Freelance writer Gordon Sullivan wrote an excellent article on the current resource extraction threats to the Transboundary Flathead. It appeared in the Thursday, February 28, 2008 online edition of the Missoula Independent . . .

The three branches of the Flathead River thread like brilliant ribbons through Montana’s rugged northwestern mountains as they make their way to Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake in western America. The Flathead system constitutes some of Montana’s purest water, with approximately 80 percent of its total originating from untouched, federally protected lands. The main stem of the river stretches from above Columbia Falls to the northern shore of the lake. Two of the river’s branches, the South Fork and the Middle Fork, begin in the rugged backcountry of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Lodgepole Creek as it runs downstream near the proposed site of a massive coal mine in Canada, just north of the Montana border.

The third and most pristine offshoot, the North Fork, starts as a trickle some 40 miles north of the Montana border, in what today remains an unpopulated and remote drainage, a part of the same spectacular mountain range that extends to Waterton Lake and Glacier National Parks. It’s a corner of the world that has everything going for it — a blessing that’s also a curse. Grizzly bears and bull trout call it home. Nature lovers, tourists, environmentalists, and wilderness enthusiasts call it paradise. And energy companies love it, too.

Read the entire article . . .