Into the Woods: Settling In

Apgar Village, Lake McDonald view!

A little eye candy and teaser above. But better yet, I survived my first week!

I've gotten used to the no communication thing. However, sorry friends. No immediate Instagram posts from me and no Snapchats. I can Snapchat you from the Starbucks EVERY time. That will get old really fast I bet. ;-)

My week started off slow with a day-long training on computer use, backcountry radios, and OSHA standards! WOOOOO! Tuesday I got a tour of the four buildings the Museum and Archives are housed in. Yeah, we get around. It's nice because to get from one place to another, you have to go outside and take a walk. Can't be stuck in that windowless or basement room forever. Everything is really close though and the farthest building is maybe a three minute walk. This farthest building is where I work. It's basically a garage and houses the old red buses and other mobile museum artifacts like an old carriage. My computer is right next to a lime green, rusty, bear trap. Can't take a picture, but if you come and visit me, you can see.

Archives with Huckleberry, the bike.

What I can show you is the archives building that is right in front of my living quarters and where researchers go to request documents, photos, and other Park history.

Research Room and my other computer area.

I have also been happier now that I've had human communication. I work directly with three super nice people. Karen, the temporary archivist, is my main boss and I work as her technician. We get to handle the documents together and bounce ideas off each other. Karen first started out on a year-long contract, but is now working on her fourth and final year. Deirdre is the museum curator and heads the areas of Museum and Archives. She's a permanent Glacier employee and was the one who hired me. Deirdre has been working for Glacier for over 15 years. Fred, an older gentleman from Whitefish is Deirdre's technician and is a wealth of knowledge. Fred has lived in the area since forever. He only works seasonally, but he knows anything and everything you could ever want to know.

Gravel trail from housing to the bridge and over.

In other news, I've settled in and am getting my routine down. First off, I've found three different trails to run after I get of work that are closer to the road or places where people frequent, so less bear-prone. One trail is gravel and goes along the river and up through West Glacier and back to Park Headquarters where all the housing is. Here are some pictures of this path:

View from the bridge.

Another path I use is the main road from Park Headquarters to West Glacier and back. I get to run by the Glacier sign every time. That's fun. One day though I was on the way back on the tail end of my run and as I was following the curve of the Headquarters road, I saw this giant black thing. I kind of slowed and was like "Woah! What the heck?" I had decided to run without headphones in and just play my music from the iPhone speaker so that I could be more aware of my surroundings. I turned down my music and just as the big black thing kept coming, I saw it was attached to a leash and two people were walking with it. "Phew." It was a Great Bernese that was the nicest guy, but from a far, did look bear-ish. I felt silly but since I haven't had bear training yet, better safe than sorry, right? And for those wondering, yeah, bear training is required annually for employees. I get to take it in the beginning of June!

Original school house when Apgar was a real little town. Now a gift shop.

Yesterday, I learned from Deirdre that there is a bike path from Headquarters into Apgar Village. The little village is right at the southern tip of Lake McDonald. I didn't run this path, but walked with my pack to get some souvenirs and check out the iconic view. The path is about three miles long and takes you back and forth across the main roads into the Park. Hence, less likely to see bears. I did see a deer though and we hung out together for a bit. Here are pics of Apgar, the deer, iconic view, and my Glacier swag from a gift shop in the village:

DEER!

This view will never get old.

Zoomed in view of the Mountains.

Retail therapy.

For now, I'll save the more specific work stuff for a later post. But to explain so far, I've gotten to dive into the documents this week, studied the Glacier Park map, and gone over the project from last year's intern. It's all been interesting and I really like the more traditional archive aspect. Back to using Hollinger boxes. For those of you not into archives, that's these guys: