‘WE BOUGHT THE BUTTE!’

BUTTE — The top of Bodenburg Butte now belongs to the people of the Mat-Su Borough.

Two years ago, Great Land Trust (GLT) purchased the 40-acre summit parcel from the Alaska Mental Health Trust with almost $300,000 of donations and loans from more than 300 people, according to GLT Mat-Su Program Director Kim Sollien.

Sollien said GLT bought the Butte property with the intent of donating it to the borough, while retaining the responsibility of annual land maintenance and conservation for general users.

The land will not be developed or subdivided — which means no restaurants or gondolas at the top of the beloved mini-mountain — she said.

“Hiking the Butte has been a family tradition for so many people, so were happy that it’s not going to be developed, that it’s going to be protected,” Sollien said at the Williams family Reindeer Farm on Thursday, where hundreds gathered for GLT’s “We Bought the Butte!” party.

Palmer residents Dan and Natalie Portner, who attended the party with their 2-year-old daughter Kaitlyn, said they hadn’t known the peak was owned by someone other than the borough, but were glad to know it would remain for future generations.

“It’s good to know it’ll be here for us,” Dan Portner said.

Denise Hardy, whose family has owned the Reindeer Farm homestead since the 1950s, said she too was glad to know her backyard butte would be in good hands.

“We just think it’s great, because it’s guaranteed for everybody now,” she said.

With the loans repaid, Sollien said the trust is now working with local graphic designers to create some additional signage at the peak and along the borough-maintained trail beginning on the west side of the Butte, where a new trailhead sign has already been installed near the trailhead off Mothershead Lane. Interpretive signs describing how the Butte was formed, which plants are native to the area, the function of the airspace above the Butte as an important migratory bird corridor and a low-level panoramic of the surrounding peaks are just a few of the items on GLT’s to-do list.

Sollien said the trust and the borough have scheduled an official ribbon cutting ceremony for Wednesday, June 15 at the West Butte Trailhead.

For more information and updates on the project, visit greatlandtrust.org/projects/butte-summit/ or call the Mat-Su Great Land Trust office at 746-6406.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.