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Located at 2,900 feet above sea level, the small village of Bigfork sits beside a sparkling blue bay where the wild, white waters of the Swan River run into the Flathead Lake. With more than 180 miles of shoreline, Flathead Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, providing visitors a playground for fishing, boating and all varieties of water sports.
Bigfork is a picturesque and charming village, home to world class art galleries, fine restaurants, and unique shops in a quaint Western setting. Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall and Swan Wilderness areas offer wildlife viewing and outdoor recreation to all enthusiasts. The Big Mountain Ski Resort and Blacktail Ski Area are also close by for beginning to expert downhill and cross country skiers and snowboarders.
Bigfork is also home to the Eagle Bend Golf Course which has been rated by many as one of the most challenging and beautiful golf courses in the nation. The Bigfork Summer Playhouse on Electric Avenue has been celebrated as one of the Northwest's finest repertory theaters for 40 years.
Throughout the year, Bigfork offers fine art, gourmet dining, fun stores, great day and evening activities and a full line of accommodations ranging from ranches and rustic cabins to bayside condos. Voted as "One of the 50 Great Towns of the West" and designated as "One of the 100 Best Small Art Towns of the Nation," Bigfork offers you and your family a part of the West that you will never forget.
There were a few small surges in growth throughout the years but the biggest changes occurred in the 1980s and 1990s when Montana became chic as it was heralded as the "The Last Best Place."
Eagle Bend Golf Course raised the profile of Bigfork, receiving design assistance and visits from golf legend Jack Nicklaus.
The area became a new home for returning Montanans who had gone elsewhere to build careers and for new residents from all walks of life seeking recreational second homes or permanent refuge from the crowded, harried urban life.
Today Bigfork's year round resident population is approximately 1,400.
For its elevation and latitude, Bigfork and The Flathead Valley have a relatively mild climate, and can best be described as an area of climatic transition between coastal and continental. The high mountains of the Continental Divide at the east provide protection from the Great Plains climate while the mountains to the west interrupt passage of the Great Basin Climate found in Spokane. In addition, water surfaces associated with the many existing lakes and rivers tend to moderate temperatures in both winter and summer. The weather ranges from moderately dry summer and autumn to a moderately wet winter and spring. Annual precipitation in the Flathead averages 20.27 inches of rain and 49.0 inches of snow.
The weather is cool and maritime influenced. Precipitation ranges from 16 inches in the valley bottoms to more than 100 inches on the mountain tops. On the valley bottoms about half of the annual precipitation fall as snow. Up to 80 percent of the precipitation at the higher elevations is snow. Valley bottoms are about 3,000 feet above sea level. The highest peaks are just under 10,000 feet above sea level.
Information about Bigfork is provided by
The Bigfork Chamber of Commerce
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