will go once their jobs are eliminated and employee housing is shuttered. 

“We were all blindsided,” said Fantasia Knight, a housekeeper at the inn since LOGE reopened it in 2024. “A lot of us moved our entire lives up here, and some of us have nowhere else to go.”

‘THE INN BETWEEN’

While there are a number of historic lodges in and around Glacier National Park, few are as connected to their communities as the Izaak Walton Inn. While there are more than 30 rooms in the lodge itself, plus a number of rail cars-turned-cabins scattered across the grounds, on a Friday or Saturday night, you were just as likely to run into a local bellied up to the basement bar as you were a tourist. 

While Essex has built a reputation in recent years as a haven for outdoor recreation, it began as a railroad town. Shortly after the Great Northern Railway built its main line over nearby Marias Pass, Essex became a “helper station,” where extra locomotives were added to trains for the climb over the mountain. It was also where plows were stationed to keep the tracks clear in winter. Every winter, the Great Northern would have about 200 railroaders based in Essex. But in 1935, the “beanery” that fed and housed those workers burned down. For a few years, the railroad had its employees stay in old boxcars, but the accommodations were far from attractive, and managers had difficulty finding people willing to work out of Essex during the winter.

In 1939, the railroad made a deal with the Addison Miller Company to construct a hotel and lunch room next to the tracks in Essex. The Izaak Walton Inn opened later that year. While the inn’s primary purpose was to serve railroaders, the evocative name honoring a popular 17th-century outdoorsman and the Tudor Revival style were meant to attract tourists as well. Located about halfway between West Glacier and East Glacier Park, the Izaak Walton earned the nickname “the inn between” and was known as a quiet oasis away from the park’s busier east and west sides.

In 1957, the Addison Miller Company sold it, and the inn passed through several private owners. One of the most consequential was the Veilleux family, which owned it from the early 1980s until 2006. During their tenure, the family helped develop a system of cross-country ski trails and leveraged the inn’s railroad connection by buying old cabooses and converting them into cabins. The family even sought permission from the railroads to paint the cabooses into the appropriate colors, logos and all, representing the companies that operated in Montana. Over the years, the inn became popular with outdoor and railroad enthusiasts alike. In 2006, the inn was sold to Brian Kelly, who helped the business grow by acquiring a nearby motel and a cafe within Glacier Park. In 2022, Kelly put the inn and surrounding property up for sale, and nine months later, it sold to LOGE Camps for $13.5 million. 

THE LOGE ERA

LOGE Camps (pronounced “Lodge” and standing for “Live Outside, Go Explore”) was founded in 2016 with the mission to find “forgotten motels near our favorite towns and trails, and bring them back to life.” Suggesting that the Izaak Walton was “forgotten” irked some locals and long-time visitors, and eyebrows raised even further in 2023, when the hospitality company announced they were shutting the inn down for a major renovation. As part of that, the company held an auction in which it sold hundreds of pieces of memorabilia from the walls, along with furniture and just about anything else that wasn’t nailed down. After the auction, the inn closed, and over the next year, LOGE undertook a major renovation, including upgrades to the water and heating systems, new wiring and a brand-new kitchen. Some of those upgrades, management later admitted, were not part of the initial plan but were required (most notably the outdated electrical system). 

But with the inn, along with its restaurant and bar, closed, many locals found themselves without a centralized gathering spot, said Brian and Lisa McKeon, whose family has owned a cabin near the inn for decades. 

“Without the inn, it’s just a remote neighborhood,” Brian McKeon told Montana Free Press this week. “With the inn, it’s a community.” 

“The energy was completely different when the inn was closed,” Lisa McKeon added. “It was kind of sad and lonely to go up there. There was a desolate energy about the place.” 

That lonely era came to an end when the inn reopened under a new name, LOGE Glacier, in the fall of 2024. Inside, guests and locals found refreshed rooms with new furniture and modern amenities. Some of the railroad memorabilia from the inn’s previous iteration had also been squirreled away before the auction and made an appearance inside the hallways and downstairs bar. 

“We knew we had something special here,” general manager Lucas Hillman told the Flathead Beacon in late 2024. “You don’t buy a place like this and then change everything.”

Locals said that Hillman and the rest of the LOGE staff made a concerted effort to be good neighbors and invite the locals to the inn by hosting trivia nights and other community events. While some changes irritated locals — like painting the old cabooses a generic blue, no longer picking up guests from the Amtrak station in Essex and a limited menu in the restaurant — they generally gave the local management positive marks, said longtime resident Larry Epstein.

“When it reopened, it quickly became our community center again,” he said. 

Meanwhile, LOGE was rapidly expanding across the region, opening locations in Washington, California and Colorado. It also opened a hotel in Missoula, and said it saw additional opportunities in Montana. 

‘WE WERE SHOCKED’

But the company was struggling financially. According to a report from the Flathead Beacon, which broke the news late last week that LOGE Glacier was closing, the company’s board of directors discovered in late 2025 that the company was in “significant distress” and lacked the money to continue operating. According to emails reviewed by the Beacon, LOGE CEO Cale Genenbacher had told the board that the company had refinanced one of its properties. But in reality, LOGE had repurchased it after the lender foreclosed on the property, according to the Beacon. Genenbacher resigned in November, and last month the company retained a chief restructuring officer and insolvency counsel, who typically guide a company through restructuring or bankruptcy. 

In January, LOGE’s board of directors decided to begin winding down operations. 

“The board did not make this decision lightly, but this was required due to a lack of cash flow at the property level and the inability to continue paying required operating costs,” the board wrote in an email, according to the Beacon. “The company is doing everything in its power to look for ways to continue maximizing value in these properties, but cannot risk additional liability that would come from missing payroll obligations or other obligations to critical vendors.”

LOGE did not respond to a request for comment from MTFP.

Last week, word spread that LOGE properties across the region were closing, including the hotel and cafe in Missoula. Knight, the housekeeper, said she and the rest of the staff were informed last Friday that they were losing their jobs. 

“We were shocked,” she said. 

While some LOGE properties have already closed, the Izaak Walton is expected to remain open until March 1. Knight said she suspected the facility in Essex is staying open longer because it has two weddings scheduled for the end of this month. While LOGE has informed the 17 full-time employees that they will be out of work at the end of this month, Knight said it has provided little additional information.

“We have been getting a lot of phone calls, but we don’t have a lot of answers,” she said.

Knight said that she and the rest of the staff are committed to one another and to finishing the job they were hired to do. But they’re also trying to figure out what’s next. Most full-time staff live in employee housing, which will also be closed, so most people will not be able to stay in Essex. Knight said she was unsure where she would go. Some were unsure how they would leave town, as not everyone owns a car. Others were dealing with the logistics of moving with the pets they had brought with them to Essex. Knight has organized a GoFundMe to raise money that will be split among the employees to help with moving expenses. As of Wednesday night, it had raised about $1,300. 

Local residents told MTFP that they were concerned about the staff, many of whom had become friends over the years. But they were also wondering what would happen to the community of Essex now that the inn at its heart is once again about to be closed, this time, with no firm plans about its future. Thane Johnson, an attorney who splits his time between Helena and Essex, said the inn is in great shape and would be an attractive business for a new owner. Although if LOGE declares bankruptcy, Johnson said it could be months before the legal issues are resolved and the inn is reopened. Others expressed concern about the impact of an extended closure on a historic building in a rugged environment. 

“It would be devastating if no one bought it,” Johnson said. “Our community would survive — we’re close-knit — but there would be a hole in that community.”

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Glacier National Park announced Wednesday that it is ending its ticketed-entry system, which has dictated summer access to some of the park’s most popular areas for the past five years. Instead, it will introduce new parking limits at Logan Pass and a reservation system for shuttle buses along the Going-to-the-Sun Road. 

Late last year, Superintendent Dave Roemer said the park was likely to discontinue the ticketed-entry system for the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Road, which has long been one of Glacier’s most congested areas. However, since then, National Park Service officials have remained silent about their exact plans, saying they were still assessing options. In previous years, Glacier typically announced its plans for the following year in November or December.

In a press release Wednesday, Roemer said he hoped the new system would enable more people to visit Logan Pass, the Continental Divide and the summit of the Sun Road by implementing a three-hour parking limit there. Park officials stated that this would give visitors enough time to see the Visitor’s Center, participate in an interpretive program, or even take the short hike to the Hidden Lake Overlook. 

Those planning longer hikes from Logan Pass, such as the iconic Highline Trail to the Granite Park Chalet, would need to use one of the express shuttles from either the east or west side of the park. 

“With the new trial measures, we aim to improve the public’s ability to visit Logan Pass for short durations and allow the shuttle system to perform more reliably for a more specific purpose,” Roemer said in the release. “This initiative reflects our continued learning and listening as we refine park transportation and access to better serve the public and safeguard the integrity of the park’s resources.”

Parking limits at Logan Pass were expected to begin on July 1, typically around the time the entire Going-to-the-Sun Road opens. Meanwhile, the new express shuttle system will provide direct service from the Apgar Visitor Center and Lake McDonald Lodge on the west side to Logan Pass. Unlike previous years, it will not stop at the Avalanche Lake or Trail of the Cedars trailheads. The shuttle will make afternoon stops at the Loop, a popular endpoint for hikers from Logan Pass. On the east side, the shuttles will depart from the St. Mary Visitor Center and Rising Sun. 

Shuttle reservations will cost $1 per person and are required for anyone 2 years and older. Tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis through Recreation.gov or via phone at 877-444-6777. A portion of tickets will be made available 60 days in advance, beginning at 8 a.m. on May 2. The remaining tickets will be released at 7 p.m. for next-day entry starting June 30. 

Glacier Park first instituted a ticketed-entry system on the Going-to-the-Sun Road in 2021, as concerns about skyrocketing visitation and construction projects inside and outside the park came to a head. Since then, the Park Service has fine-tuned the system, and last year it was in place only on the west side of the Sun Road during certain hours in the summer. 

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Last month, the host of the “Montana Talks” morning radio show spent a 10-minute segment interviewing a BNSF Railway official about the company’s opposition to a proposed merger between two rival railroads. To even the most well-informed listener, the segment may have been the first time they heard about the plan to combine the railroads, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, into a coast-to-coast behemoth spanning more than 50,000 miles of track and 43 states. If approved by federal regulators, it would be the largest railroad in America by tens of thousands of miles. 

The proposed merger has drawn attention from businesses and Montana’s congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., who have signed letters urging regulators to proceed with caution and conduct a “rigorous and comprehensive review.” With elected leaders expressing concern here in Montana, one would think Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are major players in the state. They’re not. In fact, more than 90% of Montana’s railways are controlled by one company: BNSF. 

So what does this (mostly) out-of-state railroad mega merger have to do with Montana? Here’s an explanation:

Who’s merging and why?

While the proposed merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern has gotten little media attention in Montana, it’s a big deal in the railroad world. On July 29, 2025, UP announced its intent to acquire NS for $85 billion in a transaction that would create the largest railroad in the country and the first single-rail line connecting the East and West coasts. 

UP and NS are two of the six large “Class I” freight railroads that operate in North America. Together, these six operators cover about 140,000 miles of track, with two major railroads in the west, two in the east and two in Canada (although the Canadian operators have a major presence in the Midwest). At one point, there were dozens of Class I railroads, but through consolidation, there are now only six.

Union Pacific was founded in 1862 and built the eastern half of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869. Today, it operates 32,200 miles of track in 23 states, mostly west of Chicago. Last year, the company made more than $7 billion moving freight. Its primary competitor is BNSF. 

Norfolk Southern was founded in 1982 following the merger of the Norfolk & Western Railway and Southern Railway. It operates 19,420 miles in 22 states in the East. Its primary competitor is CSX Transportation. 

UP President Jim Vena, who is expected to remain as the head of the railroad if his company acquires NS, has said the merger would benefit shippers, the environment and the nation by offering cheaper freight transportation and by taking an estimated 2 million trucks off America’s highways annually. Vena has said it is possible because a single-line railroad could offer better shipping rates, especially in the Midwest, where shippers often have to deal with multiple railroads, thereby increasing prices. 

Where does Montana fit on the map?

The Utah & Northern Railway Company, a subsidiary of Union Pacific, became the first railroad to reach Montana when it built its line over Monida Pass on the Idaho-Montana border south of Dillon in May 1880. The railroad eventually reached Butte and Garrison. But today, Union Pacific operates only as far as Butte, meaning it serves only 125 of the state’s 3,700 rail miles, or about 3%. More than 90% of the rail mileage in the state, about 3,400 miles, is controlled by BNSF, according to the Association of American Railroads. Norfolk Southern has no track in Montana. 

Who’s for it, who’s against it?

In December, UP and NS submitted their application to merge with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, the independent federal regulator that oversees railroads, which will have the final say on whether the two railroads can combine. Since then, the two railroads and their competitors have aggressively rallied support for and against it. Leading the charge against the merger is BNSF. 

BNSF has argued that the merger would be “anti-competitive,” and would give rail shippers — including Montana farmers — fewer options, thus increasing prices. For example, if a farmer near Great Falls ships grain to an East Coast community served by NS, the shipping charge could increase once NS is part of UP. For its part, UP has denied that it would increase rates.

Opponents have also pointed to the chaos that ensued after previous mergers, particularly in the 1990s. Perhaps the most notorious was the 1996 Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger, which led to a “service meltdown” as rail yards across the country were jammed with late trains, and the railroad lost billions of dollars in profits. The railroad mergers of the 1990s were so disruptive that the U.S. Surface Transportation Board imposed a temporary ban in 2000 and later issued new requirements for combining major railroads. A quarter century later, no major railroad has attempted to merge under the revised rules. 

While UP is a comparatively small player in Montana, both it and BNSF have been lobbying stakeholders and elected officials here in favor of and against the merger. In December, both railroads reached out to state legislators with their take on the combination. Since then, a number of politicians — including all four members of the state’s Washington D.C. delegation and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen — have agreed with BNSF’s take and signed on to letters to federal officials, urging a rigorous review. Among their chief concerns is the impact it could have on pricing for agricultural producers, but the letters also note potential major impacts on the shipping of consumer goods, construction materials, fuel, food and more. 

“If approved, a combined UP-NS would handle more than 40% of all U.S. freight rail traffic… a transcontinental system spanning 50,000 route miles across 43 states,” read a joint letter from Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and co-signed by Sens. Steve Daines, Tim Sheehy and 14 others. “Service interruptions of this magnitude could have severe consequences, especially for agricultural producers. Time-sensitive shipments during harvest could be delayed or spoiled, export windows could be missed, and access to global markets could be sharply reduced.”

What’s next?

The first question for federal regulators to consider after UP and NS submitted their application in December was whether the agency had enough information to review it. In January, the board ruled it did not and rejected the initial application. The two railroads have said they will revise their applications to include the requested information and try again. If the STB does accept the application, the review is expected to take more than a year, ensuring that the issue of mega railroad mergers isn’t going away any time soon. 

This headline was corrected on Feb. 17, 2026, to reflect that the proposed merger is for $85 billion. 

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Five years after Glacier National Park first introduced a ticketed-entry system to handle ever-increasing summer crowds, the park plans on eliminating the at-times controversial system. 

At least that’s what the superintendent said during a chamber of commerce meeting late last year. Since then, despite promises that details would be announced soon, the National Park Service has remained mum about what the busy summer season will look like in Glacier. 

“There’s definitely some confusion,” said Sarah Lundstrum, Glacier program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, an independent nonprofit that supports national parks. 

The ticketed-entry system was first launched in 2021, when the park faced a perfect storm of rising visitation and summer construction projects both inside and just outside the park that threatened to wreak havoc. Former Superintendent Jeff Mow noted that it was actually the state of Montana that requested a ticketed system that year because of a major construction project on U.S. Highway 2 near West Glacier and the concern that traffic would back up for miles when the park became overloaded with visitors (which happened on multiple occasions the previous year, sometimes forcing park officials to close the entrance). 

That first year, the ticket system was only used on the Going-to-the-Sun Road between West Glacier and St. Mary. In 2022 and 2023, the system was expanded to include other areas, like Polebridge, Many Glacier and Two Medicine. Since then, the system has been tweaked further, and last year, the park used a timed-entry model, where visitors who wanted to enter the west side of the park between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. had to get a ticket and show up at a specific time. 

“It has been a learning process, and every year has been a little bit different,” Mow, who retired from the Glacier in 2022, told Montana Free Press.

The reservations and ticketed-entry systems haven’t always been popular. In 2023, Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke called for changes to the system after meeting with local business owners who complained it was hurting tourism in the area because visitors were struggling to get tickets. But Mow said that as tweaks were made, the system became more popular as people grew accustomed to it and came to enjoy less congestion in the park. 

But in December, during a Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce meeting, current park Superintendent Dave Roemer said Glacier National Park intended to eliminate the ticketed-entry system in 2026. According to the Daily Inter Lake, Roemer said one issue with the timed system was that more people were driving to Logan Pass at night, which is not ideal for safety or for Glacier’s wildlife. Roemer added that the park was considering instituting reservation systems for parking at Logan Pass, a common choke point, and for the Sun Road shuttles, which are popular with hikers. 

But since Roemer made those comments in December, the National Park Service has said little about its plans for this summer. MTFP has reached out to a park spokesperson multiple times since December to request details on its plans for a ticketing system, but has received the same canned response each time. 

“The National Park Service continuously reviews Glacier National Park’s pilot operation programs to determine adjustments for the following year,” the spokesperson wrote. “Visitor use data, gate counts, congestion monitoring, traffic operations, and feedback from the public and gateway communities help inform strategies the park uses to manage congestion, shuttles, parking, and visitor access. We will update the public once a decision for the 2026 season has been made.”

In previous years, Glacier Park announced its plans for the following summer as early as November or December. 

Glacier isn’t the only park where there’s uncertainty surrounding the ticketed-entry system, or possible lack thereof. Multiple parks across the West have not announced whether they plan to use a ticket system. In the case of Mount Rainier National Park, it announced online that it wouldn’t use it, then backtracked, stating it hadn’t made a decision, according to SF Gate. Cassidy Jones, senior visitation program manager for the NPCA, put much of the blame for the confusion around the ticketed-entry system on NPS officials in Washington, D.C., and the Trump administration. 

“The administration is really putting parks in an impossible position, and the visitors are the ones who are going to suffer for not having information,” Jones told SF Gate. 

Zak Anderson, executive director of Explore Whitefish and the Whitefish Convention & Visitors Bureau, told MTFP that he and other tourism officials are eager to communicate what the park plans this summer. He also emphasized that he believed Superintendent Roemer and other officials at Glacier were doing the best they could “despite a lack of communication coming from Washington.”

“​​We’re still waiting on the National Park Service, and I think that to a certain degree the park superintendents are waiting on Washington,” Anderson said. 

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A Lake County attorney who was elected judge but resigned before even taking the bench was sentenced to three years of probation Friday in the very courtroom he was once going to oversee. 

Kenneth Britton “Britt” Cotter pleaded guilty in November to three felony drug charges — one count of solicitation to commit criminal distribution of dangerous drugs and two counts of attempted criminal possession of dangerous drugs — as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. Cotter received three three-year deferred sentences that will run concurrently, meaning he will not serve any jail time. He will also have to pay fees totaling $370. 

The case against Cotter began in 2024 while the Montana Department of Justice was investigating the billing practices of another attorney in northwest Montana. As part of that investigation, the department secured text messages between someone identified as “A. Doe” and Cotter where the two discussed purchasing and using cocaine, according to charging documents. 

In one text exchange, Cotter wrote, “I need more medicine girl.” A. Doe responded, “I’m about to put in an order. How much?”

According to prosecutors, investigators found two Venmo payments from Cotter to A. Doe that corresponded to the prices they discussed for drugs. On July 21, 2022, Cotter sent A. Doe $900 via Venmo for “Legal Fees” and on Oct. 4, 2022, he paid $1,200 for “work.”

In early 2024, Cotter announced he was running for the 20th District Court seat in Lake and Sanders counties after the previous judge, Deborah “Kim” Christopher, resigned following allegations of unethical behavior. Cotter ran unopposed and won the judgeship in November of that year. 

Shortly after the election, Department of Justice investigators met with Cotter in Polson and asked him about his relationship with A. Doe. According to court documents, Cotter said he had not seen them for several years and had not spoken with them for several months. He also confirmed that A. Doe had a substance abuse issue but declined to discuss the matter further. Investigators then asked if Cotter had a substance abuse issue himself or if he had ever purchased drugs from A. Doe. Cotter denied both allegations and ended the conversation. 

Charging documents state that in late November 2024, investigators spoke with Flathead County District Court Judge Amy Eddy. Eddy said that she had spoken with Cotter on Nov. 18, after learning about his alleged cocaine abuse. During that conversation, Cotter reportedly said that he had “bought cocaine from [A. Doe] a long time ago” but that he stopped when he decided to run for judge. Eddy told Cotter that she would be making a report to the Judicial Standards Commission about his alleged drug use. The following day, during a training session for newly elected judges in Helena, Cotter spoke to Eddy in person. He asked if there was any way she would not file a complaint. Eddy said that was not an option and that she had an ethical obligation to report it. Later, Cotter texted Eddy asking if he could have a “chance to resolve this,” according to charging documents. In another text, he wrote to Eddy, “Would resigning have any impact on charges? I guess I’m asking if there is a deal to be made.” 

On Dec. 22, 2024, Cotter wrote to former Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice McGrath informing him that he would not take the stand in January. The following day, he was formally charged by the Montana Department of Justice. Cotter pleaded not guilty in January of last year, before taking a plea deal in November.

On Friday, Cotter appeared before Judge Jennifer Lint, a Ravalli County District Court judge appointed to handle the case. During her sentencing recommendation, Assistant Montana Attorney General Meghann Paddock quoted President Teddy Roosevelt in that “no man is above the law or below the law.” However, she applauded Cotter for seeking treatment in the year since he was charged and staying clean. The state and defense jointly recommended the deferred sentence. Besides the $370 in fees, Cotter will also have to cover the cost of his supervision by the Department of Corrections. 

When asked if he had anything he wanted to say to the court, Cotter kept his remarks brief.

“I am so very sorry for my bad behavior, and I’m grateful to the people who have supported me,” he said. 

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Like most grocery stores around the holidays, some items sell out faster than others: prime rib, eggnog and gingerbread cookies, to name a few. But at the Rosauers in Libby, one item is outpacing them all: bottled water. 

Two weeks before Christmas, Lincoln County was struck by some of the worst flooding in decades following massive storms that wreaked havoc across the Pacific Northwest. The flooding also impacted the city of Libby’s drinking water reservoirs, resulting in an order for residents to boil their water that has continued into the new year and is expected to remain in place for weeks, according to local officials. 

Bernadette Place, the store manager at Rosauers, said this week that the store typically sells two or three pallets of water each week, but in the month since the flood, the store has gone through more than 50 pallets. Each pallet holds 84 cases, each with 24 bottles. It all adds up to a lot of water. 

But water flying off the shelves isn’t the only impact the boil order has had on the store. While public health officials have advised the public that the city’s tap water is only safe to consume after it’s brought to a rolling boil for at least one minute, that isn’t always possible, Place said. For example, the grocery store’s coffee maker is connected to the building’s water supply, so the deli hasn’t been able to sell coffee. The misters that keep produce fresh are also directly tied to the building’s water supply, so that system has had to be turned off. Place said workers go around every hour to spray the fruits and vegetables with bottled water, but that method isn’t always as efficient, particularly at night. As a result, Place said, some produce has gone bad and had to be discarded. 

“You don’t realize how much water you actually go through until you stop and think about it,” Place said. 

Tammy Brown, owner of Diane’s Restaurant in downtown Libby, said that she constantly has two massive pots of boiled water on the stove in the kitchen so that her crew can wash produce and perform other tasks around the kitchen. She’s been buying a few bags of ice and cases of bottled water every day for patrons and to make coffee and tea. 

It’s a similar story around the corner at Cabinet Mountain Brewing Company, which opened in 2014 and has been known as “Libby’s Living Room” ever since. 

“It’s been challenging,” said owner Kristin Smith. “It’s definitely cost us money.”

Like Diane’s, the brewery has been offering customers bottled water and using treated water in the kitchen. Because the bar rinser (used to freshen up pint glasses before receiving what Smith calls “the nectar of the gods”) is connected to the city’s water supply, bartenders haven’t been able to use it since last month. Smith said they were also unable to brew beer for about two weeks after the flood because it was unclear whether the brewery could safely use the city water to clean its tanks, Smith said. The brewery subsequently learned, however, that it could resume operations because the water used is boiled and treated during the brewing process. 

With the boil order likely to continue for a few more weeks, the state of Montana has been covering the cost of bottled water distributed at the VFW in downtown Libby, said Boyd White, head of the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency. That water is available daily from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. 

Boyd has been coordinating much of the recovery effort and is particularly focused on figuring out how the local community can secure state and federal funding. Shortly after the flood, the federal government released $5 million for the recovery, but that money did not go directly to the local community. Instead, those funds were allocated to the federal agencies responding to the incident, like the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Last week, staff members from FEMA visited Libby to assess the damage.

Boyd said if the damage and clean-up effort exceeds $2 million — and it likely will — the county would be able to apply for additional funding. Boyd said he’s also in the early stages of working with the state to identify funding to help individuals and businesses, possibly through low-interest loans, to help with the costs incurred from the incident, like having to buy pallets of bottled water. 

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LIBBY — Terry Crooks has lived along Granite Creek south of Libby since 1980, and over the years he’s experienced several floods, including ones that have taken out the bridge near his house. But this week is easily one of the worst scenarios he’s seen. When Crooks went to bed Dec. 10, as an atmospheric river swept in across the Pacific Northwest, he knew that he and his neighbors could be in for a wet few days. 

“I could hear the river when I went to bed, and I knew it didn’t sound good,” he said in an interview Saturday. 

Despite that premonition, Crooks was still surprised when he was stirred out of bed at 1 a.m. Dec. 12 by a Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy pounding on the door. 

“Your house is surrounded by water, and it’s coming up,” Crooks recalled the deputy saying.

It was a message being delivered across southern Lincoln County early that morning as heavy rain and melting snow combined to turn usually tepid creeks into raging rivers of whitewater near Libby, a town of about 2,700 in northwestern Montana. The community is no stranger to disaster — a wide-scale Superfund site was established in 2002, following the discovery of asbestos contamination from a vermiculite mine that operated for years in the area.

While weather forecasters predicted rain and warned of possible flooding, local officials said they were still caught off guard by the extent of the flooding, which washed out roads, inundated neighborhoods, destroyed at least half a dozen bridges, and may have damaged a dike holding back a reservoir above town. Seventy-two hours after the flooding began, officials on Saturday said they were still a long way from knowing just how extensive the damage was.

“This flooding event will have significant and long-lasting impacts on the south end of the county,” said Lincoln County Sheriff Darren Short during a town hall meeting in Libby on Saturday. “We still don’t know the full extent of the damage.”

‘IT TOOK US BY SURPRISE’

Boyd White, head of the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency, has been running on “caffeine and sugar” since late Dec. 10 when the first reports of flooding emerged along Granite Creek. White and other emergency responders quickly assessed the situation and began dispatching trucks with dirt and sandbags to key locations along Granite, Libby and Flower creeks, which were all quickly rising. White said that while forecasters had initially predicted the water would peak around 2 a.m., it kept rising. 

“It took us by surprise,” Boyd said during Saturday’s town hall meeting at the Dome Theater downtown. 

By daybreak, water surrounded homes south of Libby, particularly along Farm to Market Road. The flood water also damaged or destroyed multiple bridges. Before officials could close Farm to Market Road, one man drove his vehicle off the bridge, Short said. While he was able to get out to safety, locals said the car remains in the river. 

Crooks said after sheriff’s deputies woke him up early Dec. 11, he moved his car to higher ground and then started filling sandbags to protect his and his neighbor’s homes. He said that numerous neighbors lent a hand that day, including a local church group and some high school students who helped fill bags with sand and build a berm across Granite Creek Road. “It’s a tragedy,” Crooks said, “but the camaraderie really lifts your heart.” 

Jeff Gruber, a local historian and former teacher at Libby High School, said this week’s flood was similar to one in 1974, when melting snow and heavy rain sent Libby Creek and others over their banks. That flood took out several trailer homes that had been hastily built in less-than-ideal locations during the Libby Dam construction boom. Gruber’s dad was contracted to rebuild a bridge after that flood, and he recalls the National Guard being deployed to help with the cleanup. 

“All that water came down the hill at once,” he said, comparing this week’s flood to the one a half-century earlier. 

Levi Thompson owns a construction company and lives along Libby Creek. He said water had come up to his house on Dec. 11, and while he was pretty sure most of his property had escaped damage, he had yet to have the time to do a complete assessment. Since the flooding began, he had been running around town with equipment to help clear debris building up under bridges for the City of Libby, Lincoln County and BNSF Railway. On Saturday morning, he and his crew were heading to Troy to work on a bridge there. 

Local officials said that while they know of seven damaged or destroyed bridges and numerous washouts, they expect they will find more in the weeks and months ahead, especially along remote roads in the Kootenai National Forest that surrounds Libby and nearby Troy. Short said deputies have been patrolling the county and reporting damage as they find it. He encouraged the public to report new damage. White said the damage assessments will help the county when applying for help from the state and federal governments to rebuild. He predicted that it would be a lengthy and expensive endeavor. 

“It could be in the tens of millions of dollars, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the hundreds of millions,” he said. “It’s going to be huge.” 

MORE RAIN IN THE FORECAST

While creeks in the area had dropped significantly by Saturday, additional rain is in the forecast for early next week, and local officials said they’re not out of the woods just yet. There is also concern about the stability of a municipal reservoir about 1.5 miles from downtown Libby. On the night of Dec. 12, Lincoln County officials warned residents along Flower Creek that the flooding may have compromised a dike holding back the Lower Flower Creek Reservoir. The lower reservoir is one of two that hold the city’s drinking water. The larger reservoir is held back by the Flower Creek Dam, which was rebuilt about a decade ago. City officials said the larger structure had not been damaged in the flood, despite rumors circulating on social media. 

During Saturday’s town hall, officials said they were continuing to monitor the condition of the dike holding the lower reservoir, but that they did not believe evacuations were warranted at that time. Short said while the reservoir was designed to hold about 29 acre feet of water, its actual capacity is considerably less than that because of sediment gathered at the bottom. If the dike were to break, it would likely flood Flower Creek toward downtown and possibly inundate some neighborhoods, but it would not be catastrophic, White said. To make that point even clearer to those at the town hall, White said he lives along Flower Creek and for now, he’s staying put. 

“Could there be damage? Yes,” White said. “But I don’t think we’re going to see homes washed away and piled up.”

On Sunday afternoon, Lincoln County announced that it had begun to slowly drain off the lower reservoir to reduce pressure on the dike. Officials said they planned to drain the reservoir over three days. 

The City of Libby has issued a boil order for all residents, encouraging them to boil water for at least three minutes before consuming it. During Saturday’s town hall meeting, officials said that order would probably remain in place for another week. 

The National Weather Service is also predicting more rain, with another atmospheric river arriving from Monday through Wednesday. Forecasters are calling for 1 to 2 inches of rain in the valleys and 2 to 3 inches in the mountains. White said that while that event will likely cause area creeks and rivers to rise again, he’s hopeful there won’t be a repeat of this week when more than 12 inches of rain fell in some parts of the Cabinet Mountains.

Meanwhile, residents like Crooks continue to watch the water and fortify the sandbag berm protecting his house along Granite Creek. 

“Only God knows when it’ll stop,” he said.

The post  ‘It took us by surprise’: Rapidly rising floodwaters, a 1 a.m. wakeup and washed out bridges in Libby appeared first on Montana Free Press.

It started as an anecdote: rumors of canceled reservations and worries that rising tensions, triggered by President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada, might deter visits to Montana. But eight months later, the concern is now supported by real data, especially in the Flathead Valley, which has long depended on Canadian tourism to bolster local coffers. 

According to the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, credit card spending by Canadians in Kalispell has decreased by 39% through the end of September compared to the same period last year. Traffic at the Rooseville border crossing, the closest port to the Flathead Valley, has also declined this year. In August 2024, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 69,049 people crossed from Canada to the United States. A year later, that number shrank to 54,640, a 20% drop. Total border crossings from Canada to Montana fell 26% from 286,659 in August 2024 to 210,927 in August 2025, the most recent month for which data is available. The decline reflects a national trend. 

For hotels and other businesses in the Flathead Valley that rely on tourism, these declines have led to more vacancies and less income. Mitchell Bump, the general manager of the Kalispell Grand Hotel in downtown Kalispell, had little doubt about what caused the decline. 

“We’ve seen a big decrease in Canadian visitors this year due to the political environment,” he said. “But we want Canadians to know that they are still welcome in Kalispell.”

Canada and the Flathead Valley have long enjoyed a close relationship. For decades, the Flathead Valley has been a popular destination for Canadians, especially Albertans, looking to stretch their dollar at American department stores or hit the slopes in the winter. Many even bought second homes in the area, with places like Meadow Lake Resort near Columbia Falls becoming unofficial Canadian enclaves (or “Little Canada” as one researcher described it). There were even T-shirts declaring Whitefish to be “Canada’s Tijuana.” 

That close connection was tested during the pandemic and the subsequent border closures. Many Canadians sold their homes in the Flathead Valley. When the border reopened, many of the Canadians who returned found that they weren’t the only ones attracted to the Flathead, which was experiencing a significant increase in domestic visitors due to America’s renewed interest in wide-open spaces and national parks. 

Although Canadians made up a smaller portion of the visitors, Bump at the Kalispell Grand Hotel said they still remain an important part of the equation for tourism-dependent businesses. While most visitors arrive during the summer or winter, Canadians have traditionally been year-round travelers, he said, helping to keep hotels, restaurants and stores busy during the slower times of the year. 

However, Canadian tourism to the United States has suffered this year due to the president’s trade war and his threats to turn Canada into the “51st state.” While other countries have managed to secure new trade deals with the U.S., Canada has not, and negotiations were suddenly stopped last month when the government of Ontario released a TV ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan speaking out against tariffs. Trump lambasted the ad as a fake, although The Wall Street Journal concluded the ad largely reflected Reagan’s views on tariffs. 

According to the U.S. Travel Association, Canada has traditionally been the top source of international visitors to the U.S., with 20.4 million visits in 2024, generating $20.5 billion in spending. However, due to tensions between the two countries, many Canadians chose not to travel south this year. And that’s a problem for places like Kalispell. 

“It’s a market that benefits Kalispell year-round, so the absence of Canadians is especially noticeable outside of the busy summer tourism season,” said Diane Medler, executive director of Discover Kalispell.

In hopes of reviving that market, Discover Kalispell launched what it called the “Kalispell Canadian Welcome Pass” earlier this month. The pass is an app that can be downloaded onto a phone and offers discounts to travelers from Canada. So far, 15 local businesses have signed up for the program, including the Kalispell Grand Hotel, which is offering a 10% discount to those from north of the border. Bump said it was an easy decision to join the program. 

Medler said she has heard from numerous Kalispell hotels that have lost business this year because of tensions between the two countries. Some of the biggest losses have come from youth baseball and hockey teams that withdrew from tournaments in the U.S. this year. While she said it would be difficult to replace that business, she remains hopeful that some Canadian neighbors will take Kalispell up on the offer. 

“We respect their feelings and opinions, but we also want to keep our welcome mat out,” she said. “We want people to know that despite everything that is happening, Kalispell still welcomes Canadians.” 

The post As Canadians visit and spend less, Kalispell looks to lure them back appeared first on Montana Free Press.