Schenck was 18 years old when he first visited the alpine chalet on Glacier National Park's Highline Trail during the summer of 1967.
He was there about 10 days before the infamous “Night of the Grizzlies” when two women were fatally mauled by two different bears on Aug. 14. One of the maulings was near the Granite Park backcountry campground.
“It was real interesting because they brought in lots of props for doing it, and they brought in several actors,” said Schenck, who now is 59 and working as the Montana legislative fiscal analyst in Helena.
Schenck also works for Belton Chalets Inc. every fall as the closing manager at Granite Park.
“I grew up in Shelby,” Schenck said. “And the first time I came up to Granite Park was in 1967 and it was about 10 days before ‘Night of the Grizzlies.' ”
Schenck recalls being stunned when he heard television news anchor Walter Cronkite reporting on the fatal maulings in Glacier.
“It made quite a splash,” Schenck said. “It was because there were two (incidents) in one night and there hadn't been one before.”
The PBS production, tentatively titled “Beasts in the Garden,” required a pack string of five mules and a complete occupation of Granite Park Chalet for day-and-night filming.
“The chalet wanted us to rent the entire place because they didn't want us disrupting their guests,” said William Marcus, general manager at KUFM television in Missoula. “We had the opportunity to take in a full crew and basically repopulate the chalet as it was that night” in 1967.
While the production involves re-enacting the events of that night, it has a broader theme, focusing on how the incidents led the National Park Service to change policies on bear management, Marcus said.
“The re-creations are primarily going to be in still photographs,” Marcus said. “We don't want to approach in any way any sensational portrayal of slobbering bears.”
Some of the filming took place near the Granite Park campground, where 19-year-old Julie Helgeson was fatally mauled. A man who was camping with Helgeson, Roy Dukat, also was mauled but survived.
The same night, a different grizzly killed another 19-year-old, Michelle Koons, at the Trout Lake campground.
Marcus said the logistics of filming at Trout Lake were too difficult, so that incident will be replicated elsewhere. Filming at the iconic Granite Park Chalet, built in 1914, was necessary for the production.
The project's co-producers, Gus Chambers and Paul Zalis, were striving for authenticity, complete with actors getting 1960s haircuts and wearing clothing from the era, Marcus said.
“The effort they went to was phenomenal in terms of the props they prepared and the clothing they had,” Schenck said. “They had it planned out and they followed their schedule to a T.”
From his first visit to Granite Park 41 years ago, Schenck remembers seeing firsthand some of the problems in the park that are believed to be responsible for the maulings. Specifically, there was a small garbage dump in a draw right behind the chalet that routinely attracted grizzly bears.
“I got to watch bears fight over the garbage from the chalet balcony,” Schenck said.
Schenck recalls some of the interesting and chilling details of what transpired the night of the maulings. Dukat and Helgeson were both Glacier Park Inc. concessions employees who arrived at the chalet hoping for a vacancy.
“They came into the chalet and wanted to stay here but it was full,” he said. “So they were in sleeping bags without a tent” near the campground.
Helgeson was dragged from her sleeping bag by a bear.
“She was screaming and yelling and people up here (at the chalet) could hear it,” Schenck said.
That prompted a search, which first turned up a badly injured Dukat, who was carried up to the chalet in a bedspread, Schenck said.
People resumed the search and ended up finding Helgeson, badly injured, about 100 yards from where she had been sleeping.
“The interesting thing is they had two doctors, a nurse and a Catholic priest up here, and (the priest) administered last rites when they realized she wasn't going to make it,” Schenck said.
Another interesting turn: Helgeson knew Michelle Koons, another GPI employee who had chosen to camp with friends at Trout Lake that night.
Her body was found by park rangers the next morning.
Garbage also was a factor at Trout Lake, and as it turned out, quite a problem at other Glacier Park campgrounds.
“Over the years, I think (the maulings) resulted in all the national parks changing their bear policies” as well as food and garbage storage policies, Schenck said.
In the aftermath of that night, rangers shot a grizzly bear in the Trout Lake area that was confirmed to have been responsible for Koons' death. Three grizzly bears were shot and killed near Granite Park, but without similar confirmation.
The incidents were made famous in “Night of the Grizzlies,” a best-selling book by Jack Olsen.
“To watch this re-enactment made quite an impression on me,” Schenck said. “It was pretty sobering. For me, it was real interesting.”
The documentary will be one of Montana PBS' major productions for 2009, with an expected release date sometime next August.
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lisa ferguson wrote on Feb 4, 2009 7:10 PM: