Goat Haunt Ranger Station
The rangers that served the park in the early days were men who brought many outdoor skills to the job. Some, like Dan Doody and Chance Beebee, were local homesteaders in need of regular employment. Some, like Norton Pearly, were men simply looking for a challenging job in the outdoors. And, a few like Albert “Death on the Trail” Reynolds were holdovers from the days of USFS management of the area. Their duties were relatively straightforward, consisting of predator control, trail maintenance, patrols, and enforcement of park regulations. As the National Park Service matured, there was a shift from the employments of those men possessing a general skill set of marksmanship, mountaineering, and horsemanship to those men and women with a myriad of additional specializations, certifications, and capabilities relating to law enforcement, firefighting, search and rescue, emergency medicine, mountain climbing, and natural resource management. Glacier, where landscape and climate presented rough, steep, and heavily forested terrain, deep winter snow, and isolated duty stations, presented particular challenges and situations. Up to the 1940s, most of the duty stations for the park’s rangers were relatively remote. Belly River, Kishenehn, Sherburne, Logging Creek, Polebridge, and Two Medicine were among the duty stations that served as both office and residence for the rangers and, as time went on, for their wives and children. As expected, some found the isolation difficult. According to official park news releases, William McAfee, a ranger stationed in the North Fork in 1926, was found by local residents after he apparently “dropped dead” while on duty. Internal official correspondence and discussion attribute his death to suicide. By the 1950s, fewer rangers were required to spend winters in remote locations. Park officials trimmed seasons at Belly River, Goat Haunt, and Logging Creek to five and six months a year.
