Project Highlight: WCC #02 Bar Creek

Danaher Meadows

by Alex Friend, 2023 WCC Intern

I wanted to share some photos from our Bar Creek project when we stayed at the Danaher cabin. This trip was amazing, it had a long approach and ever changing scenery as we moved through the Scapegoat into the Bob Marshall Wilderness to ultimately find the Danaher basin.

I learned that this is one of nine cabins that the Spotted Bear Ranger District manages. Typically Forest Service administrative cabins are 10-15 miles apart, which seems close in the grand scheme of things. (Editor’s Note: Cabins were spaced within a day’s hike of each other so that trail crews could easily move between them.)

[The Danaher] cabin was built by a rancher Thomas Danaher, who became a Forest Service ranger in his later years. Danaher started to ranch in the area around 1897 and left by 1907. He was the first district ranger in the Upper Big Prairie Ranger District (1899-1904) the district dissolved into the Big Prairie Ranger District in 1907. Danaher built this cabin in 1906.

I think a very important part of Forest Service history is displayed at Danaher which is the phone lines. In the Flathead National Forest, 45 miles of ground return phone line remains. Not only is this a look into the past on how the 1910 fires shaped the Forest Service and fire prevention tactics, but a unique look into pre-radio life in the backcountry. I find it very interesting that the Wilderness Act blocks any rebuilding attempts if the cabins are destroyed in natural disasters like fires.

I think that these backcountry cabins are irreplaceable and I have been incredibly grateful to visit the Danaher cabin. 

(Editor’s Note: You can read more about the historic phone lines in the Bob here!)