twice as eager to renew my acquaintance with tradition, with Matt and Jori, with the river. And now I was the sick one, borderline incapacitated, and more than a little pissed about it. I’d felt the tickle in my throat on the drive up, and by the time we’d paddled a few hours Friday afternoon and set up camp, I was fully messed up. A diet of PBR, blackberry schnapps and Montana Jerky Co. dried bison probably hadn’t bolstered my immunity, but if I was going to float the North Fork sick, so be it. It’s not the line I would have chosen, but moving water is unforgiving of the late-changed mind. Once you’re committed, you’re going where it takes you.
ny trip on the North Fork begins when the pavement turns to washboard north of Columbia Falls. For years the battle has raged between people who would like to see that road paved—and I know more than a few axle struts that sympathize—and another contingent that prefers to leave well enough alone. The road is work, and it discourages crowds. And like many things that discourage crowds, the North Fork Road encourages individuals. Matt
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and Jori and me, for instance. We grimace when we hit that road, which, Jori rightly observes, gets longer every year, but we smile too, through rattling teeth, because we know where it’s taking us. In September, Flathead County began spreading bentonite clay on the road as a dust-reduction measure, and some locals say it’s provided a measure of relief from the washboarding, too. I hope I’ll be forgiven for hoping not too much. By the time you hit the North Fork Road out of Columbia Falls, there are only a few places you might be going: 35 miles to Polebridge, then into Glacier National Park via a little-used, west-side entrance there; home, if you’re one of the 200 or so North Fork summer homers or the roughly 25 who live there year-round; or the Forest Service privy at the Canadian border, where the road dead-ends another 18 miles north of Polebridge at a border crossing that’s been decommissioned since the mid1990s. We’ve always stopped at Polebrige Mercantile, to fill out forgotten provisions, to buy the famed baked-on-site