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About the Flathead Lake
Biological Station
The University of Montana Biological Station at
Flathead Lake is one of the oldest active biological field research
stations in the United States. It was established near
Bigfork in 1899 by its first director, Dr. Morton J. Elrod, UM Distinguished
Professor of Biology. It was moved to Yellow Bay in 1908.
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Since opening in 1899, students from around
the country and all over the world have been coming to the
station to learn firsthand about biology. By 1977, year-round
research was being conducted at the Morton J. Elrod Laboratory.
With the 1981 construction of the state-of-the-art Schoonover
Freshwater Research Laboratory the Flathead Lake Biological
Station became one of the finest freshwater research facilities
in the country.
The Flathead Lake Biological Station itself
is located on a peninsula that shelters Yellow Bay from the
main body of Flathead Lake. The grounds include a springbrook
and an old growth stand of Douglas fir, ponderosa pine and
larch. The station also has land on Bull Island and
Polson Bay, and co-manages the Bird Islands.
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View of Yellow Bay from
the picnic area
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Students and visiting faculty live in cabins
along the lake shoreline or in a winterized dormitory.
The grounds are home to several full-time residents including the
director, visiting research staff and a caretaker who live with
their families in homes and apartments on the station grounds.
Students and faculty dine together in the Prescott
Center, a commissary and meeting complex. Four laboratory
buildings house the inside biology, limnology, aquatic ecology,
and terrestrial ecology labs and specialized research projects.
Ongoing limnology research is based in the Schoonover
Freshwater Research Laboratory.
Around the Flathead Valley
The Flathead Lake Biological Station lies within
the Crown of the
Continent Ecosystem. The clear, deep waters of Flathead
Lake lie in a glacial trench cut by Pleistocene ice, which profoundly
molded all of the mostly montane landforms in northwestern Montana.
Flathead Lake is fed by the Flathead River that gathers its waters
in the spectacular mountain ranges of Glacier
National Park, the Great Bear Wilderness Area, and the Bob Marshall
Wilderness Area. These mountains are characterized by a beautiful
banding pattern of precambrian sediments and many of the ice-sculptured
peaks rise more than 9,000 feet above the valley floor. The
geography in and immediately around the Flathead Valley creates
a wide variety of habitats that are easily accessible from the station.
Plant communities include palouse prairie grasslands, montane fir,
cedar and pine forests, subalpine meadows and tundra.
Water is everywhere, and aquatic ecologists/aquatic
biologists will find lakes, ponds, swamps, bogs, springbrooks, streams
and rivers up to the 7th order. Four national wildlife refuges
are located near the station. Coupled with adjacent mountain ranges,
these areas offer a relatively untouched and remote home to most
of the Rocky Mountain fauna, including rare species such as the
grizzly bear, bald eagle, and westslope cutthroat trout.
Students, faculty and research staff meet often
for seminars and discussions. With Flathead Lake as the backdrop,
the station provides a warm and relaxed academic atmosphere for
the exchange of limnological and ecological knowledge gathered through
field trips to nearby lakes, streams, and mountains. Backpacking
into the nearby Glacier National Park and hiking the wilderness
areas surrounding Flathead Lake typically occupies most of the spare
time of students and staff. In the winter, although research
sites are typically snowed in, they are still often accessed by
skiing. The area is a photographer's paradise and superb
fishing delights the angler. Visitors enjoy swimming and boating
on Flathead Lake and kayaking and canoeing on the rivers.
A stay at the Flathead Lake Biological Station is
truly a memorable experience.
Get Directions to FLBS
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