The Short-Lived Chalet
During its brief tenure as a National Park Lodge, Gunsight was probably the most coveted of the Great Northern Railway Chalets. Records indicate that among the remote alpine chalets, Gunsight was the most popular, with Sperry second. To be fair, Gunsight did have a higher bed count when opened, but it is likely that the incredible setting played into its popularity.
By all indications the setting and the construction made Gunsight sort of a miniature Many Glacier Hotel. The buildings were described the same way; words like "rambling" were often used. It seems that construction was fast and loose; one of the buildings was nearly destroyed by a grizzly bear during one of the off-seasons. This was likely the dining room/kitchen lodge, where the combination of stored food and a hungry grizzly could spell trouble for a drafty cabin.
above, believed to be one of the few photos of the Swiss/log cabin dormitory at Gunsight Lake.
The Great Northern undertook a major repair and reconstruction effort on this structure through the 1915 season. The Chalets were then able to withstand grizzly attack, but not mountain attack. A rockslide obliterated Gunsight sometime during March 1916, and the Chalets were no more. Some accounts claim that Gunsight was rebuilt and destroyed again, but it seems that, based on the majority of evidence, those claims were the result of confusion regarding the reconstruction following the grizzly demolition. Based on a book, Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years by Horace M. Albright and Marian Albright Schenck, the timeline described here has been pieced together: Grizzly attack in 1914, ongoing repairs while open in 1915, and subsequent destruction in 1916.
Another account describes an attempt to hunt the guilty grizzly shortly after the incident, but this is somewhat suspect. Supposedly a sack of fish was set up as bait, and dogs were set on the bruin when he arrived. The bear is said to have killed the dogs, and retreated before the hunter could make a clean shot.
Unfortunately some of the confusion concerning Gunsight Chalets was created by guidebooks published after the lodge was destroyed. One of these, Glacier National Park: Its Trails and Treasures, written by Mathilde Edith Holtz and Katharine Isabel Bemis, provides an excellent sales pitch for Gunsight Chalets:
A more quiet and secluded spot one cannot find in the Park. A great peace prevails. No sounds rise out of the depths and across the chasms, but the air seems full of melody—that illusion peculiar to vast solitudes. Nowhere in the Park did we feel so far away from the outside world or the madding crowd.
...unfortunately this was printed in late 1917, more than a year after the camp had been destroyed. It does provide a well-written record of the authors' impression of Gunsight Chalets.
