04/15/2026
GNPVA Volunteer Profile: Fred Thompson
Many of you know Fred from the Nature Center and Permit Office, but for those who haven’t made his acquaintance, I hope that this profile encourages you to find him, bask in his lovely southern drawl, and hear more stories than we could possibly include here!
Fred and Shelby met when they were 15 and 13 respectively. He had a basset hound named Paddlefoot and he discovered a moonshiner’s still on a dog walk. He knew to back away and said “Paddlefoot, we don’t got any business here!” He has may more stories about moonshiners in Montana and Alabama.
Shelby and Fred married in 1954. Fred first came to Glacier in 1969 as a young man with his father. His newly retired father started a laundry at the East Glacier Hotel which serviced all the linens and clothes for all the hotels in Glacier. They had a crew of 16 young men and 6 girls that summer who lived in a dorm. Fred found a cow walking the road on the east side and decided she was lost. So he put a rope on her neck and walked her to East Glacier. He knew that cows would walk upstairs but not down, so he guided her up into the girls dorm. The cow had a HM brand, Hugh Monroe was a famous local rancher. Fred never told the end of the story, so you’ll just have to get the rest of the story from Fred!
In return for perfectly starching the chef’s hats from East Glacier Hotel, Fred earned “fishing kits” which the chef insisted he needed – they included a pan, oil, French fries and coleslaw to enable Fred to dine well once he caught a fish. Did you know that people just borrowed the park’s boat at Two Med to go out fishing? Times do change…
Shelby came to visit him for 6 weeks that summer and they vowed to save their money and return to Montana when they retired someday. He worked in the paper industry and she had a government job writing grants. They never had a penny of debt in their marriage.
When quizzed about his favorite hike, he said Siyeh Bend to Piegan Pass to Many Glacier was his favorite, because by hitching back to the hotel, he caught the moon walk on TV that night!
Fred retired in 1991 and they started traveling, accomplishing visits to all 7 continents which only about 250,000 people have ever done in history. Can you name the 7 continents? They bought a cabin in West Glacier in 1994. He rode a horse up to Sperry one year and said he promised God that if he got off the horse alive, he’d never ride another one again. He feels strongly that mules have better footing on such a trail.
Fred did his first volunteer work in 2007 at the transit center which was built by the Dept of Transportation but became the Apgar Visitor Center later. Shelby loaded up the passengers into the buses and Fred worked the crowd. His park supervisor told him his job was to enhance the visitors’ experience, and with his charm, humor and warmth, he excelled at it.
The second year, he and Shelby began at the Apgar Nature Center in it’s second year of existence. The room only had card tables with pictures lying around in sheet protectors. He has watched the center grow under the input of many people, especially Marc Neidig, and with financial support from GNPVA. During Covid, with the Nature Center closed for 3 years, he took up natural gas canister recycling.
Fred believes that volunteering is all about the people you meet. Armed with his 3 ring binder filled with pictures and stories, he met with a couple who came in with 4 parrots riding on their shoulders, a “society lady” and her kids (turned out to be the governor of California’s wife), a family from Israel who was teaching their kids Hebrew so they could move there, a movie crew at Two Med filming Heavens Peak with Kris Kristopherson, and a Blackfeet native who owned an amphibious car and would drive it right down the ramp into the lake in Apgar. He has many more stories to share, so do track him down on Wednesday afternoons in the Nature Center or Thursday mornings at the Permit Office. He often opens his 3-ring binder to answer to my questions or show a remarkable Glacier picture. When you drop by the Nature Center, he’ll give you a “how do today?” warm southern welcome! Thanks Fred for all the love you’ve invested in our visitors to Glacier.
