Distinctly Montana Magazine

33 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m "Charlie and Nancy named eir retreat Bu Head Lodge after e bison sku wi which he signed his work." Charlie had camped and stayed in the area we now call Glacier National Park for years before he built a house there, taking inspi- ration from the stunning scenery and falling in love with the wildlife. After de- ciding to become a full-time artist in 1892 at the urging of his shrewd and ambitious wife Nancy, he began to find success as an artist and illus- trator. The better his work be- came, the more in demand were his talents. Finally, enjoying the fruits of his success, he bought a small parcel of land previous- ly staked in a homestead claim by Dimon Apgar, the namesake of the present-day Glacier Park village. Charlie and Nancy named their Edenic retreat Bull Head Lodge after the bison skull with which he had signed his work since his earliest output. A bison skull placed on the shore was also the only indica- tion, approaching from the lake, that the com- pound was there, nestled back in the trees. Charlie employed local builders to construct a one-story log studio out of hand-hewn logs chinked with quartered poles. The gabled roof shaded a small porch that led to a stone path. This served as the only building on the property until 1916 when the Rus- sells had E. J. Cruger and Martin Sibley construct anoth- er log building, this time chinked with mortar, that included a loft with a balcony and a shingled gable roof. Sunlight showed through eight casement windows, illuminating a large fireplace into which Charlie and his friend Philip Goodwin etched sixteen scenes. The rest of the interior, aside from a kitchen area with a dining table, was divided by ele- gant framed standing screens. Many of Charlie's guests at the house would sign the screens, and the artistically inclined would draw little figures on them. Between the guest book (still extant) and the screens, the names of 300 or so guests appear, including many familiar to the Russell-ologist: fellow artists like Joe De Yong, Olaf Seltzer, and Maynard Dixon; friends like the writer and ethnographer Frank Linderman and Josephine Trigg, the firebrand suffragist and long-time city librarian who donated many of her C. M. Russell paintings to the city of Great Falls upon her death; and even some of the celebrities of the day, like author Mary Roberts Rinehart, dubbed the "American Agatha Christie." At Bull Head Lodge, guests would enjoy the unpretentious cabin, sitting on its deck or going out on the lake to fish. In the evenings, people collected outside to hear Charlie Russell tell stories while someone tended to the steaks or fish frying over the large fire.

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