viking creek stream and wetland restoration

Viking Creek Stream and Wetland Restoration

Program

Stream and Wetland Mitigation

Watershed

Whitefish Lake

Montana Freshwater Partners restored the north and south forks of Viking Creek and their surrounding wetlands near Whitefish, Montana, completing construction in two phases in 2025 and 2026.

The Viking Creek project sits within a 210-acre property in Flathead County that has been protected by a conservation easement since the 1980s. The property is just upstream of the Whitefish Lake Institute’s Viking Creek Wetland Preserve, together serving as a large contiguous protected habitat adjoining Whitefish city limits. Within the property, Montana Freshwater Partners completed work in four project areas totaling 30-acres. Prior to restoration, wetlands and streams within these project areas had been degraded and manipulated by decades of wetland draining, ditching, logging and agriculture.

Restoration Techniques

Low-Tech Process Based Restoration

Restoring Hydrologic Connection

Wetland Restoration

Restoration work involved filling historic drainage ditches to restore wetland hydrology, planting willows and seeding disturbed areas with a native wetland seed mix, installing exclosure fences to protect young willows and aspens from deer and elk browsing during establishment, and building a series of log jam structures to reconnect streams to their floodplains. Old barbed wire fences were also removed throughout the property, improving wildlife connectivity. Restored wetlands act as important filters, helping to improve water quality in a direct tributary to Whitefish Lake.

As a wetland and stream mitigation site, this project generates wetland and stream credits that offset impacts permitted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act within the Flathead Watershed.