Creative Community Partnerships Improve National Park Housing

In addition to housing structures, Glacier maintains a system of patrol cabins in the backcountry that help park staff to travel light when on patrol or hitch.

Photo David Restivo, NPS

National Park Service (NPS) housing started with managing military housing in the remotely located natural areas that later became the National Park System in 1916. Today, the NPS housing inventory includes more than 5,000 diverse housing units ranging from single-family units, apartments, cabins, dormitories, and RV sites.

In 2018, Glacier National Park and Columbia Falls High School started an innovative partnership that is still active today. The partnership consists of building cabins for park housing and other needs. This is a competitive program and requires prospective third year students to submit resumes and be “hired” into the class, preparing them for real-world hiring processes once they graduate. Students participate in building design using computer aided design and drafting (CADD) software, materials cost-estimating, and construction planning. They then build a fully outfitted two-bedroom cabin from late August through May, while school is in session. At the end of the school year, the cabin is moved into the park and set on its foundation and connected to the utilities in time for use by summer park employees. The “School-to-Park” program was first piloted at Denali National Park in Alaska in 2004.

Students work side-by-side park staff, learning trades and applying that hands-on knowledge in the field. Under these partnerships, the park provides building materials, tools, and construction supervision to construct cabins on the campus of the high school. The partnering school provides student participants and campus space for the build. Students assist in constructing one cabin per year to accommodate two seasonal employees.

Park staff and local students time and time again, express immense gratification and benefits to working together while delivering a tangible and helpful product that positively impacts park employees. The program also services as an excellent way to recruit Park volunteers and future employees. To date, the program has successfully built three cabins. The park has also supported the program with other funding, successfully providing students with the opportunity to assist in building a soccer shed for the school, a new entrance station for the park and a housing storage shed for the park headquarters historic district.