A Woman's Way West: In and Around Glacier National Park, 1925-1990

Doris Ashley left Iowa and came to Montana as the frontier era came to a close and the hard transition to the modern West began. In 1925, already a widow at the age of twenty-four, she took a job as "cheap help" in Glacier National Park and thus began a lifelong affair with Montana's landscape, wildlife, and people. Doris soon met the love of her life, native son Dan Huffine, another park worker with an abiding love for the region. Together, they shared many adventures over the next sixty years, helping to shape the character of northwest Montana and participating in the growth of Glacier Park on both sides of the Continental Divide. Between them, the Huffines shared stints as backcountry park ranger, driver of the classic red tour buses in the park, and cook for the crew that did the perilous work surveying the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road. The couple operated tourist camps along the Glacier Park boundary and became co-proprietors of the Huffine Montana Museum.


About the Author
Fraley, John: - John Fraley came to Montana as a teenager to attend the University of Montana, where he received a B.S. in Wildlife Biology. He continued his education at Montana State University and received an M.S. in Fish and Wildlife Management. John worked for the state wildlife agency for nearly forty years, mostly in the forks of the Flathead; he retired in 2017. For thirty-two years he has served as an adjunct instructor at Flathead Valley Community College where he teaches wildlife conservation and other courses. John has written two previous books on Flathead pioneers within Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness: A Woman's Way West, in 1998, and Wild River Pioneers, in 2008. Over the years, he has written numerous magazine articles on the history of the Flathead. John's wife, Dana, and children, Kevin, Heather, and Troy, continue to share with him a love of wandering around the backcountry of the three forks of the Flathead.