Explorer George Bird Grinnell called it the "Crown of the Continent." Established in 1910 as the 10th national park in America, Glacier's peaks and valleys were shaped by ancient ice and have long been home to the Blackfeet, Salish, and Kootenai peoples.
Details
- Designed by and exclusive to: White House Holidays
- Material: Solid brass
- Origin: Made in the USA
- Includes: Gift box, brochure and ornament
What the ornament celebrates
Long before the first European explorers arrived, the Blackfeet, Salish, and Kootenai peoples lived throughout this land. The completion of the Great Northern Railway opened the area to wider exploration, and prospectors tried their luck at mining, though little gold or copper was ever found. Naturalist George Bird Grinnell, who explored the Montana wilderness for years and coined its "Crown of the Continent" nickname, wanted more than a mining claim protected. The area became a Forest Preserve in 1900, but it was still open to mining and homesteading, so Grinnell kept pushing until President Taft signed the bill establishing Glacier National Park in 1910, the 10th national park in the country.
The Going-to-the-Sun Road, one of the most scenic drives in North America and a National Historic Landmark, took 11 years to build and was finally completed in 1932, carrying most of the park's roughly 3 million annual visitors across the Continental Divide.
The park takes its name from the ice that carved it: the U.S. Geological Survey currently monitors 12 named glaciers, alongside a host of unnamed glaciers, rock glaciers, and snowfields that feed its streams and lakes. Seventy-one mammal species call Glacier home, including some of the largest remaining bear populations in the lower 48, roughly 300 grizzlies and 600 black bears, protected across more than a century since the park's founding.