Glacier Memories: ‘Poet of the Rockies’ followed road there, never looked back

I went to Glacier in the fall of 1957 with a college buddy whose father was a hydrologist for the park and met Jim Whilt, who at that time was known as “The Poet of the Rockies.”

Jim told me he was a young boy of 10 or 11 sitting on a fence in Michigan in the late 1800s watching the wagons going west wondering when those big wheels on the back of the wagons would catch up with the small front wheels and decided to follow to find out.

Whilt gave up that quest when he reached Glacier, where he looked for a job and ended up staying there pretty much the rest of his life.

He worked at the Lake McDonald Lodge and would guide tourists on a walk around Lake McDonald, which was more than a 20-minute hike.

Midway through, he’d stop and tell the group, “We are halfway around now and those of you who feel too tired to continue can return the way we came.”

He delighted when telling me there were a few takers.

He was in his late 80s when I knew him. Lucky me!

He gave me a couple of poems he wrote, including this:

 Come see our lofty mountains

 Our rivers, lakes, and streams,

  More beautiful I know by far

 Than all your wildest dreams.

  Just motor o’er our highways’

 You all will come of course,

  To spend a wonderful vacation

  And ride our Hungry Horse.