By Ben Long
Riverside areas are among Montana’s richest bird habitats. The Flathead River is also culturally precious to the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes (CSKT). Perhaps it’s logical then that one of Flathead Audubon’s first conservation campaigns was to protect the lower Flathead River from an aggressive plan to dam and flood the lower Flathead Valley.
Kerr Dam (now called Seli’š Ksanka Qlispe’ Dam) was built over tribal protest in 1938. Dams, of course, are important for irrigation, flood control and hydropower. However, by the 1970s people were increasingly worried that ecological values were often ignored in the process. In that decade the US Army Corps of Engineers proposed four dams between Kerr Dam and the confluence of the Flathead and Clark Fork Rivers. River features, such as Buffalo Rapids, would have been flooded, along with 51,000 acres of streamside and upland habitats.
Riparian habitats are crucially important in an arid state like Montana. According to Montana Audubon, riparian habitats comprise only 3 percent of the state’s landscape but about half of our wildlife species spend at least part of their life cycles there. The Indigenous people of Montana depended on rivers for life support, transportation, and cultural values since time immemorial.
In 1977, Flathead Audubon took on the fight to protect the Lower Flathead. The chapter led flotillas of canoes down the Flathead River, taking decision makers, photographers, journalists, and locals downstream to see the landscape firsthand. “We did this as an informational thing for the general public,” recalled early chapter president Rick Trembath, of Bigfork. “We wanted to show people all the wonderful places that would be underwater if those dams were to be built.” Staffers from the National Audubon office in Washington, D.C. also took part. “It was a great excuse for them to get out of the office and see what was going on.”
Other conservation groups and the CSKT also opposed the dams. Eventually, the Montana Congressional Delegation removed funding for the Lower Flathead from the US Army Corps of Engineers’ budget. As a result, the proposed dam projects died and have since been largely forgotten.
If you float the lower Flathead River through the CSKT Reservation today, you can expect to see yellow warblers, beaver and other wildlife using the river corridor. You may also notice native sweat lodges built along the riverbanks, as tribal members continue that traditional practice.
History books are filled with stories of the programs that built dams across the American West. Our cities and farms would not exist without them. Yet, it is also worth remembering and celebrating the battles over dams that were never built, like those on the Lower Flathead.