A distant cousin of the explorer and naturalist George Bird Grinnell will impersonate his famous ancestor in a presentation at Flathead Valley Community College on August 22. Free and open to the public, “The Explorations and Discoveries of George Bird Grinnell, The Father of Glacier National Park” will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Arts and Technology Building’s large community room.
Hugh Grinnell will dress in period costume and provide a first-person account of George Bird Grinnell’s life through historical photos, maps and quotes that he has pulled from the explorer’s field journals, letters, newspaper editorials and books.
Since his retirement in 2004, Hugh Grinnell has studied the history of the American West. After discovering an old Great Northern Railway passenger car named “Grinnell Glacier,” he researched the car’s name and learned that the landmark glacier in Glacier National Park was named in honor of George Bird Grinnell. This led him to further investigate the life of the man whose influence was instrumental in the establishment of Glacier National Park in 1910.
This presentation is funded in part by Humanities Montana. For more information, call FVCC’s Continuing Education Center at 756-3832.
