Montana's OFF GRID Town

[Music] so you may be wondering why I'm out here along a Gravel Road in the middle of nowhere well this is where the grid ends we're about 16 Mi north of Columbia Falls and behind me is another 39 miles of this road that goes all the way up to the Canadian border and Beyond this point there is no more electricity or no more natural gas or any of the things you may be used to in a bigger town everything up there is Off the Grid including an entire town so let's go take a look and I'll show you what may be Montana's only Off the Grid Town once you get about 8 mil north of Columbia Falls the road starts following along the North Fork of the Flathead river which flows South out of Canada and there's all kinds of boat Landings and rafting is a big thing on this River and fishing is a big thing on this River so we just saw the glacier Rim boat landing this is at the North Fork Campground and then there's another one here at Big Creek and there's a bunch more as you head up the road in fact a lot of people will go all the way up to the Canadian border which we'll show you at the end of this video and Float all the way down to one of these pull outs and it is definitely an all day float and just spectacular scenery the whole way and once you get past the glacier Rim boat landing everything on the other side of the river is now Glacier National Park all the way up to the Canadian border so the views are incredible you're not going to see any houses out there it's just Wilderness and the beauty of Glacier Park so this road that we're on right here this is actually cus Road and this takes you back into Glacier Park and down if you go 11 miles from here it'll kick back out in the middle of West Glacier and a lot of people take this as a shortcut or you know a way to get back into town if they don't want to go all the way up to pbridge or the Canadian border but the interesting thing about the North Fork Road is that the vast majority of it is gravel and in the middle of summer it can get pretty ugly and ever since we came back here in 2001 there have been people that are trying to get it paved from here all the way up to polebridge or from Columbia Falls all the way up to polebridge just because the road does get so rough in the summer potholes and they were actually grading it the day I was driving up there and they usually do that once once a year in the spring and so the early in the year the road's pretty good but a lot of the year as we get later into the year the road is just it it is a washboard and it rattles your teeth as you go down the road but the argument is about Paving it is that people don't want to turn this into the autobond and the people that live up there kind of feel like the road when it gets so bad it keeps people out of there which one could argue that there that there's some truth to that uh and if they did pave it it would just it would get a lot more lot more crowded and a lot more people flying up the road and this bear is one of the reasons you shouldn't be flying up the road there's all kinds of Wildlife along this road uh whether it's bear elk deer and there's no reason to go too fast in fact the day I was up here there was some tourists that were going about 75 and there's no reason for that with the size of some of these animals neither one of you are going to win in a collision so as you continue up the road like I said earlier eventually a few miles up the road from here there is some pavement and it's paved all the way to this Place Called Home Ranch bottoms and this is a fun little place to stop on your way up to pbridge as you can see the day that we went it was not very nice weather but inside they have some tables they have a bar uh they sell some souvenirs they also have a bakery in there and they cook food so again this is all off grid they're running everything off of a solar panels they do have a generator outside in one of the buildings things the guy was telling me about but all of this power that you see in here is generated from solar and it it runs just like a normal normal business in a normal town except this is totally Off the Grid so on nice days in the summer you can come in here and grab a drink grab a beer whatever you like and then they have music playing outside and it's they got a big deck they have seating outside in front the little grand stand and it's just a a cool place to be and you're in the middle of nowhere away from pretty much everything here in Montana so North from the home bottom Ranch we'll head up to the main town of polebridge and as we said earlier you have to look out for Animals big and small on this road so you don't want to be flying down any of these roads here we saw this little fox on the way to this is the road off of the North Fork Road that accesses the town of pbridge and this pbridge mercanti was built back in 1914 only four years after Glacier became a national park and it's been here ever since and then to the left of it you'll see up here and we'll show it later is the Northern Lights Saloon and that was the original Homestead for the people that built and ran this meranti back back in 1914 and back to the point of this video all of this that you see again is off grid there's no electricity up here there's no natural gas I mean people have propane hauled up here but as far as power and any of the modern conveniences they run everything off of the solar panels that you'll see scattered around the area and this town if you if you want to call it that has according to the guy that was working in the mertile the day I went there there's about a hundred full-time residents that live here in the summer and during the winter pretty much everyone leaves and there's only seven people that he knew of that spend the entire year up here in pbridge so what you'll see is a lot of little cabins uh there's even some people living in Yurts up here but like I said they're all run off of solar power and the people that stay in the winter the the solar is nowhere near as strong because it's so cloudy and kind of socked in all winter and our daylight is very short in this part of the Year during the winter so a lot of times you'll have to run the generator and because you're off grid obviously getting gas or fuel for your generator is going to be another issue and something you need to think about and then as far as heat goes you're probably burning wood all winter if you can't really Li in the Solar to run any kind of heating Source uh you're burning wood so it's a tough way to make it go up here living off grid especially in the winter time but as you can see there's a lot of people that have places up here that enjoy it during this time of year so as we get back to the mertile in the center of town once you go inside here it's just walking back into history it's one of the coolest places you'll see in Montana and if you ever have a chance to get up here you should definitely check it out just like everywhere they have some souvenirs uh hats shirts things like that but they also have it's like a little grocery store for the people that do live up here or the people that are going camping and need supplies to hike into the park with because you can access Glacier Park just down the road uh and access kintla Lake and Bowman Lake this merant again has been around since 1914 and it is very well known nowadays for the bakery that they have here in the back and they make all kinds of baked goods they make cookies they make Huckleberry bear claws that they're famous for uh different types of cinnamon rolls caramel rolls and everything else that's bad for you and all the historical tools they have on the wall from when this place was built it's just a fun place to visit something you should definitely check out if you're up here and they do have gas available up here but you certainly do not want to have to use it because they definitely have a monopoly going and there's just not a lot of Supply right now the guy told me that it's $833 a gallon so if you go next door to the merkal this is the Northern Lights Saloon and this cabin was the original Homestead of the people that built and ran the merkal back in 1914 and now it's turned into this little Saloon and it's quite a hangout they have music here just about every weekend all summer long if not every weekend and they have this little band stand out in front of the saloon and then back behind the saloon they have a bigger stage for bigger shows that they put on later in the summer but this was the opening weekend and these guys were great and it's again just a fun spot cool spot to watch live music and sit out in the middle of nowhere and just enjoy the atmosphere of this place and have a beer have a drink inside the saloon here they have a full bar you can also order dinner and they'll bring it out to the your table outside or you can sit in here obviously but it's just a fun place and makes polebridge one of those mustsee places in Montana and the fact that it's totally off grid just adds to the charm and the fact that you can get up to Bowman Lake which is only 6 mies from here in the park along with kintla lake and numerous hiking opportunities all through that area and once you leave polebridge and head north you're only 22 miles from the Canadian border and again this road is just spectacular the whole way but it is pretty rugged and can get pretty bumpy especially the later in the year you go so let's take a ride the rest of the way up to Canada so just sit back and enjoy the scenery and once we get up there I'll show you what's going on at the end of the road [Music] [Music] oh [Music] so once you make it all the way to the end of the road you will find another boat landing down here and a lot of people they'll float like I said earlier all the way from the border back down to cus Road or Big Creek or sometimes all the way down to Columbia Falls and it's a very long float but it's beautiful since you're following the park the whole way but this border is kind of a mystery to me because as you can see on the Canadian side there is nothing out here there's no town right over here there's no even road so I'm not sure why they ever did or they even have this border crossing if you want to call it that up here I'm not sure if it ever was a true Crossing or if this has just always been the end of the road on the US side and there's just nothing on the Canadian side look at the map right here and you'll see there's just not anything on the Canadian side to to access [Music] [Music] thank you for watching our video please call text or email for more information and don't forget to watch our other videos about Montana [Music]

Channel: Living in Montana

Views: 62,463

Keywords: Montana, Montana Real Estate, Moving to Montana, What is Montana Like, Rentals in Montana, Montana questions, Glacier National Park, Montana property tax, Montana real estate prices, Whitefish Montana, Montana Life, Buying a house in Montana, Buying Land in Montana, Land For Sale in Montana, Homes for Sale in Montana, Living in Montana, Living off grid, Off grid Montana, Polebridge Montana, off grid living, off the grid, off grid cabins, Yurts

Id: JoZbzgkpQRQ

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2024