limited or restricted access, mostly because of private land 

 bordering the river. 



Fishing from shore was the most common pursuit--a primary 

 activity on 67 percent of the river segments studied. Fishing from 

 a boat was a primary activity on 48 percent--about the same 

 proportion of streams also rated as canoeable. Kayaking and 

 rafting took place on 30 percent of the segments. Forty-one 

 percent of the segments were rated as Not Boated. 



The most notable sections of floating water in the upper 

 Flathead are the infamous Mad Mile on the Swan near Bigfork, Fool 

 Hen Rapids on the North Fork of the Flathead, and Meadow Creek 

 Gorge on the South Fork of the Flathead River about two miles 

 below Lost Jack Creek. 



Botanical Features 



The upper Flathead River drainage has 67 botanical natural 

 feature sites, 17 percent of the statewide total of 400. This 

 drainage also contains the second largest number (38, or 17 

 percent) of natural feature sites that received a final value of 

 Class I or Class II. Twenty-one (31 percent) of the sites, 

 however, are located within Glacier National Park, the Flathead 

 Indian Reservation, or U.S. Forest Service wilderness areas. 



The Swan and Flathead rivers contain numerous oxbows and 

 sloughs that provide unique growing sites for many aquatic and 

 riparian plants. One such area is Egan Slough near the mouth of 

 the Flathead River, which contains many unusual aquatic plants, 

 including the Columbia water-meal (W olf ia columbiana ) and pygmy 

 water-lily (Nymphaea tetra gon a) , both listed as rare by the 

 Montana Rare Plants Project. 



Along the Swan River just south of Swan Lake and adjacent to a 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl preserve is the largest 

 known concentration of howellia ( Howellia aquatilis ), a globally 

 endangered aquatic plant recently protected by The Nature 

 Conservancy's purchase of the 400-acre Swan River Oxbow Preserve. 

 Known as Montana's rarest plant, howellia shows low genetic 

 variability and little tolerance for disturbance. This endangered 

 plant is now extinct in many parts of its former range in 

 California and Oregon. It is only found in temporary ponds or 

 sloughs, so it appears that this underwater annual may require a 

 seasonal period of drying for germination to occur. The other 

 known Swan Valley sites that harbor this plant are moist meadows 

 and shallow ponds around Holland and Lindbergh Lakes. Another 

 unusual plant found within the Swan River Oxbow Preserve is the 

 northern bastard-toadflax (Geocaulon lividum), a Pacific slope 

 species that grows in Montana's mesic spruce forests. 



52 



