Bert Gildart Career Profile
Though Bert pursued graduate work in both fish and wildlife and in English from Montana State University, his interest in outdoor communications was most dramatically influenced during his 13 seasons of employment, essentially as a backcountry ranger in Glacier National Park. Simultaneously, Gildart also served as a teacher and, during this period, Bert sold his first story to Field & Stream about fishing in Glacier National Park. Relying further on his experiences in Glacier, Bert published a story in Smithsonian magazine about the first fatal maulings ever to occur in Glacier Park. The 1967 tragedy is one in which he was intimately involved (See Night of the Grizzly, by Jack Olson).
In 1975 Gildart began working fulltime as a writer/photographer, serving as a contributing editor to both Montana Magazine and to Trailer/Life and Motorhome magazines. He also wrote an outdoor column for a local paper and produced an award-winning outdoor quarterly tabloid inserted into three weekly newspapers. Assignments from these local and national publications took Bert throughout Montana, North America as well as throughout parts of Europe. Now, hundreds of stories (more in Smithsonian) and thousands of published photographs later, in 1990 Bert's wife Janie joined him. With an educational background in English, Janie now does more than simply edit Bert's work; together they have produced a number of guide books, mostly about national park administered areas.
Bert & Jane operate their own stock photography business, accessed through their GildartPhoto.Com business logo. Though the Gildarts have a special interest in the Arctic, they have an obvious fascination with Montana and with our national parks, as is reflected by the work they now pursue.
