I’m Beary Pleased!

As you may have realized, I have been away from the computer and social media for a couple of weeks. I just returned from a wonderful trip to beautiful Glacier National Park, in northwestern Montana. The main objective I had for this trip was to photograph the Perseids meteor shower over the beautiful landscapes of Glacier NP. I’ll share more on that in an upcoming post.

But today’s post wraps up another, long-term project I have had with the park’s management. A few years ago (2013, I believe), I was contacted by the park superintendent about purchasing one-time rights to one of my brown bear images. The park was wanting to have an enlarged, plexiglass-covered bear image constructed for a new bear safety kiosk in the park, near some of the heavily used trails. After some negotiations, the rights were sold and I forwarded a high resolution image to the park.

In 2014, I made a trip to Glacier NP for early season photography. And while I was there, I decided to check on the status of the new kiosk. Unfortunately, the park had encountered some problems with the vendor who was fabricating the bear sign, so they needed to re-issue the project for new bids. And since the tourist season for Glacier NP is so short (due to extreme snow accumulations), the kiosk would not be completed for at least another season!

Well, this recent trip was the first time I have been able to get back to the park, so I spent some time to check out the progress. As I drove into the Many Glacier area of the park, I saw the kiosk, which is located just before you reach the Many Glacier Entrance station! I was beary impressed with the work the park had done! Here are some images I captured of this kiosk.

Side One:

Bear Safety Kiosk, Glacier NP (MT)

Side Two:

Bear Safety Kiosk, Glacier NP (MT)

A close-up of the bear image portion of the kiosk:

Bear Safety Kiosk, Glacier NP (MT)

And here is the original bear image that I had captured a few years ago, that was used to fabricate this kiosk sign:

Glacier Bear Sign Image Original

I am so glad that the park people were able to put this image to good use. Their intention of the sign was (1) have an “attention getter” for visitors to stop and read the bear safety/etiquette information, and (2) to have a “near life size bear” for parents to be able to photograph their children with (rather than trying to capture the kids with a real bear in the photograph). Excellent job, Glacier NP … I’m Beary Impressed!!!

 

 

 

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