Flathead Beacon · Columbia Falls, MT
Columbia Falls Academic Foundation’s annual Wild and Scenic Film Festival fundraiser returns Saturday, and this year the event ends with a raffle for the first time. The winner will receive tickets to 2027’s Under the Big Sky music festival. This year’s festival is slated for Nov. 14 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Columbia Falls High School’s Little Theatre. Tickets costs $15 in advance or $20 at the door, and doors open at 6:30 p.m. The films focus on nature and the outdoors, ranging from “Unseen Peaks,” about a blind athlete named Addie who finds her place through outdoor recreation, to “Wild Hope: Bat Vax,” about scientists trying to pioneer a new strategy to prevent bats from contracting a deadly fungal disease. “Throughout all the films, there’s generally a theme of hope and perseverance,” said Alice Wondrak-Biel, a foundation member whose daughter attended Columbia Falls schools.
Flathead Beacon · Whitefish, MT
Nearby: Whitefish, MTBefore Friedl Pfeifer helped build Aspen, he was an Austrian ski champion on the run, a top European racer who fled to the United States rather than be conscripted into the Nazi military. When World War II broke out, he joined the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, training American troops in mountain warfare and skiing techniques at Camp Hale, Colo. Deployed to the Italian front, he was nearly killed in battle, just a mountain range away from his homeland. His career after the war reads like a roster of American skiing’s founding acts. Pfeifer formed the Aspen Ski Corporation, co-founded the resort and established its ski school, and created Buttermilk Mountain as a family-friendly destination. He served as head coach of the U.S. Ski Team at both the FIS World Championships and the Winter Olympics, founded the International Professional Ski Racers Association, and introduced head-to-head dual slalom racing. In 1980, he was inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame.
Flathead Beacon · Whitefish, MT
Nearby: Whitefish, MTMontana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) confirmed the presence of a nonviable invasive mussel larva at Whitefish Lake, marking the first detection of invasive mussel species in the state for nearly a decade. The discovered larva was not yet cause for concern, FWP officials said, as monitoring has not revealed further evidence of invasive mussel species. At the Nov. 2 Whitefish City Council meeting, city officials and FWP reaffirmed their commitment to preventing the spread of invasive aquatic species (AIS) into local waters through extensive surveying and preventive measures. According to Tom Woolf, FWP’s aquative invasive species supervisor, a sample collected by Whitefish Lake Institute in July found a juvenile mussel on a City Beach dock. FWP was unable to determine the species, but stated that the mussel met the parameters of an invasive species. The sample, Woolf said, was dead and nonreproductive.
Flathead Beacon · Coram, MT
Nearby: Coram, MTA Hungry Horse man charged in a fatal shooting earlier this year has pleaded guilty to two felony counts of accountability to burglary for thefts in Coram and West Glacier. The pleas are part of an agreement with prosecutors that also covers the homicide case against him. Dylan Austin Olson entered the pleas Nov. 12 in Flathead County District Court before Judge Heidi Ulbricht. Olson was charged in September 2025, along with two co-defendants, with accountability to burglary for the October 2024 theft of about $85,000 in items from Green Valley Lodge in Coram. The items included a mounted sheep, a side-by-side, a Suburban and a gun safe. A second count of accountability to burglary stems from the January 2025 theft of three vehicles and multiple items from Glacier Raft Company in West Glacier. Olson pleaded not guilty to both counts last year. He is scheduled to be sentenced on the burglary charges March 11 at 9 a.m. before Ulbricht.
Flathead Beacon · Kalispell, MT
Nearby: Kalispell, MTKalispell City Councilors are weighing a Texas developer’s request for $13.9 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds to renovate the west side of the Kalispell Center Mall property, and most appear to support it. TIF funds are existing property taxes that Kalispell’s four TIF districts set aside to support redevelopment projects in blighted areas and expand the tax base. Parkline Partners LP is asking the city to help pay to extend 3rd Avenue West through the property, demolish the vacant former Herberger’s department store building and replace the west façade. The developer would own and maintain the 3rd Avenue West connection, with required public access. The project would also extend utilities to the west end of the property, creating four “pads” for redevelopment, along with improving the right of way on West Center Street and 5th Avenue West with new paving, trees, lighting and sidewalks.