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It was the passage of Montana’s Natural Areas Act in 1974 that
opened the way for the creation of the Owen Sowerwine Natural
Area (OSNA). That act was shepherded through the legislative
process by Senator Dorothy Bradley, head of the Governor’s
Natural Areas Committee, and Ted Schwinden, who was at that time
the Chair of the State Land Board.
The first proposal of a natural area site under the new Act came
from the recently formed Flathead County Park Board. The Park
Board nominated a 442-acre tract of state forest land that
encompassed a large island (“the Big Island”) in the braided
section of the Flathead River, at the confluence of the Flathead
and Stillwater Rivers, and portions of near-by islands and
mainland shore pieces. Flathead County would pay the state lease
fee on the tract, and the County Park Board would be responsible
for managing the tract as a natural area. The Chair of the new
Park Board, and one of the most energetic proponents of this
project, was Owen Sowerwine. Sowerwine had also been a member of
the State Land Board. He was well known in the Flathead at this
time as an avid outdoorsman, and a dedicated conservationist.
This 442-acre tract became Montana’s first natural area. In April
1976, the State Land Board issued its recommendation that the
tract be designated a natural area. The Land Board recommended
that it be named after Owen Sowerwine, who had died a little over
a year before, in January 1975. A public hearing on the proposed
designation was held in May 1976 in the Community Room of the
Conrad National Bank in Kalispell. The public was enthusiastic
and the designation process moved forward. In due course the
Owen Sowerwine Natural Area was established.
The official dedication ceremony took place September 9, 1978.
An article in The Daily Inter Lake the following day begins: “It
became official Saturday. A wild thicket enfolded in the coils
of the Flathead and Stillwater Rivers is now protected under the
name of Owen Sowerwine, the longtime Flathead Valley resident
and conservationist who initiated the fight to preserve the
area.”
Participants in the ceremony that Saturday gathered in the
morning at the Outlaw Inn, and were taken in a bus donated by
the Inn to a boat launch site on the Stillwater. Volunteers from
the Flathead County Search and Rescue then ferried the
participants to the Big Island in boats provided by Montana Fish
and Game. The dedication ceremony was attended by members of
Sowerwine’s family, then Lt. Governor Ted Schwinden, the members
of the Flathead County Park Board, (then chaired by Arnold
Jacobsen of Whitefish), and a number of other county and state
officials.
The site was managed as a natural area by the Flathead County
Park Board through 1995. In 1994 the yearly state lease fee had
risen from the original $200 to $550, and Flathead County
decided it could no longer afford to retain the lease. In 1996
Flathead Audubon stepped forward to assume the lease and manage
the Area in order to maintain its status as a natural area.
When a new assessment in 1999 threatened an astronomical rise in
the lease fee, Flathead Audubon joined with Montana Audubon to
negotiate a long-term license for OSNA with a reasonable fee.
Agreement was finally reached in the spring of 2001. Montana
Audubon has become the official license holder, while Flathead
Audubon pays the bulk of the yearly fee and carries out the
management of the Area.
The original management plan for Owen Sowerwine was written in
the late 1970s by the Flathead County Park Board. The forward to
that plan, written by Sam Bibler, calls on the managers of OSNA
“… to keep the heavy hand of man as much out of the management
as possible, and to proceed as carefully and thoughtfully as
possible.”
With the signing of our new 10-year license came the task of
writing a new management plan for the OSNA. Working together,
Montana Audubon, Flathead Audubon, and the Montana Department of
Natural Resources, developed a new plan that is basically an
updated version of the original management plan. This new plan
was officially adopted when it was approved by the Montana State
Land Board in January, 2003.
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