The Libby Dam recently hosted its annual Kids Day at the Souse Gulch Visitor Center.

Interns shared a variety of information and activities with elementary school age kids about the natural world as well as the wildlife that lives in Northwest Montana.

Libby Dam Visitor Center Park Ranger Susan James said the event was not only a way to teach about nature, but a capstone project for the interns who worked at the dam this summer.

"It was a great summer and we had fantastic employees," James said. "The kids day was a great way for the interns to interact with kids and adults while sharing interesting and important facts."

Nearly 120 people attended the event.

James explained that each summer, Libby Dam provides a limited number of internships for local high school graduates and college students to learn about and assist with a variety of seasonal tasks including maintaining clean and safe conditions in the recreation areas, staffing the Visitor Center, assisting with the tour program, seasonal wildlife surveys and more.

"Through this program, the Libby Dam Natural Resources team hopes to raise awareness of career opportunities with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other land management and parks and recreation agencies and inspire the next generation of park rangers, outdoor maintenance workers and natural resource managers," James said. "These interns come to us through a partnership with the Student Conservation Association, which manages the paperwork and a living stipend for each student."

The SCA is a nation-wide clearinghouse for hands-on conservation programs for youth and young adults, that partners with multiple agencies to protect and promote natural resources and public spaces. For more information, visit https://thesca.org/. 

"Each SCA had to come up with an activity station with educational components addressing one of the main missions at Libby Dam: Flood Risk Management, Hydropower, Recreation, Water Safety, Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resource Conservation," James said. "Because they have all been leading tours which cover the first two, and staffing Water Safety Stations at the Boat Ramp,  they relished the opportunity to branch out into new topics. 

Natural Resources Ranger Paige King and Fish Biologist Greg Hoffman have also been broadening their experience this summer by including them in wildlife surveys and water quality monitoring. 

"The interns were responsible for running their activity outline and talking points past one or more of our staff for accuracy, as well as coming up with an engaging, hands-on component for children. They needed to be able to answer questions from adults while engaging the children, not an easy task!" James said.

The stations included water safety and life jacket fitting (taught by Aaron Watson), fashion a fish (Bergen Fortner), bats (Taryn Thompson), food chain and food web (Shelby Cole) and Leave No Trace (Joslin Gassman).

"Kayla Mesenbrink, one of our awesome volunteers portrayed the USACE “Bobber the Water Safety Dog” and children flocked to give Bobber hugs and pats," James said.

Volunteer Holly Lane handed out “kid packs” with coloring books and stickers and a Junior Ranger Badge for each child.

Cole's station featured animal hides and skulls where youngsters learned how to identify the various species, including beavers, elk, coyotes, wolves, skunk, white-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope, as well as the workings of nature's food chain.

One of the many highlights of the afternoon was Taryn Thompson’s presentation on bats.

The Libby High School graduate explained how the dam supports Montana’s largest known maternity colony of bats, the only one in the district and one of the largest west of the Mississippi River.

“The dark, cavernous spaces at the dam as well as the bat boxes, are great habitat for them,” Thompson said. “As primary predators of night-flying insects, a single brown bat can eat its own body weight in bugs every night.”

The little brown myotis and Yuma myotis are two of the dams’ most common bats. 

According to officials, surveys conducted between 2011–2012 identified nine bat species roosting in or near the Souse Gulch Visitor Center. They included little brown myotis, Yuma myotis, California myotis, Hoary bat, big brown bat, Townsend’s big-eared bat, silver-haired bat, Western long-eared myotis and small-footed myotis.

Thompson, a recent University of Montana graduate who majored in History, will soon begin her teaching career at Charlo.

Bergen Fortner, a 2025 Libby High School graduate and student at Montana Tech, led the Fashion a Fish station where kids made very colorful artwork and adults learned about bull trout and sturgeon.

Fortner has been a honor roll student and with a 4.0 grade point average, made the Chancellor’s List.

Troy resident Alyssa Bankoyski and her 4-year-old son, Lee, were among the many attendees.

“We’re so glad we came,” she said. “It’s been a fun day and we really enjoyed learning some new things about nature.”

Gassman is a 2025 Libby High School grad and is a student at the University of Montana.

Her "Leave no Trace" station included ways to minimize human impacts on the landscape. The tenants of "Leave no Trace" are planning and preparing, travel and camping on durable surfaces, waste disposal, leave what you find, minimizing campfire impacts, respect wildlife and consideration of other visitors.

    Libby's Bergen Fortner taught the "Fashion a Fish" station Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at Libby Dam's Kids Day event. (Scott Shindledecker/The Western News)
  

    One of the stations at Libby Dam's Kids Day Wednesday, July 29, 2026, was about food chains and food webs. It was taught by Troy's Shelby Cole. (Scott Shindledecker/The Western News)