15. How The Glacier Institute Connects People And Place

From penguins to peaks, Anthony Nelson’s path into outdoor leadership is anything but typical. The executive director of the Glacier Institute shares how a Minnesota kid fascinated by zoos became a conservation-minded educator, moved his family to the Flathead Valley, and stepped into the Institute’s top role just weeks before the pandemic reshaped the world. Forced to rethink how outdoor education could work, Nelson and his team adapted quickly—ultimately expanding the Institute’s reach across Glacier National Park and the Flathead National Forest while deepening its mission of connecting people to the natural world.

In the conversation, Nelson walks through the Institute’s three campuses—historic Field Camp inside Glacier, the Big Creek Outdoor Education Center for youth, and a new 141-acre property in Columbia Heights being developed as a community nature center. He shares how programs have grown rapidly through expert-led field courses and day programs that turn casual hikers into confident stewards, along with ambitious conservation work along the Bad Rock Wildlife Management Area corridor. From learning the difference between blue camas and death camas to understanding raptor ecology and grizzly safety, this episode highlights how outdoor education strengthens communities—and why the Glacier Institute’s hands-on, fun-first culture (including its legendary Lumberjack Ball fundraiser) keeps people coming back for more.

If you care about Glacier, the Flathead Valley, outdoor education, wildlife corridors, and real community impact, this conversation will leave you inspired and ready to plug in. Subscribe, share with a neighbor who loves the park, and leave a review to help more people find the show.

Heart of the Flathead is brought to you by:

• Glacier Investment Management
• Whitefish Financial Services

Heart of the Flathead, is produced by David Wigginton, in partnership with LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing. Listeners can find the podcast online at HeartoftheFlathead.com and LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing at lbrbm.com. The content for Heart of the Flathead podcasts and any show notes and transcripts are copyrighted by David Wigginton. All rights are reserved. Reproduction and rebroadcasting, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without written permission. Contact David Wigginton by clicking the Send Us a Text link at the top of the episode description. 

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or production team. Appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement of any goods, services, or opinions discussed. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered professional, legal, medical, or financial advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making decisions based on the content of this show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Heart of the Flathead, where we sit down with the change makers, the unstung heroes, and everyday folks who give this place its pulse. If you live here, love here, or just want to know what makes Calisbone the Valley tick, you're in the right place. And now, here's your host, Dave Wigginton.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome to another episode of Heart of the Flathead. I'm pleased to welcome our guest for this episode, Anthony Nelson with the Glacier Institute. Welcome to Heart of the Flathead. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Absolutely. I've got to tell you I love I love what you guys do at Glacier Institute. I've got one of my kids signed up for one of your programs this time. Looking forward to talking a little bit more about what you guys do over there and how what a great benefit it is for our community. But I wanted to start today, really just getting to know you a little bit and so the community can get a feel for who you are and and kind of how you got to where you are today. So maybe give us your brief resume as far as life and where experiences you've had and how you've kind of ended up where you are today.

Childhood Roots And Big Goals

SPEAKER_02 1:01

I I honestly I give my like little three to five minute story so many times over and over again, because this time of year we're going through interviews. And it's one of the things that I do is I lost it in on second interviews with staff members coming in because I think it's so important for them to meet the leader of the organization, you know, and to kind of hear my heart a little bit and why I'm so excited about what we do. And so one of the things I do is I share all the time this exact story that I'm gonna tell you right now, which is it all started for me back in Minnesota, where I'm originally from. And my grandma Barb, who actually lives here in Calistow, shout out to Grandma Barb if she's listening. She always brought me to the zoo when I was a kid. And I just I fell in love with animals at a really, really early age. Uh, and I would watch Jack Hannah on Saturday mornings and just knew that I wanted to work with animals someday. And so pretty early in my life, I wrote down I had three big life goals that I was going to be a zoo keeper, that I was going to work in Glacier National Park, and that I wanted to have a nature show like Jack Hannah. And so I started out, I figured got to college, and I realized, man, I'm probably not going to be able to accomplish all these things. Let's just go for goal number one, you know. And so I went, uh, got my degree in wildlife biology, went to St. Cloud State, nice little state school in Minnesota, go Huskies, and went and pursued a career in zoo keeping and was kind of in and out of that career for about 12 years. Worked for the Minnesota Zoo, worked for another small zoo called Oxbow Park, and then made my way out to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs and ended up specializing in hippos and penguins of all things. They were both together in the aquatics building, and never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever work with hippos and penguins, but absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

You know, like just dream career. Did you did you pick the hippos and penguins, or did you just kind of get assigned to that? Would you say I was assigned to the aquatics building, and nobody was really owning the penguins at that time.

Navigating A Pandemic Launch

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Nobody was doing penguin training. The Shine Mountain Zoo is huge on trainings. One of the like honestly iconic animal training zoos in the world. A lot of amazing training coming out of the Shine Mountain Zoo. Nobody had taken the penguins on as a project. And so I kind of begrudgingly was handed the penguins. I had heard horror stories about how they can be a little difficult from time to time. And I found that was 100% true, and I absolutely loved it. They were so fun. It was such a challenge all the time to work with them. So I ended up raising a heck of a lot of money for African penguins and was able to go over and work with a conservation group in Cape Town, South Africa called Sandcob and was there for a couple of weeks helping to raise and rear penguin chicks and was actually involved in releasing some penguin chicks back into the wild, which was a really epic experience. So that kind of got my love for the conservation side fired up. You know, like I knew I was going to love the animals. I really drifted into the education side and connecting people with those animals. And that was it was huge for me. I ended up working closely with a lot of the different departments of the zoo to work on their educational talks and trainings that they were doing. And then connecting it to the conservation side and actually doing something meaningful with all of that new love and education was really what kind of got me fired up. So I would probably still be doing it, to be honest with you. But my my wife and I, we had two kids and a third on the way at the time. And we just weren't making ends meet. You know, I was driving an hour to work every day, and it just wasn't penciling out anymore. So like, all right, we have to make a change. And naturally, the first place that I thought of moving to was the Flathead Valley because I grew up visiting here and just knew someday that I needed to live here. And so we we packed up all of our stuff, sold our house. Took like literally three hours to sell our house because the market was just booming in Colorado Springs, which it was great. It's 2018. It was great timing because we were able to sell our house for a lot more than we bought it for, get in here before the crazy boom of housing around COVID, and kind of set our set our rips down. And I was honestly just building houses. Like my my family heritage, I've got a lot of carpenters in my family. And so I was just happy building houses, living in a beautiful place, raising my kids near Glacier National Park, and I was happy as a clam, but had kind of given up on that wildlife ecology education dream that I had. And honestly, it didn't really come back up until I was invited to be on the board of directors for the Glacier Institute. And it was a coworker of mine that was on the board at that time and invited me in. And I had, I probably shouldn't have said yes, to be honest. I was 28 years old. I was freshly scrubbing fresh penguin poop off of the walls. I had no business being on a board of directors and just kind of starry eyed coming in just trying to help, you know, and excited to give back. Like this is my little toe in the door of just trying to give back. And so I started doing that and I was in it for about a year before the previous executive director of the Glacier Institute retired. And I honestly I did not consider myself for the job. It it never even crossed my mind to apply. Because again, I was a zookeeper and now building houses. So what would I have any business doing leading an organization? But uh the board of directors went out to go try to find somebody. I wasn't actually even on the search committee, but they went to go try to find somebody. Everybody was too expensive, wasn't good fits, couldn't make it work. And so they got a little creative and they said, Hey, why don't we give this Anthony guy a try? And I they asked me to apply, and I said, No. I said, No, you guys are crazy. There's no way I can do that. And they asked me again, and I said, All right, well, let me put some thought to it. So that looked like taking a front and back stenopad, like a piece of paper, and just writing out all the kind of hopes and dreams that I had for the Glacier Institute, all the things that I thought, like, ah, these are opportunities that we have, these are things that I would do. And so I just started writing. And that was my interview. I sat down for two hours with a bunch of board members at Applebee's and just told them, like, hey, this is this is kind of what's on my heart. This is what I think maybe would work. And if this isn't what you guys are interested in, please don't hire me because I will go crazy. You know, they were crazy enough to say yes. And so started back in January of 2020, which is interesting timing and went right into the pandemic right then in March. So I had initially told the board when I accepted the job that I wanted to go travel. Like, guys, I have no idea what I'm doing. Please let me go talk to other nonprofit leaders. Please let me go see the other national parks and go learn from what other people are doing. And I got to Yellowstone in February, and that was it. And then all travel shut down, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

And so it was you guys operate during COVID? Did was the Glacier Institute open and operating then?

SPEAKER_02 8:00

We did, yeah, we did. Actually, it was a really interesting formative time because if you think about it, like what are people supposed to be doing during a pandemic? People are supposed to be going outside and getting into the outdoors and like getting there's so many good things about going outside. So we felt like we were honestly like betraying the public by shutting down. So we we figured it out. We we ran a lot of our programs at half capacity, we did everything outdoors. You know, they were saying that the the virus wasn't affected by you know being outdoors, it was so much better. And so we just shifted everything outside, which honestly was great anyway, because we're an outdoor organization. But we figured it out, you know. The fun part and the interesting part about that is I quickly realized that in in January I didn't know anything, and in March, nobody knew anything. You know, like we we were we were a good company at that point, right? Yeah, it was so interesting. And out of that, like all of these different groups that I was gonna go visit, they all started doing online monthly calls to be bouncing ideas off of each other going through COVID and like, oh, what are you guys doing? None of that existed before. But all of a sudden, all these opportunities, and I was getting emails from people I'd never met to join this monthly call, and it was it was just great, you know. And so I I the timing was so terrible and so great all at the same time. And that was six years ago. You know, I just had six years here in January, and it's crazy to reflect back and think. I remember sitting with my wife Allison, and we were at six days on the job, and I'm like, all right, we made it, you know, six days is great. And I remember hitting six months and being like, I, you know, I didn't know if I was gonna make it to six months and going through six years, like, okay, I I finally feel like I have my feet on the ground a little bit and it can maybe speak with some level of authority about what's happening. But let me tell you, it's been a learning experience, my friend.

Biggest Lesson

SPEAKER_01 9:54

I'm sure. I'm sure it has so what I mean, what what's the biggest learning or I guess takeaway from your your first six years there? What what's what's the most, I guess, salient or pertinent thing you've learned during your tenure?

What is The Glacier Institute

SPEAKER_02 10:07

I would say uh like humility has just been been uh so thrust upon me and forced. Like if I if I wouldn't have been humble, I wouldn't have made it through the first week, you know. But to be able to fall on my face, recognize it, and turn from that. So I think one of the one of the craziest things, it was really hard for me to wrap my head around. I so badly wanted to be a good leader. I so badly wanted to be a good executive director and do cool things. When I said yes to the job, I was starry-eyed and thinking that I could actually do a great job. And I there was so much to learn that I had to fall on my face a good number of times and recognize that just because I wanted to be a good leader didn't make me a good leader. You know, like my heart can be in it all day long. And honestly, because my heart was in it, that's why I was resilient and was able to push through because I actually really care about what we do. But yeah, if I wouldn't have been humble, I wouldn't have been able to look at that person during the exit interview as they're leaving and they're like telling me how terrible it is and all these things wrong. And I'm sitting there taking notes, like, okay, I gotta fix this and I gotta fix that, and you know, thank you. And I'd send them an email a month later and be like, hey, I just want you to know that was great advice that you gave me. And by the way, why didn't you tell me that six months in advance? Because I could have fixed it, you know. So so what was that? Why didn't we? And I just figuring out how to get people to to openly communicate and solve problems together. It's just been a really fun puzzle. And honestly, like I am so proud of my team. Uh, the the we've we've gone from having two full-time staff members now to having 12. And uh the team that that is at the Glacier Institute is just such a a strong group of individuals who are resilient and ready to learn and act on their feet, which you have to do a lot when you're in the outdoor industry. You have to be pretty resilient and you have to learn to put out fires and act on your feet. So it's cool, it's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

That's great. What a great experience. What a great initiation by fire for you. I mean, that's what it really sounds like is it just got thrown into it. But sometimes that's the best way to learn things, I think. So maybe give us I mean for those that aren't familiar with the Glacier Institute, what what does the Glacier Institute do and why is it such an important part of our community here in the Flathead?

Sneak Peek of the new Nature Center

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yeah, good question. I'm gonna give you the 30,000 foot foot view first. Our mission really simply is to strengthen connections to the natural world through outdoor education. So recognizing that people are not going to care about something that they don't know anything about. And so we bring people out into the outdoors and we teach them and we get them to care. That's at the very core of it, that's what we do. So, how do we do that? We've got three different campuses. We're the official education partner for both Flathead National Forest and with Glacier National Park. And so our original campus is inside Glacier Park. It's called Field Camp. And we've been hosting programs there since 1983. And we picked up Big Creek Outdoor Education Center in 1988, where we run all of our youth programs. So right now it's between 1200 and 1,500 kids every year that come to our youth programs. So shout out to all of you Flathead Valley kids that have come and spent time with us out at Big Creek. I get to hear all the time about cool memories that people have. And uh it's humbling. It's humbling to be a part of that legacy for the Flathead Valley. So it's really cool. And then more recently, here, just what is today? March on March 11th of 2025, well, we closed on a property that is in Columbia Heights, and we are just across from the Ten Commandments Park in Columbia Heights. It's 141 acres, and we're turning it into a nature center for the community. And so walking through right now what that looks like, but uh currently our office is there on a five-bed, three-bath house that's on site. There's a couple other buildings that are there. Uh, we're just going through and building staff housing right now. And so a lot of big hopes and dreams for that property.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Can you give us a sneak peek about what that might look like, the the nature center there? Or is it still kind of in in design? Just for you, just for you, my friend.

Rapid Program Growth

SPEAKER_02 15:34

I'll give you a little bit of a sneak peek. I'm not going to give you full details, but I'll tell you some things that are that are possible, things that are on the horizon. So we on site right now, it was landscaped by a world-renowned landscape architect, and it is absolutely beautiful with ponds and waterfalls and beautiful stonework and masonry. There's some really great outbuildings that we're using currently, but there's there's hope to build more in the future. It's honestly a great event space for any kind of community event. Uh, we've been hosting our lumberjack ball there uh last year, and then this year again, we're gonna be hosting it there. We'd love to have a pavilion building that we build we use both for education and for events. We are right next to the. Anthony, what what's the lumberjack ball? Sorry, I took my interest. Good question. So, this is this is gonna be the fourth year of the lumberjack ball. This is our annual big fundraiser, and it happens in the spring. It's gonna be coming up here in June. And it's kind of like I like to think of it as kind of like an anti-gala. It is a really fun, no suit and tie. You have to wear flannel and jeans. We throw axes and we have a cross-cut saw contest, and we have fun music, and we get a bunch of cool people together and raise money for the Glacier Institute. So kind of like a weird fundraiser, but it's really, really fun. That's kind of the goal of the night is to have a bunch of fun together. And it's family building, you know. We want to raise money, but we also want to be with the Glacier Institute family, though the locals, and and have a good night. So yeah, thanks for that little plug. I'll throw that in there. But yeah, the other things that we have on on the scope for the Nature Center is we're we border the Bad Rock Wildlife Management Area. And there is a the reason why the state fought so hard to get that property is because it's right in a major wildlife corridor. It's actually a really important piece of land for so many animals that are coming out of the canyon, coming out of Glacier National Park and kind of spilling out into the Flathead Valley. And so we currently it's kind of turned into a giant grazing land. It's all pasture land, and we'd like to rewild that as much as we can. We'd like to bring it back to an area that people can come and see a lot of these creatures. And there's beautiful elevation on the property, and so we're hoping to put in a wildlife viewing area that people can stand and they can view down and see with some spotting scopes down into the acreage down below. We're hoping to get some more ponds put on the property for some riparian habitat to get some migratory wetland birds, so all kinds of really cool stuff. And on top of that, someday, a long ways down the road, we're hoping that we can build some sort of a true educational nature center type building on that property. So that I can't go into a lot of detail on because honestly, I don't have it. We're scoping it out right now. We're actually going to be sending out a request for proposals to other nonprofits in the Flathead Valley just to hear ideas from other groups that might want to come partner with us on the property. So any of you other executive directors out there, you'll be hearing from me because this is truly going to be a community nature center. We want this to be a place that the whole community can benefit from.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

That's great. That is great. So, what what has been your uh traffic as far as people participating in your program, signing up? Is it held steady? Is it increased? Has it decreased? What does that look like?

Why Locals Should Join

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Yeah, we we've been increasing every year for the last five years, we've had 25% increase every year steady. We actually just printed it out here recently. It's almost eerie how close it is to 25% growth every year. And a lot of that is just by by stepping into opportunities that show up. So we created our day programs back in 2021. And those are opportunities that people can come and just join with a highly passionate educator for the day and go on one of a number of different popular trails in Glacier National Park and just learn from someone for the whole day, you know. And it I like to kind of say it's more than your average guided hike because you're going with somebody who has a degree, who is highly trained, and who is pointing out more of the story of the place. You know, uh, we're not just gonna talk about here's a, you know, here's a cool plant. You should know about that plant. We're gonna we're gonna kind of bring you in and draw you into the story of Glacier National Park and why the place is so important and lead you kind of into that next level relationship with the outdoors, which is what our mission is all about when you look at it. So we have grown that program quite a bit. It started out the first year. We had 880 people join us on that program. We this last year, I think it was the just shy of 5,000 people that joined us just on that program alone. So last year we served over 7,000 people with Glacier Institute programs. So pretty significant growth, which is cool because our mission has a numbers component to it. You know, we we connect people to the natural world. And the more people that we can do that with, the more successful we are at our mission. So there is there is an element of growth. I don't I don't know that necessarily that there's a ceiling of how many people I I want to serve. We just want to get people falling in love with the outdoors.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah, it's such a such a great and important thing to do here given our our just surroundings. We've got so many things to connect with. What um, I mean, this is kind of an obvious question, but kind of an opportunity for you to make a plug. What why should people check out Glacier Institute? I mean, adults, kids, I mean, are you guys what who who's your ideal target and why and why should they check you out? Yeah, that's a good question.

The Nature Show Dream

The Flathead Five

SPEAKER_02 21:13

So being that this podcast is really focused for folks in the flathead here, I'm gonna speak to my locals. And we consider you guys our our family, and largely what you guys should be thinking about is opportunities to get more plugged in with the natural world here and start to understand and respect what resources are are actually here at your disposal. So there's something different about walking outside your doors and starting to understand. Like if you come on one of our medicinal plants classes, for example, out of our field camp location, we teach a wide variety of different in-depth courses. If you come on one of our field camp courses, like medicinal plants or mushrooms or the geology courses or raptors, you name it, next time you see that bird or plant or rock or whatever it is, you have so much more of an understanding. I give you one example. There's a plant called camoth, right? There's there's blue camus and there's death camus. And blue camoth is a very, very important plant for thousands of years here. It's been a really important resource for the indigenous people. And you see it and it's like a beautiful flower, right? But it has so much more meaning to know that it was a really important resource for thousands of years, and you don't want to step on it. And wars were actually fought over blue camus. Oh, and by the way, uh, it's harvested at a time where it's not actually blue, and it looks almost identical to its partner plant, Death Camus, that if you eat it, you're gonna die. So it's it really kind of adds a heck of a lot more value when you when you start to kind of unlock this next level of education and it gives you a lot more respect for the area. And it's just fun. You know, when you bring guests out, you've got your cousins visiting you from who knows where, and they want to go out for a hike, you're able to kind of talk them through. And, you know, I'm super passionate about grizzly bears. So everyone's always excited to learn about bears. And it's just fun to be able to share that with people and bring them into that kind of next level.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Absolutely. What a what a great great service to the community. You know, before we uh before we transition to the Flathead Five, I do have one other question for you here. So you mentioned there were three things you wanted to do in life be a zoologist, live in Montana, and have a nature show. Obviously, you've done the first two, you're really tied up now. Do you have any any aspirations still that to hit number three, or is that kind of just a pipe dream at this point?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

That's a great question. I'll I'll tell you that it's very much so a pipe dream, but it's a pipe dream that seems like it could possibly come true. So there is some things in the work that I can't go into huge detail on, but hope hopefully the community will be able to appreciate a really cool Glacier Institute nature show here in the coming year.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

That would be awesome. Look looking forward to that. Well, uh, Anthony, thank you very much. Uh so we want to conclude today with our flathead five, which are the questions we ask all our guests, and they're very local specific, but I'll be interested to hear some of your answers today. So, what what is your favorite gem in the community?

SPEAKER_02 24:16

I'm gonna go with putting sauerkraut on your pizza at Moses Saloon. Nice, very nice. Yeah, nice one.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Very nice.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Grizz or bobcats? Indifferent, but I'm gonna go with Grizz because, like I just said, I love grizzly bears. But yeah, we'll go with that. Makes sense. Makes sense. What is your favorite outdoor activity in the valley? Teaching.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

I love, I love teaching people. And that's not just because I'm the director of uh educational organization. The reason I love this work is because I personally love to teach and try to get out and do it as often as I possibly can.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

That's great. Heart of a teacher, I love it. What's what do you know today that you wish you knew when you started out?

SPEAKER_02 25:02

I I feel like going back to that humility piece. I wish I wish I would have been more humble to begin with. I wish that I would have recognized the importance of that. So if I could go back and talk to myself, I'd probably slap myself upside the head and say, hey man, you got some things to learn, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Get it together. Yeah, gotcha. I think I think we all can say that. So when it's all said and done, when your your story's over, what would you like the one or two sentence review of your book to be?

SPEAKER_02 25:28

You know, I'm a big, I'm a big family man. I've got three kids, and I'm also very, very passionate about the work that I do at my church. And so I think one of the biggest things that keeps me going daily is to keep Jesus at the center of it. And so I think the the few sentences that would show up would be that I I kept Jesus first, my wife second, my kids after that, and I served my community well.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Anthony, I can't thank you enough for coming on today. The Glacier Institute is an amazing uh organization. I thank you to you and your team for all the service that you guys provide to our community and creating those connections with the great outdoors that we have here. So thank you again for coming on and uh for all the service that you provide our community.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for listening to this episode of Heart of the Flathead. We'd love to hear your thoughts about today's episode and the podcast in general. You can listen at heartoftheflathead.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can reach David via the contact page at heartoftheflathead.com or by clicking on the send us feedback link at the top of the episode description and your favorite podcast app. Heart of the Flathead is produced by David Wigginton in partnership with Left Brain Right Brain Marketing. Listeners can find the podcast online at Heartoftheflathead.com and LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing at LBRBM.com. The content for Heart of the Flathead podcasts and any show notes and transcripts are copyrighted by David Wigginton. All rights reserved. Reproduction and rebroadcasting in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without written permission. Contact DavidWiginton at heart of the Flathead.com with your request. The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or the production team. Appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement of any goods, services, or opinions discussed. The podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered professional, legal, medical, or financial advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making decisions based on the content of this show.