This week 38 years ago: Salish hotel reborn, irrigation season wraps up, Jette Lake access restricted

The Flathead Courier, September 1, 1988

Old hotel reborn: New owners spruce up Salish

Big plans are starting to take shape for the old Salish Inn downtown, as the 79-year-old structure's new owners hope to restore it as a dining and entertainment establishment.

The idea is to bring a “touch of class" to the local scene, says Brook Weidman, who is renovating the project along with his father, Ron, and a sister and brother-in-law, Kim and Hal Edwards of Missoula. Brook is the manager of the Underdog, a main-floor bar that is scheduled to open any day now, pending arrival of a state all-liquor license.

"What we're trying to do is more of a sports bar," he said, with a big-screen TV for football games and other sporting events, poker and keno machines, different drink specialties featured on different nights of the week and hot hors d'ouevres, or "finger foods."

Weidman said he's been trying to preserve much of the Salish's shiny wood interior while giving it a good cleaning and some new touches. Although the old brick hotel has seen at least a dozen fires in its varied history, the Weidmans feel its sturdy interior will leave it structurally sound for some time to come.

Also in the works on the main floor is the Edwards' Hal-apeenaleena Station, which will be open for lunch from 11 a..m. to 5 p.m. and for Mexican dinners after 5. Food will be available in the bar, and Weidman said patrons will be able to eat anywhere they like.

The lunch menu will eventually include "gourmet" burgers, which diners can doll up with a variety of condiments and extras.

Kim Edwards explained that the name for the eatery, which is waiting for a beer and wine license from the state, came from the nickname her husband's parents tagged on him, and also from an old song title.

Weidman said the Underdog name resulted from comments he’d heard around town that the new venture will be a long shot to succeed, an underdog. "We all liked it and it kinda stuck." The family eventually plans to add a lot more to the building they've rechristened the Salish House …

Irrigation season wraps up

The irrigation season ends for most Mission Valley farmers two weeks earlier than usual this year.

Mission, Tabor (St. Mary's Lake) and McDonald Reservoirs were out of stored water Monday. What little moisture trickles in at one end passes out the other to maintain minimum stream flows in the creeks.

"We're in the process of working water through to the ends of the ditches now," said Bill Slack, a hydrology technician for the Flathead Irrigation Project. 

The water that remains in canals served by those three reservoirs will be divvied up between irrigation and stockwater uses until it's gone.

Kicking Horse and Ninepipe Reservoirs will close their gates at the end of the week. Both reservoirs were close to minimum pool Monday.

Irrigators served by Pablo and Crow Reservoirs may have enough water to see them to the official end of the irrigation season on Sept. 15.

The pumps that shuttle water from the Flathead River into Pablo Reservoir were turned off Wednesday. By then the project had spent money allocated for pumping fees. Slack speculated that, at the current pace, Pablo water users will run out of stored water in another 10 days.

Moiese irrigators also have a small cache of water for fall irrigation.

Crow Reservoir, which serves the Moiese Valley, is the last receptacle for runoff from the northern part of the Mission Valley.

The Jocko Valley ran out of stored water in early August. The Camas Division has a little water left because irrigators there went without for two weeks to allow reservoir levels to build up.

Although the season ends prematurely in most places, Slack says the project has "come very near to fulfilling its quota obligation of .85 acre feet per acre." He credits farmers and water managers for "spreading irrigation this long in this kind of season."

This kind of season is hot and exceptionally dry. Project records show that 1.71 inches of rain fell in June, July and August, compared to an average precipitation for the same three months of 4.78 inches.

May, which delivered 4.52 inches, was a saving grace for irrigators. "It was quite instrumental in allowing us to fill reservoirs and curtail irrigation," said Slack.

The rest of the summer has been a downhill trickle. June delivered .89 of an inch; July produced .58; and August contributed less than one-quarter of an inch to parched forests and fields.

The moistureless summer worsened soil conditions, already blighted by eight consecutive dry months of September through April. Low snowpacks made for low streamflows. And May's soggy effort was not enough to rejuvenate streams or replenish moisture in the soil … 

Jette Lake fish access restricted

The Courier has been politely but firmly reminded by Jette Lake residents that the lake is a private one and not open to public angling.

They were concerned that a story in last week's newspaper chronicling a woman's humorous fishing experience on the lake might lead to trespassing problems. That was not the intent of the story, obviously, but the newspaper does regret any misunderstandings it may have inadvertently caused.

The Jette Lake Landowners Association has spent considerable money and effort to develop a fishing area for residents. Guests, such as

David, the woman in last week's article, are allowed to fish if they have a pass from a resident.